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diff --git a/old/68604-0.txt b/old/68604-0.txt deleted file mode 100644 index 21d8bf6..0000000 --- a/old/68604-0.txt +++ /dev/null @@ -1,12092 +0,0 @@ -The Project Gutenberg eBook of Europe and elsewhere, by Mark Twain - -This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and -most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions -whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms -of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at -www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you -will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before -using this eBook. - -Title: Europe and elsewhere - -Author: Mark Twain - -Contributors: Brander Matthews - Albert Bigelow Paine - -Release Date: July 24, 2022 [eBook #68604] - -Language: English - -Produced by: KD Weeks, Emmanuel Ackerman and the Online Distributed - Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was - produced from images generously made available by The - Internet Archive) - -*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK EUROPE AND ELSEWHERE *** - - ------------------------------------------------------------------------- - - Transcriber’s Note: - -This version of the text cannot represent certain typographical effects. -Italics are delimited with the ‘_’ character (_italic_). Bold characters -are delimited with the ‘=’ character. - -The few footnotes have been collected at the end of each chapter. - -Minor errors, attributable to the printer, have been corrected. Please -see the transcriber’s note at the end of this text for details regarding -the handling of any textual issues encountered during its preparation. - - - - - EUROPE AND ELSEWHERE - - -[Illustration] - -[Illustration: - - AND I ROSE TO RECEIVE MY GUEST, AND BRACED MYSELF FOR THE - THUNDERCRASH AND THE BRIMSTONE STENCH WHICH - SHOULD ANNOUNCE HIS ARRIVAL -] - - (_See p. 326_) - - - - - EUROPE - AND ELSEWHERE - - - By - - MARK TWAIN - - WITH AN APPRECIATION BY - BRANDER MATTHEWS - AND AN INTRODUCTION BY - ALBERT BIGELOW PAINE - -[Illustration] - - HARPER & BROTHERS, PUBLISHERS - NEW YORK AND LONDON - ------------------------------------------------------------------------- - - - - - EUROPE AND ELSEWHERE - - -------------- - - Copyright, 1923 - By The Mark Twain Company - Printed in the U.S.A. - - -------------- - - _First Edition_ - E-X - - - - - CONTENTS - - - CHAP. PAGE - AN APPRECIATION vii - INTRODUCTION xxxi - I. A MEMORABLE MIDNIGHT EXPERIENCE 1 - II. TWO MARK TWAIN EDITORIALS 14 - III. THE TEMPERANCE CRUSADE AND WOMAN’S RIGHTS 24 - IV. O’SHAH 31 - V. A WONDERFUL PAIR OF SLIPPERS 87 - VI. AIX, THE PARADISE OF THE RHEUMATICS 94 - VII. MARIENBAD--A HEALTH FACTORY 113 - VIII. DOWN THE RHÔNE 129 - IX. THE LOST NAPOLEON 169 - X. SOME NATIONAL STUPIDITIES 175 - XI. THE CHOLERA EPIDEMIC IN HAMBURG 186 - XII. QUEEN VICTORIA’S JUBILEE 193 - XIII. LETTERS TO SATAN 211 - XIV. A WORD OF ENCOURAGEMENT FOR OUR BLUSHING EXILES 221 - XV. DUELING 225 - XVI. SKELETON PLAN OF A PROPOSED CASTING VOTE PARTY 233 - XVII. THE UNITED STATES OF LYNCHERDOM 239 - XVIII. TO THE PERSON SITTING IN DARKNESS 250 - XIX. TO MY MISSIONARY CRITICS 273 - XX. THOMAS BRACKETT REED 297 - XXI. THE FINISHED BOOK 299 - XXII. AS REGARDS PATRIOTISM 301 - XXIII. DR. LOEB’S INCREDIBLE DISCOVERY 304 - XXIV. THE DERVISH AND THE OFFENSIVE STRANGER 310 - XXV. INSTRUCTIONS IN ART 315 - XXVI. SOLD TO SATAN 326 - XXVII. THAT DAY IN EDEN 339 - XXVIII. EVE SPEAKS 347 - XXIX. SAMUEL ERASMUS MOFFETT 351 - XXX. THE NEW PLANET 355 - XXXI. MARJORIE FLEMING, THE WONDER CHILD 358 - XXXII. ADAM’S SOLILOQUY 377 - XXXIII. BIBLE TEACHING AND RELIGIOUS PRACTICE 387 - XXXIV. THE WAR PRAYER 394 - XXXV. CORN-PONE OPINIONS 399 - - - - - AN APPRECIATION - - ------- - -(This “Biographical Criticism” was prepared by Prof. Brander Matthews, -as an introduction to the Uniform Edition of Mark Twain’s Works, -published in 1899). - - -It is a common delusion of those who discuss contemporary literature -that there is such an entity as the “reading public,” possessed of a -certain uniformity of taste. There is not one public; there are many -publics--as many, in fact, as there are different kinds of taste; and -the extent of an author’s popularity is in proportion to the number of -these separate publics he may chance to please. Scott, for example, -appealed not only to those who relished romance and enjoyed excitement, -but also to those who appreciated his honest portrayal of sturdy -characters. Thackeray is preferred by ambitious youth who are -insidiously flattered by his tacit compliments to their knowledge of the -world, by the disenchanted who cannot help seeing the petty meannesses -of society, and by the less sophisticated in whom sentiment has not gone -to seed in sentimentality. Dickens in his own day bid for the approval -of those who liked broad caricature (and were therefore pleased with -Stiggins and Chadband), of those who fed greedily on plentiful pathos -(and were therefore delighted with the deathbeds of Smike and Paul -Dombey and Little Nell) and also of those who asked for unexpected -adventure (and were therefore glad to disentangle the melodramatic -intrigues of Ralph Nickleby). - -In like manner the American author who has chosen to call himself Mark -Twain has attained to an immense popularity because the qualities he -possesses in a high degree appeal to so many and so widely varied -publics--first of all, no doubt, to the public that revels in hearty and -robust fun, but also to the public which is glad to be swept along by -the full current of adventure, which is sincerely touched by manly -pathos, which is satisfied by vigorous and exact portrayal of character, -and which respects shrewdness and wisdom and sanity and a healthy hatred -of pretense and affectation and sham. Perhaps no one book of Mark -Twain’s--with the possible exception of _Huckleberry Finn_--is equally a -favorite with all his readers; and perhaps some of his best -characteristics are absent from his earlier books or but doubtfully -latent in them. Mark Twain is many sided; and he has ripened in -knowledge and in power since he first attracted attention as a wild -Western funny man. As he has grown older he has reflected more; he has -both broadened and deepened. The writer of “comic copy” for a -mining-camp newspaper has developed into a liberal humorist, handling -life seriously and making his readers think as he makes them laugh, -until to-day Mark Twain has perhaps the largest audience of any author -now using the English language. To trace the stages of this evolution -and to count the steps whereby the sagebrush reporter has risen to the -rank of a writer of world-wide celebrity, is as interesting as it is -instructive. - - I - -Samuel Langhorne Clemens was born November 30, 1835, at Florida, -Missouri. His father was a merchant who had come from Tennessee and who -removed soon after his son’s birth to Hannibal, a little town on the -Mississippi. What Hannibal was like and what were the circumstances of -Mr. Clemen’s boyhood we can see for ourselves in the convincing pages of -_Tom Sawyer_. Mr. Howells has called Hannibal “a loafing, out-at-elbows, -down-at-the-heels, slave-holding Mississippi town”; and Mr. Clemens, who -silently abhorred slavery, was of a slave-owning family. - -When the future author was but twelve his father died, and the son had -to get his education as best he could. Of actual schooling he got little -and of book learning still less, but life itself is not a bad teacher -for a boy who wants to study, and young Clemens did not waste his -chances. He spent six years in the printing office of the little local -paper,--for, like not a few others on the list of American authors that -stretches from Benjamin Franklin to William Dean Howells, he began his -connection with literature by setting type. As a journeyman printer the -lad wandered from town to town and rambled even as far east as New York. - -When he was nineteen he went back to the home of his boyhood and -presently resolved to become a pilot on the Mississippi. How he learned -the river he has told us in _Life on the Mississippi_, wherein his -adventures, his experiences, and his impressions while he was a cub -pilot are recorded with a combination of precise veracity and abundant -humor which makes the earlier chapters of that marvelous book a most -masterly fragment of autobiography. The life of a pilot was full of -interest and excitement and opportunity, and what young Clemens saw and -heard and divined during the years when he was going up and down the -mighty river we may read in the pages of _Huckleberry Finn_ and -_Pudd’nhead Wilson_. But toward the end of the ’fifties the railroads -began to rob the river of its supremacy as a carrier; and in the -beginning of the ’sixties the Civil War broke out and the Mississippi no -longer went unvexed to the sea. The skill, slowly and laboriously -acquired, was suddenly rendered useless, and at twenty-five the young -man found himself bereft of his calling. As a border state, Missouri was -sending her sons into the armies of the Union and into the armies of the -Confederacy, while many a man stood doubting, not knowing which way to -turn. The ex-pilot has given us the record of his very brief and -inglorious service as a soldier of the South. When this escapade was -swiftly ended, he went to the Northwest with his brother, who had been -appointed Territorial Secretary of Nevada. Thus the man who had been -born on the borderland of North and South, who had gone East as a -jour-printer, who had been again and again up and down the Mississippi, -now went West while he was still plastic and impressionable; and he had -thus another chance to increase that intimate knowledge of American life -and American character which is one of the most precious of his -possessions. - -While still on the river he had written a satiric letter or two which -found their way into print. In Nevada he went to the mines and lived the -life he has described in _Roughing It_, but when he failed to “strike it -rich,” he naturally drifted into journalism and back into a newspaper -office again. The _Virginia City Enterprise_ was not overmanned, and the -newcomer did all sorts of odd jobs, finding time now and then to write a -sketch which seemed important enough to permit of his signature. He now -began to sign himself Mark Twain, taking the name from a call of the man -who heaves the lead on a Mississippi River steamboat, and who cries, “By -the mark, three,” “Mark Twain,” and so on. The name of Mark Twain soon -began to be known to those who were curious in newspaper humor. After a -while he was drawn across the mountains to San Francisco, where he found -casual employment on the _Morning Call_, and where he joined himself to -a little group of aspiring _literators_ which included Mr. Bret Harte, -Mr. Noah Brooks, Mr. Charles Henry Webb, and Mr. Charles Warren -Stoddard. - -It was in 1867 that Mr. Webb published Mark Twain’s first book, _The -Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras_; and it was in 1867 that the -proprietors of the _Alta California_ supplied him with the funds -necessary to enable him to become one of the passengers on the steamer -_Quaker City_, which had been chartered to take a select party on what -is now known as the Mediterranean trip. The weekly letters, in which he -set forth what befell him on this journey, were printed in the _Alta_ -Sunday after Sunday, and were copied freely by the other Californian -papers. These letters served as the foundation of a book published in -1869 and called _The Innocents Abroad_, a book which instantly brought -to the author celebrity and cash. - -Both of these valuable aids to ambition were increased by his next step, -his appearance on the lecture platform. Mr. Noah Brooks, who was present -at his first attempt, has recorded that Mark Twain’s “method as a -lecturer was distinctly unique and novel. His slow, deliberate drawl, -the anxious and perturbed expression of his visage, the apparently -painful effort with which he framed his sentences, the surprise that -spread over his face when the audience roared with delight or -rapturously applauded the finer passages of his word painting, were -unlike anything of the kind they had ever known.” In the thirty years -since that first appearance the method has not changed, although it has -probably matured. Mark Twain is one of the most effective of platform -speakers and one of the most artistic, with an art of his own which is -very individual and very elaborate in spite of its seeming simplicity. - -Although he succeeded abundantly as a lecturer, and although he was the -author of the most widely circulated book of the decade, Mark Twain -still thought of himself only as a journalist; and when he gave up the -West for the East he became an editor of the Buffalo _Express_, in which -he had bought an interest. In 1870 he married; and it is perhaps not -indiscreet to remark that his was another of those happy unions of which -there have been so many in the annals of American authorship. In 1871 he -removed to Hartford, where his home has been ever since; and at the same -time he gave up newspaper work. - -In 1872 he wrote _Roughing It_, and in the following year came his first -sustained attempt at fiction, _The Gilded Age_, written in collaboration -with Mr. Charles Dudley Warner. The character of “Colonel Mulberry -Sellers” Mark Twain soon took out of this book to make it the central -figure of a play which the late John T. Raymond acted hundreds of times -throughout the United States, the playgoing public pardoning the -inexpertness of the dramatist in favor of the delicious humor and the -compelling veracity with which the chief character was presented. So -universal was this type and so broadly recognizable its traits that -there were few towns wherein the play was presented in which some one -did not accost the actor who impersonated the ever-hopeful schemer to -declare: “I’m the original of Sellers! Didn’t Mark ever tell you? Well, -he took the Colonel from me!” - -Encouraged by the welcome accorded to this first attempt at fiction, -Mark Twain turned to the days of his boyhood and wrote _Tom Sawyer_, -published in 1875. He also collected his sketches, scattered here and -there in newspapers and magazines. Toward the end of the ’seventies he -went to Europe again with his family; and the result of this journey is -recorded in _A Tramp Abroad_, published in 1880. Another volume of -sketches, _The Stolen White Elephant_, was put forth in 1882; and in the -same year Mark Twain first came forward as a historical novelist--if -_The Prince and the Pauper_ can fairly be called a historical novel. The -year after, he sent forth the volume describing his _Life on the -Mississippi_; and in 1884 he followed this with the story in which that -life has been crystallized forever, _Huckleberry Finn_, the finest of -his books, the deepest in its insight, and the widest in its appeal. - -This Odyssey of the Mississippi was published by a new firm, in which -the author was a chief partner, just as Sir Walter Scott had been an -associate of Ballantyne and Constable. There was at first a period of -prosperity in which the house issued the _Personal Memoirs_ of Grant, -giving his widow checks for $350,000 in 1886, and in which Mark Twain -himself published _A Connecticut Yankee at King Arthur’s Court_, a -volume of _Merry Tales_, and a story called _The American Claimant_, -wherein “Colonel Sellers” reappears. Then there came a succession of -hard years; and at last the publishing house in which Mark Twain was a -partner failed, as the publishing house in which Walter Scott was a -partner had formerly failed. The author of _Huckleberry Finn_ at sixty -found himself suddenly saddled with a load of debt, just as the author -of _Waverley_ had been burdened full threescore years earlier; and Mark -Twain stood up stoutly under it, as Scott had done before him. More -fortunate than the Scotchman, the American has lived to pay the debt in -full. - -Since the disheartening crash came, he has given to the public a third -Mississippi River tale, _Pudd’nhead Wilson_, issued in 1894; and a third -historical novel _Joan of Arc_, a reverent and sympathetic study of the -bravest figure in all French history, printed anonymously in _Harper’s -Magazine_ and then in a volume acknowledged by the author in 1896. As -one of the results of a lecturing tour around the world he prepared -another volume of travels, _Following the Equator_, published toward the -end of 1897. Mention must also be made of a fantastic tale called _Tom -Sawyer Abroad_, sent forth in 1894, of a volume of sketches, _The -Million Pound Bank-Note_, assembled in 1893, and also of a collection of -literary essays, _How to Tell a Story_, published in 1897. - -This is but the barest outline of Mark Twain’s life--such a brief -summary as we must have before us if we wish to consider the conditions -under which the author has developed and the stages of his growth. It -will serve, however, to show how various have been his forms of -activity--printer, pilot, miner, journalist, traveler, lecturer, -novelist, publisher--and to suggest the width of his experience of life. - - II - -A humorist is often without honor in his own country. Perhaps this is -partly because humor is likely to be familiar, and familiarity breeds -contempt. Perhaps it is partly because (for some strange reason) we tend -to despise those who make us laugh, while we respect those who make us -weep--forgetting that there are formulas for forcing tears quite as -facile as the formulas for forcing smiles. Whatever the reason, the fact -is indisputable that the humorist must pay the penalty of his humor; he -must run the risk of being tolerated as a mere fun maker, not to be -taken seriously, and unworthy of critical consideration. This penalty -has been paid by Mark Twain. In many of the discussions of American -literature he is dismissed as though he were only a competitor of his -predecessors, Artemus Ward and John Phœnix, instead of being, what he is -really, a writer who is to be classed--at whatever interval only time -may decide--rather with Cervantes and Molière. - -Like the heroines of the problem plays of the modern theater, Mark Twain -has had to live down his past. His earlier writing gave but little -promise of the enduring qualities obvious enough in his later works. Mr. -Noah Brooks has told us how he was advised, if he wished to “see genuine -specimens of American humor, frolicsome, extravagant, and audacious,” to -look up the sketches which the then almost unknown Mark Twain was -printing in a Nevada newspaper. The humor of Mark Twain is still -American, still frolicsome, extravagant, and audacious; but it is riper -now and richer, and it has taken unto itself other qualities existing -only in germ in these firstlings of his muse. The sketches in _The -Jumping Frog_ and the letters which made up _The Innocents Abroad_ are -“comic copy,” as the phrase is in newspaper offices--comic copy not -altogether unlike what John Phœnix had written and Artemus Ward, better -indeed than the work of these newspaper humorists (for Mark Twain had it -in him to develop as they did not), but not essentially dissimilar. - -And in the eyes of many who do not think for themselves, Mark Twain is -only the author of these genuine specimens of American humor. For when -the public has once made up its mind about any man’s work, it does not -relish any attempt to force it to unmake this opinion and to remake it. -Like other juries, it does not like to be ordered to reconsider its -verdict as contrary to the facts of the case. It is always sluggish in -beginning the necessary readjustment, and not only sluggish, but -somewhat grudging. Naturally it cannot help seeing the later works of a -popular writer from the point of view it had to take to enjoy his -earlier writings. And thus the author of _Huckleberry Finn_ and _Joan of -Arc_ is forced to pay a high price for the early and abundant popularity -of _The Innocents Abroad_. - -No doubt, a few of his earlier sketches were inexpensive in their -elements; made of materials worn threadbare by generations of earlier -funny men, they were sometimes cut in the pattern of his predecessors. -No doubt, some of the earliest of all were crude and highly colored, and -may even be called forced, not to say violent. No doubt, also, they did -not suggest the seriousness and the melancholy which always must -underlie the deepest humor, as we find it in Cervantes and Molière, in -Swift and in Lowell. But even a careless reader, skipping through the -book in idle amusement, ought to have been able to see in _The Innocents -Abroad_ that the writer of that liveliest of books of travel was no mere -merry-andrew, grinning through a horse collar to make sport for the -groundlings; but a sincere observer of life, seeing through his own eyes -and setting down what he saw with abundant humor, of course, but also -with profound respect for the eternal verities. - -George Eliot in one of her essays calls those who parody lofty themes -“debasers of the moral currency.” Mark Twain is always an advocate of -the sterling ethical standard. He is ready to overwhelm an affectation -with irresistible laughter, but he never lacks reverence for the things -that really deserve reverence. It is not at the Old Masters that he -scoffs in Italy, but rather at those who pay lip service to things which -they neither enjoy nor understand. For a ruin or a painting or a legend -that does not seem to him to deserve the appreciation in which it is -held he refuses to affect an admiration he does not feel; he cannot help -being honest--he was born so. For meanness of all kinds he has a burning -contempt; and on Abelard he pours out the vials of his wrath. He has a -quick eye for all humbugs and a scorching scorn for them; but there is -no attempt at being funny in the manner of the cockney comedians when he -stands in the awful presence of the Sphinx. He is not taken in by the -glamour of Palestine; he does not lose his head there; he keeps his -feet: but he knows that he is standing on holy ground; and there is -never a hint of irreverence in his attitude. - -_A Tramp Abroad_ is a better book than _The Innocents Abroad_; it is -quite as laughter-provoking, and its manner is far more restrained. Mark -Twain was then master of his method, sure of himself, secure of his -popularity; and he could do his best and spare no pains to be certain -that it was his best. Perhaps there is a slight falling off in -_Following the Equator_; a trace of fatigue, of weariness, of -disenchantment. But the last book of travels has passages as broadly -humorous as any of the first; and it proves the author’s possession of a -pithy shrewdness not to be suspected from a perusal of its earliest -predecessor. The first book was the work of a young fellow rejoicing in -his own fun and resolved to make his readers laugh with him or at him; -the latest book is the work of an older man, who has found that life is -not all laughter, but whose eye is as clear as ever and whose tongue is -as plain-spoken. - -These three books of travel are like all other books of travel in that -they relate in the first person what the author went forth to see. -Autobiographic also are _Roughing It_ and _Life on the Mississippi_, and -they have always seemed to me better books than the more widely -circulated travels. They are better because they are the result of a -more intimate knowledge of the material dealt with. Every traveler is of -necessity but a bird of passage; he is a mere carpetbagger; his -acquaintance with the countries he visits is external only; and this -acquaintanceship is made only when he is a full-grown man. But Mark -Twain’s knowledge of the Mississippi was acquired in his youth; it was -not purchased with a price; it was his birthright; and it was internal -and complete. And his knowledge of the mining camp was achieved in early -manhood when the mind is open and sensitive to every new impression. -There is in both these books a fidelity to the inner truth, a certainty -of touch, a sweep of vision, not to be found in the three books of -travels. For my own part I have long thought that Mark Twain could -securely rest his right to survive as an author on those opening -chapters in _Life on the Mississippi_ in which he makes clear the -difficulties, the seeming impossibilities, that fronted those who wished -to learn the river. These chapters are bold and brilliant, and they -picture for us forever a period and a set of conditions, singularly -interesting and splendidly varied, that otherwise would have had to -forego all adequate record. - - III - -It is highly probable that when an author reveals the power of evoking -views of places and of calling up portraits of people such as Mark Twain -showed in _Life on the Mississippi_, and when he has the masculine grasp -of reality Mark Twain made evident in _Roughing It_, he must needs -sooner or later turn from mere fact to avowed fiction and become a -story-teller. The long stories which Mark Twain has written fall into -two divisions--first, those of which the scene is laid in the present, -in reality, and mostly in the Mississippi Valley, and second, those of -which the scene is laid in the past, in fantasy mostly, and in Europe. - -As my own liking is a little less for the latter group, there is no need -for me now to linger over them. In writing these tales of the past Mark -Twain was making up stories in his head; personally I prefer the tales -of his in which he has his foot firm on reality. _The Prince and the -Pauper_ has the essence of boyhood in it; it has variety and vigor; it -has abundant humor and plentiful pathos; and yet I for one would give -the whole of it for the single chapter in which Tom Sawyer lets the -contract for whitewashing his aunt’s fence. - -Mr. Howells has declared that there are two kinds of fiction he likes -almost equally well--“a real novel and a pure romance”; and he joyfully -accepts _A Connecticut Yankee at King Arthur’s Court_ as “one of the -greatest romances ever imagined.” It is a humorous romance overflowing -with stalwart fun; and it is not irreverent, but iconoclastic, in that -it breaks not a few disestablished idols. It is intensely American and -intensely nineteenth century and intensely democratic--in the best sense -of that abused adjective. The British critics were greatly displeased -with the book;--and we are reminded of the fact that the Spanish still -somewhat resent _Don Quixote_ because it brings out too truthfully the -fatal gap in the Spanish character between the ideal and the real. So -much of the feudal still survives in British society that Mark Twain’s -merry and elucidating assault on the past seemed to some almost an -insult to the present. - -But no critic, British or American, has ventured to discover any -irreverence in _Joan of Arc_, wherein, indeed, the tone is almost devout -and the humor almost too much subdued. Perhaps it is my own distrust of -the so-called historical novel, my own disbelief that it can ever be -anything but an inferior form of art, which makes me care less for this -worthy effort to honor a noble figure. And elevated and dignified as is -the _Joan of Arc_, I do not think that it shows us Mark Twain at his -best; although it has many a passage that only he could have written, it -is perhaps the least characteristic of his works. Yet it may well be -that the certain measure of success he has achieved in handling a -subject so lofty and so serious, will help to open the eyes of the -public to see the solid merits of his other stories, in which his humor -has fuller play and in which his natural gifts are more abundantly -displayed. - -Of these other stories three are “real novels,” to use Mr. Howells’s -phrase; they are novels as real as any in any literature. _Tom Sawyer_ -and _Huckleberry Finn_ and _Pudd’nhead Wilson_ are invaluable -contributions to American literature--for American literature is nothing -if it is not a true picture of American life and if it does not help us -to understand ourselves. _Huckleberry Finn_ is a very amusing volume, -and a generation has read its pages and laughed over it immoderately; -but it is very much more than a funny book; it is a marvelously accurate -portrayal of a whole civilization. Mr. Ormsby, in an essay which -accompanies his translation of _Don Quixote_, has pointed out that for a -full century after its publication that greatest of novels was enjoyed -chiefly as a tale of humorous misadventure, and that three generations -had laughed over it before anybody suspected that it was more than a -mere funny book. It is perhaps rather with the picaresque romances of -Spain that _Huckleberry Finn_ is to be compared than with the -masterpiece of Cervantes; but I do not think it will be a century or -take three generations before we Americans generally discover how great -a book _Huckleberry Finn_ really is, how keen its vision of character, -how close its observation of life, how sound its philosophy, and how it -records for us once and for all certain phases of Southwestern society -which it is most important for us to perceive and to understand. The -influence of slavery, the prevalence of feuds, the conditions and the -circumstances that make lynching possible--all these things are set -before us clearly and without comment. It is for us to draw our own -moral, each for himself, as we do when we see Shakespeare acted. - -_Huckleberry Finn_, in its art, for one thing, and also in its broader -range, is superior to _Tom Sawyer_ and to _Pudd’nhead Wilson_, fine as -both these are in their several ways. In no book in our language, to my -mind, has the boy, simply as a boy, been better realized than in _Tom -Sawyer_. In some respects _Pudd’nhead Wilson_ is the most dramatic of -Mark Twain’s longer stories, and also the most ingenious; like _Tom -Sawyer_ and _Huckleberry Finn_, it has the full flavor of the -Mississippi River, on which its author spent his own boyhood, and from -contact with the soil of which he always rises reinvigorated. - -It is by these three stories, and especially by _Huckleberry Finn_, that -Mark Twain is likely to live longest. Nowhere else is the life of the -Mississippi Valley so truthfully recorded. Nowhere else can we find a -gallery of Southwestern characters as varied and as veracious as those -Huck Finn met in his wanderings. The histories of literature all praise -the _Gil Blas_ of Le Sage for its amusing adventures, its natural -characters, its pleasant humor, and its insight into human frailty; and -the praise is deserved. But in everyone of these qualities _Huckleberry -Finn_ is superior to _Gil Blas_. Le Sage set the model of the picaresque -novel, and Mark Twain followed his example; but the American book is -richer than the French--deeper, finer, stronger. It would be hard to -find in any language better specimens of pure narrative, better examples -of the power of telling a story and of calling up action so that the -reader cannot help but see it, than Mark Twain’s account of the -Shepherdson-Grangerford feud, and his description of the shooting of -Boggs by Sherburn and of the foiled attempt to lynch Sherburn afterward. - -These scenes, fine as they are, vivid, powerful, and most artistic in -their restraint, can be matched in the two other books. In _Tom Sawyer_ -they can be paralleled by the chapter in which the boy and the girl are -lost in the cave, and Tom, seeing a gleam of light in the distance, -discovers that it is a candle carried by Indian Joe, the one enemy he -has in the world. In _Pudd’nhead Wilson_ the great passages of -_Huckleberry Finn_ are rivaled by that most pathetic account of the weak -son willing to sell his own mother as a slave “down the river.” Although -no one of the books is sustained throughout on this high level, and -although, in truth, there are in each of them passages here and there -that we could wish away (because they are not worthy of the association -in which we find them), I have no hesitation in expressing here my own -conviction that the man who has given us four scenes like these is to be -compared with the masters of literature; and that he can abide the -comparison with equanimity. - - IV - -Perhaps I myself prefer these three Mississippi Valley books above all -Mark Twain’s other writings (although with no lack of affection for -those also) partly because these have the most of the flavor of the soil -about them. After veracity and the sense of the universal, what I best -relish in literature is this native aroma, pungent, homely, and abiding. -Yet I feel sure that I should not rate him so high if he were the author -of these three books only. They are the best of him, but the others are -good also, and good in a different way. Other writers have given us this -local color more or less artistically, more or less convincingly: one -New England and another New York, a third Virginia, and a fourth -Georgia, and a fifth Wisconsin; but who so well as Mark Twain has given -us the full spectrum of the Union? With all his exactness in reproducing -the Mississippi Valley, Mark Twain is not sectional in his outlook; he -is national always. He is not narrow; he is not Western or Eastern; he -is American with a certain largeness and boldness and freedom and -certainty that we like to think of as befitting a country so vast as -ours and a people so independent. - -In Mark Twain we have “the national spirit as seen with our own eyes,” -declared Mr. Howells; and, from more points of view than one, Mark Twain -seems to me to be the very embodiment of Americanism. Self-educated in -the hard school of life, he has gone on broadening his outlook as he has -grown older. Spending many years abroad, he has come to understand other -nationalities, without enfeebling his own native faith. Combining a -mastery of the commonplace with an imaginative faculty, he is a -practical idealist. No respecter of persons, he has a tender regard for -his fellow man. Irreverent toward all outworn superstitions, he has ever -revealed the deepest respect for all things truly worthy of reverence. -Unwilling to take pay in words, he is impatient always to get at the -root of the matter, to pierce to the center, to see the thing as it is. -He has a habit of standing upright, of thinking for himself, and of -hitting hard at whatsoever seems to him hateful and mean; but at the -core of him there is genuine gentleness and honest sympathy, brave -humanity and sweet kindliness. Perhaps it is boastful for us to think -that these characteristics which we see in Mark Twain are -characteristics also of the American people as a whole; but it is -pleasant to think so. - -Mark Twain has the very marrow of Americanism. He is as intensely and as -typically American as Franklin or Emerson or Hawthorne. He has not a -little of the shrewd common sense and the homely and unliterary -directness of Franklin. He is not without a share of the aspiration and -the elevation of Emerson; and he has a philosophy of his own as -optimistic as Emerson’s. He possesses also somewhat of Hawthorne’s -interest in ethical problems, with something of the same power of -getting at the heart of them; he, too, has written his parables and -apologues wherein the moral is obvious and unobtruded. He is -uncompromisingly honest; and his conscience is as rugged as his style -sometimes is. - -No American author has to-day at his command a style more nervous, more -varied, more flexible, or more various than Mark Twain’s. His colloquial -ease should not hide from us his mastery of all the devices of rhetoric. -He may seem to disobey the letter of the law sometimes, but he is always -obedient to the spirit. He never speaks unless he has something to say; -and then he says it tersely, sharply, with a freshness of epithet and an -individuality of phrase, always accurate, however unacademic. His -vocabulary is enormous, and it is deficient only in the dead words; his -language is alive always, and actually tingling with vitality. He -rejoices in the daring noun and in the audacious adjective. His instinct -for the exact word is not always unerring, and now and again he has -failed to exercise it; but there is in his prose none of the flatting -and sharping he censured in Fenimore Cooper’s. His style has none of the -cold perfection of an antique statue; it is too modern and too American -for that, and too completely the expression of the man himself, sincere -and straightforward. It is not free from slang, although this is far -less frequent than one might expect; but it does its work swiftly and -cleanly. And it is capable of immense variety. Consider the tale of the -Blue Jay in _A Tramp Abroad_, wherein the humor is sustained by unstated -pathos; what could be better told than this, with every word the right -word and in the right place? And take Huck Finn’s description of the -storm when he was alone on the island, which is in dialect, which will -not parse, which bristles with double negatives, but which none the less -is one of the finest passages of descriptive prose in all American -literature. - - V - -After all, it is as a humorist pure and simple that Mark Twain is best -known and best beloved. In the preceding pages I have tried to point out -the several ways in which he transcends humor, as the word is commonly -restricted, and to show that he is no mere fun maker. But he is a fun -maker beyond all question, and he has made millions laugh as no other -man of our century has done. The laughter he has aroused is wholesome -and self-respecting; it clears the atmosphere. For this we cannot but be -grateful. As Lowell said, “let us not be ashamed to confess that, if we -find the tragedy a bore, we take the profoundest satisfaction in the -farce. It is a mark of sanity.” There is no laughter in Don Quixote, the -noble enthusiast whose wits are unsettled; and there is little on the -lips of Alceste the misanthrope of Molière; but for both of them life -would have been easier had they known how to laugh. Cervantes himself, -and Molière also, found relief in laughter for their melancholy; and it -was the sense of humor which kept them tolerantly interested in the -spectacle of humanity, although life had pressed hardly on them both. On -Mark Twain also life has left its scars; but he has bound up his wounds -and battled forward with a stout heart, as Cervantes did, and Molière. -It was Molière who declared that it was a strange business to undertake -to make people laugh; but even now, after two centuries, when the best -of Molière’s plays are acted, mirth breaks out again and laughter -overflows. - -It would be doing Mark Twain a disservice to liken him to Molière, the -greatest comic dramatist of all time; and yet there is more than one -point of similarity. Just as Mark Twain began by writing comic copy -which contained no prophecy of a masterpiece like _Huckleberry Finn_, so -Molière was at first the author only of semiacrobatic farces on the -Italian model in no wise presaging _Tartuffe_ and _The Misanthrope_. -Just as Molière succeeded first of all in pleasing the broad public that -likes robust fun, and then slowly and step by step developed into a -dramatist who set on the stage enduring figures plucked out of the -abounding life about him, so also has Mark Twain grown, ascending from -_The Jumping Frog_ to _Huckleberry Finn_, as comic as its elder brother -and as laughter-provoking, but charged also with meaning and with -philosophy. And like Molière again, Mark Twain has kept solid hold of -the material world; his doctrine is not of the earth earthy, but it is -never sublimated into sentimentality. He sympathizes with the spiritual -side of humanity, while never ignoring the sensual. Like Molière, Mark -Twain takes his stand on common sense and thinks scorn of affectation of -every sort. He understands sinners and strugglers and weaklings; and he -is not harsh with them, reserving his scorching hatred for hypocrites -and pretenders and frauds. - -At how long an interval Mark Twain shall be rated after Molière and -Cervantes it is for the future to declare. All that we can see clearly -now is that it is with them that he is to be classed--with Molière and -Cervantes, with Chaucer and Fielding, humorists all of them, and all of -them manly men. - -[Illustration] - - - - - INTRODUCTION - - -A number of articles in this volume, even the more important, have not -heretofore appeared in print. Mark Twain was nearly always -writing--busily trying to keep up with his imagination and enthusiasm: A -good many of his literary undertakings remained unfinished or were held -for further consideration, in time to be quite forgotten. Few of these -papers were unimportant, and a fresh interest attaches to them to-day in -the fact that they present some new detail of the author’s devious -wanderings, some new point of observation, some hitherto unexpressed -angle of his indefatigable thought. - -The present collection opens with a chapter from a book that was never -written, a book about England, for which the author made some -preparation, during his first visit to that country, in 1872. He filled -several notebooks with brief comments, among which appears this single -complete episode, the description of a visit to Westminster Abbey by -night. As an example of what the book might have been we may be sorry -that it went no farther. - -It was not, however, quite in line with his proposed undertaking, which -had been to write a more or less satirical book on English manners and -customs. Arriving there, he found that he liked the people and their -country too well for that, besides he was so busy entertaining, and -being entertained, that he had little time for critical observation. In -a letter home he wrote: - - I came here to take notes for a book, but I haven’t done much but - attend dinners and make speeches. I have had a jolly good time, and I - do hate to go away from these English folks; they make a stranger feel - entirely at home, and they laugh so easily that it is a comfort to - make after-dinner speeches here. - -England at this time gave Mark Twain an even fuller appreciation than he -had thus far received in his own country. To hunt out and hold up to -ridicule the foibles of hosts so hospitable would have been quite -foreign to his nature. The notes he made had little satire in them, -being mainly memoranda of the moment.... - -“Down the Rhône,” written some twenty years later, is a chapter from -another book that failed of completion. Mark Twain, in Europe partly for -his health, partly for financial reasons, had agreed to write six -letters for the New York _Sun_, two of which--those from Aix and -Marienbad--appear in this volume. Six letters would not make a book of -sufficient size and he thought he might supplement them by making a -drifting trip down the Rhône, the “river of angels,” as Stevenson called -it, and turning it into literature. - -The trip itself proved to be one of the most delightful excursions of -his life, and his account of it, so far as completed, has interest and -charm. But he was alone, with only his boatman (the “Admiral”) and his -courier, Joseph Very, for company, a monotony of human material that was -not inspiring. He made some attempt to introduce fictitious characters, -but presently gave up the idea. As a whole the excursion was too drowsy -and comfortable to stir him to continuous effort; neither the notes nor -the article, attempted somewhat later, ever came to conclusion. - -Three articles in this volume, beginning with “To the Person Sitting in -Darkness,” were published in the _North American Review_ during 1901-02, -at a period when Mark Twain had pretty well made up his mind on most -subjects, and especially concerning the interference of one nation with -another on matters of religion and government. He had recently returned -from a ten years’ sojourn in Europe and his opinion was eagerly sought -on all public questions, especially upon those of international aspect. -He was no longer regarded merely as a humorist, but as a sort of Solon -presiding over a court of final conclusions. A writer in the _Evening -Mail_ said of this later period: - - Things have reached the point where, if Mark Twain is not at a public - meeting or banquet, he is expected to console it with one of his - inimitable letters of advice and encouragement. - -His old friend, W. D. Howells, expressed an amused fear that Mark -Twain’s countrymen, who in former years had expected him to be merely a -humorist, should now, in the light of his wider acceptance abroad, -demand that he be mainly serious. - -He was serious enough, and fiercely humorous as well, in his article “To -the Person Sitting in Darkness” and in those which followed it. It -seemed to him that the human race, always a doubtful quantity, was -behaving even worse than usual. On New Year’s Eve, 1900-01, he wrote: - - A GREETING FROM THE NINETEENTH TO THE - TWENTIETH CENTURY - - I bring you the stately nation named Christendom, returning, - bedraggled, besmirched, and dishonored, from pirate raids in - Kiao-Chau, Manchuria, South Africa, and the Philippines, with her soul - full of meanness, her pocket full of boodle, and her mouth full of - pious hypocracies. Give her soap and a towel, but hide the - looking-glass. - -Certain missionary activities in China, in particular, invited his -attention, and in the first of the _Review_ articles he unburdened -himself. A masterpiece of pitiless exposition and sarcasm, its -publication stirred up a cyclone. Periodicals more or less orthodox -heaped upon him denunciation and vituperation. “To My Missionary -Critics,” published in the _Review_ for April, was his answer. He did -not fight alone, but was upheld by a vast following of liberal-minded -readers, both in and out of the Church. Edward S. Martin wrote him: - - How gratifying it is to feel that we have a man among us who - understands the rarity of plain truth, and who delights to utter it, - and has the gift of doing so without cant, and with not too much - seriousness. - -The principals of the primal human drama, our biblical parents of Eden, -play a considerable part in Mark Twain’s imaginative writings. He wrote -“Diaries” of both Adam and Eve, that of the latter being among his -choicest works. He was generally planning something that would include -one or both of the traditional ancestors, and results of this tendency -express themselves in the present volume. Satan, likewise, the -picturesque angel of rebellion and defeat, the Satan of _Paradise Lost_, -made a strong appeal and in no less than three of the articles which -follow the prince of error variously appears. For the most part these -inventions offer an aspect of humor; but again the figure of the outcast -angel is presented to us in an attitude of sorrowful kinship with the -great human tragedy. - - ALBERT BIGELOW PAINE - - - - - EUROPE AND ELSEWHERE - - - - - A MEMORABLE MIDNIGHT EXPERIENCE - (1872) - - -“Come along--and hurry. Few people have got originality enough to think -of the expedition I have been planning, and still fewer could carry it -out, maybe, even if they _did_ think of it. Hurry, now. Cab at the -door.” - -It was past eleven o’clock and I was just going to bed. But this friend -of mine was as reliable as he was eccentric, and so there was not a -doubt in my mind that his “expedition” had merit in it. I put on my coat -and boots again, and we drove away. - -“Where is it? Where are we going?” - -“Don’t worry. You’ll see.” - -He was not inclined to talk. So I thought this must be a weighty matter. -My curiosity grew with the minutes, but I kept it manfully under the -surface. I watched the lamps, the signs, the numbers, as we thundered -down the long streets, but it was of no use--I am always lost in London, -day or night. It was very chilly--almost bleak. People leaned against -the gusty blasts as if it were the dead of winter. The crowds grew -thinner and thinner and the noises waxed faint and seemed far away. The -sky was overcast and threatening. We drove on, and still on, till I -wondered if we were ever going to stop. At last we passed by a spacious -bridge and a vast building with a lighted clock tower, and presently -entered a gateway, passed through a sort of tunnel, and stopped in a -court surrounded by the black outlines of a great edifice. Then we -alighted, walked a dozen steps or so, and waited. In a little while -footsteps were heard and a man emerged from the darkness and we dropped -into his wake without saying anything. He led us under an archway of -masonry, and from that into a roomy tunnel, through a tall iron gate, -which he locked behind us. We followed him down this tunnel, guided more -by his footsteps on the stone flagging than by anything we could very -distinctly see. At the end of it we came to another iron gate, and our -conductor stopped there and lit a little bull’s-eye lantern. Then he -unlocked the gate--and I wished he had oiled it first, it grated so -dismally. The gate swung open and we stood on the threshold of what -seemed a limitless domed and pillared cavern carved out of the solid -darkness. The conductor and my friend took off their hats reverently, -and I did likewise. For the moment that we stood thus there was not a -sound, and the silence seemed to add to the solemnity of the gloom. I -_looked_ my inquiry! - -“It is the tomb of the great dead of England--_Westminster Abbey_.” - -(One cannot express a start--in words.) Down among the columns--ever so -far away, it seemed--a light revealed itself like a star, and a voice -came echoing through the spacious emptiness: - -“Who goes there!” - -“Wright!” - -The star disappeared and the footsteps that accompanied it clanked out -of hearing in the distance. Mr. Wright held up his lantern and the vague -vastness took something of form to itself--the stately columns developed -stronger outlines, and a dim pallor here and there marked the places of -lofty windows. We were among the tombs; and on every hand dull shapes of -men, sitting, standing, or stooping, inspected us curiously out of the -darkness--reached out their hands toward us--some appealing, some -beckoning, some warning us away. Effigies, they were--statues over the -graves; but they looked human and natural in the murky shadows. Now a -little half-grown black-and-white cat squeezed herself through the bars -of the iron gate and came purring lovingly about us, unawed by the time -or the place--unimpressed by the marble pomp that sepulchers a line of -mighty dead that ends with a great author of yesterday and began with a -sceptered monarch away back in the dawn of history more than twelve -hundred years ago. And she followed us about and never left us while we -pursued our work. We wandered hither and thither, uncovered, speaking in -low voices, and stepping softly by instinct, for any little noise rang -and echoed there in a way to make one shudder. Mr. Wright flashed his -lantern first upon this object and then upon that, and kept up a running -commentary that showed that there was nothing about the venerable Abbey -that was trivial in his eyes or void of interest. He is a man in -authority--being superintendent of the works--and his daily business -keeps him familiar with every nook and corner of the great pile. Casting -a luminous ray now here, now yonder, he would say: - -“Observe the height of the Abbey--one hundred and three feet to the base -of the roof--I measured it myself the other day. Notice the base of this -column--old, very old--hundreds and hundreds of years; and how well they -knew how to build in those old days. Notice it--every stone is laid -horizontally--that is to say, just as nature laid it originally in the -quarry--not set up edgewise; in our day some people set them on edge, -and then wonder why they split and flake. Architects cannot teach nature -anything. Let me remove this matting--it is put there to preserve the -pavement; now, there is a bit of pavement that is seven hundred years -old; you can see by these scattering clusters of colored mosaics how -beautiful it was before time and sacrilegious idlers marred it. Now -there, in the border, was an inscription once; see, follow the -circle--you can trace it by the ornaments that have been pulled -out--here is an A, and there is an O, and yonder another A--all -beautiful old English capitals--there is no telling what the inscription -was--no record left, now. Now move along in this direction, if you -please. Yonder is where old King Sebert the Saxon, lies--his monument is -the oldest one in the Abbey; Sebert died in 616, and that’s as much as -twelve hundred and fifty years ago--think of it!--twelve hundred and -fifty years. Now yonder is the last one--Charles Dickens--there on the -floor with the brass letters on the slab--and to this day the people -come and put flowers on it. Why, along at first they almost had to -_cart_ the flowers out, there were so many. Could not _leave_ them -there, you know, because it’s where everybody walks--and a body wouldn’t -want them trampled on, anyway. All this place about here, now, is the -Poet’s Corner. There is Garrick’s monument, and Addison’s, and -Thackeray’s bust--and Macaulay lies there. And here, close to Dickens -and Garrick, lie Sheridan and Doctor Johnson--and here is old -Parr--Thomas Parr--you can read the inscription: - - “Tho: Par of Y Covnty of Sallop Borne A :1483. He Lived in Y Reignes - of Ten Princes, viz: K. Edw. 4 K. Ed. 5. K. Rich 3. K. Hen. 7. K. Hen. - 8. Edw. 6. QVV. Ma. Q. Eliz. K. IA. and K. Charles, Aged 152 Yeares, - And Was Buryed Here Novemb. 15. 1635. - -“Very old man indeed, and saw a deal of life. (Come off the grave, -Kitty, poor thing; she keeps the rats away from the office, and there’s -no harm in her--her and her mother.) And here--this is Shakespeare’s -statue--leaning on his elbow and pointing with his finger at the lines -on the scroll: - - “The cloud-capt towers, the gorgeous palaces, - The solemn temples, the great globe itself, - Yea, all which it inherit shall dissolve, - And, like the baseless fabric of a vision, - Leave not a wrack behind. - -“That stone there covers Campbell the poet. Here are names you know -pretty well--Milton, and Gray who wrote the ‘Elegy,’ and Butler who -wrote ‘Hudibras,’ and Edmund Spencer, and Ben Jonson--there are three -tablets to him scattered about the Abbey, and all got ‘O Rare Ben -Jonson’ cut on them--you were standing on one of them just now--he is -buried standing up. There used to be a tradition here that explains it. -The story goes that he did not dare ask to be buried in the Abbey, so he -asked King James if he would make him a present of eighteen inches of -English ground, and the king said yes, and asked him where he would have -it, and he said in Westminster Abbey. Well, the king wouldn’t go back on -his word, and so there he is sure enough--stood up on end. Years ago, in -Dean Buckland’s time--before my day--they were digging a grave close to -Jonson and they uncovered him and his head fell off. Toward night the -clerk of the works hid the head to keep it from being stolen, as the -ground was to remain open till next day. Presently the dean’s son came -along and he found a head, and hid it away for Jonson’s. And by and by -along comes a stranger, and _he_ found a head, too, and walked off with -it under his cloak, and a month or so afterward he was heard to boast -that he had Ben Jonson’s head. Then there was a deal of correspondence -about it, in the _Times_, and everybody distressed. But Mr. Frank -Buckland came out and comforted everybody by telling how he saved the -true head, and so the stranger must have got one that wasn’t of any -consequence. And then up speaks the clerk of the works and tells how -_he_ saved the right head, and so _Dean Buckland_ must have got a wrong -one. Well, it was all settled satisfactorily at last, because the clerk -of the works _proved_ his head. And then I believe they got that head -from the stranger--so now we have three. But it shows you what regiments -of people you are walking over--been collecting here for twelve hundred -years--in some places, no doubt, the bones are fairly matted together. - -“And here are some unfortunates. Under this place lies Anne, queen of -Richard III, and daughter of the Kingmaker, the great Earl of -Warwick--murdered she was--poisoned by her husband. And here is a slab -which you see has once had the figure of a man in armor on it, in brass -or copper, let into the stone. You can see the shape of it--but it is -all worn away now by people’s feet; the man has been dead five hundred -years that lies under it. He was a knight in Richard II’s time. His -enemies pressed him close and he fled and took sanctuary here in the -Abbey. Generally a man was safe when he took sanctuary in those days, -but this man was not. The captain of the Tower and a band of men pursued -him and his friends and they had a bloody fight here on this floor; but -this poor fellow did not stand much of a chance, and they butchered him -right before the altar.” - -We wandered over to another part of the Abbey, and came to a place where -the pavement was being repaired. Every paving stone has an inscription -on it and covers a grave. Mr. Wright continued: - -“Now, you are standing on William Pitt’s grave--you can read the name, -though it is a good deal worn--and you, sir, are standing on the grave -of Charles James Fox. I found a very good place here the other -day--nobody suspected it--been curiously overlooked, somehow--but--it is -a very nice place indeed, and very comfortable” (holding his bull’s eye -to the pavement and searching around). “Ah, here it is--this is the -stone--nothing under here--nothing at all--a very nice place indeed--and -very comfortable.” - -Mr. Wright spoke in a professional way, of course, and after the manner -of a man who takes an interest in his business and is gratified at any -piece of good luck that fortune favors him with; and yet with all that -silence and gloom and solemnity about me, there was something about his -idea of a nice, comfortable place that made the cold chills creep up my -back. Presently we began to come upon little chamberlike chapels, with -solemn figures ranged around the sides, lying apparently asleep, in -sumptuous marble beds, with their hands placed together above their -breasts--the figures and all their surroundings black with age. Some -were dukes and earls, some where kings and queens, some were ancient -abbots whose effigies had lain there so many centuries and suffered such -disfigurement that their faces were almost as smooth and featureless as -the stony pillows their heads reposed upon. At one time while I stood -looking at a distant part of the pavement, admiring the delicate tracery -which the now flooding moonlight was casting upon it through a lofty -window, the party moved on and I lost them. The first step I made in the -dark, holding my hands before me, as one does under such circumstances, -I touched a cold object, and stopped to feel its shape. I made out a -thumb, and then delicate fingers. It was the clasped, appealing hands of -one of those reposing images--a lady, a queen. I touched the face--by -accident, not design--and shuddered inwardly, if not outwardly; and then -something rubbed against my leg, and I shuddered outwardly and inwardly -both. It was the cat. The friendly creature meant well, but, as the -English say, she gave me “such a turn.” I took her in my arms for -company and wandered among the grim sleepers till I caught the glimmer -of the lantern again. Presently, in a little chapel, we were looking at -the sarcophagus, let into the wall, which contains the bones of the -infant princes who were smothered in the Tower. Behind us was the -stately monument of Queen Elizabeth, with her effigy dressed in the -royal robes, lying as if at rest. When we turned around, the cat, with -stupendous simplicity, was coiled up and sound asleep upon the feet of -the Great Queen! Truly this was reaching far toward the millennium when -the lion and the lamb shall lie down together. The murderer of Mary and -Essex, the conqueror of the Armada, the imperious ruler of a turbulent -empire, become a couch, at last, for a tired kitten! It was the most -eloquent sermon upon the vanity of human pride and human grandeur that -inspired Westminster preached to us that night. - -We would have turned puss out of the Abbey, but for the fact that her -small body made light of railed gates and she would have come straight -back again. We walked up a flight of half a dozen steps and, stopping -upon a pavement laid down in 1260, stood in the core of English history, -as it were--upon the holiest ground in the British Empire, if profusion -of kingly bones and kingly names of old renown make holy ground. For -here in this little space were the ashes, the monuments and gilded -effigies, of ten of the most illustrious personages who have worn crowns -and borne scepters in this realm. This royal dust was the slow -accumulation of hundreds of years. The latest comer entered into his -rest four hundred years ago, and since the earliest was sepulchered, -more than eight centuries have drifted by. Edward the Confessor, Henry -the Fifth, Edward the First, Edward the Third, Richard the Second, Henry -the Third, Eleanor, Philippa, Margaret Woodville--it was like bringing -the colossal myths of history out of the forgotten ages and speaking to -them face to face. The gilded effigies were scarcely marred--the faces -were comely and majestic, old Edward the First looked the king--one had -no impulse to be familiar with him. While we were contemplating the -figure of Queen Eleanor lying in state, and calling to mind how like an -ordinary human being the great king mourned for her six hundred years -ago, we saw the vast illuminated clock face of the Parliament House -tower glowering at us through a window of the Abbey and pointing with -both hands to midnight. It was a derisive reminder that we were a part -of this present sordid, plodding, commonplace time, and not august -relics of a bygone age and the comrades of kings--and then the booming -of the great bell tolled twelve, and with the last stroke the mocking -clock face vanished in sudden darkness and left us with the past and its -grandeurs again. - -We descended, and entered the nave of the splendid Chapel of Henry VII. -Mr. Wright said: - -“Here is where the order of knighthood was conferred for centuries; the -candidates sat in these seats; these brasses bear their coats of arms; -these are their banners overhead, torn and dusty, poor old things, for -they have hung there many and many a long year. In the floor you see -inscriptions--kings and queens that lie in the vault below. When this -vault was opened in our time they found them lying there in beautiful -order--all quiet and comfortable--the red velvet on the coffins hardly -faded any. And the bodies were sound--I saw them myself. They were -embalmed, and looked natural, although they had been there such an awful -time. Now in this place here, which is called the chantry, is a curious -old group of statuary--the figures are mourning over George Villiers, -Duke of Buckingham, who was assassinated by Felton in Charles I’s time. -Yonder, Cromwell and his family used to lie. Now we come to the south -aisle and this is the grand monument to Mary Queen of Scots, and her -effigy--you easily see they get all the portraits from this effigy. Here -in the wall of the aisle is a bit of a curiosity pretty roughly carved: - - Wm. WEST TOOME - SHOWER - 1698 - -“William West, tomb shower, 1698. That fellow carved his name around in -several places about the Abbey.” - -This was a sort of revelation to me. I had been wandering through the -Abbey, never imagining but that its shows were created only for us--the -people of the nineteenth century. But here is a man (become a show -himself now, and a curiosity) to whom all these things were sights and -wonders a hundred and seventy-five years ago. When curious idlers from -the country and from foreign lands came here to look, he showed them old -Sebert’s tomb and those of the other old worthies I have been speaking -of, and called them ancient and venerable; and he showed them Charles -II’s tomb as the newest and latest novelty he had; and he was doubtless -present at the funeral. Three hundred years before his time some -ancestor of his, perchance, used to point out the ancient marvels, in -the immemorial way and then say: “This, gentlemen, is the tomb of his -late Majesty Edward the Third--and I wish I could see him alive and -hearty again, as I saw him twenty years ago; yonder is the tomb of -Sebert the Saxon king--he has been lying there well on to eight hundred -years, they say. And three hundred years before _this_ party, -Westminster was still a show, and Edward the Confessor’s grave was a -novelty of some thirty years’ standing--but old “Sebert” was hoary and -ancient still, and people who spoke of Alfred the Great as a -comparatively recent man pondered over Sebert’s grave and tried to take -in all the tremendous meaning of it when the “toome shower” said, “This -man has lain here well nigh five hundred years.” It does seem as if all -the generations that have lived and died since the world was created -have visited Westminster to stare and wonder--and still found ancient -things there. And some day a curiously clad company may arrive here in a -balloon ship from some remote corner of the globe, and as they follow -the verger among the monuments they may hear him say: “This is the tomb -of Victoria the Good Queen; battered and uncouth as it looks, it once -was a wonder of magnificence--but twelve hundred years work a deal of -damage to these things.” - -As we turned toward the door the moonlight was beaming in at the -windows, and it gave to the sacred place such an air of restfulness and -peace that Westminster was no longer a grisly museum of moldering -vanities, but her better and worthier self--the deathless mentor of a -great nation, the guide and encourager of right ambitions, the preserver -of just fame, and the home and refuge for the nation’s best and bravest -when their work is done. - - - - - TWO MARK TWAIN EDITORIALS - - (Written 1869 and 1870, for the Buffalo _Express_, of which Mark Twain - became editor and part owner) - - I - “SALUTATORY” - -Being a stranger, it would be immodest and unbecoming in me to suddenly -and violently assume the associate editorship of the _Buffalo Express_ -without a single explanatory word of comfort or encouragement to the -unoffending patrons of the paper, who are about to be exposed to -constant attacks of my wisdom and learning. But this explanatory word -shall be as brief as possible. I only wish to assure parties having a -friendly interest in the prosperity of the journal, that I am not going -to hurt the paper deliberately and intentionally at any time. I am not -going to introduce any startling reforms, or in any way attempt to make -trouble. I am simply going to do my plain, unpretending duty, when I -cannot get out of it; I shall work diligently and honestly and -faithfully at all times and upon all occasions, when privation and want -shall compel me to do it; in writing, I shall always confine myself -strictly to the truth, except when it is attended with inconvenience; I -shall witheringly rebuke all forms of crime and misconduct, except when -committed by the party inhabiting my own vest; I shall not make use of -slang or vulgarity upon any occasion or under any circumstances, and -shall never use profanity except in discussing house rent and taxes. -Indeed, upon second thought, I will not even use it then, for it is -unchristian, inelegant, and degrading--though to speak truly I do not -see how house rent and taxes are going to be discussed worth a cent -without it. I shall not often meddle with politics, because we have a -political editor who is already excellent, and only needs to serve a -term in the penitentiary in order to be perfect. I shall not write any -poetry, unless I conceive a spite against the subscribers. - -Such is my platform. I do not see any earthly use in it, but custom is -law, and custom must be obeyed, no matter how much violence it may do to -one’s feelings. And this custom which I am slavishly following now is -surely one of the least necessary that ever came into vogue. In private -life a man does not go and trumpet his crime before he commits it, but -your new editor is such an important personage that he feels called upon -to write a “salutatory” at once, and he puts into it all that he knows, -and all that he don’t know, and some things he thinks he knows but isn’t -certain of. And he parades his list of wonders which he is going to -perform; of reforms which he is going to introduce, and public evils -which he is going to exterminate; and public blessings which he is going -to create; and public nuisances which he is going to abate. He spreads -this all out with oppressive solemnity over a column and a half of large -print, and feels that the country is saved. His satisfaction over it, -something enormous. He then settles down to his miracles and inflicts -profound platitudes and impenetrable wisdom upon a helpless public as -long as they can stand it, and then they send him off consul to some -savage island in the Pacific in the vague hope that the cannibals will -like him well enough to eat him. And with an inhumanity which is but a -fitting climax to his career of persecution, instead of packing his -trunk at once he lingers to inflict upon his benefactors a -“valedictory.” If there is anything more uncalled for than a -“salutatory,” it is one of those tearful, blubbering, long-winded -“valedictories”--wherein a man who has been annoying the public for ten -years cannot take leave of them without sitting down to cry a column and -a half. Still, it is the custom to write valedictories, and custom -should be respected. In my secret heart I admire my predecessor for -declining to print a valedictory, though in public I say and shall -continue to say sternly, it is custom and he ought to have printed one. -People never read them any more than they do the “salutatories,” but -nevertheless he ought to have honored the old fossil--he ought to have -printed a valedictory. I said as much to him, and he replied: - -“I have resigned my place--I have departed this life--I am -journalistically dead, at present, ain’t I?” - -“Yes.” - -“Well, wouldn’t you consider it disgraceful in a corpse to sit up and -comment on the funeral?” - -I record it here, and preserve it from oblivion, as the briefest and -best “valedictory” that has yet come under my notice. - - MARK TWAIN. - -P. S.--I am grateful for the kindly way in which the press of the land -have taken notice of my irruption into regular journalistic life, -telegraphically or editorially, and am happy in this place to express -the feeling. - - II - A TRIBUTE TO ANSON BURLINGAME - - (February, 1870) - -On Wednesday, in St. Petersburg, Mr. Burlingame died after a short -illness. It is not easy to comprehend, at an instant’s warning, the -exceeding magnitude of the loss which mankind sustains in this -death--the loss which all nations and all peoples sustain in it. For he -had outgrown the narrow citizenship of a state and become a citizen of -the world; and his charity was large enough and his great heart warm -enough to feel for all its races and to labor for them. He was a true -man, a brave man, an earnest man, a liberal man, a just man, a generous -man, in all his ways and by all his instincts a noble man; he was a man -of education and culture, a finished conversationalist, a ready, able, -and graceful speaker, a man of great brain, a broad and deep and weighty -thinker. He was a great man--a very, very great man. He was imperially -endowed by nature; he was faithfully befriended by circumstances, and he -wrought gallantly always, in whatever station he found himself. - -He was a large, handsome man, with such a face as children instinctively -trust in, and homeless and friendless creatures appeal to without fear. -He was courteous at all times and to all people, and he had the rare and -winning faculty of being always _interested_ in whatever a man had to -say--a faculty which he possessed simply because nothing was trivial to -him which any man or woman or child had at heart. When others said harsh -things about even unconscionable and intrusive bores after they had -retired from his presence, Mr. Burlingame often said a generous word in -their favor, but never an unkind one. - -A chivalrous generosity was his most marked characteristic--a large -charity, a noble kindliness that could not comprehend narrowness or -meanness. It is this that shows out in his fervent abolitionism, -manifested at a time when it was neither very creditable nor very safe -to hold such a creed; it was this that prompted him to hurl his famous -Brooks-and-Sumner speech in the face of an astonished South at a time -when all the North was smarting under the sneers and taunts and material -aggressions of admired and applauded Southerners. It was this that made -him so warmly espouse the cause of Italian liberty--an espousal so -pointed and so vigorous as to attract the attention of Austria, which -empire afterward declined to receive him when he was appointed Austrian -envoy by Mr. Lincoln. It was this trait which prompted him to punish -Americans in China when they imposed upon the Chinese. It was this trait -which moved him, in framing treaties, to frame them in the broad -interest of the world, instead of selfishly seeking to acquire -advantages for his own country alone and at the expense of the other -party to the treaty, as had always before been the recognized -“diplomacy.” It was this trait which was and is the soul of the crowning -achievements of his career, the treaties with America and England in -behalf of China. In every labor of this man’s life there was present a -good and noble motive; and in nothing that he ever did or said was there -anything small or base. In real greatness, ability, grandeur of -character, and achievement, he stood head and shoulders above all the -Americans of to-day, save one or two. - -Without any noise, or any show, or any flourish, Mr. Burlingame did a -score of things of shining mark during his official residence in China. -They were hardly heard of away here in America. When he first went to -China, he found that with all their kingly powers, American envoys were -still not of much consequence in the eyes of their countrymen of either -civil or official position. But he was a man who was always “posted.” He -knew all about the state of things he would find in China before he -sailed from America. And so he took care to demand and receive -additional powers before he turned his back upon Washington. When the -customary consular irregularities placidly continued and he notified -those officials that such irregularities must instantly cease, and they -inquired with insolent flippancy what the consequence might be in case -they did not cease, he answered blandly that he would _dismiss_ them, -from the highest to the lowest! (He had quietly come armed with absolute -authority over their official lives.) The consular irregularities -ceased. A far healthier condition of American commercial interests -ensued there. - -To punish a foreigner in China was an unheard-of thing. There was no way -of accomplishing it. Each Embassy had its own private district or -grounds, forced from the imperial government, and into that sacred -district Chinese law officers could not intrude. All foreigners guilty -of offenses against Chinamen were tried by their own countrymen, in -these holy places, and as no Chinese testimony was admitted, the culprit -almost always went free. One of the very first things Mr. Burlingame did -was to make a Chinaman’s oath as good as a foreigner’s; and in his -ministerial court, through Chinese and American testimony combined, he -very shortly convicted a noted American ruffian of murdering a Chinaman. -And now a community accustomed to light sentences were naturally -startled when, under Mr. Burlingame’s hand, and bearing the broad seal -of the American Embassy, came an order to take him out and hang him! - -Mr. Burlingame broke up the “extra-territorial” privileges (as they were -called), as far as our country was concerned, and made justice as free -to all and as untrammeled in the metes and bounds of its jurisdiction, -in China, as ever it was in any land. - -Mr. Burlingame was the leading spirit in the co-operative policy. He got -the Imperial College established. He procured permission for an American -to open the coal mines of China. Through his efforts China was the first -country to close her ports against the war vessels of the Southern -Confederacy; and Prince Kung’s order, in this matter, was singularly -energetic, comprehensive, and in earnest. The ports were closed then, -and never opened to a Southern warship afterward. - -Mr. Burlingame “construed” the treaties existing between China and the -other nations. For many years the ablest diplomatists had vainly tried -to come to a satisfactory understanding of certain obscure clauses of -these treaties, and more than once powder had been burned in -consequences of failure to come to such understandings. But the clear -and comprehensive intellect of the American envoy reduced the wordy -tangle of diplomatic phrases to a plain and honest handful of -paragraphs, and these were unanimously and thankfully accepted by the -other foreign envoys, and officially declared by them to be a thorough -and satisfactory elucidation of all the uncertain clauses in the -treaties. - -Mr. Burlingame did a mighty work, and made official intercourse with -China lucid, simple, and systematic, thenceforth for all time, when he -persuaded that government to adopt and accept the code of international -law by which the civilized nations of the earth are guided and -controlled. - -It is not possible to specify all the acts by which Mr. Burlingame made -himself largely useful to the world during his official residence in -China. At least it would not be possible to do it without making this -sketch too lengthy and pretentious for a newspaper article. - -Mr. Burlingame’s short history--for he was only forty-seven--reads like -a fairy tale. Its successes, its surprises, its happy situations, occur -all along, and each new episode is always an improvement upon the one -which went before it. - -He begins life an assistant in a surveying party away out on the Western -frontier; then enters a branch of a Western college; then passes through -Harvard with the honors; becomes a Boston lawyer and looks back -complacently from his high perch upon the old days when he was a -surveyor nobody in the woods; becomes a state senator, and makes laws; -still advancing, goes to the Constitutional Convention and makes -regulations wherewith to rule the makers of laws; enters Congress and -smiles back upon the Legislature and the Boston lawyer, and from these -smiles still back upon the country surveyor, recognizes that he is known -to fame in Massachusetts; challenges Brooks and is known to the nation; -next, with a long stride upward, he is clothed with ministerial dignity -and journeys to the under side of the world to represent the youngest in -the court of the oldest of the nations; and finally, after years go by, -we see him moving serenely among the crowned heads of the Old World, a -magnate with secretaries and undersecretaries about him, a retinue of -quaint, outlandish Orientals in his wake, and a long following of -servants--and the world is aware that his salary is unbelievably -enormous, not to say imperial, and likewise knows that he is invested -with power to make treaties with all the chief nations of the earth, and -that he bears the stately title of Ambassador, and in his person -represents the mysterious and awful grandeur of that vague colossus, the -Emperor of China, his mighty empire and his four hundred millions of -subjects! Down what a dreamy vista his backward glance must stretch, -now, to reach the insignificant surveyor in the Western woods! - -He was a good man, and a very, very great man. America lost a son, and -all the world a servant, when he died. - - - - - THE TEMPERANCE CRUSADE AND - WOMAN’S RIGHTS - (1873) - - -The women’s crusade against the rum sellers continues. It began in an -Ohio village early in the new year, and has now extended itself -eastwardly to the Atlantic seaboard, 600 miles, and westwardly (at a -bound, without stopping by the way,) to San Francisco, about 2,500 -miles. It has also scattered itself along down the Ohio and Mississippi -rivers southwardly some ten or twelve hundred miles. Indeed, it promises -to sweep, eventually, the whole United States, with the exception of the -little cluster of commonwealths which we call New England. Puritan New -England is sedate, reflective, conservative, and very hard to inflame. - -The method of the crusaders is singular. They contemn the use of force -in the breaking up of the whisky traffic. They only assemble before a -drinking shop, or within it, and sing hymns and pray, hour after -hour--and day after day, if necessary--until the publican’s business is -broken up and he surrenders. This is not force, at least they do not -consider it so. After the surrender the crusaders march back to -headquarters and proclaim the victory, and ascribe it to the powers -above. They rejoice together awhile, and then go forth again in their -strength and conquer another whisky shop with their prayers and hymns -and their staying capacity (pardon the rudeness), and spread _that_ -victory upon the battle flag of the powers above. In this generous way -the crusaders have parted with the credit of not less than three -thousand splendid triumphs, which some carping people say they gained -their own selves, without assistance from any quarter. If I am one of -these, I am the humblest. If I seem to doubt that prayer is the agent -that conquers these rum sellers, I do it honestly, and not in a flippant -spirit. If the crusaders were to stay at home and pray for the rum -seller and for his adoption of a better way of life, or if the crusaders -even assembled together in a church and offered up such a prayer with a -united voice, and it accomplished a victory, I would then feel that it -was the praying that moved Heaven to do the miracle; for I believe that -if the prayer is the agent that brings about the desired result, it -cannot be necessary to pray the prayer in any particular place in order -to get the ear, or move the grace, of the Deity. When the crusaders go -and invest a whisky shop and fall to praying, one suspects that they are -praying rather less to the Deity than _at_ the rum man. So I cannot help -feeling (after carefully reading the details of the rum sieges) that as -much as nine tenths of the credit of each of the 3,000 victories -achieved thus far belongs of right to the crusaders themselves, and it -grieves me to see them give it away with such spendthrift generosity. - -I will not afflict you with statistics, but I desire to say just a word -or two about the character of this crusade. The crusaders are young -girls and women--not the inferior sort, but the very best in the village -communities. The telegraph keeps the newspapers supplied with the -progress of the war, and thus the praying infection spreads from town to -town, day after day, week after week. When it attacks a community it -seems to seize upon almost everybody in it at once. There is a meeting -in a church, speeches are made, resolutions are passed, a purse for -expenses is made up, a “praying band” is appointed; if it be a large -town, half a dozen praying bands, each numbering as many as a hundred -women, are appointed, and the working district of each band marked out. -Then comes a grand assault in force, all along the line. Every -stronghold of rum is invested; first one and then another champion -ranges up before the proprietor and offers up a special petition for -him; he has to stand meekly there behind his bar, under the eyes of a -great concourse of ladies who are better than he is and are aware of it, -and hear all the secret iniquities of his business divulged to the -angels above, accompanied by the sharp sting of wishes for his -regeneration, which imply an amount of need for it which is in the last -degree uncomfortable to him. If he holds out bravely, the crusaders hold -out more bravely still--or at least more persistently; though I doubt if -the grandeur of the performance would not be considerably heightened if -one solitary crusader were to try praying at a hundred rum sellers in a -body for a while, and see how it felt to have everybody against her -instead of for her. If the man holds out the crusaders camp before his -place and keep up the siege till they wear him out. In one case they -besieged a rum shop two whole weeks. They built a shed before it and -kept up the praying all night and all day long every day of the -fortnight, and this in the bitterest winter weather, too. They -conquered. - -You may ask if such an investment and such interference with a man’s -business (in cases where he is “protected” by a license) is lawful? By -no means. But the whole community being with the crusaders, the -authorities have usually been overawed and afraid to execute the laws, -the authorities being, in too many cases, mere little politicians, and -more given to looking to chances of re-election than fearlessly -discharging their duty according to the terms of their official oaths. - -Would you consider the conduct of these crusaders justifiable? I -do--thoroughly justifiable. They find themselves voiceless in the making -of laws and the election of officers to execute them. Born with brains, -born in the country, educated, having large interests at stake, they -find their tongues tied and their hands fettered, while every ignorant -whisky-drinking foreign-born savage in the land may hold office, help to -make the laws, degrade the dignity of the former and break the latter at -his own sweet will. They see their fathers, husbands, and brothers sit -inanely at home and allow the scum of the country to assemble at the -“primaries,” name the candidates for office from their own vile ranks, -and, unrebuked, elect them. They live in the midst of a country where -there is no end to the laws and no beginning to the execution of them. -And when the laws intended to protect their sons from destruction by -intemperance lie torpid and without sign of life year after year, they -recognize that here is a matter which interests them personally--a -matter which comes straight home to them. And since they are allowed to -lift no legal voice against the outrageous state of things they suffer -under in this regard, I think it is no wonder that their patience has -broken down at last, and they have contrived to persuade themselves that -they are justifiable in breaking the law of trespass when the laws that -should make the trespass needless are allowed by the voters to lie dead -and inoperative. - -I cannot help glorying in the pluck of these women, sad as it is to see -them displaying themselves in these unwomanly ways; sad as it is to see -them carrying their grace and their purity into places which should -never know their presence; and sadder still as it is to see them trying -to save a set of men who, it seems to me, there can be no reasonable -object in saving. It does not become us to scoff at the crusaders, -remembering what it is they have borne all these years, but it does -become us to admire their heroism--a heroism that boldly faces jeers, -curses, ribald language, obloquy of every kind and degree--in a word, -every manner of thing that pure-hearted, pure-minded women such as these -are naturally dread and shrink from, and remains steadfast through it -all, undismayed, patient, hopeful, giving no quarter, asking none, -determined to conquer and succeeding. It is the same old superb spirit -that animated that other devoted, magnificent, mistaken crusade of six -hundred years ago. The sons of such women as these must surely be worth -saving from the destroying power of rum. - -The present crusade will doubtless do but little work against -intemperance that will be really permanent, but it will do what is as -much, or even more, to the purpose, I think. I think it will suggest to -more than one man that if women could vote they would vote on the side -of morality, even if they did vote and speak rather frantically and -furiously; and it will also suggest that when the women once made up -their minds that it was not good to leave the all-powerful “primaries” -in the hands of loafers, thieves, and pernicious little politicians, -they would not sit indolently at home as their husbands and brothers do -now, but would hoist their praying banners, take the field in force, -pray the assembled political scum back to the holes and slums where they -belong, and set up some candidates fit for decent human beings to vote -for. - -I dearly want the women to be raised to the political altitude of the -negro, the imported savage, and the pardoned thief, and allowed to vote. -It is our last chance, I think. The women will be voting before long, -and then if a B. F. Butler can still continue to lord it in Congress; if -the highest offices in the land can still continue to be occupied by -perjurers and robbers; if another Congress (like the forty-second) -consisting of 15 honest men and 296 of the other kind can once more be -created, it will at last be time, I fear, to give over trying to save -the country by human means, and appeal to Providence. Both the great -parties have failed. I wish we might have a woman’s party now, and see -how that would work. I feel persuaded that in extending the suffrage to -women this country could lose absolutely nothing and might gain a great -deal. For thirty centuries history has been iterating and reiterating -that in a moral fight woman is simply dauntless, and we all know, even -with our eyes shut upon Congress and our voters, that from the day that -Adam ate of the apple and told on Eve down to the present day, man, in a -moral fight, has pretty uniformly shown himself to be an arrant coward. - -I will mention casually that while I cannot bring myself to find fault -with the women whom we call the crusaders, since I feel that they, being -politically fettered, have the natural right of the oppressed to rebel, -I have a very different opinion about the clergymen who have in a -multitude of instances attached themselves to the movement, and by voice -and act have countenanced and upheld the women in unlawfully trespassing -upon whisky mills and interrupting the rum sellers’ business. It seems -to me that it would better become clergymen to teach their flocks to -respect the laws of the land, and urge them to refrain from breaking -them. But it is not a new thing for a thoroughly good and well-meaning -preacher’s soft heart to run away with his soft head. - - - - - O’SHAH - - (A series of news letters describing a visit to England by the - Shah of Persia) - - I - THE ARRIVAL IN ENGLAND - - LONDON, _June 18, 1873_. - -“Would you like to go over to Belgium and help bring the Shah to -England?” - -I said I was willing. - -“Very well, then; here is an order from the Admiralty which will admit -you on board Her Majesty’s ship _Lively_, now lying at Ostend, and you -can return in her day after to-morrow.” - -That was all. That was the end of it. Without stopping to think, I had -in a manner taken upon myself to bring the Shah of Persia to England. I -could not otherwise regard the conversation I had just held with the -London representative of the New York _Herald_. The amount of discomfort -I endured for the next two or three hours cannot be set down in words. I -could not eat, sleep, talk, smoke with any satisfaction. The more I -thought the thing over the more oppressed I felt. What was the Shah to -me, that I should go to all this worry and trouble on his account? Where -was there the least occasion for taking upon myself such a -responsibility? If I got him over all right, well. But if I lost him? if -he died on my hands? if he got drowned? It was depressing, any way I -looked at it. In the end I said to myself, “If I get this Shah over here -safe and sound I never will take charge of another one.” And yet, at the -same time I kept thinking: “This country has treated me well, stranger -as I am, and this foreigner is the country’s guest--that is enough, I -will help him out; I will fetch him over; I will land him in London, and -say to the British people, ‘Here is your Shah; give me a receipt.’” - -I felt easy in my mind now, and was about to go to bed, but something -occurred to me. I took a cab and drove downtown and routed out that -_Herald_ representative. - -“Where is Belgium?” said I. - -“Where is Belgium? I never heard such a question!” - -“That doesn’t make any difference to me. If I have got to fetch this -Shah I don’t wish to go to the wrong place. Where is Belgium? Is it a -shilling fare in a cab?” - -He explained that it was in foreign parts--the first place I have heard -of lately which a body could not go to in a cab for a shilling. - -I said I could not go alone, because I could not speak foreign languages -well, could not get up in time for the early train without help, and -could not find my way. I said it was enough to have the Shah on my -hands; I did not wish to have everything piled on me. Mr. Blank was then -ordered to go with me. I do like to have somebody along to talk to when -I go abroad. - -When I got home I sat down and thought the thing all over. I wanted to -go into this enterprise understandingly. What was the main thing? That -was the question. A little reflection informed me. For two weeks the -London papers had sung just one continual song to just one continual -tune, and the idea of it all was “how to impress the Shah.” These papers -had told all about the St. Petersburg splendors, and had said at the end -that splendors would no longer answer; that England could not outdo -Russia in that respect; therefore some other way of impressing the Shah -must be contrived. And these papers had also told all about the Shahstic -reception in Prussia and its attendant military pageantry. England could -not improve on that sort of thing--she could not impress the Shah with -soldiers; something else must be tried. And so on. Column after column, -page after page of agony about how to “impress the Shah.” At last they -had hit upon a happy idea--a grand naval exhibition. That was it! A man -brought up in Oriental seclusion and simplicity, a man who had never -seen anything but camels and such things, could not help being surprised -and delighted with the strange novelty of ships. The distress was at an -end. England heaved a great sigh of relief; she knew at last how to -impress the Shah. - -My course was very plain, now, after that bit of reflection. All I had -to do was to go over to Belgium and impress the Shah. I failed to form -any definite plan as to the process, but I made up my mind to manage it -somehow. I said to myself, “I will impress this Shah or there shall be a -funeral that will be worth contemplating.” - -I went to bed then, but did not sleep a great deal, for the -responsibilities were weighing pretty heavily upon me. At six o’clock in -the morning Mr. Blank came and turned me out. I was surprised at this, -and not gratified, for I detest early rising. I never like to say severe -things, but I was a good deal tried this time. I said I did not mind -getting up moderately early, but I hated to be called day before -yesterday. However, as I was acting in a national capacity and for a -country that I liked, I stopped grumbling and we set out. A grand naval -review is a good thing to impress a Shah with, but if he would try -getting up at six o’clock in the morning--but no matter; we started. - -We took the Dover train and went whistling along over the housetops at -the rate of fifty miles an hour, and just as smoothly and pleasantly, -too, as if we were in a sleigh. One never can have anything but a very -vague idea of what speed is until he travels over an English railway. -Our “lightning” expresses are sleepy and indolent by comparison. We -looked into the back windows of the endless ranks of houses abreast and -below us, and saw many a homelike little family of early birds sitting -at their breakfasts. New views and new aspects of London were about me; -the mighty city seemed to spread farther and wider in the clear morning -air than it had ever done before. There is something awe-inspiring about -the mere look of the figures that express the population of London when -one comes to set them down in a good large hand--4,000,000! It takes a -body’s breath away, almost. - -We presently left the city behind. We had started drowsy, but we did not -stay so. How could we, with the brilliant sunshine pouring down, the -balmy wind blowing through the open windows, and the Garden of Eden -spread all abroad? We swept along through rolling expanses of growing -grain--not a stone or a stump to mar their comeliness, not an unsightly -fence or an ill-kept hedge; through broad meadows covered with fresh -green grass as clean swept as if a broom had been at work there--little -brooks wandering up and down them, noble trees here and there, cows in -the shade, groves in the distance and church spires projecting out of -them; and there were the quaintest old-fashioned houses set in the midst -of smooth lawns or partly hiding themselves among fine old forest trees; -and there was one steep-roofed ancient cottage whose walls all around, -and whose roof, and whose chimneys, were clothed in a shining mail of -ivy leaves!--so thoroughly, indeed, that only one little patch of roof -was visible to prove that the house was not a mere house of leaves, with -glass windows in it. Imagine those dainty little homes surrounded by -flowering shrubs and bright green grass and all sorts of old trees--and -then go on and try to imagine something more bewitching. - -By and by we passed Rochester, and, sure enough, right there, on the -highest ground in the town and rising imposingly up from among -clustering roofs, was the gray old castle--roofless, ruined, ragged, the -sky beyond showing clear and blue through the glassless windows, the -walls partly clad with ivy--a time-scarred, weather-beaten old pile, but -ever so picturesque and ever so majestic, too. There it was, a whole -book of English history. I had read of Rochester Castle a thousand -times, but I had never really believed there was any such building -before. - -Presently we reached the sea and came to a stand far out on a pier; and -here was Dover and more history. The chalk cliffs of England towered up -from the shore and the French coast was visible. On the tallest hill sat -Dover Castle, stately and spacious and superb, looking just as it has -always looked any time these ten or fifteen thousand years--I do not -know its exact age, and it does not matter, anyway. - -We stepped aboard the little packet and steamed away. The sea was -perfectly smooth, and painfully brilliant in the sunshine. There were no -curiosities in the vessel except the passengers and a placard in French -setting forth the transportation fares for various kinds of people. The -lithographer probably considered that placard a triumph. It was printed -in green, blue, red, black, and yellow; no individual line in one color, -even the individual letters were separately colored. For instance, the -first letter of a word would be blue, the next red, the next green, and -so on. The placard looked as if it had the smallpox or something. I -inquired the artist’s name and place of business, intending to hunt him -up and kill him when I had time; but no one could tell me. In the list -of prices first-class passengers were set down at fifteen shillings and -four pence, and dead bodies at one pound ten shillings and eight -pence--just double price! That is Belgian morals, I suppose. I never say -a harsh thing unless I am greatly stirred; but in my opinion the man who -would take advantage of a dead person would do almost any odious thing. -I publish this scandalous discrimination against the most helpless class -among us in order that people intending to die abroad may come back by -some other line. - -We skimmed over to Ostend in four hours and went ashore. The first -gentleman we saw happened to be the flag lieutenant of the fleet, and he -told me where the _Lively_ lay, and said she would sail about six in the -morning. Heavens and earth. He said he would give my letter to the -proper authority, and so we thanked him and bore away for the hotel. -Bore away is good sailor phraseology, and I have been at sea portions of -two days now. I easily pick up a foreign language. - -Ostend is a curious, comfortable-looking, massively built town, where -the people speak both the French and the Flemish with exceeding fluency, -and yet I could not understand them in either tongue. But I will write -the rest about Ostend in to-morrow’s letter. - -We idled about this curious Ostend the remainder of the afternoon and -far into the long-lived twilight, apparently to amuse ourselves, but -secretly I had a deeper motive. I wanted to see if there was anything -here that might “impress the Shah.” In the end I was reassured and -content. If Ostend could impress him, England could amaze the head clear -off his shoulders and have marvels left that not even the trunk could be -indifferent to. - -These citizens of Flanders--Flounders, I think they call them, though I -feel sure I have eaten a creature of that name or seen it in an aquarium -or a menagerie, or in a picture or somewhere--are a thrifty, industrious -race, and are as commercially wise and farsighted as they were in Edward -the Third’s time, and as enduring and patient under adversity as they -were in Charles the Bold’s. They are prolific in the matter of children; -in some of the narrow streets every house seemed to have had a freshet -of children, which had burst through and overflowed into the roadway. -One could hardly get along for the pack of juveniles, and they were all -soiled and all healthy. They all wore wooden shoes, which clattered -noisily on the stone pavements. All the women were hard at work; there -were no idlers about the houses. The men were away at labor, no doubt. -In nearly every door women sat at needlework or something of that -marketable nature--they were knitting principally. Many groups of women -sat in the street, in the shade of walls, making point lace. The lace -maker holds a sort of pillow on her knees with a strip of cardboard -fastened on it, on which the lace pattern has been punctured. She sticks -bunches of pins in the punctures and about them weaves her web of -threads. The numberless threads diverge from the bunch of pins like the -spokes of a wheel, and the spools from which the threads are being -unwound form the outer circle of the wheel. The woman throws these -spools about her with flying fingers, in and out, over and under one -another, and so fast that you can hardly follow the evolutions with your -eyes. In the chaos and confusion of skipping spools you wonder how she -can possibly pick up the right one every time, and especially how she -can go on gossiping with her friends all the time and yet never seem to -miss a stitch. The laces these ingenious Flounders were making were very -dainty and delicate in texture and very beautiful in design. - -Most of the shops in Ostend seemed devoted to the sale of sea shells. -All sorts of figures of men and women were made of shells; one sort was -composed of grotesque and ingenious combinations of lobster claws in the -human form. And they had other figures made of stuffed frogs--some -fencing, some barbering each other, and some were not to be described at -all without indecent language. It must require a barbarian nature to be -able to find humor in such nauseating horrors as these last. These -things were exposed in the public windows where young girls and little -children could see them, and in the shops sat the usual hairy-lipped -young woman waiting to sell them. - -There was a contrivance attached to the better class of houses which I -had heard of before, but never seen. It was an arrangement of mirrors -outside the window, so contrived that the people within could see who -was coming either up or down the street--see all that might be going on, -in fact--without opening the window or twisting themselves into -uncomfortable positions in order to look. - -A capital thing to watch for unwelcome (or welcome) visitors with, or to -observe pageants in cold or rainy weather. People in second and third -stories had, also, another mirror which showed who was passing -underneath. - -The dining room at our hotel was very spacious and rather gorgeous. One -end of it was composed almost entirely of a single pane of plate glass, -some two inches thick--for this is the plate-glass manufacturing region, -you remember. It was very clear and fine. If one were to enter the place -in such a way as not to catch the sheen of the glass, he would suppose -that the end of the house was wide open to the sun and the storms. A -strange boyhood instinct came strongly upon me, and I could not really -enjoy my dinner, I wanted to break that glass so badly. I have no doubt -that every man feels so, and I know that such a glass must be simply -torture to a boy. - -This dining room’s walls were almost completely covered with large oil -paintings in frames. - -It was an excellent hotel; the utmost care was taken that everything -should go right. I went to bed at ten and was called at eleven to “take -the early train.” I said I was not the one, so the servant stirred up -the next door and he was not the one; then the next door and the -next--no success--and so on till the reverberations of the knocking were -lost in the distance down the hall, and I fell asleep again. They called -me at twelve to take another early train, but I said I was not the one -again, and asked as a favor that they would be particular to call the -rest next time, but never mind me. However, they could not understand my -English; they only said something in reply to signify that, and then -went on banging up the boarders, none of whom desired to take the early -train. - -When they called me at one, it made my rest seem very broken, and I said -if they would skip me at two I would call myself--not really intending -to do it, but hoping to beguile the porter and deceive him. He probably -suspected that and was afraid to trust me, because when he made his -rounds at that hour he did not take any chances on me, but routed me out -along with the others. I got some more sleep after that, but when the -porter called me at three I felt depressed and jaded and greatly -discouraged. So I gave it up and dressed myself. The porter got me a cup -of coffee and kept me awake while I drank it. He was a good, -well-meaning sort of Flounder, but really a drawback to the hotel, I -should think. - -Poor Mr. Blank came in then, looking worn and old. He had been called -for all the different trains, too, just as I had. He said it was a good -enough hotel, but they took too much pains. While we sat there talking -we fell asleep and were called again at four. Then we went out and dozed -about town till six, and then drifted aboard the _Lively_. - -She was trim and bright, and clean and smart; she was as handsome as a -picture. The sailors were in brand-new man-of-war costume, and plenty of -officers were about the decks in the state uniform of the -service--cocked hats, huge epaulettes, claw-hammer coats lined with -white silk--hats and coats and trousers all splendid with gold lace. I -judged that these were all admirals, and so got afraid and went ashore -again. Our vessel was to carry the Shah’s brother, also the Grand -Vizier, several Persian princes, who were uncles to the Shah, and other -dignitaries of more or less consequence. A vessel alongside was to carry -the luggage, and a vessel just ahead (the _Vigilant_) was to carry -nobody but just the Shah and certain Ministers of State and servants and -the Queen’s special ambassador, Sir Henry Rawlinson, who is a Persian -scholar and talks to the Shah in his own tongue. - -I was very glad, for several reasons, to find that I was not to go in -the same ship with the Shah. First, with him not immediately under my -eye I would feel less responsibility for him; and, secondly, as I was -anxious to impress him, I wanted to practice on his brother first. - - THE SHAH’S QUARTERS - -On the afterdeck of the _Vigilant_--very handsome ship--a temporary -cabin had been constructed for the sole and special use of the Shah, -temporary but charmingly substantial and graceful and pretty. It was -about thirty feet long and twelve wide, beautifully gilded, decorated -and painted within and without. Among its colors was a shade of light -green, which reminds me of an anecdote about the Persian party, which I -will speak of in to-morrow’s letter. - -It was getting along toward the time for the Shah to arrive from -Brussels, so I ranged up alongside my own ship. I do not know when I -ever felt so ill at ease and undecided. It was a sealed letter which I -had brought from the Admiralty, and I could not guess what the purport -of it might be. I supposed I was intended to command the ship--that is, -I had supposed it at first, but, after seeing all those splendid -officers, I had discarded that idea. I cogitated a good deal, but to no -purpose. Presently a regiment of Belgian troops arrived and formed in -line along the pier. Then a number of people began to spread down -carpets for fifty yards along the pier, by the railway track, and other -carpets were laid from these to the ships. The gangway leading on board -my ship was now carpeted and its railings were draped with -bright-colored signal flags. It began to look as if I was expected; so I -walked on board. A sailor immediately ran and stopped me, and made -another sailor bring a mop for me to wipe my feet on, lest I might soil -the deck, which was wonderfully clean and nice. Evidently I was not the -person expected, after all. I pointed to the group of officers and asked -the sailor what the naval law would do to a man if he were to go and -speak to some of those admirals--for there was an awful air of etiquette -and punctilio about the premises; but just then one of those officers -came forward and said that if his instinct was correct an Admiralty -order had been received giving me a passage in the ship; and he also -said that he was the first lieutenant, and that I was very welcome and -he would take pains to make me feel at home, and furthermore there was -champagne and soda waiting down below; and furthermore still, all the -London correspondents, to the number of six or seven, would arrive from -Brussels with the Shah, and would go in our ship, and if our passage -were not a lively one, and a jolly and enjoyable one, it would be a very -strange thing indeed. I could have jumped for joy if I had not been -afraid of breaking some rule of naval etiquette and getting hanged for -it. - -Now the train was signaled, and everybody got ready for the great event. -The Belgian regiment straightened itself up, and some two hundred -Flounders arrived and took conspicuous position on a little mound. I was -a little afraid that this would impress the Shah; but I was soon -occupied with other interests. The train of thirteen cars came tearing -in, and stopped abreast the ships. Music and guns began an uproar. -Odd-looking Persian faces and felt hats (brimless stovepipes) appeared -at the car windows. - -Some gorgeous English officials fled down the carpet from the -_Vigilant_. They stopped at a long car with the royal arms upon it, -uncovered their heads, and unlocked the car door. Then the Shah stood up -in it and gave us a good view. He was a handsome, strong-featured man, -with a rather European fairness of complexion; had a mustache, wore -spectacles, seemed of a good height and graceful build and carriage, and -looked about forty or a shade less. He was very simply dressed--brimless -stovepipe and close-buttoned dark-green military suit, without ornament. -No, not wholly without ornament, for he had a band two inches wide worn -over his shoulder and down across his breast, scarf fashion, which band -was one solid glory of fine diamonds. - -A Persian official appeared in the Shah’s rear and enveloped him in an -ample quilt--or cloak, if you please--which was lined with fur. The -outside of it was of a whitish color and elaborately needle-worked in -Persian patterns like an India shawl. The Shah stepped out and the -official procession formed about him and marched him down the carpet and -on board the _Vigilant_ to slow music. Not a Flounder raised a cheer. -All the small fry swarmed out of the train now. - -The Shah walked back alongside his fine cabin, looking at the assemblage -of silent, solemn Flounders; the correspondent of the London _Telegraph_ -was hurrying along the pier and took off his hat and bowed to the “King -of Kings,” and the King of Kings gave a polite military salute in -return. This was the commencement of the excitement. The success of the -breathless _Telegraph_ man made all the other London correspondents mad, -every man of whom flourished his stovepipe recklessly and cheered -lustily, some of the more enthusiastic varying the exercise by lowering -their heads and elevating their coat tails. Seeing all this, and feeling -that if I was to “impress the Shah” at all, now was my time, I ventured -a little squeaky yell, quite distinct from the other shouts, but just as -hearty. His Shahship heard and saw and saluted me in a manner that was, -I considered, an acknowledgment of my superior importance. I do not know -that I ever felt so ostentatious and absurd before. All the -correspondents came aboard, and then the Persian baggage came also, and -was carried across to the ship alongside of ours. When she could hold no -more we took somewhere about a hundred trunks and boxes on board our -vessel. Two boxes fell into the water, and several sailors jumped in and -saved one, but the other was lost. However, it probably contained -nothing but a few hundred pounds of diamonds and things. - -At last we got under way and steamed out through a long slip, the piers -on either side being crowded with Flounders; but never a cheer. A -battery of three guns on the starboard pier boomed a royal salute, and -we swept out to sea, the _Vigilant_ in the lead, we right in her wake, -and the baggage ship in ours. Within fifteen minutes everybody was well -acquainted; a general jollification set in, and I was thoroughly glad I -had come over to fetch the Shah. - - II - MARK TWAIN EXECUTES HIS CONTRACT AND DELIVERS - THE SHAH IN LONDON - - LONDON, _June 19, 1873_. - - SOME PERSIAN FINERY - -Leaving Ostend, we went out to sea under a clear sky and upon smooth -water--so smooth, indeed, that its surface was scarcely rippled. I say -the sky was clear, and so it was, clear and sunny; but a rich haze lay -upon the water in the distance--a soft, mellow mist, through which a -scattering sail or two loomed vaguely. One may call such a morning -perfect. - -The corps of correspondents were well jaded with their railway journey, -but after champagne and soda downstairs with the officers, everybody -came up refreshed and cheery and exceedingly well acquainted all around. -The Persian grandees had meantime taken up a position in a glass house -on the afterdeck, and were sipping coffee in a grave, Oriental way. They -all had much lighter complexions and a more European cast of features -than I was prepared for, and several of them were exceedingly handsome, -fine-looking men. - -They all sat in a circle on a sofa (the deckhouse being circular), and -they made a right gaudy spectacle. Their breasts were completely crusted -with gold bullion embroidery of a pattern resembling frayed and -interlacing ferns, and they had large jeweled ornaments on their breasts -also. The Grand Vizier came out to have a look around. In addition to -the sumptuous gold fernery on his breast he wore a jeweled star as large -as the palm of my hand, and about his neck hung the Shah’s miniature, -reposing in a bed of diamonds, that gleamed and flashed in a wonderful -way when touched by the sunlight. It was said that to receive the Shah’s -portrait from the Shah was the highest compliment that could be -conferred upon a Persian subject. I did not care so much about the -diamonds, but I would have liked to have the portrait very much. The -Grand Vizier’s sword hilt and the whole back of the sheath from end to -end were composed of a neat and simple combination of some twelve or -fifteen thousand emeralds and diamonds. - - “IMPRESSING” A PERSIAN GENERAL - -Several of the Persians talked French and English. One of them, who was -said to be a general, came up on the bridge where some of us were -standing, pointed to a sailor, and asked me if I could tell him what -that sailor was doing? - -I said he was communicating with the other ships by means of the optical -telegraph--that by using the three sticks the whole alphabet could be -expressed. I showed him how A, B and C were made, and so forth. Good! -This Persian was “impressed”! He showed it by his eyes, by his gestures, -by his manifest surprise and delight. I said to myself, if the Shah were -only here now, the grand desire of Great Britain could be accomplished. -The general immediately called the other grandees and told them about -this telegraphic wonder. Then he said: - -“Now does everyone on board acquire this knowledge?” - -“No, only the officers.” - -“And this sailor?” - -“He is only the signalman. Two or three sailors on board are detailed -for this service, and by order and direction of the officers they -communicate with the other ships.” - -“Very good! very fine! Very great indeed!” - -These men were unquestionably impressed. I got the sailor to bring the -signal book, and the matter was fully explained, to their high -astonishment; also the flag signals, and likewise the lamp signals for -night telegraphing. Of course, the idea came into my head, in the first -place, to ask one of the officers to conduct this bit of instruction, -but I at once dismissed it. I judged that this would all go to the Shah, -sooner or later. I had come over on purpose to “impress the Shah,” and I -was not going to throw away my opportunity. I wished the Queen had been -there; I would have been knighted, sure. You see, they knight people -here for all sorts of things--knight them, or put them into the peerage -and make great personages of them. Now, for instance, a king comes over -here on a visit; the Lord Mayor and sheriffs do him becoming honors in -the city, and straightway the former is created a baronet and the latter -are knighted. When the Prince of Wales recovered from his illness one of -his chief physicians was made a baronet and the other was knighted. -Charles II made duchesses of one or two female acquaintances of his for -something or other--I have forgotten now what it was. A London -shoe-maker’s apprentice became a great soldier--indeed, a -Wellington--won prodigious victories in many climes and covered the -British arms with glory all through a long life; and when he was 187 -years old they knighted him and made him Constable of the Tower. But he -died next year and they buried him in Westminster Abbey. There is no -telling what that man might have become if he had lived. So you see what -a chance I had; for I have no doubt in the world that I have been the -humble instrument, under Providence, of “impressing the Shah.” And I -really believe that if the Queen comes to hear of it I shall be made a -duke. - -Friends intending to write will not need to be reminded that a duke is -addressed as “Your Grace”; it is considered a great offense to leave -that off. - - A PICTURESQUE NAVAL SPECTACLE - -When we were a mile or so out from Ostend conversation ceased, an -expectant look came into all faces, and opera glasses began to stand out -from above all noses. This impressive hush lasted a few minutes, and -then some one said: - -“There they are!” - -“Where?” - -“Away yonder ahead--straight ahead.” - -Which was true. Three huge shapes smothered in the haze--the _Vanguard_, -the _Audacious_, and the _Devastation_--all great ironclads. They were -to do escort duty. The officers and correspondents gathered on the -forecastle and waited for the next act. A red spout of fire issued from -the _Vanguard’s_ side, another flashed from the _Audacious_. Beautiful -these red tongues were against the dark haze. Then there was a long -pause--ever so long a pause and not a sound, not the suspicion of a -sound; and now, out of the stillness, came a deep, solemn “boom! boom!” -It had not occurred to me that at so great a distance I would not hear -the report as soon as I saw the flash. The two crimson jets were very -beautiful, but not more so than the rolling volumes of white smoke that -plunged after them, rested a moment over the water, and then went -wreathing and curling up among the webbed rigging and the tall masts, -and left only glimpses of these things visible, high up in the air, -projecting as if from a fog. - -Now the flashes came thick and fast from the black sides of both -vessels. The muffled thunders of the guns mingled together in one -continued roll, the two ships were lost to sight, and in their places -two mountains of tumbled smoke rested upon the motionless water, their -bases in the hazy twilight and their summits shining in the sun. It was -good to be there and see so fine a spectacle as that. - - THE NAVAL SALUTE - -We closed up fast upon the ironclads. They fell apart to let our -flotilla come between, and as the _Vigilant_ ranged up the rigging of -the ironclads was manned to salute the Shah. And, indeed, that was -something to see. The shrouds, from the decks clear to the trucks, away -up toward the sky, were black with men. On the lower rounds of these -rope ladders they stood five abreast, holding each other’s hands, and so -the tapering shrouds formed attenuated pyramids of humanity, six -pyramids of them towering into the upper air, and clear up on the top of -each dizzy mast stood a little creature like a clothes pin--a mere black -peg against the sky--and that mite was a sailor waving a flag like a -postage stamp. All at once the pyramids of men burst into a cheer, and -followed it with two more, given with a will; and if the Shah was not -impressed he must be the offspring of a mummy. - -And just at this moment, while we all stood there gazing--- - -However breakfast was announced and I did not wait to see. - - THE THIRTY-FOUR-TON GUNS SPEAK - -If there is one thing that is pleasanter than another it is to take -breakfast in the wardroom with a dozen naval officers. Of course, that -awe-inspiring monarch, the captain, is aft, keeping frozen state with -the Grand Viziers when there are any on board, and so there is nobody in -the wardroom to maintain naval etiquette. As a consequence none is -maintained. One officer, in a splendid uniform, snatches a champagne -bottle from a steward and opens it himself; another keeps the servants -moving; another opens soda; everybody eats, drinks, shouts, laughs in -the most unconstrained way, and it does seem a pity that ever the thing -should come to an end. No individual present seemed sorry he was not in -the ship with the Shah. When the festivities had been going on about an -hour, some tremendous booming was heard outside. Now here was a question -between duty and broiled chicken. What might that booming mean? Anguish -sat upon the faces of the correspondents. I watched to see what they -would do, and the precious moments were flying. Somebody cried down a -companionway: - -“The _Devastation_ is saluting!” - -The correspondents tumbled over one another, over chairs, over -everything in their frenzy to get on deck, and the last gun reverberated -as the last heel disappeared on the stairs. The _Devastation_, the pride -of England, the mightiest war vessel afloat, carrying guns that outweigh -any metal in any service, it is said (thirty-five tons each), and these -boys had missed that spectacle--at least I knew that some of them had. I -did not go. Age has taught me wisdom. If a spectacle is going to be -particularly imposing I prefer to see it through somebody else’s eyes, -because that man will always exaggerate. Then I can exaggerate his -exaggeration, and my account of the thing will be the most impressive. - -But I felt that I had missed my figure this time, because I was not sure -which of these gentlemen reached the deck in time for a glimpse and -which didn’t. And this morning I cannot tell by the London papers. They -all have imposing descriptions of that thing, and no one of them -resembles another. Mr. X’s is perhaps the finest, but he was singing a -song about “Spring, Spring, Gentle Spring,” all through the bombardment, -and was overexcited, I fear. - -The next best was Mr. Y’s; but he was telling about how he took a -Russian battery, along with another man, during the Crimean War, and he -was not fairly through the story till the salute was over, though I -remember he went up and saw the smoke. I will not frame a description of -the _Devastation’s_ salute, for I have no material that I can feel sure -is reliable. - - THE GRAND SPECTACULAR CLIMAX - -When we first sailed away from Ostend I found myself in a dilemma; I had -no notebook. But “any port in a storm,” as the sailors say. I found a -fair, full pack of ordinary playing cards in my overcoat pocket--one -always likes to have something along to amuse children with--and really -they proved excellent to take notes on, although bystanders were a bit -inclined to poke fun at them and ask facetious questions. But I was -content; I made all the notes I needed. The aces and low “spot” cards -are very good indeed to write memoranda on, but I will not recommend the -Kings and Jacks. - - SPEAKING BY THE CARDS - -Referring to the seven of hearts, I find that this naval exhibition and -journey from Ostend to Dover is going to cost the government £500,000. -Got it from a correspondent. It is a round sum. - -Referring to the ace of diamonds, I find that along in the afternoon we -sighted a fresh fleet of men-of-war coming to meet us. The rest of the -diamonds, down to the eight spot (nines and tens are no good for notes) -are taken up with details of that spectacle. Most of the clubs and -hearts refer to matters immediately following that, but I really can -hardly do anything with them because I have forgotten what was trumps. - - THE SPECTACLE - -But never mind. The sea scene grew little by little, until presently it -was very imposing. We drew up into the midst of a waiting host of -vessels. Enormous five-masted men-of-war, great turret ships, steam -packets, pleasure yachts--every sort of craft, indeed--the sea was thick -with them; the yards and riggings of the warships loaded with men, the -packets crowded with people, the pleasure ships rainbowed with brilliant -flags all over and over--some with flags strung thick on lines -stretching from bowsprit to foremast, thence to mainmast, thence to -mizzenmast, and thence to stern. All the ships were in motion--gliding -hither and thither, in and out, mingling and parting--a bewildering -whirl of flash and color. Our leader, the vast, black, ugly, but very -formidable _Devastation_, plowed straight through the gay throng, our -Shah-ships following, the lines of big men-of-war saluting, the booming -of the guns drowning the cheering, stately islands of smoke towering -everywhere. And so, in this condition of unspeakable grandeur, we swept -into the harbor of Dover, and saw the English princes and the long ranks -of red-coated soldiers waiting on the pier, civilian multitudes behind -them, the lofty hill front by the castle swarming with spectators, and -there was the crash of cannon and a general hurrah all through the air. -It was rather a contrast to silent Ostend and the unimpressible -Flanders. - - THE SHAH “IMPRESSED” AT LAST - -The Duke of Edinburgh and Prince Arthur received the Shah in state, and -then all of us--princes, Shahs, ambassadors, Grand Viziers and newspaper -correspondents--climbed aboard the train and started off to London just -like so many brothers. - -From Dover to London it was a sight to see. Seventy miles of human -beings in a jam--the gaps were not worth mentioning--and every man, -woman, and child waving hat or handkerchief and cheering. I -wondered--could not tell--could not be sure--could only wonder--would -this “impress the Shah”? I would have given anything to know. But--well, -it ought--but--still one could not tell. - -And by and by we burst into the London Railway station--a very large -station it is--and found it wonderfully decorated and all the -neighboring streets packed with cheering citizens. Would this impress -the Shah? I--I--well, I could not yet feel certain. - -The Prince of Wales received the Shah--ah, you should have seen how -gorgeously the Shah was dressed now--he was like the sun in a total -eclipse of rainbows--yes, the Prince received him, put him in a grand -open carriage, got in and made him sit over further and not “crowd,” the -carriage clattered out of the station, all London fell apart on either -side and lifted a perfectly national cheer, and just at that instant the -bottom fell out of the sky and forty deluges came pouring down at once! - -The great strain was over, the crushing suspense at an end. I said, -“Thank God, this will impress the Shah.” - -Now came the long files of Horse Guards in silver armor. We took the -great Persian to Buckingham Palace. I never stirred till I saw the gates -open and close upon him with my own eyes and knew he was there. Then I -said: - -“England, here is your Shah; take him and be happy, but don’t ever ask -me to fetch over another one.” - -This contract has been pretty straining on me. - - III - THE SHAH AS A SOCIAL STAR - - LONDON, _June 21, 1873_. - - -After delivering the Shah at the gates of that unsightly pile of dreary -grandeur known as Buckingham Palace I cast all responsibility for him -aside for the time being, and experienced a sense of relief and likewise -an honest pride in my success, such as no man can feel who has not had a -Shah at nurse (so to speak) for three days. - -It is said by those who ought to know that when Buckingham Palace was -being fitted up as a home for the Shah one of the chief rooms was -adorned with a rich carpet which had been designed and manufactured -especially to charm the eye of His Majesty. The story goes on to say -that a couple of the Persian suite came here a week ago to see that all -things were in readiness and nothing overlooked, and that when they -reached that particular room and glanced at the lovely combination of -green figures and white ones in that carpet they gathered their robes -carefully up about their knees and then went elaborately tiptoeing about -the floor with the aspect and anxiety of a couple of cats hunting for -dry ground in a wet country, and they stepped only on the white figures -and almost fainted whenever they came near touching a green one. It is -said that the explanation is that these visiting Persians are all -Mohammedans, and green being a color sacred to the descendants of the -Prophet, and none of these people being so descended, it would be -dreadful profanation for them to defile the holy color with their feet. -And the general result of it all was that carpet had to be taken up and -is a dead loss. - -Man is a singular sort of human being, after all, and his religion does -not always adorn him. Now, our religion is the right one, and has fewer -odd and striking features than any other; and yet my ancestors used to -roast Catholics and witches and warm their hands by the fire; but they -would be blanched with horror at the bare thought of breaking the -Sabbath, and here is a Persian monarch who never sees any impropriety in -chopping a subject’s head off for the mere misdemeanor of calling him -too early for breakfast, and yet would be consumed with pious remorse if -unheeding foot were to chance to step upon anything so green as you or -I, my reader. - -Oriental peoples say that women have no souls to save and, almost -without my memory, many American Protestants said the same of babies. I -thought there was a wide gulf between the Persians and ourselves, but I -begin to feel that they are really our brothers after all. - -After a day’s rest the Shah went to Windsor Castle and called on the -Queen. What that suggests to the reader’s mind is this:--That the Shah -took a hand satchel and an umbrella, called a cab and said he wanted to -go to the Paddington station; that when he arrived there the driver -charged him sixpence too much, and he paid it rather than have trouble; -that he tried now to buy a ticket, and was answered by a ticket seller -as surly as a hotel clerk that he was not selling tickets for that train -yet; that he finally got his ticket, and was beguiled of his satchel by -a railway porter at once, who put it into a first-class carriage and got -a sixpence, which the company forbids him to receive; that presently -when the guard (or conductor) of the train came along the Shah slipped a -shilling into his hand and said he wanted to smoke, and straightway the -guard signified that it was all right; that when the Shah arrived at -Windsor Castle he rang the bell, and when the girl came to the door -asked her if the Queen was at home, and she left him standing in the -hall and went to see; that by and by she returned and said would he -please sit down in the front room and Mrs. Guelph would be down -directly; that he hung his hat on the hatrack, stood his umbrella up in -the corner, entered the front room and sat down on a haircloth chair; -that he waited and waited and got tired; that he got up and examined the -old piano, the depressing lithographs on the walls and the album of -photographs of faded country relatives on the center table, and was just -about to fall back on the family Bible when the Queen entered briskly -and begged him to sit down and apologized for keeping him waiting, but -she had just got a new girl and everything was upside down, and so forth -and so on; but how are the family, and when did he arrive, and how long -should he stay and why didn’t he bring his wife. I knew that that was -the picture which would spring up in the American reader’s mind when it -was said the Shah went to visit the Queen, because that was the picture -which the announcement suggested to my own mind. - -But it was far from the facts, very far. Nothing could be farther. In -truth, these people made as much of a to do over a mere friendly call as -anybody else would over a conflagration. There were special railway -trains for the occasion; there was a general muster of princes and dukes -to go along, each one occupying room 40; there were regiments of cavalry -to clear the way; railway stations were turned into flower gardens, -sheltered with flags and all manner of gaudy splendor; there were -multitudes of people to look on over the heads of interminable ranks of -policemen standing shoulder to shoulder and facing front; there was -braying of music and booming of cannon. All that fuss, in sober truth, -over a mere off-hand friendly call. Imagine what it would have been if -he had brought another shirt and was going to stay a month. - - AT THE GUILDHALL - -Truly, I am like to suffocate with astonishment at the things that are -going on around me here. It is all odd, it is all queer enough, I can -tell you; but last night’s work transcends anything I ever heard of in -the way of--well, how shall I express it? how can I word it? I find it -awkward to get at it. But to say it in a word--and it is a true one, -too, as hundreds and hundreds of people will testify--last night the -Corporation of the City of London, with a simplicity and ignorance which -almost rise to sublimity, actually gave a ball to a Shah who does not -dance. If I would allow myself to laugh at a cruel mistake, this would -start me. It is the oddest thing that has happened since I have had -charge of the Shah. There is some excuse for it in the fact that the -Aldermen of London are simply great and opulent merchants, and cannot be -expected to know much about the ways of high life--but then they could -have asked some of us who have been with the Shah. - -The ball was a marvel in its way. The historical Guildhall was a scene -of great magnificence. There was a high dais at one end, on which were -three state chairs under a sumptuous canopy; upon the middle one sat the -Shah, who was almost a Chicago conflagration of precious stones and gold -bullion lace. Among other gems upon his breast were a number of emeralds -of marvelous size, and from a loop hung an historical diamond of great -size and wonderful beauty. On the right of the Shah sat the Princess of -Wales, and on his left the wife of the Crown Prince of Russia. Grouped -about the three stood a full jury of minor princes, princesses, and -ambassadors hailing from many countries. - - THE TWO CORRALS - -The immense hall was divided in the middle by a red rope. The Shah’s -division was sacred to blue blood, and there was breathing room there; -but the other corral was but a crush of struggling and perspiring -humanity. The place was brilliant with gas and was a rare spectacle in -the matter of splendid costumes and rich coloring. The lofty -stained-glass windows, pictured with celebrated episodes in the history -of the ancient city, were lighted from the outside, and one may imagine -the beauty of the effect. The great giants, Gog and Magog (whose origin -and history, curiously enough, are unknown even to tradition), looked -down from the lofty gallery, but made no observation. Down the long -sides of the hall, with but brief spaces between, were imposing groups -of marble statuary; and, contrasted with the masses of life and color -about them, they made a picturesque effect. The groups were statues (in -various attitudes) of the Duke of Wellington. I do not say this -knowingly, but only supposingly; but I never have seen a statue in -England yet that represented anybody but the Duke of Wellington, and, as -for the streets and terraces and courts and squares that are named after -him or after selections from his 797 titles, they are simply beyond the -grasp of arithmetic. This reminds me that, having named everything after -Wellington that there was left to name in England (even down to -Wellington boots), our British brothers, still unsatisfied, still -oppressed with adulation, blandly crossed over and named our Californian -big trees Wellington, and put it in Latin at that. They did that, calmly -ignoring the fact that we, the discoverers and owners of the trees, had -long ago named them after a larger man. However, if the ghost of -Wellington enjoys such a proceeding, possibly the ghost of Washington -will not greatly trouble itself about the matter. But what really -disturbs me is that, while Wellington is justly still in the fashion -here, Washington is fading out of the fashion with us. It is not a good -sign. The idols we have raised in his stead are not to our honor. - -Some little dancing was done in the sacred corral in front of the Shah -by grandees belonging mainly to “grace-of-God” families, but he himself -never agitated a foot. The several thousand commoner people on the other -side of the rope could not dance any more than sardines in a box. -Chances to view the Guildhall spectacle were so hungered for that people -offered £5 for the privilege of standing three minutes in the musicians’ -gallery and were refused. I cannot convey to you an idea of the -inordinate desire which prevails here to see the Shah better than by -remarking that speculators who held four-seat opera boxes at Covent -Garden Theater to-night were able to get $250 for them. Had all the -seats been sold at auction the opera this evening would have produced -not less than one hundred and twenty-five thousand dollars in gold! I am -below the figures rather than above them. The greatest house (for money) -that America ever saw was gathered together upon the occasion of Jenny -Lind’s first concert at Castle Garden. The seats were sold at auction -and produced something over twenty thousand dollars. - -I am by no means trying to describe the Guildhall affair of last night. -Such a crush of titled swells; such a bewildering array of jeweled -uniforms and brilliant feminine costumes; such solemn and awful -reception ceremonies in the library; such grim and stately imposing -addresses and Persian replies; such imposing processional pageantry -later on; such depressing dancing before the apathetic Shah; such ornate -tables and imperial good cheer at the banquet--it makes a body tired to -merely think of trying to put all that on paper. Perhaps you, sir, will -be good enough to imagine it, and thus save one who respects you and -honors you five columns of solid writing. - - THE LUNATIC ASYLUM IS BLESSED WITH A GLIMPSE - -As regards the momentous occasion of the opera, this evening, I found -myself in a grievous predicament, for a republican. The tickets were all -sold long ago, so I must either go as a member of the royal family or -not at all. After a good deal of reflection it seemed best not to mix up -with that class lest a political significance might be put upon it. But -a queer arrangement had been devised whereby I might have a glimpse of -the show, and I took advantage of that. There is an immense barn-like -glass house attached to the rear of the theater, and that was fitted up -with seats, carpets, mirrors, gas, columns, flowers, garlands, and a -meager row of shrubs strung down the sides on brackets--to create an -imposing forest effect, I suppose. The place would seat ten or twelve -hundred people. All but a hundred paid a dollar and a quarter a -seat--for what? To look at the Shah three quarters of a minute, while he -walked through to enter the theater. The remaining hundred paid $11 a -seat for the same privilege, with the added luxury of rushing on the -stage and glancing at the opera audience for one single minute -afterward, while the chorus sung “God Save the Queen!” We are all gone -mad, I do believe. Eleven hundred five-shilling lunatics and a hundred -two-guinea maniacs. The _Herald_ purchased a ticket and created me one -of the latter, along with two or three more of the staff. - -Our cab was about No. 17,342 in the string that worked its slow way -through London and past the theater. The Shah was not to come till nine -o’clock, and yet we had to be at the theater by half past six, or we -would not get into the glass house at all, they said. We were there on -time, and seated in a small gallery which overlooked a very brilliantly -dressed throng of people. Every seat was occupied. We sat there two -hours and a half gazing and melting. The wide, red-carpeted central -aisle below offered good display ground for officials in fine uniforms, -and they made good use of it. - - ROYALTY ARRIVES - -By and by a band in showy uniform came in and stood opposite the -entrance. At the end of a tedious interval of waiting trumpets sounded -outside, there was some shouting, the band played half of “God Save the -Queen,” and then the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge and a dozen gorgeous -Persian officials entered. After a little the young Prince Arthur came, -in a blue uniform, with a whole broadside of gold and silver medals on -his breast--for good behavior, punctuality, accurate spelling, -penmanship, etc., I suppose, but I could not see the inscriptions. The -band gave him some bars of “God Save the Queen,” too, while he stood -under us talking, with altogether unroyal animation, with the -Persians--the crowd of people staring hungrily at him the while--country -cousins, maybe, who will go home and say, “I was as close to him as I am -to that chair this minute.” - -Then came the Duke of Teck and the Princess Mary, and the band -God-Save-the-Queen’d them also. Now came the Prince of Wales and the -Russian Tsarina--the royal anthem again, with an extra blast at the end -of it. After them came a young, handsome, mighty giant, in showy -uniform, his breast covered with glittering orders, and a general’s -chapeau, with a flowing white plume, in his hand--the heir to all the -throne of all the Russias. The band greeted him with the Russian -national anthem, and played it clear through. And they did right; for -perhaps it is not risking too much to say that this is the only national -air in existence that is really worthy of a great nation. - -And at last came the long-expected millennium himself, His Imperial -Majesty the Shah, with the charming Princess of Wales on his arm. He had -all his jewels on, and his diamond shaving brush in his hat front. He -shone like a window with the westering sun on it. - - WHAT THE ASYLUM SAW - -The small space below us was full now--it could accommodate no more -royalty. The august procession filed down the aisle in double rank, the -Shah and the Princess of Wales in the lead, and cheers broke forth and a -waving of handkerchiefs as the Princess passed--all said this -demonstration was meant for her. As the procession disappeared through -the farther door, the hundred eleven-dollar maniacs rushed through a -small aperture, then through an anteroom, and gathered in a flock on the -stage, the chorus striking up “God Save the Queen” at the same moment. - -We stood in a mighty bandbox, or a Roman coliseum, with a sea of faces -stretching far away over the ground floor, and above them rose five -curving tiers of gaudy humanity, the dizzy upper tier in the far -distance rising sharply up against the roof, like a flower garden trying -to hold an earthquake down and not succeeding. It was a magnificent -spectacle, and what with the roaring of the chorus, the waving of -handkerchiefs, the cheering of the people, the blazing gas, and the -awful splendor of the long file of royalty, standing breast to breast in -the royal box, it was wonderfully exhilarating, not to say exciting. - -The chorus sang only three-quarters of a minute--one stanza--and down -came the huge curtain and shut out the fairyland. And then all those -eleven-dollar people hunted their way out again. - - A NATION DEMENTED - -We are certainly gone mad. We scarcely look at the young colossus who is -to reign over 70,000,000 of people and the mightiest empire in extent -which exists to-day. We have no eyes but for this splendid barbarian, -who is lord over a few deserts and a modest ten million of -ragamuffins--a man who has never done anything to win our gratitude or -excite our admiration, except that he managed to starve a million of his -subjects to death in twelve months. If he had starved the rest I suppose -we would set up a monument to him now. - -The London theaters are almost absolutely empty these nights. Nobody -goes, hardly. The managers are being ruined. The streets for miles are -crammed with people waiting whole long hours for a chance glimpse of the -Shah. I never saw any man “draw” like this one. - -Is there any truth in the report that your bureaus are trying to get the -Shah to go over there and lecture? He could get $100,000 a night here -and choose his own subject. - -I know a showman who has got a pill that belonged to him, and which for -some reason he did not take. That showman will not take any money for -that pill. He is going to travel with it. And let me tell you he will -get more engagements than he can fill in a year. - - IV - MARK TWAIN HOOKS THE PERSIAN OUT OF - THE ENGLISH CHANNEL - - LONDON, _June 26, 1873_. - -I suppose I am the only member of the Shah’s family who is not wholly -broken down and worn out; and, to tell the truth, there is not much of -me left. If you have ever been limited to four days in Paris or Rome or -Jerusalem and been “rushed” by a guide you can form a vague, far-away -sort of conception of what the Shah and the rest of us have endured -during these late momentous days. If this goes on we may as well get -ready for the imperial inquest. - -When I was called at five o’clock the other morning to go to Portsmouth, -and remembered that the Shah’s incessant movements had left me only -three hours’ sleep that night, nothing but a sense of duty drove me -forth. A cab could not be found, nor a carriage in all London. I lost an -hour and a half waiting and trying, then started on foot and lost my -way; consequently I missed one train by a good while, another one by -three minutes, and then had more than half an hour to spare before -another would go. Most people had had a similar experience, and there -was comfort in that. We started at last, and were more than three hours -going seventy-two miles. We stopped at no stations, hardly, but we -halted every fifteen minutes out in the woods and fields for no purpose -that we could discover. Never was such an opportunity to look at -scenery. There were five strangers in our car, or carriage, as the -English call it, and by degrees their English reserve thawed out and -they passed around their sherry and sandwiches and grew sociable. - -One of them had met the Russian General of Police in St. Petersburg, and -found him a queer old simple-hearted soldier, proud of his past and -devoted to his master, the present Tsar, and to the memory of his -predecessor, Nicholas. The English gentleman gave an instance of the old -man’s simplicity which one would not expect in a chief of police. The -general had been visiting London and been greatly impressed by two -things there--the admirable police discipline and the museum. It -transpired that the museum he referred to was not that mighty collection -of marvels known to all the world as the British Museum, but Mme. -Toussaud’s Waxworks Show; and in this waxwork show he had seen a figure -of the Emperor Nicholas. And did it please him? Yes, as to the likeness; -for it was a good likeness and a commanding figure; but--“_Mon Dieu!_ -try to fancy it, m’sieu--dressed in the uniform of a simple colonel of -infantry!--the great Nicholas of Russia, my august late master, dressed -in a colonel’s uniform!” - -The old general could not abide that. He went to the proprietor and -remonstrated against this wanton indignity. The proprietor was grieved; -but it was the only Russian uniform he could get, and---- - -“Say no more!” said the general. “May I get you one?” - -The proprietor would be most happy. The general lost not a moment; he -wrote at once to the Emperor Alexander, describing with anguish the -degradation which the late great Nicholas was suffering day by day -through his infamously clothed waxen representative, and imploring His -Majesty to send suitable raiment for the imperial dummy, and also a -letter to authenticate the raiment. And out of regard for the old -servant and respect for his outraged feelings the Emperor of all the -Russias descended from his Alpine altitude to send to the Toussaud -waxwork the general’s uniform worn last by his father, and to write with -his own hand an authenticating letter to go with it. So the -simple-hearted police chief was happy once more, and never once thought -of charging the “museum” $10,000 for these valuable additions to the -show, which he might easily have done, and collected the money, too. How -like our own chiefs of police this good old soul is! - -Another of these English gentlemen told an anecdote, which, he said, was -old, but which I had not heard before. He said that one day St. Peter -and the devil chanced to be thrown together, and found it pretty dull -trying to pass the time. Finally they got to throwing dice for a lawyer. -The devil threw sixes. Then St. Peter threw sixes. The devil threw sixes -again. St. Peter threw sixes again. The devil threw sixes once more. -Then St. Peter threw sevens, and the devil said, “Oh, come now, Your -Honor, cheat fair. None of your playing miracles here!” I thought there -was a nice bit of humor in that suggestion to “cheat fair.” - - A SMALL PRIVATE NAUTICAL RACE - -I am getting to Portsmouth about as fast in this letter as I did in that -train. The Right Honorable the Mayor of Portsmouth had had a steamer -placed at his disposal by the Admiralty, and he had invited the Lord -Mayor of London and other guests to go in her. This was the ship I was -to sail in, and she was to leave her pier at 9 A.M. sharp. I arrived at -that pier at ten minutes to eleven exactly. There was one chance left, -however. The ship had stopped for something and was floating at ease -about a mile away. - -A rusty, decayed, little two-oared skiff, the size of a bathtub, came -floating by, with a fisherman and his wife and child in it. I entreated -the man to come in and take me to the ship. Presently he consented and -started toward me. I stood impatient and all ready to jump the moment he -should get within thirty yards of me; he halted at the distance of -thirty-five and said it would be a long pull; did I think I could pay -him two shillings for it, seeing it was a holiday? All this palaver and -I in such a state of mind! I jumped aboard and told him to rush, which -he did; at least he threw his whole heart into his little, useless oars, -and we moved off at the rate of a mile a week. This was solid misery. -When we had gone a hundred and nine feet and were gaining on the tenth a -long, trim, graceful man-of-war’s boat came flying by, bound for the -flagship. Without expecting even the courtesy of a response, I hailed -and asked the coxswain to take me to the mayor’s vessel. He said, -“Certainly, sir!--ease her, boys!” I could not have been more astonished -at anything in the world. I quickly gave my man his two shillings, and -he started to pull me to the boat. Then there was a movement of -discontent among the sailors, and they seemed about to move on. I -thought--well, you are not such generous fellows, after all, as I took -you to be, or so polite, either; but just then the coxswain hailed and -said: - -“The boys don’t mind the pull, and they’re perfectly willing to take -you, but they say they ain’t willing to take the fisherman’s job away -from him.” - -Now that was genuine manliness and right conduct. I shall always -remember that honorable act. I told them the fisherman was already paid, -and I was in their boat the next moment. Then ensued the real fun of the -day, as far as I was personally concerned. The boys glanced over their -shoulders to measure the distance, and then at the order to “Give way!” -they bent to it and the boat sped through the water like an arrow. We -passed all kinds of craft and steadily shortened the distance that lay -between us and the ship. Presently the coxswain said: - -“No use! Her wheels have begun to turn over. Lively now, lively!” - -Then we flew. We watched the ship’s movement with a sharp interest and -calculated our chances. - -“Can you steer?” said the coxswain. - -“Can a duck swim?” said I. - -“Good--we’ll make her yet!” - -I took the helm and he the stroke oar, and that one oar did appear to -add a deal to that boat’s speed. The ship was turning around to go out -to sea, and she did seem to turn unnecessarily fast, too; but just as -she was pointed right and both her wheels began to go ahead our boat’s -bow touched her companionway and I was aboard. It was a handsome race, -and very exciting. If I could have had that dainty boat and those eight -white-shirted, blue-trousered sailors for the day I would not have gone -in any ship, but would have gone about in vast naval style and -experienced the feelings of an admiral. - - OLD HISTORICAL MEN-OF-WAR - -Our ship sailed out through a narrow way, bordered by piers that swarmed -with people, and likewise by prodigious men-of-war of the fashion of a -hundred years ago. There were, perhaps, a dozen of the stately veterans, -these relics of an historic past; and not looking aged and seedy, -either, but as bright and fresh as if they had been launched and painted -yesterday. They were the noblest creatures to look upon; hulls of huge -proportion and great length; four long tiers of cannon grinning from -their tall sides; vast sterns that towered into the air like the gable -end of a church; graceful bows and figureheads; masts as trim and lofty -as spires--surely no spectacle could be so imposing as a sea fight in -the old times, when such beautiful and such lordly ships as these ruled -the seas. And how it must have stirred the heart of England when a fleet -of them used to come sailing in from victory, with ruined sides and -tattered spars and sails, while bells and cannon pealed a welcome! - -One of the grandest of these veterans was the very one upon whose deck -Nelson himself fell in the moment of triumph. I suppose England would -rather part with ten colonies than with that illustrious old ship. We -passed along within thirty steps of her, and I was just trying to -picture in my mind the tremendous scenes that had transpired upon her -deck upon that day, the proudest in England’s naval history, when the -venerable craft, stirred by the boom of saluting cannon, perhaps, woke -up out of her long sleep and began to vomit smoke and thunder herself, -and then she looked her own natural self again, and no doubt the spirit -of Nelson was near. Still it would have been pleasanter to be on her -decks than in front of her guns; for, as the white volumes of smoke -burst in our faces, one could not help feeling that a ball might by -accident have got mixed up with a blank cartridge, and might chip just -enough off the upper end of a man to disfigure him for life; and, -besides, the powder they use in cannon is in grains as large as billiard -chalks, and it does not all explode--suppose a few should enter one’s -system? The crash and roar of these great guns was as unsettling a sound -as I have ever heard at short range. I took off my hat and acknowledged -the salute, of course, though it seemed to me that it would have been -better manners if they had saluted the Lord Mayor, inasmuch as he was on -board. - - THE WORLD’S GREATEST NAVY ON VIEW - -We went out to the Spithead and sailed up and down there for four hours -through four long ranks of stately men-of-war--formidable ironclads they -were--the most insignificant of which would make a breakfast of a whole -fleet of Nelson’s prodigious ships and still be hungry. The show was -very fine, for there were forty-nine of the finest ironclads the world -can show, and many gunboats besides. Indeed, here in its full strength -was the finest navy in the world, and this the only time in history that -just such a spectacle has been seen, and none who saw it that day is -likely to live long enough to see its like again. The vessels were all -dressed out with flags, and all about them frolicked a bewildering host -of bannered yachts, steamers, and every imaginable sort of craft. It -would be hard to contrive a gayer scene. One of the royal yachts came -flying along presently and put the Shah on board one of the ironclads, -and then the yards of the whole fleet were manned simultaneously, and -such another booming and bellowing of great guns ensued as I cannot -possibly describe. Within two minutes the huge fleet was swallowed up in -smoke, with angry red tongues of fire darting through it here and there. -It was wonderful to look upon. Every time the _Devastation_ let off one -of her thirty-five-ton guns it seemed as if an entire London fog issued -from her side, and the report was so long coming that if she were to -shoot a man he would be dead before he heard it, and would probably go -around wondering through all eternity what it was that happened to him. -I returned to London in a great hurry by a train that was in no way -excited by it, but failed in the end and object I had in view after all, -which was to go to the grand concert at Albert Hall in honor of the -Shah. I had a strong desire to see that building filled with people -once. Albert Hall is one of the many monuments erected to the memory of -the late Prince Albert. It is a huge and costly edifice, but the -architectural design is old, not to say in some sense a plagiarism; for -there is but little originality in putting a dome on a gasometer. It is -said to seat 13,000 people, and surely that is a thing worth seeing--at -least to a man who was not at the Boston Jubilee. But no tickets were to -be had--every seat was full, they said. It was no particular matter, but -what made me mad was to come so extremely close and then miss. Indeed, I -was madder than I can express, to think that if the architect had only -planned the place to hold 13,001 I could have got in. But, after all, I -was not the only person who had occasion to feel vexed. Colonel X, a -noted man in America, bought a seat some days ago for $10 and a little -afterward met a knowing person who said the Shah would be physically -worn out before that concert night and would not be there, and -consequently nobody else; so the seat was immediately sold for $5. Then -came another knowing one, who said the Shah would unquestionably be at -the concert, so the colonel went straight and bought his ticket back -again. The temporary holder of it only charged him $250 for carrying it -around for him during the interval! The colonel was at the concert, and -took the Shah’s head clerk for the Shah all the evening. Vexation could -go no further than that. - - V - MARK TWAIN GIVES THE ROYAL PERSIAN - A “SEND-OFF” - - LONDON, _June 30, 1873_. - -For the present we are done with the Shah in London. He is gone to the -country to be further “impressed.” After all, it would seem that he was -more moved and more genuinely entertained by the military day at Windsor -than by even the naval show at Portsmouth. It is not to be wondered at, -since he is a good deal of a soldier himself and not much of a sailor. -It has been estimated that there were 300,000 people assembled at -Windsor--some say 500,000. That was a show in itself. The Queen of -England was there; so was Windsor Castle; also an imposing array of -cavalry, artillery, and infantry. And the accessories to these several -shows were the matchless rural charms of England--a vast expanse of -green sward, walled in by venerable forest trees, and beyond them -glimpses of hills clothed in Summer vegetation. Upon such a theater a -bloodless battle was fought and an honorable victory won by trained -soldiers who have not always been carpet knights, but whose banners bear -the names of many historic fights. - -England is now practically done with the Shah. True, his engagement is -not yet completed, for he is still billed to perform at one or two -places; but curiosity is becoming sated, and he will hardly draw as good -houses as heretofore. Whenever a star has to go to the provinces it is a -bad sign. The poor man is well nigh worn out with hard work. The other -day he was to have performed before the Duke of Buccleuch and was -obliged to send an excuse. Since then he failed of his engagement at the -Bank of England. He does not take rest even when he might. He has a -telegraphic apparatus in his apartments in Buckingham Palace, and it is -said that he sits up late, talking with his capital of Persia by -telegraph. He is so fascinated with the wonderful contrivance that he -cannot keep away from it. No doubt it is the only homelike thing the -exile finds in the hard, practical West, for it is the next of kin to -the enchanted carpets that figure in the romance and traditions of his -own land, and which carry the wanderer whither he will about the earth, -circumscribing the globe in the twinkling of an eye, propelled by only -the force of an unspoken wish. - - GOSSIP ABOUT THE SHAH - -This must be a dreary, unsatisfactory country to him, where one’s -desires are thwarted at every turn. Last week he woke up at three in the -morning and demanded of the Vizier on watch by his bedside that the -ballet dancers be summoned to dance before him. The Vizier prostrated -himself upon the floor and said: - -“O king of kings, light of the world, source of human peace and -contentment, the glory and admiration of the age, turn away thy sublime -countenance, let not thy fateful frown wither thy slave; for behold the -dancers dwell wide asunder in the desert wastes of London, and not in -many hours could they be gathered together.” - -The Shah could not even speak, he was so astounded with the novelty of -giving a command that could not be obeyed. He sat still a moment, -suffering, then wrote in his tablets these words: - -“MEM.--Upon arrival in Teheran, let the Vizier have the coffin which has -just been finished for the late general of the household troops--it will -save time.” - -He then got up and set his boots outside the door to be blacked and went -back to bed, calm and comfortable, making no more to-do about giving -away that costly coffin than I would about spending a couple of -shillings. - - THE LESSON OF HIS JOURNEY - -If the mountains of money spent by civilized Europe in entertaining the -Shah shall win him to adopt some of the mild and merciful ways that -prevail in Christian realms it will have been money well and wisely laid -out. If he learns that a throne may rest as firmly upon the affections -of a people as upon their fears; that charity and justice may go hand in -hand without detriment to the authority of the sovereign; that an -enlarged liberty granted to the subject need not impair the power of the -monarch; if he learns these things Persia will be the gainer by his -journey, and the money which Europe has expended in entertaining him -will have been profitably invested. That the Shah needs a hint or two in -these directions is shown by the language of the following petition, -which has just reached him from certain Parsees residing here and in -India: - - THE PETITION - - 1. A heavy and oppressive poll tax, called the Juzia, is imposed upon - the remnant of the ancient Zoroastrian race now residing in Persia. A - hundred years ago, when the Zoroastrian population was 30,000 - families, and comparatively well-to-do, the tax was only 250 toomans; - now, when there are scarcely six thousand souls altogether, and - stricken with poverty, they have to pay 800 toomans. In addition to - the crushing effect of this tax, the government officials oppress - these poor people in enforcing the tax. - - 2. A Parsee desirous of buying landed property is obliged to pay - twenty per cent. on the value of the property as fee to the Kazee and - other authorities. - - 3. When a Parsee dies any member of his family, no matter however - distant, who may have previously been converted to Mohammedanism, - claims and obtains the whole property of the deceased, to the - exclusion of all the rightful heirs. In enforcing this claim the - convert is backed and supported by government functionaries. - - 4. When a Parsee returns to Persia from a foreign country he is - harassed with all sorts of exactions at the various places he has to - pass through in Persia. - - 5. When any dispute arises, whether civil or criminal, between a - Mohammedan and a Parsee, the officials invariably side with the - former, and the testimony of one Mohammedan--no matter how false on - its very face--receives more credit than that of a dozen or any number - of Parsee witnesses. If a Mohammedan kills a Parsee he is only fined - about eight toomans, or four pounds sterling; but on the contrary, if - a Parsee wounds or murders a Mohammedan he is not only cut to pieces - himself, but all his family and children are put to the sword, and - sometimes all the Parsees living in the same street are harassed in a - variety of ways. The Parsees are prevented from dressing themselves - well and from riding a horse or donkey. No matter, even if he were ill - and obliged to ride, he is compelled to dismount in the presence of a - Mohammedan rider, and is forced to walk to the place of his - destination. The Parsees are not allowed to trade in European - articles, nor are they allowed to deal in domestic produce, as - grocers, dyers, or oilmen, tailors, dairymen, &c., on the ground that - their touch would pollute the articles and supplies and make them - unfit for the use of Mohammedans. - - 6. The Parsees are often insulted and abused in every way by the - Mohammedans, and their children are stolen or forcibly taken away from - them by the Mohammedans. These children are concealed in Mohammedan - houses, their names are changed, and they are forced to become - Mohammedans, and when they refuse to embrace the Mohammedan faith they - are maltreated in various ways. When a man is forcibly converted, his - wife and family are also forced to join him as Mohammedans. The - Mohammedans desecrate the sacred places of worship of the Zoroastrians - and the places for the disposal of their dead. - - 7. In general the Parsees are heavily taxed in various ways, and are - subjected to great oppression. In consequence of such persecution the - Parsee population of Persia has, during this century, considerably - decreased and is now so small that it consists of a few thousand - families only. It is possible that these persecutions are practiced on - the Zoroastrian inhabitants of Persia without the knowledge of His - Majesty the Shah. - - THE INGENIOUS BARON REUTER - -It is whispered that the Shah’s European trip was not suggested by the -Shah himself, but by the noted telegraphic newsman, Baron Reuter. People -who pretend to know say that Reuter began life very poor; that he was an -energetic spirit and improved such opportunities as fell in his way; -that he learned several languages, and finally became a European guide, -or courier, and employed himself in conducting all sorts of foreigners -through all sorts of countries and wearing them out with the usual -frantic system of sight-seeing. That was a good education for him; it -also gave him an intimate knowledge of all the routes of travel and -taught him how certain long ones might be shortened. By and by he got -some carrier pigeons and established a news express, which necessarily -prospered, since it furnished journals and commercial people with all -matters of importance considerably in advance of the mails. When -railways came into vogue he obtained concessions which enlarged his -facilities and still enabled him to defy competition. He was ready for -the telegraph and seized that, too; and now for years - - “REUTER’S TELEGRAMS” - -has stood in brackets at the head of the telegraphic column of all -European journals. He became rich; he bought telegraph lines and built -others, purchased a second-hand German baronetcy, and finally sold out -his telegraphic property to his government for $3,000,000 and was out of -business for once. But he could not stay out. - -After building himself a sort of a palace, he looked around for fresh -game, singled out the Shah of Persia and “went for him,” as the -historian Josephus phrases it. He got an enormous “concession” from him -and then conceived the admirable idea of exhibiting a Shah of Persia in -the capitals of Europe and thus advertising his concession before -needful capitalists. It was a sublimer idea than any that any showman’s -brain has ever given birth to. No Shah had ever voluntarily traveled in -Europe before; but then no Shah had ever fallen into the hands of a -European guide before. - - THE FAT “CONCESSION” - -The baron’s “concession” is a financial curiosity. It allows him the -sole right to build railways in Persia for the next seventy years; also -street railroads; gives all the land necessary, free of charge, for -double tracks and fifty or sixty yards on each side; all importations of -_material_, etc., free of duty; all the baron’s exports free of duty -also. The baron may appropriate and work all mines (except those of the -precious metals) free of charge, the Shah to have 15 per cent of the -profits. Any private mine may be “gobbled” (the Persian word is -_akbamarish_) by the baron if it has not been worked during five years -previously. The baron has the exclusive privilege of making the most of -all government forests, he giving the Shah 15 per cent of the profits -from the wood sold. After a forest is removed, the baron is to be -preferred before all other purchasers if he wants to buy the land. The -baron alone may dig wells and construct canals, and he is to own all the -land made productive by such works. The baron is empowered to raise -$30,000,000 on the capital stock for working purposes, and the Shah -agrees to pay 7 per cent interest on it; and Persia is wholly -unencumbered with debt. The Shah hands over to the baron the management -of his customs for twenty years, and the baron engages to pay for this -privilege $100,000 a year more than the Shah now receives, so the baron -means to wake up that sleepy Persian commerce. After the fifth year the -baron is to pay the Shah an additional 60 per cent of the profits, if -his head is still a portion of his person then. The baron is to have -first preference in the establishment of a bank. The baron has -preference in establishing gas, road, telegraph, mill, manufacturing, -forge, pavement, and all such enterprises. The Shah is to have 20 per -cent of the profits arising from the railways. Finally, the baron may -sell out whenever he wants to. - -It is a good “concession” in its way. It seems to make the Shah say: -“Run Persia at my expense and give me a fifth of the profits.” - -One’s first impulse is to envy the baron; but, after all, I do not know. -Some day, if things do not go to suit the Shah, he may say, “There is no -head I admire so much as this baron’s; bring it to me on a plate.” - - DEPARTURE OF THE IMPERIAL CIRCUS. - -We are all sorry to see the Shah leave us, and yet are glad on his -account. We have had all the fun and he all the fatigue. He would not -have lasted much longer here. I am just here reminded that the only way -whereby you may pronounce the Shah’s title correctly is by taking a -pinch of snuff. The result will be “t-Shah!” - - - - - A WONDERFUL PAIR OF SLIPPERS - - (WITH LETTERS CONCERNING THEM FROM MARK - TWAIN AND ELSIE LESLIE LYDE) - - MARK TWAIN’S LETTER - - HARTFORD, _Oct. 5, ’89_. - -DEAR ELSIE: The way of it was this. Away last spring, Gillette[1] and I -pooled intellects on this proposition: to get up a pleasant surprise of -some kind for you against your next visit--the surprise to take the form -of a tasteful and beautiful testimonial of some sort or other, which -should express somewhat of the love we felt for you. Together we hit -upon just the right thing--a pair of slippers. Either one of us could -have thought of a single slipper, but it took both of us to think of two -slippers. In fact, one of us did think of one slipper, and then, quick -as a flash, the other thought of the other one. It shows how wonderful -the human mind is. It is really paleontological; you give one mind a -bone, and the other one instantly divines the rest of the animal. - -Gillette embroidered his slipper with astonishing facility and splendor, -but I have been a long time pulling through with mine. You see, it was -my very first attempt at art, and I couldn’t rightly get the hang of it -along at first. And then I was so busy that I couldn’t get a chance to -work at it at home, and they wouldn’t let me embroider on the cars; they -said it made the other passengers afraid. They didn’t like the light -that flared into my eye when I had an inspiration. And even the most -fair-minded people doubted me when I explained what it was I was -making--especially brakemen. Brakemen always swore at it, and carried -on, the way ignorant people do, about art. They wouldn’t take my word -that it was a slipper; they said they believed it was a snowshoe that -had some kind of a disease. - -But I have pulled through, and within twenty-four hours of the time I -told you I would--day before yesterday. There ought to be a key to the -designs, but I haven’t had time to get one up. However, if you will lay -the work before you with the forecastle pointing north, I will begin at -that end and explain the whole thing, layer by layer, so that you can -understand it. - -I began with that first red bar, and without ulterior design, or plan of -any sort--just as I would begin a Prince and Pauper, or any other tale. -And mind you it is the easiest and surest way; because if you invent two -or three people and turn them loose in your manuscript, something is -bound to happen to them--you can’t help it; and then it will take you -the rest of the book to get them out of the natural consequences of that -occurrence, and so, first thing you know, there’s your book all finished -up and never cost you an idea. Well, the red stripe, with a bias stitch, -naturally suggested a blue one with a perpendicular stitch, and I -slammed it in, though when it came daylight I saw it was green--which -didn’t make any difference, because green and blue are much the same, -anyway, and in fact from a purely moral point of view are regarded by -the best authorities as identical. Well, if you will notice, a blue -perpendicular stitch always suggests a ropy red involved stitch, like a -family of angle-worms trying to climb in under each other to keep -warm--it would suggest that, every time, without the author of the -slipper ever having to think about it at all. - -Now at that point, young Dr. Root came in, and, of course, he was -interested in the slipper right away, because he has always had a -passion for art himself, but has never had a chance to try, because his -folks are opposed to it and superstitious about it, and have done all -they could to keep him back; and so he was eager to take a hand and see -what he could do. And it was beautiful to see him sit there and tell -Mrs. Clemens what had been happening while we were off on summer -vacation, and hold the slipper up toward the end of his nose, and forget -the sordid world, and imagine the canvas was a “subject” with a scalp -wound, and nimbly whirl in that lovely surgical stitch which you see -there--and never hesitating a moment in his talk except to say “Ouch” -when he stuck himself, and then going right on again as smooth and easy -as nothing. Yes, it was a charming spectacle. And it was real art, -too--realistic, just native untaught genius; you can see the very scalp -itself, showing through between the stitches. - -Well, next I threw in that sheaf of green rods which the lictors used to -carry before the Roman consuls to lick them with when they didn’t -behave--they turned blue in the morning, but that is the way green -always acts. - -The next week, after a good rest, I snowed in that sea of frothy waves, -and set that yellow thing afloat in it and those two things that are -skewered through it. It isn’t a home plate, and it isn’t a papal tiara -with the keys of St. Peter; no, it is a heart--my heart--with two arrows -stuck through it--arrows that go in blue and come out crimson--crimson -with the best drops in that heart, and gladly shed for love of you, -dear. - -Now then, as you strike to the south’ard and drift along down the -starboard side, abaft the main-to’-gallant scuppers, you come to that -blue quarter-deck which runs the rest of the way aft to the jumping-off -place. In the midst of that blue you will see some big red letters--M. -T.; and west’ard, over on the port side, you will see some more red -letters--TO E. L. Aggregated, these several groups of letters signify, -Mark Twain to Elsie Leslie. And you will notice that you have a gift for -art yourself, for the southern half of the L, embroidered by yourself, -is as good as anything I can do, after all my experience. - -There, now you understand the whole work. From a professional point of -view I consider the Heart and Arrows by all odds the greatest triumph -of the whole thing; in fact, one of the ablest examples of civil -engineering in a beginner I ever saw--for it was all inspiration, just -the lightninglike inspiration of the moment. I couldn’t do it again in -a hundred years--even if I recover this time and get just as well and -strong as I was before. You notice what fire there is in it--what -rapture, enthusiasm, frenzy--what blinding explosions of color. It is -just a “Turner”--that is what it is. It is just like his “Slave Ship,” -that immortal work. What you see in the “Slave Ship” is a terrific -explosion of radiating rags and fragments of flaming crimson flying -from a common center of intense yellow which is in violent -commotion--insomuch that a Boston reporter said it reminded him of a -yellow cat dying in a platter of tomatoes. - -Take the slippers and wear them next your heart, Elsie dear; for every -stitch in them is a testimony of the affection which two of your -loyalest friends bear you. Every single stitch cost us blood. I’ve got -twice as many pores in me now as I used to have; and you would never -believe how many places you can stick a needle into yourself until you -go into the embroidery line and devote yourself to art. - -Do not wear these slippers in public, dear; it would only excite envy; -and, as like as not, somebody would try to shoot you. - -Merely use them to assist you in remembering that among the many, many -people who think all the world of you is your friend, - - MARK TWAIN. - - - ELSIE’S REPLY. - - NEW YORK, _October g, 1889_. - -MY DEAR MR. CLEMENS: The slipper the long letter and all the rest came -this afternoon, I think they are splendid and shall have them framed and -keep them among my very most prechus things. I have had a great many -nice things given to me and people often say very pleasant things but I -am not quite shure they always mean it or that they are as trustable as -you and “Leo” and I am very shure thay would not spend their prechus -time and shed their blood for me so you see that is one reason why I -will think so much of it and then it was all so funny to think of two -great big men like you and “little Willie” (that is what “Leo” calls -himself to me) imbroidering a pair of slippers for a little girl like me -of corse you have a great many large words in your letter that I do not -quite understand. One word comencing with P. has fifteen letters in it -and I do not know what you mean by pooled unless you mean you and Leo -put your two minds together to make the slippers which was very nice of -you both I think you are just right about the angle worms thay did look -like that this summer when I used to dig them for bate to fish with -please tell Dr. Root I will think of him when I look at the part he did -the Surgicle Stich I mean I hope you will be quite well and strong by -the time you get this letter as you were before you made my slipper it -would make me very sad if you were to be ill. Give my love to Mrs. -Clemens Susie Clara Gene I-know and you-know and Vix and all of my -Hartford friends tell Gene I wish I was with her and we would have a -nice jump in the hay loft. When you come to New York you must call and -see me then we will see about those big words my address is up in the -top left corner of this letter. - - To my loyal friend - Mark Twain - From his little friend - ELSIE LESLIE LYDE. - -[Not Little Lord Fauntleroy now, but Tom Canty of Offal Court and Little -Edward of Wales.][2] - ------ - -Footnote 1: - - William Gillette, the distinguished actor and playwright. - -Footnote 2: - - Elsie Leslie, then a little girl, played Little Lord Fauntleroy and - the double part of Tom Canty and the Little Prince, with great - success. - - - - - AIX, THE PARADISE OF THE - RHEUMATICS - (Contributed to the New York _Sun_, 1891) - - -Aix-les-Bains. Certainly this is an enchanting place. It is a strong -word, but I think the facts justify it. True, there is a rabble of -nobilities, big and little, here all the time, and often a king or two; -but as these behave quite nicely and also keep mainly to themselves, -they are little or no annoyance. And then a king makes the best -advertisement there is, and the cheapest. All he costs is a reception at -the station by the mayor and the police in their Sunday uniforms, -shop-front decorations along the route from station to hotel, brass band -at the hotel, fireworks in the evening, free bath in the morning. This -is the whole expense; and in return for it he goes away from here with -the broad of his back metaphorically stenciled over with display ads., -which shout to all nations of the world, assisted by the telegraph: - - Rheumatism routed at Aix-les-Bains! - - Gout admonished, Nerves braced up! - - All diseases welcomed, and satisfaction given or the money returned at - the door! - -We leave nature’s noble cliffs and crags undefiled and uninsulted by the -advertiser’s paint brush. We use the back of a king, which is better and -properer and more effective, too, for the cliffs stay still and few see -it, but the king moves across the fields of the world and is visible -from all points, like a constellation. We are out for kings this week, -but one will be along soon--possibly His Satanic Majesty of Russia. -There’s a colossus for you! A mysterious and terrible form that towers -up into unsearchable space and casts a shadow across the universe like a -planet in eclipse. There will be but one absorbing spectacle in this -world when we stencil him and start him out. - -This is an old valley, this of Aix, both in the history of man and in -the geological records of its rocks. Its little lake of Bourget carries -the human history back to the lake dwellers, furnishing seven groups of -their habitations, and Dr. William Wakefield says in his interesting -local guide that the mountains round about furnish “Geographically, a -veritable epitome of the globe.” The stratified chapters of the earth’s -history are clearly and permanently written on the sides of the roaring -bulk of the Dent du Chat, but many of the layers of race, religion, and -government which in turn have flourished and perished here between the -lake dweller of several thousand years ago and the French republican of -to-day, are ill defined and uninforming by comparison. There are several -varieties of pagans. They went their way, one after the other, down into -night and oblivion, leaving no account of themselves, no memorials. The -Romans arrived 2,300 years ago, other parts of France are rich with -remembrances of their eight centuries of occupation, but not many are -here. Other pagans followed the Romans. By and by Christianity arrived, -some 400 years after the time of Christ. The long procession of races, -languages, religions, and dynasties demolished one another’s records--it -is man’s way always. - -As a result, nothing is left of the handiwork of the remoter inhabitants -of the region except the constructions of the lake dwellers and some -Roman odds and ends. There is part of a small Roman temple, there is -part of a Roman bath, there is a graceful and battered Roman arch. It -stands on a turfy level over the way from the present great bath house, -is surrounded by magnolia trees, and is both a picturesque and -suggestive object. It has stood there some 1,600 years. Its nearest -neighbor, not twenty steps away, is a Catholic church. They are symbols -of the two chief eras in the history of Aix. Yes, and of the European -world. I judge that the venerable arch is held in reverent esteem by -everybody, and that this esteem is its sufficient protection from -insult, for it is the only public structure I have yet seen in France -which lacks the sign, “It is forbidden to post bills here.” Its neighbor -the church has that sign on more than one of its sides, and other signs, -too, forbidding certain other sorts of desecration. - -The arch’s nearest neighbor--just at its elbow, like the church--is the -telegraph office. So there you have the three great eras bunched -together--the era of War, the era of Theology, the era of Business. You -pass under the arch, and the buried Cæsars seem to rise from the dust of -the centuries and flit before you; you pass by that old battered church, -and are in touch with the Middle Ages, and with another step you can put -down ten francs and shake hands with Oshkosh under the Atlantic. - -It is curious to think what changes the last of the three symbols stand -for; changes in men’s ways and thoughts, changes in material -civilization, changes in the Deity--or in men’s conception of the Deity, -if that is an exacter way of putting it. The second of the symbols -arrived in the earth at a time when the Deity’s possessions consisted of -a small sky freckled with mustard-seed stars, and under it a patch of -landed estate not so big as the holdings of the Tsar to-day, and all His -time was taken up in trying to keep a handful of Jews in some sort of -order--exactly the same number of them that the Tsar has lately been -dealing with in a more abrupt and far less loving and long-suffering -way. At a later time--a time within all old men’s memories--the Deity -was otherwise engaged. He was dreaming His eternities away on His Great -White Throne, steeped in the soft bliss of hymns of praise wafted aloft -without ceasing from choirs of ransomed souls, Presbyterians and the -rest. This was a Deity proper enough to the size and conditions of -things, no doubt a provincial Deity with provincial tastes. The change -since has been inconceivably vast. His empire has been unimaginably -enlarged. To-day He is a Master of a universe made up of myriads upon -myriads of gigantic suns, and among them, lost in that limitless sea of -light, floats that atom. His earth, which once seemed so good and -satisfactory and cost so many days of patient labor to build, is a mere -cork adrift in the waters of a shoreless Atlantic. This is a business -era, and no doubt he is governing His huge empire now, not by dreaming -the time away in the buzz of hymning choirs, with occasional explosions -of arbitrary power disproportioned to the size of the annoyance, but by -applying laws of a sort proper and necessary to the sane and successful -management of a complex and prodigious establishment, and by seeing to -it that the exact and constant operation of these laws is not interfered -with for the accommodation of any individual or political or religious -faction or nation. - -Mighty has been the advance of the nations and the liberalization of -thought. A result of it is a changed Deity, a Deity of a dignity and -sublimity proportioned to the majesty of His office and the magnitude of -His empire, a Deity who has been freed from a hundred fretting chains -and will in time be freed from the rest by the several ecclesiastical -bodies who have these matters in charge. It was, without doubt, a -mistake and a step backward when the Presbyterian Synods of America -lately decided, by vote, to leave Him still embarrassed with the dogma -of infant damnation. Situated as we are, we cannot at present know with -how much of anxiety He watched the balloting, nor with how much of -grieved disappointment He observed the result. - -Well, all these eras above spoken of are modern, they are of last week, -they are of yesterday, they are of this morning, so to speak. The -springs, the healing waters that gush up from under this hillside -village, indeed are ancient. They, indeed, are a genuine antiquity; they -antedate all those fresh human matters by processions of centuries; they -were born with the fossils of the Dent du Chat, and they have been -always abundant. They furnished a million gallons a day to wash the lake -dwellers with, the same to wash the Cæsars with, no less to wash Balzac -with, and have not diminished on my account. A million gallons a day for -how many days? Figures cannot set forth the number. The delivery, in the -aggregate, has amounted to an Atlantic. And there is still an Atlantic -down in there. By Doctor Wakefield’s calculation the Atlantic is -three-quarters of a mile down in the earth. The calculation is based -upon the temperature of the water, which is 114 degrees to 117 degrees -Fahrenheit, the natural law being that below a certain depth heat -augments at the rate of one degree for every sixty feet of descent. - -Aix is handsome, and is handsomely situated, too, on its hill slope, -with its stately prospect of mountain range and plain spread out before -it and about it. The streets are mainly narrow, and steep and crooked -and interesting, and offer considerable variety in the way of names; on -the corner of one of them you read this: “Rue du Puits d’Enfer” (“Pit of -Hell Street”). Some of the sidewalks are only eighteen inches wide; they -are for the cats, probably. There is a pleasant park, and there are -spacious and beautiful grounds connected with the two great pleasure -resorts, the Cercle and the Villa des Fleurs. The town consists of big -hotels, little hotels, and _pensions_. The season lasts about six -months, beginning with May. When it is at its height there are thousands -of visitors here, and in the course of the season as many as 20,000 in -the aggregate come and go. - -These are not all here for the baths; some come for the gambling -facilities and some for the climate. It is a climate where the field -strawberry flourishes through the spring, summer, and fall. It is hot in -the summer, and hot in earnest; but this is only in the daytime; it is -not hot at night. The English season is May and June; they get a good -deal of rain then, and they like that. The Americans take July, and the -French take August. By the 1st of July the open-air music and the -evening concerts and operas and plays are fairly under way, and from -that time onward the rush of pleasure has a steadily increasing boom. It -is said that in August the great grounds and the gambling rooms are -crowded all the time and no end of ostensible fun going on. - -It is a good place for rest and sleep and general recuperation of -forces. The book of Doctor Wakefield says there is something about this -atmosphere which is the deadly enemy of insomnia, and I think this must -be true, for if I am any judge, this town is at times the noisiest one -in Europe, and yet a body gets more sleep here than he would at home, I -don’t care where his home is. Now, we are living at a most comfortable -and satisfactory _pension_, with a garden of shade trees and flowers and -shrubs, and a convincing air of quiet and repose. But just across the -narrow street is the little market square, and at the corner of that is -the church that is neighbor to the Roman arch, and that narrow street, -and that billiard table of a market place, and that church are able, on -a bet, to turn out more noise to a cubic yard at the wrong time than any -other similar combination in the earth or out of it. In the street you -have the skull-bursting thunder of the passing hack, a volume of sound -not producible by six hacks anywhere else; on the hack is a lunatic with -a whip which he cracks to notify the public to get out of his way. This -crack is as keen and sharp and penetrating and ear-splitting as a pistol -shot at close range, and the lunatic delivers it in volleys, not single -shots. You think you will not be able to live till he gets by, and when -he does get by he leaves only a vacancy for the bandit who sells _Le -Petit Journal_ to fill with his strange and awful yell. He arrives with -the early morning and the market people, and there is a dog that arrives -at about the same time and barks steadily at nothing till he dies, and -they fetch another dog just like him. The bark of this breed is the twin -of the whip volley, and stabs like a knife. By and by, what is left of -you the church bell gets. There are many bells, and apparently six or -seven thousand town clocks, and as they are all five minutes -apart--probably by law--there are no intervals. Some of them are -striking all the time--at least, after you go to bed they are. There is -one clock that strikes the hour and then strikes it over again to see if -it was right. Then for evenings and Sundays there is a chime--a chime -that starts in pleasantly and musically, then suddenly breaks into a -frantic roar, and boom, and crash of warring sounds that makes you think -Paris is up and the Revolution come again. And yet, as I have said, one -sleeps here--sleeps like the dead. Once he gets his grip on his sleep, -neither hack, nor whip, nor news fiend, nor dog, nor bell cyclone, nor -all of them together, can wrench it loose or mar its deep and tranquil -continuity. Yes, there is indeed something in this air that is death to -insomnia. - -The buildings of the Cercle and the Villa des Fleurs are huge in size, -and each has a theater in it, and a great restaurant, also conveniences -for gambling and general and variegated entertainment. They stand in -ornamental grounds of great extent and beauty. The multitudes of -fashionable folk sit at refreshment tables in the open air, afternoons, -and listen to the music, and it is there that they mainly go to break -the Sabbath. - -To get the privilege of entering these grounds and buildings you buy a -ticket for a few francs, which is good for the whole season. You are -then free to go and come at all hours, attend the plays and concerts -free, except on special occasions, gamble, buy refreshments, and make -yourself symmetrically comfortable. - -Nothing could be handier than those two little theaters. The curtain -doesn’t rise until 8.30; then between the acts one can idle for half an -hour in the other departments of the building, damaging his appetite in -the restaurants or his pocketbook in the baccarat room. The singers and -actors are from Paris, and their performance is beyond praise. - -I was never in a fashionable gambling hell until I came here. I had read -several millions of descriptions of such places, but the reality was new -to me. I very much wanted to see this animal, especially the new -historic game of baccarat, and this was a good place, for Aix ranks next -to Monte Carlo for high play and plenty of it. But the result was what I -might have expected--the interest of the looker-on perishes with the -novelty of the spectacle; that is to say, in a few minutes. A permanent -and intense interest is acquirable in baccarat, or in any other game, -but you have to buy it. You don’t get it by standing around and looking -on. - -The baccarat table is covered with green cloth and is marked off in -divisions with chalk or something. The banker sits in the middle, the -croupier opposite. The customers fill all the chairs at the table, and -the rest of the crowd are massed at their back and leaning over them to -deposit chips or gold coins. Constantly money and chips are flung upon -the table, and the game seems to consist in the croupier’s reaching for -these things with a flexible sculling oar, and raking them home. It -appeared to be a rational enough game for him, and if I could have -borrowed his oar I would have stayed, but I didn’t see where the -entertainment of the others came in. This was because I saw without -perceiving, and observed without understanding. For the widow and the -orphan and the others do win money there. Once an old gray mother in -Israel or elsewhere pulled out, and I heard her say to her daughter or -her granddaughter as they passed me, “There, I’ve won six louis, and I’m -going to quit while I’m ahead.” Also there was this statistic. A friend -pointed to a young man with the dead stub of a cigar in his mouth, which -he kept munching nervously all the time and pitching hundred-dollar -chips on the board while two sweet young girls reached down over his -shoulders to deposit modest little gold pieces, and said: “He’s only -funning, now; wasting a few hundred to pass the time--waiting for the -gold room to open, you know, which won’t be till after midnight--then -you’ll see him bet! He won £14,000 there last night. They don’t bet -anything there but big money.” - -The thing I chiefly missed was the haggard people with the intense eye, -the hunted look, the desperate mien, candidates for suicide and the -pauper’s grave. They are in the description, as a rule, but they were -off duty that night. All the gamblers, male and female, old and young, -looked abnormally cheerful and prosperous. - -However, all the nations were there, clothed richly and speaking all the -languages. Some of the women were painted, and were evidently shaky as -to character. These items tallied with the descriptions well enough. - -The etiquette of the place was difficult to master. In the brilliant and -populous halls and corridors you don’t smoke, and you wear your hat, no -matter how many ladies are in the thick throng of drifting humanity, but -the moment you cross the sacred threshold and enter the gambling hell, -off the hat must come, and everybody lights his cigar and goes to -suffocating the ladies. - -But what I came here for five weeks ago was the baths. My right arm was -disabled with rheumatism. To sit at home in America and guess out the -European bath best fitted for a particular ailment or combination of -ailments, it is not possible, and it would not be a good idea to -experiment in that way, anyhow. There are a great many curative baths on -the Continent, and some are good for one disease and bad for another. So -it is necessary to let your physician name a bath for you. As a rule, -Americans go to Europe to get this advice, and South Americans go to -Paris for it. Now and then an economist chooses his bath himself and -does a thousand miles of railroading to get to it, and then the local -physicians tell him he has come to the wrong place. He sees that he has -lost time and money and strength, and almost the minute he realizes this -he loses his temper. I had the rheumatism and was advised to go to Aix, -not so much because I had that disease as because I had the promise of -certain others. What they were was not explained to me, but they are -either in the following menu or I have been sent to the wrong place. -Doctor Wakefield’s book says: - - We know that the class of maladies benefited by the water and baths at - Aix are those due to defect of nourishment, debility of the nervous - system, or to a gouty, rheumatic, herpetic, or scrofulous - diathesis--all diseases extremely debilitating, and requiring a tonic, - and not depressing action of the remedy. This it seems to find here, - as recorded experience and daily action can testify. According to the - line of treatment followed particularly with due regard to the - temperature, the action of the Aix waters can be made sedative, - exciting, derivative, or alterative and tonic. - -The “Establishment” is the property of France, and all the officers and -servants are employees of the French government. The bathhouse is a huge -and massive pile of white marble masonry, and looks more like a temple -than anything else. It has several floors and each is full of bath -cabinets. There is every kind of bath--for the nose, the ears, the -throat, vapor baths, swimming baths, and all people’s favorite, the -douche. It is a good building to get lost in, when you are not familiar -with it. From early morning until nearly noon people are streaming in -and streaming out without halt. The majority come afoot, but great -numbers are brought in sedan chairs, a sufficiently ugly contrivance -whose cover is a steep little tent made of striped canvas. You see -nothing of the patient in this diving bell as the bearers tramp along, -except a glimpse of his ankles bound together and swathed around with -blankets or towels to that generous degree that the result suggests a -sore piano leg. By attention and practice the pallbearers have got so -that they can keep out of step all the time--and they do it. As a -consequence their veiled churn goes rocking, tilting, swaying along like -a bell buoy in a ground swell. It makes the oldest sailor homesick to -look at that spectacle. - -The “course” is usually fifteen douche baths and five tub baths. You -take the douche three days in succession, then knock off and take a tub. -You keep up this distribution through the course. If one course does not -cure you, you take another one after an interval. You seek a local -physician and he examines your case and prescribes the kind of bath -required for it, with various other particulars; then you buy your -course tickets and pay for them in advance--nine dollars. With the -tickets you get a memorandum book with your dates and hours all set down -on it. The doctor takes you into the bath the first morning and gives -some instructions to the two _doucheurs_ who are to handle you through -the course. The _pourboires_ are about ten cents to each of the men for -each bath, payable at the end of the course. Also at the end of the -course you pay three or four francs to the superintendent of your -department of the bathhouse. These are useful particulars to know, and -are not to be found in the books. A servant of your hotel carries your -towels and sheet to the bath daily and brings them away again. They are -the property of the hotel; the French government doesn’t furnish these -things. - -You meet all kinds of people at a place like this, and if you give them -a chance they will submerge you under their circumstances, for they are -either very glad or very sorry they came, and they want to spread their -feelings out and enjoy them. One of these said to me: - -“It’s great, these baths. I didn’t come here for my health; I only came -to find out if there was anything the matter with me. The doctor told me -if there was the symptoms would soon appear. After the first douche I -had sharp pains in all my muscles. The doctor said it was different -varieties of rheumatism, and the best varieties there were, too. After -my second bath I had aches in my bones, and skull and around. The doctor -said it was different varieties of neuralgia, and the best in the -market, anybody would tell me so. I got many new kinds of pains out of -my third douche. These were in my joints. The doctor said it was gout, -complicated with heart disease, and encouraged me to go on. Then we had -the fourth douche, and I came out on a stretcher that time, and fetched -with me one vast, diversified undulating continental kind of pain, with -horizons to it, and zones, and parallels of latitude, and meridians of -longitude, and isothermal belts, and variations of the compass--oh, -everything tidy, and right up to the latest developments, you know. The -doctor said it was inflammation of the soul, and just the very thing. -Well, I went right on gathering them in, toothache, liver complaint, -softening of the brain, nostalgia, bronchitis, osteology, fits, -Coleoptera, hydrangea, Cyclopædia Britannica, delirium tremens, and a -lot of other things that I’ve got down on my list that I’ll show you, -and you can keep it if you like and tally off the bric-à-brac as you lay -it in. - -The doctor said I was a grand proof of what these baths could do; said I -had come here as innocent of disease as a grindstone, and inside of -three weeks these baths had sluiced out of me every important ailment -known to medical science, along with considerable more that were -entirely new and patentable. Why, he wanted to exhibit me in his bay -window!” - -There seem to be a good many liars this year. I began to take the baths -and found them most enjoyable; so enjoyable that if I hadn’t had a -disease I would have borrowed one, just to have a pretext for going on. -They took me into a stone-floored basin about fourteen feet square, -which had enough strange-looking pipes and things in it to make it look -like a torture chamber. The two half-naked men seated me on a pine stool -and kept a couple of warm-water jets as thick as one’s wrist playing -upon me while they kneaded me, stroked me, twisted me, and applied all -the other details of the scientific massage to me for seven or eight -minutes. Then they stood me up and played a powerful jet upon me all -around for another minute. The cool shower bath came next, and the thing -was over. I came out of the bathhouse a few minutes later feeling -younger and fresher and finer than I have felt since I was a boy. The -spring and cheer and delight of this exaltation lasted three hours, and -the same uplifting effect has followed the twenty douches which I have -taken since. - -After my first douche I went to the chemist’s on the corner, as per -instructions, and asked for half a glass of Challe water. It comes from -a spring sixteen miles from here. It was furnished to me, but, -perceiving that there was something the matter with it, I offered to -wait till they could get some that was fresh, but they said it always -smelled that way. They said that the reason that this was so much ranker -than the sulphur water of the bath was that this contained thirty-two -times as much sulphur as that. It is true, but in my opinion that water -comes from a cemetery, and not a fresh cemetery, either. History says -that one of the early Roman generals lost an army down there somewhere. -If he could come back now I think this water would help him find it -again. However, I drank the Challe, and have drunk it once or twice -every day since. I suppose it is all right, but I wish I knew what was -the matter with those Romans. - -My first baths developed plenty of pain, but the subsequent ones removed -almost all of it. I have got back the use of my arm these last few days, -and I am going away now. - -There are many beautiful drives about Aix, many interesting places to -visit, and much pleasure to be found in paddling around the little Lake -Bourget on the small steamers, but the excursion which satisfied me best -was a trip to Annecy and its neighborhood. You go to Annecy in an hour -by rail, through a garden land that has not had its equal for beauty -perhaps since Eden; and certainly not Eden was cultivated as this garden -is. The charm and loveliness of the whole region are bewildering. -Picturesque rocks, forest-clothed hills, slopes richly bright in the -cleanest and greenest grass, fields of grain without freck or flaw, -dainty of color and as shiny and shimmery as silk, old gray mansions and -towers, half buried in foliage and sunny eminences, deep chasms with -precipitous walls, and a swift stream of pale-blue water between, with -now and then a tumbling cascade, and always noble mountains in view, -with vagrant white clouds curling about their summits. - -Then at the end of an hour you come to Annecy and rattle through its old -crooked lanes, built solidly up with curious old houses that are a dream -of the Middle Ages, and presently you come to the main object of your -trip--Lake Annecy. It is a revelation; it is a miracle. It brings the -tears to a body’s eyes, it affects you just as all things that you -instantly recognize as perfect affect you--perfect music, perfect -eloquence, perfect art, perfect joy, perfect grief. It stretches itself -out there in a caressing sunlight, and away toward its border of -majestic mountains, a crisped and radiant plain of water of the divinest -blue that can be imagined. All the blues are there, from the faintest -shoal-water suggestion of the color, detectable only in the shadow of -some overhanging object, all the way through, a little blue and a little -bluer still, and again a shade bluer, till you strike the deep, rich -Mediterranean splendor which breaks the heart in your bosom, it is so -beautiful. - -And the mountains, as you skim along on the steamboat, how stately their -forms, how noble their proportions, how green their velvet slopes, how -soft the mottlings of the sun and shadow that play about the rocky -ramparts that crown them, how opaline the vast upheavals of snow banked -against the sky in the remotenesses beyond--Mont Blanc and the -others--how shall anybody describe? Why, not even the painter can quite -do it, and the most the pen can do is to suggest. - -Up the lake there is an old abbey--Tallories--relic of the Middle Ages. -We stopped there; stepped from the sparkling water and the rush and boom -and fret and fever of the nineteenth century into the solemnity and the -silence and the soft gloom and the brooding mystery of a remote -antiquity. The stone step at the water’s edge had the traces of a -worn-out inscription on it; the wide flight of stone steps that led up -to the front door was polished smooth by the passing feet of forgotten -centuries, and there was not an unbroken stone among them all. Within -the pile was the old square cloister with covered arcade all around it -where the monks of the ancient times used to sit and meditate, and now -and then welcome to their hospitalities the wandering knight with his -tin breeches on, and in the middle of the square court (open to the sky) -was a stone well curb, cracked and slick with age and use, and all about -it were weeds, and among the weeds moldy brickbats that the Crusaders -used to throw at one another. A passage at the further side of the -cloister led to another weedy and roofless little inclosure beyond where -there was a ruined wall clothed to the top with masses of ivy, and -flanking it was a battered and picturesque arch. All over the building -there were comfortable rooms and comfortable beds and clean plank floors -with no carpets on them. In one room upstairs were half a dozen -portraits, dimming relics of the vanished centuries--portraits of abbots -who used to be as grand as princes in their old day, and very rich, and -much worshiped and very bold; and in the next room there were a howling -chromo and an electric bell. Downstairs there was an ancient wood -carving with a Latin word commanding silence, and there was a spang-new -piano close by. Two elderly French women, with the kindest and honestest -and sincerest faces, have the abbey now, and they board and lodge people -who are tired of the roar of cities and want to be where the dead -silence and serenity and peace of this old nest will heal their -blistered spirits and patch up their ragged minds. They fed us well, -they slept us well, and I wish I could have stayed there a few years and -got a solid rest. - - - - -MARIENBAD--A HEALTH FACTORY - - ------- - -THE SIMPLE BUT SUFFICIENT REGIMEN IMPOSED ON PATIENTS IN AN AUSTRIAN - RESORT--OBSERVATIONS ON DIGESTION. - - ------- - - (Contributed to the New York _Sun_, 1891) - -This place is the village of Marienbad, Bohemia. It seems no very great -distance from Annecy, in Haute-Savoie, to this place--you make it in -less than thirty hours by these continental express trains--but the -changes in the scenery are great; they are quite out of proportion to -the distance covered. From Annecy by Aix to Geneva, you have blue lakes, -with bold mountains springing from their borders, and far glimpses of -snowy wastes lifted against the horizon beyond, while all about you is a -garden cultivated to the last possibility of grace and beauty--a -cultivation which doesn’t stop with the handy lower levels, but is -carried right up the sheer steeps and propped there with ribs of -masonry, and made to stay there in spite of Newton’s law. Beyond -Geneva--beyond Lausanne, at any rate--you have for a while a country -which noticeably resembles New England, and seems out of place and like -an intruder--an intruder who is wearing his every-day clothes at a -fancy-dress ball. But presently on your right, huge green mountain -ramparts rise up, and after that for hours you are absorbed in watching -the rich shadow effects which they furnish, and are only dully aware -that New England is gone and that you are flying past quaint and -unspeakable old towns and towers. Next day you have the lake of Zurich, -and presently the Rhine is swinging by you. How clean it is! How clear -it is! How blue it is! How green it is! How swift and rollicking and -insolent are its gait and style! How vivid and splendid its -colors--beautiful wreck and chaos of all the soap bubbles in the -universe! A person born on the Rhine must worship it. - - I saw the blue Rhine sweep along; I heard, or seemed to hear, - The German songs we used to sing in chorus sweet and clear. - -Yes, that is where his heart would be, that is where his last thoughts -would be, the “soldier of the legion” who “lay dying in Algiers.” - -And by and by you are in a German region, which you discover to be quite -different from the recent Swiss lands behind you. You have a sea before -you, that is to say; the green land goes rolling away, in ocean swells, -to the horizon. And there is another new feature. Here and there at wide -intervals you have islands, hills two hundred and three hundred feet -high, of a haystack form, that rise abruptly out of the green plain, and -are wooded solidly to the top. On the top there is just room for a -ruined castle, and there it is, every time; above the summit you see the -crumbling arches and broken towers projecting. - -Beyond Stuttgart, next day, you find other changes still. By and by, -approaching and leaving Nuremberg and down by Newhaus, your landscape is -humped everywhere with scattered knobs of rock, unsociable crags of a -rude, towerlike look, and thatched with grass and vines and bushes. And -now and then you have gorges, too, of a modest pattern as to size, with -precipice walls curiously carved and honeycombed by--I don’t know -what--but water, no doubt. - -The changes are not done yet, for the instant the country finds it is -out of Württemberg and into Bavaria it discards one more thickness of -soil to go with previous disrobings, and then nothing remains over the -bones but the shift. There may be a poorer soil somewhere, but it is not -likely. - -A couple of hours from Bayreuth you cross into Bohemia, and before long -you reach this Marienbad, and recognize another sharp change, the change -from the long ago to to-day; that is to say from the very old to the -spick and span new; from an architecture totally without shapeliness or -ornament to an architecture attractively equipped with both; from -universal dismalness as to color to universal brightness and beauty as -to tint; from a town which seems made up of prisons to a town which is -made up of gracious and graceful mansions proper to the light of heart -and crimeless. It is like jumping out of Jerusalem into Chicago. - -The more I think of these many changes, the more surprising the thing -seems. I have never made so picturesque a journey before, and there -cannot be another trip of like length in the world that can furnish so -much variety and of so charming and interesting a sort. - -There are only two or three streets here in this snug pocket in the -hemlock hills, but they are handsome. When you stand at the foot of a -street and look up at the slant of it you see only block fronts of -graceful pattern, with happily broken lines and the pleasant accent of -bay projections and balconies in orderly disorder and harmonious -confusion, and always the color is fresh and cheery, various shades of -cream, with softly contrasting trimmings of white, and now and then a -touch of dim red. These blocks are all thick walled, solid, massive, -tall for this Europe; but it is the brightest and newest looking town on -the Continent, and as pretty as anybody could require. The steep hills -spring high aloft from their very back doors and are clothed densely to -their tops with hemlocks. - -In Bavaria everybody is in uniform, and you wonder where the private -citizens are, but here in Bohemia the uniforms are very rare. -Occasionally one catches a glimpse of an Austrian officer, but it is -only occasionally. Uniforms are so scarce that we seem to be in a -republic. Almost the only striking figure is the Polish Jew. He is very -frequent. He is tall and of grave countenance and wears a coat that -reaches to his ankle bones, and he has a little wee curl or two in front -of each ear. He has a prosperous look, and seems to be as much respected -as anybody. - -The crowds that drift along the promenade at music time twice a day are -fashionably dressed after the Parisian pattern, and they look a good -deal alike, but they speak a lot of languages which you have not -encountered before, and no ignorant person can spell their names, and -they can’t pronounce them themselves. - -Marienbad--Mary’s Bath. The Mary is the Virgin. She is the patroness of -these curative springs. They try to cure everything--gout, rheumatism, -leanness, fatness, dyspepsia, and all the rest. The whole thing is the -property of a convent, and has been for six or seven hundred years. -However, there was never a boom here until a quarter of a century ago. - -If a person has the gout, this is what they do with him: they have him -out at 5.30 in the morning, and give him an egg and let him look at a -cup of tea. At six he must be at his particular spring, with his tumbler -hanging at his belt--and he will have plenty of company there. At the -first note of the orchestra he must lift his tumbler and begin to sip -his dreadful water with the rest. He must sip slowly and be a long time -at it. Then he must tramp about the hills for an hour or so, and get all -the exercise and fresh air possible. Then he takes his tub or wallows in -his mud, if mud baths are his sort. By noon he has a fine appetite, and -the rules allow him to turn himself loose and satisfy it, so long as he -is careful and eats only such things as he doesn’t want. He puts in the -afternoon walking the hills and filling up with fresh air. At night he -is allowed to take three ounces of any kind of food he doesn’t like and -drink one glass of any kind of liquor that he has a prejudice against; -he may also smoke one pipe if he isn’t used to it. At half past nine -sharp he must be in bed and his candle out. Repeat the whole thing the -next day. I don’t see any advantage in this over having the gout. - -In the case of most diseases that is about what one is required to -undergo, and if you have any pleasant habit that you value, they want -that. They want that the first thing. They make you drop everything that -gives an interest to life. Their idea is to reverse your whole system of -existence and make a regenerating revolution. If you are a Republican, -they make you talk free trade. If you are a Democrat they make you talk -protection; if you are a Prohibitionist, you have got to go to bed drunk -every night till you get well. They spare nothing, they spare nobody. -Reform, reform, that is the whole song. If a person is an orator, they -gag him; if he likes to read, they won’t let him; if he wants to sing, -they make him whistle. They say they can cure any ailment, and they do -seem to do it; but why should a patient come all the way here? Why -shouldn’t he do these things at home and save the money? No disease -would stay with a person who treated it like that. - -I didn’t come here to take baths, I only came to look around. But first -one person, then another began to throw out hints, and pretty soon I was -a good deal concerned about myself. One of these goutees here said I had -a gouty look about the eye; next a person who has catarrh of the -intestines asked me if I didn’t notice a dim sort of stomach ache when I -sneezed. I hadn’t before, but I did seem to notice it then. A man that’s -here for heart disease said he wouldn’t come downstairs so fast if he -had my build and aspect. A person with an old-gold complexion said a man -died here in the mud bath last week that had a petrified liver--good -deal such a looking man as I am, and the same initials, and so on, and -so on. - -Of course, there was nothing to be uneasy about, and I wasn’t what you -may call really uneasy; but I was not feeling very well--that is, not -brisk--and I went to bed. I suppose that that was not a good idea, -because then they had me. I started in at the supper end of the mill and -went through. I am said to be all right now, and free from disease, but -this does not surprise me. What I have been through in these two weeks -would free a person of pretty much everything in him that wasn’t nailed -there--any loose thing, any unattached fragment of bone, or meat or -morals, or disease, or propensities or accomplishments, or what not. And -I don’t say but that I feel well enough, I feel better than I would if I -was dead, I reckon. And, besides, they say I am going to build up now -and come right along and be all right. I am not saying anything, but I -wish I had enough of my diseases back to make me aware of myself, and -enough of my habits to make it worth while to live. To have nothing the -matter with you and no habits is pretty tame, pretty colorless. It is -just the way a saint feels, I reckon; it is at least the way he looks. I -never could stand a saint. That reminds me that you see very few priests -around here, and yet, as I have already said, this whole big enterprise -is owned and managed by a convent. The few priests one does see here are -dressed like human beings, and so there may be more of them than I -imagine. Fifteen priests dressed like these could not attract as much of -your attention as would one priest at Aix-les-Bains. You cannot pull -your eye loose from the French priest as long as he is in sight, his -dress is so fascinatingly ugly. I seem to be wandering from the subject, -but I am not. This is about the coldest place I ever saw, and the -wettest, too. This August seems like an English November to me. Rain? -Why, it seems to like to rain here. It seems to rain every time there is -a chance. You are strictly required to be out airing and exercising -whenever the sun is shining, so I hate to see the sun shining because I -hate air and exercise--duty air and duty exercise taken for medicine. It -seems ungenuine, out of season, degraded to sordid utilities, a subtle -spiritual something gone from it which one can’t describe in words, -but--don’t you understand? With that gone what is left but canned air, -canned exercise, and you don’t want it. - -When the sun does shine for a few moments or a few hours these people -swarm out and flock through the streets and over the hills and through -the pine woods, and make the most of the chance, and I have flocked out, -too, on some of these occasions, but as a rule I stay in and try to get -warm. - -And what is there for means, besides heavy clothing and rugs, and the -polished white tomb that stands lofty and heartless in the corner and -thinks it is a stove? Of all the creations of human insanity this thing -is the most forbidding. Whether it is heating the room or isn’t, the -impression is the same--cold indifference. You can’t tell which it is -doing without going and putting your hand on it. They burn little -handfuls of kindlings in it, no substantial wood, and no coal. - -The fire burns out every fifteen minutes, and there is no way to tell -when this has happened. On these dismal days, with the rain steadily -falling, it is no better company than a corpse. A roaring hickory fire, -with the cordial flames leaping up the chimney--But I must not think of -such things, they make a person homesick. This is a most strange place -to come to get rid of disease. - -That is what you think most of the time. But in the intervals, when the -sun shines and you are tramping the hills and are comparatively warm, -you get to be neutral, maybe even friendly. I went up to the -Aussichtthurm the other day. This is a tower which stands on the summit -of a steep hemlock mountain here; a tower which there isn’t the least -use for, because the view is as good at the base of it as it is at the -top of it. But Germanic people are just mad for views--they never get -enough of a view--if they owned Mount Blanc, they would build a tower on -top of it. - -The roads up that mountain through that hemlock forest are hard packed -and smooth, and the grades are easy and comfortable. They are for -walkers, not for carriages. You move through steep silence and twilight, -and you seem to be in a million-columned temple; whether you look up the -hill or down it you catch glimpses of distant figures flitting without -sound, appearing and disappearing in the dim distances, among the stems -of the trees, and it is all very spectral, and solemn and impressive. -Now and then the gloom is accented and sized up to your comprehension in -a striking way; a ray of sunshine finds its way down through and -suddenly calls your attention, for where it falls, far up the hillslope -in the brown duskiness, it lays a stripe that has a glare like -lightning. The utter stillness of the forest depths, the soundless hush, -the total absence of stir or motion of any kind in leaf or branch, are -things which we have no experience of at home, and consequently no name -for in our language. At home there would be the plaint of insects and -the twittering of birds and vagrant breezes would quiver the foliage. -Here it is the stillness of death. This is what the Germans are forever -talking about, dreaming about, and despairingly trying to catch and -imprison in a poem, or a picture, or a song--they adored Waldeinsamkeit, -loneliness of the woods. But how catch it? It has not a body; it is a -spirit. We don’t talk about it in America, or dream of it, or sing about -it, because we haven’t it. Certainly there is something wonderfully -alluring about it, beguiling, dreamy, unworldly. Where the gloom is -softest and richest, and the peace and stillness deepest, far up on the -side of that hemlock mountain, a spot where Goethe used to sit and -dream, is marked by a granite obelisk, and on its side is carved this -famous poem, which is the master’s idea of Waldeinsamkeit: - - Ueber allen Wipfeln ist Ruh, - In allen Wipfeln spürest du - Kaum einen Hauch: - Die Vogel in schweigen in Walde. - Warte nur--Balde - Ruhest du auch. - -It is raining again now. However, it was doing that before. I have been -over to the establishment and had a tub bath with two kinds of pine -juice in it. These fill the room with a pungent and most pleasant -perfume; they also turn the water to a color of ink and cover it with a -snowy suds, two or three inches deep. The bath is cool--about 75° or 80° -F., and there is a cooler shower bath after it. While waiting in the -reception room all by myself two men came in and began to talk. -Politics, literature, religion? No, their ailments. There is no other -subject here, apparently. Wherever two or three of these people are -gathered together, there you have it, every time. The first that can get -his mouth open contributes his disease and the condition of it, and the -others follow with theirs. The two men just referred to were -acquaintances, and they followed the custom. One of them was built like -a gasometer and is here to reduce his girth; the other was built like a -derrick and is here to fat up, as they express it, at this resort. They -were well satisfied with the progress they were making. The gasometer -had lost a quarter of a ton in ten days, and showed the record on his -belt with pride, and he walked briskly across the room, smiling in a -vast and luminous way, like a harvest moon, and said he couldn’t have -done that when he arrived here. He buttoned his coat around his equator -and showed how loose it was. It was pretty to see his happiness, it was -so childlike and honest. He set his feet together and leaned out over -his person and proved that he could see them. He said he hadn’t seen -them from that point before for fifteen years. He had a hand like a -boxing glove. And on one of his fingers he had just found a diamond ring -which he had missed eleven years ago. - -The minute the derrick got a chance he broke in and began to tell how he -was piling on blubber right along--three-quarters of an ounce every four -days; and he was still piping away when I was sent for. I left the fat -man standing there panting and blowing, and swelling and collapsing like -a balloon, his next speech all ready and urgent for delivery. - -The patients are always at that sort of thing, trying to talk one -another to death. The fat ones and the lean ones are nearly the worse at -it, but not quite; the dyspeptics are the worst. They are at it all day -and all night, and all along. They have more symptoms than all the -others put together and so there is more variety of experience, more -change of condition, more adventure, and consequently more play for the -imagination, more scope for lying, and in every way a bigger field to -talk. Go where you will, hide where you may, you cannot escape that word -liver; you overhear it constantly--in the street, in the shop, in the -theater, in the music grounds. Wherever you see two or a dozen people of -ordinary bulk talking together, you know they are talking about their -livers. When you first arrive here your new acquaintances seem sad and -hard to talk to, but pretty soon you get the lay of the land and the -hand of things, and after that you haven’t any more trouble. You look -into the dreary dull eye and softly say: - -“Well, how’s your liver?” - -You will see that dim eye flash up with a grateful flame, and you will -see that jaw begin to work, and you will recognize that nothing is -required of you from this out but to listen as long as you remain -conscious. After a few days you will begin to notice that out of these -people’s talk a gospel is framing itself and next you will find yourself -believing it. It is this--that a man is not what his rearing, his -schooling, his beliefs, his principles make him, he is what his liver -makes him; that with a healthy liver he will have the clear-seeing eye, -the honest heart, the sincere mind, the loving spirit, the loyal soul, -the truth and trust and faith that are based as Gibraltar is based, and -that with an unhealthy liver he must and will have the opposite of all -these, he will see nothing as it really is, he cannot trust anybody, or -believe in anything, his moral foundations are gone from under him. Now, -isn’t that interesting? I think it is. - -One of the most curious things in these countries is the street manners -of the men and women. In meeting you they come straight on without -swerving a hair’s breadth from the direct line and wholly ignoring your -right to any part of the road. At the last moment you must yield up your -share of it and step aside, or there will be a collision. I noticed this -strange barbarism first in Geneva twelve years ago. - -In Aix-les-Bains, where sidewalks are scarce and everybody walks in the -streets, there is plenty of room, but that is no matter; you are always -escaping collisions by mere quarter inches. A man or woman who is headed -in such a way as to cross your course presently without a collision will -actually alter his direction shade by shade and compel a collision -unless at the last instant you jump out of the way. Those folks are not -dressed as ladies and gentlemen. And they do not seem to be consciously -crowding you out of the road; they seem to be innocently and stupidly -unaware that they are doing it. But not so in Geneva. There this class, -especially the men, crowd out men, women, and girls of all rank and -raiment consciously and intentionally--crowd them off the sidewalk and -into the gutter. - -There was nothing of this sort in Bayreuth. But here--well, here the -thing is astonishing. Collisions are unavoidable unless you do all the -yielding yourself. Another odd thing--here this savagery is confined to -the folk who wear the fine clothes; the others are courteous and -considerate. A big burly Comanche, with all the signs about him of -wealth and education, will tranquilly force young ladies to step off -into the gutter to avoid being run down by him. It is a mistake that -there is no bath that will cure people’s manners. But drowning would -help. - -However, perhaps one can’t look for any real showy amount of delicacy of -feeling in a country where a person is brought up to contemplate without -a shudder the spectacle of women harnessed up with dogs and hauling -carts. The woman is on one side of the pole, the dog on the other, and -they bend to the work and tug and pant and strain--and the man tramps -leisurely alongside and smokes his pipe. Often the woman is old and -gray, and the man is her grandson. The Austrian national ornithological -device ought to be replaced by a grandmother harnessed to a slush cart -with a dog. This merely in the interest of fact. Heraldic fancy has been -a little too much overworked in these countries, anyway. - -Lately one of those curious things happened here which justify the -felicitous extravagances of the stage and help us to accept them. A -despondent man, bankrupt, friendless, and desperate, dropped a dose of -strychnia into a bottle of whisky and went out in the dusk to find a -handy place for his purpose, which was suicide. In a lonely spot he was -stopped by a tramp, who said he would kill him if he didn’t give up his -money. Instead of jumping at the chance of getting himself killed and -thus saving himself the impropriety and annoyance of suicide, he forgot -all about his late project and attacked the tramp in a most sturdy and -valiant fashion. He made a good fight, but failed to win. The night -passed, the morning came, and he woke out of unconsciousness to find -that he had been clubbed half to death and left to perish at his -leisure. Then he reached for his bottle to add the finishing touch, but -it was gone. He pulled himself together and went limping away, and -presently came upon the tramp stretched out stone dead with the empty -bottle beside him. He had drunk the whisky and committed suicide -innocently. Now, while the man who had been cheated out of his suicide -stood there bemoaning his hard luck and wondering how he might manage to -raise money enough to buy some more whisky and poison, some people of -the neighborhood came by and he told them about his curious adventure. -They said that this tramp had been the scourge of the neighborhood and -the dread of the constabulary. The inquest passed off quietly and to -everybody’s satisfaction, and then the people, to testify their -gratitude to the hero of the occasion, put him on the police, on a -good-enough salary, and he is all right now and is not meditating -suicide any more. Here are all the elements of the naïvest Arabian tale; -a man who resists robbery when he hasn’t anything to be robbed of does -the very best to save his life when he has come out purposely to throw -it away; and finally is victorious in defeat, killing his adversary in -an effectual and poetic fashion after being already hors du combat -himself. Now if you let him rise in the service and marry the chief of -police’s daughter it has the requisite elements of the Oriental romance, -lacking not a detail so far as I can see. - - - - - DOWN THE RHÔNE - (1891) - - -In old times a summer sail down the Rhône was a favorite trip with -travelers. But that day is long gone by. The conveniences for the sail -disappeared many years ago--driven out of existence by the railway. - -In August, 1891, I made this long-neglected voyage with a boatman and a -courier. The following account of it is part diary and part comment. The -main idea of the voyage was, not to see sights, but to rest up from -sight-seeing. There was little or nothing on the Rhône to examine or -study or write didactically about; consequently, to glide down the -stream in an open boat, moved by the current only, would afford many -days of lazy repose, with opportunity to smoke, read, doze, talk, -accumulate comfort, get fat, and all the while be out of reach of the -news and remote from the world and its concerns. - -Our point of departure was to be the Castle of Châtillon on Lake -Bourget, not very far from Aix-les-Bains. I went down from Geneva by -rail on a Saturday afternoon, and reached the station nearest the castle -during the evening. I found the courier waiting for me. He had been down -in the lake region several days, hunting for a boat, engaging the -boatman, etc. - -_From my log._--The luggage was given to the porters--a couple of -peasant girls of seventeen or eighteen years, and a couple of younger -ones--children, one might say, of twelve or thirteen. It consisted of -heavy satchels and holdalls, but they gathered it up and trudged away, -not seeming to mind the weight. The road was through woods and -uphill--dark and steep and long. I tried to take the heavy valise from -the smallest one, telling her I would carry it myself. She did not -understand, of course, and resisted. I tried, then, to take the bag by -gentle force. This alarmed her. The courier came and explained that she -was afraid she was going to lose the trifle of money she was earning. - -The courier told her this was not the case, but she looked doubtful and -concluded to hang on to a sure thing. - -“How much is it she’s going to get?” - -“She will charge about half a franc.” - -“Then pay her _now_, and she’ll give up the bag.” - -But that scheme failed, too. The child hung to the bag and seemed -distressed. No explanation could be got out of her, but one of the other -girls said the child was afraid that if she gave it up, the fact would -be used against her with tourists as proof that she was not strong -enough to carry their luggage for them, and so she would lose chances to -get work. - -By and by the winding road carried us by an open space where we could -see very well--see the ruins of a burned-out little hamlet of the -humblest sort--stone walls with empty window holes, narrow alleys -cluttered with wreckage and fallen thatch, etc. Our girls were eager to -have us stop and view this wonder, the result of the only conflagration -they had ever seen, the only large event that had ever accented their -monotonous lives. It had happened a couple of months before, and the -villagers had lost everything, even to their stockings of savings, and -were too poor to rebuild their houses. A young woman, an old one, and -all the horses had been burned to death; the young girls said they could -take us among the ruins and show us the very spot. - -We finally came out on the top of the hill, and there stood the castle, -a rather picturesque old stack of masonry with a walled yard about it -and an odd old stumpy tower in a corner of the yard handsomely clothed -in vines. The castle is a private residence, whose owner leaves it in -charge of his housekeeper and some menservants, and lives in Lyons -except when he wants to fish or shoot. - -The courier had engaged rooms, but the fact had probably been forgotten, -for we had trouble in rousing the garrison. It was getting late and they -were asleep. Eventually a man unlocked and unbarred the door and led us -up a winding stair of heavy and very plain stonework. My bed was higher -from the floor than necessary. This is apparently the rule in old French -houses of the interior. But there is a stepladder. - -In the morning I looked out of my window and saw the tops of trees below -me, thick and beautiful foliage, and below the trees was the bright blue -water of the lake shining in the sun. The window seemed to be about two -hundred feet above the water. An airy and inspiring situation, indeed. A -pope was born in that room a couple of centuries ago. I forget his name. - -In that old day they built for utility, this was evident. -Everything--floors, sashes, shutters, beams, joists--were cheap, coarse, -ornamentless, but everlastingly solid and substantial. On the wall hung -an indication of the politics of the present owner. This was a small -photograph with “Philippe Comte de Paris” written under it. - -The castle was ancient, in its way, but over the door of one of its -rooms there was a picture set in a frame whose profound antiquity made -all its surroundings seem modern and fresh. This frame was of good firm -oak, as black as a coal, and had once been part of a lake-dweller’s -house. It was already a thing of antiquity when the Romans were planting -colonies in France before the time of Christ. The remains of a number of -lake villages have been dug out of the mud of Lake Bourget. - -Breakfast was served in the open air on a precipice in a little arbor -sheltered by vines, with glimpses through the tree tops of the blue -water far below, and with also a wide prospect of mountain scenery. The -coffee was the best I ever drank in Europe. - -Presently there was a bugle blast from somewhere about the -battlements--a fine Middle Age effect--and after a moment it was -answered from the further shore of the lake, and we saw a boat put out -from that shore. It was ours. We were soon on board and away. - -It was a roomy, long flatboat, very light and easy to manage--easy to -manage because its sides tapered a little toward both ends, and both -ends curved up free from the water and made the steering prompt and -easy. The rear half was sheltered from sun and rain by a temporary (and -removable) canopy stretched over hoop-pole arches, after the fashion of -the old-time wagon covers of the emigrants to California. We at once -rolled the sides of the canopy high up, so that we might have the breeze -and a free view on every hand. - -On the other side of the lake we entered a narrow canal, and here we had -our last glimpse of that picturesque Châtillon perched on its high -promontory. The sides of the canal were walled with vines heavily laden -with black grapes. The vine leaves were white with the stuff which is -squirted on them from a thing like a fire extinguisher to kill the -calamitous phylloxera. We saw only one living creature for the first -lonely mile--a man with his extinguisher strapped on his back and hard -at his deadly work. I asked our admiral, Joseph Rougier, of the village -of Chanaz, if it would be a good idea to offer to sell this Sabbath -breaker a few choice samples of foreign phylloxera, and he said yes, if -one wanted to play the star part in an inquest. - -At last two women and a man strolling churchward in their Sunday best -gave us a courteous hail and walked briskly along abreast of us, plying -the courier and the sailor with eager questions about our curious and -unaccountable project, and by the time they had got their fill and -dropped astern to digest the matter and finish wondering over it, we -were serene again and busy discussing the scenery; for now there was -really some scenery to look at, of a mild but pleasant type--low -precipices, a country road shaded by large trees, a few cozy thatched -cabins scattered along, and now and then an irruption of joyous children -who flocked to inspect us and admire, followed by friendly dogs who -stood and barked at us, but wagged their tails to say no offense was -intended. - -Soon the precipice grew bolder, and presently Chanaz came in sight and -the canal bore us along its front--along its street, for it had only -one. We stepped ashore. There was a roll of distant drums, and soon a -company or two of French infantry came marching by. All the citizens -were out, and every male took off his hat politely as the soldiers moved -past him, and this salute was always returned by the officers. - -I wanted envelopes, wine, grapes, and postage stamps, and was directed -to a stone stairway and told to go up one flight. Up there I found a -small well-smoked kitchen paved with worn-out bricks, with pots and pans -hanging about the walls, and a bent and humped woman of seventy cooking -a very frugal dinner. The tiredest dog I have seen this year lay asleep -under the stove, in a roasting heat, an incredible heat, a heat that -would have pulled a remark of the Hebrew children; but the dog slept -along with perfect serenity and did not seem to know that there was -anything the matter with the weather. The old woman set off her coffee -pot. Next she removed her pork chop to the table; it seemed to me that -this was premature--the dog was better done. - -We asked for the envelopes and things; she motioned us to the left with -her ladle. We passed through a door and found ourselves in the smallest -wholesale and retail commercial house in the world, I suppose. The place -was not more than nine feet square. The proprietor was polite and -cheerful enough for a place five or six times as large. He was weighing -out two ounces of parched coffee for a little girl, and when the -balances came level at last he took off a light bean and put on a -heavier one in the handsomest way and then tied up the purchase in a -piece of paper and handed it to the child with as nice a bow as one -would see anywhere. In that shop he had a couple of bushels of wooden -shoes--a dollar’s worth, altogether, perhaps--but he had no other -articles in such lavish profusion. Yet he had a pound or so or a -dipperful of any kind of thing a person might want. You couldn’t buy two -things of a kind there, but you could buy one of any and every kind. It -was a useful shop, and a sufficient one, no doubt, yet its contents -could not have cost more than ten dollars. Here was home on a small -scale, but everything comfortable, no haggard looks visible, no -financial distress apparent. I got all the things I came for except -double-postage stamps for foreign service; I had to take domestic stamps -instead. The merchant said he kept a double-stamp in stock a couple of -years, but there was no market for it, so he sent it back to Paris, -because it was eating up its insurance. A careful man and thrifty; and -of such is the commonwealth of France. - -We got some hot fried fish in Chanaz and took them aboard and cleared -out. With grapes and claret and bread they made a satisfactory luncheon. -We paddled a hundred yards, turned a rock corner, and here was the -furious gray current of the Rhône just a-whistling by! We crept into it -from the narrow canal, and laid in the oars. The floating was begun. One -needs no oar-help in a current like that. The shore seemed to fairly -spin past. Where the current assaults the heavy stone barriers thrown -out from the shores to protect the banks, it makes a break like the -break of a steamboat, and you can hear the roar a couple of hundred -yards off. - -The river where we entered it was about a hundred yards wide, and very -deep. The water was at medium stage. The Rhône is not a very long -river--six hundred miles--but it carries a bigger mass of water to the -sea than any other French stream. - -For the first few miles we had lonely shores--hardly ever a house. On -the left bank we had high precipices and domed hills; right bank low and -wooded. - -At one point in the face of a precipice we saw a great cross (carved out -of the living rock, the Admiral said) forty feet above the carriage -road, where a doctor has had his tomb scooped in the rock and lies in -there safe from his surviving patients--if any. - -At 1.25 P.M. we passed the slumbrous village of Massigneux de Rive on -the right and the ditto village of Huissier on the left (in Savoie). We -had to take all names by sound from the Admiral; he said nobody could -spell them. There was a ferry at the former village. A wire is stretched -across the river high overhead; along this runs a wheel which has ropes -leading down and made fast to the ferryboat in such a way that the -boat’s head is held farther upstream than its stern. This angle enables -the current to drive the boat across, and no other motive force is -needed. This would be a good thing on minor rivers in America. - -2.10 P.M.--It is delightfully cool, breezy, shady (under the canopy), -and still. Much smoking and lazy reflecting. There is no sound but the -rippling of the current and the moaning of far-off breaks, except that -now and then the Admiral dips a screechy oar to change the course half a -point. In the distance one catches the faint singing and laughter of -playing children or the softened note of a church bell or town clock. -But the reposeful stillness--that is the charm--and the smooth swift -gliding--and the fresh, clear, lively, gray-green water. There was such -a rush, and boom, and life, and confusion, and activity in Geneva -yesterday--how remote all that seems now, how wholly vanished away and -gone out of this world! - -2.15.--Village of Yenne. Iron suspension bridge. On the heights back of -the town a chapel with a tower like a thimble, and a very tall white -Virgin standing on it. - -2.25.--Precipices on both sides now. River narrow--sixty yards. - -2.30.--Immense precipice on right bank, with groups of buildings (Pierre -Châtel) planted on the very edge of it. In its near neighborhood a -massive and picturesque fortification. - -All this narrow gut from the bridge down to the next bridge--a mile or -two--is picturesque with its frowning high walls of rock. - -In the face of the precipice above the second bridge sits a painted -house on a rock bench--a chapel, we think, but the Admiral says it is -for the storage of wine. - -More fortifications at the corner where the river turns--no cannon, but -narrow slits for musketry commanding the river. Also narrow slits in the -solid (hollowed-out) precipice. Perhaps there is no need of cannon here -where you can throw a biscuit across from precipice to precipice. - -2.45.--Below that second bridge. On top of the bluffs more -fortifications. Low banks on both sides here. - -2.50.--Now both sets of fortifications show up, look huge and -formidable, and are finely grouped. Through the glass they seem deserted -and falling to ruin. Out of date, perhaps. - -One will observe, by these paragraphs, that the Rhône is swift enough to -keep one’s view changing with a very pleasant alacrity. - -At midafternoon we passed a steep and lofty bluff--right bank--which was -crowned with the moldering ruins of a castle overgrown with trees. A -relic of Roman times, the Admiral said. Name? No, he didn’t know any -name for it. Had it a history? Perhaps; he didn’t know. Wasn’t there -even a legend connected with it? He didn’t know of any. - -Not even a legend. One’s first impulse was to be irritated; whereas one -should be merely thankful; for if there is one sort of invention in this -world that is flatter than another, it is the average folklore legend. -It could probably be proven that even the adventures of the saints in -the Roman calendar are not of a lower grade as works of the inventor’s -art. - -The dreamy repose, the infinite peace of these tranquil shores, this -Sabbath stillness, this noiseless motion, this strange absence of the -sense of sin, and the stranger absence of the desire to commit it--this -was the perfectest day the year had brought! Now and then we slipped -past low shores with grassy banks. A solitary thatched cottage close to -the edge, one or two big trees with dense foliage sheltering the -cottage, and the family in their Sunday, clothes grouped in the deep -shade, chatting, smoking, knitting, the dogs asleep about their feet, -the kittens helping with the knitting, and all hands content and -praising God without knowing it. We always got a friendly word of -greeting and returned it. One of these families contained eighteen sons, -and all were present. The Admiral was acquainted with everybody along -the banks, and with all the domestic histories, notwithstanding he was -so ineffectual on old Roman matters. - -4.20.--Bronze statue of the Virgin on a sterile hill slope. - -4.45.--Ruined Roman tower on a bluff. Belongs to the no-name series. - -5.--Some more Roman ruins in the distance. - -At 6 o’clock we rounded to. We stepped ashore in a woodsy and lonely -place and walked a short mile through a country lane to the sizable and -rather modern-looking village of St.-Genix. Part of the way we followed -another pleasure party--six or eight little children riding aloft on a -mountain of fragrant hay. This is the earliest form of the human -pleasure excursion, and for utter joy and perfect contentment it stands -alone in a man’s threescore years and ten; all that come after it have -flaws, but this has none. - -We put up at the Hôtel Labully, in the little square where the church -stands. Satisfactory dinner. Later I took a twilight tramp along the -high banks of a moist ditch called the Guires River. If it was my river -I wouldn’t leave it outdoors nights, in this careless way, where any dog -can come along and lap it up. It is a tributary of the Rhône when it is -in better health. - -It became dark while we were on our way back, and then the bicyclers -gave us many a sudden chill. They never furnished us an early warning, -but delivered the paralyzing shock of their rubber-horn hoot right at -our shoulder blades and then flashed spectrally by on their soundless -wheels and floated into the depths of the darkness and vanished from -sight before a body could collect his remark and get it out. Sometimes -they get shot. This is right. - -I went to my room, No. 16. The floor was bare, which is the rule down -the Rhône. Its planks were light colored, and had been smoothed by use -rather than art; they had conspicuous black knots in them. The usual -high and narrow bed was there, with the usual little marble-topped -commode by the head of it and the usual strip of foot carpet alongside, -where you climb in. The wall paper was dark--which is usual on the -Continent; even in the northern regions of Germany, where the daylight -in winter is of such poor quality that they don’t even tax it now. - -When I woke in the morning it was eight o’clock and raining hard, so I -stayed in bed and had my breakfast and a ripe old Paris paper of last -week brought up. It was a good breakfast--one often gets that; and a -liberal one--one seldom gets that. There was a big bowl for the coffee -instead of a stingy cup which has to be refilled just as you are getting -interested in it; there was a quart of coffee in the pot instead of a -scant half pint; instead of the usual hollow curl of brittle butter -which evades you when you try to scoop it on to the knife and crumbles -when you try to carve it, there was a solid cream-colored lump as big as -a brick; there was abundance of hot milk, and there was also the usual -ostensible cream of Europe. There _must_ be cream in Europe somewhere, -but it is not in the cows; they have been examined. - -The rain continued to pour until noon, then the sun burst out and we -were soon up and filing through the village. By the time we had tramped -our mile and pushed out into the stream, the watches marked 1.10 and the -day was brilliant and perfect. - -Over on the right were ruins of two castles, one of them of some size. - -We passed under a suspension bridge; alongside of it was an iron bridge -of a later pattern. Near by was a little steamer lying at the bank with -no signs of life about her--the first boat, except ferryboats, -encountered since we had entered the Rhône. A lonely river, truly. - -We drifted past lofty highlands, but there was nothing inspiring about -them. In Switzerland the velvet heights are sprinkled with homes clear -to the clouds, but these hills were sterile, desolate, gray, melancholy, -and so thin was the skin on them that the rocky bones showed through in -places. - -1.30.--We seem lost in the intricate channels of an archipelago of flat -islands covered with bushes. - -1.50.--We whirl around a corner into open river again, and observe that -a vast bank of leaden clouds is piling itself up on the horizon; the -tint thrown upon the distant stretches of water is rich and fine. - -The river is wide now--a hundred and fifty yards--and without islands. -Suddenly it has become nearly currentless and is like a lake. The -Admiral explains that from this point for nine miles it is called L’Eau -Morte--Dead Water. - -The region is not entirely barren of life, it seems--solitary woman -paddling a punt across the wide still pool. - -The boat moved, but that is about all one could say. It was indolent -progress; still, it was comfortable. There were flaming sunshine behind -and that rich thunder gloom ahead, and now and then the fitful fanning -of a pleasant breeze. - -A woman paddled across--a rather young woman with a face like the “Mona -Lisa.” I had seen the “Mona Lisa” only a little while before, and stood -two hours in front of that painting, repeating to myself: “People come -from around the globe to stand here and worship. What is it they find in -it?” To me it was merely a serene and subdued face, and there an end. -There might be more in it, but I could not find it. The complexion was -bad; in fact, it was not even human; there are no people of that color. -I finally concluded that maybe others still saw in the picture faded and -vanished marvels which _had_ been there once and were now forever -vanished. - -Then I remembered something told me once by Noel Flagg,[3] the artist. -There was a time, he said, when he wasn’t yet an artist but thought he -was. His pictures sold, and gave satisfaction, and that seemed a -good-enough verdict. One day he was daubing away in his studio and -feeling good and inspired, when Dr. Horace Bushnell, that noble old -Roman, straggled in there without an invitation and fastened that deep -eye of his on the canvas. The youth was proud enough of such a call, and -glad there was something on the easel that was worthy of it. After a -long look the great divine said: - -“You have talent, boy.” (That sounded good.) “What you want is -teaching.” - -Teaching--he, an accepted and competent artist! He didn’t like that. -After another long look: - -“Do you know the higher mathematics?” - -“I? No, sir.” - -“You must acquire them.” - -“As a proper part of an artist’s training?” This with veiled irony. - -“As an _essential_ part of it. Do you know anatomy?” - -“No, sir.” - -“You must learn how to dissect a body. What are you studying, -now--principally?” - -“Nothing, I believe.” - -“And the time flying, the time flying! Where are your books? What do you -read?” - -“There they are, on the shelves.” - -“I see. Poetry and romance. They must wait. Get to your mathematics and -your anatomy right away. Another point: you must train your eye--you -must teach yourself to see.” - -“Teach myself to see? I believe I was born with that ability.” - -“But nobody is born with a _trained_ ability--nobody. A cow sees--she -sees all the outsides of things, no doubt, but it is only the trained -eye that sees deeper, sees the soul of them, the meaning of them, the -spiritual essence. Are you sure that you see more than the cow sees? You -must go to Paris. You will never learn to see here. There they’ll teach -you; there they’ll train you; there they’ll work you like a slave; there -they’ll bring out the talent that’s in you. Be off! Don’t twaddle here -any longer!” - -Flagg thought it over and resolved that the advice was worth taking. He -and his brother cleared for Paris. They put in their first afternoon -there scoffing at the works of the old masters in the Louvre. They -laughed at themselves for crossing a wide ocean to learn what masterly -painting might be by staring at these odious things. As for the “Mona -Lisa,” they exhausted their treasure of wit in making fun of it. - -Next day they put themselves into the hands of the Beaux Arts people, -and that was the end of play. They had to start at the very bottom of -their trade and learn it over again, detail by detail, and learn it -_right_, this time. They slaved away, night and day for three months, -and wore themselves to shadows. Then they had a day off, and drifted -into the Louvre. Neither said a word for some time; each disliked to -begin; but at last, in front of the “Mona Lisa,” after standing mute -awhile one of them said: - -“Speak out. Say it.” - -“Say it yourself.” - -“Well, then, we _were_ cows before!” - -“Yes--it’s the right name for it. That is what we were. It is -unbelievable, the change that has come over these pictures in three -months. It is the difference between a landscape in the twilight and the -same landscape in the daytime.” Then they fell into each other’s arms. - -This all came back to me, now, as I saw this living “Mona Lisa” punting -across L’Eau Morte. - -2.40 P.M.--Made for a village on the right bank with all speed--Port de -Groslee. Remains of Roman aqueduct on hilltop back of village. -Rain!--Deluges of it. Took refuge in an inn on the bank--Hôtel des -Voyageurs. The public room was full of voyageurs and tobacco smoke. The -voyageurs may have been river folk in the old times when the inn was -built, but this present crowd was made up of teamsters. They sat at bare -tables, under their feet was the bare floor, about them were the four -bare walls--a dreary place at any time, a heart-breaking place now in -the dark of the downpour. However, it was manifestly not dreary to the -teamsters. They were sipping red wine and smoking; they all talked at -once, and with great energy and spirit, and every now and then they gave -their thighs a sounding slap and burst into a general horse laugh. The -courier said that this was in response to rude wit and coarse anecdotes. -The brace of modest-looking girls who were waiting on the teamsters did -not seem troubled. The courier said that they were used to all kinds of -language and were not defiled by it; that they had probably seldom heard -a spade called anything but a spade, therefore the foulest words came -innocent to their ears. - -This inn was built of stone--of course; everybody’s house on the -Continent, from palace to hovel, is built of that dismal material, and -as a rule it is as square as a box and odiously plain and destitute of -ornament; it is formal, forbidding, and breeds melancholy thoughts in -people used to friendlier and more perishable materials of construction. -The frame house and the log house molder and pass away, even in the -builder’s time, and this makes a proper bond of sympathy and fellowship -between the man and his home; but the stone house remains always the -same to the person born in it; in his old age it is still as hard, and -indifferent, and unaffected by time as it was in the long-vanished days -of his childhood. The other kind of house shows by many touching signs -that it has noted his griefs and misfortunes and has felt for them, but -the stone house doesn’t--it is not of his evanescent race, it has no -kinship with him, nor any interest in him. - -A professional letter writer happened along presently, and one of the -young girls got him to write a letter for her. It seemed strange that -she could not write it herself. The courier said that the peasant women -of the Rhône do not care for education, but only for religion; that they -are all good Catholics, and that their main ambition in life is to see -the Rhône’s long procession of stone and bronze Virgins added to, until -the river shall be staked out with them from end to end; and that their -main pleasure in life is to contribute from their scant centimes to this -gracious and elevating work. He says it is a quite new caprice; that ten -years ago there was not a Virgin in this part of France at all, and -never had been. This may be true, and, of course, there is nothing -unreasonable about it, but I have already found out that the courier’s -statements are not always exact. - -I had a hot fried fish and coffee in a garden shed roofed with a mat of -vines, but the rain came through in streams and I got drenched in spite -of our umbrellas, for one cannot manage table implements and umbrellas -all at the same time with anything like good success. - -_Mem._--Last evening, for economy’s sake, proposed to be a Frenchman -because Americans and English are always overcharged. Courier said it -wouldn’t deceive unless I played myself for a deaf-and-dumb -Frenchman--which I did, and so the rooms were only a franc and a half -each. But the Admiral must have let it out that I was only deaf and dumb -in French, for prices were raised in the bill this morning. - -4.10 P.M.--Left Port de Groslee. - -4.50 P.M.--Château of the Count Cassiloa--or something like that--the -Admiral’s pronunciation is elusive. Courier guesses the spelling at -“Quintionat.” I don’t quite see the resemblance. This courier’s -confidence in himself is a valuable talent. He must be descended from -the idiot who taught our forefathers to spell tizzik with a _ph_ and a -_th_. - -The river here is as still and smooth and nearly as dead as a lake. The -water is swirly, though, and consequently makes uneasy steering. - -River seems to draw together and greatly narrow itself below the count’s -house. No doubt the current will smarten up there. - -Three new quarries along here. Dear me! how little there is in the way -of sight-seeing, when a quarry is an event! Remarked upon with -contentment. - -Swept through the narrow canallike place with a good current. - -On the left-hand point below, bush-grown ruins of an ancient convent -(St. Alban’s), picturesquely situated on a low bluff. There is a higher -and handsomer bluff a trifle lower down. How did they overlook it? Those -people generally went for the best, not second best. Shapely hole in -latter bluff one hundred feet above the water--anchorite’s nest? -Interesting-looking hole, and would have cost but little time and -trouble to examine it, but it was not done. It is no matter; one can -find other holes. - -At last, below bluffs, we find some greensward--not extensive, but a -pleasant novelty. - -5.30.--Lovely sunset. Mottled clouds richly painted by sinking sun, and -fleecy shreds of clouds drifting along the fronts of neighboring blue -mountains. Harrow in a field. Apparently harrow, but was distant and -could not tell; could have been a horse. - -5.35.--Very large gray broken-arched and unusually picturesque ruin -crowning a hilltop on right. Name unknown. This is a liberal mile above -village of Briord (my spelling--the Admiral’s pronunciation), on same -side. Passed the village swiftly, and left it behind. The villagers came -out and made fun of our strange tub. The dogs chased us and were more -noisy than necessary. - -6 P.M.--Another suspension bridge--this is the sixth one. They have -ceased to interest. There was nothing exciting about them, from the -start. Presently landed on left bank and shored the boat for the night. -Hôtel du Rhône Moine. Isolated. Situated right on the bank. Sort of a -village--villagette, to be exact--a little back. Hôtel is two stories -high and not pretentious--family dwelling and cow stable all under one -roof. - -I had been longing to have personal experience of peasant life--be “on -the inside” and see it for myself, instead of at second hand in books. -This was an opportunity and I was excited about it and glad. The kitchen -was not clean, but it was a sociable place, and the family were kind and -full of good will. There were three little children, a young girl, -father, mother, grandparents, some dogs, and a plurality of cats. There -was no discord; perfect harmony prevailed. - -Our table was placed on the lawn on the river bank. One had no right to -expect any finer style here than he would find in the cheapest and -shabbiest little tavern in America, for the Hôtel du Rhône Moine was for -foot wanderers and laborers on the flatboats that convey stone and sand -and wood to Lyons, yet the style _was_ superior--very much so. The -tablecloth was white, and it and the table furniture were perfectly -clean. We had a fish of a pretty coarse grain, but it was fresh from the -river and hot from the pan; the bread was good, there was abundance of -excellent butter, the milk was rich and pure, the sugar was white, the -coffee was considerably better than that which is furnished by the -choice hotels of the capitals of the Continent. Thus far, peasant life -was a disappointment, it was so much better than anything we were used -to at home in some respects. Two of the dogs came out, presently, and -sat down by the table and rested their chins on it, and so remained. It -was not to beg, for they showed no interest in the supper; they were -merely there to be friendly, it was the only idea they had. A squadron -of cats came out by and by and sat down in the neighborhood and looked -me over languidly, then wandered away without passion, in fact with what -looked like studied indifference. Even the cats and the dogs are well -and sufficiently fed at the Hôtel du Rhône Moine--their dumb testimony -was as good as speech. - -I went to bed early. It is inside the house, not outside, that one -really finds the peasant life. Our rooms were over the stable, and this -was not an advantage. The cows and horses were not very quiet, the smell -was extraordinary, the fleas were a disorderly lot, and these things -helped the coffee to keep one awake. The family went to bed at nine and -got up at two. The beds were very high; one could not climb into them -without the help of a chair; and as they were narrow and arched, there -was danger of rolling out in case one drifted into dreams of an -imprudent sort. These lofty bedsteads were not high from caprice, but -for a purpose--they contained chests of drawers, and the drawers were -full of clothing and other family property. On the table in my room were -some bright-colored, even gorgeous little waxen saints and a Virgin -under bell-glasses; also the treasures of the house--jewelry and a -silver watch. It was not costly jewelry, but it was jewelry, at any -rate, and without doubt the family valued it. I judged that this -household were accustomed to having honest guests and neighbors or they -would have removed these things from the room when I entered it, for I -do not look honester than others. - -Not that I have always thought in this way about myself, for I haven’t. -I thought the reverse until the time I lost my overcoat, once, when I -was going down to New York to see the Water Color exhibition, and had a -sort of adventure in consequence. The house had been robbed in the -night, and when I came downstairs to rush for the early train there was -no overcoat. It was a raw day, and when I got to New York at noon I grew -colder and colder as I walked along down the Avenue. When I reached East -Thirty-fourth street I stopped on the corner and began to consider. It -seemed to me that it must have been just about there that Smith,[4] the -artist, took me one winter’s night, with others, five years before, and -caroused us with roasted oysters and Southern stories and hilarity in -his fourth story until three or four in the morning; and now if I could -only call to mind which of those houses over the way was his, I could -borrow an overcoat. All the time that I was thinking and standing there -and trying to recollect, I was dimly conscious of a figure near me, but -only dimly, very dimly; but now as I came out of my reverie and found -myself gazing, rapt but totally unconscious, at one of the houses over -there, that figure solidified itself and became at once the most -conspicuous thing in the landscape. It was a policeman. He was standing -not six feet away, and was gazing as intently at my face as I had been -gazing at the house. I was embarrassed--it is always embarrassing to -come to yourself and find a stranger staring at you. You blush, even -when you have not been doing any harm. So I blushed--a thing that does -not commend a person to a policeman; also I tried to smile a placating -smile, but it did not get any response, so then I tried to make it a -kind of friendly smile, which was a mistake, because that only hardens a -policeman, and I saw at once that this smile had hardened this one and -made my situation more difficult than ever; and so, naturally, my -judgment being greatly impaired by now, I spoke--which was an error, -because in these circumstances one cannot arrange without reflection a -remark which will not seem to have a kind of suspicious something about -it to a policeman, and that was what happened this time; for I had -fanned up that haggard smile again, which had been dying out when I -wasn’t noticing, and said: - -“Could you tell me, please, if there’s a Mr. Smith lives over there -in----” - -“_What_ Smith?” - -That rude abruptness drove his other name out of my mind; and as I saw I -never should be able to think of it with the policeman standing there -cowing me with his eye, that way, it seemed to me best to get out a name -of some kind, so as to avert further suspicion, therefore I brought out -the first one which came into my mind, which was John--another error. -The policeman turned purple--apparently with a sense of injury and -insult--and said there were a million John Smiths in New York, and -_which_ one was this? Also what did I want with Smith? I could not -remember--the overcoat was gone out of my mind. So I told him he was a -pupil of mine and that I was giving him lessons in morals; moral -culture--a new system. - -That was a lucky hit, anyway. I was merely despicable, now, to the -policeman, but harmless--I could see it in his eye. He looked me over a -moment then said: - -“You give him lessons, do you?” - -“Yes, sir.” - -“How long have you been giving him lessons?” - -“Two years, next month.” I was getting my wind again, and confidence. - -“Which house does he live in?” - -“That one--the middle one in the block.” - -“Then what did you ask _me_ for, a minute ago?” - -I did not see my way out. He waited for an answer, but got tired before -I could think of one that would fit the case and said: - -“How is it that you haven’t an overcoat on, such a day as this?” - -“I--well, I never wear them. It doesn’t seem cold to me.” - -He thought awhile, with his eye on me, then said, with a sort of sigh: - -“Well, maybe you are all right--I don’t know--but you want to walk -pretty straight while you are on my beat; for, morals or no morals, -blamed if I take much stock in you. Move on, now.” - -Then he turned away, swinging his club by its string. But his eye was -over his shoulder, my way; so I had to cross to that house, though I -didn’t want to, any more. I did not expect it to be Smith’s house, now -that I was so out of luck, but I thought I would ring and ask, and if it -proved to be some one else’s house, then I would explain that I had come -to examine the gas meter and thus get out the back way and be all right -again. The door was opened by a middle-aged matron with a gentle and -friendly face, and she had a sweet serenity about her that was a notable -contrast to my nervous flurry. I asked after Smith and if he lived -there, and to my surprise and gratitude she said that this was his home. - -“Can I see him? Can I see him right away--immediately?” - -No; he was gone downtown. My rising hopes fell to ruin. - -“Then can I see Mrs. Smith?” - -But alas and alas! she was gone downtown with him. In my distress I was -suddenly smitten by one of those ghastly hysterical inspirations, you -know, when you want to do an insane thing just to astonish and petrify -somebody; so I said, with a rather overdone pretense of playful ease and -assurance: - -“Ah, this is a very handsome overcoat on the hat rack--be so good as to -lend it to me for a day or two!” - -“With pleasure,” she said--and she had the coat on me before I knew what -had happened. It had been my idea to astonish and petrify her, but I was -the person astonished and petrified, myself. So astonished and so -petrified, in fact, that I was out of the house and gone, without a -thank-you or a question, before I came to my senses again. Then I -drifted slowly along, reflecting--reflecting pleasantly. I said to -myself, “She simply divined my character by my face--what a far clearer -intuition she had than that policeman.” The thought sent a glow of -self-satisfaction through me. - -Then a hand was laid on my shoulder and I shrank together with a crash. -It was the policeman. He scanned me austerely and said: - -“Where did you get that overcoat?” - -Although I had not been doing any harm, I had all the sense of being -caught--caught in something disreputable. The officer’s accusing eye and -unbelieving aspect heightened this effect. I told what had befallen me -at the house in as straightforward a way as I could, but I was ashamed -of the tale, and looked it, without doubt, for I knew and felt how -improbable it must necessarily sound to anybody, particularly a -policeman. Manifestly he did not believe me. He made me tell it all over -again, then he questioned me: - -“You don’t know the woman?” - -“No, I don’t know her.” - -“Haven’t the least idea who she is?” - -“Not the least.” - -“You didn’t tell her your name?” - -“No.” - -“She didn’t ask for it?” - -“No.” - -“You just asked her to lend you the overcoat, and she let you take it?” - -“She put it on me herself.” - -“And didn’t look frightened?” - -“Frightened? Of course not.” - -“Not even surprised?” - -“Not in the slightest degree.” - -He paused. Presently he said: - -“My friend, I don’t believe a word of it. Don’t you see, yourself, it’s -a tale that won’t wash? Do _you_ believe it?” - -“Yes. I know it’s true.” - -“Weren’t you surprised?” - -“Clear through to the marrow!” - -He had been edging me along back to the house. He had a deep design; he -sprung it on me now. Said he: - -“Stop where you are. I’ll mighty soon find out!” - -He walked to the door and up the steps, keeping a furtive eye out toward -me and ready to jump for me if I ran. Then he pretended to pull the -bell, and instantly faced about to observe the effect on me. But there -wasn’t any; I walked toward him instead of running away. That unsettled -him. He came down the steps, evidently perplexed, and said: - -“Well, I can’t make it out. It may be all right, but it’s too many for -me. I don’t like your looks and I won’t have such characters around. Go -along, now, and look sharp. If I catch you prowling around here again -I’ll run you _in_.” - -I found Smith at the Water Color dinner that night, and asked him if it -were merely my face that had enabled me to borrow the overcoat from a -stranger, but he was surprised and said: - -“No! What an idea--and what intolerable conceit! She is my housekeeper, -and remembered your drawling voice from overhearing it a moment that -night four or five years ago in my house; so she knew where to send the -police if you didn’t bring the coat back!” - -After all those years I was sitting here, now, at midnight in the -peasant hotel, in my night clothes, and honoring womankind in my -thoughts; for here was another woman, with the noble and delicate -intuitions of her sex, trusting me, a total stranger, with all her -modest wealth. She entered the room, just then, and stood beaming upon -me a moment with her sweet matronly eyes--then took away the jewelry. - -_Tuesday, September 22d._--Breakfast in open air. Extra canvas was now -to be added to the boat’s hood to keep the passengers and valises better -protected during rainstorms. I passed through the villagette and started -to walk over the wooded hill, the boat to find us on the river bank -somewhere below, by and by. I soon got lost among the high bushes and -turnip gardens. Plenty of paths, but none went to river. Reflection. -Decision--that the path most traveled was the one leading in the right -direction. It was a poor conclusion. I got lost again; this time worse -than before. But a peasant of above eighty (as she said, and certainly -she was very old and wrinkled and gray and bent) found me presently and -undertook to guide me safely. She was vigorous, physically, prompt and -decided of movement, and altogether soldierlike; and she had a hawk’s -eye and beak, and a gypsy’s complexion. She said that from her girlhood -up to not so very many years ago she had done a man’s work on a woman’s -pay on the big keel boats that carry stone down the river, and was as -good a man as the best, in the matter of handling stone. Said she had -seen the great Napoleon when she was a little child. Her face was so -wrinkled and dark and so eaglelike that she reminded me of old Indians -one sees out on the Great Plains--the outside signs of age, but in the -eye an indestructible spirit. She had a couple of laden baskets with her -which I had found heavy after three minutes’ carrying, when she was -finding the way for me, but they seemed nothing to her. She impressed -one rather as a man than as a woman; and so, when she spoke of her child -that was drowned, and her voice broke a little and her lip quivered, it -surprised me; I was not expecting it. “Grandchild?” No--it was her own -child. “Indeed? When?” So then it came out that it was sixty years ago. -It seemed strange that she should mind it so long. But that was the -woman of it, no doubt. She had a fragment of newspaper--religious--with -rude holy woodcuts in it and doubtful episodes in the lives of mediæval -saints and anchorites--and she could read these instructive matters in -fine print without glasses; also, her eyes were as good at long -distances. She led hither and thither among the paths and finally -brought me out overlooking the river. There was a steep sandy frontage -there, where there had recently been a small landslide, and the faint -new path ran straight across it for forty feet, like a slight snow track -along the slant of a very steep roof. I halted and declined. I had no -mind to try the crumbly path and creep and quake along it with the -boiling river--and maybe some rocks--under my elbow thirty feet below. -Such places turn my stomach. The old woman took note of me, understood, -and said what sounded like, “_Lass’ ma allez au premier_”--then she -tramped briskly and confidently across with her baskets, sending -miniature avalanches of sand and gravel down into the river with each -step. One of her feet plowed from under her, about midway, but she -snatched it back and marched on, not seeming to mind it. My pride urged -me to move along, and put me to shame. After a time the old woman came -back and coaxed me to try, and did at last get me started in her wake -and I got as far as midway all right; but then to hearten me still more -and show me how easy and safe it was, she began to prance and dance her -way along, with her knuckles in her hips, kicking a landslide loose with -every skip. The exhibition struck a cold panic through me and made my -brain swim. I leaned against the slope and said I would stay there until -the boat came and testified as to whether there were rocks under me or -not. For the third time in my life I was in that kind of a fix--in a -place where I could not go backward or forward, and mustn’t stay where I -was. The boat was a good while coming, but it seemed longer than that. -Where I was, the slope was like a roof; where the slope ended the wall -was perpendicular thence to the water, and one could not see over and -tell what the state of things might be down there. When the boat came -along, the courier said there was nothing down there but deep water--no -rocks. I did not mind the water; so my fears disappeared, now, and I -finished my march without discomfort. I gave the old woman some money, -which pleased her very much and she tried her grateful best to give us a -partridge, newly killed, which she rummaged out of one of her baskets, -and seemed disappointed when I would not take it. But I couldn’t; it -would have been a shabby act. Then she went her way with her heavy -baskets and I got aboard and afloat once more, feeling a great respect -for her and very friendly toward her. She waved a good-by every now and -then till her figure faded out in the plain, joining that interminable -procession of friends made and lost in an hour that drifts past a man’s -life from cradle to grave and returns on its course no more. The courier -said she was probably a poacher and stole the partridge. - -The courier was not able to understand why I had not nerve enough to -walk along a crumbling slope with a precipice only thirty feet high -below me; but I had no difficulty in understanding it. It is -constitutional with me to get nervous and incapable under the -probability of getting myself dropped thirty feet on to a pile of rocks; -it does not come from culture. Some people are made in one way, and some -in another--and the above is my way. Some people who can skirt -precipices without a tremor have a strong dread of the dentist’s chair, -whereas I was born without any prejudices against the dentist’s chair; -when in it I am interested, am not in a hurry, and do not greatly mind -the pain. Taken by and large, my style of make has advantages over the -other, I think. Few of us are obliged to circumnavigate precipices, but -we all have to take a chance at the dental chair. - -People who early learn the right way to choose a dentist have their -reward. Professional superiority is not everything; it is only part. All -dentists talk while they work. They have inherited this from their -professional ancestors, the barbers. The dentist who talks well--other -things being equal--is the one to choose. He tells anecdotes all the -while and keeps his man so interested and entertained that he hardly -notices the flight of time. For he not only tells anecdotes that are -good in themselves, but he adds nice shadings to them with his -instruments as he goes along, and now and then brings out effects which -could not be produced with any other kind of tools at all. All the time -that such a dentist as this is plowing down into a cavity with that -spinning gouge which he works with a treadle, it is observable that he -has found out where he has uncovered a nerve down in there, and that he -only visits it at intervals, according to the needs of his anecdote, -touching it lightly, very lightly and swiftly, now and then, to brighten -up some happy conceit in his tale and call a delicate electric attention -to it; and all the while he is working gradually and steadily up toward -his climax with veiled and consummate art--then at last the spindle -stops whirling and thundering in the cavity, and you know that the grand -surprise is imminent, now--is hanging in the very air. You can hear your -heart beat as the dentist bends over you with his grip on the spindle -and his voice diminished to a murmur. The suspense grows -bigger--bigger--bigger--your breath stops--then your heart. Then with -lightning suddenness the “nub” is sprung and the spindle drives into the -raw nerve! The most brilliant surprises of the stage are pale and -artificial compared with this. - -It is believed by people generally--or at least by many--that the -exquisitely sharp sensation which results from plunging the steel point -into the raw nerve is pain, but I think that this is doubtful. It is so -vivid and sudden that one has no time to examine properly into its -character. It is probably impossible, with our human limitations, to -determine with certainty whether a sensation of so high and perfect an -order as that is pain or whether it is pleasure. Its location brings it -under the disadvantage of a common prejudice; and so men mistake it for -pain when they might perceive that it is the opposite of that if it were -anywhere but in a tooth. I may be in error, but I have experimented with -it a great deal and I am satisfied in my own mind that it is not pain. -It is true that it always feels like pain, but that proves nothing--ice -against a naked back always passes for fire. I have every confidence -that I can eventually prove to everyone’s satisfaction that a nerve-stab -produces pleasure; and not only that, but the most exquisite pleasure, -the most perfect felicity which we are capable of feeling. I would not -ask more than to be remembered hereafter as the man who conferred this -priceless benefaction upon his race. - -11.30.--Approaching the Falls of the Rhône. Canal to the left, walled -with compact and beautiful masonry. It is a cut-off. We could pass -through it and avoid the Falls--are advised by the Admiral to do it, but -all decline, preferring to have a dangerous adventure to talk about. - -However.... - -The truth is, the current began to grow ominously swift--and presently -pretty lumpy and perturbed; soon we seemed to be simply flying past the -shores. Then all of a sudden three hundred yards of boiling and tossing -river burst upon our sight through the veiling tempest of rain! I did -not see how our flimsy ark could live through such a place. If we were -wrecked, swimming could not save us; the packed multitude of tall humps -of water meant a bristling chaos of big rocks underneath, and the first -rock we hit would break our bones. If I had been fortified with -ignorance I might have wanted to stay in the boat and see the fun; but I -have had much professional familiarity with water, and I doubted if -there was going to be any fun there. So I said I would get out and walk, -and I did. I need not tell anybody at home; I could leave out the Falls -of the Rhône; they are not on the map, anyhow. If an adventure worth -recording resulted, the Admiral and the courier would have it, and that -would answer. I could see it from the bank--nothing could be better; it -seemed even providential. - -I ran along the bank in the driving rain, and enjoyed the sight to the -full. I never saw a finer show than the passage of that boat was, -through the fierce turmoil of water. Alternately she rose high and -plunged deep, throwing up sheets of foaming spray and shaking them off -like a mane. Several times she seemed to fairly bury herself, and I -thought she was gone for good, but always she sprang high aloft the next -moment, a gallant and stirring spectacle to see. The Admiral’s steering -was great. I had not seen the equal of it before. - -The boat waited for me down at the Villebois bridge, and I presently -caught up and went aboard. There was a stretch of a hundred yards of -offensively rough water below the bridge, but it had no dangerous -features about it. Still, I was obliged to claim that it had, and that -these perils were much greater than the others. - -Noon.--A mile of perpendicular precipices--very handsome. On the left, -at the termination of this stately wall, a darling little old tree-grown -ruin abreast a wooded islet with a large white mansion on it. Near that -ruin nature has gotten up a clever counterfeit of one, tree-grown and -all that, and, as its most telling feature, has furnished it a battered -monolith that stands up out of the underbrush by itself and looks as if -men had shaped it and put it there and time had gnawed it and worn it. - -This is the prettiest piece of river we have found. All its aspects are -dainty and gracious and alluring. - -1 P.M.--Château de la Salette. This is the port of the Grotte de la -Balme, “one of the seven wonders of Dauphiny.” It is across a plain in -the face of a bluff a mile from the river. A grotto is out of the common -order, and I should have liked to see this one, but the rains have made -the mud very deep and it did not seem well to venture so long a trip -through it. - -2.15 P.M.--St.-Etienne. On a distant ridge inland a tall openwork -structure commandingly situated, with a statue of the Virgin standing on -it. - -Immense empty freight barges being towed upstream by teams of two and -four big horses--not on the bank, but under it; not on the land, but -always in the water--sometimes breast deep--and around the big flat -bars. - -We reached a not very promising-looking village about four o’clock, and -concluded to land; munching fruit and filling the hood with pipe smoke -had grown monotonous. We could not have the hood furled, because the -floods of rain fell unceasingly. The tavern was on the river bank, as is -the custom. It was dull there, and melancholy--nothing to do but look -out of the window into the drenching rain and shiver; one could do that, -for it was bleak and cold and windy, and there was no fire. Winter -overcoats were not sufficient; they had to be supplemented with rugs. -The raindrops were so large and struck the river with such force that -they knocked up the water like pebble splashes. - -With the exception of a very occasional wooden-shod peasant, nobody was -abroad in this bitter weather--I mean of our sex. But all weathers are -alike to the women in these continental countries. To them and the other -animals life is serious; nothing interrupts their slavery. Three of them -were washing clothes in the river under the window when we arrived, and -they continued at it as long as there was light to work by. One was -apparently thirty; another--the mother?--above fifty; the -third--grandmother?--so old and worn and gray she could have passed for -eighty. They had no waterproofs or rubbers, of course; over their heads -and shoulders they wore gunny sacks--simply conductors for rivers of -water; some of the volume reached ground, the rest soaked in on the way. - -At last a vigorous fellow of thirty-five arrived, dry and comfortable, -smoking his pipe under his big umbrella in an open donkey cart--husband, -son, and grandson of those women? He stood up in the cart, sheltering -himself, and began to superintend, issuing his orders in a masterly tone -of command, and showing temper when they were not obeyed swiftly enough. -Without complaint or murmur the drowned women patiently carried out the -orders, lifting the immense baskets of soaked clothing into the cart and -stowing them to the man’s satisfaction. The cart being full now, he -descended, with his umbrella, entered the tavern, and the women went -drooping homeward in the wake of the cart, and soon were blended with -the deluge and lost to sight. We would tar and feather that fellow in -America, and ride him on a rail. - -When we came down into the public room he had his bottle of wine and -plate of food on a bare table black with grease, and was chomping like a -horse. He had the little religious paper which is in everybody’s hands -on the Rhône borders, and was enlightening himself with the histories of -French saints who used to flee to the desert in the Middle Ages to -escape the contamination of women. - -Wednesday.--After breakfast, got under way. Still storming as hard as -ever. The whole land looks defeated and discouraged. And very lonely; -here and there a woman in the fields. They merely accent the loneliness. - - NOTE.--The record ends here. Luxurious enjoyment of the excursion - rendered the traveler indifferent to his notes. The drift continued to - Arles, whence Mark Twain returned to Geneva and Ouchy by rail. Ten - years later he set down another picture of this happy journey--“The - Lost Napoleon”--which follows.--A. B. P. - ------ - -Footnote 3: - - Of Hartford, Connecticut. - -Footnote 4: - - _Note, 1904._ Hopkinson Smith, now a distinguished man in literature, - art, and architecture. S. L. C. - - - - - THE LOST NAPOLEON - - -The lost Napoleon is a part of a mountain range. Several miles of -it--say six. When you stand at the right viewpoint and look across the -plain, there, miles away, stretched out on his back under the sky, you -see the great Napoleon, sleeping, with his arm folded upon his breast. -You recognize him at once and you catch your breath and a thrill goes -through you from head to foot--a most natural thing to happen, for you -have never been so superbly astonished in your life before, and you -realize, if you live a century, it is not likely that you will ever -encounter the like of that tremendous surprise again. You see, it is -unique. You have seen mountain ridges before that looked like men lying -down, but there was always some one to pilot you to the right viewpoint, -and prepare you for the show, and then tell you which is the head and -which the feet and which the stomach, and at last you get the idea and -say, “Yes, now I see it, now I make it out--it is a man, and wonderful, -too.” But all this has damaged the surprise and there is not much -thrill; moreover, the man is only a third-rate celebrity or no celebrity -at all--he is no Napoleon the Great. But I discovered this stupendous -Napoleon myself and was caught wholly by surprise, hence the splendid -emotion, the uplifting astonishment. - -We have all seen mountains that looked like whales, elephants, recumbent -lions--correctly figured, too, and a pleasure to look upon--but we did -not discover them, somebody pointed them out to us, and in the same -circumstances we have seen and enjoyed stately crags and summits known -to the people thereabouts as “The Old Man’s Head,” “The Elephant’s -Head,” “Anthony’s Nose,” “The Lady’s Head,” etc., and we have seen -others that were named “Shakespeare’s Head,” and “Satan’s Head,” but -still the fine element of surprise was in almost all cases wanting. - -The Lost Napoleon is easily the most colossal and impressive statue in -the world. It is several miles long; in form and proportions it is -perfect. It represents Napoleon himself and not another; and there is -something about the dignity and repose of the great figure that stirs -the imagination and half persuades it that this is not an unsentient -artifice of nature, but the master of the world sentient and -dreaming--dreaming of battle, conquest, empire. I call it the Lost -Napoleon because I cannot remember just where I was when I saw it. My -hope, in writing this, is that I may move some wandering tourist or -artist to go over my track and seek for it--seek for it, find it, locate -it exactly, describe it, paint it, and so preserve it against loss -again. - -My track was down the Rhône; I made the excursion ten or eleven years -ago in the pleasantest season of the year. I took a courier with me and -went from Geneva a couple of hours by rail to the blue little Lake -Bourget, and spent the night in a mediæval castle on an island in that -little lake. In the early morning our boat came for us. It was a roomy -open boat fifteen or twenty feet long, with a single pair of long oars, -and with it came its former owner, a sturdy big boatman. The boat was -mine now; I think I paid five dollars for it. I was to pay the boatman a -trifling daily wage and his keep, and he was to take us all the way down -the Rhône to Marseilles. It was warm weather and very sunny, but we -built a canvas arch, like a wagon cover, over the aftermost third of the -boat, with a curtain at its rear which could be rolled up to let the -breeze blow through, and I occupied that tent and was always -comfortable. The sailor sat amidships and manned the oars, and the -courier had the front third of the boat to himself. We crossed the lake -and went winding down a narrow canal bordered by peasant houses and -vineyards, and after about a league of this navigation we came in sight -of the Rhône, a troubled gray stream which went tearing past the mouth -of the peaceful canal at a racing gait. We emerged into it and laid in -the oars. We could go fast enough in that current without artificial -aid. During the first days we slipped along down the curving bends at a -speed of about five miles an hour, but it slackened later. - -Our days were all about alike. About four in the afternoon we tied up at -a village and I dined on the greensward in front of the inn by the -water’s edge, on the choicest chickens, vegetables, fruit, butter, and -bread, prepared in French perfection and served upon the whitest linen; -and as a rule I had the friendly house cat and dog for guests and -company and willing and able helpers. I slept in the inn; often in clean -and satisfactory quarters, sometimes in the same room with the cows and -the fleas. I breakfasted on the lawn in the morning with cat and dog -again; then laid in a stock of grapes and other fruits gathered fresh -from the garden and some bottles of red wine made on the premises, and -at eight or nine we went floating down the river again. At noon we went -ashore at a village, bought a freshly caught fish or two, had them -broiled, got some bread and vegetables, and set sail again at once. We -always lunched on board as we floated along. I spent my days reading -books, making notes, smoking, and in other lazy and enchanting ways, and -had the delightfulest ten-day voyage I have ever experienced. - -It took us ten days to float to Arles. There the current gave out and I -closed the excursion and returned to Geneva by rail. It was twenty-eight -miles to Marseilles, and we should have been obliged to row. That would -not have been pleasure; it would have meant work for the sailor, and I -do not like work even when another person does it. - -I think it was about the eighth day that I discovered Napoleon. My notes -cover four or five days; there they stop; the charm of the trip had -taken possession of me, and I had no energy left. It was getting toward -four in the afternoon--time to tie up for the day. Down ahead on the -right bank I saw a compact jumble of yellowy-browny cubes stacked -together, some on top of the others, and no visible cracks in the mass, -and knew it for a village--a village common to that region down there; a -village jammed together without streets or alleys, substantially--where -your progress is mainly _through_ the houses, not _by_ them, and where -privacy is a thing practically unknown; a village which probably hadn’t -had a house added to the jumble for five hundred years. We were anywhere -from half a mile to a mile above the village when I gave the order to -proceed to that place and tie up. Just then I glanced to my left toward -the distant mountain range, and got that soul-stirring shock which I -have said so much about. I pointed out the grand figure to the courier, -and said: - -“Name it. Who is it?” - -“Napoleon!” - -“Yes, it is Napoleon. Show it to the sailor and ask him to name it.” - -The sailor said, “Napoleon.” We watched the figure all the time then -until we reached the village. We walked up the river bank in the morning -to see how far one might have to go before the shape would materially -change, but I do not now remember the result. We watched it afterward as -we floated away from the village, but I cannot remember at what point -the shape began to be marred. However, the mountains being some miles -away, I think that the figure would be recognizable as Napoleon along a -stretch of as much as a mile above and a mile below the village, though -I think that the likeness would be strongest at the point where I first -saw it--that is, half a mile or more above the village. - -We talked the grand apparition over at great length and with a strong -interest. I said I believed that if its presence were known to the world -such shoals of tourists would come flocking there to see it that all the -spare ground would soon be covered with hotels; and I think so yet. I -think it would soon be the most celebrated natural curiosity on the -planet, that it would be more visited than Niagara or the Alps, and that -all the other famous natural curiosities of the globe would fall to a -rank away below it. I think so still. - -There is a line of lumbering and thundering great freight steamers on -the Rhône, and I think that if some man will board one of them at Arles -and make a trip of some hours upstream--say from three to six--and keep -an eye out to the right and watch that mountain range he will be certain -to find the Lost Napoleon and have no difficulty in rediscovering the -mighty statue when he comes to the right point. It will cost nothing to -make the experiment, and I hope it will be done. - - NOTE.--Mark Twain’s biographer rediscovered it in 1913. It is some - miles below Valence, opposite the village of Beauchastel. - - - - - SOME NATIONAL STUPIDITIES - (1891-1892) - - -The slowness of one section of the world about adopting the valuable -ideas of another section of it is a curious thing and unaccountable. -This form of stupidity is confined to no community, to no nation; it is -universal. The fact is the human race is not only slow about borrowing -valuable ideas--it sometimes persists in not borrowing them at all. - -Take the German stove, for instance--the huge white porcelain monument -that towers toward the ceiling in the corner of the room, solemn, -unsympathetic, and suggestive of death and the grave--where can you find -it outside of the German countries? I am sure I have never seen it where -German was not the language of the region. Yet it is by long odds the -best stove and the most convenient and economical that has yet been -invented.[5] - -To the uninstructed stranger it promises nothing; but he will soon find -that it is a masterly performer, for all that. It has a little bit of a -door which you couldn’t get your head into--a door which seems foolishly -out of proportion to the rest of the edifice; yet the door is right, for -it is not necessary that bulky fuel shall enter it. Small-sized fuel is -used, and marvelously little of that. The door opens into a tiny cavern -which would not hold more fuel than a baby could fetch in its arms. The -process of firing is quick and simple. At half past seven on a cold -morning the servant brings a small basketful of slender pine sticks--say -a modified armful--and puts half of these in, lights them with a match, -and closes the door. They burn out in ten or twelve minutes. He then -puts in the rest and _locks_ the door, and carries off the key. The work -is done. He will not come again until next morning. All day long and -until past midnight all parts of the room will be delightfully warm and -comfortable, and there will be no headaches and no sense of closeness or -oppression. In an American room, whether heated by steam, hot water, or -open fires, the neighborhood of the register or the fireplace is -warmest--the heat is not equally diffused through the room; but in a -German room one is as comfortable in one part of it as in another. -Nothing is gained or lost by being near the stove. Its surface is not -hot; you can put your hand on it anywhere and not get burnt. Consider -these things. One firing is enough for the day; the cost is next to -nothing; the heat produced is the same all day, instead of too hot and -too cold by turns; one may absorb himself in his business in peace; he -does not need to feel any anxieties or solicitudes about his fire; his -whole day is a realized dream of bodily comfort. - -The German stove is not restricted to wood; peat is used in it, and coal -bricks also. These coal bricks are made of waste coal dust pressed in a -mold. In effect they are dirt and in fact are dirt cheap. The brick is -about as big as your two fists; the stove will burn up twenty of them in -half an hour, then it will need no more fuel for that day. - -This noble stove is at its very best when its front has a big square -opening in it for a _visible_ wood fire. The real heating is done in the -hidden regions of the great structure, of course--the open fire is -merely to rejoice your eye and gladden your heart. - -America could adopt this stove, but does America do it? No, she sticks -placidly to her own fearful and wonderful inventions in the stove line. -She has fifty kinds, and not a rational one in the lot. The American -wood stove, of whatsoever breed, is a terror. There can be no -tranquillity of mind where it is. It requires more attention than a -baby. It has to be fed every little while, it has to be watched all the -time; and for all reward you are roasted half your time and frozen the -other half. It warms no part of the room but its own part; it breeds -headaches and suffocation, and makes one’s skin feel dry and feverish; -and when your wood bill comes in you think you have been supporting a -volcano. - -We have in America many and many a breed of coal stoves, also--fiendish -things, everyone of them. The base-burner sort are handy and require but -little attention; but none of them, of whatsoever kind, distributes its -heat uniformly through the room, or keeps it at an unvarying -temperature, or fails to take the life out of the atmosphere and leave -it stuffy and smothery and stupefying. - -It seems to me that the ideal of comfort would be a German stove to heat -one’s room, and an open wood fire to make it cheerful; then have -furnace-heat in the halls. We could easily find some way to make the -German stove beautiful, and that is all it needs at present. Still, even -as it is to-day, it is lovely, it is a darling, compared with any -“radiator” that has yet been intruded upon the world. That odious gilded -skeleton! It makes all places ugly that it inhabits--just by contagion. - -It is certainly strange that useful customs and devices do not spread -from country to country with more facility and promptness than they do. -You step across the German border almost anywhere, and suddenly the -German stove has disappeared. In Italy you find a foolish and -ineffectual modification of it, in Paris you find an unprepossessing -“adaptation” of our base-burner on a reduced pattern. - -Fifteen years ago Paris had a cheap and cunning little fire kindler -consisting of a pine shaving, curled as it came from the carpenter’s -plane, and gummed over with an inflammable substance which would burn -several minutes and set fire to the most obdurate wood. It was cheap and -handy, but no stranger carried the idea home with him. Paris has another -swift and victorious kindler, now, in the form of a small black cake -made of I don’t know what; but you shove it under the wood and touch a -match to it and your fire is made. No one will think to carry that -device to America, or elsewhere. In America we prefer to kindle the fire -with the kerosene can and chance the inquest. I have been in a multitude -of places where pine cones were abundant, but only in the French Riviera -and in one place in Italy have I seen them in the wood box to kindle the -fires with. - -For perfect adaptation to the service required, look at the American gum -shoe and the American arctic. Their virtues ought to have carried them -to all wet and snowy lands; but they haven’t done anything of the kind. -There are few places on the continent of Europe where one can buy them. - -And observe how slowly our typewriting machine makes its way. In the -great city of Florence I was able to find only one place where I could -get typewriting done; and then it was not done by a native, but by an -American girl. In the great city of Munich I found one typewriting -establishment, but the operator was sick and that suspended the -business. I was told that there was no opposition house. In the -prodigious city of Berlin I was not able to find a typewriter at all. -There was not even one in our Embassy or its branches. Our -representative there sent to London for the best one to be had in that -capital, and got an incapable, who would have been tarred and feathered -in Mud Springs, Arizona. Four years ago a typewritten page was a seldom -sight in Europe, and when you saw it it made you heartsick, it was so -inartistic, and so blurred and shabby and slovenly. It was because the -Europeans made the machines themselves, and the making of nice machinery -is not one of their gifts. England imports ours, now. This is wise; she -will have her reward. - -In all these years the American fountain pen has hardly got a start in -Europe. There is no market for it. It is too handy, too inspiring, too -capable, too much of a time saver. The dismal steel pen and the -compass-jawed quill are preferred. And semi-liquid mud is preferred to -ink, apparently, everywhere in Europe. This in face of the fact that -there is ink to be had in America--and at club rates, too. - -Then there is the elevator, lift, _ascenseur_. America has had the -benefit of this invaluable contrivance for a generation and a half, and -it is now used in all our cities and villages, in all hotels, in all -lofty business buildings and factories, and in many private dwellings. -But we can’t spread it, we can’t beguile Europe with it. In Europe an -elevator is even to this day a rarity and a curiosity. Especially a -curiosity. As a rule it seats but three or four persons--often only -two--and it travels so slowly and cautiously and timorously and piously -and solemnly that it makes a person feel creepy and crawly and scary and -dismal and repentant. Anybody with sound legs can give the continental -elevator two flights the start and beat it to the sixth floor. Every -time these nations merely import an American idea, instead of importing -the concreted thing itself, the result is a failure. They tried to make -the sewing machine, and couldn’t; they are trying to make fountain pens -and typewriters and can’t; they are making these dreary elevators, -now--and patenting them! Satire can no further go. - -I think that as a rule we develop a borrowed European idea forward, and -that Europe develops a borrowed American idea backward. We borrowed gas -lighting and the railroad from England, and the arc light from France, -and these things have improved under our culture. We have lent Europe -our tramway, telegraph, sewing machine, phonograph, telephone, and -kodak, and while we may not claim that in these particular instances she -has developed them backward, we are justified in claiming that she has -added no notable improvements to them. We have added the improvements -ourselves and she has accepted them. Why she has not accepted and -universally adopted the improved elevator is a surprising and puzzling -thing. Its rightful place is among the great ideas of our great age. It -is an epoch maker. It is a concentrator of population, and economizer of -room. It is going to build our cities skyward instead of out toward the -horizons.[6] It is going to enable five millions of people to live -comfortably on the same ground space that one million uncomfortably -lives on now. It is going to make cheap quarters for Tom, Dick, and -Harry near their work, in place of three miles from it, as is the rule -to-day. It is going to save them the necessity of adding a six-flight -climb to the already sufficient fatigue of their day’s labor. - -We imitate some of the good things which we find in Europe, and we ought -to imitate more of them. At the same time Europe ought to imitate us -somewhat more than she does. The crusty, ill-mannered and in every way -detestable Parisian cabman ought to imitate our courteous and friendly -Boston cabman--and stop there. He can’t learn anything from the guild in -New York. And it would morally help the Parisian shopkeeper if he would -imitate the fair dealing of his American cousin. With us it is not -necessary to ask the price of small articles before we buy them, but in -Paris the person who fails to take that precaution will get scorched. In -business we are prompt, fair, and trustworthy in all our small trade -matters. It is the rule. In the friendliest spirit I would recommend -France to imitate these humble virtues. Particularly in the kodak -business. Pray get no kodak pictures developed in France--and especially -in Nice. They will send you your bill to Rome or Jericho, or -whithersoever you have gone, but that is all you will get. You will -never see your negatives again, or the developed pictures, either. And -by and by the head house in Paris will demand payment once more, and -constructively threaten you with “proceedings.” If you inquire if they -mailed your package across the frontier without registering it, they are -coldly silent. If you inquire how they expected to trace and recover a -lost package without a post-office receipt, they are dumb again. A -little intelligence inserted into the kodak business in those regions -would be helpful, if it could be done without shock. - -But the worst of all is, that Europe cannot be persuaded to imitate our -railway methods. Two or three years ago I liked the European methods, -but experience has dislodged that superstition. All over the Continent -the system--to call it by an extravagant term--is sufficiently poor and -slow and clumsy, or unintelligent; but in these regards Italy and France -are entitled to the chromo. In Italy it takes more than half an hour to -buy a through ticket to Paris at Cook & Sons’ offices, there is such a -formidable amount of red tape and recording connected with the vast -transaction. Every little detail of the matter must be written down in a -set of books--your name, condition, nationality, religion, date, hour, -number of the train, and all that; and at last you get your ticket and -think you are done, but you are not; it must be carried to the station -and stamped; and even that is not the end, for if you stop over at any -point it must be stamped again or it is forfeited. And yet you save time -and trouble by going to Cook instead of to the station. Buying your -ticket does not finish your job. Your trunks must be weighed, and paid -for at about human-being rates. This takes another quarter of an hour of -your time--perhaps half an hour if you are at the tail of the -procession. You get paper checks, which are twice as easy to lose as -brass ones. You cannot secure a seat beforehand, but must take your -chances with the general rush to the train. If you have your family with -you, you may have to distribute them among several cars. There is one -annoying feature which is common all over the Continent, and that is, -that if you want to make a short journey you cannot buy your ticket -whenever you find the ticket office open, but must wait until it is -doing business for your particular train; and that only begins, as a -rule, a quarter of an hour before the train’s time of starting. The cars -are most ingeniously inconvenient, cramped, and uncomfortable, and in -Italy they are phenomenally dirty. The European “system” was devised -either by a maniac or by a person whose idea was to hamper, bother, and -exasperate the traveler in all conceivable ways and sedulously and -painstakingly discourage custom. In Italy, as far as my experience goes, -it is the custom to use the sleeping cars on the day trains and take -them off when the sun goes down. One thing is sure, anyway: if that is -not the case, it will be, presently, when they think of it. They can be -depended upon to snap up as darling an idea as that with joy. - -No, we are bad enough about not importing valuable European ideas, but -Europe is still slower about introducing ours. Europe has always--from -away back--been neglectful in this regard. Take our admirable postal and -express system, for instance. We had it perfectly developed and running -smoothly and beautifully more than three hundred years ago; and Europe -came over and admired it and eloquently praised it--but didn’t adopt it. -We Americans.... But let Prescott tell about it. I quote from the -_Conquest of Peru_, chapter 2, vol. 1: - - As the distance each courier had to perform was small, they ran over - the ground with great swiftness, and messages were carried through the - whole extent of the long routes at the rate of a hundred and fifty - miles a day. Their office was not limited to carrying dispatches. They - brought various articles. Fish from the distant ocean, fruits, game, - and different commodities from the hot regions of the coast were taken - to the capital in good condition. It is remarkable that this important - institution should have been found among two barbarian nations of the - New World long before it was introduced among the civilized nations of - Europe. By these wise contrivances of the Incas, the most distant - parts of the long-extended empire of Peru were brought into intimate - relations with each other. And while the capitals of Christendom, but - a few hundred miles apart, remained as far asunder as if seas had - rolled between them, the great capitals Cuzco and Quito were placed in - immediate correspondence. Intelligence from the numerous provinces was - transmitted on the wings of the wind to the Peruvian metropolis, the - great focus to which all the lines of communication converged. - -There--that is what we had, three hundred and twenty-five years before -Europe had anything that could be called a businesslike and effective -postal and express service. We are a great people. We have always been a -great people, from the start: always alive, alert, up early in the -morning, and ready to teach. But Europe has been a slow and discouraging -pupil from the start; always, from the very start. It seems to me that -something ought to be done about this. - ------ - -Footnote 5: - - Compare with his remarks on the same subject, in “Marienbad--A Health - Factory,” written about a year earlier. - -Footnote 6: - - This was good prophecy. There were no skyscrapers in New York City - when it was written. - - - - - THE CHOLERA EPIDEMIC IN HAMBURG - (1892) - - -I believe I have never been so badly situated before as I have been -during these last four weeks. To begin with, the time-hallowed and -business-worn thunderbolt out of the clear sky fell about the 18th of -August--people in Hamburg dying like flies of something resembling -cholera! A normal death rate of forty a day suddenly transformed into a -terrific daily slaughter without notice to anybody to prepare for such a -surprise! Certainly that was recognizable as that kind of a thunderbolt. - -It was at this point that the oddity of the situation above referred to -began. For you will grant that it is odd to live four weeks a -twelve-hour journey from a devastating plague nest and remain baffled -and defeated all that time in all your efforts to get at the state of -the case there. Naturally one flies to the newspapers when a pestilence -breaks out in his neighborhood. He feels sure of one thing, at any rate: -that the paper will cast all other interests into the background and -devote itself to the one supreme interest of the day; that it will throw -wide its columns and cram them with information, valuable and otherwise, -concerning that great event; and that it will even leave out the idle -jaunts of little dukes and kinglets to make room for the latest plague -item. I sought the newspapers, and was disappointed. I know now that -nothing that can happen in this world can stir the German daily journal -out of its eternal lethargy. When the Last Day comes it will note the -destruction of the world in a three-line paragraph and turn over and go -to sleep again. - -This sort of journalism furnishes plenty of wonders. I have seen -ostensible telegrams from Hamburg four days old, gravely put forth as -news, and no apology offered. I have tracked a news item from one paper -to another day after day until it died of old age and fatigue--and yet -everybody treated it with respect, nobody laughed. Is it believable that -these antiquities are forwarded by telegraph? It would be more rational -to send them by slow freight, because less expensive and more speedy. - -Then, the meagerness of the news meal is another marvel. That department -of the paper is not headed “Poverty Column,” nobody knows why. We know -that multitudes of people are being swept away daily in Hamburg, yet the -daily telegrams from there could be copied on a half page of note paper, -as a rule. If any newspaper has sent a special reporter thither he has -not arrived yet. - -The final miracle of all is the character of this daily dribble of -so-called news. The wisest man in the world can get no information out -of it. It is an Irish stew made up of unrelated odds and ends, a mere -chaotic confusion and worthless. What can one make out of statistics -like these: - -Up to noon, 655 cases, 333 deaths. Of these 189 were previously -reported. - -The report that 650 bodies are lying unburied is not true. There are -only 340, and the most of these will be buried to-night. - -There are 2,062 cases in the hospitals, 215 deaths. - -The figures are never given in such a way as to afford one an -opportunity to compare the death list of one day with that of another; -consequently there is no way of finding out whether the pest abates or -increases. Sometimes a report uses the expression “to-day” and does not -say when the day began or ended; sometimes the deaths for several days -are bunched together in a divisionless lump; sometimes the figures make -you think the deaths are five or six hundred a day, while other figures -in the same paragraph seem to indicate that the rate is below two -hundred. - -A day or two ago the word cholera was not discoverable at all in that -day’s issue of one of our principal dailies; in to-day’s issue of the -same paper there is no cholera report from Hamburg. Yet a private letter -from there says the raging pestilence is actually increasing. - -One might imagine that the papers are forbidden to publish cholera news. -I had that impression myself. It seemed the only explanation of the -absence of special Hamburg correspondence. But it appears now, that the -Hamburg papers are crammed with matter pertaining to the cholera, -therefore that idea was an error. How does one find this out? In this -amazing way: that a daily newspaper located ten or twelve hours from -Hamburg describes with owl-eyed wonder the stirring contents of a -Hamburg daily journal _six days old_, and yet gets from it the only -informing matter, the only matter worth reading, which it has yet -published from that smitten city concerning the pestilence. - -You see, it did not even occur to that petrified editor to bail his -columns dry of their customary chloroform and copy that Hamburg journal -entire. He is so used to shoveling gravel that he doesn’t know a diamond -when he sees it. I would trust that man with untold bushels of precious -news, and nobody to watch him. Among other things which he notes in the -Hamburg paper is the fact that its supplements contained one hundred of -the customary elaborate and formal German death notices. That -means--what nobody has had reason to suppose before--that the slaughter -is not confined to the poor and friendless. I think so, because that -sort of death notice occupies a formidable amount of space in an -advertising page, and must cost a good deal of money. - -I wander from my proper subject to observe that one hundred of these -notices in a single journal must make that journal a sorrow to the eye -and a shock to the taste, even among the Germans themselves, who are -bred to endure and perhaps enjoy a style of “display ads” which far -surpasses even the vilest American attempts, for insane and outrageous -ugliness. Sometimes a death notice is as large as a foolscap page, has -big black display lines, and is bordered all around with a coarse -mourning border as thick as your finger. The notices are of all sizes -from foolscap down to a humble two-inch square, and they suggest -lamentation of all degrees, from the hundred-dollar hurricane of grief -to the two-shilling sigh of a composed and modest regret. A newspaper -page blocked out with mourning compartments of fifty different sizes -flung together without regard to order or system or size must be a -spectacle to see. - - +--------------------------------------------------------+ - | | - | Todes-Anzeige. | - | ------------- | - | | - | Theilnehmenden Freunden und Bekannten hierdurch | - | die schmerzliche Nachricht, daß mein lieber Freund | - | und langjähriger, treuer Mitarbeiter | - | | - | Rudolf Beck | - | | - |gestern Abend an einem Herzschlag plötzlich verschieden | - |ist. | - | | - | =Langen=, den 5. September 1892. | - | | - | Otto Steingoetter | - | | - | Firma =Beck & Steingoetter=. | - | | - | Die Beerdigung findet Dienstag, den 6. Sept., | - | Nachmittags 3½ Uhr, statt. | - | 25958 | - +--------------------------------------------------------+ - -The notice copied above is modest and straightforward. The advertiser -informs sympathizing friends and acquaintances that his dear friend and -old and faithful fellow laborer has been suddenly smitten with death; -then signs his name and adds “of the firm of Beck & Steingoetter,” which -is perhaps another way of saying that the business will be continued as -usual at the old stand. The average notice is often refreshed with a -whiff of business at the end. - -The 100 formal notices in the Hamburg paper did not mean merely 100 -deaths; each told of one death, but many of them told of more--in some -cases they told of four and five. In the same issue there were 132 -one-line death notices. If the dates of these deaths were all stated, -the 232 notices together could be made the basis of a better guess at -the current mortality in Hamburg than the “official” reports furnished, -perhaps. You would know that a certain number died on a certain day who -left behind them people able to publish the fact and pay for it. Then -you could correctly assume that the vast bulk of that day’s harvest were -people who were penniless and left penniless friends behind. You could -add your facts to your assumption and get _some_ sort of idea of the -death rate, and this would be strikingly better than the official -reports, since they give you no idea at all. - -To-day a physician was speaking of a private letter received here -yesterday from a physician in Hamburg which stated that every day -numbers of poor people are snatched from their homes to the pest houses, -and that that is the last that is heard of a good many of them. No -intelligible record is kept; they die unknown and are buried so. That no -intelligible record is kept seems proven by the fact that the public -cannot get hold of a burial list for one day that is not made impossible -by the record of the day preceding and the one following it. - -What I am trying to make the reader understand is, the strangeness of -the situation here--a mighty tragedy being played upon a stage that is -close to us, and yet we are as ignorant of its details as we should be -if the stage were in China. We sit “in front,” and the audience is in -fact the world; but the curtain is down and from behind it we hear only -an inarticulate murmur. The Hamburg disaster must go into history as the -disaster without a history. And yet a well-trained newspaper staff would -find a way to secure an accurate list of the new hospital cases and the -burials daily, and would do it, and not take it out in complaining of -the foolishness and futility of the official reports. Every day we know -exactly what is going on in the two cholera-stricken ships in the harbor -of New York. That is all the cholera news we get that is worth printing -or believing. - -All along we have heard rumors that the force of workers at Hamburg was -too small to cope with the pestilence; that more help was impossible to -get; and we have seen statements which confirmed these sorrowful facts; -statements which furnished the pitiful spectacle of brave workers dying -at their posts from exhaustion; of corpses lying in the halls of the -hospitals, waiting there because there was no worker idle; and now comes -another confirmatory item; it is in the physician’s letter above -referred to--an item which shows you how hard pressed the authorities -are by their colossal burden--an item which gives you a sudden and -terrific sense of the situation there; for in a line it flashes before -you this ghastly picture, a thing seen by the physician: a wagon going -along the street with five sick people in it, and with them four -corpses! - - - - - QUEEN VICTORIA’S JUBILEE - (1897) - - -So far as I can see, a procession has value in but two ways--as a show -and as a symbol; its minor function being to delight the eye, its major -one to compel thought, exalt the spirit, stir the heart, and inflame the -imagination. As a mere show, and meaningless--like a Mardi-Gras march--a -magnificent procession is a sight worth a long journey to see; as a -symbol, the most colorless and unpicturesque procession, if it have a -moving history back of it, is worth a thousand of it. - -After the Civil War ten regiments of bronzed New York veterans marched -up Broadway in faded uniforms and bearing faded battle flags that were -mere shot-riddled rags--and in each battalion as it swung by, one noted -a great gap, an eloquent vacancy where had marched the comrades who had -fallen and would march no more! Always, as this procession advanced -between the massed multitudes, its approach was welcomed by each block -of people with a burst of proud and grateful enthusiasm--then the head -of it passed, and suddenly revealed those pathetic gaps, and silence -fell upon that block; for every man in it had choked up, and could not -get command of his voice and add it to the storm again for many minutes. -That was the most moving and tremendous effect that I have ever -witnessed--those affecting silences falling between those hurricanes of -worshiping enthusiasm. - -There was no costumery in that procession, no color, no tinsel, no -brilliancy, yet it was the greatest spectacle and the most gracious and -exalting and beautiful that has come within my experience. It was -because it had history back of it, and because it was a symbol, and -stood for something, and because one viewed it with the spiritual -vision, not the physical. There was not much for the physical eye to -see, but it revealed continental areas, limitless horizons, to the eye -of the imagination and the spirit. - -A procession, to be valuable, must do one thing or the other--clothe -itself in splendors and charm the eye, or symbolize something sublime -and uplifting, and so appeal to the imagination. As a mere spectacle to -look at, I suppose that the Queen’s procession will not be as showy as -the Tsar’s late pageant; it will probably fall much short of the one in -Tannhäuser in the matter of rich and adorable costumery; in the number -of renowned personages on view in it, it will probably fall short of -some that have been seen in England before this. And yet in its major -function, its symbolic function, I think that if all the people in it -wore their everyday clothes and marched without flags or music, it would -still be incomparably the most memorable and most important procession -that ever moved through the streets of London. - -For it will stand for English history, English growth, English -achievement, the accumulated power and renown and dignity of twenty -centuries of strenuous effort. Many things about it will set one to -reflecting upon what a large feature of this world England is to-day, -and this will in turn move one, even the least imaginative, to cast a -glance down her long perspective and note the steps of her progress and -the insignificance of her first estate. In this matter London is itself -a suggestive object lesson. - -I suppose that London has always existed. One cannot easily imagine an -England that had no London. No doubt there was a village here 5,000 -years ago. It was on the river somewhere west of where the Tower is now; -it was built of thatched mud huts close to a couple of limpid brooks, -and on every hand for miles and miles stretched rolling plains of fresh -green grass, and here and there were groups and groves of trees. The -tribes wore skins--sometimes merely their own, sometimes those of other -animals. The chief was monarch, and helped out his complexion with blue -paint. His industry was the chase; his relaxation was war. Some of the -Englishmen who will view the procession to-day are carrying his ancient -blood in their veins. - -It may be that that village remained about as it began, away down to the -Roman occupation, a couple of thousand years ago. It was still not much -of a town when Alfred burned the cakes. Even when the Conqueror first -saw it, it did not amount to much. I think it must have been short of -distinguished architecture or he would not have traveled down into the -country to the village of Westminster to get crowned. If you skip down -350 years further you will find a London of some little consequence, but -I believe that that is as much as you can say for it. Still, I am -interested in that London, for it saw the first two processions which -will live longer than any other in English history, I think; the date of -the one is 1415, that of the other is 1897. - -The compactly built part of the London of 1415 was a narrow strip not a -mile long, which stretched east and west through the middle of what is -now called “the City.” The houses were densest in the region of -Cheapside. South of the strip were scattering residences which stood in -turfy lawns which sloped to the river. North of the strip, fields and -country homes extended to the walls. Let us represent that London by -three checker-board squares placed in a row; then open out a New York -newspaper like a book, and the space which it covers will properly -represent the London of to-day by comparison. It is the difference -between your hand and a blanket. It is possible that that ancient London -had 100,000 inhabitants, and that 100,000 outsiders came to town to see -the procession. The present London contains five or six million -inhabitants, and it has been calculated that the population has jumped -to 10,000,000 to-day. - -The pageant of 1415 was to celebrate the gigantic victory of Agincourt, -then and still the most colossal in England’s history. - -From that day to this there has been nothing that even approached it but -Plassey. It was the third and greatest in the series of monster -victories won by the English over the French in the Hundred Years’ -War--Crecy, Poitiers, Agincourt. At Agincourt, according to history, -15,000 English, under Henry V, defeated and routed an army of 100,000 -French. Sometimes history makes it 8,000 English and 60,000 French; but -no matter, in both cases the proportions are preserved. Eight thousand -of the French nobility were slain and the rest of the order taken -prisoners--1,500 in number--among them the Dukes of Orléans and Bourbon -and Marshal Boucicaut; and the victory left the whole northern half of -France an English possession. This wholesale depletion of the -aristocracy made such a stringent scarcity in its ranks that when the -young peasant girl, Joan of Arc, came to undo Henry’s mighty work -fourteen years later she could hardly gather together nobles enough to -man her staff. - -The battle of Agincourt was fought on the 25th of October, and a few -days later the tremendous news was percolating through England. -Presently it was sweeping the country like a tidal wave, like a cyclone, -like a conflagration. Choose your own figure, there is no metaphor known -to the language that can exaggerate the tempest of joy and pride and -exultation that burst everywhere along the progress of that great news. - -The king came home and brought his soldiers with him--he and they the -idols of the nation, now. He brought his 1,500 captive knights and -nobles, too--we shall not see any such output of blue blood as that -to-day, bond or free. The king rested three weeks in his palace, the -Tower of London, while the people made preparations and prepared the -welcome due him. On the 22d of December all was ready. - -There were no cables, no correspondents, no newspapers then--a -regrettable defect, but not irremediable. A young man who would have -been a correspondent if he had been born 500 years later was in London -at the time, and he remembers the details. He has communicated them to -me through a competent spirit medium, phrased in a troublesome mixture -of obsolete English and moldy French, and I have thoroughly modernized -his story and put it into straight English, and will here record it. I -will explain that his Sir John Oldcastle is a person whom we do not know -very well by that name, nor much care for; but we know him well and -adore him, too, under his other name--Sir John Falstaff. Also, I will -remark that two miles of the Queen’s progress to-day will be over ground -traversed by the procession of Henry V; all solid bricks and mortar, -now, but open country in Henry’s day, and clothed in that unapproachable -beauty which has been the monopoly of sylvan England since the creation. -Ah, where now are those long-vanished forms, those unreturning feet! Let -us not inquire too closely. Translated, this is the narrative of the -spirit-correspondent, who is looking down upon me at this moment from -his high home, and admiring to see how the art and mystery of spelling -has improved since his time! - -NARRATIVE OF THE SPIRIT CORRESPONDENT - -I was commanded by my lord the Lord Mayor to make a report for the -archives, and was furnished with a fleet horse, and with a paper -permitting me to go anywhere at my will, without let or hindrance, even -up and down the processional route, though no other person not of the -procession itself was allowed this unique privilege during the whole of -the 21st and the 22d. - -On the morning of the 22d, toward noon, I rode from the Tower into the -city, and through it as far as St. Paul’s. All the way, on both sides, -all the windows, balconies, and roofs were crowded with people, and -wherever there was a vacancy it had been built up in high tiers of seats -covered with red cloth, and these seats were also filled with people--in -all cases in bright holiday attire--the woman of fashion barring the -view from all in the rear with those tiresome extinguisher hats, which -of late have grown to be a cloth-yard high. From every balcony depended -silken stuffs of splendid and various colors, and figured and pictured -rich tapestries. It was brisk, sharp weather, but a rare one for sun, -and when one looked down this swinging double wall of beautiful fabrics, -glowing and flashing and changing color like prisms in the flooding -light, it was a most fair sight to see. And there were frequent May -poles, garlanded to their tops, and from the tops swung sheaves of -silken long ribbons of all bright colors, which in the light breeze -writhed and twisted and prettily mingled themselves together. - -I rode solitary--in state, as it might be--and was envied, as I could -see, and did not escape comment, but had a plenty of it; for the -conduits were running gratis wine, and the results were accumulating. I -got many ribald compliments on my riding, on my clothes, on my office. -Everybody was happy, so it was best to seem so myself, which I did--for -those people’s aim was better than their eggs. - -A place had been reserved for me on a fine and fanciful erection in St. -Paul’s Churchyard, and there I waited for the procession. It seemed a -long time, but at last a dull booming sound arose in the distance, and -after a while we saw the banners and the head of the procession come -into view, and heard the muffled roar of voices that welcomed it. The -roar moved continuously toward us, growing steadily louder and louder, -and stronger and stronger, and with it the bray and crash of music; and -presently it was right with us, and seemed to roll over us and submerge -us, and stun us, and deafen us--and behold, there was the hero of -Agincourt passing by! - -All the multitude was standing up, red-faced, frantic, bellowing, -shouting, the tears running down their faces; and through the storm of -waving hats and handkerchiefs one glimpsed the battle banners and the -drifting host of marching men as through a dimming flurry of snow. - -The king, tall, slender, handsome, rode with his visor up, that all -might see his face. He was clad in his silver armor from head to heel, -and had his great two-handed sword at his side, his battle-ax at his -pommel, his shield upon his arm, and about his helmet waved and tossed a -white mass of fluffy plumes. On either side of him rode the captive -dukes, plumed like himself, but wearing long crimson satin gowns over -their armor; after these came the French marshal similarly habited; -after him followed the fifteen hundred French knights, with robes of -various colors over their armor, and with each two rode two English -knights, sometimes robed in various colors, sometimes in white with a -red cross on the shoulder, these white-clad ones being Knights Templars. -Every man of the three thousand bore his shield upon his left arm, newly -polished and burnished, and on it was his device. - -As the king passed the church he bowed his head and lifted his shield, -and by one impulse all the knights did the same; and so as far down the -line as the eye could reach one saw the lifted shields simultaneously -catch the sun, and it was like a sudden mile-long shaft of flashing -light; and, Lord! it lit up that dappled sea of color with a glory like -“the golden vortex in the west over the foundered sun”! (The -introduction of this quotation is very interesting, for it shows that -our literature of to-day has a circulation in heaven--pirated editions, -no doubt.--M.T.) - -The knights were a long time in passing; then came 5,000 Agincourt -men-at-arms, and they were a long time; and at the very end, last of -all, came that intolerable old tun of sack and godless ruffler, Sir John -Oldcastle (now risen from the dead for the third time), fat-faced, -purple with the spirit of bygone and lamented drink, smiling his -hospitable, wide smile upon all the world, leering at the women, -wallowing about in his saddle, proclaiming his valorous deeds as fast as -he could lie, taking the whole glory of Agincourt to his single self, -measuring off the miles of his slain and then multiplying them by 5, 7, -10, 15, as inspiration after inspiration came to his help--the most -inhuman spectacle in England, a living, breathing outrage, a slander -upon the human race; and after him came, mumming and blethering, his -infamous lieutenants; and after them his “paladins,” as he calls them, -the mangiest lot of starvelings and cowards that was ever littered, the -disgrace of the noblest pageant that England has ever seen. God rest -their souls in the place appointed for all such! - -There was a moment of prayer at the Temple, the procession moved down -the country road, its way walled on both sides by welcoming multitudes, -and so, by Charing Cross, and at last to the Abbey for the great -ceremonies. It was a grand day, and will remain in men’s memories. - - -That was as much of it as the spirit correspondent could let me have; he -was obliged to stop there because he had an engagement to sing in the -choir, and was already late. - -The contrast between that old England and the present England is one of -the things which will make the pageant of the present day impressive and -thought-breeding. The contrast between the England of the Queen’s reign -and the England of any previous British reign is also an impressive -thing. British history is two thousand years old, and yet in a good many -ways the world has moved further ahead since the Queen was born than it -moved in all the rest of the two thousand put together. A large part of -this progress has been moral, but naturally the material part of it is -the most striking and the easiest to measure. Since the Queen first saw -the light she has seen invented and brought into use (with the exception -of the cotton gin, the spinning frames, and the steamboat) every one of -the myriad of strictly modern inventions which, by their united powers, -have created the bulk of the modern civilization and made life under it -easy and difficult, convenient and awkward, happy and horrible, soothing -and irritating, grand and trivial, an indispensable blessing and an -unimaginable curse--she has seen all these miracles, these wonders, -these marvels piled up in her time, and yet she is but seventy-eight -years old. That is to say, she has seen more things invented than any -other monarch that ever lived; and more than the oldest old-time English -commoner that ever lived, including Old Parr; and more than Methuselah -himself--five times over. - -Some of the details of the moral advancement which she has seen are also -very striking and easily graspable. - -She has seen the English criminal laws prodigiously modified, and 200 -capital crimes swept from the statute book. - -She has seen English liberty greatly broadened--the governing and -lawmaking powers, formerly the possession of the few, extended to the -body of the people, and purchase in the army abolished. - -She has seen the public educator--the newspaper--created, and its -teachings placed within the reach of the leanest purse. There was -nothing properly describable as a newspaper until long after she was -born. - -She has seen the world’s literature set free, through the institution of -international copyright. - -She has seen America invent arbitration, the eventual substitute for -that enslaver of nations, the standing army; and she has seen England -pay the first bill under it, and America shirk the second--but only -temporarily; of this we may be sure. - -She has seen a Hartford American (Doctor Wells) apply anæsthetics in -surgery for the first time in history, and for all time banish the -terrors of the surgeon’s knife; and she has seen the rest of the world -ignore the discoverer and a Boston doctor steal the credit of his work. - -She has seen medical science and scientific sanitation cut down the -death rate of civilized cities by more than half, and she has seen these -agencies set bounds to the European march of the cholera and imprison -the Black Death in its own home. - -She has seen woman freed from the oppression of many burdensome and -unjust laws; colleges established for her; privileged to earn degrees in -men’s colleges--but not get them; in some regions rights accorded to her -which lifted her near to political equality with man, and a hundred -bread-winning occupations found for her where hardly one existed -before--among them medicine, the law, and professional nursing. The -Queen has herself recognized merit in her sex; of the 501 lordships -which she has conferred in sixty years, one was upon a woman. - -The Queen has seen the right to organize trade unions extended to the -workman, after that right had been the monopoly of guilds of masters for -six hundred years. - -She has seen the workman rise into political notice, then into political -force, then (in some parts of the world) into the chief and commanding -political force; she has seen the day’s labor of twelve, fourteen, and -eighteen hours reduced to eight, a reform which has made labor a means -of extending life instead of a means of committing salaried suicide. - -But it is useless to continue the list--it has no end. - -There will be complexions in the procession to-day which will suggest -the vast distances to which the British dominion has extended itself -around the fat rotundity of the globe since Britain was a remote unknown -back settlement of savages with tin for sale, two or three thousand -years ago; and also how great a part of this extension is comparatively -recent; also, how surprisingly speakers of the English tongue have -increased within the Queen’s time. - -When the Queen was born there were not more than 25,000,000 -English-speaking people in the world; there are about 120,000,000 now. -The other long-reign queen, Elizabeth, ruled over a short 100,000 square -miles of territory and perhaps 5,000,000 subjects; Victoria reigns over -more territory than any other sovereign in the world’s history ever -reigned over; her estate covers a fourth part of the habitable area of -the globe, and her subjects number about 400,000,000. - -It is indeed a mighty estate, and I perceive now that the English are -mentioned in the Bible: - -“Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.” - -The Long-Reign Pageant will be a memorable thing to see, for it stands -for the grandeur of England, and is full of suggestion as to how it had -its beginning and what have been the forces that have built it up. - -I got to my seat in the Strand just in time--five minutes past ten--for -a glance around before the show began. The houses opposite, as far as -the eye could reach in both directions, suggested boxes in a theater -snugly packed. The gentleman next to me likened the groups to beds of -flowers, and said he had never seen such a massed and multitudinous -array of bright colors and fine clothes. - -These displays rose up and up, story by story, all balconies and windows -being packed, and also the battlements stretching along the roofs. The -sidewalks were filled with standing people, but were not uncomfortably -crowded. They were fenced from the roadway by red-coated soldiers, a -double stripe of vivid color which extended throughout the six miles -which the procession would traverse. - -Five minutes later the head of the column came into view and was -presently filing by, led by Captain Ames, the tallest man in the British -army. And then the cheering began. It took me but a little while to -determine that this procession could not be described. There was going -to be too much of it, and too much variety in it, so I gave up the idea. -It was to be a spectacle for the kodak, not the pen. - -Presently the procession was without visible beginning or end, but -stretched to the limit of sight in both directions--bodies of soldiery -in blue, followed by a block of soldiers in buff, then a block of red, a -block of buff, a block of yellow, and so on, an interminable drift of -swaying and swinging splotches of strong color sparkling and flashing -with shifty light reflected from bayonets, lance heads, brazen helmets, -and burnished breastplates. For varied and beautiful uniforms and -unceasing surprises in the way of new and unexpected splendors, it much -surpassed any pageant that I have ever seen. - -I was not dreaming of so stunning a show. All the nations seemed to be -filing by. They all seemed to be represented. It was a sort of -allegorical suggestion of the Last Day, and some who live to see that -day will probably recall this one if they are not too much disturbed in -mind at the time. - -There were five bodies of Oriental soldiers of five different -nationalities, with complexions differentiated by five distinct shades -of yellow. There were about a dozen bodies of black soldiers from -various parts of Africa, whose complexions covered as many shades of -black, and some of these were the very blackest people I have ever seen -yet. - -Then there was an exhaustive exhibition of the hundred separate brown -races of India, the most beautiful and satisfying of all the complexions -that have been vouchsafed to man, and the one which best sets off -colored clothes and best harmonizes with all tints. - -The Chinese, the Japanese, the Koreans, the Africans, the Indians, the -Pacific Islanders--they were all there, and with them samples of all the -whites that inhabit the wide reach of the Queen’s dominions. - -The procession was the human race on exhibition, a spectacle curious and -interesting and worth traveling far to see. The most splendid of the -costumes were those worn by the Indian princes, and they were also the -most beautiful and richest. They were men of stately build and princely -carriage, and wherever they passed the applause burst forth. - -Soldiers, soldiers, soldiers, and still more and more soldiers and -cannon and muskets and lances--there seemed to be no end to this -feature. There are 50,000 soldiers in London, and they all seemed to be -on hand. I have not seen so many except in the theater, when thirty-five -privates and a general march across the stage and behind the scenes and -across the front again and keep it up till they have represented -300,000. - -In the early part of the procession the colonial premiers drove by, and -by and by after a long time there was a grand output of foreign princes, -thirty-one in the invoice. - -The feature of high romance was not wanting, for among them rode Prince -Rupert of Bavaria, who would be Prince of Wales now and future king of -England and emperor of India if his Stuart ancestors had conducted their -royal affairs more wisely than they did. He came as a peaceful guest to -represent his mother, Princess Ludwig, heiress of the house of Stuart, -to whom English Jacobites still pay unavailing homage as the rightful -queen of England. - -The house of Stuart was formally and officially shelved nearly two -centuries ago, but the microbe of Jacobite loyalty is a thing which is -not exterminable by time, force, or argument. - -At last, when the procession had been on view an hour and a half, -carriages began to appear. In the first came a detachment of two-horse -ones containing ambassadors extraordinary, in one of them Whitelaw Reid, -representing the United States; then six containing minor foreign and -domestic princes and princesses; then five four-horse carriages -freighted with offshoots of the family. - -The excitement was growing now; interest was rising toward the boiling -point. Finally a landau driven by eight cream-colored horses, most -lavishly upholstered in gold stuffs, with postilions and no drivers, and -preceded by Lord Wolseley, came bowling along, followed by the Prince of -Wales, and all the world rose to its feet and uncovered. - -The Queen Empress was come. She was received with great enthusiasm. It -was realizable that she was the procession herself; that all the rest of -it was mere embroidery; that in her the public saw the British Empire -itself. She was a symbol, an allegory of England’s grandeur and the -might of the British name. - -It is over now; the British Empire has marched past under review and -inspection. The procession stood for sixty years of progress and -accumulation, moral, material, and political. It was made up rather of -the beneficiaries of these prosperities than of the creators of them. - -As far as mere glory goes, the foreign trade of Great Britain has grown -in a wonderful way since the Queen ascended the throne. Last year it -reached the enormous figure of £620,000,000, but the capitalist, the -manufacturer, the merchant, and the workingmen were not officially in -the procession to get their large share of the resulting glory. - -Great Britain has added to her real estate an average of 165 miles of -territory per day for the past sixty years, which is to say she has -added more than the bulk of an England proper per year, or an aggregate -of seventy Englands in the sixty years. - -But Cecil Rhodes was not in the procession; the Chartered Company was -absent from it. Nobody was there to collect his share of the glory due -for his formidable contributions to the imperial estate. Even Doctor -Jameson was out, and yet he had tried so hard to accumulate territory. - -Eleven colonial premiers were in the procession, but the dean of the -order, the imperial Premier, was not, nor the Lord Chief Justice of -England, nor the Speaker of the House. The bulk of the religious -strength of England dissent was not officially represented in the -religious ceremonials. At the Cathedral that immense new industry, -speculative expansion, was not represented unless the pathetic shade of -Barnato rode invisible in the pageant. - -It was a memorable display and must live in history. It suggested the -material glories of the reign finely and adequately. The absence of the -chief creators of them was perhaps not a serious disadvantage. One could -supply the vacancies by imagination, and thus fill out the procession -very effectively. One can enjoy a rainbow without necessarily forgetting -the forces that made it. - - - - - LETTERS TO SATAN - (1897) - - SWISS GLIMPSES - - I - -If Your Grace would prepay your postage it would be a pleasant change. I -am not meaning to speak harshly, but only sorrowfully. My remark applies -to all my outland correspondents, and to everybody’s. None of them puts -on the full postage, and that is just the same as putting on none at -all: the foreign governments ignore the half postage, and we who are -abroad have to pay full postage on those half-paid letters. And as for -writing on thin paper, none of my friends ever think of it; they all use -pasteboard, or sole leather, or things like that. But enough of that -subject; it is painful. - -I believe you have set me a hard task; for if it is true that you have -not been in the world for three hundred years, and have not received -into your establishment an educated person in all that time, I shall be -obliged to talk to you as if you had just been born and knew nothing at -all about the things I speak of. However, I will do the best I can, and -will faithfully try to put in all the particulars, trivial ones as well -as the other sorts. If my report shall induce Your Grace to come out of -your age-long seclusion and make a pleasure tour through the world in -person, instead of doing it by proxy through me, I shall feel that I -have labored to good purpose. You have many friends in the world; more -than you think. You would have a vast welcome in Paris, London, New -York, Chicago, Washington, and the other capitals of the world; if you -would go on the lecture platform you could charge what you pleased. You -would be the most formidable attraction on the planet. The curiosity to -see you would be so great that no place of amusement would contain the -multitude that would come. In London many devoted people who have seen -the Prince of Wales only fifteen hundred or two thousand times would be -willing to miss one chance of seeing him again for the sake of seeing -you. In Paris, even with the Tsar on view, you could do a fairly good -business; and in Chicago--Oh, but you ought to go to Chicago, you know. -But further of this anon. I will to my report, now, and tell you about -Lucerne, and how I journeyed hither; for doubtless you will travel by -the same route when you come. - -I kept house a few months in London, with my family, while I arranged -the matters which you were good enough to intrust me with. There were no -adventures, except that we saw the Jubilee. Afterward I was invited to -one of the Queen’s functions, which was a royal garden party. A garden -is a green and bloomy countrified stretch of land which--But you -remember the Garden of Eden; well, it is like that. The invitation -prescribed the costume that must be worn: “Morning dress with trousers.” -I was intending to wear mine, for I always wear something at garden -parties where ladies are to be present; but I was hurt by this arbitrary -note of compulsion, and did not go. All the European courts are -particular about dress, and you are not allowed to choose for yourself -in any case; you are always told exactly what you must wear; and whether -it is going to become you or not, you are not allowed to make any -changes. Yet the court taste is often bad, and sometimes even -indelicate. I was once invited to dine with an emperor when I was living -awhile in Germany, and the invitation card named the dress I must wear: -“Frock coat and black cravat.” To put it in English, that meant -swallow-tail and black cravat. It was cold weather, too, the middle of -winter; and not only that, but ladies were to be present. That was five -years ago. By this time the coat has gone out, I suppose, and you would -feel at home there if you still remember the old Eden styles. - -As soon as the Jubilee was fairly over we broke up housekeeping and went -for a few days to what is called in England “an hotel.” If we could have -afforded an horse and an hackney cab we could have had an heavenly good -time flitting around on our preparation errands, and could have finished -them up briskly; but the buses are slow and they wasted many precious -hours for us. A bus is a sort of great cage on four wheels, and is six -times as strong and eleven times as heavy as the service required of it -demands--but that is the English of it. The bus aptly symbolizes the -national character. The Englishman requires that everything about him -shall be stable, strong, and permanent, except the house which he builds -to rent. His own private house is as strong as a fort. The rod which -holds up the lace curtains could hold up an hippopotamus. The three-foot -flagstaff on his bus, which supports a Union Jack the size of a -handkerchief, would still support it if it were one of the gates of -Gaza. Everything he constructs is a deal heavier and stronger than it -needs to be. He built ten miles of terraced benches to view the Jubilee -procession from, and put timber enough in them to make them a permanent -contribution to the solidities of the world--yet they were intended for -only two days’ service. - -When they were being removed an American said, “Don’t do it--save them -for the Resurrection.” If anything gets in the way of the Englishman’s -bus it must get out of it or be bowled down--and that is English. It is -the serene self-sufficient spirit which has carried his flag so far. He -ought to put his aggressive bus in his coat of arms, and take the gentle -unicorn out. - -We made our preparations for Switzerland as fast as we could; then -bought the tickets. Bought them of Thomas Cook & Sons, of -course--nowadays shortened to “Cook’s,” to save time and words. Things -have changed in thirty years. I can remember when to be a “Cook’s -tourist” was a thing to be ashamed of, and when everybody felt -privileged to make fun of Cook’s “personally conducted” gangs of -economical provincials. But that has all gone by, now. All sorts and -conditions of men fly to Cook in our days. In the bygone times travel in -Europe was made hateful and humiliating by the wanton difficulties, -hindrances, annoyances, and vexations put upon it by ignorant, stupid, -and disobliging transportation officials, and one had to travel with a -courier or risk going mad. You could not buy a railway ticket on one day -which you purposed to use next day--it was not permitted. You could not -buy a ticket for _any_ train until fifteen minutes before that train was -due to leave. Though you had twenty trunks, you must manage somehow to -get them weighed and the extra weight paid for within that fifteen -minutes; if the time was not sufficient you would have to leave behind -such trunks as failed to pass the scales. If you missed your train, your -ticket was no longer good. As a rule, you could make neither head nor -tail of the railway guide, and if your intended journey was a long one -you would find that the officials could tell you little about which way -to go; consequently you often bought the wrong ticket and got yourself -lost. But Cook has remedied all these things and made travel simple, -easy, and a pleasure. He will sell you a ticket to any place on the -globe, or all the places, and give you all the time you need, and as -much more besides; and it is good for all trains of its class, and its -baggage is weighable at all hours. It provides hotels for you -everywhere, if you so desire; and you cannot be overcharged, for the -coupons show just how much you must pay. Cook’s servants at the great -stations will attend to your baggage, get you a cab, tell you how much -to pay cabmen and porters, procure guides for you, or horses, donkeys, -camels, bicycles, or anything else you want, and make life a comfort and -a satisfaction to you. And if you get tired of traveling and want to -stop, Cook will take back the remains of your ticket, with 10 per cent -off. Cook is your banker everywhere, and his establishment your shelter -when you get caught out in the rain. His clerks will answer all the -questions you ask, and do it courteously. I recommend Your Grace to -travel on Cook’s tickets when you come; and I do this without -embarrassment, for I get no commission. I do not know Cook. (But if you -would rather travel with a courier, let me recommend Joseph Very. I -employed him twenty years ago, and spoke of him very highly in a book, -for he was an excellent courier--then. I employed him again, six or -seven years ago--for a while. Try him. And when you go home, take him -with you.) - -That London hotel was a disappointment. It was up a back alley, and we -supposed it would be cheap. But, no, it was built for the moneyed races. -It was all costliness and show. It had a brass band for dinner--and -little else--and it even had a telephone and a lift. A telephone is a -wire stretched on poles or underground, and has a thing at each end of -it. These things are to speak into and to listen at. The wire carries -the words; it can carry them several hundred miles. It is a time-saving, -profanity-breeding, useful invention, and in America is to be found in -all houses except parsonages. It is dear in America, but cheap in -England; yet in England telephones are as rare as are icebergs in your -place. I know of no way to account for this; I only know that it is -extraordinary. The English take kindly to the other modern conveniences, -but for some puzzling reason or other they will not use the telephone. -There are 44,000,000 people there who have never even seen one. - -The lift is an elevator. Like the telephone, it also is an American -invention. Its office is to hoist people to the upper stories and save -them the fatigue and delay of climbing. That London hotel could -accommodate several hundred people, and it had just one lift--a lift -which would hold four persons. In America such an hotel would have from -two to six lifts. When I was last in Paris, three years ago, they were -using there what they thought was a lift. It held two persons, and -traveled at such a slow gait that a spectator could not tell which way -it was going. If the passengers were going to the sixth floor, they took -along something to eat; and at night, bedding. Old people did not use -it; except such as were on their way to the good place, anyhow. Often -people that had been lost for days were found in those lifts, jogging -along, jogging along, frequently still alive. The French took great -pride in their ostensible lift, and called it by a grand -name--_ascenseur_. An hotel that had a lift did not keep it secret, but -advertised it in immense letters, _“Il y a une ascenseur,”_ with three -exclamation points after it. - -In that London hotel--But never mind that hotel; it was a cruelly -expensive and tawdry and ill-conditioned place, and I wish I could do it -a damage. I will think up a way some time. We went to Queenboro by the -railroad. A railroad is a--well, a railroad is a railroad. I will -describe it more explicitly another time. - -Then we went by steamer to Flushing--eight hours. If you sit at home you -can make the trip in less time, because then you can travel by the -steamer company’s advertisement, and that will take you across the -Channel five hours quicker than their boats can do it. Almost everywhere -in Europe the advertisements can give the facts several hours’ odd in -the twenty-four and get in first. - - II - -We tarried overnight at a summer hotel on the seashore near -Flushing--the Grand Hôtel des Bains. The word Grand means nothing in -this connection; it has no descriptive value. On the Continent, all -hotels, inns, taverns, hash houses and slop troughs employ it. It is -tiresome. This one was a good-enough hotel, and comfortable, but there -was nothing grand about it but the bill, and even that was not -extravagant enough to make the title entirely justifiable. Except in the -case of one item--Scotch whisky. I ordered a sup of that, for I always -take it at night as a preventive of toothache. I have never had the -toothache; and what is more, I never intend to have it. They charged me -a dollar and a half for it. A dollar and a half for half a pint; a -dollar and a half for that wee little mite--really hardly enough to -break a pledge with. It will be a kindness to me if Your Grace will show -the landlord some special attentions when he arrives. Not merely on -account of that piece of extortion, but because he got us back to town -and the station next day, more than an hour before train time. - -There were no books or newspapers for sale there, and nothing to look at -but a map. Fortunately it was an interesting one. It was a railway map -of the Low Countries, and was of a new sort to me, for it was made of -tiles--the ground white, the lines black. It could be washed if it got -soiled, and if no accident happens to it it will last ten thousand years -and still be as bright and fine and new and beautiful then as it is -to-day. It occupied a great area of the wall, and one could study it in -comfort halfway across the house. It would be a valuable thing if our -own railway companies would adorn their waiting rooms with maps like -that. - -We left at five in the afternoon. The Dutch road was admirably rough; we -went bumping and bouncing and swaying and sprawling along in a most -vindictive and disorderly way; then passed the frontier into Germany, -and straightway quieted down and went gliding as smoothly through the -landscape as if we had been on runners. We reached Cologne after -midnight. - -But this letter is already too long. I will close it by saying that I -was charmed with England and sorry to leave it. It is easy to do -business there. I carried out all of Your Grace’s instructions, and did -it without difficulty. I doubted if it was needful to grease Mr. Cecil -Rhodes’s palm any further, for I think he would serve you just for the -love of it; still, I obeyed your orders in the matter. I made him -Permanent General Agent for South Africa, got him and his South Africa -Company whitewashed by the Committee of Inquiry, and promised him a -dukedom. I also continued the European Concert in office, without making -any change in its material. In my opinion this is the best material for -the purpose that exists outside of Your Grace’s own personal Cabinet. It -coddles the Sultan, it has defiled and degraded Greece, it has massacred -a hundred thousand Christians in Armenia and a splendid multitude of -them in Turkey, and has covered civilization and the Christian name with -imperishable shame. If Your Grace would instruct me to add the Concert -to the list of your publicly acknowledged servants, I think it would -have a good effect. The Foreign Offices of the whole European world are -now under your sovereignty, and little attentions like this would keep -them so. - - - - - A WORD OF ENCOURAGEMENT FOR OUR - - -BLUSHING EXILES | (1898) - - - ... Well, what do you think of our country _now_? And what do you - think of the figure she is cutting before the eyes of the world? For - one, I am ashamed--(Extract from a long and heated letter from a - Voluntary Exile, Member of the American Colony, Paris.) - -And so you are ashamed. I am trying to think out what it can have been -that has produced this large attitude of mind and this fine flow of -sarcasm. Apparently you are ashamed to look Europe in the face; ashamed -of the American name; temporarily ashamed of your nationality. By the -light of remarks made to me by an American here in Vienna, I judge that -you are ashamed because: - -1. We are meddling where we have no business and no right; meddling with -the private family matters of a sister nation; intruding upon her sacred -right to do as she pleases with her own, unquestioned by anybody. - -2. We are doing this under a sham humanitarian pretext. - -3. Doing it in order to filch Cuba, the formal and distinct disclaimer -in the ultimatum being very, very thin humbug, and easily detectable as -such by you and virtuous Europe. - -4. And finally you are ashamed of all this because it is new, and base, -and brutal, and dishonest; and because Europe, having had no previous -experience of such things, is horrified by it and can never respect us -nor associate with us any more. - -Brutal, base, dishonest? We? Land thieves? Shedders of innocent blood? -We? Traitors to our official word? We? Are we going to lose Europe’s -respect because of this new and dreadful conduct? Russia’s, for -instance? Is she lying stretched out on her back in Manchuria, with her -head among her Siberian prisons and her feet in Port Arthur, trying to -read over the fairy tales she told Lord Salisbury, and not able to do it -for crying because we are maneuvering to treacherously smouch Cuba from -feeble Spain, and because we are ungently shedding innocent Spanish -blood? - -Is it France’s respect that we are going to lose? Is our unchivalric -conduct troubling a nation which exists to-day because a brave young -girl saved it when its poltroons had lost it--a nation which deserted -her as one man when her day of peril came? Is our treacherous assault -upon a weak people distressing a nation which contributed Bartholomew’s -Day to human history? Is our ruthless spirit offending the sensibilities -of the nation which gave us the Reign of Terror to read about? Is our -unmanly intrusion into the private affairs of a sister nation shocking -the feelings of the people who sent Maximilian to Mexico? Are our shabby -and pusillanimous ways outraging the fastidious people who have sent an -innocent man (Dreyfus) to a living hell, taken to their embraces the -slimy guilty one, and submitted to a thousand indignities Emile -Zola--the manliest man in France? - -Is it Spain’s respect that we are going to lose? Is she sitting sadly -conning her great history and contrasting it with our meddling, cruel, -perfidious one--our shameful history of foreign robberies, humanitarian -shams, and annihilations of weak and unoffending nations? Is she -remembering with pride how she sent Columbus home in chains; how she -sent half of the harmless West Indians into slavery and the rest to the -grave, leaving not one alive; how she robbed and slaughtered the Inca’s -gentle race, then beguiled the Inca into her power with fair promises -and burned him at the stake; how she drenched the New World in blood, -and earned and got the name of The Nation with the Bloody Footprint; how -she drove all the Jews out of Spain in a day, allowing them to sell -their property, but forbidding them to carry any money out of the -country; how she roasted heretics by the thousands and thousands in her -public squares, generation after generation, her kings and her priests -looking on as at a holiday show; how her Holy Inquisition imported hell -into the earth; how she was the first to institute it and the last to -give it up--and then only under compulsion; how, with a spirit -unmodified by time, she still tortures her prisoners to-day; how, with -her ancient passion for pain and blood unchanged, she still crowds the -arena with ladies and gentlemen and priests to see with delight a bull -harried and persecuted and a gored horse dragging his entrails on the -ground; and how, with this incredible character surviving all attempts -to civilize it, her Duke of Alva rises again in the person of General -Weyler--to-day the most idolized personage in Spain--and we see a -hundred thousand women and children shut up in pens and pitilessly -starved to death? - -Are we indeed going to lose Spain’s respect? Is there no way to avoid -this calamity--or this compliment? Are we going to lose her respect -because we have made a promise in our ultimatum which she thinks we -shall break? And meantime is she trying to recall some promise of her -own which she has kept? - -Is the Professional Official Fibber of Europe really troubled with our -morals? Dear Parisian friend, are you taking seriously the daily remark -of the newspaper and the orator about “this noble nation with an -illustrious history”? That is mere kindness, mere charity for a people -in temporary hard luck. The newspaper and the orator do not mean it. -They wink when they say it. - -And so you are ashamed. Do not be ashamed; there is no occasion for it. - - - - - DUELING - (Vienna, Austria, 1898) - - -This pastime is as common in Austria to-day as it is in France. But with -this difference--that here in the Austrian states the duel is dangerous, -while in France it is not. Here it is tragedy, in France it is comedy; -here it is a solemnity, there it is monkeyshines; here the duelist risks -his life, there he does not even risk his shirt. Here he fights with -pistol or saber, in France with a hairpin--a blunt one. Here the -desperately wounded man tries to walk to the hospital; there they paint -the scratch so that they can find it again, lay the sufferer on a -stretcher, and conduct him off the field with a band of music. - -At the end of a French duel the pair hug and kiss and cry, and praise -each other’s valor; then the surgeons make an examination and pick out -the scratched one, and the other one helps him on to the litter and pays -his fare; and in return the scratched one treats to champagne and -oysters in the evening, and then “the incident is closed,” as the French -say. It is all polite, and gracious, and pretty, and impressive. At the -end of an Austrian duel the antagonist that is alive gravely offers his -hand to the other man, utters some phrases of courteous regret, then -bids him good-by and goes his way, and that incident also is closed. The -French duelist is painstakingly protected from danger, by the rules of -the game. His antagonist’s weapon cannot reach so far as his body; if he -gets a scratch it will not be above his elbow. But in Austria the rules -of the game do not provide against danger, they carefully provide _for_ -it, usually. Commonly the combat must be kept up until one of the men is -disabled; a nondisabling slash or stab does not retire him. - -For a matter of three months I watched the Viennese journals, and -whenever a duel was reported in their telegraphic columns I scrap-booked -it. By this record I find that dueling in Austria is not confined to -journalists and old maids, as in France, but is indulged in by military -men, journalists, students, physicians, lawyers, members of the -legislature, and even the Cabinet, the bench, and the police. Dueling is -forbidden by law; and so it seems odd to see the makers and -administrators of the laws dancing on their work in this way. Some -months ago Count Badeni, at that time chief of the government, fought a -pistol duel here in the capital city of the Empire with Representative -Wolf, and both of those distinguished Christians came near getting -turned out of the Church--for the Church as well as the state forbids -dueling. - -In one case, lately, in Hungary, the police interfered and stopped a -duel after the first innings. This was a saber duel between the chief of -police and the city attorney. Unkind things were said about it by the -newspapers. They said the police remembered their duty uncommonly well -when their own officials were the parties concerned in duels. But I -think the underlings showed bread-and-butter judgment. If their -superiors had carved each other well, the public would have asked, -“Where were the police?” and their place would have been endangered; but -custom does not require them to be around where mere unofficial citizens -are explaining a thing with sabers. - -There was another duel--a double duel--going on in the immediate -neighborhood at the time, and in this case the police obeyed custom and -did not disturb it. Their bread and butter was not at stake there. In -this duel a physician fought a couple of surgeons, and wounded both--one -of them lightly, the other seriously. An undertaker wanted to keep -people from interfering, but that was quite natural again. - -Selecting at random from my record, I next find a duel at Tranopol -between military men. An officer of the Tenth Dragoons charged an -officer of the Ninth Dragoons with an offense against the laws of the -card table. There was a defect or a doubt somewhere in the matter, and -this had to be examined and passed upon by a court of honor. So the case -was sent up to Lemberg for this purpose. One would like to know what the -defect was, but the newspaper does not say. A man here who has fought -many duels and has a graveyard says that probably the matter in question -was as to whether the accusation was true or not; that if the charge was -a very grave one--cheating, for instance--proof of its truth would rule -the guilty officer out of the field of honor; the court would not allow -a gentleman to fight with such a person. You see what a solemn thing it -is; you see how particular they are; any little careless speech can lose -you your privilege of getting yourself shot, here. The court seems to -have gone into the matter in a searching and careful fashion, for -several months elapsed before it reached a decision. It then sanctioned -a duel and the accused killed his accuser. - -Next I find a duel between a prince and a major; first with pistols--no -result satisfactory to either party; then with sabers, and the major -badly hurt. - -Next, a saber duel between journalists--the one a strong man, the other -feeble and in poor health. It was brief; the strong one drove his sword -through the weak one, and death was immediate. - -Next, a duel between a lieutenant and a student of medicine. According -to the newspaper report, these are the details: The student was in a -restaurant one evening; passing along, he halted at a table to speak -with some friends; near by sat a dozen military men; the student -conceived that one of these was “staring” at him; he asked the officer -to step outside and explain. This officer and another one gathered up -their capes and sabers and went out with the student. Outside--this is -the student’s account--the student introduced himself to the offending -officer and said, “You seemed to stare at me”; for answer, the officer -struck the student with his fist; the student parried the blow; both -officers drew their sabers and attacked the young fellow, and one of -them gave him a wound on the left arm; then they withdrew. This was -Saturday night. The duel followed on Monday, in the military riding -school--the customary dueling ground all over Austria, apparently. The -weapons were pistols. The dueling terms were somewhat beyond custom in -the matter of severity, if I may gather that from the statement that the -combat was fought “unter sehr schweren Bedingungen”--to wit, “distance, -15 steps--with 3 steps advance.” There was but one exchange of shots. -The student was hit. “He put his hand on his breast, his body began to -bend slowly forward, then collapsed in death and sank to the ground.” - -It is pathetic. There are other duels in my list, but I find in each and -all of them one and the same ever-recurring defect--the _principals_ are -never present, but only by their sham representatives. The _real_ -principals in any duel are not the duelists themselves, but their -_families_. They do the mourning, the suffering; theirs is the loss and -theirs the misery. They stake all that, the duelist stakes nothing but -his life, and that is a trivial thing compared with what his death must -cost those whom he leaves behind him. Challenges should not mention the -duelist; he has nothing much at stake, and the real vengeance cannot -reach him. The challenge should summon the offender’s old gray mother -and his young wife and his little children--these, or any of whom he is -a dear and worshiped possession--and should say, “You have done me no -harm, but I am the meek slave of a custom which requires me to crush the -happiness out of your hearts and condemn you to years of pain and grief, -in order that I may wash clean with your tears a stain which has been -put upon me by another person.” - -The logic of it is admirable; a person has robbed me of a penny; I must -beggar ten innocent persons to make good my loss. Surely nobody’s -“honor” is worth all that. - -Since the duelist’s family are the real principals in a duel, the state -ought to compel them to be present at it. Custom, also, ought to be so -amended as to require it; and without it no duel ought to be allowed to -go on. If that student’s unoffending mother had been present and -watching the officer through her tears as he raised his pistol, he--why, -he would have fired in the air! We know that. For we know how we are all -made. Laws ought to be based upon the ascertained facts of our nature. -It would be a simple thing to make a dueling law which would stop -dueling. - -As things are now, the mother is never invited. She submits to this; and -without outward complaint, for she, too, is the vassal of custom, and -custom requires her to conceal her pain when she learns the disastrous -news that her son must go to the dueling field, and by the powerful -force that is lodged in habit and custom she is enabled to obey this -trying requirement--a requirement which exacts a miracle of her, and -gets it. In January a neighbor of ours who has a young son in the army -was awakened by this youth at three o’clock one morning, and she sat up -in bed and listened to his message: - -“I have come to tell you something, mother, which will distress you, but -you must be good and brave and bear it. I have been affronted by a -fellow officer and we fight at three this afternoon. Lie down and sleep, -now, and think no more about it.” - -She kissed him good night and lay down paralyzed with grief and fear, -but said nothing. But she did not sleep; she prayed and mourned till the -first streak of dawn, then fled to the nearest church and implored the -Virgin for help; and from that church she went to another and another; -church after church, and still church after church, and so spent all the -day until three o’clock on her knees in agony and tears; then dragged -herself home and sat down, comfortless and desolate, to count the -minutes, and wait, with an outward show of calm, for what had been -ordained for her--happiness, or endless misery. Presently she heard the -clank of a saber--she had not known before what music was in that -sound--and her son put his head in and said: - -“X was in the wrong and he apologized.” - -So that incident was closed; and for the rest of her life the mother -will always find something pleasant about the clank of a saber, no -doubt. - -In one of my listed duels--However, let it go, there is nothing -particularly striking about it except that the seconds interfered. And -prematurely, too, for neither man was dead. This was certainly -irregular. Neither of the men liked it. It was a duel with cavalry -sabers, between an editor and a lieutenant. The editor walked to the -hospital; the lieutenant was carried. In Austria an editor who can write -well is valuable, but he is not likely to remain so unless he can handle -a saber with charm. - -The following very recent telegram shows that also in France duels are -humanely stopped as soon as they approach the (French) danger point: - - (Reuter’s Telegram) - - PARIS, _March 5th_. - - The duel between Colonels Henry and Picquart took place this morning - in the riding school of the École Militaire, the doors of which were - strictly guarded in order to prevent intrusion. The combatants, who - fought with swords, were in position at ten o’clock. - - At the first re-engagement Lieut.-Col. Henry was slightly scratched in - the forearm, and just at the same moment his own blade appeared to - touch his adversary’s neck. Senator Ranc, who was Colonel Picquart’s - second, stopped the fight, but as it was found that his principal had - not been touched, the combat continued. A very sharp encounter ensued, - in which Colonel Henry was wounded in the elbow, and the duel then - terminated. - -After which the stretcher and the band. In lurid contrast with this -delicate flirtation, we have an account of a deadly duel of day before -yesterday in Italy, where the earnest Austrian duel is in vogue. I knew -one of the principals, Cavalotti, slightly, and this gives me a sort of -personal interest in his duel. I first saw him in Rome several years -ago. He was sitting on a block of stone in the Forum, and was writing -something in his notebook--a poem or a challenge, or something like -that--and the friend who pointed him out to me said, “That is -Cavalotti--he has fought thirty duels; do not disturb him.” I did not -disturb him. - - - - - SKELETON PLAN OF A PROPOSED - CASTING VOTE PARTY - (1901) - - NOTE.--Mark Twain’s effort was always for clean politics. In 1901 he - formulated what to him seemed a feasible plan to obtain this boon. It - is here first published.--A. B. P. - - ITS MAIN OBJECT - -To compel the two Great Parties to nominate their _best man_ always. - - FOUNDATION PRINCIPLES - -With the offices all filled by the best men of either of the two Great -Parties, we shall have good government. We hold that this is beyond -dispute, and does not need to be argued. - - DETAILS - -1. The C. V. Party should be _organized_. This, in order to secure its -continuance and permanency. - -2. Any of the following acts must sever the connection of a member with -the Casting Vote party: - - The seeking of any office, appointive or elective. - The acceptance of a nomination to any such office. - The acceptance of such an office. - -3. The organization should never vote for _any but a nominee of one or -the other of the two Great Parties_, and should then cast their _entire -vote_ for that nominee. - -4. They should have no dealings with minor parties. - -5. There should be ward organizations, township, town, city, -congressional district, state and national organizations. The party -should work wherever there is an elective office, from the lowest up to -the Presidency. - -6. As a rule, none of the organizations will need to be large. In most -cases they will be able to control the action of the two Great Parties -without that. In the matter of membership, quality will be the main -thing, rather than quantity. - -In small constituencies, where a town constable or a justice of the -peace is to be elected it will often be the case that a Casting Vote -lodge of fifty members can elect the nominee it prefers. In every such -community the material for the fifty is present. It will be found among -the men who are disgusted with the prevailing political methods, the low -ambitions and ideals, of the politicians; dishonesty in office; -corruption; the frank distribution of appointments among characterless -and incompetent men as pay for party service; the evasion and sometimes -straight-out violation of the civil-service laws. The fifty will be -found among the men who are ashamed of this condition of things and who -have despaired of seeing it bettered; _who stay away from the polls and -do not vote;_ who do not attend primaries, and would be insulted there -if they did. - -The fifty exist in every little community; they are not seen, not heard, -not regarded--but they are there. There, and deeply and sincerely -desirous of good and sound government, and ready to give the best help -they can if any will place before them a competent way. They are -reserved and quiet merchants and shopkeepers, middle-aged; they are -young men making their way in the offices of doctors and lawyers and -behind counters; they are journeyman high-class mechanics; they are -organizers of, and workers for, the community’s charities, art and other -social-improvement clubs, university settlements, Young Men’s Christian -Association, circulating libraries; they are readers of books, -frequenters of the library. They have never seen a primary, and they -have an aversion for the polls. - -7. Men proposing to create a Casting Vote lodge should not advertise -their purpose; conspiracies for good, like conspiracies for evil, are -best conducted privately until success is sure. The poll of the two -Great Parties should be examined, and the winning party’s majority -noted. _It is this majority which the Casting Vote must overcome and -nullify._ If the total vote cast was 1,000 and the majority vote fifty, -the proposers of a lodge should canvass privately until they have -secured 75 or 100 names; they can organize then, without solicitude; the -balance of power is in their hands, and this fact by itself will add -names to its membership. If the total vote is 10,000 and the majority -vote 1,000, the procedure should be as before: the thousand-and-upward -should be secured by private canvass before public organization is -instituted. Where a total vote is 1,000,000 the majority vote is not -likely to exceed 30,000. Five or six canvassers can begin the listing; -each man secured becomes a canvasser, ten know three apiece who will -join; the thirty know three apiece who will join; the ninety know three -hundred, the three hundred know a thousand, the thousand know three -thousand--and so on; the required thirty or forty thousand can be -secured in ten days, the lodge organized, and its casting vote be ready -and self-pledged and competent to elect the best of the nominees the two -Great Parties may put up at that date or later. - -8. In every ward of every city there is enough of this material to hold -the balance of power over the two Great Parties in a ward election; in -every city there is enough of it to determine which of the two nominees -shall be mayor; in every congressional district there is enough of it to -elect the Governor; also to elect the legislature and choose the U. S. -Senators; and in the United States there is enough of it to throw the -Casting Vote for its choice between the nominees of the two Great -Parties and seat him in the presidential chair. - -9. From constable up to President there is no office for which the two -Great Parties cannot furnish able, clean, and acceptable men. Whenever -the balance of power shall be lodged in a permanent third party with no -candidates of its own and no function but to cast its _whole vote_ for -the best man put forward by the Republicans and Democrats, these two -parties _will select the best men they have in their ranks_. Good and -clean government will follow, let its party complexion be what it may; -and the country will be quite content. - - THE LODGES - -The primal lodge--call it A--should consist of 10 men only. It is enough -and can meet in a dwelling house or a shop, and get well acquainted at -once. It has before it the names of the nominees of the two Great -Parties--Jones (Republican), Smith (Democrat). It fails of -unanimity--both candidates perchance being good men and about equally -acceptable--and casts seven votes, say, for Jones and three for Smith. - -It elects one of its ten to meet similar delegates from any number of -local A lodges and hand in its vote. This body--call it a B -lodge--examines the aggregate vote; this time the majority may be with -Smith. The members carry the result to the A lodges; and these, by the -conditions of their membership, must vote for Smith. - -In the case of a state election, bodies each consisting of a number of B -lodges would elect a delegate to a state council, and the state council -would examine the aggregate vote and give its decision in favor of the -Republican or Democratic candidate receiving the majority of the Casting -Vote’s suffrages. - -In the case of a presidential contest, the state council would appoint -delegates to a national convention, and these would examine the -aggregate Casting Vote vote and determine and announce the choice of the -Casting Vote organizations of the whole country. At the presidential -election the A lodges throughout the land would vote for presidential -electors of the Party indicated. - -If the reader thinks well of the project, let him begin a private -canvass among his friends and give it a practical test, without waiting -for other people to begin. If in the hands of men who regard their -citizenship as a high trust this scheme shall fail upon trial, a better -must be sought, a better must be invented; for it cannot be well or safe -to let the present political conditions continue indefinitely. They can -be improved, and American citizenship should rouse up from its -disheartenment and see that it is done. - - - - - THE UNITED STATES OF LYNCHERDOM - (1901) - - law, and when in 1901 a particularly barbarous incident occurred in - his native state he was moved to express himself in print. The article - was not offered for publication, perhaps because the moment of - timeliness had passed. Its general timeliness, however, is perennial - and a word from “America’s foremost private citizen” on the subject is - worthy of preservation.--A. B. P. - - I - -And so Missouri has fallen, that great state! Certain of her children -have joined the lynchers, and the smirch is upon the rest of us. That -handful of her children have given us a character and labeled us with a -name, and to the dwellers in the four quarters of the earth we are -“lynchers,” now, and ever shall be. For the world will not stop and -think--it never does, it is not its way; its way is to generalize from a -single sample. It will not say, “Those Missourians have been busy eighty -years in building an honorable good name for themselves; these hundred -lynchers down in the corner of the state are not real Missourians, they -are renegades.” No, that truth will not enter its mind; it will -generalize from the one or two misleading samples and say, “The -Missourians are lynchers.” It has no reflection, no logic, no sense of -proportion. With it, figures go for nothing; to it, figures reveal -nothing, it cannot reason upon them rationally; it would say, for -instance, that China is being swiftly and surely Christianized, since -nine Chinese Christians are being made every day; and it would fail, -with him, to notice that the fact that 33,000 pagans are _born_ there -every day, damages the argument. It would say, “There are a hundred -lynchers there, therefore the Missourians are lynchers”; the -considerable fact that there are two and a half million Missourians who -are _not_ lynchers would not affect their verdict. - - II - -Oh, Missouri! - -The tragedy occurred near Pierce City, down in the southwestern corner -of the state. On a Sunday afternoon a young white woman who had started -alone from church was found murdered. For there are churches there; in -my time religion was more general, more pervasive, in the South than it -was in the North, and more virile and earnest, too, I think; I have some -reason to believe that this is still the case. The young woman was found -murdered. Although it was a region of churches and schools the people -rose, lynched three negroes--two of them very aged ones--burned out five -negro households, and drove thirty negro families into the woods. - -I do not dwell upon the provocation which moved the people to these -crimes, for that has nothing to do with the matter; the only question -is, does the assassin _take the law into his own hands_? It is very -simple, and very just. If the assassin be proved to have usurped the -law’s prerogative in righting his wrongs, that ends the matter; a -thousand provocations are no defense. The Pierce City people had bitter -provocation--indeed, as revealed by certain of the particulars, the -bitterest of all provocations--but no matter, they took the law into -their own hands, when by the terms of their statutes their victim would -certainly hang if the law had been allowed to take its course, for there -are but few negroes in that region and they are without authority and -without influence in overawing juries. - -Why has lynching, with various barbaric accompaniments, become a -favorite regulator in cases of “the usual crime” in several parts of the -country? Is it because men think a lurid and terrible punishment a more -forcible object lesson and a more effective deterrent than a sober and -colorless hanging done privately in a jail would be? Surely sane men do -not think that. Even the average child should know better. It should -know that any strange and much-talked-of event is always followed by -imitations, the world being so well supplied with excitable people who -only need a little stirring up to make them lose what is left of their -heads and do mad things which they would not have thought of ordinarily. -It should know that if a man jump off Brooklyn Bridge another will -imitate him; that if a person venture down Niagara Whirlpool in a barrel -another will imitate him; that if a Jack the Ripper make notoriety by -slaughtering women in dark alleys he will be imitated; that if a man -attempt a king’s life and the newspapers carry the noise of it around -the globe, regicides will crop up all around. The child should know that -one much-talked-of outrage and murder committed by a negro will upset -the disturbed intellects of several other negroes and produce a series -of the very tragedies the community would so strenuously wish to -prevent; that each of these crimes will produce another series, and year -by year steadily increase the tale of these disasters instead of -diminishing it; that, in a word, the lynchers are themselves the worst -enemies of their women. The child should also know that by a law of our -make, communities, as well as individuals, are imitators; and that a -much-talked-of lynching will infallibly produce other lynchings here and -there and yonder, and that in time these will breed a mania, a fashion; -a fashion which will spread wide and wider, year by year, covering state -after state, as with an advancing disease. Lynching has reached -Colorado, it has reached California, it has reached Indiana--and now -Missouri! I may live to see a negro burned in Union Square, New York, -with fifty thousand people present, and not a sheriff visible, not a -governor, not a constable, not a colonel, not a clergyman, not a -law-and-order representative of any sort. - - _Increase in Lynching._--In 1900 there were eight more cases than in - 1899, and probably this year there will be more than there were last - year. The year is little more than half gone, and yet there are - eighty-eight cases as compared with one hundred and fifteen for all of - last year. The four Southern states, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, and - Mississippi are the worst offenders. Last year there were eight cases - in Alabama, sixteen in Georgia, twenty in Louisiana, and twenty in - Mississippi--over one-half the total. This year to date there have - been nine in Alabama, twelve in Georgia, eleven in Louisiana, and - thirteen in Mississippi--again more than one-half the total number in - the whole United States.--Chicago _Tribune_. - -It must be that the increase comes of the inborn human instinct to -imitate--that and man’s commonest weakness, his aversion to being -unpleasantly conspicuous, pointed at, shunned, as being on the unpopular -side. Its other name is Moral Cowardice, and is the commanding feature -of the make-up of 9,999 men in the 10,000. I am not offering this as a -discovery; privately the dullest of us knows it to be true. History will -not allow us to forget or ignore this supreme trait of our character. It -persistently and sardonically reminds us that from the beginning of the -world no revolt against a public infamy or oppression has ever been -begun but by the one daring man in the 10,000, the rest timidly waiting, -and slowly and reluctantly joining, under the influence of that man and -his fellows from the other ten thousands. The abolitionists remember. -Privately the public feeling was with them early, but each man was -afraid to speak out until he got some hint that his neighbor was -privately feeling as he privately felt himself. Then the boom followed. -It always does. It will occur in New York, some day; and even in -Pennsylvania. - -It has been supposed--and said--that the people at a lynching enjoy the -spectacle and are glad of a chance to see it. It cannot be true; all -experience is against it. The people in the South are made like the -people in the North--the vast majority of whom are right-hearted and -compassionate, and would be cruelly pained by such a spectacle--and -_would attend it_, and let on to be pleased with it, if the public -approval seemed to require it. We are made like that, and we cannot help -it. The other animals are not so, but we cannot help that, either. They -lack the Moral Sense; we have no way of trading ours off, for a nickel -or some other thing above its value. The Moral Sense teaches us what is -right, and how to avoid it--when unpopular. - -It is thought, as I have said, that a lynching crowd enjoys a lynching. -It certainly is not true; it is impossible of belief. It is freely -asserted--you have seen it in print many times of late--that the -lynching impulse has been misinterpreted; that it is _not_ the outcome -of a spirit of revenge, but of a “mere atrocious hunger _to look upon -human suffering_.” If that were so, the crowds that saw the Windsor -Hotel burn down would have enjoyed the horrors that fell under their -eyes. Did they? No one will think that of them, no one will make that -charge. Many risked their lives to save the men and women who were in -peril. Why did they do that? Because _none would disapprove_. There was -no restraint; they could follow their natural impulse. Why does a crowd -of the same kind of people in Texas, Colorado, Indiana, stand by, -smitten to the heart and miserable, and by ostentatious outward signs -pretend to enjoy a lynching? Why does it lift no hand or voice in -protest? Only because it would be unpopular to do it, I think; each man -is afraid of his neighbor’s disapproval--a thing which, to the general -run of the race, is more dreaded than wounds and death. When there is to -be a lynching the people hitch up and come miles to see it, bringing -their wives and children. Really to see it? No--they come only because -they are afraid to stay at home, lest it be noticed and offensively -commented upon. We may believe this, for we all know how _we_ feel about -such spectacles--also, how we would act under the like pressure. We are -not any better nor any braver than anybody else, and we must not try to -creep out of it. - -A Savonarola can quell and scatter a mob of lynchers with a mere glance -of his eye: so can a Merrill[7] or a Beloat.[8] For no mob has any sand -in the presence of a man known to be splendidly brave. Besides, a -lynching mob would _like_ to be scattered, for of a certainty there are -never ten men in it who would not prefer to be somewhere else--and would -be, if they but had the courage to go. When I was a boy I saw a brave -gentleman deride and insult a mob and drive it away; and afterward, in -Nevada, I saw a noted desperado make two hundred men sit still, with the -house burning under them, until he gave them permission to retire. A -plucky man can rob a whole passenger train by himself; and the half of a -brave man can hold up a stagecoach and strip its occupants. - -Then perhaps the remedy for lynchings comes to this: station a brave man -in each affected community to encourage, support, and bring to light the -deep disapproval of lynching hidden in the secret places of its -heart--for it is there, beyond question. Then those communities will -find something better to imitate--of course, being human, they must -imitate something. Where shall these brave men be found? That is indeed -a difficulty; there are not three hundred of them in the earth. If -merely _physically_ brave men would do, then it were easy; they could be -furnished by the cargo. When Hobson called for seven volunteers to go -with him to what promised to be certain death, four thousand men -responded--the whole fleet, in fact. Because _all the world would -approve_. They knew that; but if Hobson’s project had been charged with -the scoffs and jeers of the friends and associates, whose good opinion -and approval the sailors valued, he could not have got his seven. - -No, upon reflection, the scheme will not work. There are not enough -morally brave men in stock. We are out of moral-courage material; we are -in a condition of profound poverty. We have those two sheriffs down -South who--but never mind, it is not enough to go around; they have to -stay and take care of their own communities. - -But if we only _could_ have three or four more sheriffs of that great -breed! Would it help? I think so. For we are all imitators: other brave -sheriffs would follow; to be a dauntless sheriff would come to be -recognized as the correct and only thing, and the dreaded disapproval -would fall to the share of the other kind; courage in this office would -become custom, the absence of it a dishonor, just as courage presently -replaces the timidity of the new soldier; then the mobs and the -lynchings would disappear, and---- - -However. It can never be done without some starters, and where are we to -get the starters? Advertise? Very well, then, let us advertise. - -In the meantime, there is another plan. Let us import American -missionaries from China, and send them into the lynching field. With -1,511 of them out there converting two Chinamen apiece per annum against -an uphill birth rate of 33,000 pagans per day,[9] it will take upward of -a million years to make the conversions balance the output and bring the -Christianizing of the country in sight to the naked eye; therefore, if -we can offer our missionaries as rich a field at home at lighter expense -and quite satisfactory in the matter of danger, why shouldn’t they find -it fair and right to come back and give us a trial? The Chinese are -universally conceded to be excellent people, honest, honorable, -industrious, trustworthy, kind-hearted, and all that--leave them alone, -they are plenty good enough just as they are; and besides, almost every -convert runs a risk of catching our civilization. We ought to be -careful. We ought to think twice before we encourage a risk like that; -for, _once civilized, China can never be uncivilized again_. We have not -been thinking of that. Very well, we ought to think of it now. Our -missionaries will find that we have a field for them--and not only for -the 1,511, but for 15,011. Let them look at the following telegram and -see if they have anything in China that is more appetizing. It is from -Texas: - - The negro was taken to a tree and swung in the air. Wood and fodder - were piled beneath his body and a hot fire was made. _Then it was - suggested that the man ought not to die too quickly, and he was let - down to the ground while a party went to Dexter, about two miles - distant, to procure coal oil._ This was thrown on the flames and the - work completed. - -We implore them to come back and help us in our need. Patriotism imposes -this duty on them. Our country is worse off than China; they are our -countrymen, their motherland supplicates their aid in this her hour of -deep distress. They are competent; our people are not. They are used to -scoffs, sneers, revilings, danger; our people are not. They have the -martyr spirit; nothing but the martyr spirit can brave a lynching mob, -and cow it and scatter it. They can save their country, we beseech them -to come home and do it. We ask them to read that telegram again, and yet -again, and picture the scene in their minds, and soberly ponder it; then -multiply it by 115, add 88; place the 203 in a row, allowing 600 feet of -space for each human torch, so that there may be viewing room around it -for 5,000 Christian American men, women, and children, youths and -maidens; make it night, for grim effect; have the show in a gradually -rising plain, and let the course of the stakes be uphill; the eye can -then take in the whole line of twenty-four miles of blood-and-flesh -bonfires unbroken, whereas if it occupied level ground the ends of the -line would bend down and be hidden from view by the curvature of the -earth. All being ready, now, and the darkness opaque, the stillness -impressive--for there should be no sound but the soft moaning of the -night wind and the muffled sobbing of the sacrifices--let all the far -stretch of kerosened pyres be touched off simultaneously and the glare -and the shrieks and the agonies burst heavenward to the Throne. - -There are more than a million persons present; the light from the fires -flushes into vague outline against the night the spires of five thousand -churches. O kind missionary, O compassionate missionary, leave China! -come home and convert these Christians! - -I believe that if anything can stop this epidemic of bloody insanities -it is martial personalities that can face mobs without flinching; and as -such personalities are developed only by familiarity with danger and by -the training and seasoning which come of resisting it, the likeliest -place to find them must be among the missionaries who have been under -tuition in China during the past year or two. We have abundance of work -for them, and for hundreds and thousands more, and the field is daily -growing and spreading. Shall we find them? We can try. In 75,000,000 -there must be other Merrills and Beloats; and it is the law of our make -that each example shall wake up drowsing chevaliers of the same great -knighthood and bring them to the front. - ------ - -Footnote 7: - - Sheriff of Carroll County, Georgia. - -Footnote 8: - - Sheriff, Princeton, Indiana. By that formidable power which lies in an - established reputation for cold pluck they faced lynching mobs and - securely held the field against them. - -Footnote 9: - - These figures are not fanciful; all of them are genuine and authentic. - They are from official missionary records in China. See Doctor - Morrison’s book on his pedestrian journey across China; he quotes them - and gives his authorities. For several years he has been the London - _Times’s_ representative in Peking, and was there through the siege. - - - - - TO THE PERSON SITTING IN DARKNESS - (_North American Review_, 1901) - - -See introduction to this volume for some account of this and the -following article. - - Christmas will dawn in the United States over a people full of hope - and aspiration and good cheer. Such a condition means contentment and - happiness. The carping grumbler who may here and there go forth will - find few to listen to him. The majority will wonder what is the matter - with him and pass on.--New York _Tribune_, on Christmas Eve. - -From the _Sun_, of New York: - - The purpose of this article is not to describe the terrible offenses - against humanity committed in the name of Politics in some of the most - notorious East Side districts. _They could not be described, even - verbally._ But it is the intention to let the great mass of more or - less careless citizens of this beautiful metropolis of the New World - get some conception of the havoc and ruin wrought to man, woman, and - child in the most densely populated and least-known section of the - city. Name, date, and place can be supplied to those of little - faith--or to any man who feels himself aggrieved. It is a plain - statement of record and observation, written without license and - without garnish. - - Imagine, if you can, a section of the city territory completely - dominated by one man, without whose permission neither legitimate nor - illegitimate business can be conducted; _where illegitimate business - is encouraged and legitimate business discouraged_; where the - respectable residents have to fasten their doors and windows summer - nights and sit in their rooms with asphyxiating air and 100-degree - temperature, rather than try to catch the faint whiff of breeze in - their natural breathing places, the stoops of their homes; _where - naked women dance by night in the streets, and unsexed men prowl like - vultures through the darkness on “business”_ not only permitted but - encouraged by the police; _where the education of infants begins with - the knowledge of prostitution_ and the training of little girls is - training in the arts of Phryne; where _American_ girls brought up with - the refinements of _American_ homes are imported from small towns - up-state, Massachusetts, Connecticut, and New Jersey, and kept as - virtually prisoners as if they were locked up behind jail bars until - they have lost all semblance of womanhood; _where small boys are - taught to solicit for the women of disorderly houses_; where there is - an organized society of young men _whose sole business in life is to - corrupt young girls and turn them over to bawdy houses_; where men - walking with their wives along the street are openly insulted; _where - children that have adult diseases are the chief patrons of the - hospitals and dispensaries_; where it is the rule, rather than the - exception, that _murder, rape, robbery, and theft go unpunished_--in - short where the Premium of the most awful forms of Vice is the Profit - of the politicians. - -The following news from China appeared in the _Sun_, of New York, on -Christmas Eve. The italics are mine: - - The Rev. Mr. Ament, of the American Board of Foreign Missions, has - returned from a trip which he made for the purpose of collecting - indemnities for damages done by Boxers. _Everywhere he went he - compelled the Chinese to pay._ He says that all his native Christians - are now provided for. He had 700 of them under his charge, and 300 - were killed. He has _collected 300 taels for each_ of these murders, - and has _compelled full payment for all the property belonging to - Christians_ that was destroyed. He also assessed _fines_ amounting to - THIRTEEN TIMES the amount of the indemnity. _This money will be used - for the propagation of the Gospel._ - - Mr. Ament declares that the compensation he has collected is - _moderate_ when compared with the amount secured by the Catholics, who - demand, in addition to money, _head for head_. They collect 500 taels - for each murder of a Catholic. In the Wenchiu country, 680 Catholics - were killed, and for this the European Catholics here demand 750,000 - strings of cash and 680 _heads_. - - In the course of a conversation, Mr. Ament referred to the attitude of - the missionaries toward the Chinese. He said: - - “I deny emphatically that the missionaries are _vindictive_, that they - _generally_ looted, or that they have done anything _since_ the siege - that _the circumstances did not demand_. I criticize the Americans. - _The soft hand of the Americans is not as good as the mailed fist of - the Germans._ If you deal with the Chinese with a soft hand they will - take advantage of it. - - “The statement that the French government will return the loot taken - by the French soldiers is the source of the greatest amusement here. - The French soldiers were more systematic looters than the Germans, and - it is a fact that to-day _Catholic Christians_, carrying French flags - and armed with modern guns, _are looting villages_ in the Province of - Chili.” - -By happy luck, we get all these glad tidings on Christmas Eve--just in -time enable us to celebrate the day with proper gayety and enthusiasm. -Our spirits soar, and we find we can even make jokes: Taels, I win, -Heads you lose. - -Our Reverend Ament is the right man in the right place. What we want of -our missionaries out there is, not that they shall merely represent in -their acts and persons the grace and gentleness and charity and -loving-kindness of our religion, but that they shall also represent the -American spirit. The oldest Americans are the Pawnees. Macallum’s -History says: - - When a white Boxer kills a Pawnee and destroys his property, the other - Pawnees do not trouble to seek _him_ out, they kill any white person - that comes along; also, they make some white village pay deceased’s - heirs the full cash value of deceased, together with full cash value - of the property destroyed; they also make the village pay, in - addition, _thirteen times_ the value of that property into a fund for - the dissemination of the Pawnee religion, which they regard as the - best of all religions for the softening and humanizing of the heart of - man. It is their idea that it is only fair and right that the innocent - should be made to suffer for the guilty, and that it is better that - ninety and nine innocent should suffer than that one guilty person - should escape. - -Our Reverend Ament is justifiably jealous of those enterprising -Catholics, who not only get big money for each lost convert, but get -“head for head” besides. But he should soothe himself with the -reflections that the entirety of their exactions are for their own -pockets, whereas he, less selfishly, devotes only 300 taels per head to -that service, and gives the whole vast thirteen repetitions of the -property-indemnity to the service of propagating the Gospel. His -magnanimity has won him the approval of his nation, and will get him a -monument. Let him be content with these rewards. We all hold him dear -for manfully defending his fellow missionaries from exaggerated charges -which were beginning to distress us, but which his testimony has so -considerably modified that we can now contemplate them without -noticeable pain. For now we know that, even before the siege, the -missionaries were not “generally” out looting, and that, “since the -siege,” they have acted quite handsomely, except when “circumstances” -crowded them. I am arranging for the monument. Subscriptions for it can -be sent to the American Board; designs for it can be sent to me. Designs -must allegorically set forth the Thirteen Reduplications of the -Indemnity, and the Object for which they were exacted; as Ornaments, the -designs must exhibit 680 Heads, so disposed as to give a pleasing and -pretty effect; for the Catholics have done nicely, and are entitled to -notice in the monument. Mottoes may be suggested, if any shall be -discovered that will satisfactorily cover the ground. - -Mr. Ament’s financial feat of squeezing a thirteenfold indemnity out of -the pauper peasants to square other people’s offenses, thus condemning -them and their women and innocent little children to inevitable -starvation and lingering death, in order that the blood money so -acquired might be “_used for the propagation of the Gospel_,” does not -flutter my serenity; although the act and the words, taken together, -concrete a blasphemy so hideous and so colossal that, without doubt, its -mate is not findable in the history of this or of any other age. Yet, if -a layman had done that thing and justified it with those words, I should -have shuddered, I know. Or, if I had done the thing and said the words -myself--However, the thought is unthinkable, irreverent as some -imperfectly informed people think me. Sometimes an ordained minister -sets out to be blasphemous. When this happens, the layman is out of the -running; he stands no chance. - -We have Mr. Ament’s impassioned assurance that the missionaries are not -“vindictive.” Let us hope and pray that they will never become so, but -will remain in the almost morbidly fair and just and gentle temper which -is affording so much satisfaction to their brother and champion to-day. - -The following is from the New York _Tribune_ of Christmas Eve. It comes -from that journal’s Tokyo correspondent. It has a strange and impudent -sound, but the Japanese are but partially civilized as yet. When they -become wholly civilized they will not talk so: - - The missionary question, of course, occupies a foremost place in the - discussion. It is now felt as essential that the Western Powers take - cognizance of the sentiment here, that religious invasions of Oriental - countries by powerful Western organizations are tantamount to - filibustering expeditions, and should not only be discountenanced, but - that stern measures should be adopted for their suppression. The - feeling here is that the missionary organizations constitute a - constant menace to peaceful international relations. - -_Shall we?_ That is, shall we go on conferring our Civilization upon the -peoples that sit in darkness, or shall we give those poor things a rest? -Shall we bang right ahead in our old-time, loud, pious way, and commit -the new century to the game; or shall we sober up and sit down and think -it over first? Would it not be prudent to get our Civilization tools -together, and see how much stock is left on hand in the way of Glass -Beads and Theology, and Maxim Guns and Hymn Books, and Trade Gin and -Torches of Progress and Enlightenment (patent adjustable ones, good to -fire villages with, upon occasion), and balance the books, and arrive at -the profit and loss, so that we may intelligently decide whether to -continue the business or sell out the property and start a new -Civilization Scheme on the proceeds? - -Extending the Blessings of Civilization to our Brother who Sits in -Darkness has been a good trade and has paid well, on the whole; and -there is money in it yet, if carefully worked--but not enough, in my -judgment, to make any considerable risk advisable. The People that Sit -in Darkness are getting to be too scarce--too scarce and too shy. And -such darkness as is now left is really of but an indifferent quality, -and not dark enough for the game. The most of those People that Sit in -Darkness have been furnished with more light than was good for them or -profitable for us. We have been injudicious. - -The Blessings-of-Civilization Trust, wisely and cautiously administered, -is a Daisy. There is more money in it, more territory, more sovereignty, -and other kinds of emolument, than there is in any other game that is -played. But Christendom has been playing it badly of late years, and -must certainly suffer by it, in my opinion. She has been so eager to get -every stake that appeared on the green cloth, that the People who Sit in -Darkness have noticed it--they have noticed it, and have begun to show -alarm. They have become suspicious of the Blessings of Civilization. -More--they have begun to examine them. This is not well. The Blessings -of Civilization are all right, and a good commercial property; there -could not be a better, in a dim light. In the right kind of a light, and -at a proper distance, with the goods a little out of focus, they furnish -this desirable exhibit to the Gentlemen who Sit in Darkness: - - LOVE, LAW AND ORDER, - JUSTICE, LIBERTY, - GENTLENESS, EQUALITY, - CHRISTIANITY, HONORABLE DEALING, - PROTECTION TO THE WEAK, MERCY, - TEMPERANCE, EDUCATION, - --and so on. - -There. Is it good? Sir, it is pie. It will bring into camp any idiot -that sits in darkness anywhere. But not if we adulterate it. It is -proper to be emphatic upon that point. This brand is strictly for -Export--apparently. _Apparently._ Privately and confidentially, it is -nothing of the kind. Privately and confidentially, it is merely an -outside cover, gay and pretty and attractive, displaying the special -patterns of our Civilization which we reserve for Home Consumption, -while _inside_ the bale is the Actual Thing that the Customer Sitting in -Darkness buys with his blood and tears and land and liberty. That Actual -Thing is, indeed, Civilization, but it is only for Export. Is there a -difference between the two brands? In some of the details, yes. - -We all know that the Business is being ruined. The reason is not far to -seek. It is because our Mr. McKinley, and Mr. Chamberlain, and the -Kaiser, and the Tsar and the French have been exporting the Actual Thing -_with the outside cover left off_. This is bad for the Game. It shows -that these new players of it are not sufficiently acquainted with it. - -It is a distress to look on and note the mismoves, they are so strange -and so awkward. Mr. Chamberlain manufactures a war out of materials so -inadequate and so fanciful that they make the boxes grieve and the -gallery laugh, and he tries hard to persuade himself that it isn’t -purely a private raid for cash, but has a sort of dim, vague -respectability about it somewhere, if he could only find the spot; and -that, by and by, he can scour the flag clean again after he has finished -dragging it through the mud, and make it shine and flash in the vault of -heaven once more as it had shone and flashed there a thousand years in -the world’s respect until he laid his unfaithful hand upon it. It is bad -play--bad. For it exposes the Actual Thing to Them that Sit in Darkness, -and they say: “What! Christian against Christian? And only for money? Is -_this_ a case of magnanimity, forbearance, love, gentleness, mercy, -protection of the weak--this strange and overshowy onslaught of an -elephant upon a nest of field mice, on the pretext that the mice had -squeaked an insolence at him--conduct which “no self-respecting -government could allow to pass unavenged”? as Mr. Chamberlain said. Was -that a good pretext in a small case, when it had not been a good pretext -in a large one?--for only recently Russia had affronted the elephant -three times and survived alive and unsmitten. Is this Civilization and -Progress? Is it something better than we already possess? These -harryings and burnings and desert-makings in the Transvaal--is this an -improvement on our darkness? Is it, perhaps, possible that there are two -kinds of Civilization--one for home consumption and one for the heathen -market?” - -Then They that Sit in Darkness are troubled, and shake their heads; and -they read this extract from a letter of a British private, recounting -his exploits in one of Methuen’s victories, some days before the affair -of Magersfontein, and they are troubled again: - - We tore up the hill and into the intrenchments, and the Boers saw we - had them; so they dropped their guns and went down on their knees and - put up their hands clasped, and begged for mercy. And we gave it - them--_with the long spoon_. - -The long spoon is the bayonet. See _Lloyd’s Weekly_, London, of those -days. The same number--and the same column--contained some quite -unconscious satire in the form of shocked and bitter upbraidings of the -Boers for their brutalities and inhumanities! - -Next, to our heavy damage, the Kaiser went to playing the game without -first mastering it. He lost a couple of missionaries in a riot in -Shantung, and in his account he made an overcharge for them. China had -to pay a hundred thousand dollars apiece for them, in money; twelve -miles of territory, containing several millions of inhabitants and worth -twenty million dollars; and to build a monument, and also a Christian -church; whereas the people of China could have been depended upon to -remember the missionaries without the help of these expensive memorials. -This was all bad play. Bad, because it would not, and could not, and -will not now or ever, deceive the Person Sitting in Darkness. He knows -that it was an overcharge. He knows that a missionary is like any other -man: he is worth merely what you can supply his place for, and no more. -He is useful, but so is a doctor, so is a sheriff, so is an editor; but -a just Emperor does not charge war prices for such. A diligent, -intelligent, but obscure missionary, and a diligent, intelligent country -editor are worth much, and we know it; but they are not worth the earth. -We esteem such an editor, and we are sorry to see him go; but, when he -goes, we should consider twelve miles of territory, and a church, and a -fortune, overcompensation for his loss. I mean, if he was a Chinese -editor, and we had to settle for him. It is no proper figure for an -editor or a missionary; one can get shop-worn kings for less. It was bad -play on the Kaiser’s part. It got this property, true; but it _produced -the Chinese revolt_, the indignant uprising of China’s traduced -patriots, the Boxers. The results have been expensive to Germany, and to -the other Disseminators of Progress and the Blessings of Civilization. - -The Kaiser’s claim was paid, yet it was bad play, for it could not fail -to have an evil effect upon Persons Sitting in Darkness in China. They -would muse upon the event, and be likely to say: “Civilization is -gracious and beautiful, for such is its reputation; but can we afford -it? There are rich Chinamen, perhaps they can afford it; but this tax is -not laid upon them, it is laid upon the peasants of Shantung; it is they -that must pay this mighty sum, and their wages are but four cents a day. -Is this a better civilization than ours, and holier and higher and -nobler? Is not this rapacity? Is not this extortion? Would Germany -charge America two hundred thousand dollars for two missionaries, and -shake the mailed fist in her face, and send warships, and send soldiers, -and say: ‘Seize twelve miles of territory, worth twenty millions of -dollars, as additional pay for the missionaries; and make those peasants -build a monument to the missionaries, and a costly Christian church to -remember them by?’ And later would Germany say to her soldiers: ‘March -through America and slay, _giving no quarter_; make the German face -there, as has been our Hun-face here, a terror for a thousand years; -march through the Great Republic and slay, slay, slay, carving a road -for our offended religion through its heart and bowels?’ Would Germany -do like this to America, to England, to France, to Russia? Or only to -China, the helpless--imitating the elephant’s assault upon the field -mice? Had we better invest in this Civilization--this Civilization which -called Napoleon a buccaneer for carrying off Venice’s bronze horses, but -which steals our ancient astronomical instruments from our walls, and -goes looting like common bandits--that is, all the alien soldiers except -America’s; and (Americans again excepted) storms frightened villages and -cables the result to glad journals at home every day: ‘Chinese losses, -450 killed; ours, _one officer and two men wounded_. Shall proceed -against neighboring village to-morrow, where a _massacre_ is reported.’ -Can we afford Civilization?” - -And next Russia must go and play the game injudiciously. She affronts -England once or twice--with the Person Sitting in Darkness observing and -noting; by moral assistance of France and Germany, she robs Japan of her -hard-earned spoil, all swimming in Chinese blood--Port Arthur--with the -Person again observing and noting; then she seizes Manchuria, raids its -villages, and chokes its great river with the swollen corpses of -countless massacred peasants--that astonished Person still observing and -noting. And perhaps he is saying to himself: “It is yet _another_ -Civilized Power, with its banner of the Prince of Peace in one hand and -its loot basket and its butcher knife in the other. Is there no -salvation for us but to adopt Civilization and lift ourselves down to -its level?” - -And by and by comes America, and our Master of the Game plays it -badly--plays it as Mr. Chamberlain was playing it in South Africa. It -was a mistake to do that; also, it was one which was quite unlooked for -in a Master who was playing it so well in Cuba. In Cuba, he was playing -the usual and regular _American_ game, and it was winning, for there is -no way to beat it. The Master, contemplating Cuba, said: “Here is an -oppressed and friendless little nation which is willing to fight to be -free; we go partners, and put up the strength of seventy million -sympathizers and the resources of the United States: play!” Nothing but -Europe combined could call that hand: and Europe cannot combine on -anything. There, in Cuba, he was following our great traditions in a way -which made us very proud of him, and proud of the deep dissatisfaction -which his play was provoking in continental Europe. Moved by a high -inspiration, he threw out those stirring words which proclaimed that -forcible annexation would be “criminal aggression”; and in that -utterance fired another “shot heard round the world.” The memory of that -fine saying will be outlived by the remembrance of no act of his but -one--that he forgot it within the twelvemonth, and its honorable gospel -along with it. - -For, presently, came the Philippine temptation. It was strong; it was -too strong, and he made that bad mistake: he played the European game, -the Chamberlain game. It was a pity; it was a great pity, that error; -that one grievous error, that irrevocable error. For it was the very -place and time to play the American game again. And at no cost. Rich -winnings to be gathered in, too; rich and permanent; indestructible; a -fortune transmissible forever to the children of the flag. Not land, not -money, not dominion--no, something worth many times more than that -dross: our share, the spectacle of a nation of long harassed and -persecuted slaves set free through our influence; our posterity’s share, -the golden memory of that fair deed. The game was in our hands. If it -had been played according to the American rules, Dewey would have sailed -away from Manila as soon as he had destroyed the Spanish fleet--after -putting up a sign on shore guaranteeing foreign property and life -against damage by the Filipinos, and warning the Powers that -interference with the emancipated patriots would be regarded as an act -unfriendly to the United States. The Powers cannot combine, in even a -bad cause, and the sign would not have been molested. - -Dewey could have gone about his affairs elsewhere, and left the -competent Filipino army to starve out the little Spanish garrison and -send it home, and the Filipino citizens to set up the form of government -they might prefer, and deal with the friars and their doubtful -acquisitions according to Filipino ideas of fairness and justice--ideas -which have since been tested and found to be of as high an order as any -that prevail in Europe or America. - -But we played the Chamberlain game, and lost the chance to add another -Cuba and another honorable deed to our good record. - -The more we examine the mistake, the more clearly we perceive that it is -going to be bad for the Business. The Person Sitting in Darkness is -almost sure to say: “There is something curious about this--curious and -unaccountable. There must be two Americas: one that sets the captive -free, and one that takes a once-captive’s new freedom away from him, and -picks a quarrel with him with nothing to found it on; then kills him to -get his land.” - -The truth is, the Person Sitting in Darkness _is_ saying things like -that; and for the sake of the Business we must persuade him to look at -the Philippine matter in another and healthier way. We must arrange his -opinions for him. I believe it can be done; for Mr. Chamberlain has -arranged England’s opinion of the South African matter, and done it most -cleverly and successfully. He presented the facts--some of the -facts--and showed those confiding people what the facts meant. He did it -statistically, which is a good way. He used the formula: “Twice 2 are -14, and 2 from 9 leaves 35.” Figures are effective; figures will -convince the elect. - -Now, my plan is a still bolder one than Mr. Chamberlain’s, though -apparently a copy of it. Let us be franker than Mr. Chamberlain; let us -audaciously present the whole of the facts, shirking none, then explain -them according to Mr. Chamberlain’s formula. This daring truthfulness -will astonish and dazzle the Person Sitting in Darkness, and he will -take the Explanation down before his mental vision has had time to get -back into focus. Let us say to him: - -“Our case is simple. On the 1st of May, Dewey destroyed the Spanish -fleet. This left the Archipelago in the hands of its proper and rightful -owners, the Filipino nation. Their army numbered 30,000 men, and they -were competent to whip out or starve out the little Spanish garrison; -then the people could set up a government of their own devising. Our -traditions required that Dewey should now set up his warning sign, and -go away. But the Master of the Game happened to think of another -plan--the European plan. He acted upon it. This was, to send out an -army--ostensibly to help the native patriots put the finishing touch -upon their long and plucky struggle for independence, but really to take -their land away from them and keep it. That is, in the interest of -Progress and Civilization. The plan developed, stage by stage, and quite -satisfactorily. We entered into a military alliance with the trusting -Filipinos, and they hemmed in Manila on the land side, and by their -valuable help the place, with its garrison of 8,000 or 10,000 Spaniards, -was captured--a thing which we could not have accomplished unaided at -that time. We got their help by--by ingenuity. We knew they were -fighting for their independence, and that they had been at it for two -years. We knew they supposed that we also were fighting in their worthy -cause--just as we had helped the Cubans fight for Cuban -independence--and we allowed them to go on thinking so. _Until Manila -was ours and we could get along without them._ Then we showed our hand. -Of course, they were surprised--that was natural; surprised and -disappointed; disappointed and grieved. To them it looked un-American; -uncharacteristic; foreign to our established traditions. And this was -natural, too; for we were only playing the American Game in public--in -private it was the European. It was neatly done, very neatly, and it -bewildered them. They could not understand it; for we had been so -friendly--so affectionate, even--with those simple-minded patriots! We, -our own selves, had brought back out of exile their leader, their hero, -their hope, their Washington--Aguinaldo; brought him in a warship, in -high honor, under the sacred shelter and hospitality of the flag; -brought him back and restored him to his people, and got their moving -and eloquent gratitude for it. Yes, we had been so friendly to them, and -had heartened them up in so many ways! We had lent them guns and -ammunition; advised with them; exchanged pleasant courtesies with them; -placed our sick and wounded in their kindly care; intrusted our Spanish -prisoners to their humane and honest hands; fought shoulder to shoulder -with them against “the common enemy” (our own phrase); praised their -courage, praised their gallantry, praised their mercifulness, praised -their fine and honorable conduct; borrowed their trenches, borrowed -strong positions which they had previously captured from the Spaniards; -petted them, lied to them--officially proclaiming that our land and -naval forces came to give them their freedom and displace the bad -Spanish Government--fooled them, used them until we needed them no -longer; then derided the sucked orange and threw it away. We kept the -positions which we had beguiled them of; by and by, we moved a force -forward and overlapped patriot ground--a clever thought, for we needed -trouble, and this would produce it. A Filipino soldier, crossing the -ground, where no one had a right to forbid him, was shot by our sentry. -The badgered patriots resented this with arms, without waiting to know -whether Aguinaldo, who was absent, would approve or not. Aguinaldo did -not approve; but that availed nothing. What we wanted, in the interest -of Progress and Civilization, was the Archipelago, unencumbered by -patriots struggling for independence; and War was what we needed. We -clinched our opportunity. It is Mr. Chamberlain’s case over again--at -least in its motive and intention; and we played the game as adroitly as -he played it himself.” - -At this point in our frank statement of fact to the Person Sitting in -Darkness, we should throw in a little trade taffy about the Blessings of -Civilization--for a change, and for the refreshment of his spirit--then -go on with our tale: - -“We and the patriots having captured Manila, Spain’s ownership -of the Archipelago and her sovereignty over it were at an -end--obliterated--annihilated--not a rag or shred of either remaining -behind. It was then that we conceived the divinely humorous idea of -_buying_ both of these specters from Spain! [It is quite safe to confess -this to the Person Sitting in Darkness, since neither he nor any other -sane person will believe it.] In buying those ghosts for twenty -millions, we also contracted to take care of the friars and their -accumulations. I think we also agreed to propagate leprosy and smallpox, -but as to this there is doubt. But it is not important; persons -afflicted with the friars do not mind other diseases. - -“With our Treaty ratified, Manila subdued, and our Ghosts secured, we -had no further use for Aguinaldo and the owners of the Archipelago. We -forced a war, and we have been hunting America’s guest and ally through -the woods and swamps ever since.” - -At this point in the tale, it will be well to boast a little of our war -work and our heroisms in the field, so as to make our performance look -as fine as England’s in South Africa; but I believe it will not be best -to emphasize this too much. We must be cautious. Of course, we must read -the war telegrams to the Person, in order to keep up our frankness; but -we can throw an air of humorousness over them, and that will modify -their grim eloquence a little, and their rather indiscret exhibitions of -gory exultation. Before reading to him the following display heads of -the dispatches of November 18, 1900, it will be well to practice on them -in private first, so as to get the right tang of lightness and gayety -into them: - - “ADMINISTRATION WEARY OF - PROTRACTED HOSTILITIES!” - - “REAL WAR AHEAD FOR FILIPINO - REBELS!”[10] - - - “WILL SHOW NO MERCY!” - “KITCHENER’S PLAN ADOPTED!” - -Kitchener knows how to handle disagreeable people who are fighting for -their homes and their liberties, and we must let on that we are merely -imitating Kitchener, and have no national interest in the matter, -further than to get ourselves admired by the Great Family of Nations, in -which august company our Master of the Game has bought a place for us in -the back row. - -Of course, we must not venture to ignore our General MacArthur’s -reports--oh, why do they keep on printing those embarrassing things?--we -must drop them trippingly from the tongue and take the chances: - - During the last ten months our losses have been 268 killed and 750 - wounded; Filipino loss, _three thousand two hundred and twenty-seven - killed_, and 694 wounded. - -We must stand ready to grab the Person Sitting in Darkness, for he will -swoon away at this confession, saying: “Good God! those ‘niggers’ spare -their wounded, and the Americans massacre theirs!” - -We must bring him to, and coax him and coddle him, and assure him that -the ways of Providence are best, and that it would not become us to find -fault with them; and then, to show him that we are only imitators, not -originators, we must read the following passage from the letter of an -American soldier lad in the Philippines to his mother, published in -_Public Opinion_, of Decorah, Iowa, describing the finish of a -victorious battle: - -“WE NEVER LEFT ONE ALIVE. IF ONE WAS WOUNDED, WE WOULD RUN OUR BAYONETS -THROUGH HIM.” - -Having now laid all the historical facts before the Person Sitting in -Darkness, we should bring him to again, and explain them to him. We -should say to him: - -“They look doubtful, but in reality they are not. There have been lies; -yes, but they were told in a good cause. We have been treacherous; but -that was only in order that real good might come out of apparent evil. -True, we have crushed a deceived and confiding people; we have turned -against the weak and the friendless who trusted us; we have stamped out -a just and intelligent and well-ordered republic; we have stabbed an -ally in the back and slapped the face of a guest; we have bought a -Shadow from an enemy that hadn’t it to sell; we have robbed a trusting -friend of his land and his liberty; we have invited our clean young men -to shoulder a discredited musket and do bandits’ work under a flag which -bandits have been accustomed to fear, not to follow; we have debauched -America’s honor and blackened her face before the world; but each detail -was for the best. We know this. The Head of every State and Sovereignty -in Christendom and 90 per cent of every legislative body in Christendom, -including our Congress and our fifty state legislatures, are members not -only of the church, but also of the Blessings-of-Civilization Trust. -This world-girdling accumulation of trained morals, high principles, and -justice cannot do an unright thing, an unfair thing, an ungenerous -thing, an unclean thing. It knows what it is about. Give yourself no -uneasiness; it is all right.” - -Now then, that will convince the Person. You will see. It will restore -the Business. Also, it will elect the Master of the Game to the vacant -place in the Trinity of our national gods; and there on their high -thrones the Three will sit, age after age, in the people’s sight, each -bearing the Emblem of his service: Washington, the Sword of the -Liberator; Lincoln, the Slave’s Broken Chains; the Master, the Chains -Repaired. - -It will give the Business a splendid new start. You will see. - -Everything is prosperous, now; everything is just as we should wish it. -We have got the Archipelago, and we shall never give it up. Also, we -have every reason to hope that we shall have an opportunity before very -long to slip out of our congressional contract with Cuba and give her -something better in the place of it. It is a rich country, and many of -us are already beginning to see that the contract was a sentimental -mistake. But now--right now--is the best time to do some profitable -rehabilitating work--work that will set us up and make us comfortable, -and discourage gossip. We cannot conceal from ourselves that, privately, -we are a little troubled about our uniform. It is one of our prides; it -is acquainted with honor; it is familiar with great deeds and noble; we -love it, we revere it; and so this errand it is on makes us uneasy. And -our flag--another pride of ours, our chiefest! We have worshiped it so; -and when we have seen it in far lands--glimpsing it unexpectedly in that -strange sky, waving its welcome and benediction to us--we have caught -our breaths, and uncovered our heads, and couldn’t speak, for a moment, -for the thought of what it was to us and the great ideals it stood for. -Indeed, we _must_ do something about these things; it is easily managed. -We can have a special one--our states do it: we can have just our usual -flag, with the white stripes painted black and the stars replaced by the -skull and crossbones. - -And we do not need that Civil Commission out there. Having no powers, it -has to invent them, and that kind of work cannot be effectively done by -just anybody; an expert is required. Mr. Croker can be spared. We do not -want the United States represented there, but only the Game. - -By help of these suggested amendments, Progress and Civilization in that -country can have a boom, and it will take in the Persons who are Sitting -in Darkness, and we can resume Business at the old stand. - ------ - -Footnote 10: - - “Rebels!” Mumble that funny word--don’t let the Person catch it - distinctly. - - - - - TO MY MISSIONARY CRITICS - (_North American Review_, 1901) - - -I have received many newspaper cuttings; also letters from several -clergymen; also a note from the Rev. Dr. Judson Smith, Corresponding -Secretary of the American Board of Foreign Missions--all of a like -tenor; all saying, substantially, what is said in the cutting here -copied: - - AN APOLOGY DUE FROM MR. CLEMENS - - The evidence of the past day or two should induce Mark Twain to make - for the amen corner and formulate a prompt apology for his scathing - attack on the Rev. Dr. Ament, the veteran Chinese missionary. The - assault was based on a Peking dispatch to the New York _Sun_, which - said that Dr. Ament had collected from the Chinese in various places - damages thirteen times in excess of actual losses. So Mark Twain - charged Mr. Ament with bullyragging, extortion, and things. A Peking - dispatch to the _Sun_ yesterday, however, explains that the amount - collected was not thirteen times the damage sustained, but _one-third - in excess of the indemnities_, and that the blunder was due to a cable - error in transmission. The 1-3d got converted into 13. Yesterday the - Rev. Judson Smith, Secretary of the American Board, received a - dispatch from Dr. Ament, calling attention to the cable blunder, and - declaring that all the collections which he made were _approved by the - Chinese officials_. The fractional amount that was collected in excess - of actual losses, he explains, is being _used for the support of - widows and orphans_. - - So collapses completely--and convulsively--Mark Twain’s sensational - and ugly bombardment of a missionary whose character and services - should have exempted him from such an assault. - - From the charge the underpinning has been knocked out. To Dr. Ament - Mr. Clemens has done an injustice which is gross but unintentional. If - Mark Twain is the man we take him to be he won’t be long in filing a - retraction, plus an apology. - -I have no prejudice against apologies. I trust I shall never withhold -one when it is due; I trust I shall never even have a disposition to do -so. These letters and newspaper paragraphs are entitled to my best -attention; respect for their writers and for the humane feeling which -has prompted their utterances requires this of me. It may be barely -possible that, if these requests for an apology had reached me before -the 20th of February, I might have had a sort of qualified chance to -apologize; but on that day appeared the two little cablegrams referred -to in the newspaper cutting copied above--one from the Rev. Dr. Smith to -the Rev. Dr. Ament, the other from Dr. Ament to Dr. Smith--and my small -chance died then. In my opinion, these cablegrams ought to have been -suppressed, for it seems clear that they give Dr. Ament’s case entirely -away. Still, that is only an opinion, and may be a mistake. It will be -best to examine the case from the beginning, by the light of the -documents connected with it. - - EXHIBIT A - -This is a dispatch from Mr. Chamberlain,[11] chief of the _Sun’s_ -correspondence staff in Peking. It appeared in the _Sun_ last Christmas -Eve, and in referring to it hereafter I will call it the “C. E. -dispatch” for short: - - The Rev. Mr. Ament, of the American Board of Foreign Missions, has - returned from a trip which he made for the purpose of collecting - indemnities for damages done by Boxers. Everywhere he went he - compelled the Chinese to pay. He says that all his native Christians - are now provided for. He had seven hundred of them under his charge, - and three hundred were killed. He has collected 300 taels for each of - these murders, and has compelled full payment for all the property - belonging to Christians that was destroyed. He also assessed fines - amounting to thirteen times[12] the amount of the indemnity. This - money will be used for the propagation of the Gospel. - - Mr. Ament declares that the compensation he has collected is moderate - when compared with the amount secured by the Catholics, who demand, in - addition to money, head for head. They collect 500 taels for each - murder of a Catholic. In the Wen-Chiu country 680 Catholics were - killed, and for this the European Catholics here demand 750,000 - strings of cash and 680 heads. - - In the course of a conversation Mr. Ament referred to the attitude of - the missionaries toward the Chinese. He said: - - “I deny emphatically that the missionaries are vindictive, that they - generally looted, or that they have done anything since the siege that - the circumstances did not demand. I criticize the Americans. The soft - hand of the Americans is not as good as the mailed fist of the - Germans. If you deal with the Chinese with a soft hand they will take - advantage of it.” - -In an article addressed “To the Person Sitting in Darkness,” published -in the _North American Review_ for February, I made some comments upon -this C. E. dispatch. - -In an Open Letter to me, from the Rev. Dr. Smith, published in the -_Tribune_ of February 15th, doubt is cast upon the authenticity of the -dispatch. - -Up to the 20th of February, this doubt was an important factor in the -case: Dr. Ament’s brief cablegram, published on that date, took the -importance all out of it. - -In the Open Letter, Dr. Smith quotes this passage from a letter from Dr. -Ament, dated November 13th. The italics are mine: - - _This_ time I proposed to settle affairs _without the aid of soldiers - or_ legations. - -This cannot mean two things, but only one: that, previously, he _had_ -collected by armed force. - -Also, in the Open Letter, Dr. Smith quotes some praises of Dr. Ament and -the Rev. Mr. Tewksbury, furnished by the Rev. Dr. Sheffield, and says: - - Dr. Sheffield is not accustomed to speak thus of _thieves_, or - _extortioners_, or _braggarts_. - -What can he mean by those vigorous expressions? Can he mean that the -first two would be applicable to a missionary who should collect from B, -with the “aid of soldiers,” indemnities possibly due by A, and upon -occasion go out looting? - - EXHIBIT B - -Testimony of George Lynch (indorsed as entirely trustworthy by the -_Tribune_ and the _Herald_), war correspondent in the Cuban and South -African wars, and in the march upon Peking for the rescue of the -legations. The italics are mine: - - When the _soldiers_ were prohibited from looting, no such prohibitions - seemed to operate with the _missionaries_. For instance, the _Rev. Mr. - Tewksbury held a great sale of looted goods, which lasted several - days_. - - A day or two after the relief, when looking for a place to sleep in, I - met the Rev. Mr. Ament, of the American Board of Foreign Missions. _He - told me_ he was going to take possession of the house of a wealthy - Chinaman who was an old enemy of his, as he had interfered much in the - past with his missionary labors in Peking. A couple of days afterwards - _he did so_, and held a _great sale of his enemy’s effects_. I bought - a sable cloak at it for $125, and a couple of statues of Buddha. As - the stock became depleted _it was replenished by the efforts of his - converts, who were ransacking the houses in the neighborhood_.--New - York _Herald_, February 18th. - -It is Dr. Smith, not I, who has suggested that persons who act in this -way are “thieves and extortioners.” - - EXHIBIT C - -Sir Robert Hart, in the _Fortnightly Review_ for January, 1901. This -witness has been for many years the most prominent and important -Englishman in China, and bears an irreproachable reputation for -moderation, fairness, and truth-speaking. In closing a description of -the revolting scenes which followed the occupation of Peking, when the -Christian armies (with the proud exception of the American soldiery, let -us be thankful for that) gave themselves up to a ruthless orgy of -robbery and spoliation, he says (the italics are mine): - - And even some _missionaries_ took such a _leading_ part in “spoiling - the Egyptians” for the greater glory of God that a bystander was heard - to say: “_For a century to come Chinese converts will consider looting - and vengeance Christian virtues._” - -It is Dr. Smith, not I, who has suggested that persons who act in this -way are “thieves and extortioners.” According to Mr. Lynch and Mr. -Martin (another war correspondent), Dr. Ament helped to spoil several of -those Egyptians. Mr. Martin took a photograph of the scene. It was -reproduced in the _Herald_. I have it. - - EXHIBIT D - -In a brief reply to Dr. Smith’s Open Letter to me, I said this in the -_Tribune_. I am italicizing several words--for a purpose: - - Whenever he (Dr. Smith) can produce from the Rev. Mr. Ament an - assertion that the _Sun’s_ character-blasting dispatch was not - authorized _by him_, and whenever Dr. Smith can buttress Mr. Ament’s - disclaimer with a confession from _Mr. Chamberlain_, the head of the - Laffan News Service in China, that that dispatch was a false invention - _and unauthorized_, the case against Mr. Ament will fall at once to - the ground. - - EXHIBIT E - -Brief cablegrams, referred to above, which passed between Dr. Smith and -Dr. Ament, and were published on February 20th: - - Ament, Peking: Reported December 24 your collecting thirteen times - actual losses; using for propagating the Gospel. Are these statements - true? Cable specific answer. - - SMITH. - - Statement untrue. Collected 1-3 for church expenses, additional actual - damages; now supporting widows and orphans. Publication thirteen times - blunder cable. All collections received approval Chinese officials, - who are urging further settlements same line. - - AMENT. - -Only two questions are asked; “specific” answers required; no perilous -wanderings among the other details of the unhappy dispatch desired. - - EXHIBIT F - -Letter from Dr. Smith to me, dated March 8th. The italics are mine; they -tag inaccuracies of statement: - - Permit me to call your attention to the marked paragraphs in the - inclosed papers, and to ask you to note their relation to the two - conditions named in your letter to the New York _Tribune_ of February - 15th. - - The first is _Dr. Ament’s denial of the truth of the dispatch in the - New York “Sun,”_ of December 24th, on which your criticisms of him in - the _North American Review_ of February were founded. The second is a - correction by the _“Sun’s”_ _special correspondent_ in Peking of the - dispatch printed in the _Sun_ of December 24th. - - Since, as you state in your letter to the _Tribune_, “the case against - Mr. Ament would fall to the ground” _if Mr. Ament denied the truth_ of - the _Sun’s_ first dispatch, and _if the ‘Sun’s’ news agency_ in Peking - also _declared that dispatch false_, and these two conditions _have - thus been fulfilled_, I am sure that upon having these _facts_ brought - to your attention you will gladly withdraw the criticisms that were - _founded on a “cable blunder.”_ - -I think Dr. Smith ought to read me more carefully; then he would not -make so many mistakes. Within the narrow space of two paragraphs, -totaling eleven lines, he has scored nine departures from fact out of a -possible 9½. Now, is that parliamentary? I do not treat him like that. -Whenever I quote him, I am particular not to do him the least wrong, or -make him say anything he did not say. - -(1) Mr. Ament doesn’t “deny the truth of the C. E. dispatch”; he merely -changes one of its phrases, without materially changing the meaning, and -(immaterially) corrects a cable blunder (which correction I accept). He -was asked no question about the other four fifths of the C. E. dispatch. -(2) I said nothing about “special” correspondents; I named the right and -responsible man--Mr. Chamberlain. The “correction” referred to is a -repetition of the one I have just accepted, which (immaterially) changes -“thirteen times” to “one third” extra tax. (3) I did not say anything -about “the _Sun’s_ news agency”; I said “Chamberlain.” I have every -confidence in Mr. Chamberlain, but I am not personally acquainted with -the others. (4) Once more--Mr. Ament didn’t “deny the truth” of the C. -E. dispatch, but merely made unimportant emendations of a couple of its -many details. (5) I did not say “if Mr. Ament denied the truth” of the -C. E. dispatch: I said, if he would assert that the dispatch was not -“authorized” _by him_. For example, I did not suppose that the charge -that the Catholic missionaries wanted 680 Chinamen beheaded was true; -but I did want to know if Dr. Ament personally authorized that statement -and the others, as coming from his lips. Another detail: one of my -conditions was that Mr. Chamberlain must not stop with confessing that -the C. E. was a “false invention,” he must also confess that it was -“_unauthorized_.” Dr. Smith has left out that large detail. (6) The -_Sun’s_ news agency did not “declare the C. E. dispatch false,” but -confined itself to correcting one unimportant detail of its long -list--the change of “13 times” to “one third” extra. (7) The “two -conditions” have not “been fulfilled”--far from it. (8) Those details -labeled “facts” are only fancies. (9) Finally, my criticisms were by no -means confined to that detail of the C. E. dispatch which we now accept -as having been a “cable blunder.” - -Setting to one side these nine departures from fact, I find that what is -left of the eleven lines is straight and true. I am not blaming Dr. -Smith for these discrepancies--it would not be right, it would not be -fair. I make the proper allowances. He has not been a journalist, as I -have been--a trade wherein a person is brought to book by the rest of -the press so often for divergencies that, by and by, he gets to be -almost morbidly afraid to indulge in them. It is so with me. I always -have the disposition to tell what is not so; I was born with it; we all -have it. But I try not to do it now, because I have found out that it is -unsafe. But with the Doctor of course it is different. - - EXHIBIT G - -I wanted to get at the whole of the facts as regards the C. E. dispatch, -and so I wrote to China for them, when I found that the Board was not -going to do it. But I am not allowed to wait. It seemed quite within the -possibilities that a full detail of the facts might furnish me a chance -to make an apology to Mr. Ament--a chance which, I give you my word, I -would have honestly used, and not abused. But it is no matter. If the -Board is not troubled about the bulk of that lurid dispatch, why should -I be? I answered the apology-urging letters of several clergymen with -the information that I had written to China for the details, and said I -thought it was the only sure way of getting into a position to do fair -and full justice to all concerned; but a couple of them replied that it -was not a matter that could wait. That is to say, groping your way out -of a jungle in the dark with guesses and conjectures is better than a -straight march out in the sunlight of fact. It seems a curious idea. - -However, those two clergymen were in a large measure right--from their -point of view and the Board’s; which is, putting it in the form of a -couple of questions: - -1. _Did Dr. Ament collect the assessed damages and thirteen times over?_ -The answer is: He did _not_. He collected only a _third_ over. - -2. _Did he apply the third to the “propagation of the Gospel?”_ The -answer is this correction: He applied it to “church expenses.” Part or -all of the outlay, it appears, goes to “supporting widows and orphans.” -It may be that church expenses and supporting widows and orphans are not -part of the machinery for propagating the Gospel. I supposed they were, -but it isn’t any matter; I prefer this phrasing; it is not so blunt as -the other. - -In the opinion of the two clergymen and of the Board, these two points -are _the only important ones_ in the whole C. E. dispatch. - -I accept that. Therefore let us throw out the rest of the dispatch as -being no longer a part of Dr. Ament’s case. - - EXHIBIT H - - The two clergymen and the Board are quite content with Dr. Ament’s - answers upon the two points. - -Upon the first point of the two, my own viewpoint may be indicated by a -question: - -_Did Dr. Ament collect from B (whether by compulsion or simple demand) -even so much as a penny in payment for murders or depredations, without -knowing, beyond question, that B, and not another, committed the murders -or the depredations?_ - -Or, in other words: - -_Did Dr. Ament ever, by chance or through ignorance, make the innocent -pay the debts of the guilty?_ - -In the article entitled “To the Person Sitting in Darkness,” I put -forward that point in a paragraph taken from Macallum’s (imaginary) -“History”: - - EXHIBIT I - - When a white Boxer kills a Pawnee and destroys his property the other - Pawnees do not trouble to seek _him_ out; they kill any white person - that comes along; also, they make some white village pay deceased’s - heirs the full cash value of deceased, together with full cash value - of the property destroyed; they also make the village pay, in - addition, _thirteen times_[13] the value of that property into a fund - for the dissemination of the Pawnee religion, which they regard as the - best of all religions for the softening and humanizing of the heart of - man. It is their idea that it is only fair and right _that the - innocent should be made to suffer for the guilty_, and that it is - better that 90 and 9 innocent should suffer than that one guilty - person should escape. - -We all know that Dr. Ament did not bring suspected persons into a duly -organized court and try them by just and fair Christian and civilized -methods, but proclaimed his “conditions,” and collected damages from the -innocent and the guilty alike, without any court proceedings at all.[14] -That he himself, and not the villagers, made the “conditions,” we learn -from his letter of November 13th, already quoted from--the one in which -he remarked that, upon _that_ occasion he brought no soldiers with him. -The italics are mine: - - After our _conditions_ were known many villagers came of their own - accord and brought their money with them. - -Not all, but “many.” The Board really believes that those hunted and -harried paupers out there were not only willing to strip themselves to -pay Boxer damages, whether they owed them or not, but were sentimentally -eager to do it. Mr. Ament says, in his letter: “The villagers were -extremely grateful because I brought no foreign soldiers, and were glad -to settle on the terms proposed.” Some of those people know more about -theology than they do about human nature. I do not remember encountering -even a Christian who was “glad” to pay money he did not owe; and as for -a Chinaman doing it, why, dear me, the thing is unthinkable. We have all -seen Chinamen, many Chinamen, but not that kind. It is a new kind: an -invention of the Board--and “soldiers.” - - CONCERNING THE COLLECTIONS - -What was the “one third extra”? Money due? No. Was it a theft, then? -Putting aside the “one third extra,” what was the _remainder_ of the -exacted indemnity, if collected from persons not _known_ to owe it, and -without Christian and civilized forms of procedure? Was _it_ theft, was -it robbery? In America it would be that; in Christian Europe it would be -that. I have great confidence in Dr. Smith’s judgment concerning this -detail, and he calls it “theft and extortion”--even in China; for he was -talking about the “thirteen times” at the time that he gave it that -strong name.[15] It is his idea that, when you make guilty and innocent -villagers pay the appraised damages, and then make them pay thirteen -times that, besides, the _thirteen_ stand for “theft and extortion.” - -Then what does _one third_ extra stand for? Will he give that one third -a name? Is it Modified Theft and Extortion? Is that it? The girl who was -rebuked for having borne an illegitimate child excused herself by -saying, “But it is such a _little_ one.” - -When the “thirteen-times-extra” was alleged, it stood for theft and -extortion, in Dr. Smith’s eyes, and he was shocked. But when Dr. Ament -showed that he had taken only a _third_ extra, instead of thirteenfold, -Dr. Smith was relieved, content, happy. I declare I cannot imagine why. -That editor--quoted at the head of this article--was happy about it, -too. I cannot think why. He thought I ought to “make for the amen corner -and formulate a prompt apology.” To whom, and for what? It is too deep -for me. - -To Dr. Smith, the “thirteenfold extra” clearly stood for “theft and -extortion,” and he was right, distinctly right, indisputably right. He -manifestly thinks that when it got scaled away down to a mere “one -third,” a little thing like that was something other than “theft and -extortion.” Why? Only the Board knows! I will try to explain this -difficult problem, so that the Board can get an idea of it. If a pauper -owes me a dollar, and I catch him unprotected and make him pay me -fourteen dollars, thirteen of it is “theft and extortion”; if I make him -pay only a dollar and thirty-three and a third cents the thirty-three -and a third cents are “theft and extortion” just the same. I will put it -in another way, still simpler. If a man owes me one dog--any kind of a -dog, the breed is of no consequence--and I----But let it go; the Board -would never understand it. It _can’t_ understand these involved and -difficult things. - -But _if_ the Board could understand, then I could furnish some more -instruction--which is this. The one third, obtained by “theft and -extortion,” is _tainted money_, and cannot be purified even by defraying -“church expenses” and “supporting widows and orphans” with it. It has to -be restored to the people it was taken from. - -Also, there is another view of these things. By our Christian code of -morals and law, the _whole_ $1.33 1-3, if taken from a man not formally -_proven_ to have committed the damage the dollar represents, is “theft -and extortion.” It cannot be honestly used for any purpose at all. It -must be handed back to the man it was taken from. - -Is there no way, then, to justify these thefts and extortions and make -them clean and fair and honorable? Yes, there is. It can be done; it has -been done; it continues to be done--by revising the Ten Commandments and -bringing them down to date: for use in pagan lands. For example: - - _Thou shalt not steal_--except when it is the custom of the country. - -This way out is recognized and _approved_ by all the best authorities, -including the Board. I will cite witnesses. - -_The newspaper cutting, above_: “Dr. Ament declares that all the -collections which he made were approved by the _Chinese_ officials.” The -editor is satisfied. - -_Dr. Ament’s cable to Dr. Smith_: “All collections received approval -_Chinese_ officials.” Dr. Ament is satisfied. - -_Letters from eight clergymen_--all to the same effect: Dr. Ament merely -did as the _Chinese_ do. So they are satisfied. - -_Mr. Ward, of the “Independent.”_ - -_The Rev. Dr. Washington Gladden._ - -I have mislaid the letters of these gentlemen and cannot quote their -words, but they are of the satisfied. - -_The Rev. Dr. Smith_, in his Open Letter, published in the _Tribune:_ -“The whole procedure [Dr. Ament’s] is in accordance with a custom among -the _Chinese_, of holding a village responsible for wrongs suffered in -that village, and especially making the head man of the village -accountable for wrongs committed there.” Dr. Smith is satisfied. Which -means that the Board is satisfied. - -The “head man”! Why, then, this poor rascal, innocent or guilty, must -pay the whole bill, if he cannot squeeze it out of his poor-devil -neighbors. But, indeed, he can be depended upon to try, even to the -skinning them of their last brass farthing, their last rag of clothing, -their last ounce of food. He can be depended upon to get the indemnity -out of them, though it cost stripes and blows, blood-tears, and flesh. - -THE TALE OF THE KING AND HIS TREASURER - -How strange and remote and romantic and Oriental and Arabian-Nighty it -all seems--and is. It brings back the old forgotten tales, and we hear -the King say to his Treasurer: - -“Bring me 30,000 gold tomauns.” - -“Allah preserve us, Sire! the treasury is empty.” - -“Do you hear? Bring the money--in ten days. Else, send me your head in a -basket.” - -“I hear and obey.” - -The Treasurer summons the head men of a hundred villages, and says to -one: - -“Bring me a hundred gold tomauns.” To another, “Bring me five hundred.” -To another, “Bring a thousand. In ten days. Your head is the forfeit.” - -“Your slaves kiss your feet! Ah, high and mighty lord, be merciful to -our hard-pressed villagers; they are poor, they are naked, they starve; -oh, these impossible sums! even the half----” - -“Go! Grind it out of them, crush it out of them, turn the blood of the -fathers, the tears of the mothers, the milk of the babes to money--or -take the consequences. Have you heard?” - -“His will be done, Who is the Fount of love and mercy and compassion, -Who layeth this heavy burden upon us by the hand of His anointed -servants--blessed be His holy Name! The father shall bleed, the mother -shall faint for hunger, the babe shall perish at the dry breast. The -chosen of God have commanded: it shall be as they say.” - -I am not meaning to object to the substitution of pagan customs for -Christian, here and there and now and then, when the Christian ones are -inconvenient. No; I like it and admire it. I do it myself. And I admire -the alertness of the Board in watching out for chances to trade Board -morals for Chinese morals, and get the best of the swap; for I cannot -endure those people, they are yellow, and I have never considered yellow -becoming. I have always been like the Board--perfectly well-meaning, but -destitute of the Moral Sense. Now, one of the main reasons why it is so -hard to make the Board understand that there is no moral difference -between a big filch and a little filch, but only a legal one, is that -vacancy in its make-up. Morally, there are no degrees in stealing. The -Commandment merely says, “Thou shalt not _steal_,” and stops there. It -doesn’t recognize any difference between stealing a third and stealing -thirteenfold. If I could think of a way to put it before the Board in -such a plain and-- - -THE WATERMELONS - -I have it, now. Many years ago, when I was studying for the gallows, I -had a dear comrade, a youth who was not in my line, but still a -thoroughly good fellow, though devious. He was preparing to qualify for -a place on the Board, for there was going to be a vacancy by -superannuation in about five years. This was down South, in the slavery -days. It was the nature of the negro then, as now, to steal watermelons. -They stole three of the melons of an adoptive brother of mine, the only -good ones he had. I suspected three of a neighbor’s negroes, but there -was no proof: and, besides, the watermelons in those negroes’ private -patches were all green and small, and not up to indemnity standard. But -in the private patches of three other negroes there were a number of -competent melons. I consulted with my comrade, the understudy of the -Board. He said that if I would approve his arrangements, he would -arrange. I said, “Consider me the Board; I approve: arrange.” So he took -a gun, and went and collected three large melons for my -brother-on-the-half-shell, and one over. I was greatly pleased, and -asked: - -“Who gets the extra one?” - -“Widows and orphans.” - -“A good idea, too. Why didn’t you take thirteen?” - -“It would have been wrong; a crime, in fact--Theft and Extortion.” - -“What is the one third extra--the odd melon--the same?” - -It caused him to reflect. But there was no result. - -The justice of the peace was a stern man. On the trial, he found fault -with the scheme, and required us to explain upon what we based our -strange conduct--as he called it. The understudy said: - -“On the custom of the niggers. They all do it.” - -The justice forgot his dignity, and descended to sarcasm: - -“Custom of the niggers! Are our morals so inadequate that we have to -borrow of niggers?” Then he said to the jury: “Three melons were owing; -they were collected from persons not proven to owe them; this is theft. -They were collected by compulsion; this is extortion. A melon was -added--for the widows and orphans. It was owed by no one. It is another -theft, another extortion. Return it whence it came, with the others. It -is not permissible, here, to apply to any object goods dishonestly -obtained--not even to the feeding of widows and orphans, for that would -be to put a shame upon charity and dishonor it.” - -He said it in open court, before everybody, and to me it did not seem -very kind. - -A clergyman, in a letter to me, reminds me, with a touch of reproach, -that “many of the missionaries are good men, kind-hearted, earnest, -devoted to their work.” Certainly they are. No one is disputing it. -Instead of “many,” he could have said “almost all,” and still said the -truth, no doubt. I know many missionaries; I have met them all about the -globe, and have known only one or two who could not fill that bill and -answer to that description. “Almost all” comes near to being a -proportion and a description applicable also to lawyers, authors, -editors, merchants, manufacturers--in fact, to most guilds and -vocations. Without a doubt, Dr. Ament did what he believed to be right, -and I concede that when a man is doing what he believes to be right, -there is argument on his side. I differ with Dr. Ament, but that is only -because he got his training from the Board and I got mine outside. -Neither of us is responsible, altogether. - -RECAPITULATION - -But there is no need to sum up. Mr. Ament has acknowledged the “one -third extra”--no other witness is necessary. The Rev. Dr. Smith has -carefully considered the act and labeled it with a stern name, and his -verdict seems to have no flaw in it. The morals of the act are Chinese, -but are approved by the Board, and by some of the clergy and some of the -newspapers, as being a valuable improvement upon Christian ones--which -leaves me with a closed mouth, though with a pain in my heart. - -IS THE AMERICAN BOARD ON TRIAL? - -Do I think that Dr. Ament and certain of his fellow missionaries are as -bad as their conduct? No, I do not. They are the product of their -training; and now that I understand the whole case, and where they got -their ideals, and that they are merely subordinates and subject to -authority, I comprehend that they are rather accessories than -principals, and that their acts only show faulty heads curiously -trained, not bad hearts. Mainly, as it seems to me, it is the American -Board that is on trial. And again, it is a case of the head, not of the -heart. That it has a heart which has never harbored an evil intention, -no one will deny, no one will question; the Board’s history can silence -any challenge on that score. The Board’s heart is not in court: it is -its head that is on trial. - -It is a sufficiently strange head. Its ways baffle comprehension; its -ideas are like no one else’s; its methods are novelties to the practical -world; its judgments are surprises. When one thinks it is going to speak -and must speak, it is silent; when one thinks it ought to be silent and -must be silent, it speaks. Put your finger where you think it ought to -be, it is not there; put it where you think it ought not to be, there -you find it. - -When its servant in China seemed to be charging himself with amazing -things, in a reputable journal--in a dispatch which was copied into many -other papers--the Board was as silent about it as any dead man could -have been who was informed that his house was burning over his head. An -exchange of cablegrams could have enabled it, within two days, to prove -to the world--possibly--that the damaging dispatch had not proceeded -from the mouth of its servant; yet it sat silent and asked no questions -about the matter. - -It was silent during thirty-eight days. Then the dispatch came into -prominence again. It chanced that I was the occasion of it. A break in -the stillness followed. In what form? An exchange of cablegrams, -resulting in proof that the damaging dispatch had not been authorized? -No, in the form of an Open Letter by the Corresponding Secretary of the -American Board, the Rev. Dr. Smith, in which it was _argued_ that Dr. -Ament could not have said and done the things set forth in the dispatch. - -Surely, this was bad politics. A repudiating telegram would have been -worth more than a library of argument. - -An extension of the silence would have been better than the Open Letter, -I think. I thought so at the time. It seemed to me that mistakes enough -had been made and harm enough done. I thought it questionable policy to -publish the Letter, for I “did not think it likely that Dr. Ament would -disown the dispatch,” and I telegraphed that to the Rev. Dr. Smith. -Personally, I had nothing against Dr. Ament, and that is my attitude -yet. - -Once more it was a good time for an extension of the silence. But no; -the Board has its own ways, and one of them is to do the unwise thing, -when occasion offers. After having waited fifty-six days, it cabled to -Dr. Ament. No one can divine why it did so then, instead of fifty-six -days earlier.[16] It got a fatal reply--and was not aware of it. That -was that curious confession about the “one third extra”; its -application, not to the “propagation of the Gospel,” but only to “church -expenses,” support of widows and orphans; and, on top of this -confession, that other strange one revealing the dizzying fact that our -missionaries, who went to China to teach Christian morals and justice, -had adopted pagan morals and justice in their place. _That cablegram was -dynamite._ - -It seems odd that the Board did not see that that revelation made the -case far worse than it was before; for there was a saving doubt, -before--a doubt which was a Gibraltar for strength, and should have been -carefully left undisturbed. Why did the Board allow that revelation to -get into print? Why did the Board not suppress it and keep still? But -no; in the Board’s opinion, this was once more the time for speech. -Hence Dr. Smith’s latest letter to me, suggesting that I speak also--a -letter which is a good enough letter, barring its nine defects, but is -another evidence that the Board’s head is not as good as its heart. - -A missionary is a man who is pretty nearly all heart, else he would not -be in a calling which requires of him such large sacrifices of one kind -and another. He is made up of faith, zeal, courage, sentiment, emotion, -enthusiasm; and so he is a mixture of poet, devotee, and knight errant. -He exiles himself from home and friends and the scenes and associations -that are dearest to him; patiently endures discomforts, privations, -discouragements; goes with good pluck into dangers which he knows may -cost him his life; and when he must suffer death, willingly makes that -supreme sacrifice for his cause. - -Sometimes the headpiece of that kind of a man can be of an inferior -sort, and error of judgment can result--as we have seen. Then, for his -protection, as it seems to me, he ought to have at his back a Board able -to know a blunder when it sees one, and prompt to bring him back upon -his right course when he strays from it. That is to say, I think the -captain of a ship ought to understand navigation. Whether he does or -not, he will have to take a captain’s share of the blame, if the crew -bring the vessel to grief. - ------ - -Footnote 11: - - Testimony of the manager of the _Sun_. - -Footnote 12: - - Cable error. For “thirteen times” read “one third.” This correction - was made by Dr. Ament in his brief cablegram published February - 20th, previously referred to. - -Footnote 13: - - For “thirteen times” read “one third.”--M. T. - -Footnote 14: - - In civilized countries, if a mob destroy property in a town, the - damage is paid out of the town treasury, and no taxpayer suffers a - disproportionate share of the burden; the mayor is not privileged to - distribute the burden according to his private notions, sparing - himself and his friends, and fleecing persons he holds a spite - against--as in the Orient--and the citizen who is too poor to be a - taxpayer pays no part of the fine at all. - -Footnote 15: - - In his Open Letter, Dr. Smith cites Dr. Ament’s letter of November - 13th, which contains an account of Dr. Ament’s collecting tour; then - Dr. Smith makes this comment: “Nothing is said of securing ‘thirteen - times’ the amount of the losses.” Farther down, Dr. Smith quotes - praises of Dr. Ament and his work (from a letter of the Rev. Dr. - Sheffield), and adds this comment: “Dr. Sheffield is not accustomed to - speak thus in praise of thieves, or extortioners, or braggarts.” The - reference is to the “thirteen-times” extra tax. - -Footnote 16: - - The cablegram went on the day (February 18th) that Mr. George Lynch’s - account of the looting was published. See “Exhibit B.” It seems a pity - it did not inquire about the looting and get it denied. - - - - - THOMAS BRACKETT REED - - -He wore no shell. His ways were frank and open, and the road to his -large sympathies was straight and unobstructed. His was a nature which -invited affection--compelled it, in fact--and met it halfway. Hence he -was “Tom” to the most of his friends, and to half of the nation. The -abbreviating of such a man’s name is a patent of nobility, and is -conferred from the heart. Mr. Reed had a very strong and decided -character, and he may have had enemies; I do not know; if he had -them--outside of politics--they did not know the man. He was -transparently honest and honorable, there were no furtivenesses about -him, and whoever came to know him trusted him and was not disappointed. -He was wise, he was shrewd and alert, he was a clear and capable -thinker, a logical reasoner, and a strong and convincing speaker. His -manner was easy and engaging, his speeches sparkled with felicities of -phrasing thrown off without apparent effort, and when he needed the -happy help of humor he had a mine of it as deep and rich as Kimberly to -draw from. His services to his country were great, and they were -gratefully acknowledged. - -I cannot remember back to a time when he was not “Tom” Reed to me, nor -to a time when he would have been offended at being so addressed by me. -I cannot remember back to a time when I could let him alone in an -after-dinner speech if he was present, nor to a time when he did not -take my extravagances concerning him and misstatements about him in good -part, nor yet to a time when he did not pay them back with usury when -his turn came. The last speech he made was at my birthday dinner at the -end of November, when naturally I was his text; my last word to him was -in a letter the next day; a day later I was illustrating a fantastic -article on Art with his portrait among others--a portrait now to be laid -reverently away among the jests that begin in humor and end in pathos. -These things happened only eight days ago, and now he is gone from us, -and the nation is speaking of him as one who _was_. It seems incredible, -impossible. Such a man, such a friend, seems to us a permanent -possession; his vanishing from our midst is unthinkable; as unthinkable -as was the vanishing of the Campanile, that had stood for a thousand -years, and was turned to dust in a moment. - -I have no wish, at this time, to enter upon light and humorous -reminiscences connected with yachting voyages with Mr. Reed in northern -and southern seas, nor with other recreations in his company in other -places--they do not belong in this paper, they do not invite me, they -would jar upon me. I have only wished to say how fine and beautiful was -his life and character, and to take him by the hand and say good-by, as -to a fortunate friend who has done well his work and goes a pleasant -journey. - - - - - THE FINISHED BOOK - (On Finishing _Joan of Arc_) - - - PARIS, 1895. - -Do you know that shock? I mean, when you come, at your regular hour, -into the sick room where you have watched for months, and find the -medicine bottles all gone, the night table removed, the bed stripped, -the furniture set stiffly to rights, the windows up, the room cold, -stark, vacant--and you catch your breath. Do you know that shock? - -The man who has written a long book has that experience the morning -after he has revised it for the last time, seen the bearers convey it -from the house, and sent it away to the printer. He steps into his study -at the hour established by the habit of months--and he gets that little -shock. All the litter and the confusion are gone. The piles of dusty -reference books are gone from the chairs, the maps from the floor; the -chaos of letters, manuscripts, notebooks, paper knives, pipes, matches, -photographs, tobacco jars, and cigar boxes is gone from the writing -table. The furniture is back where it use to be in the long ago. The -housemaid, forbidden the place for five months, has been there, and -tidied it up, and scoured it clean, and made it repellent and awful. - -I stand here this morning, contemplating this desolation, and I realize -that if I would bring back the spirit that made this hospital homelike -and pleasant to me, I must restore the aids to lingering dissolution to -their wonted places, and nurse another patient through and send it forth -for the last rites, with many or few to assist there, as may happen; and -that I will do. - - - - - AS REGARDS PATRIOTISM - (About 1900) - - -It is agreed, in this country, that if a man can arrange his religion so -that it perfectly satisfies his conscience, it is not incumbent upon him -to care whether the arrangement is satisfactory to anyone else or not. - -In Austria and some other countries this is not the case. There the -state arranges a man’s religion for him, he has no voice in it himself. - -Patriotism is merely a religion--love of country, worship of country, -devotion to the country’s flag and honor and welfare. - -In absolute monarchies it is furnished from the throne, cut and dried, -to the subject; in England and America it is furnished, cut and dried, -to the citizen by the politician and the newspaper. - -The newspaper-and-politician-manufactured Patriot often gags in private -over his dose; but he takes it, and keeps it on his stomach the best he -can. Blessed are the meek. - -Sometimes, in the beginning of an insane shabby political upheaval, he -is strongly moved to revolt, but he doesn’t do it--he knows better. He -knows that his maker would find it out--the maker of his Patriotism, the -windy and incoherent six-dollar subeditor of his village newspaper--and -would bray out in print and call him a Traitor. And how dreadful that -would be. It makes him tuck his tail between his legs and shiver. We all -know--the reader knows it quite well--that two or three years ago nine -tenths of the human tails in England and America performed just that -act. Which is to say, nine tenths of the Patriots in England and America -turned traitor to keep from being called traitor. Isn’t it true? You -know it to be true. Isn’t it curious? - -Yet it was not a thing to be very seriously ashamed of. A man can -seldom--very, very seldom--fight a winning fight against his training; -the odds are too heavy. For many a year--perhaps always--the training of -the two nations had been dead against independence in political thought, -persistently inhospitable toward patriotism manufactured on a man’s own -premises, Patriotism reasoned out in the man’s own head and fire-assayed -and tested and proved in his own conscience. The resulting Patriotism -was a shop-worn product procured at second hand. The Patriot did not -know just how or when or where he got his opinions, neither did he care, -so long as he was with what seemed the majority--which was the main -thing, the safe thing, the comfortable thing. Does the reader believe he -knows three men who have actual reasons for their pattern of -Patriotism--and can furnish them? Let him not examine, unless he wants -to be disappointed. He will be likely to find that his men got their -Patriotism at the public trough, and had no hand in its preparation -themselves. - -Training does wonderful things. It moved the people of this country to -oppose the Mexican War; then moved them to fall in with what they -supposed was the opinion of the majority--majority Patriotism is the -customary Patriotism--and go down there and fight. Before the Civil War -it made the North indifferent to slavery and friendly to the slave -interest; in that interest it made Massachusetts hostile to the American -flag, and she would not allow it to be hoisted on her State House--in -her eyes it was the flag of a faction. Then by and by, training swung -Massachusetts the other way, and she went raging South to fight under -that very flag and against that aforetime protected interest of hers. - -There is nothing that training cannot do. Nothing is above its reach or -below it. It can turn bad morals to good, good morals to bad; it can -destroy principles, it can recreate them; it can debase angels to men -and lift men to angelship. And it can do any one of these miracles in a -year--even in six months. - -Then men can be trained to manufacture their own Patriotism. They can be -trained to labor it out in their own heads and hearts and in the privacy -and independence of their own premises. It can train them to stop taking -it by command, as the Austrian takes his religion. - - - - - DR. LOEB’S INCREDIBLE DISCOVERY - - Experts in biology will be apt to receive with some skepticism the - announcement of Dr. Jacques Loeb of the University of California as to - the creation of life by chemical agencies.... Doctor Loeb is a very - bright and ingenious experimenter, but _a consensus of opinion among - biologists_ would show that he is voted rather as a man of lively - imagination than an inerrant investigator of natural phenomena.--New - York _Times_, March 2d. - - -I wish I could be as young as that again. Although I seem so old, now, I -was once as young as that. I remember, as if it were but thirty or forty -years ago, how a paralyzing Consensus of Opinion accumulated from -Experts a-setting around, about brother experts who had patiently and -laboriously cold-chiseled their way into one or another of nature’s -safe-deposit vaults and were reporting that they had found something -valuable was a plenty for me. It settled it. - -But it isn’t so now--no. Because, in the drift of the years I by and by -found out that a Consensus examines a new thing with its feelings rather -oftener than with its mind. You know, yourself, that that is so. Do -those people examine with feelings that are friendly to evidence? You -know they don’t. It is the other way about. They do the examining by the -light of their prejudices--now isn’t that true? - -With curious results, yes. So curious that you wonder the Consensuses do -not go out of the business. Do you know of a case where a Consensus won -a game? You can go back as far as you want to and you will find history -furnishing you this (until now) unwritten maxim for your guidance and -profit: Whatever new thing a Consensus coppers (colloquial for “bets -against”), bet your money on that very card and do not be afraid. - -There was that primitive steam engine--ages back, in Greek times: a -Consensus made fun of it. There was the Marquis of Worcester’s steam -engine, 250 years ago: a Consensus made fun of it. There was Fulton’s -steamboat of a century ago: a French Consensus, including the Great -Napoleon, made fun of it. There was Priestly, with his oxygen: a -Consensus scoffed at him, mobbed him, burned him out, banished him. -While a Consensus was proving, by statistics and things, that a -steamship could not cross the Atlantic, a steamship did it. A Consensus -consisting of all the medical experts in Great Britain made fun of -Jenner and inoculation. A Consensus consisting of all the medical -experts in France made fun of the stethoscope. A Consensus of all the -medical experts in Germany made fun of that young doctor (his name? -forgotten by all but doctors, now, revered now by doctors alone) who -discovered and abolished the cause of that awful disease, puerperal -fever; made fun of him, reviled him, hunted him, persecuted him, broke -his heart, killed him. Electric telegraph, Atlantic cable, telephone, -all “toys,” and of no practical value--verdict of the Consensuses. -Geology, palæontology, evolution--all brushed into space by a Consensus -of theological experts, comprising all the preachers in Christendom, -assisted by the Duke of Argyle and (at first) the other scientists. And -do look at Pasteur and his majestic honor roll of prodigious -benefactions! Damned--each and every one of them in its turn--by -frenzied and ferocious Consensuses of medical and chemical Experts -comprising, for years, every member of the tribe in Europe; damned -without even a casual _look_ at what he was doing--and he pathetically -imploring them to come and take at least one little look before making -the damnation eternal. They shortened his life by their malignities and -persecutions; and thus robbed the world of the further and priceless -services of a man who--along certain lines and within certain -limits--had done more for the human race than any other one man in all -its long history: a man whom it had taken the Expert brotherhood ten -thousand years to produce, and whose mate and match the brotherhood may -possibly not be able to bring forth and assassinate in another ten -thousand. The preacher has an old and tough reputation for bull-headed -and unreasoning hostility to new light; why, he is not “in it” with the -doctor! Nor, perhaps, with some of the other breeds of Experts that sit -around and get up the Consensuses and squelch the new things as fast as -they come from the hands of the plodders, the searchers, the inspired -dreamers, the Pasteurs that come bearing pearls to scatter in the -Consensus sty. - -This is warm work! It puts my temperature up to 106 and raises my pulse -to the limit. It always works just so when the red rag of a Consensus -jumps my fence and starts across my pasture. I have been a Consensus -more than once myself, and I know the business--and its vicissitudes. I -am a compositor-expert, of old and seasoned experience; nineteen years -ago I delivered the final-and-for-good verdict that the linotype would -never be able to earn its own living nor anyone else’s: it takes -fourteen acres of ground, now, to accommodate its factories in England. -Thirty-five years ago I was an expert precious-metal quartz-miner. There -was an outcrop in my neighborhood that assayed $600 a ton--gold. But -every fleck of gold in it was shut up tight and fast in an intractable -and impersuadable base-metal shell. Acting as a Consensus, I delivered -the finality verdict that no human ingenuity would ever be able to set -free two dollars’ worth of gold out of a ton of that rock. The fact is, -I did not foresee the cyanide process. Indeed, I have been a Consensus -ever so many times since I reached maturity and approached the age of -discretion, but I call to mind no instance in which I won out. - -These sorrows have made me suspicious of Consensuses. Do you know, I -tremble and the goose flesh rises on my skin every time I encounter one, -now. I sheer warily off and get behind something, saying to myself, “It -looks innocent and all right, but no matter, ten to one there’s a -cyanide process under that thing somewhere.” - -Now as concerns this “creation of life by chemical agencies.” Reader, -take my advice: don’t you copper it. I don’t say bet on it; no, I only -say, don’t you copper it. As you see, there is a Consensus out against -it. If you find that you can’t control your passions; if you feel that -you have _got_ to copper something and can’t help it, copper the -Consensus. It is the safest way--all history confirms it. If you are -young, you will, of course, have to put up, on one side or the other, -for you will not be able to restrain yourself; but as for me, I am old, -and I am going to wait for a new deal. - -_P.S._--In the same number of the _Times_ Doctor Funk says: “Man may be -as badly fooled by believing too little as by believing too much; the -hard-headed skeptic Thomas was the only disciple who was cheated.” Is -that the right and rational way to look at it? I will not be sure, for -my memory is faulty, but it has always been my impression that Thomas -was the only one who made an examination and proved a fact, while the -others were accepting, or discounting, the fact on trust--like any other -Consensus. If that is so, Doubting Thomas removed a doubt which must -otherwise have confused and troubled the world until now. Including -Doctor Funk. It seems to me that we owe that hard-headed--or -sound-headed--witness something more than a slur. Why does Doctor Funk -_examine_ into spiritism, and then throw stones at Thomas. Why doesn’t -he take it on trust? Has inconsistency become a jewel in Lafayette -Place? - - OLD-MAN-AFRAID-OF-THE-CONSENSUS. - -_Extract from Adam’s Diary._--Then there was a Consensus about it. It -was the very first one. It sat six days and nights. It was then -delivered of the verdict that a world could not be made out of nothing; -that such small things as sun and moon and stars might, maybe, but it -would take years and years, if there was considerable many of them. Then -the Consensus got up and looked out of the window, and there was the -whole outfit spinning and sparkling in space! You never saw such a -disappointed lot. - - his - ADAM--i-- - mark - - - - - THE DERVISH AND THE OFFENSIVE - STRANGER - - -_The Dervish_: I will say again, and yet again, and still again, -that a good deed---- - -_The Offensive Stranger_: Peace, and, O man of narrow vision! There -is no such thing as a good _deed_---- - -_The Dervish_: O shameless blasphe---- - -_The Offensive Stranger_: And no such thing as an evil deed. There -are good _impulses_, there are evil impulses, and that is all. Half -of the results of a good intention are evil; half the results of an -evil intention are good. No man can command the results, nor allot -them. - -_The Dervish_: And so---- - -_The Offensive Stranger_: And so you shall praise men for their good -intentions, and not blame them for the evils resulting; you shall -blame men for their evil intentions, and not praise them for the -good resulting. - -_The Dervish_: O maniac! will you say---- - -_The Offensive Stranger_: Listen to the law: From _every_ impulse, -whether good or evil, flow two streams; the one carries health, the -other carries poison. From the beginning of time this law has not -changed, to the end of time it will not change. - -_The Dervish_: If I should strike thee dead in anger---- - -_The Offensive Stranger_: Or kill me with a drug which you hoped -would give me new life and strength---- - -_The Dervish_: Very well. Go on. - -_The Offensive Stranger_: In either case the results would be the -same. Age-long misery of mind for you--an evil result; peace, -repose, the end of sorrow for me--a good result. Three hearts that -hold me dear would break; three pauper cousins of the third removed -would get my riches and rejoice; you would go to prison and your -friends would grieve, but your humble apprentice-priest would step -into your shoes and your fat sleek life and be happy. And are these -all the goods and all the evils that would flow from the -well-intended or ill-intended act that cut short my life, O -thoughtless one, O purblind creature? The good and evil results that -flow from _any_ act, even the smallest, breed on and on, century -after century, forever and ever and ever, creeping by inches around -the globe, affecting all its coming and going populations until the -end of time, until the final cataclysm! - -_The Dervish_: Then, there being no such thing as a good deed---- - -_The Offensive Stranger_: Don’t I tell you there are good -_intentions_, and evil ones, and there an end? The _results_ are not -foreseeable. They are of both kinds, in all cases. It is the law. -Listen: this is far-Western history: - - VOICES OUT OF UTAH - - - I - -_The White Chief_ (_to his people_): This wide plain was a desert. -By our Heaven-blest industry we have damned the river and utilized -its waters and turned the desert into smiling fields whose fruitage -makes prosperous and happy a thousand homes where poverty and hunger -dwelt before. How noble, how beneficent, is Civilization! - - II - -_Indian Chief_ (_to his people_): This wide plain, which the Spanish -priests taught our fathers to irrigate, was a smiling field, whose -fruitage made our homes prosperous and happy. The white American has -damned our river, taken away our water for his own valley, and -turned our field into a desert; wherefore we starve. - -_The Dervish_: I perceive that the good intention did really bring -both good and evil results in equal measure. But a single case -cannot prove the rule. Try again. - -_The Offensive Stranger_: Pardon me, _all_ cases prove it. Columbus -discovered a new world and gave to the plodding poor and the -landless of Europe farms and breathing space and plenty and -happiness---- - -_The Dervish_: A good result. - -_The Offensive Stranger_: And they hunted and harried the original -owners of the soil, and robbed them, beggared them, drove them from -their homes, and exterminated them, root and branch. - -_The Dervish_: An evil result, yes. - -_The Offensive Stranger_: The French Revolution brought desolation -to the hearts and homes of five million families and drenched the -country with blood and turned its wealth to poverty. - -_The Dervish_: An evil result. - -_The Offensive Stranger_: But every great and precious liberty -enjoyed by the nations of continental Europe to-day are the gift of -that Revolution. - -_The Dervish_: A good result, I concede it. - -_The Offensive Stranger_: In our well-meant effort to lift up the -Filipino to our own moral altitude with a musket, we have slipped on -the ice and fallen down to his. - -_The Dervish_: A large evil result. - -_The Offensive Stranger_: But as an offset we are a World Power. - -_The Dervish_: Give me time. I must think this one over. Pass on. - -_The Offensive Stranger_: By help of three hundred thousand soldiers -and eight hundred million dollars England has succeeded in her good -purpose of lifting up the unwilling Boers and making them better and -purer and happier than they could ever have become by their own -devices. - -_The Dervish_: Certainly that is a good result. - -_The Offensive Stranger_: But there are only eleven Boers left now. - -_The Dervish_: It has the appearance of an evil result. But I will -think it over before I decide. - -_The Offensive Stranger_: Take yet one more instance. With the best -intentions the missionary has been laboring in China for eighty -years. - -_The Dervish_: The evil result is---- - -_The Offensive Stranger_: That nearly a hundred thousand Chinamen -have acquired our Civilization. - -_The Dervish_: And the good result is---- - -_The Offensive Stranger_: That by the compassion of God four hundred -millions have escaped it. - - - - - INSTRUCTIONS IN ART - (With Illustrations by the Author) - - -The great trouble about painting a whole gallery of portraits at the -same time is, that the housemaid comes and dusts, and does not put -them back the way they were before, and so when the public flock to -the studio and wish to know which is Howells and which is Depew and -so on, you have to dissemble, and it is very embarrassing at first. -Still, you know they are there, and this knowledge presently gives -you more or less confidence, and you say sternly, “_This_ is -Howells,” and watch the visitor’s eye. If you see doubt there, you -correct yourself and try another. In time you find one that will -satisfy, and then you feel relief and joy, but you have suffered -much in the meantime; and you know that this joy is only temporary, -for the next inquirer will settle on another Howells of a quite -different aspect, and one which you suspect is Edward VII or -Cromwell, though you keep that to yourself, of course. It is much -better to label a portrait when you first paint it, then there is no -uncertainty in your mind and you can get bets out of the visitor and -win them. - -I believe I have had the most trouble with a portrait which I -painted in installments--the head on one canvas and the bust on -another. - -[Illustration: THE HEAD ON ONE CANVAS] - -The housemaid stood the bust up sideways, and now I don’t know which -way it goes. Some authorities think it belongs with the breastpin at -the top, under the man’s chin; others think it belongs the reverse -way, on account of the collar, one of these saying, “A person can -wear a breastpin on his stomach if he wants to, but he can’t wear -his collar anywhere he dern pleases.” There is a certain amount of -sense in that view of it. Still, there is no way to determine the -matter for certain; when you join the installments, with the pin -under the chin, that seems to be right; then when you reverse it and -bring the collar under the chin it seems as right as ever; whichever -way you fix it the lines come together snug and convincing, and -either way you do it the portrait’s face looks equally surprised and -rejoiced, and as if it wouldn’t be satisfied to have it any way but -just that one; in fact, even if you take the bust away altogether -the face seems surprised and happy just the same--I have never seen -an expression before, which no vicissitudes could alter. I wish I -could remember who it is. It looks a little like Washington, but I -do not think it can be Washington, because he had as many ears on -one side as the other. You can always tell Washington by that; he -was very particular about his ears, and about having them arranged -the same old way all the time. - -[Illustration: AND THE BUST ON ANOTHER] - -By and by I shall get out of these confusions, and then it will be -plain sailing; but first-off the confusions were natural and not to -be avoided. My reputation came very suddenly and tumultuously when I -published my own portrait, and it turned my head a little, for -indeed there was never anything like it. In a single day I got -orders from sixty-two people not to paint their portraits, some of -them the most distinguished persons in the country--the President, -the Cabinet, authors, governors, admirals, candidates for office on -the weak side--almost everybody that was anybody, and it would -really have turned the head of nearly any beginner to get so much -notice and have it come with such a frenzy of cordiality. But I am -growing calm and settling down to business, now; and pretty soon I -shall cease to be flurried, and then when I do a portrait I shall be -quite at myself and able on the instant to tell it from the others -and pick it out when wanted. - -I am living a new and exalted life of late. It steeps me in a sacred -rapture to see a portrait develop and take soul under my hand. -First, I throw off a study--just a mere study, a few apparently -random lines--and to look at it you would hardly ever suspect who it -was going to be; even I cannot tell, myself. Take this picture, for -instance: - -[Illustration: - - FIRST YOU THINK IT’S DANTE; NEXT YOU THINK IT’S EMERSON; THEN YOU - THINK IT’S WAYNE MAC VEAGH. YET IT ISN’T ANY OF THEM; IT’S THE - BEGINNINGS OF DEPEW -] - -First you think it’s Dante; next you think it’s Emerson; then you -think it’s Wayne Mac Veagh. Yet it isn’t any of them; it’s the -beginnings of Depew. Now you wouldn’t believe Depew could be -devolved out of that; yet the minute it is finished here you have -him to the life, and you say, yourself, “If that isn’t Depew it -isn’t anybody.” - -Some would have painted him speaking, but he isn’t always speaking, -he has to stop and think sometimes. - -That is a _genre_ picture, as we say in the trade, and differs from -the encaustic and other schools in various ways, mainly technical, -which you wouldn’t understand if I should explain them to you. But -you will get the idea as I go along, and little by little you will -learn all that is valuable about Art without knowing how it -happened, and without any sense of strain or effort, and then you -will know what school a picture belongs to, just at a glance, and -whether it is an animal picture or a landscape. It is then that the -joy of life will begin for you. - -When you come to examine my portraits of Mr. Joe Jefferson and the -rest, your eye will have become measurably educated by that time, -and you will recognize at once that no two of them are alike. I will -close the present chapter with an example of the nude, for your -instruction. - -This creation is different from any of the other works. The others -are from real life, but this is an example of still-life; so called -because it is a portrayal of a fancy only, a thing which has no -actual and active existence. The purpose of a still-life picture is -to concrete to the eye the spiritual, the intangible, a something -which we feel, but cannot see with the fleshy vision--such as joy, -sorrow, resentment, and so on. This is best achieved by the -employment of that treatment which we call the impressionist, in the -trade. The present example is an impressionist picture, done in -distemper, with a chiaroscuro motif modified by monochromatic -technique, so as to secure tenderness of feeling and spirituality of -expression. At a first glance it would seem to be a Botticelli, but -it is not that; it is only a humble imitation of that great master -of longness and slimness and limbfulness. - -[Illustration: THAT THING IN THE RIGHT HAND IS NOT A SKILLET; IT IS -A TAMBOURINE] - -The work is imagined from Greek story, and represents Proserpine or -Persepolis, or one of those other Bacchantes doing the solemnities -of welcome before the altar of Isis upon the arrival of the annual -shipload of Athenian youths in the island of Minos to be sacrificed -in appeasement of the Dordonian Cyclops. - -[Illustration: THE PORTRAIT REPRODUCES MR. JOSEPH JEFFERSON, THE -COMMON FRIEND OF THE HUMAN RACE] - -The figure symbolizes solemn joy. It is severely Greek, therefore -does not call details of drapery or other factitious helps to its -aid, but depends wholly upon grace of action and symmetry of contour -for its effects. It is intended to be viewed from the south or -southeast, and I think that that is best; for while it expresses -more and larger joy when viewed from the east or the north, the -features of the face are too much foreshortened and wormy when -viewed from that point. That thing in the right hand is not a -skillet; it is a tambourine. - -[Illustration: EITHER MR. HOWELLS OR MR. LAFFAN. I CANNOT TELL WHICH -BECAUSE THE LABEL IS LOST] - -This creation will be exhibited at the Paris Salon in June, and will -compete for the _Prix de Rome_. - -The above is a marine picture, and is intended to educate the eye in -the important matters of perspective and foreshortening. The -mountainous and bounding waves in the foreground, contrasted with -the tranquil ship fading away as in a dream the other side of the -fishing-pole, convey to us the idea of space and distance as no -words could do. Such is the miracle wrought by that wondrous device, -perspective. - -The portrait reproduces Mr. Joseph Jefferson, the common friend of -the human race. He is fishing, and is not catching anything. This is -finely expressed by the moisture in the eye and the anguish of the -mouth. The mouth is holding back words. The pole is bamboo, the line -is foreshortened. This foreshortening, together with the smoothness -of the water away out there where the cork is, gives a powerful -impression of distance, and is another way of achieving a -perspective effect. - -We now come to the next portrait, which is either Mr. Howells or Mr. -Laffan. I cannot tell which, because the label is lost. But it will -do for both, because the features are Mr. Howells’s, while the -expression is Mr. Laffan’s. This work will bear critical -examination. - -The next picture is part of an animal, but I do not know the name of -it. It is not finished. The front end of it went around a corner -before I could get to it. - -[Illustration: THE FRONT END OF IT WENT AROUND A CORNER BEFORE I -COULD GET TO IT] - -[Illustration: THE BEST AND MOST WINNING AND ELOQUENT PORTRAIT MY -BRUSH HAS EVER PRODUCED] - -We will conclude with the portrait of a lady in the style of -Raphael. Originally I started it out for Queen Elizabeth, but was -not able to do the lace hopper her head projects out of, therefore I -tried to turn it into Pocahontas, but was again baffled, and was -compelled to make further modifications, this time achieving -success. By spiritualizing it and turning it into the noble mother -of our race and throwing into the countenance the sacred joy which -her first tailor-made outfit infuses into her spirit, I was enabled -to add to my gallery the best and most winning and eloquent portrait -my brush has ever produced. - -The most effective encouragement a beginner can have is the -encouragement which he gets from noting his own progress with an -alert and persistent eye. Save up your works and date them; as the -years go by, run your eye over them from time to time, and measure -your advancing stride. This will thrill you, this will nerve you, -this will inspire you as nothing else can. - -It has been my own course, and to it I owe the most that I am to-day -in Art. When I look back and examine my first effort and then -compare it with my latest, it seems unbelievable that I have climbed -so high in thirty-one years. Yet so it is. Practice--that is the -secret. From three to seven hours a day. It is all that is required. -The results are sure; whereas indolence achieves nothing great. - -[Illustration: - - IT SEEMS UNBELIEVABLE THAT I HAVE CLIMBED SO HIGH IN THIRTY-ONE - YEARS -] - - - - - SOLD TO SATAN - (1904) - - -It was at this time that I concluded to sell my soul to Satan. Steel -was away down, so was St. Paul; it was the same with all the -desirable stocks, in fact, and so, if I did not turn out to be away -down myself, now was my time to raise a stake and make my fortune. -Without further consideration I sent word to the local agent, Mr. -Blank, with description and present condition of the property, and -an interview with Satan was promptly arranged, on a basis of 2½ per -cent, this commission payable only in case a trade should be -consummated. - -I sat in the dark, waiting and thinking. How still it was! Then came -the deep voice of a far-off bell proclaiming midnight--Boom-m-m! -Boom-m-m! Boom-m-m!--and I rose to receive my guest, and braced -myself for the thunder crash and the brimstone stench which should -announce his arrival. But there was no crash, no stench. Through the -closed door, and noiseless, came the modern Satan, just as we see -him on the stage--tall, slender, graceful, in tights and trunks, a -short cape mantling his shoulders, a rapier at his side, a single -drooping feather in his jaunty cap, and on his intellectual face the -well-known and high-bred Mephistophelian smile. - -But he was not a fire coal; he was not red, no! On the contrary. He -was a softly glowing, richly smoldering torch, column, statue of -pallid light, faintly tinted with a spiritual green, and out from -him a lunar splendor flowed such as one sees glinting from the -crinkled waves of tropic seas when the moon rides high in cloudless -skies. - -He made his customary stage obeisance, resting his left hand upon -his sword hilt and removing his cap with his right and making that -handsome sweep with it which we know so well; then we sat down. Ah, -he was an incandescent glory, a nebular dream, and so much improved -by his change of color. He must have seen the admiration in my -illuminated face, but he took no notice of it, being long ago used -to it in faces of other Christians with whom he had had trade -relations. - -... A half hour of hot toddy and weather chat, mixed with occasional -tentative feelers on my part and rejoinders of, “Well, I could -hardly pay _that_ for it, you know,” on his, had much modified my -shyness and put me so much at my ease that I was emboldened to feed -my curiosity a little. So I chanced the remark that he was -surprisingly different from the traditions, and I wished I knew what -it was he was made of. He was not offended, but answered with frank -simplicity: - -“Radium!” - -“That accounts for it!” I exclaimed. “It is the loveliest -effulgence I have ever seen. The hard and heartless glare of the -electric doesn’t compare with it. I suppose Your Majesty weighs -about--about----” - -“I stand six feet one; fleshed and blooded I would weigh two hundred -and fifteen; but radium, like other metals, is heavy. I weigh nine -hundred-odd.” - -I gazed hungrily upon him, saying to myself: - -“What riches! what a mine! Nine hundred pounds at, say, $3,500,000 a -pound, would be--would be----” Then a treacherous thought burst into -my mind! - -He laughed a good hearty laugh, and said: - -“I perceive your thought; and what a handsomely original idea it -is!--to kidnap Satan, and stock him, and incorporate him, and water -the stock up to ten billions--just three times its actual value--and -blanket the world with it!” My blush had turned the moonlight to a -crimson mist, such as veils and spectralizes the domes and towers of -Florence at sunset and makes the spectator drunk with joy to see, -and he pitied me, and dropped his tone of irony, and assumed a grave -and reflective one which had a pleasanter sound for me, and under -its kindly influence my pains were presently healed, and I thanked -him for his courtesy. Then he said: - -“One good turn deserves another, and I will pay you a compliment. Do -you know I have been trading with your poor pathetic race for ages, -and you are the first person who has ever been intelligent enough to -divine the large commercial value of my make-up.” - -I purred to myself and looked as modest as I could. - -“Yes, you are the first,” he continued. “All through the Middle Ages -I used to buy Christian souls at fancy rates, building bridges and -cathedrals in a single night in return, and getting swindled out of -my Christian nearly every time that I dealt with a priest--as -history will concede--but making it up on the lay square-dealer now -and then, as _I_ admit; but none of those people ever guessed where -the _real_ big money lay. You are the first.” - -I refilled his glass and gave him another Cavour. But he was -experienced, by this time. He inspected the cigar pensively awhile; -then: - -“What do you pay for these?” he asked. - -“Two cents--but they come cheaper when you take a barrel.” - -He went on inspecting; also mumbling comments, apparently to -himself: - -“Black--rough-skinned--rumpled, irregular, wrinkled, barky, with -crispy curled-up places on it--burnt-leather aspect, like the shoes -of the damned that sit in pairs before the room doors at home of a -Sunday morning.” He sighed at thought of his home, and was silent a -moment; then he said, gently, “Tell me about this projectile.” - -“It is the discovery of a great Italian statesman,” I said. “Cavour. -One day he lit his cigar, then laid it down and went on writing and -forgot it. It lay in a pool of ink and got soaked. By and by he -noticed it and laid it on the stove to dry. When it was dry he lit -it and at once noticed that it didn’t taste the same as it did -before. And so----” - -“Did he say what it tasted like before?” - -“No, I think not. But he called the government chemist and told him -to find out the source of that new taste, and report. The chemist -applied the tests, and reported that the source was the presence of -sulphate of iron, touched up and spiritualized with vinegar--the -combination out of which one makes ink. Cavour told him to introduce -the brand in the interest of the finances. So, ever since then this -brand passes through the ink factory, with the great result that -both the ink and the cigar suffer a sea change into something new -and strange. This is history, Sire, not a work of the imagination.” - -So then he took up his present again, and touched it to the -forefinger of his other hand for an instant, which made it break -into flame and fragrance--but he changed his mind at that point and -laid the torpedo down, saying, courteously: - -“With permission I will save it for Voltaire.” - -I was greatly pleased and flattered to be connected in even this -little way with that great man and be mentioned to him, as no doubt -would be the case, so I hastened to fetch a bundle of fifty for -distribution among others of the renowned and lamented--Goethe, and -Homer, and Socrates, and Confucius, and so on--but Satan said he had -nothing against those. Then he dropped back into reminiscences of -the old times once more, and presently said: - -“They knew nothing about radium, and it would have had no value for -them if they had known about it. In twenty million years it has had -no value for your race until the revolutionizing steam-and-machinery -age was born--which was only a few years before you were born -yourself. It was a stunning little century, for sure, that -nineteenth! But it’s a poor thing compared to what the twentieth is -going to be.” - -By request, he explained why he thought so. - -“Because power was so costly, then, and everything goes by -power--the steamship, the locomotive, and everything else. Coal, you -see! You have to have it; no steam and no electricity without it; -and it’s such a waste--for you burn it up, and it’s gone! But -radium--that’s another matter! With my nine hundred pounds you could -light the world, and heat it, and run all its ships and machines and -railways a hundred million years, and not use up five pounds of it -in the whole time! And then----” - -“Quick--my soul is yours, dear Ancestor; take it--we’ll start a -company!” - -But he asked my age, which is sixty-eight, then politely sidetracked -the proposition, probably not wishing to take advantage of himself. -Then he went on talking admiringly of radium, and how with its own -natural and inherent heat it could go on melting its own weight of -ice twenty-four times in twenty-four hours, and keep it up forever -without losing bulk or weight; and how a pound of it, if exposed in -this room, would blast the place like a breath from hell, and burn -me to a crisp in a quarter of a minute--and was going on like that, -but I interrupted and said: - -“But _you_ are here, Majesty--nine hundred pounds--and the -temperature is balmy and pleasant. I don’t understand.” - -“Well,” he said, hesitatingly, “it is a secret, but I may as well -reveal it, for these prying and impertinent chemists are going to -find it out sometime or other, anyway. Perhaps you have read what -Madame Curie says about radium; how she goes searching among its -splendid secrets and seizes upon one after another of them and -italicizes its specialty; how she says ‘the compounds of radium are -_spontaneously luminous_’--require no coal in the production of -light, you see; how she says, ‘a glass vessel containing radium -_spontaneously charges itself with electricity_’--no coal or water -power required to generate it, you see; how she says ‘radium -possesses the remarkable property of _liberating heat spontaneously -and continuously_’--no coal required to fire-up on the world’s -machinery, you see. She ransacks the pitch-blende for its -radioactive substances, and captures three and labels them; one, -which is embodied with bismuth, she names polonium; one, which is -embodied with barium, she names radium; the name given to the third -was actinium. Now listen; she says ‘_the question now was to -separate the polonium from the bismuth_ ... this is the task that -has occupied us for years and has been a most difficult one.’ For -years, you see--for _years_. That is their way, those plagues, those -scientists--peg, peg, peg--dig, dig, dig--plod, plod, plod. I wish I -could catch a cargo of them for my place; it would be an economy. -Yes, for years, you see. They never give up. Patience, hope, faith, -perseverance; it is the way of all the breed. Columbus and the rest. -In radium this lady has added a new world to the planet’s -possessions, and matched--Columbus--and his peer. She has set -herself the task of divorcing polonium and bismuth; when she -succeeds she will have done--what, should you say?” - -“Pray name it, Majesty.” - -“It’s another new world added--a gigantic one. I will explain; for -you would never divine the size of it, and she herself does not -suspect it.” - -“Do, Majesty, I beg of you.” - -“Polonium, freed from bismuth and made independent, is the one and -only power that can control radium, restrain its destructive forces, -tame them, reduce them to obedience, and make them do useful and -profitable work for your race. Examine my skin. What do you think of -it?” - -“It is delicate, silky, transparent, thin as a gelatine -film--exquisite, beautiful, Majesty!” - -“It is made of polonium. All the rest of me is radium. If I should -strip off my skin the world would vanish away in a flash of flame -and a puff of smoke, and the remnants of the extinguished moon would -sift down through space a mere snow-shower of gray ashes!” - -I made no comment, I only trembled. - -“You understand, now,” he continued. “I burn, I suffer within, my -pains are measureless and eternal, but my skin protects you and the -globe from harm. Heat is power, energy, but is only useful to man -when he can control it and graduate its application to his needs. -You cannot do that with radium, now; it will not be prodigiously -useful to you until polonium shall put the slave whip in your hand. -I can release from my body the radium force in any measure I please, -great or small; at my will I can set in motion the works of a lady’s -watch or destroy a world. You saw me light that unholy cigar with my -finger?” - -I remembered it. - -“Try to imagine how minute was the fraction of energy released to do -that small thing! You are aware that everything is made up of -restless and revolving molecules?--everything--furniture, rocks, -water, iron, horses, men--everything that exists.” - -“Yes.” - -“Molecules of scores of different sizes and weights, but none of -them big enough to be seen by help of any microscope?” - -“Yes.” - -“And that each molecule is made up of thousands of separate and -never-resting little particles called atoms?” - -“Yes.” - -“And that up to recent times the smallest atom known to science was -the hydrogen atom, which was a thousand times smaller than the atom -that went to the building of any other molecule?” - -“Yes.” - -“Well, the radium atom from the positive pole is 5,000 times smaller -than _that_ atom! This unspeakably minute atom is called an -_electron_. Now then, out of my long affection for you and for your -lineage, I will reveal to you a secret--a secret known to no -scientist as yet--the secret of the firefly’s light and the -glowworm’s; it is produced by a single electron imprisoned in a -polonium atom.” - -“Sire, it is a wonderful thing, and the scientific world would be -grateful to know this secret, which has baffled and defeated all its -searchings for more than two centuries. To think!--a single -electron, 5,000 times smaller than the invisible hydrogen atom, to -produce that explosion of vivid light which makes the summer night -so beautiful!” - -“And consider,” said Satan; “it is the only instance in all nature -where radium exists in a pure state unencumbered by fettering -alliances; where polonium enjoys the like emancipation; and where -the pair are enabled to labor together in a gracious and beneficent -and effective partnership. Suppose the protecting polonium envelope -were removed; the radium spark would flash but once and the firefly -would be consumed to vapor! Do you value this old iron letterpress?” - -“No, Majesty, for it is not mine.” - -“Then I will destroy it and let you see. I lit the ostensible cigar -with the heat energy of a single electron, the equipment of a single -lightning bug. I will turn on twenty thousand electrons now.” - -He touched the massive thing and it exploded with a cannon crash, -leaving nothing but vacancy where it had stood. For three minutes -the air was a dense pink fog of sparks, through which Satan loomed -dim and vague, then the place cleared and his soft rich moonlight -pervaded it again. He said: - -“You see? The radium in 20,000 lightning bugs would run a -racing-mobile forever. There’s no waste, no diminution of it.” Then -he remarked in a quite casual way, “We use nothing but radium at -home.” - -I was astonished. And interested, too, for I have friends there, and -relatives. I had always believed--in accordance with my early -teachings--that the fuel was soft coal and brimstone. He noticed the -thought, and answered it. - -“Soft coal and brimstone is the tradition, yes, but it is an error. -We could use it; at least we could make out with it after a fashion, -but it has several defects: it is not cleanly, it ordinarily makes -but a temperate fire, and it would be exceedingly difficult, if even -possible, to heat it up to standard, Sundays; and as for the supply, -all the worlds and systems could not furnish enough to keep us going -halfway through eternity. Without radium there could be no hell; -certainly not a satisfactory one.” - -“Why?” - -“Because if we hadn’t radium we should have to dress the souls in -some other material; then, of course, they would burn up and get out -of trouble. They would not last an hour. You know that?” - -“Why--yes, now that you mention it. But I supposed they were dressed -in their natural flesh; they look so in the pictures--in the Sistine -Chapel and in the illustrated books, you know.” - -“Yes, our damned look as they looked in the world, but it isn’t -flesh; flesh could not survive any longer than that copying press -survived--it would explode and turn to a fog of sparks, and the -result desired in sending it there would be defeated. Believe me, -radium is the only wear.” - -“I see it now,” I said, with prophetic discomfort, “I know that you -are right, Majesty.” - -“I am. I speak from experience. You shall see, when you get there.” - -He said this as if he thought I was eaten up with curiosity, but it -was because he did not know me. He sat reflecting a minute, then he -said: - -“I will make your fortune.” - -It cheered me up and I felt better. I thanked him and was all -eagerness and attention. - -“Do you know,” he continued, “where they find the bones of the -extinct moa, in New Zealand? All in a pile--thousands and thousands -of them banked together in a mass twenty feet deep. And do you know -where they find the tusks of the extinct mastodon of the -Pleistocene? Banked together in acres off the mouth of the Lena--an -ivory mine which has furnished freight for Chinese caravans for five -hundred years. Do you know the phosphate beds of our South? They are -miles in extent, a limitless mass and jumble of bones of vast -animals whose like exists no longer in the earth--a cemetery, a -mighty cemetery, that is what it is. All over the earth there are -such cemeteries. Whence came the instinct that made those families -of creatures go to a chosen and particular spot to die when sickness -came upon them and they perceived that their end was near? It is a -mystery; not even science has been able to uncover the secret of it. -But there stands the fact. Listen, then. For a million years there -has been a firefly cemetery.” - -Hopefully, appealingly, I opened my mouth--he motioned me to close -it, and went on: - -“It is in a scooped-out bowl half as big as this room on the top of -a snow summit of the Cordilleras. That bowl is level full--of what? -Pure firefly radium and the glow and heat of hell? For countless -ages myriads of fireflies have daily flown thither and died in that -bowl and been burned to vapor in an instant, each fly leaving as its -contribution its only indestructible particle, its single electron -of pure radium. There is energy enough there to light the whole -world, heat the whole world’s machinery, supply the whole world’s -transportation power from now till the end of eternity. The massed -riches of the planet could not furnish its value in money. You are -mine, it is yours; when Madame Curie isolates polonium, clothe -yourself in a skin of it and go and take possession!” - -Then he vanished and left me in the dark when I was just in the act -of thanking him. I can find the bowl by the light it will cast upon -the sky; I can get the polonium presently, when that illustrious -lady in France isolates it from the bismuth. Stock is for sale. -Apply to Mark Twain. - - - - - THAT DAY IN EDEN - (Passage from Satan’s Diary) - - -Long ago I was in the bushes near the Tree of Knowledge when the Man -and the Woman came there and had a conversation. I was present, now, -when they came again after all these years. They were as -before--mere boy and girl--trim, rounded, slender, flexible, snow -images lightly flushed with the pink of the skies, innocently -unconscious of their nakedness, lovely to look upon, beautiful -beyond words. - -I listened again. Again as in that former time they puzzled over -those words, Good, Evil, Death, and tried to reason out their -meaning; but, of course, they were not able to do it. Adam said: - -“Come, maybe we can find Satan. He might know these things.” - -Then I came forth, still gazing upon Eve and admiring, and said to -her: - -“You have not seen me before, sweet creature, but I have seen you. I -have seen all the animals, but in beauty none of them equals you. -Your hair, your eyes, your face, your flesh tints, your form, the -tapering grace of your white limbs--all are beautiful, adorable, -perfect.” - -It gave her pleasure, and she looked herself over, putting out a -foot and a hand and admiring them; then she naïvely said: - -“It is a joy to be so beautiful. And Adam--he is the same.” - -She turned him about, this way and that, to show him off, with such -guileless pride in her blue eyes, and he--he took it all as just -matter of course, and was innocently happy in it, and said, “When I -have flowers on my head it is better still.” - -Eve said, “It is true--you shall see,” and she flitted hither and -thither like a butterfly and plucked flowers, and in a moment laced -their stems together in a glowing wreath and set it upon his head; -then tiptoed and gave it a pat here and there with her nimble -fingers, with each pat enhancing its grace and shape, none knows -how, nor why it should so result, but in it there is a law -somewhere, though the delicate art and mystery of it is her secret -alone, and not learnable by another; and when at last it was to her -mind she clapped her hands for pleasure, then reached up and kissed -him--as pretty a sight, taken altogether, as in my experience I have -seen. - -Presently, to the matter in hand. The meaning of those words--would -I tell her? - -Certainly none could be more willing, but how was I to do it? I -could think of no way to make her understand, and I said so. I said: - -“I will try, but it is hardly of use. For instance--what is pain?” - -“Pain? I do not know.” - -“Certainly. How should you? Pain is not of your world; pain is -impossible to you; you have never experienced a physical pain. -Reduce that to a formula, a principle, and what have we?” - -“What have we?” - -“This: Things which are outside of our orbit--our own particular -world--things which by our constitution and equipment we are unable -to see, or feel, or otherwise experience--_cannot be made -comprehensible to us in words_. There you have the whole thing in a -nutshell. It is a principle, it is axiomatic, it is a law. Now do -you understand?” - -The gentle creature looked dazed, and for all result she was -delivered of this vacant remark: - -“What is axiomatic?” - -She had missed the point. Necessarily she would. Yet her effort was -success for me, for it was a vivid confirmation of the truth of what -I had been saying. Axiomatic was for the present a thing outside of -the world of her experience, therefore it had no meaning for her. I -ignored her question and continued: - -“What is fear?” - -“Fear? I do not know.” - -“Naturally. Why should you? You have not felt it, you cannot feel -it, it does not belong in your world. With a hundred thousand words -I should not be able to make you understand what fear is. How then -am I to explain death to you? You have never seen it, it is foreign -to your world, it is impossible to make the word mean anything to -you, so far as I can see. In a way, it is a sleep----” - -“Oh, I know what that is!” - -“But it is a sleep only in a way, as I said. It is more than a -sleep.” - -“Sleep is pleasant, sleep is lovely!” - -“But death is a long sleep--very long.” - -“Oh, all the lovelier! Therefore I think nothing could be better -than death.” - -I said to myself, “Poor child, some day you may know what a pathetic -truth you have spoken; some day you may say, out of a broken heart, -‘Come to me, O Death the compassionate! steep me in the merciful -oblivion, O refuge of the sorrowful, friend of the forsaken and the -desolate!’” Then I said aloud, “But this sleep is eternal.” - -The word went over her head. Necessarily it would. - -“Eternal. What is eternal?” - -“Ah, that also is outside of your world, as yet. There is no way to -make you understand it.” - -It was a hopeless case. Words referring to things outside of her -experience were a foreign language to her, and meaningless. She was -like a little baby whose mother says to it, “Don’t put your finger -in the candle flame; it will burn you.” Burn--it is a foreign word -to the baby, and will have no terrors for it until experience shall -have revealed its meaning. It is not worth while for mamma to make -the remark, the baby will goo-goo cheerfully, and put its finger in -the pretty flame--once. After these private reflections I said again -that I did not think there was any way to make her understand the -meaning of the word eternal. She was silent awhile, turning these -deep matters over in the unworn machinery of her mind; then she gave -up the puzzle and shifted her ground, saying: - -“Well, there are those other words. What is good, and what is evil?” - -“It is another difficulty. They, again, are outside of your world; -they have place in the moral kingdom only. You have no morals.” - -“What are morals?” - -“A system of law which distinguishes between right and wrong, good -morals and bad. These things do not exist for you. I cannot make it -clear; you would not understand.” - -“But try.” - -“Well, obedience to constituted authority is a moral law. Suppose -Adam should forbid you to put your child in the river and leave it -there overnight--would you put the child there?” - -She answered with a darling simplicity and guilelessness: - -“Why, yes, if I wanted to.” - -“There, it is just as I said--you would not know any better; you -have no idea of duty, command, obedience; they have no meaning for -you. In your present estate you are in no possible way responsible -for anything you do or say or think. It is impossible for you to do -wrong, for you have no more notion of right and wrong than the other -animals have. You and they can do only right; whatever you and they -do is right and innocent. It is a divine estate, the loftiest and -purest attainable in heaven and in earth. It is the angel gift. The -angels are wholly pure and sinless, for they do not know right from -wrong, and all the acts of such are blameless. No one can do wrong -without knowing how to distinguish between right and wrong.” - -“Is it an advantage to know?” - -“Most certainly not! That knowledge would remove all that is divine, -all that is angelic, from the angels, and immeasurably degrade -them.” - -“Are there any persons that know right from wrong?” - -“Not in--well, not in heaven.” - -“What gives that knowledge?” - -“The Moral Sense.” - -“What is that?” - -“Well--no matter. Be thankful that you lack it.” - -“Why?” - -“Because it is a degradation, a disaster. Without it one cannot do -wrong; with it, one can. Therefore it has but one office, only -one--to teach how to do wrong. It can teach no other thing--no other -thing whatever. It is the _creator_ of wrong; wrong cannot exist -until the Moral Sense brings it into being.” - -“How can one acquire the Moral Sense?” - -“By eating of the fruit of the Tree, here. But why do you wish to -know? Would you like to have the Moral Sense?” - -She turned wistfully to Adam: - -“Would you like to have it?” - -He showed no particular interest, and only said: - -“I am indifferent. I have not understood any of this talk, but if -you like we will eat it, for I cannot see that there is any -objection to it.” - -Poor ignorant things, the command of refrain had meant nothing to -them, they were but children, and could not understand untried -things and verbal abstractions which stood for matters outside of -their little world and their narrow experience. Eve reached for an -apple!--oh, farewell, Eden and your sinless joys, come poverty and -pain, hunger and cold and heartbreak, bereavement, tears and shame, -envy, strife, malice and dishonor, age, weariness, remorse; then -desperation and the prayer for the release of death, indifferent -that the gates of hell yawn beyond it! - -She tasted--the fruit fell from her hand. - -It was pitiful. She was like one who wakens slow and confusedly out -of a sleep. She gazed half vacantly at me, then at Adam, holding her -curtaining fleece of golden hair back with her hand; then her -wandering glance fell upon her naked person. The red blood mounted -to her cheek, and she sprang behind a bush and stood there crying, -and saying: - -“Oh, my modesty is lost to me--my unoffending form is become a shame -to me!” She moaned and muttered in her pain, and dropped her head, -saying, “I am degraded--I have fallen, oh, so low, and I shall never -rise again.” - -Adam’s eyes were fixed upon her in a dreamy amazement, for he could -not understand what had happened, it being outside his world as yet, -and her words having no meaning for one void of the Moral Sense. And -now his wonder grew: for, unknown to Eve, her hundred years rose -upon her, and faded the heaven of her eyes and the tints of her -young flesh, and touched her hair with gray, and traced faint sprays -of wrinkles about her mouth and eyes, and shrunk her form, and -dulled the satin luster of her skin. - -All this the fair boy saw: then loyally and bravely he took the -apple and tasted it, saying nothing. - -The change came upon him also. Then he gathered boughs for both and -clothed their nakedness, and they turned and went their way, hand in -hand and bent with age, and so passed from sight. - - - - - EVE SPEAKS - - - I - -They drove us from the Garden with their swords of flame, the fierce -cherubim. And what had we done? We meant no harm. We were ignorant, -and did as any other children might do. We could not know it was -wrong to disobey the command, for the words were strange to us and -we did not understand them. We did not know right from wrong--how -should we know? We could not, without the Moral Sense; it was not -possible. If we had been given the Moral Sense first--ah, that would -have been fairer, that would have been kinder; then we should be to -blame if we disobeyed. But to say to us poor ignorant children words -which we could not understand, and then punish us because we did not -do as we were told--ah, how can that be justified? We knew no more -then than this littlest child of mine knows now, with its four -years--oh, not so much, I think. Would I say to it, “If thou -touchest this bread I will overwhelm thee with unimaginable -disaster, even to the dissolution of thy corporeal elements,” and -when it took the bread and smiled up in my face, thinking no harm, -as not understanding those strange words, would I take advantage of -its innocence and strike it down with the mother hand it trusted? -Whoso knoweth the mother heart, let him judge if it would do that -thing. Adam says my brain is turned by my troubles and that I am -become wicked. I am as I am; I did not make myself. - -They drove us out. Drove us out into this harsh wilderness, and shut -the gates against us. We that had meant no harm. It is three months. -We were ignorant then; we are rich in learning, now--ah, how rich! -We know hunger, thirst, and cold; we know pain, disease, and grief; -we know hate, rebellion, and deceit; we know remorse, the conscience -that prosecutes guilt and innocence alike, making no distinction; we -know weariness of body and spirit, the unrefreshing sleep, the rest -which rests not, the dreams which restore Eden, and banish it again -with the waking; we know misery; we know torture and the heartbreak; -we know humiliation and insult; we know indecency, immodesty, and -the soiled mind; we know the scorn that attaches to the transmitted -image of God exposed unclothed to the day; we know fear; we know -vanity, folly, envy, hypocrisy; we know irreverence; we know -blasphemy; we know right from wrong, and how to avoid the one and do -the other; we know all the rich product of the Moral Sense, and it -is our possession. Would we could sell it for one hour of Eden and -white purity; would we could degrade the animals with it! - -We have it all--that treasure. All but death. Death.... Death. What -may that be? - -Adam comes. - -“Well?” - -“He still sleeps.” - -That is our second-born--our Abel. - -“He has slept enough for his good, and his garden suffers for his -care. Wake him.” - -“I have tried and cannot.” - -“Then he is very tired. Let him sleep on.” - -“I think it is his hurt that makes him sleep so long.” - -I answer: “It may be so. Then we will let him rest; no doubt the -sleep is healing it.” - - II - -It is a day and a night, now, that he has slept. We found him by his -altar in his field, that morning, his face and body drenched in -blood. He said his eldest brother struck him down. Then he spoke no -more and fell asleep. We laid him in his bed and washed the blood -away, and were glad to know the hurt was light and that he had no -pain; for if he had had pain he would not have slept. - -It was in the early morning that we found him. All day he slept that -sweet, reposeful sleep, lying always on his back, and never moving, -never turning. It showed how tired he was, poor thing. He is so good -and works so hard, rising with the dawn and laboring till the dark. -And now he is overworked; it will be best that he tax himself less, -after this, and I will ask him; he will do anything I wish. - -All the day he slept. I know, for I was always near, and made dishes -for him and kept them warm against his waking. Often I crept in and -fed my eyes upon his gentle face, and was thankful for that blessed -sleep. And still he slept on--slept with his eyes wide; a strange -thing, and made me think he was awake at first, but it was not so, -for I spoke and he did not answer. He always answers when I speak. -Cain has moods and will not answer, but not Abel. - -I have sat by him all the night, being afraid he might wake and want -his food. His face was very white; and it changed, and he came to -look as he had looked when he was a little child in Eden long ago, -so sweet and good and dear. It carried me back over the abyss of -years, and I was lost in dreams and tears--oh, hours, I think. Then -I came to myself; and thinking he stirred, I kissed his cheek to -wake him, but he slumbered on and I was disappointed. His cheek was -cold. I brought sacks of wool and the down of birds and covered him, -but he was still cold, and I brought more. Adam has come again, and -says he is not yet warm. I do not understand it. - - III - -We cannot wake him! With my arms clinging about him I have looked -into his eyes, through the veil of my tears, and begged for one -little word, and he will not answer. Oh, is it that long sleep--is -it death? And will he wake no more? - - FROM SATAN’S DIARY - -Death has entered the world, the creatures are perishing; one of The -Family is fallen; the product of the Moral Sense is complete. The -Family think ill of death--they will change their minds. - - - - - SAMUEL ERASMUS MOFFETT - AUGUST 16, 1908 - - HIS CHARACTER AND HIS DEATH - -_August 16th._--Early in the evening of the first day of this month -the telephone brought us a paralyzing shock: my nephew, Samuel E. -Moffett, was drowned. It was while sea bathing. The seas were -running high and he was urged not to venture out, but he was a -strong swimmer and not afraid. He made the plunge with confidence, -his frightened little son looking on. Instantly he was helpless. The -great waves tossed him hither and thither, they buried him, they -struck the life out of him. In a minute it was all over. - -He was forty-eight years old, he was at his best, physically and -mentally, and was well on his way toward earned distinction. He was -large-minded and large-hearted, there was no blot nor fleck upon his -character, his ideals were high and clean, and by native impulse and -without effort he lived up to them. - -He had been a working journalist, an editorial writer, for nearly -thirty years, and yet in that exposed position had preserved his -independence in full strength and his principles undecayed. Several -years ago he accepted a high place on the staff of _Collier’s -Weekly_ and was occupying it when he died. - -In an early chapter of my _Autobiography_, written three years ago, -I have told how he wrote from San Francisco, when he was a stripling -and asked me to help him get a berth on a daily paper there; and how -he submitted to the severe conditions I imposed, and got the berth -and kept it sixteen years. - -As child and lad his health was delicate, capricious, insecure, and -his eyesight affected by a malady which debarred him from book study -and from reading. This was a bitter hardship for him, for he had a -wonderful memory and a sharp hunger for knowledge. School was not -for him, yet while still a little boy he acquired an education, and -a good one. He managed it after a method of his own devising: he got -permission to listen while the classes of the normal school recited -their abstruse lessons and black-boarded their mathematics. By -questioning the little chap it was found that he was keeping up with -the star scholars of the school. - -In those days he paid us a visit in Hartford. It was when he was -about twelve years old. I was laboriously constructing an -ancient-history game at the time, to be played by my wife and -myself, and I was digging the dates and facts for it out of -cyclopædias, a dreary and troublesome business. I had sweated blood -over that work and was pardonably proud of the result, as far as I -had gone. I showed the child my mass of notes, and he was at once as -excited as I should have been over a Sunday-school picnic at his -age. He wanted to help, he was eager to help, and I was as willing -to let him as I should have been to give away an interest in a -surgical operation that I was getting tired of. I made him free of -the cyclopædias, but he never consulted them--he had their contents -in his head. All alone he built and completed the game rapidly and -without effort. - -Away back in ’80 or ’81 when the grand eruption of Krakatoa, in the -Straits of Sunda, occurred, the news reached San Francisco late in -the night--too late for editors to hunt for information about that -unknown volcano in cyclopædias and write it up exhaustively and -learnedly in time for the first edition. The managing editor said, -“Send to Moffett’s home; rout him out and fetch him; he will know -all about it; he won’t need the cyclopædia.” Which was true. He came -to the office and swiftly wrote it all up without having to refer to -books. - -I will take a few paragraphs from the article about him in -_Collier’s Weekly_: - - If you wanted to know any fact about any subject it was quicker to - go to him than to books of reference. His good nature made him the - martyr of interruptions. In the middle of a sentence, in a hurry - hour, he would look up happily, and whether the thing you wanted - was railroad statistics or international law, he would bring it - out of one of the pigeonholes in his brain. A born dispenser of - the light, he made the giving of information a privilege and a - pleasure on all occasions. - - This cyclopædic faculty was marvelous because it was only a small - part of his equipment which became invaluable in association with - other gifts. A student and a humanist, he delighted equally in - books and in watching all the workings of a political convention. - - For any one of the learned professions he had conspicuous ability. - He chose that which, in the cloister of the editorial rooms, makes - fame for others. Any judge or Cabinet Minister of our time may - well be proud of a career of such usefulness as his. Men with such - a quality of mind as Moffett’s are rare. - - Anyone who discussed with him the things he advocated stood a - little awed to discover that here was a man who had carefully - thought out what would be best for all the people in the world two - or three generations hence, and guided his work according to that - standard. This was the one broad subject that covered all his - interests; in detail they included the movement for universal - peace about which he wrote repeatedly; so small a thing as a plan - to place flowers on the window sills and fire escapes of New York - tenement houses enlisted not only the advocacy of his pen, but his - direct personal presence and co-operation; again and again, in his - department in this paper, he gave indorsement and aid to similar - movements, whether broad or narrow in their scope--the saving of - the American forests, fighting tuberculosis, providing free meals - for poor school children in New York, old-age pensions, safety - appliances for protecting factory employees, the beautifying of - American cities, the creation of inland waterways, industrial - peace. - -He leaves behind him wife, daughter, and son--inconsolable mourners. -The son is thirteen, a beautiful human creature, with the broad and -square face of his father and his grandfather, a face in which one -reads high character and intelligence. This boy will be -distinguished, by and by, I think. - -In closing this slight sketch of Samuel E. Moffett I wish to dwell -with lingering and especial emphasis upon the dignity of his -character and ideals. In an age when we would rather have money than -health, and would rather have another man’s money than our own, he -lived and died unsordid; in a day when the surest road to national -greatness and admiration is by showy and rotten demagoguery in -politics and by giant crimes in finance, he lived and died a -gentleman. - - - - - THE NEW PLANET - - (The astronomers at Harvard have observed “perturbations in the - orbital movement of Neptune,” such as might be caused by the - presence of a new planet in the vicinity.) - - -I believe in the new planet. I was eleven years old in 1846, -when Leverrier and Adams and Mary Somerville discovered Neptune -through the disturbance and discomfort it was causing Uranus. -“Perturbations,” they call that kind of disturbance. I had been -having those perturbations myself, for more than two months; in -fact, all through watermelon time, for they used to keep dogs in -some of the patches in those days. You notice that these recent -perturbations are considered remarkable because they perturbate -through three seconds of arc, but really that is nothing: often -I used to perturbate through as much as half an hour if it was a -dog that was attending to the perturbating. There isn’t any -Neptune that can outperturbate a dog; and I know, because I am -not speaking from hearsay. Why, if there was a planet two -hundred and fifty thousand “light-years” the other side of -Neptune’s orbit, Professor Pickering would discover it in a -minute if it could perturbate equal to a dog. Give me a dog -every time, when it comes to perturbating. You let a dog jump -out at you all of a sudden in the dark of the moon, and you will -see what a small thing three seconds of arc is: the shudder that -goes through you then would open the seams of Noah’s Ark itself, -from figurehead to rudder post, and you would drop that melon -the same as if you had never had any but just a casual interest -in it. I know about these things, because this is not tradition -I am writing, but history. - -Now then, notice this. About the end of August, 1846, a change came -over me and I resolved to lead a better life, so I reformed; but it -was just as well, anyway, because they had got to having guns and -dogs both. Although I was reformed, the perturbations did not stop! -Does that strike you? They did not stop, they went right on and on -and on, for three weeks, clear up to the 23d of September; then -Neptune was discovered and the whole mystery stood explained. It -shows that I am so sensitively constructed that I perturbate when -any other planet is disturbed. This has been going on all my life. -It only happens in the watermelon season, but that has nothing to do -with it, and has no significance: geologists and anthropologists and -horticulturists all tell me it is only ancestral and hereditary, and -that is what I think myself. Now then, I got to perturbating again, -this summer--all summer through; all through watermelon time: and -_where_, do you think? Up here on my farm in Connecticut. Is that -significant? Unquestionably it is, for you couldn’t raise a -watermelon on this farm with a derrick. - -That perturbating was caused by the new planet. That Washington -Observatory may throw as much doubt as it wants to, it cannot affect -me, because I know there _is_ a new planet. I know it because I -don’t perturbate for nothing. There has got to be a dog or a planet, -one or the other; and there isn’t any dog around here, so there’s -_got_ to be a planet. I hope it is going to be named after me; I -should just love it if I can’t have a constellation. - - - - - MARJORIE FLEMING, THE WONDER - CHILD - - -Marjorie has been in her tiny grave a hundred years; and still the -tears fall for her, and will fall. What an intensely human little -creature she was! How vividly she lived her small life; how -impulsive she was; how sudden, how tempestuous, how tender, how -loving, how sweet, how loyal, how rebellious, how repentant, how -wise, how unwise, how bursting with fun, how frank, how free, how -honest, how innocently bad, how natively good, how charged with -quaint philosophies, how winning, how precious, how adorable--and -how perennially and indestructibly interesting! And all this -exhibited, proved, and recorded before she reached the end of her -ninth year and “fell on sleep.” - -Geographically considered, the lassie was a Scot; but in fact she -had no frontiers, she was the world’s child, she was the human race -in little. It is one of the prides of my life that the first time I -ever heard her name it came from the lips of Dr. John Brown--his -very own self--Dr. John Brown of Edinburgh--Dr. John Brown of _Rab -and His Friends_--Dr. John Brown of the beautiful face and the sweet -spirit, whose friends loved him with a love that was worship--Dr. -John Brown, who was Marjorie’s biographer, and who had clasped an -aged hand that had caressed Marjorie’s fifty years before, thus -linking me with that precious child by an unbroken chain of -handshakes, for I had shaken hands with Dr. John. This was in -Edinburgh thirty-six years ago. He gave my wife his little biography -of Marjorie, and I have it yet. - -Is Marjorie known in America? No--at least to only a few. When Mr. -L. MacBean’s new and enlarged and charming biography[17] of her was -published five years ago it was sent over here in sheets, the market -not being large enough to justify recomposing and reprinting it on -our side of the water. I find that there are even cultivated -Scotchmen among us who have not heard of Marjorie Fleming. - -She was born in Kirkcaldy in 1803, and she died when she was eight -years and eleven months old. By the time she was five years old she -was become a devourer of various kinds of literature--both heavy and -light--and was also become a quaint and free-spoken and charming -little thinker and philosopher whose views were a delightful jumble -of first-hand cloth of gold and second-hand rags. - -When she was six she opened up that rich mine, her journals, and -continued to work it by spells during the remainder of her brief -life. She was a pet of Walter Scott, from the cradle, and when he -could have her society for a few hours he was content, and required -no other. Her little head was full of noble passages from -Shakespeare and other favorites of hers, and the fact that she could -deliver them with moving effect is proof that her elocution was a -born gift with her, and not a mechanical reproduction of somebody -else’s art, for a child’s parrot-work does not move. When she was a -little creature of seven years, Sir Walter Scott “would read ballads -to her in his own glorious way, the two getting wild with excitement -over them; and he would take her on his knee and make her repeat -Constance’s speeches in _King John_ till he swayed to and fro, -sobbing his fill.” [Dr. John Brown.] - -“_Sobbing his fill_”--that great man--over that little thing’s -inspired interpretations. It is a striking picture; there is no mate -to it. Sir Walter said of her: - -“She’s the most extraordinary creature I ever met with, and her -repeating of Shakespeare overpowers me as nothing else does.” - -She spent the whole of her little life in a Presbyterian heaven; yet -she was not affected by it; she could not have been happier if she -had been in the other heaven. - -She was made out of thunderstorms and sunshine, and not even her -little perfunctory pieties and shop-made holiness could squelch her -spirits or put out her fires for long. Under pressure of a pestering -sense of duty she heaves a shovelful of trade godliness into her -journals every little while, but it does not offend, for none of it -is her own; it is all borrowed, it is a convention, a custom of her -environment, it is the most innocent of hypocrisies, and this -tainted butter of hers soon gets to be as delicious to the reader as -are the stunning and worldly sincerities she splatters around it -every time her pen takes a fresh breath. The adorable child! she -hasn’t a discoverable blemish in her make-up anywhere. - -Marjorie’s first letter was written before she was six years old; it -was to her cousin, Isa Keith, a young lady of whom she was -passionately fond. It was done in a sprawling hand, ten words to the -page--and in those foolscap days a page was a spacious thing: - -“MY DEAR ISA-- - -“I now sit down on my botom to answer all the kind & beloved letters -which you was so so good as to write to me. This is the first time I -ever wrote a letter in my life. - -“Miss Potune, a lady of my acquaintance, praises me dreadfully. I -repeated something out of Deen Swift & she said I was fit for the -stage, & you may think I was primmed up with majestick Pride, but -upon my word I felt myself turn a little birsay--birsay is a word -which is a word that William composed which is as you may suppose a -little enraged. This horid fat Simpliton says that my Aunt is -beautifull which is intirely impossible for that is not her nature.” - -Frank? Yes, Marjorie was that. And during the brief moment that she -enchanted this dull earth with her presence she was the -bewitchingest speller and punctuator in all Christendom. - -The average child of six “prints” its correspondence in rickety and -reeling Roman capitals, or dictates to mamma, who puts the little -chap’s message on paper. The sentences are labored, repetitious, and -slow; there are but three or four of them; they deal in information -solely, they contain no ideas, they venture no judgments, no -opinions; they inform papa that the cat has had kittens again; that -Mary has a new doll that can wink; that Tommy has lost his top; and -will papa come soon and bring the writer something nice? But with -Marjorie it is different. - -She needs no amanuensis, she puts her message on paper herself; and -not in weak and tottering Roman capitals, but in a thundering hand -that can be heard a mile and be read across the square without -glasses. And she doesn’t have to study, and puzzle, and search her -head for something to say; no, she had only to connect the pen with -the paper and turn on the current; the words spring forth at once, -and go chasing after each other like leaves dancing down a stream. -For she has a faculty, has Marjorie! Indeed yes; when she sits down -on her bottom to do a letter, there isn’t going to be any lack of -materials, nor of fluency, and neither is her letter going to be -wanting in pepper, or vinegar, or vitriol, or any of the other -condiments employed by genius to save a literary work of art from -flatness and vapidity. And as for judgments and opinions, they are -as commodiously in her line as they are in the Lord Chief Justice’s. -They have weight, too, and are convincing: for instance, for -thirty-six years they have damaged that “horid Simpliton” in my -eyes; and, more than that, they have even imposed upon me--and most -unfairly and unwarrantably--an aversion to the horid fat Simpliton’s -name; a perfectly innocent name, and yet, because of the prejudice -against it with which this child has poisoned my mind for a -generation I cannot see “Potune” on paper and keep my gorge from -rising. - -In her journals Marjorie changes her subject whenever she wants -to--and that is pretty often. When the deep moralities pay her a -passing visit she registers them. Meantime if a cherished love -passage drifts across her memory she shoves it into the midst of the -moralities--it is nothing to her that it may not feel at home there: - -“We should not be happy at the death of our fellow creatures, for -they love life like us love your neighbor & he will love you -Bountifulness and Mercifulness are always rewarded. In my travels I -met with a handsome lad named Charles Balfour Esge [Esqr.] and from -him I got offers of marage--ofers of marage did I say? nay plainly -[he] loved me. Goodness does not belong to the wicked but badness -dishonor befals wickedness but not virtue, no disgrace befals virtue -perciverence overcomes almost al difficulties no I am rong in saying -almost I should say always as it is so perciverence is a virtue my -Csosin says pacience is a cristain virtue, which is true.” - -She is not copying these profundities out of a book, she is getting -them out of her memory; her spelling shows that the book is not -before her. The easy and effortless flow of her talk is a marvelous -thing in a baby of her age. Her interests are as wide and varied as -a grown person’s: she discusses all sorts of books, and fearlessly -delivers judgment upon them; she examines whomsoever crosses the -field of her vision, and again delivers a verdict; she dips into -religion and history, and even into politics; she takes a shy at the -news of the day, and comments upon it; and now and then she drops -into poetry--into rhyme, at any rate. - -Marjorie would not intentionally mislead anyone, but she has just -been making a remark which moves me to hoist a danger-signal for the -protection of the modern reader. It is this one: “_In my travels._” -Naturally we are apt to clothe a word with its present-day -meaning--the meaning we are used to, the meaning we are familiar -with; and so--well, you get the idea: some words that are giants -to-day were very small dwarfs a century ago, and if we are not -careful to take that vast enlargement into account when we run -across them in the literatures of the past, they are apt to convey -to us a distinctly wrong impression. To-day, when a person says “_in -my travels_” he means that he has been around the globe nineteen or -twenty times, and we so understand him; and so, when Marjorie says -it, it startles us for a moment, for it gives us the impression that -_she_ has been around it fourteen or fifteen times; whereas, such is -not at all the case. She has traveled prodigiously for _her_ day, -but not for ours. She had “traveled,” altogether, three miles by -land and eight by water--per ferryboat. She is fairly and justly -proud of it, for it is the exact equivalent, in grandeur and -impressiveness, in the case of a child of our day, to two trips -across the Atlantic and a thousand miles by rail. - -“In the love novels all the heroins are very desperate Isabella will -not allow me to speak about lovers and heroins, and tiss too refined -for my taste a loadstone is a curous thing indeed it is true Heroic -love doth never win disgrace this is my maxum and I will follow it -forever Miss Eguards [Edgeworth] tails are very good particularly -some that are very much adopted for youth as Lazy Lawrence Tarelton -False Key &c &c Persons of the parlement house are as I think caled -Advocakes Mr Cay & Mr Crakey has that honour. This has been a very -mild winter. Mr Banestors Budget is to-night I hope it will be a -good one. A great many authors have expressed themselfs too -sentimentaly.... The Mercandile Afares are in a perilous situation -sickness & a delicante frame I have not & I do not know what it is, -but Ah me perhaps I shall have it.[18] Grandure reigns in -Edinburgh.... Tomson is a beautifull author and Pope but nothing is -like Shakepear of which I have a little knolegde of. An unfortunate -death James the 5 had for he died of greif Macbeth is a pretty -composition but awful one Macbeth is so bad & wicked, but Lady -Macbeth is so hardened in guilt she does not mind her sins & faults -No. - -“... A sailor called here to say farewell, it must be dreadful to -leave his native country where he might get a wife or perhaps me, -for I love him very much & with all my heart, but O I forgot -Isabella forbid me to speak about love.... I wish everybody would -follow her example & be as good as pious & virtious as she is & they -would get husbands soon enough, love is a parithatick [pathetic] -thing as well as troublesome & tiresome but O Isabella forbid me to -speak about it.” - -But the little rascal can’t _keep_ from speaking about it, because -it is her supreme interest in life; her heart is not capacious -enough to hold all the product that is engendered by the -ever-recurring inflaming spectacle of man-creatures going by, and -the surplus is obliged to spill over; Isa’s prohibitions are no -sufficient dam for such a discharge. - -“Love I think is the fasion for everybody is marring [marrying].... -Yesterday a marrade man named Mr John Balfour Esg [Esq.] offered to -kiss me, & offered to marry me though the man was espused -[espoused], & his wife was present & said he must ask her permission -but he did not, I think he was ashamed or confounded before 3 -gentleman Mr Jobson and two Mr Kings.” - -I must make room here for another of Marjorie’s second-hand -high-morality outbreaks. They give me a sinful delight which I ought -to grieve at, I suppose, but I can’t seem to manage it: - -“James Macary is to be transported for murder in the flower of his -youth O passion is a terible thing for it leads people from sin to -sin at last it gets so far as to come to greater crimes than we -thought we could comit and it must be dreadful to leave his native -country and his friends and to be so disgraced and affronted.” - -That is Marjorie talking shop, dear little diplomat--to please and -comfort mamma and Isa, no doubt. - -This wee little child has a marvelous range of interests. She reads -philosophies, novels, baby books, histories, the mighty poets--reads -them with burning interest, and frankly and freely criticizes them -all; she revels in storms, sunsets, cloud effects, scenery of -mountain, plain, ocean, and forest, and all the other wonders of -nature, and sets down her joy in them all; she loves people, she -detests people, according to mood and circumstances, and delivers -her opinion of them, sometimes seasoned with attar of roses, -sometimes with vitriol; in games, and all kinds of childish play she -is an enthusiast; she adores animals, adores them all; none is too -forlorn to fail of favor in her friendly eyes, no creature so humble -that she cannot find something in it on which to lavish her -caressing worship. - -“I am going to-morrow to a delightfull place, Braehead by name, -belonging to Mrs. Crraford [Crauford], where there is ducks cocks -hens bobblyjocks 2 dogs 2 cats and swine which is delightful. I -think it is shocking to think that the dog and cat should bear them -and they are drowned after all.” - -She is a dear child, a bewitching little scamp; and never dearer, I -think, than when the devil has had her in possession and she is -breaking her stormy little heart over the remembrance of it: - -“I confess I have been very more like a little young divil than a -creature for when Isabella went up stairs to teach me religion and -my multiplication and to be good and all my other lessons I stamped -with my foot and threw my new hat which she had made on the ground -and was sulky and was dreadfully passionate, but she never whiped me -but said Marjory go into another room and think what a great crime -you are committing letting your temper git the better of you. But I -went so sulkily that the devil got the better of me but she never -never never whips me so that I think I would be the better of it & -the next time that I behave ill I think she should do it for she -never does it.... Isabella has given me praise for checking my -temper for I was sulky even when she was kneeling an whole hour -teaching me to write.” - -The wise Isabella, the sweet and patient Isabella! It is just a -hundred years now (May, 1909) since the grateful child made that -golden picture of you and laid your good heart bare for distant -generations to see and bless; a hundred years--but if the picture -endures a thousand it will still bring you the blessing, and with it -the reverent homage that is your due. You had the seeing eye and the -wise head. A fool would have punished Marjorie and wrecked her, but -you held your hand, as knowing that when her volcanic fires went -down she would repent, and grieve, and punish herself, and be saved. - -Sometimes when Marjorie was miraculously good, she got a penny for -it, and once when she got an entire sixpence, she recognized that it -was wealth. This wealth brought joy to her heart. Why? Because she -could spend it on somebody else! We who know Marjorie would know -that without being told it. I am sorry--often sorry, often -grieved--that I was not there and looking over her shoulder when she -was writing down her valued penny rewards: I would have said, “Save -that scrap of manuscript, dear; make a will, and leave it to your -posterity, to save them from want when penury shall threaten them; a -day will come when it will be worth a thousand guineas, and a later -day will come when it will be worth five thousand; here you are, -rejoicing in copper farthings, and don’t know that your magic pen is -showering gold coin all over the paper.” But I was not there to say -it; those who were there did not think to say it; and so there is -not a line of that quaint precious cacography in existence to-day. - -I have adored Marjorie for six-and-thirty years; I have adored her -in detail, I have adored the whole of her; but above all other -details--just a little above all other details--I have adored her -because she detested that odious and confusing and unvanquishable -and unlearnable and shameless invention, the multiplication table: - -“I am now going to tell you the horible and wretched plaege [plague] -that my multiplication gives me you can’t conceive it the most -Devilish thing is 8 times 8 & 7 times 7 it is what nature itself -cant endure.” - -I stand reverently uncovered in the presence of that holy verdict. - -Here is that person again whom I so dislike--and for no reason at -all except that my Marjorie doesn’t like her: - -“Miss Potune is very fat she pretends to be very learned she says -she saw a stone that dropt from the skies, but she is a good -christian.” - -Of course, stones have fallen from the skies, but I don’t believe -this “horid fat Simpliton” had ever seen one that had done it; but -even if she had, it was none of her business, and she could have -been better employed than in going around exaggerating it and -carrying on about it and trying to make trouble with a little child -that had never done _her_ any harm. - -“... The Birds do chirp the Lambs do leap and Nature is clothed with -the garments of green yellow, and white, purple, and red. - -“... There is a book that is called the Newgate Calender that -contains all the Murders: all the Murders did I say, nay all Thefts -& Forgeries that ever were committed & fills me with horror & -consternation.” - -Marjorie is a diligent little student, and her education is always -storming along and making great time and lots of noise: - -“Isabella this morning taught me some French words one of which is -bon suar the interpretation is good morning.” - -It slanders Isabella, but the slander is not intentional. The main -thing to notice is that big word, “interpretation.” Not many -children of Marjorie’s age can handle a five syllable team in that -easy and confident way. It is observable that she frequently employs -words of an imposingly formidable size, and is manifestly quite -familiar with them and not at all afraid of them. - -“Isa is teaching me to make Simecolings nots of interrigations -periods & commas &c. As this is Sunday I will meditate uppon -senciable & Religious subjects first I should be very thankful I am -not a beggar as many are.” - -That was the “first.” She didn’t get to her second subject, but got -side-tracked by a saner interest, and used her time to better -purpose. - -“It is melancholy to think, that I have so many talents, & many -there are that have not had the attention paid to them that I have, -& yet they contrive to be better then me. - -“... Isabella is far too indulgent to me & even the Miss Crafords -say that they wonder at her patience with me & it is indeed true for -my temper is a bad one.” - -The daring child wrote a (synopsized) history of Mary Queen of Scots -and of five of the royal Jameses in rhyme--but never mind, we have -no room to discuss it here. Nothing was entirely beyond her literary -jurisdiction; if it had occurred to her that the laws of Rome needed -codifying she would have taken a chance at it. - -Here is a sad note: - -“My religion is greatly falling off because I dont pray with so much -attention when I am saying my prayers and my character is lost -a-mong the Breahead people I hope I will be religious again but as -for regaining my character I despare of it.” - -When religion and character go, they leave a large vacuum. But there -are ways to fill it: - -“I’ve forgot to say, but I’ve four lovers, the other one is Harry -Watson, a very delightful boy.... James Keith hardly ever Spoke to -me, he said Girl! make less noise.... Craky hall ... I walked to -that delightfull place with a delightful young man beloved by all -his friends and espacialy by me his loveress but I must not talk any -longer about him for Isa said it is not proper for to speak of -gentalman but I will never forget him.... - -“The Scythians tribe live very coarsely for a Gluton Introduced to -Arsaces the Captain of the Army, 1 man who Dressed hair & another -man who was a good cook but Arsaces said that he would keep 1 for -brushing his horses tail and the other to fead his pigs.... - -“On Saturday I expected no less than three well-made bucks, the -names of whom is here advertised. Mr. Geo. Crakey [Cragie], and Wm. -Keith and Jn Keith--the first is the funniest of every one of them. -Mr. Crakey and I walked to Craky-hall [Craigiehall] hand and hand in -Innocence and matitation sweet thinking on the kind love which flows -in our tender hearted mind which is overflowing with majestic -pleasure no one was ever so polite to me in the hole state of my -existence. Mr. Craky you must know is a great Buck and pretty -good-looking.” - -For a purpose, I wish the reader to take careful note of these -statistics: - -“I am going to tell you of a melancholy story. A young turkie of 2 -or 3 months old, would you believe it, the father broke its leg, & -he killed another! I think he ought to be transported or hanged.” - -Marjorie wrote some verses about this tragedy--I think. I cannot be -quite certain it is this one, for in the verses there are three -deaths, whereas these statistics do not furnish so many. Also in the -statistics the father of the deceased is indifferent about the loss -he has sustained, whereas in the verses he is not. Also in the third -verse, the _mother_, too, exhibits feeling, whereas in the two -closing verses of the poem she--at least it seems to be she--is -indifferent. At least it looks like indifference to me, and I -believe it _is_ indifference: - - “Three turkeys fair their last have breathed, - And now this world forever leaved; - Their father, and their mother too, - They sighed and weep as well as you; - Indeed, the rats their bones have cranched. - Into eternity theire launched. - A direful death indeed they had, - As wad put any parent mad; - But she was more than usual calm, - She did not give a single dam.” - -The naughty little scamp! I mean, for not leaving out the _l_ in the -word “Calm,” so as to perfect the rhyme. It seems a pity to damage -with a lame rhyme a couplet that is otherwise without a blemish. - -Marjorie wrote four journals. She began the first one in January, -1809, when she was just six years old, and finished it five months -later, in June. - -She began the second in the following month, and finished it six -months afterward (January, 1810), when she was just seven. - -She began the third one in April, 1810, and finished it in the -autumn. - -She wrote the fourth in the winter of 1810-11, and the last entry in -it bears date July 19, 1811, and she died exactly five months later, -December 19th, aged eight years and eleven months. It contains her -rhymed Scottish histories. - -Let me quote from Dr. John Brown: - -“The day before her death, Sunday, she sat up in bed, worn and thin, -her eye gleaming as with the light of a coming world, and with a -tremulous, old voice repeated a long poem by Burns--heavy with the -shadow of death, and lit with the fantasy of the judgment seat--the -publican’s prayer in paraphrase, beginning: - - “‘Why am I loth to leave this earthly scene? - Have I so found it full of pleasing charms? - Some drops of joy, with draughts of ill between, - Some gleams of sunshine ’mid renewing storms.’ - -“It is more affecting than we care to say to read her mother’s and -Isabella Keith’s letters written immediately after her death. Old -and withered, tattered and pale, they are now; but when you read -them, how quick, how throbbing with life and love! how rich in that -language of affection which only women, and Shakespeare, and Luther -can use--that power of detaining the soul over the beloved object -and its loss.” - -Fifty years after Marjorie’s death her sister, writing to Dr. Brown, -said: - -“My mother was struck by the patient quietness manifested by -Marjorie during this illness, unlike her ardent, impulsive nature; -but love and poetic feeling were unquenched. When Dr. Johnstone -rewarded her submissiveness with a sixpence, the request speedily -followed that she might get out ere New Year’s Day came. When asked -why she was so desirous of getting out, she immediately rejoined: -‘Oh, I am so anxious to buy something with my sixpence for my dear -Isa Keith.’ Again, when lying very still, her mother asked her if -there was anything she wished: ‘Oh yes, if you would just leave the -room door open a wee bit, and play the _Land o’ the Leal_, and I -will lie and _think_ and enjoy myself’ (this is just as stated to me -by her mother and mine). Well, the happy day came, alike to parents -and child, when Marjorie was allowed to come forth from the nursery -to the parlor. It was Sabbath evening, and after tea. My father, who -idolized this child, and never afterward in my hearing mentioned her -name, took her in his arms; and while walking her up and down the -room she said: ‘Father, I will repeat something to you; what would -you like?’ He said, ‘Just choose for yourself, Maidie.’ She -hesitated for a moment between the paraphrase, ‘Few are thy days and -full of woe,’ and the lines of Burns already quoted, but decided on -the latter; a remarkable choice for a child. The repeating of these -lines seemed to stir up the depths of feeling in her soul. She asked -to be allowed to write a poem. There was a doubt whether it would be -right to allow her, in case of hurting her eyes. She pleaded -earnestly, ‘Just this once’; the point was yielded, her slate was -given her, and with great rapidity she wrote an address of fourteen -lines ‘To my loved cousin on the author’s recovery.’” - -The cousin was Isa Keith. - -“She went to bed apparently well, awoke in the middle of the night -with the old cry of woe to a mother’s heart, ‘My head, my head!’ -Three days of the dire malady, ‘water in the head,’ followed, and -the end came.” - ------ - -Footnote 17: - - _Marjorie Fleming._ By L. MacBean. G. P. Putnam’s Sons, - publishers, London and New York. - - Permission to use the extracts quoted from Marjorie’s Journal in - this article has been granted me by the publishers. - -Footnote 18: - - It is a whole century since the dimly conscious little prophet - said it, but the pathos of it is still there. - - - - - ADAM’S SOLILOQUY - - (The spirit of Adam is supposed to be visiting New York City - inspecting the dinosaur at the Museum of Natural History) - - (1905) - - I - -It is strange ... very strange. _I_ do not remember this creature. -(_After gazing long and admiringly._) Well, it is wonderful! The -mere _skeleton_ fifty-seven feet long and sixteen feet high! Thus -far, it seems, they’ve found only this sample--without doubt a -merely medium-sized one; a person could not step out here into the -Park and happen by luck upon the largest horse in America; no, he -would happen upon one that would look small alongside of the biggest -Normandy. It is quite likely that the biggest dinosaur was ninety -feet long and twenty feet high. It would be five times as long as an -elephant; an elephant would be to it what a calf is to an elephant. -The bulk of the creature! The weight of him! As long as the longest -whale, and twice the substance in him! And all good wholesome pork, -most likely; meat enough to last a village a year.... Think of a -hundred of them in line, draped in shining cloth of gold!--a -majestic thing for a coronation procession. But expensive, for he -would eat much; only kings and millionaires could afford him. - -I have no recollection of him; neither Eve nor I had heard of him -until yesterday. We spoke to Noah about him; he colored and changed -the subject. Being brought back to it--and pressed a little--he -confessed that in the matter of stocking the Ark the stipulations -had not been carried out with absolute strictness--that is, in minor -details, unessentials. There were some irregularities. He said the -boys were to blame for this--the boys mainly, his own fatherly -indulgence partly. They were in the giddy heyday of their youth at -the time, the happy springtime of life; their hundred years sat upon -them lightly, and--well, he had once been a boy himself, and he had -not the heart to be too exacting with them. And so--well, they did -things they shouldn’t have done, and he--to be candid, he winked. -But on the whole they did pretty faithful work, considering their -age. They collected and stowed a good share of the really useful -animals; and also, when Noah was not watching, a multitude of -useless ones, such as flies, mosquitoes, snakes, and so on, but they -did certainly leave ashore a good many creatures which might -possibly have had value some time or other, in the course of time. -Mainly these were vast saurians a hundred feet long, and monstrous -mammals, such as the megatherium and that sort, and there was really -some excuse for leaving them behind, for two reasons: (1) it was -manifest that some time or other they would be needed as fossils for -museums and (2) there had been a miscalculation, the Ark was smaller -than it should have been, and so there wasn’t room for those -creatures. There was actually fossil material enough all by -itself to freight twenty-five Arks like that one. As for the -dinosaur----But Noah’s conscience was easy; it was not named in his -cargo list and he and the boys were not aware that there was such a -creature. He said he could not blame himself for not knowing about -the dinosaur, because it was an American animal, and America had not -then been discovered. - -Noah went on to say, “I did reproach the boys for not making the -most of the room we had, by discarding trashy animals and -substituting beasts like the mastodon, which could be useful to man -in doing heavy work such as the elephant performs, but they said -those great creatures would have increased our labors beyond our -strength, in the matter of feeding and watering them, we being -short-handed. There was something in that. We had no pump; there was -but one window; we had to let down a bucket from that, and haul it -up a good fifty feet, which was very tiresome; then we had to carry -the water downstairs--fifty feet again, in cases where it was for -the elephants and their kind, for we kept them in the hold to serve -for ballast. As it was, we lost many animals--choice animals that -would have been valuable in menageries--different breeds of lions, -tigers, hyenas, wolves, and so on; for they wouldn’t drink the water -after the salt sea water got mixed with the fresh. But we never lost -a locust, nor a grasshopper, nor a weevil, nor a rat, nor a cholera -germ, nor any of that sort of beings. On the whole, I think we did -very well, everything considered. We were shepherds and farmers; we -had never been to sea before; we were ignorant of naval matters, and -I know this for certain, that there is more difference between -agriculture and navigation than a person would think. It is my -opinion that the two trades do not belong together. Shem thinks the -same; so does Japheth. As for what Ham thinks, it is not important. -Ham is biased. You find me a Presbyterian that isn’t, if you think -you can.” - -He said it aggressively; it had in it the spirit of a challenge. I -avoided argument by changing the subject. With Noah, arguing is a -passion, a disease, and it is growing upon him; has been growing -upon him for thirty thousand years, and more. It makes him -unpopular, unpleasant; many of his oldest friends dread to meet him. -Even strangers soon get to avoiding him, although at first they are -glad to meet him and gaze at him, on account of his celebrated -adventure. For a time they are proud of his notice, because he is so -distinguished; but he argues them to rags, and before long they -begin to wish, like the rest, that something had happened to the -Ark. - - II - -(_On the bench in the Park, midafternoon, dreamily noting the drift, -of the human species back and forth._) To think--this multitude is -but a wee little fraction of the earth’s population! And all blood -kin to me, every one! Eve ought to have come with me; this would -excite her affectionate heart. She was never able to keep her -composure when she came upon a relative; she would try to kiss every -one of these people, black and white and all. (_A baby wagon -passes._) How little change one can notice--none at all, in fact. I -remember the first child well----Let me see ... it is three hundred -thousand years ago come Tuesday. This one is just like it. So -between the first one and the last one there is really nothing to -choose. The same insufficiency of hair, the same absence of teeth, -the same feebleness of body and apparent vacancy of mind, the same -general unattractiveness all around. Yet Eve worshiped that early -one, and it was pretty to see her with it. This latest one’s mother -worships _it_; it shows in her eyes--it is the very look that used -to shine in Eve’s. To think that so subtle and intangible a thing as -a _look_ could flit and flash from face to face down a procession -three hundred thousand years long and remain the same, without shade -of change! Yet here it is, lighting this young creature’s face just -as it lighted Eve’s in the long ago--the newest thing I have seen in -the earth, and the oldest. Of course, the dinosaur----But that is in -another class. - -She drew the baby wagon to the bench and sat down and began to shove -it softly back and forth with one hand while she held up a newspaper -with the other and absorbed herself in its contents. Presently, -“My!” she exclaimed; which startled me, and I ventured to ask her, -modestly and respectfully, what was the matter. She courteously -passed the paper to me and said--pointing with her finger: - -“There--it reads like fact, but I don’t know.” - -It was very embarrassing. I tried to look at my ease, and -nonchalantly turned the paper this and that and the other way, but -her eye was upon me and I felt that I was not succeeding. Pretty -soon she asked, hesitatingly: - -“Can’t--can’t--you--read?” - -I had to confess that I couldn’t. It filled her with wonder. But it -had one pleasant effect--it interested her in me, and I was -thankful, for I was getting lonesome for some one to talk to and -listen to. The young fellow who was showing me around--on his own -motion, I did not invite him--had missed his appointment at the -Museum, and I was feeling disappointed, for he was good company. -When I told the young woman I could not read, she asked me another -embarrassing question: - -“Where are you from?” - -I skirmished--to gain time and position. I said: - -“Make a guess. See how near you can come.” - -She brightened, and exclaimed: - -“I shall dearly like it, sir, if you don’t mind. If I guess right -will you tell me?” - -“Yes.” - -“Honor bright?” - -“Honor bright? What is that?” - -She laughed delightedly and said: - -“That’s a good start! I was _sure_ that that phrase would catch you. -I know one thing, now, all right. I know----” - -“What do you know?” - -“That you are not an American. And you aren’t, _are_ you?” - -“No. You are right. I’m not--honor bright, as you say.” - -She looked immensely pleased with herself, and said: - -“I reckon I’m not always smart, but _that_ was smart, anyway. But -not so _very_, after all, because I already knew--believed I -knew--that you were a foreigner, by another sign.” - -“What was that?” - -“Your accent.” - -She was an accurate observer; I do speak English with a heavenly -accent, and she had detected the foreign twang in it. She ran -charmingly on, most naïvely and engagingly pleased with her triumph: - -“The minute you said, ‘See ’ow near you can come to it,’ I said to -myself, ‘Two to one he is a foreigner, and ten to one he’s English.’ -Now that _is_ your nationality, _isn’t_ it?” - -I was sorry to spoil her victory, but I had to do it: “Ah--you’ll -have to guess again.” - -“What--you are not an Englishman?” - -“No--honor bright.” - -She looked me searchingly over, evidently communing with -herself--adding up my points, then she said: - -“Well, you don’t _look_ like an Englishman, and that is true.” After -a little she added, “The fact is, you don’t look like _any_ -foreigner--not quite like ... like _anybody_ I’ve seen before. I -will guess some more.” - -She guessed every country whose name she could think of and grew -gradually discouraged. Finally she said: - -“You must be the Man Without a Country--the one the story tells -about. You don’t seem to have any nationality at all. How did you -come to come to America? Have you any kinfolks here?” - -“Yes--several.” - -“Oh, then you came to see _them_.” - -“Partly--yes.” - -She sat awhile, thinking, then: - -“Well, I’m not going to give up quite yet. Where do you live when -you are at home--in a city, or in the country?” - -“Which do you think?” - -“Well, I don’t quite know. You _do_ look a little countrified, if -you don’t mind my saying it; but you look a little citified, -too--not much, but a little, although you can’t read, which is very -curious, and you are not used to newspapers. Now _my_ guess is that -you live mainly in the country when you are at home, and not very -much in the city. Is that right?” - -“Yes, quite right.” - -“Oh, good! Now I’ll take a fresh start.” - -Then she wore herself to the bone, naming cities. No success. Next -she wanted me to help her a little with some “pointers,” as she -phrased it. Was my city large? Yes. Was it very large? Yes. Did they -have mobiles there? No. Electric light? No. Railroads, hospitals, -colleges, cops? No. - -“Why, then, it’s not civilized! Where _can_ that place be? Be good -and tell me just one peculiarity of it--then maybe I can guess.” - -“Well, then, just one; it has gates of pearl.” - -“Oh, go along! That’s the New Jerusalem. It isn’t fair to joke. -Never mind. I’ll guess it yet--it will come into my head pretty -soon, just when I’m not expecting it. Oh, I’ve got an idea! Please -talk a little in your own language--that’ll be a good pointer.” I -accommodated her with a sentence or two. She shook her head -despondently. - -“No,” she said, “it doesn’t sound human. I mean, it doesn’t sound -like any of these other foreigners. It’s pretty enough--it’s quite -pretty, I think--but I’m sure I’ve not heard it before. Maybe if you -were to pronounce your name---- What _is_ your name, if you’ll be -so good?” - -“Adam.” - -“Adam?” - -“Yes.” - -“But Adam _what_?” - -“That is all--just Adam.” - -“Nothing at all but just that? Why, how curious! There’s plenty of -Adams; how can they tell you from the rest?” - -“Oh, that is no trouble. I’m the only one there is, there where I’m -from.” - -“Upon my word! Well, it beats the band! It reminds a person of the -old original. That was his name, too, and he hadn’t any but -that--just like you.” Then, archly, “You’ve heard of him, I -suppose?” - -“Oh yes! Do you know him? Have you ever seen him?” - -“_Seen_ him? Seen _Adam_? Thanks to goodness, no! It would scare me -into fits.” - -“I don’t see why.” - -“You don’t?” - -“No.” - -“_Why_ don’t you see why?” - -“Because there is no sense in a person being scared of his kin.” - -“_Kin?_” - -“Yes. Isn’t he a distant relative of yours?” - -She thought it was prodigiously funny, and said it was perfectly -true, but _she_ never would have been bright enough to think of it. -I found it a new and most pleasant sensation to have my wit admired, -and was about to try to do some more when that young fellow came. He -planted himself on the other side of the young woman and began a -vapid remark about the weather, but she gave him a look that -withered him and got stiffly up and wheeled the baby away. - - - - - BIBLE TEACHING AND RELIGIOUS - PRACTICE - - -Religion had its share in the changes of civilization and national -character, of course. What share? The lion’s. In the history of the -human race this has always been the case, will always be the case, -to the end of time, no doubt; or at least until man by the slow -processes of evolution shall develop into something really fine and -high--some billions of years hence, say. - -The Christian’s Bible is a drug store. Its contents remain the same; -but the medical practice changes. For eighteen hundred years these -changes were slight--scarcely noticeable. The practice was -allopathic--allopathic in its rudest and crudest form. The dull and -ignorant physician day and night, and all the days and all the -nights, drenched his patient with vast and hideous doses of the most -repulsive drugs to be found in the store’s stock; he bled him, -cupped him, purged him, puked him, salivated him, never gave his -system a chance to rally, nor nature a chance to help. He kept him -religion sick for eighteen centuries, and allowed him not a well day -during all that time. The stock in the store was made up of about -equal portions of baleful and debilitating poisons, and healing and -comforting medicines; but the practice of the time confined the -physician to the use of the former; by consequence, he could only -damage his patient, and that is what he did. - -Not until far within our century was any considerable change in the -practice introduced; and then mainly, or in effect only, in Great -Britain and the United States. In the other countries to-day, the -patient either still takes the ancient treatment or does not call -the physician at all. In the English-speaking countries the changes -observable in our century were forced by that very thing just -referred to--the revolt of the patient against the system; they were -not projected by the physician. The patient fell to doctoring -himself, and the physician’s practice began to fall off. He modified -his method to get back his trade. He did it gradually, reluctantly; -and never yielded more at a time than the pressure compelled. At -first he relinquished the daily dose of hell and damnation, and -administered it every other day only; next he allowed another day to -pass; then another and presently another; when he had restricted it -at last to Sundays, and imagined that now there would surely be a -truce, the homœopath arrived on the field and made him abandon hell -and damnation altogether, and administered Christ’s love, and -comfort, and charity and compassion in its stead. These had been in -the drug store all the time, gold labeled and conspicuous among the -long shelfloads of repulsive purges and vomits and poisons, and so -the practice was to blame that they had remained unused, not the -pharmacy. To the ecclesiastical physician of fifty years ago, his -predecessor for eighteen centuries was a quack; to the -ecclesiastical physician of to-day, his predecessor of fifty years -ago was a quack. To the every-man-his-own-ecclesiastical-doctor -of--when?--what will the ecclesiastical physician of to-day be? -Unless evolution, which has been a truth ever since the globes, -suns, and planets of the solar system were but wandering films of -meteor dust, shall reach a limit and become a lie, there is but one -fate in store for him. - -The methods of the priest and the parson have been very curious, -their history is very entertaining. In all the ages the Roman Church -has owned slaves, bought and sold slaves, authorized and encouraged -her children to trade in them. Long after some Christian peoples had -freed their slaves the Church still held on to hers. If any could -know, to absolute certainty, that all this was right, and according -to God’s will and desire, surely it was she, since she was God’s -specially appointed representative in the earth and sole authorized -and infallible expounder of his Bible. There were the texts; there -was no mistaking their meaning; she was right, she was doing in this -thing what the Bible had mapped out for her to do. So unassailable -was her position that in all the centuries she had no word to say -against human slavery. Yet now at last, in our immediate day, we -hear a Pope saying slave trading is wrong, and we see him sending an -expedition to Africa to stop it. The texts remain: it is the -practice that has changed. Why? Because the world has corrected the -Bible. The Church never corrects it; and also never fails to drop in -at the tail of the procession--and take the credit of the -correction. As she will presently do in this instance. - -Christian England supported slavery and encouraged it for two -hundred and fifty years, and her Church’s consecrated ministers -looked on, sometimes taking an active hand, the rest of the time -indifferent. England’s interest in the business may be called a -Christian interest, a Christian industry. She had her full share in -its revival after a long period of inactivity, and this revival was -a Christian monopoly; that is to say, it was in the hands of -Christian countries exclusively. English parliaments aided the slave -traffic and protected it; two English kings held stock in -slave-catching companies. The first regular English slave -hunter--John Hawkins, of still revered memory--made such successful -havoc, on his second voyage, in the matter of surprising and burning -villages, and maiming, slaughtering, capturing, and selling their -unoffending inhabitants, that his delighted queen conferred the -chivalric honor of knighthood on him--a rank which had acquired its -chief esteem and distinction in other and earlier fields of -Christian effort. The new knight, with characteristic English -frankness and brusque simplicity, chose as his device the figure of -a negro slave, kneeling and in chains. Sir John’s work was the -invention of Christians, was to remain a bloody and awful monopoly -in the hands of Christians for a quarter of a millennium, was to -destroy homes, separate families, enslave friendless men and women, -and break a myriad of human hearts, to the end that Christian -nations might be prosperous and comfortable, Christian churches be -built, and the gospel of the meek and merciful Redeemer be spread -abroad in the earth; and so in the name of his ship, unsuspected but -eloquent and clear, lay hidden prophecy. She was called _The Jesus_. - -But at last in England, an illegitimate Christian rose against -slavery. It is curious that when a Christian rises against a rooted -wrong at all, he is usually an illegitimate Christian, member of -some despised and bastard sect. There was a bitter struggle, but in -the end the slave trade had to go--and went. The Biblical -authorization remained, but the practice changed. - -Then--the usual thing happened; the visiting English critic among us -began straightway to hold up his pious hands in horror at our -slavery. His distress was unappeasable, his words full of bitterness -and contempt. It is true we had not so many as fifteen hundred -thousand slaves for him to worry about, while his England still -owned twelve millions, in her foreign possessions; but that fact did -not modify his wail any, or stay his tears, or soften his censure. -The fact that every time we had tried to get rid of our slavery in -previous generations, but had always been obstructed, balked, and -defeated by England, was a matter of no consequence to him; it was -ancient history, and not worth the telling. - -Our own conversion came at last. We began to stir against slavery. -Hearts grew soft, here, there, and yonder. There was no place in the -land where the seeker could not find some small budding sign of pity -for the slave. No place in all the land but one--the pulpit. It -yielded at last; it always does. It fought a strong and stubborn -fight, and then did what it always does, joined the procession--at -the tail end. Slavery fell. The slavery text remained; the practice -changed, that was all. - -During many ages there were witches. The Bible said so. The Bible -commanded that they should not be allowed to live. Therefore the -Church, after doing its duty in but a lazy and indolent way for -eight hundred years, gathered up its halters, thumb-screws, and -firebrands, and set about its holy work in earnest. She worked hard -at it night and day during nine centuries and imprisoned, tortured, -hanged, and burned whole hordes and armies of witches, and washed -the Christian world clean with their foul blood. - -Then it was discovered that there was no such thing as witches, and -never had been. One does not know whether to laugh or to cry. Who -discovered that there was no such thing as a witch--the priest, the -parson? No, these never discover anything. At Salem, the parson -clung pathetically to his witch text after the laity had abandoned -it in remorse and tears for the crimes and cruelties it has -persuaded them to do. The parson wanted more blood, more shame, more -brutalities; it was the unconsecrated laity that stayed his hand. In -Scotland the parson killed the witch after the magistrate had -pronounced her innocent; and when the merciful legislature proposed -to sweep the hideous laws against witches from the statute book, it -was the parson who came imploring, with tears and imprecations, that -they be suffered to stand. - -There are no witches. The witch text remains; only the practice has -changed. Hell fire is gone, but the text remains. Infant damnation -is gone, but the text remains. More than two hundred death penalties -are gone from the law books, but the texts that authorized them -remain. - -Is it not well worthy of note that of all the multitude of texts -through which man has driven his annihilating pen he has never once -made the mistake of obliterating a good and useful one? It does -certainly seem to suggest that if man continues in the direction of -enlightenment, his religious practice may, in the end, attain some -semblance of human decency. - - - - - THE WAR PRAYER - (Dictated 1904-05) - - -It was a time of great and exalting excitement. The country was up -in arms, the war was on, in every breast burned the holy fire of -patriotism; the drums were beating, the bands playing, the toy -pistols popping, the bunched firecrackers hissing and spluttering; -on every hand and far down the receding and fading spread of roofs -and balconies a fluttering wilderness of flags flashed in the sun; -daily the young volunteers marched down the wide avenue gay and fine -in their new uniforms, the proud fathers and mothers and sisters and -sweethearts cheering them with voices choked with happy emotion as -they swung by; nightly the packed mass meetings listened, panting, -to patriot oratory which stirred the deepest deeps of their hearts, -and which they interrupted at briefest intervals with cyclones of -applause, the tears running down their cheeks the while; in the -churches the pastors preached devotion to flag and country, and -invoked the God of Battles, beseeching His aid in our good cause in -outpouring of fervid eloquence which moved every listener. It was -indeed a glad and gracious time, and the half dozen rash spirits -that ventured to disapprove of the war and cast a doubt upon its -righteousness straightway got such a stern and angry warning that -for their personal safety’s sake they quickly shrank out of sight -and offended no more in that way. - -Sunday morning came--next day the battalions would leave for the -front; the church was filled; the volunteers were there, their young -faces alight with martial dreams--visions of the stern advance, the -gathering momentum, the rushing charge, the flashing sabers, the -flight of the foe, the tumult, the enveloping smoke, the fierce -pursuit, the surrender!--them home from the war, bronzed heroes, -welcomed, adored, submerged in golden seas of glory! With the -volunteers sat their dear ones, proud, happy, and envied by the -neighbors and friends who had no sons and brothers to send forth to -the field of honor, there to win for the flag, or, failing, die the -noblest of noble deaths. The service proceeded; a war chapter from -the Old Testament was read; the first prayer was said; it was -followed by an organ burst that shook the building, and with one -impulse the house rose, with glowing eyes and beating hearts, and -poured out that tremendous invocation-- - - “God the all-terrible! Thou who ordainest, - Thunder thy clarion and lightning thy sword!” - -Then came the “long” prayer. None could remember the like of it for -passionate pleading and moving and beautiful language. The burden of -its supplication was, that an ever-merciful and benignant Father of -us all would watch over our noble young soldiers, and aid, comfort, -and encourage them in their patriotic work; bless them, shield them -in the day of battle and the hour of peril, bear them in His mighty -hand, make them strong and confident, invincible in the bloody -onset; help them to crush the foe, grant to them and to their flag -and country imperishable honor and glory-- - -An aged stranger entered and moved with slow and noiseless step up -the main aisle, his eyes fixed upon the minister, his long body -clothed in a robe that reached to his feet, his head bare, his white -hair descending in a frothy cataract to his shoulders, his seamy -face unnaturally pale, pale even to ghastliness. With all eyes -following him and wondering, he made his silent way; without -pausing, he ascended to the preacher’s side and stood there, -waiting. With shut lids the preacher, unconscious of his presence, -continued his moving prayer, and at last finished it with the words, -uttered in fervent appeal, “Bless our arms, grant us the victory, O -Lord our God, Father and Protector of our land and flag!” - -The stranger touched his arm, motioned him to step aside--which the -startled minister did--and took his place. During some moments he -surveyed the spellbound audience with solemn eyes, in which burned -an uncanny light; then in a deep voice he said: - -“I come from the Throne--bearing a message from Almighty God!” The -words smote the house with a shock; if the stranger perceived it he -gave no attention. “He has heard the prayer of His servant your -shepherd, and will grant it if such shall be your desire after I, -His messenger, shall have explained to you its import--that is to -say, its full import. For it is like unto many of the prayers of -men, in that it asks for more than he who utters it is aware -of--except he pause and think. - -“God’s servant and yours has prayed his prayer. Has he paused and -taken thought? Is it one prayer? No, it is two--one uttered, the -other not. Both have reached the ear of Him Who heareth all -supplications, the spoken and the unspoken. Ponder this--keep it in -mind. If you would beseech a blessing upon yourself, beware! lest -without intent you invoke a curse upon a neighbor at the same time. -If you pray for the blessing of rain upon your crop which needs it, -by that act you are possibly praying for a curse upon some -neighbor’s crop which may not need rain and can be injured by it. - -“You have heard your servant’s prayer--the uttered part of it. I am -commissioned of God to put into words the other part of it--that -part which the pastor--and also you in your hearts--fervently prayed -silently. And ignorantly and unthinkingly? God grant that it was so! -You heard these words: ‘Grant us the victory, O Lord our God!’ That -is sufficient. The _whole_ of the uttered prayer is compact into -those pregnant words. Elaborations were not necessary. When you have -prayed for victory you have prayed for many unmentioned results -which follow victory--_must_ follow it, cannot help but follow it. -Upon the listening spirit of God the Father fell also the unspoken -part of the prayer. He commandeth me to put it into words. Listen! - -“O Lord our Father, our young patriots, idols of our hearts, go -forth to battle--be Thou near them! With them--in spirit--we also go -forth from the sweet peace of our beloved firesides to smite the -foe. O Lord our God, help us to tear their soldiers to bloody shreds -with our shells; help us to cover their smiling fields with the pale -forms of their patriot dead; help us to drown the thunder of the -guns with the shrieks of their wounded, writhing in pain; help us to -lay waste their humble homes with a hurricane of fire; help us to -wring the hearts of their unoffending widows with unavailing grief; -help us to turn them out roofless with their little children to -wander unfriended the wastes of their desolated land in rags and -hunger and thirst, sports of the sun flames of summer and the icy -winds of winter, broken in spirit, worn with travail, imploring Thee -for the refuge of the grave and denied it--for our sakes who adore -Thee, Lord, blast their hopes, blight their lives, protract their -bitter pilgrimage, make heavy their steps, water their way with -their tears, stain the white snow with the blood of their wounded -feet! We ask it, in the spirit of love, of Him Who is the Source of -Love, and Who is the ever-faithful refuge and friend of all that are -sore beset and seek His aid with humble and contrite hearts. Amen.” - -(_After a pause._) “Ye have prayed it; if ye still desire it, speak! -The messenger of the Most High waits.” - -It was believed afterward that the man was a lunatic, because there -was no sense in what he said. - - - - - CORN-PONE OPINIONS - (Written in 1900) - - -Fifty years ago, when I was a boy of fifteen and helping to inhabit -a Missourian village on the banks of the Mississippi, I had a friend -whose society was very dear to me because I was forbidden by my -mother to partake of it. He was a gay and impudent and satirical and -delightful young black man--a slave--who daily preached sermons from -the top of his master’s woodpile, with me for sole audience. He -imitated the pulpit style of the several clergymen of the village, -and did it well, and with fine passion and energy. To me he was a -wonder. I believed he was the greatest orator in the United States -and would some day be heard from. But it did not happen; in the -distribution of rewards he was overlooked. It is the way, in this -world. - -He interrupted his preaching, now and then, to saw a stick of wood; -but the sawing was a pretense--he did it with his mouth; exactly -imitating the sound the bucksaw makes in shrieking its way through -the wood. But it served its purpose; it kept his master from coming -out to see how the work was getting along. I listened to the sermons -from the open window of a lumber room at the back of the house. One -of his texts was this: - -“You tell me whar a man gits his corn pone, en I’ll tell you what -his ’pinions is.“ - -I can never forget it. It was deeply impressed upon me. By my -mother. Not upon my memory, but elsewhere. She had slipped in upon -me while I was absorbed and not watching. The black philosopher’s -idea was that a man is not independent, and cannot afford views -which might interfere with his bread and butter. If he would -prosper, he must train with the majority; in matters of large -moment, like politics and religion, he must think and feel with the -bulk of his neighbors, or suffer damage in his social standing and -in his business prosperities. He must restrict himself to corn-pone -opinions--at least on the surface. He must get his opinions from -other people; he must reason out none for himself; he must have no -first-hand views. - -I think Jerry was right, in the main, but I think he did not go far -enough. - -1. It was his idea that a man conforms to the majority view of his -locality by calculation and intention. - -This happens, but I think it is not the rule. - -2. It was his idea that there is such a thing as a first-hand -opinion; an original opinion; an opinion which is coldly reasoned -out in a man’s head, by a searching analysis of the facts involved, -with the heart unconsulted, and the jury room closed against outside -influences. It may be that such an opinion has been born somewhere, -at some time or other, but I suppose it got away before they could -catch it and stuff it and put it in the museum. - -I am persuaded that a coldly-thought-out and independent verdict -upon a fashion in clothes, or manners, or literature, or politics, -or religion, or any other matter that is projected into the field of -our notice and interest, is a most rare thing--if it has indeed ever -existed. - -A new thing in costume appears--the flaring hoopskirt, for -example--and the passers-by are shocked, and the irreverent laugh. -Six months later everybody is reconciled; the fashion has -established itself; it is admired, now, and no one laughs. Public -opinion resented it before, public opinion accepts it now, and is -happy in it. Why? Was the resentment reasoned out? Was the -acceptance reasoned out? No. The instinct that moves to conformity -did the work. It is our nature to conform; it is a force which not -many can successfully resist. What is its seat? The inborn -requirement of self-approval. We all have to bow to that; there are -no exceptions. Even the woman who refuses from first to last to wear -the hoopskirt comes under that law and is its slave; she could not -wear the skirt and have her own approval; and that she _must_ have, -she cannot help herself. But as a rule our self-approval has its -source in but one place and not elsewhere--the approval of other -people. A person of vast consequences can introduce any kind of -novelty in dress and the general world will presently adopt -it--moved to do it, in the first place, by the natural instinct to -passively yield to that vague something recognized as authority, and -in the second place by the human instinct to train with the -multitude and have its approval. An empress introduced the -hoopskirt, and we know the result. A nobody introduced the bloomer, -and we know the result. If Eve should come again, in her ripe -renown, and reintroduce her quaint styles--well, we know what would -happen. And we should be cruelly embarrassed, along at first. - -The hoopskirt runs its course and disappears. Nobody reasons about -it. One woman abandons the fashion; her neighbor notices this and -follows her lead; this influences the next woman; and so on and so -on, and presently the skirt has vanished out of the world, no one -knows how nor why; nor cares, for that matter. It will come again, -by and by; and in due course will go again. - -Twenty-five years ago, in England, six or eight wine glasses stood -grouped by each person’s plate at a dinner party, and they were -used, not left idle and empty; to-day there are but three or four in -the group, and the average guest sparingly uses about two of them. -We have not adopted this new fashion yet, but we shall do it -presently. We shall not think it out; we shall merely conform, and -let it go at that. We get our notions and habits and opinions from -outside influences; we do not have to study them out. - -Our table manners, and company manners, and street manners change -from time to time, but the changes are not reasoned out; we merely -notice and conform. We are creatures of outside influences; as a -rule we do not think, we only imitate. We cannot invent standards -that will stick; what we mistake for standards are only fashions, -and perishable. We may continue to admire them, but we drop the use -of them. We notice this in literature. Shakespeare is a standard, -and fifty years ago we used to write tragedies which we couldn’t -tell from--from somebody else’s; but we don’t do it any more, now. -Our prose standard, three quarters of a century ago, was ornate and -diffuse; some authority or other changed it in the direction of -compactness and simplicity, and conformity followed, without -argument. The historical novel starts up suddenly, and sweeps the -land. Everybody writes one, and the nation is glad. We had -historical novels before; but nobody read them, and the rest of us -conformed--without reasoning it out. We are conforming in the other -way, now, because it is another case of everybody. - -The outside influences are always pouring in upon us, and we are -always obeying their orders and accepting their verdicts. The Smiths -like the new play; the Joneses go to see it, and they copy the Smith -verdict. Morals, religions, politics, get their following from -surrounding influences and atmospheres, almost entirely; not from -study, not from thinking. A man must and will have his own approval -first of all, in each and every moment and circumstance of his -life--even if he must repent of a self-approved act the moment after -its commission, in order to get his self-approval _again_: but, -speaking in general terms, a man’s self-approval in the large -concerns of life has its source in the approval of the peoples about -him, and not in a searching personal examination of the matter. -Mohammedans are Mohammedans because they are born and reared among -that sect, not because they have thought it out and can furnish -sound reasons for being Mohammedans; we know why Catholics are -Catholics; why Presbyterians are Presbyterians; why Baptists are -Baptists; why Mormons are Mormons; why thieves are thieves; why -monarchists are monarchists; why Republicans are Republicans and -Democrats, Democrats. We know it is a matter of association and -sympathy, not reasoning and examination; that hardly a man in the -world has an opinion upon morals, politics, or religion which he got -otherwise than through his associations and sympathies. Broadly -speaking, there are none but corn-pone opinions. And broadly -speaking, corn-pone stands for self-approval. Self-approval is -acquired mainly from the approval of other people. The result is -conformity. Sometimes conformity has a sordid business interest--the -bread-and-butter interest--but not in most cases, I think. I think -that in the majority of cases it is unconscious and not calculated; -that it is born of the human being’s natural yearning to stand well -with his fellows and have their inspiring approval and praise--a -yearning which is commonly so strong and so insistent that it cannot -be effectually resisted, and must have its way. - -A political emergency brings out the corn-pone opinion in fine force -in its two chief varieties--the pocketbook variety, which has its -origin in self-interest, and the bigger variety, the sentimental -variety--the one which can’t bear to be outside the pale; can’t bear -to be in disfavor; can’t endure the averted face and the cold -shoulder; wants to stand well with his friends, wants to be smiled -upon, wants to be welcome, wants to hear the precious words, “_He’s_ -on the right track!” Uttered, perhaps by an ass, but still an ass of -high degree, an ass whose approval is gold and diamonds to a smaller -ass, and confers glory and honor and happiness, and membership in -the herd. For these gauds many a man will dump his life-long -principles into the street, and his conscience along with them. We -have seen it happen. In some millions of instances. - -Men think they think upon great political questions, and they do; -but they think with their party, not independently; they read its -literature, but not that of the other side; they arrive at -convictions, but they are drawn from a partial view of the matter in -hand and are of no particular value. They swarm with their party, -they feel with their party, they are happy in their party’s -approval; and where the party leads they will follow, whether for -right and honor, or through blood and dirt and a mush of mutilated -morals. - -In our late canvass half of the nation passionately believed that in -silver lay salvation, the other half as passionately believed that -that way lay destruction. Do you believe that a tenth part of the -people, on either side, had any rational excuse for having an -opinion about the matter at all? I studied that mighty question to -the bottom--came out empty. Half of our people passionately believe -in high tariff, the other half believe otherwise. Does this mean -study and examination, or only feeling? The latter, I think. I have -deeply studied that question, too--and didn’t arrive. We all do no -end of feeling, and we mistake it for thinking. And out of it we get -an aggregation which we consider a boon. Its name is Public Opinion. -It is held in reverence. It settles everything. Some think it the -Voice of God. - - THE END - ------------------------------------------------------------------------- - - Transcriber’s Note - -Errors deemed most likely to be the printer’s have been corrected, -and are noted here. The references are to the page and line in the -original. - - ix.22 did not waste his chances[.] Added. - ix.24 on the list of Americ[n/a]n authors Replaced. - 8.10 and yet wi[ll/th] all that silence Replaced. - 10.14 the col[l]ossal myths of history Removed. - 47.14 They all sat in a c[ri/ir]cle Transposed. - 71.13 he wrote [i/a]t once to the Emperor Replaced. - 97.7 men’s conception of the D[ie/ei]ty Transposed. - 108.24 in his bay window![”] Added. - 122.20 breezes would quiver the fo[il/li]age Transposed. - 209.15 most lavishly u[n/p]holstered Replaced. - 217.27 _[“]Il y a une ascenseur,”_ Added. - 260.12 The Ka[si/is]er’s claim was paid Transposed. - 268.13 our war work and our her[io/oi]sms Transposed. - 275.21 [“]I deny emphatically Added. - 277.28 Christian virtues[:/.] Replaced. - 303.3 the[m/n] moved them to fall Replaced. - 401.9 i[s/t] is admired Replaced. - -*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK EUROPE AND ELSEWHERE *** - -Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will -be renamed. - -Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright -law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, -so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the -United States without permission and without paying copyright -royalties. 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