diff options
| -rw-r--r-- | .gitattributes | 3 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | 9588.txt | 1823 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | 9588.zip | bin | 0 -> 41005 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | LICENSE.txt | 11 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | README.md | 2 |
5 files changed, 1839 insertions, 0 deletions
diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/9588.txt b/9588.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..290ae7b --- /dev/null +++ b/9588.txt @@ -0,0 +1,1823 @@ +Project Gutenberg EBook, My Summer With Dr. Singletary, by Whittier +Part 2, From Volume V., The Works of Whittier: Tales and Sketches +#33 in our series by John Greenleaf Whittier + +Copyright laws are changing all over the world. Be sure to check the +copyright laws for your country before downloading or redistributing +this or any other Project Gutenberg eBook. + +This header should be the first thing seen when viewing this Project +Gutenberg file. Please do not remove it. Do not change or edit the +header without written permission. + +Please read the "legal small print," and other information about the +eBook and Project Gutenberg at the bottom of this file. Included is +important information about your specific rights and restrictions in +how the file may be used. You can also find out about how to make a +donation to Project Gutenberg, and how to get involved. + + +**Welcome To The World of Free Plain Vanilla Electronic Texts** + +**EBooks Readable By Both Humans and By Computers, Since 1971** + +*****These EBooks Were Prepared By Thousands of Volunteers***** + + + +Title: My Summer With Dr. Singletary + Part 2, From Volume V., The Works of Whittier: Tales and Sketches + + +Author: John Greenleaf Whittier + +Release Date: December 2005 [EBook #9588] +[Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule] +[This file was first posted on October 18, 2003] + + +Edition: 10 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + + + + +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK, DR. SINGLETARY *** + + + + +This eBook was produced by David Widger + + + + + TALES AND SKETCHES + + MY SUMMER WITH DR. SINGLETARY. + + A FRAGMENT. + + + + CHAPTER I. + + +DR. SINGLETARY is dead! + +Well, what of it? All who live die sooner or later; and pray who was +Dr. Singletary, that his case should claim particular attention? + +Why, in the first place, Dr. Singletary, as a man born to our common +inheritance of joy and sorrow, earthly instincts and heavenward +aspirations,--our brother in sin and suffering, wisdom and folly, love, +and pride, and vanity,--has a claim upon the universal sympathy. +Besides, whatever the living man may have been, death has now invested +him with its great solemnity. He is with the immortals. For him the +dark curtain has been lifted. The weaknesses, the follies, and the +repulsive mental and personal idiosyncrasies which may have kept him +without the sphere of our respect and sympathy have now fallen off, and +he stands radiant with the transfiguration of eternity, God's child, our +recognized and acknowledged brother. + +Dr. Singletary is dead. He was an old man, and seldom, of latter years, +ventured beyond the precincts of his neighborhood. He was a single man, +and his departure has broken no circle of family affection. He was +little known to the public, and is now little missed. The village +newspaper simply appended to its announcement of his decease the +customary post mortem compliment, "Greatly respected by all who knew +him;" and in the annual catalogue of his alma mater an asterisk has been +added to his name, over which perchance some gray-haired survivor of his +class may breathe a sigh, as he calls up, the image of the fresh-faced, +bright-eyed boy, who, aspiring, hopeful, vigorous, started with him on +the journey of life,--a sigh rather for himself than for its unconscious +awakener. + +But, a few years have passed since he left us; yet already wellnigh all +the outward manifestations, landmarks, and memorials of the living man +have passed away or been removed. His house, with its broad, mossy roof +sloping down on one side almost to the rose-bushes and lilacs, and with +its comfortable little porch in front, where he used to sit of a +pleasant summer afternoon, has passed into new hands, and has been sadly +disfigured by a glaring coat of white paint; and in the place of the +good Doctor's name, hardly legible on the corner-board, may now be seen, +in staring letters of black and gold, "VALENTINE ORSON STUBBS, M. D., +Indian doctor and dealer in roots and herbs." The good Doctor's old +horse, as well known as its owner to every man, woman, and child in the +village, has fallen into the new comer's hands, who (being prepared to +make the most of him, from the fact that he commenced the practice of +the healing art in the stable, rising from thence to the parlor) has +rubbed him into comparative sleekness, cleaned his mane and tail of the +accumulated burrs of many autumns, and made quite a gay nag of him. The +wagon, too, in which at least two generations of boys and girls have +ridden in noisy hilarity whenever they encountered it on their way to +school, has been so smartly painted and varnished, that if its former +owner could look down from the hill-slope where he lies, he would +scarcely know his once familiar vehicle as it whirls glittering along +the main road to the village. For the rest, all things go on as usual; +the miller grinds, the blacksmith strikes and blows, the cobbler and +tailor stitch and mend, old men sit in the autumn sun, old gossips stir +tea and scandal, revival meetings alternate with apple-bees and +bushings,--toil, pleasure, family jars, petty neighborhood quarrels, +courtship, and marriage,--all which make up the daily life of a country +village continue as before. The little chasm which his death has made +in the hearts of the people where he lived and labored seems nearly +closed up. There is only one more grave in the burying-ground,--that is +all. + +Let nobody infer from what I have said that the good man died +unlamented; for, indeed, it was a sad day with his neighbors when the +news, long expected, ran at last from house to house and from workshop +to workshop, "Dr. Singletary is dead!" + +He had not any enemy left among them; in one way or another he had been +the friend and benefactor of all. Some owed to his skill their recovery +from sickness; others remembered how he had watched with anxious +solicitude by the bedside of their dying relatives, soothing them, when +all human aid was vain, with the sweet consolations of that Christian +hope which alone pierces the great shadow of the grave and shows the +safe stepping-stones above the dark waters. The old missed a cheerful +companion and friend, who had taught them much without wounding their +pride by an offensive display of his superiority, and who, while making +a jest of his own trials and infirmities, could still listen with real +sympathy to the querulous and importunate complaints of others. For one +day, at least, even the sunny faces of childhood were marked with +unwonted thoughtfulness; the shadow of the common bereavement fell over +the play-ground and nursery. The little girl remembered, with tears, +how her broken-limbed doll had taxed the surgical ingenuity of her +genial old friend; and the boy showed sorrowfully to his playmates the +top which the good Doctor had given him. If there were few, among the +many who stood beside his grave, capable of rightly measuring and +appreciating the high intellectual and spiritual nature which formed the +background of his simple social life, all could feel that no common loss +had been sustained, and that the kindly and generous spirit which had +passed away from them had not lived to himself alone. + +As you follow the windings of one of the loveliest rivers of New +England, a few miles above the sea-mart, at its mouth, you can see on a +hill, whose grassy slope is checkered with the graceful foliage of the +locust, and whose top stands relieved against a still higher elevation, +dark with oaks and walnuts, the white stones of the burying-place. It +is a quiet spot, but without gloom, as befits "God's Acre." Below is +the village, with its sloops and fishing-boats at the wharves, and its +crescent of white houses mirrored in the water. Eastward is the misty +line of the great sea. Blue peaks of distant mountains roughen the +horizon of the north. Westward, the broad, clear river winds away into +a maze of jutting bluffs and picturesque wooded headlands. The tall, +white stone on the westerly slope of the hill bears the name of +"Nicholas Singletary, M. D.," and marks the spot which he selected many +years before his death. When I visited it last spring, the air about it +was fragrant with the bloom of sweet-brier and blackberry and the +balsamic aroma of the sweet-fern; birds were singing in the birch-trees +by the wall; and two little, brown-locked, merry-faced girls were making +wreaths of the dandelions and grasses which grew upon the old man's +grave. The sun was setting behind the western river-bluffs, flooding +the valley with soft light, glorifying every object and fusing all into +harmony and beauty. I saw and felt nothing to depress or sadden me. I +could have joined in the laugh of the children. The light whistle of a +young teamster, driving merrily homeward, did not jar upon my ear; for +from the transfigured landscape, and from the singing birds, and from +sportive childhood, and from blossoming sweetbrier, and from the grassy +mound before me, I heard the whisper of one word only, and that word +was PEACE. + + + + + CHAPTER. II. + + SOME ACCOUNT OF PEEWAWKIN ON THE TOCKETUCK. + +WELL and truly said the wise man of old, "Much study is a weariness to +the flesh." Hard and close application through the winter had left me +ill prepared to resist the baleful influences of a New England spring. +I shrank alike from the storms of March, the capricious changes of +April, and the sudden alternations of May, from the blandest of +southwest breezes to the terrible and icy eastern blasts which sweep our +seaboard like the fabled sanser, or wind of death. The buoyancy and +vigor, the freshness and beauty of life seemed leaving me. The flesh +and the spirit were no longer harmonious. I was tormented by a +nightmare feeling of the necessity of exertion, coupled with a sense of +utter inability. A thousand plans for my own benefit, or the welfare of +those dear to me, or of my fellow-men at large, passed before me; but I +had no strength to lay hold of the good angels and detain them until +they left their blessing. The trumpet sounded in my ears for the +tournament of life; but I could not bear the weight of my armor. In the +midst of duties and responsibilities which I clearly comprehended, I +found myself yielding to the absorbing egotism of sickness. I could +work only when the sharp rowels of necessity were in my sides. + +It needed not the ominous warnings of my acquaintance to convince me +that some decisive change was necessary. But what was to be done? A +voyage to Europe was suggested by my friends; but unhappily I reckoned +among them no one who was ready, like the honest laird of Dumbiedikes, +to inquire, purse in hand, "Will siller do it?" In casting about for +some other expedient, I remembered the pleasant old-fashioned village of +Peewawkin, on the Tocketuck River. A few weeks of leisure, country air, +and exercise, I thought might be of essential service to me. So I +turned my key upon my cares and studies, and my back to the city, and +one fine evening of early June the mail coach rumbled over Tocketuck +Bridge, and left me at the house of Dr. Singletary, where I had been +fortunate enough to secure bed and board. + +The little village of Peewawkin at this period was a well-preserved +specimen of the old, quiet, cozy hamlets of New England. No huge +factory threw its evil shadow over it; no smoking demon of an engine +dragged its long train through the streets; no steamboat puffed at its +wharves, or ploughed up the river, like the enchanted ship of the +Ancient Mariner,-- + + "Against the wind, against the tide, + Steadied with upright keel." + +The march of mind had not overtaken it. It had neither printing-press +nor lyceum. As the fathers had done before them, so did its inhabitants +at the time of my visit. There was little or no competition in their +business; there were no rich men, and none that seemed over-anxious to +become so. Two or three small vessels were annually launched from the +carpenters' yards on the river. It had a blacksmith's shop, with its +clang of iron and roar of bellows; a pottery, garnished with its coarse +earthen-ware; a store, where molasses, sugar, and spices were sold on +one side, and calicoes, tape, and ribbons on the other. Three or four +small schooners annually left the wharves for the St. George's and +Labrador fisheries. Just back of the village, a bright, noisy stream, +gushing out, like a merry laugh, from the walnut and oak woods which +stretched back far to the north through a narrow break in the hills, +turned the great wheel of a grist-mill, and went frolicking away, like a +wicked Undine, under the very windows of the brown, lilac-shaded house +of Deacon Warner, the miller, as if to tempt the good man's handsome +daughters to take lessons in dancing. At one end of the little +crescent-shaped village, at the corner of the main road and the green +lane to Deacon Warner's mill, stood the school-house,--a small, ill- +used, Spanish-brown building, its patched windows bearing unmistakable +evidence of the mischievous character of its inmates. At the other end, +farther up the river, on a rocky knoll open to all the winds, stood the +meeting-house,--old, two story, and full of windows,--its gilded +weathercock glistening in the sun. The bell in its belfry had been +brought from France by Skipper Evans in the latter part of the last +century. Solemnly baptized and consecrated to some holy saint, it had +called to prayer the veiled sisters of a convent, and tolled heavily in +the masses for the dead. At first some of the church felt misgivings as +to the propriety of hanging a Popish bell in a Puritan steeple-house; +but their objections were overruled by the minister, who wisely +maintained that if Moses could use the borrowed jewels and ornaments of +the Egyptians to adorn and beautify the ark of the Lord, it could not be +amiss to make a Catholic bell do service in an Orthodox belfry. The +space between the school and the meeting-house was occupied by some +fifteen or twenty dwellings, many-colored and diverse in age and +appearance. Each one had its green yard in front, its rose-bushes and +lilacs. Great elms, planted a century ago, stretched and interlocked +their heavy arms across the street. The mill-stream, which found its +way into the Tocketuek, near the centre of the village, was spanned by a +rickety wooden bridge, rendered picturesque by a venerable and gnarled +white-oak which hung over it, with its great roots half bared by the +water and twisted among the mossy stones of the crumbling abutment. + +The house of Dr. Singletary was situated somewhat apart from the main +street, just on the slope of Blueberry Will,--a great, green swell of +land, stretching far down from the north, and terminating in a steep +bluff at the river side. It overlooked the village and the river a long +way up and down. It was a brown-looking, antiquated mansion, built by +the Doctor's grandfather in the earlier days of the settlement. The +rooms were large and low, with great beams, scaly with whitewash, +running across them, scarcely above the reach of a tall man's head. +Great-throated fireplaces, filled with pine-boughs and flower-pots, gave +promise of winter fires, roaring and crackling in boisterous hilarity, +as if laughing to scorn the folly and discomfort of our modern stoves. +In the porch at the frontdoor were two seats, where the Doctor was +accustomed to sit in fine weather with his pipe and his book, or with +such friends as might call to spend a half hour with him. The lawn in +front had scarcely any other ornament than its green grass, cropped +short by the Doctor's horse. A stone wall separated it from the lane, +half overrun with wild hop, or clematis, and two noble rock-maples +arched over with their dense foliage the little red gate. Dark belts of +woodland, smooth hill pasture, green, broad meadows, and fields of corn +and rye, the homesteads of the villagers, were seen on one hand; while +on the other was the bright, clear river, with here and there a white +sail, relieved against bold, wooded banks, jutting rocks, or tiny +islands, dark with dwarf evergreens. It was a quiet, rural picture, +a happy and peaceful contrast to all I had looked upon for weary, +miserable months. It soothed the nervous excitement of pain and +suffering. I forgot myself in the pleasing interest which it awakened. +Nature's healing ministrations came to me through all my senses. I felt +the medicinal virtues of her sights, and sounds, and aromal breezes. +From the green turf of her hills and the mossy carpets of her woodlands +my languid steps derived new vigor and elasticity. I felt, day by day, +the transfusion of her strong life. + +The Doctor's domestic establishment consisted of Widow Matson, his +housekeeper, and an idle slip of a boy, who, when he was not paddling +across the river, or hunting in the swamps, or playing ball on the +"Meetin'-'us-Hill," used to run of errands, milk the cow, and saddle the +horse. Widow Matson was a notable shrill-tongued woman, from whom two +long suffering husbands had obtained what might, under the +circumstances, be well called a comfortable release. She was neat and +tidy almost to a fault, thrifty and industrious, and, barring her +scolding propensity, was a pattern housekeeper. For the Doctor she +entertained so high a regard that nothing could exceed her indignation +when any one save herself presumed to find fault with him. Her bark was +worse than her bite; she had a warm, woman's heart, capable of soft +relentings; and this the roguish errand-boy so well understood that he +bore the daily infliction of her tongue with a good-natured unconcern +which would have been greatly to his credit had it not resulted from his +confident expectation that an extra slice of cake or segment of pie +would erelong tickle his palate in atonement for the tingling of his +ears. + +It must be confessed that the Doctor had certain little peculiarities +and ways of his own which might have ruffled the down of a smoother +temper than that of the Widow Matson. He was careless and absent- +minded. In spite of her labors and complaints, he scattered his +superfluous clothing, books, and papers over his rooms in "much-admired +disorder." He gave the freedom of his house to the boys and girls of +his neighborhood, who, presuming upon his good nature, laughed at her +remonstrances and threats as they chased each other up and down the +nicely-polished stairway. Worse than all, he was proof against the +vituperations and reproaches with which she indirectly assailed him from +the recesses of her kitchen. He smoked his pipe and dozed over his +newspaper as complacently as ever, while his sins of omission and +commission were arrayed against him. + +Peewawkin had always the reputation of a healthy town: and if it had +been otherwise, Dr. Singletary was the last man in the world to +transmute the aches and ails of its inhabitants into gold for his own +pocket. So, at the age of sixty, he was little better off, in point of +worldly substance, than when he came into possession of the small +homestead of his father. He cultivated with his own hands his corn- +field and potato-patch, and trimmed his apple and pear trees, as well +satisfied with his patrimony as Horace was with his rustic Sabine villa. +In addition to the care of his homestead and his professional duties, +he had long been one of the overseers of the poor and a member of the +school committee in his town; and he was a sort of standing reference in +all disputes about wages, boundaries, and cattle trespasses in his +neighborhood. He had, nevertheless, a good deal of leisure for reading, +errands of charity, and social visits. He loved to talk with his +friends, Elder Staples, the minister, Deacon Warner, and Skipper Evans. +He was an expert angler, and knew all the haunts of pickerel and trout +for many miles around. His favorite place of resort was the hill back +of his house, which afforded a view of the long valley of the Tocketuck +and the great sea. Here he would sit, enjoying the calm beauty of the +landscape, pointing out to me localities interesting from their +historical or traditional associations, or connected in some way with +humorous or pathetic passages of his own life experience. Some of these +autobiographical fragments affected me deeply. In narrating them he +invested familiar and commonplace facts with something of the +fascination of romance. "Human life," he would say, "is the same +everywhere. If we could but get at the truth, we should find that all +the tragedy and comedy of Shakespeare have been reproduced in this +little village. God has made all of one blood; what is true of one man +is in some sort true of another; manifestations may differ, but the +essential elements and spring of action are the same. On the surface, +everything about us just now looks prosaic and mechanical; you see only +a sort of bark-mill grinding over of the same dull, monotonous grist of +daily trifles. But underneath all this there is an earnest life, rich +and beautiful with love and hope, or dark with hatred, and sorrow, and +remorse. That fisherman by the riverside, or that woman at the stream +below, with her wash-tub,--who knows what lights and shadows checker +their memories, or what present thoughts of theirs, born of heaven or +hell, the future shall ripen into deeds of good or evil? Ah, what have +I not seen and heard? My profession has been to me, in some sort, like +the vial genie of the Salamanca student; it has unroofed these houses, +and opened deep, dark chambers to the hearts of their tenants, which no +eye save that of God had ever looked upon. Where I least expected them, +I have encountered shapes of evil; while, on the other hand, I have +found beautiful, heroic love and self-denial in those who had seemed to +me frivolous and selfish." + +So would Dr. Singletary discourse as we strolled over Blueberry Hill, or +drove along the narrow willow-shaded road which follows the windings of +the river. He had read and thought much in his retired, solitary life, +and was evidently well satisfied to find in me a gratified listener. He +talked well and fluently, with little regard to logical sequence, and +with something of the dogmatism natural to one whose opinions had seldom +been subjected to scrutiny. He seemed equally at home in the most +abstruse questions of theology and metaphysics, and in the more +practical matters of mackerel-fishing, corn-growing, and cattle-raising. +It was manifest that to his book lore he had added that patient and +close observation of the processes of Nature which often places the +unlettered ploughman and mechanic on a higher level of available +intelligence than that occupied by professors and school men. To him +nothing which had its root in the eternal verities of Nature was "common +or unclean." The blacksmith, subjecting to his will the swart genii of +the mines of coal and iron; the potter, with his "power over the clay;" +the skipper, who had tossed in his frail fishing-smack among the +icebergs of Labrador; the farmer, who had won from Nature the occult +secrets of her woods and fields; and even the vagabond hunter and +angler, familiar with the habits of animals and the migration of birds +and fishes,--had been his instructors; and he was not ashamed to +acknowledge that they had taught him more than college or library. + + + + + CHAPTER III. + + THE DOCTOR'S MATCH-MAKING. + +"GOOD-MORNING, Mrs. Barnet," cried the Doctor, as we drew near a neat +farm-house during one of our morning drives. + +A tall, healthful young woman, in the bloom of matronly beauty, was +feeding chickens at the door. She uttered an exclamation of delight and +hurried towards us. Perceiving a stranger in the wagon she paused, with +a look of embarrassment. + +"My friend, who is spending a few weeks with me," explained the Doctor. + +She greeted me civilly and pressed the Doctor's hand warmly. + +"Oh, it is so long since you have called on us that we have been talking +of going up to the village to see you, as soon as Robert can get away +from his cornfield. You don't know how little Lucy has grown. You must +stop and see her." + +"She's coming to see me herself," replied the Doctor, beckoning to a +sweet blue-eyed child in the door-way. + +The delighted mother caught up her darling and held her before the +Doctor. + +"Does n't she look like Robert?" she inquired. "His very eyes and +forehead! Bless me! here he is now." + +A stout, hale young farmer, in a coarse checked frock and broad straw +hat, came up from the adjoining field. + +"Well, Robert," said the Doctor, "how do matters now stand with you? +Well, I hope." + +"All right, Doctor. We've paid off the last cent of the mortgage, and +the farm is all free and clear. Julia and I have worked hard; but we're +none the worse for it." + +"You look well and happy, I am sure," said the Doctor. "I don't think +you are sorry you took the advice of the old Doctor, after all." + +The young wife's head drooped until her lips touched those of her child. + +"Sorry!" exclaimed her husband. "Not we! If there's anybody happier +than we are within ten miles of us. I don't know them. Doctor, I'll +tell you what I said to Julia the night I brought home that mortgage. +'Well,' said I, 'that debt's paid; but there's one debt we can never pay +as long as we live.' 'I know it,' says she; 'but Dr. Singletary wants +no better reward for his kindness than to see us live happily together, +and do for others what he has done for us.'" + +"Pshaw!" said the Doctor, catching up his reins and whip. "You owe me +nothing. But I must not forget my errand. Poor old Widow Osborne needs +a watcher to-night; and she insists upon having Julia Barnet, and nobody +else. What shall I tell her?" + +"I'll go, certainly. I can leave Lucy now as well as not." + +"Good-by, neighbors." + +"Good-by, Doctor." + +As we drove off I saw the Doctor draw his hand hastily across his eyes, +and be said nothing for some minutes. + +"Public opinion," said he at length, as if pursuing his meditations +aloud,--"public opinion is, in nine cases out of ten, public folly and +impertinence. We are slaves to one another. We dare not take counsel +of our consciences and affections, but must needs suffer popular +prejudice and custom to decide for us, and at their bidding are +sacrificed love and friendship and all the best hopes of our lives. We +do not ask, What is right and best for us? but, What will folks say of +it? We have no individuality, no self-poised strength, no sense of +freedom. We are conscious always of the gaze of the many-eyed tyrant. +We propitiate him with precious offerings; we burn incense perpetually +to Moloch, and pass through his fire the sacred first-born of our +hearts. How few dare to seek their own happiness by the lights which +God has given them, or have strength to defy the false pride and the +prejudice of the world and stand fast in the liberty of Christians! Can +anything be more pitiable than the sight of so many, who should be the +choosers and creators under God of their own spheres of utility and +happiness, self-degraded into mere slaves of propriety and custom, their +true natures undeveloped, their hearts cramped and shut up, each afraid +of his neighbor and his neighbor of him, living a life of unreality, +deceiving and being deceived, and forever walking in a vain show? Here, +now, we have just left a married couple who are happy because they have +taken counsel of their honest affections rather than of the opinions of +the multitude, and have dared to be true to themselves in defiance of +impertinent gossip." + +"You speak of the young farmer Barnet and his wife, I suppose?" said I. + +"Yes. I will give their case as an illustration. Julia Atkins was the +daughter of Ensign Atkins, who lived on the mill-road, just above Deacon +Warner's. When she was ten years old her mother died; and in a few +months afterwards her father married Polly Wiggin, the tailoress, a +shrewd, selfish, managing woman. Julia, poor girl! had a sorry time of +it; for the Ensign, although a kind and affectionate man naturally, was +too weak and yielding to interpose between her and his strong-minded, +sharp-tongued wife. She had one friend, however, who was always ready +to sympathize with her. Robert Barnet was the son of her next-door +neighbor, about two years older than herself; they had grown up together +as school companions and playmates; and often in my drives I used to +meet them coming home hand in hand from school, or from the woods with +berries and nuts, talking and laughing as if there were no scolding +step-mothers in the world. + +"It so fell out that when Julia was in her sixteenth year there came +a famous writing-master to Peewawkin. He was a showy, dashing fellow, +with a fashionable dress, a wicked eye, and a tongue like the old +serpent's when he tempted our great-grandmother. Julia was one of his +scholars, and perhaps the prettiest of them all. The rascal singled her +out from the first; and, the better to accomplish his purpose, he left +the tavern and took lodgings at the Ensign's. He soon saw how matters +stood in the family, and governed himself accordingly, taking special +pains to conciliate the ruling authority. The Ensign's wife hated young +Barnet, and wished to get rid of her step-daughter. The writing-master, +therefore, had a fair field. He flattered the poor young girl by his +attentions and praised her beauty. Her moral training had not fitted +her to withstand this seductive influence; no mother's love, with its +quick, instinctive sense of danger threatening its object, interposed +between her and the tempter. Her old friend and playmate--he who could +alone have saved her--had been rudely repulsed from the house by her +step-mother; and, indignant and disgusted, he had retired from all +competition with his formidable rival. Thus abandoned to her own +undisciplined imagination, with the inexperience of a child and the +passions of a woman, she was deceived by false promises, bewildered, +fascinated, and beguiled into sin. + +"It is the same old story of woman's confidence and man's duplicity. +The rascally writing-master, under pretence of visiting a neighboring +town, left his lodgings and never returned. The last I heard of him, +he was the tenant of a western penitentiary. Poor Julia, driven in +disgrace from her father's house, found a refuge in the humble dwelling +of an old woman of no very creditable character. There I was called to +visit her; and, although not unused to scenes of suffering and sorrow, I +had never before witnessed such an utter abandonment to grief, shame, +and remorse. Alas! what sorrow was like unto her sorrow? The birth +hour of her infant was also that of its death. + +"The agony of her spirit seemed greater than she could bear. Her eyes +were opened, and she looked upon herself with loathing and horror. She +would admit of no hope, no consolation; she would listen to no +palliation or excuse of her guilt. I could only direct her to that +Source of pardon and peace to which the broken and contrite heart never +appeals in vain. + +"In the mean time Robert Barnet shipped on board a Labrador vessel. The +night before he left he called on me, and put in my hand a sum of money, +small indeed, but all he could then command. + +"'You will see her often,' he said. 'Do not let her suffer; for she is +more to be pitied than blamed.' + +"I answered him that I would do all in my power for her; and added, that +I thought far better of her, contrite and penitent as she was, than of +some who were busy in holding her up to shame and censure. + +"'God bless you for these words!' he said, grasping my hand. 'I shall +think of them often. They will be a comfort to me.' + +"As for Julia, God was more merciful to her than man. She rose from her +sick-bed thoughtful and humbled, but with hopes that transcended the +world of her suffering and shame. She no longer murmured against her +sorrowful allotment, but accepted it with quiet and almost cheerful +resignation as the fitting penalty of God's broken laws and the needed +discipline of her spirit. She could say with the Psalmist, 'The +judgments of the Lord are true, justified in themselves. Thou art just, +O Lord, and thy judgment is right.' Through my exertions she obtained +employment in a respectable family, to whom she endeared herself by her +faithfulness, cheerful obedience, and unaffected piety. + +"Her trials had made her heart tender with sympathy for all in +affliction. She seemed inevitably drawn towards the sick and suffering. +In their presence the burden of her own sorrow seemed to fall off. She +was the most cheerful and sunny-faced nurse I ever knew; and I always +felt sure that my own efforts would be well seconded when I found her by +the bedside of a patient. Beautiful it was to see this poor young girl, +whom the world still looked upon with scorn and unkindness, cheering the +desponding, and imparting, as it were, her own strong, healthful life to +the weak and faint; supporting upon her bosom, through weary nights, the +heads of those who, in health, would have deemed her touch pollution; or +to hear her singing for the ear of the dying some sweet hymn of pious +hope or resignation, or calling to mind the consolations of the gospel +and the great love of Christ." + +"I trust," said I, "that the feelings of the community were softened +towards her." + +"You know what human nature is," returned the Doctor, "and with what +hearty satisfaction we abhor and censure sin and folly in others. It is +a luxury which we cannot easily forego, although our own experience +tells us that the consequences of vice and error are evil and bitter +enough without the aggravation of ridicule and reproach from without. +So you need not be surprised to learn that, in poor Julia's case, the +charity of sinners like herself did not keep pace with the mercy and +forgiveness of Him who is infinite in purity. Nevertheless, I will do +our people the justice to say that her blameless and self-sacrificing +life was not without its proper effect upon them." + +"What became of Robert Barnet?" I inquired. + +"He came back after an absence of several months, and called on me +before he had even seen his father and mother. He did not mention +Julia; but I saw that his errand with me concerned her. I spoke of her +excellent deportment and her useful life, dwelt upon the extenuating +circumstances of her error and of her sincere and hearty repentance. + +"'Doctor,' said he, at length, with a hesitating and embarrassed manner, +'what should you think if I should tell you that, after all that has +passed, I have half made up my mind to ask her to become my wife?' + +"'I should think better of it if you had wholly made up your mind,' said +I; 'and if you were my own son, I wouldn't ask for you a better wife +than Julia Atkins. Don't hesitate, Robert, on account of what some ill- +natured people may say. Consult your own heart first of all.' + +"'I don't care for the talk of all the busybodies in town,' said he; +'but I wish father and mother could feel as you do about her.' + +"'Leave that to me,' said I. 'They are kindhearted and reasonable, and +I dare say will be disposed to make the best of the matter when they +find you are decided in your purpose.' + +"I did not see him again; but a few days after I learned from his +parents that he had gone on another voyage. It was now autumn, and the +most sickly season I had ever known in Peewawkin. Ensign Atkins and his +wife both fell sick; and Julia embraced with alacrity this providential +opportunity to return to her father's house and fulfil the duties of a +daughter. Under her careful nursing the Ensign soon got upon his feet; +but his wife, whose constitution was weaker, sunk under the fever. She +died better than she had lived,--penitent and loving, asking forgiveness +of Julia for her neglect and unkindness, and invoking blessings on her +head. Julia had now, for the first time since the death of her mother, +a comfortable home and a father's love and protection. Her sweetness of +temper, patient endurance, and forgetfulness of herself in her labors +for others, gradually overcame the scruples and hard feelings of her +neighbors. They began to question whether, after all, it was +meritorious in them to treat one like her as a sinner beyond +forgiveness. Elder Staples and Deacon Warner were her fast friends. +The Deacon's daughters--the tall, blue-eyed, brown-locked girls you +noticed in meeting the other day--set the example among the young people +of treating her as their equal and companion. The dear good girls! +They reminded me of the maidens of Naxos cheering and comforting the +unhappy Ariadne. + +"One mid-winter evening I took Julia with me to a poor sick patient of +mine, who was suffering for lack of attendance. The house where she +lived was in a lonely and desolate place, some two or three miles below +us, on a sandy level, just elevated above the great salt marshes, +stretching far away to the sea. The night set in dark and stormy; a +fierce northeasterly wind swept over the level waste, driving thick +snow-clouds before it, shaking the doors and windows of the old house, +and roaring in its vast chimney. The woman was dying when we arrived, +and her drunken husband was sitting in stupid unconcern in the corner of +the fireplace. A little after midnight she breathed her last. + +"In the mean time the storm had grown more violent; there was a blinding +snow-fall in the air; and we could feel the jar of the great waves as +they broke upon the beach. + +"'It is a terrible night for sailors on the coast,' I said, breaking our +long silence with the dead. 'God grant them sea-room!' + +"Julia shuddered as I spoke, and by the dim-flashing firelight I saw she +was weeping. Her thoughts, I knew, were with her old friend and +playmate on the wild waters. + +"'Julia,' said I, 'do you know that Robert Barnet loves you with all the +strength of an honest and true heart?' + +"She trembled, and her voice faltered as she confessed that when Robert +was at home he had asked her to become his wife. + +"'And, like a fool, you refused him, I suppose?--the brave, generous +fellow!' + +"'O Doctor!' she exclaimed. 'How can you talk so? It is just because +Robert is so good, and noble, and generous, that I dared not take him at +his word. You yourself, Doctor, would have despised me if I had taken +advantage of his pity or his kind remembrance of the old days when we +were children together. I have already brought too much disgrace upon +those dear to me.' + +"I was endeavoring to convince her, in reply, that she was doing +injustice to herself and wronging her best friend, whose happiness +depended in a great measure upon her, when, borne on the strong blast, +we both heard a faint cry as of a human being in distress. I threw up +the window which opened seaward, and we leaned out into the wild night, +listening breathlessly for a repetition of the sound. + +"Once more, and once only, we heard it,--a low, smothered, despairing +cry. + +"'Some one is lost, and perishing in the snow,' said Julia. 'The sound +conies in the direction of the beach plum-bushes on the side of the +marsh. Let us go at once.' + +"She snatched up her hood and shawl, and was already at the door. I +found and lighted a lantern and soon overtook her. The snow was already +deep and badly drifted, and it was with extreme difficulty that we could +force our way against the storm. We stopped often to take breath and +listen; but the roaring of the wind and waves was alone audible. At +last we reached a slightly elevated spot, overgrown with dwarf plum- +trees, whose branches were dimly visible above the snow. + +"'Here, bring the lantern here!' cried Julia, who had strayed a few +yards from me. I hastened to her, and found her lifting up the body of +a man who was apparently insensible. The rays of the lantern fell full +upon his face, and we both, at the same instant, recognized Robert +Barnet. Julia did not shriek nor faint; but, kneeling in the snow, and +still supporting the body, she turned towards me a look of earnest and +fearful inquiry. + +"'Courage!' said I. 'He still lives. He is only overcome with fatigue +and cold.' + +"With much difficulty-partly carrying and partly dragging him through +the snow--we succeeded in getting him to the house, where, in a short +time, he so far recovered as to be able to speak. Julia, who had been +my prompt and efficient assistant in his restoration, retired into the +shadow of the room as soon as he began to rouse himself and look about +him. He asked where he was and who was with me, saying that his head +was so confused that he thought he saw Julia Atkins by the bedside. +'You were not mistaken,' said I; 'Julia is here, and you owe your life +to her.' He started up and gazed round the room. I beckoned Julia to +the bedside; and I shall never forget the grateful earnestness with +which he grasped her hand and called upon God to bless her. Some folks +think me a tough-hearted old fellow, and so I am; but that scene was +more than I could bear without shedding tears. + +"Robert told us that his vessel had been thrown upon the beach a mile or +two below, and that he feared all the crew had perished save himself. +Assured of his safety, I went out once more, in the faint hope of +hearing the voice of some survivor of the disaster; but I listened only +to the heavy thunder of the surf rolling along the horizon of the east. +The storm had in a great measure ceased; the gray light of dawn was just +visible; and I was gratified to see two of the nearest neighbors +approaching the house. On being informed of the wreck they immediately +started for the beach, where several dead bodies, half buried in snow, +confirmed the fears of the solitary survivor. + +"The result of all this you can easily conjecture. Robert Barnet +abandoned the sea, and, with the aid of some of his friends, purchased +the farm where he now lives, and the anniversary of his shipwreck found +him the husband of Julia. I can assure you I have had every reason to +congratulate myself on my share in the match-making. Nobody ventured to +find fault with it except two or three sour old busybodies, who, as +Elder Staples well says, 'would have cursed her whom Christ had +forgiven, and spurned the weeping Magdalen from the feet of her Lord.'" + + + + + CHAPTER IV. + + BY THE SPRING. + +IT was one of the very brightest and breeziest of summer mornings that +the Doctor and myself walked homeward from the town poor-house, where +he had always one or more patients, and where his coming was always +welcomed by the poor, diseased, and age-stricken inmates. Dark, +miserable faces of lonely and unreverenced age, written over with the +grim records of sorrow and sin, seemed to brighten at his approach as +with an inward light, as if the good man's presence had power to call +the better natures of the poor unfortunates into temporary ascendency. +Weary, fretful women--happy mothers in happy homes, perchance, half a +century before--felt their hearts warm and expand under the influence of +his kind salutations and the ever-patient good-nature with which he +listened to their reiterated complaints of real or imaginary suffering. +However it might be with others, he never forgot the man or the woman in +the pauper. There was nothing like condescension or consciousness in +his charitable ministrations; for he was one of the few men I have ever +known in whom the milk of human kindness was never soured by contempt +for humanity in whatever form it presented itself. Thus it was that his +faithful performance of the duties of his profession, however repulsive +and disagreeable, had the effect of Murillo's picture of St. Elizabeth +of Hungary binding up the ulcered limbs of the beggars. The moral +beauty transcended the loathsomeness of physical evil and deformity. + +Our nearest route home lay across the pastures and over Blueberry Hill, +just at the foot of which we encountered Elder Staples and Skipper +Evans, who had been driving their cows to pasture, and were now +leisurely strolling back to the village. We toiled together up the hill +in the hot sunshine, and, just on its eastern declivity, were glad to +find a white-oak tree, leaning heavily over a little ravine, from the +bottom of which a clear spring of water bubbled up and fed a small +rivulet, whose track of darker green might be traced far down the hill +to the meadow at its foot. + +A broad shelf of rock by the side of the spring, cushioned with mosses, +afforded us a comfortable resting-place. Elder Staples, in his faded +black coat and white neck-cloth, leaned his quiet, contemplative head on +his silver-mounted cane: right opposite him sat the Doctor, with his +sturdy, rotund figure, and broad, seamed face, surmounted by a coarse +stubble of iron-gray hair, the sharp and almost severe expression of his +keen gray eyes, flashing under their dark penthouse, happily relieved by +the softer lines of his mouth, indicative of his really genial and +generous nature. A small, sinewy figure, half doubled up, with his chin +resting on his rough palms, Skipper Evans sat on a lower projection of +the rock just beneath him, in an attentive attitude, as at the feet of +Gatnaliel. Dark and dry as one of his own dunfish on a Labrador flake, +or a seal-skin in an Esquimaux hut, he seemed entirely exempt from one +of the great trinity of temptations; and, granting him a safe +deliverance from the world and the devil, he had very little to fear +from the flesh. + +We were now in the Doctor's favorite place of resort, green, cool, +quiet, and sightly withal. The keen light revealed every object in the +long valley below us; the fresh west wind fluttered the oakleaves above; +and the low voice of the water, coaxing or scolding its way over bare +roots or mossy stones, was just audible. + +"Doctor," said I, "this spring, with the oak hanging over it, is, I +suppose, your Fountain of Bandusia. You remember what Horace says of +his spring, which yielded such cool refreshment when the dog-star had +set the day on fire. What a fine picture he gives us of this charming +feature of his little farm!" + +The Doctor's eye kindled. "I'm glad to see you like Horace; not merely +as a clever satirist and writer of amatory odes, but as a true lover of +Nature. How pleasant are his simple and beautiful descriptions of his +yellow, flowing Tiber, the herds and herdsmen, the harvesters, the grape +vintage, the varied aspects of his Sabine retreat in the fierce summer +heats, or when the snowy forehead of Soracte purpled in winter sunsets! +Scattered through his odes and the occasional poems which he addresses +to his city friends, you find these graceful and inimitable touches of +rural beauty, each a picture in itself." + +"It is long since I have looked at my old school-day companions, the +classics," said Elder Staples; "but I remember Horace only as a light, +witty, careless epicurean, famous for his lyrics in praise of Falernian +wine and questionable women." + +"Somewhat too much of that, doubtless," said the Doctor; "but to me +Horace is serious and profoundly suggestive, nevertheless. Had I laid +him aside on quitting college, as you did, I should perhaps have only +remembered such of his epicurean lyrics as recommended themselves to the +warns fancy of boyhood. Ah, Elder Staples, there was a time when the +Lyces and Glyceras of the poet were no fiction to us. They played +blindman's buff with us in the farmer's kitchen, sang with us in the +meeting-house, and romped and laughed with us at huskings and quilting- +parties. Grandmothers and sober spinsters as they now are, the change +in us is perhaps greater than in them." + +"Too true," replied the Elder, the smile which had just played over his +pale face fading into something sadder than its habitual melancholy. +"The living companions of our youth, whom we daily meet, are more +strange to us than the dead in yonder graveyard. They alone remain +unchanged!" + +"Speaking of Horace," continued the Doctor, in a voice slightly husky +with feeling, "he gives us glowing descriptions of his winter circles of +friends, where mirth and wine, music and beauty, charm away the hours, +and of summer-day recreations beneath the vine-wedded elms of the Tiber +or on the breezy slopes of Soracte; yet I seldom read them without a +feeling of sadness. A low wail of inappeasable sorrow, an undertone of +dirges, mingles with his gay melodies. His immediate horizon is bright +with sunshine; but beyond is a land of darkness, the light whereof is +darkness. It is walled about by the everlasting night. The skeleton +sits at his table; a shadow of the inevitable terror rests upon all his +pleasant pictures. He was without God in the world; he had no clear +abiding hope of a life beyond that which was hastening to a close. Eat +and drink, he tells us; enjoy present health and competence; alleviate +present evils, or forget them, in social intercourse, in wine, music, +and sensual indulgence; for to-morrow we must die. Death was in his +view no mere change of condition and relation; it was the black end of +all. It is evident that he placed no reliance on the mythology of his +time, and that he regarded the fables of the Elysian Fields and their +dim and wandering ghosts simply in the light of convenient poetic +fictions for illustration and imagery. Nothing can, in my view, be +sadder than his attempts at consolation for the loss of friends. +Witness his Ode to Virgil on the death of Quintilius. He tells his +illustrious friend simply that his calamity is without hope, +irretrievable and eternal; that it is idle to implore the gods to +restore the dead; and that, although his lyre may be more sweet than +that of Orpheus, he cannot reanimate the shadow of his friend nor +persuade 'the ghost-compelling god' to unbar the gates of death. He +urges patience as the sole resource. He alludes not unfrequently to his +own death in the same despairing tone. In the Ode to Torquatus,--one of +the most beautiful and touching of all he has written,--he sets before +his friend, in melancholy contrast, the return of the seasons, and of +the moon renewed in brightness, with the end of man, who sinks into the +endless dark, leaving nothing save ashes and shadows. He then, in the +true spirit of his philosophy, urges Torquatus to give his present hour +and wealth to pleasures and delights, as he had no assurance of +to-morrow." + +"In something of the same strain," said I, "Moschus moralizes on the +death of Bion:-- + + Our trees and plants revive; the rose + In annual youth of beauty glows; + But when the pride of Nature dies, + Man, who alone is great and wise, + No more he rises into light, + The wakeless sleeper of eternal night.'" + +"It reminds me," said Elder Staples, "of the sad burden of +Ecclesiastes, the mournfulest book of Scripture; because, while the +preacher dwells with earnestness upon the vanity and uncertainty of the +things of time and sense, he has no apparent hope of immortality to +relieve the dark picture. Like Horace, he sees nothing better than to +eat his bread with joy and drink his wine with a merry heart. It seems +to me the wise man might have gone farther in his enumeration of the +folly and emptiness of life, and pronounced his own prescription for the +evil vanity also. What is it but plucking flowers on the banks of the +stream which hurries us over the cataract, or feasting on the thin crust +of a volcano upon delicate meats prepared over the fires which are soon +to ingulf us? Oh, what a glorious contrast to this is the gospel of Him +who brought to light life and immortality! The transition from the +Koheleth to the Epistles of Paul is like passing from a cavern, where +the artificial light falls indeed upon gems and crystals, but is +everywhere circumscribed and overshadowed by unknown and unexplored +darkness, into the warm light and free atmosphere of day." + +"Yet," I asked, "are there not times when we all wish for some clearer +evidence of immortal life than has been afforded us; when we even turn +away unsatisfied from the pages of the holy book, with all the +mysterious problems of life pressing about us and clamoring for +solution, till, perplexed and darkened, we look up to the still heavens, +as if we sought thence an answer, visible or audible, to their +questionings? We want something beyond the bare announcement of the +momentous fact of a future life; we long for a miracle to confirm our +weak faith and silence forever the doubts which torment us." + +"And what would a miracle avail us at such times of darkness and strong +temptation?" said the Elder. "Have we not been told that they whom +Moses and the prophets have failed to convince would not believe +although one rose from the dead? That God has revealed no more to +us is to my mind sufficient evidence that He has revealed enough." + +"May it not be," queried the Doctor, "that Infinite Wisdom sees that a +clearer and fuller revelation of the future life would render us less +willing or able to perform our appropriate duties in the present +condition? Enchanted by a clear view of the heavenly hills, and of our +loved ones beckoning us from the pearl gates of the city of God, could +we patiently work out our life-task here, or make the necessary +exertions to provide for the wants of these bodies whose encumbrance +alone can prevent us from rising to a higher plane of existence?" + +"I reckon," said the Skipper, who had been an attentive, although at +times evidently a puzzled, listener, "that it would be with us pretty +much as it was with a crew of French sailors that I once shipped at the +Isle of France for the port of Marseilles. I never had better hands +until we hove in sight of their native country, which they had n't seen +for years. The first look of the land set 'em all crazy; they danced, +laughed, shouted, put on their best clothes; and I had to get new hands +to help me bring the vessel to her moorings." + +"Your story is quite to the point, Skipper," said the Doctor. "If +things had been ordered differently, we should all, I fear, be disposed +to quit work and fall into absurdities, like your French sailors, and so +fail of bringing the world fairly into port." + +"God's ways are best," said the Elder; "and I don't see as we can do +better than to submit with reverence to the very small part of them +which He has made known to us, and to trust Him like loving and dutiful +children for the rest." + + + + + CHAPTER V. + + THE HILLSIDE. + +THE pause which naturally followed the observation of the Elder was +broken abruptly by the Skipper. + +"Hillo!" he cried, pointing with the glazed hat with which he had been +fanning himself. "Here away in the northeast. Going down the coast for +better fishing, I guess." + +"An eagle, as I live!" exclaimed the Doctor, following with his cane the +direction of the Skipper's hat. "Just see how royally he wheels upward +and onward, his sail-broad wings stretched motionless, save an +occasional flap to keep up his impetus! Look! the circle in which he +moves grows narrower; he is a gray cloud in the sky, a point, a mere +speck or dust-mote. And now he is clean swallowed up in the distance. +The wise man of old did well to confess his ignorance of 'the way of an +eagle in the air.'" + +"The eagle," said Elder Staples, "seems to have been a favorite +illustration of the sacred penman. 'They that wait upon the Lord shall +renew their strength; they shall mount upward as on the wings of an +eagle.'" + +"What think you of this passage?" said the Doctor. "'As when a bird +hath flown through the air, there is no token of her way to be found; +but the light air, beaten with the stroke of her wings and parted by the +violent noise and motion thereof, is passed through, and therein +afterward no sign of her path can be found.' + +"I don't remember the passage," said the Elder. + +"I dare say not," quoth the Doctor. "You clergymen take it for granted +that no good thing can come home from the Nazareth of the Apocrypha. +But where will you find anything more beautiful and cheering than these +verses in connection with that which I just cited?--'The hope of the +ungodly is like dust that is blown away by the wind; like the thin foam +which is driven by the storm; like the smoke which is scattered here and +there by the whirlwind; it passeth away like the remembrance of a guest +that tarrieth but a day. But the righteous live forevermore; their +reward also is with the Lord, and the care of them with the Most High. +Therefore shall they receive a glorious kingdom and a beautiful crown +from the Lord's hand; for with his right hand shall He cover them, and +with his arm shall He protect them.'" + +"That, if I mistake not, is from the Wisdom of Solomon," said the Elder. +"It is a striking passage; and there are many such in the uncanonical +books." + +"Canonical or not," answered the Doctor, "it is God's truth, and stands +in no need of the endorsement of a set of well-meaning but purblind +bigots and pedants, who presumed to set metes and bounds to Divine +inspiration, and decide by vote what is God's truth and what is the +Devil's falsehood. But, speaking of eagles, I never see one of these +spiteful old sea-robbers without fancying that he may be the soul of a +mad Viking of the middle centuries. Depend upon it, that Italian +philosopher was not far out of the way in his ingenious speculations +upon the affinities and sympathies existing between certain men and +certain animals, and in fancying that he saw feline or canine traits and +similitudes in the countenances of his acquaintance." + +"Swedenborg tells us," said I, "that lost human souls in the spiritual +world, as seen by the angels, frequently wear the outward shapes of the +lower animals,--for instance, the gross and sensual look like swine, and +the cruel and obscene like foul birds of prey, such as hawks and +vultures,--and that they are entirely unconscious of the metamorphosis, +imagining themselves marvellous proper men,' and are quite well +satisfied with their company and condition." + +"Swedenborg," said the Elder, "was an insane man, or worse." + +"Perhaps so," said the Doctor; "but there is a great deal of 'method in +his madness,' and plain common sense too. There is one grand and +beautiful idea underlying all his revelations or speculations about the +future life. It is this: that each spirit chooses its own society, and +naturally finds its fitting place and sphere of action,--following in +the new life, as in the present, the leading of its prevailing loves and +desires,--and that hence none are arbitrarily compelled to be good or +evil, happy or miserable. A great law of attraction and gravitation +governs the spiritual as well as the material universe; but, in obeying +it, the spirit retains in the new life whatever freedom of will it +possessed in its first stage of being. But I see the Elder shakes his +head, as much as to say, I am 'wise above what is written,' or, at any +rate, meddling with matters beyond my comprehension. Our young friend +here," he continued, turning to me, "has the appearance of a listener; +but I suspect he is busy with his own reveries, or enjoying the fresh +sights and sounds of this fine morning. I doubt whether our discourse +has edified him." + +"Pardon me," said I; "I was, indeed, listening to another and older +oracle." + +"Well, tell us what you hear," said the Doctor. + +"A faint, low murmur, rising and falling on the wind. Now it comes +rolling in upon me, wave after wave of sweet, solemn music. There was a +grand organ swell; and now it dies away as into the infinite distance; +but I still hear it,--whether with ear or spirit I know not,--the very +ghost of sound." + +"Ah, yes," said the Doctor; "I understand it is the voice of the pines +yonder,--a sort of morning song of praise to the Giver of life and Maker +of beauty. My ear is dull now, and I cannot hear it; but I know it is +sounding on as it did when I first climbed up here in the bright June +mornings of boyhood, and it will sound on just the same when the +deafness of the grave shall settle upon my failing senses. Did it never +occur to you that this deafness and blindness to accustomed beauty and +harmony is one of the saddest thoughts connected with the great change +which awaits us? Have you not felt at times that our ordinary +conceptions of heaven itself, derived from the vague hints and Oriental +imagery of the Scriptures, are sadly inadequate to our human wants and +hopes? How gladly would we forego the golden streets and gates of +pearl, the thrones, temples, and harps, for the sunset lights of our +native valleys; the woodpaths, whose moss carpets are woven with violets +and wild flowers; the songs of birds, the low of cattle, the hum of bees +in the apple-blossom,--the sweet, familiar voices of human life and +nature! In the place of strange splendors and unknown music, should we +not welcome rather whatever reminded us of the common sights and sounds +of our old home?" + +"You touch a sad chord, Doctor," said I. "Would that we could feel +assured of the eternity of all we love!" + +"And have I not an assurance of it at this very moment?" returned the +Doctor. "My outward ear fails me; yet I seem to hear as formerly the +sound of the wind in the pines. I close my eyes; and the picture of my +home is still before me. I see the green hill slope and meadows; the +white shaft of the village steeple springing up from the midst of maples +and elms; the river all afire with sunshine; the broad, dark belt of +woodland; and, away beyond, all the blue level of the ocean. And now, +by a single effort of will, I can call before me a winter picture of the +same scene. It is morning as now; but how different! All night has the +white meteor fallen, in broad flake or minutest crystal, the sport and +plaything of winds that have wrought it into a thousand shapes of wild +beauty. Hill and valley, tree and fence, woodshed and well-sweep, barn +and pigsty, fishing-smacks frozen tip at the wharf, ribbed monsters of +dismantled hulks scattered along the river-side,--all lie transfigured +in the white glory and sunshine. The eye, wherever it turns, aches with +the cold brilliance, unrelieved save where. The blue smoke of morning +fires curls lazily up from the Parian roofs, or where the main channel +of the river, as yet unfrozen, shows its long winding line of dark water +glistening like a snake in the sun. Thus you perceive that the spirit +sees and hears without the aid of bodily organs; and why may it not be +so hereafter? Grant but memory to us, and we can lose nothing by death. +The scenes now passing before us will live in eternal reproduction, +created anew at will. We assuredly shall not love heaven the less that +it is separated by no impassable gulf from this fair and goodly earth, +and that the pleasant pictures of time linger like sunset clouds along +the horizon of eternity. When I was younger, I used to be greatly +troubled by the insecure tenure by which my senses held the beauty and +harmony of the outward world. When I looked at the moonlight on the +water, or the cloud-shadows on the hills, or the sunset sky, with the +tall, black tree-boles and waving foliage relieved against it, or when I +heard a mellow gush of music from the brown-breasted fife-bird in the +summer woods, or the merry quaver of the bobolink in the corn land, the +thought of an eternal loss of these familiar sights and sounds would +sometimes thrill through me with a sharp and bitter pain. I have reason +to thank God that this fear no longer troubles me. Nothing that is +really valuable and necessary for us can ever be lost. The present will +live hereafter; memory will bridge over the gulf between the two worlds; +for only on the condition of their intimate union can we preserve our +identity and personal consciousness. Blot out the memory of this world, +and what would heaven or hell be to us? Nothing whatever. Death would +be simple annihilation of our actual selves, and the substitution +therefor of a new creation, in which we should have no more interest +than in an inhabitant of Jupiter or the fixed stars." + +The Elder, who had listened silently thus far, not without an occasional +and apparently involuntary manifestation of dissent, here interposed. + +"Pardon me, my dear friend," said he; "but I must needs say that I look +upon speculations of this kind, however ingenious or plausible, as +unprofitable, and well-nigh presumptuous. For myself, I only know that +I am a weak, sinful man, accountable to and cared for by a just and +merciful God. What He has in reserve for me hereafter I know not, nor +have I any warrant to pry into His secrets. I do not know what it is to +pass from one life to another; but I humbly hope that, when I am sinking +in the dark waters, I may hear His voice of compassion and +encouragement, 'It is I; be not afraid.'" + +"Amen," said the Skipper, solemnly. + +"I dare say the Parson is right, in the main," said the Doctor. "Poor +creatures at the best, it is safer for us to trust, like children, in +the goodness of our Heavenly Father than to speculate too curiously in +respect to the things of a future life; and, notwithstanding all I have +said, I quite agree with good old Bishop Hall: 'It is enough for me to +rest in the hope that I shall one day see them; in the mean time, let me +be learnedly ignorant and incuriously devout, silently blessing the +power and wisdom of my infinite Creator, who knows how to honor himself +by all those unrevealed and glorious subordinations.'" + + + + + CHAPTER VI. + + THE SKIPPER'S STORY. + +"WELL, what's the news below?" asked the Doctor of his housekeeper, +as she came home from a gossiping visit to the landing one afternoon. +"What new piece of scandal is afloat now?" + +"Nothing, except what concerns yourself," answered Widow Matson, tartly. +"Mrs. Nugeon says that you've been to see her neighbor Wait's girl--she +that 's sick with the measles--half a dozen times, and never so much as +left a spoonful of medicine; and she should like to know what a doctor's +good for without physic. Besides, she says Lieutenant Brown would have +got well if you'd minded her, and let him have plenty of thoroughwort +tea, and put a split fowl at the pit of his stomach." + +"A split stick on her own tongue would be better," said the Doctor, +with a wicked grimace. + +"The Jezebel! Let her look out for herself the next time she gets the +rheumatism; I'll blister her from head to heel. But what else is +going?" + +"The schooner Polly Pike is at the landing." + +"What, from Labrador? The one Tom Osborne went in?" + +"I suppose so; I met Tom down street." + +"Good!" said the Doctor, with emphasis. "Poor Widow Osborne's prayers +are answered, and she will see her son before she dies." + +"And precious little good will it do her," said the housekeeper. +"There's not a more drunken, swearing rakeshame in town than Tom +Osborne." + +"It's too true," responded the Doctor. "But he's her only son; and you +know, Mrs. Matson, the heart of a mother." + +The widow's hard face softened; a tender shadow passed over it; the +memory of some old bereavement melted her; and as she passed into the +house I saw her put her checked apron to her eyes. + +By this time Skipper Evans, who had been slowly working his way up +street for some minutes, had reached the gate. + +"Look here!" said he. "Here's a letter that I've got by the Polly Pike +from one of your old patients that you gave over for a dead man long +ago." + +"From the other world, of course," said the Doctor. + +"No, not exactly, though it's from Labrador, which is about the last +place the Lord made, I reckon." + +"What, from Dick Wilson?" + +"Sartin," said the Skipper. + +"And how is he?" + +"Alive and hearty. I tell you what, Doctor, physicking and blistering +are all well enough, may be; but if you want to set a fellow up when +he's kinder run down, there's nothing like a fishing trip to Labrador, +'specially if he's been bothering himself with studying, and writing, +and such like. There's nothing like fish chowders, hard bunks, and sea +fog to take that nonsense out of him. Now, this chap," (the Skipper +here gave me a thrust in the ribs by way of designation,) "if I could +have him down with me beyond sunset for two or three months, would come +back as hearty as a Bay o' Fundy porpoise." + +Assuring him that I would like to try the experiment, with him as +skipper, I begged to know the history of the case he had spoken of. + +The old fisherman smiled complacently, hitched up his pantaloons, took a +seat beside us, and, after extracting a jack-knife from one pocket, and +a hand of tobacco from the other, and deliberately supplying himself +with a fresh quid, he mentioned, apologetically, that he supposed the +Doctor had heard it all before. + +"Yes, twenty times," said the Doctor; "but never mind; it's a good story +yet. Go ahead, Skipper." + +"Well, you see," said the Skipper, "this young Wilson comes down here +from Hanover College, in the spring, as lean as a shad in dog-days. He +had studied himself half blind, and all his blood had got into brains. +So the Doctor tried to help him with his poticary stuff, and the women +with their herbs; but all did no good. At last somebody advised him to +try a fishing cruise down East; and so he persuaded me to take him +aboard my schooner. I knew he'd be right in the way, and poor company +at the best, for all his Greek and Latin; for, as a general thing, I've +noticed that your college chaps swop away their common sense for their +larning, and make a mighty poor bargain of it. Well, he brought his +books with him, and stuck to them so close that I was afraid we should +have to slide him off the plank before we got half way to Labrador. So +I just told him plainly that it would n't do, and that if he 'd a mind +to kill himself ashore I 'd no objection, but he should n't do it aboard +my schooner. 'I'm e'en just a mind,' says I, 'to pitch your books +overboard. A fishing vessel's no place for 'em; they'll spoil all our +luck. Don't go to making a Jonah of yourself down here in your bunk, +but get upon deck, and let your books alone, and go to watching the sea, +and the clouds, and the islands, and the fog-banks, and the fishes, and +the birds; for Natur,' says I, don't lie nor give hearsays, but is +always as true as the Gospels.' + +"But 't was no use talking. There he'd lay in his bunk with his books +about him, and I had e'en a'most to drag him on deck to snuff the sea- +air. Howsomever, one day,--it was the hottest of the whole season,-- +after we left the Magdalenes, and were running down the Gut of Canso, we +hove in sight of the Gannet Rocks. Thinks I to myself, I'll show him +something now that he can't find in his books. So I goes right down +after him; and when we got on deck he looked towards the northeast, and +if ever I saw a chap wonder-struck, he was. Right ahead of us was a +bold, rocky island, with what looked like a great snow bank on its +southern slope; while the air was full overhead, and all about, of what +seemed a heavy fall of snow. The day was blazing hot, and there was n't +a cloud to be seen. + +"'What in the world, Skipper, does this mean?' says he. 'We're sailing +right into a snow-storm in dog-days and in a clear sky.' + +"By this time we had got near enough to hear a great rushing noise in +the air, every moment growing louder and louder. + +"'It's only a storm of gannets,' says I. + +"'Sure enough!' says he; 'but I wouldn't have believed it possible.' + +"When we got fairly off against the island I fired a gun at it: and such +a fluttering and screaming you can't imagine. The great snow-banks +shook, trembled, loosened, and became all alive, whirling away into the +air like drifts in a nor'wester. Millions of birds went up, wheeling +and zigzagging about, their white bodies and blacktipped wings crossing +and recrossing and mixing together into a thick grayish-white haze above +us. + +"'You're right, Skipper,' says Wilson to me; + + Nature is better than books.' + +"And from that time he was on deck as much as his health would allow of, +and took a deal of notice of everything new and uncommon. But, for all +that, the poor fellow was so sick, and pale, and peaking, that we all +thought we should have to heave him overboard some day or bury him in +Labrador moss." + +"But he did n't die after all, did he?" said I. + +"Die? No!" cried the Skipper; "not he!" + +"And so your fishing voyage really cured him?" + +"I can't say as it did, exactly," returned the Skipper, shifting his +quid from one cheek to the other, with a sly wink at the Doctor. "The +fact is, after the doctors and the old herb-women had given him up at +home, he got cured by a little black-eyed French girl on the Labrador +coast." + +"A very agreeable prescription, no doubt," quoth the Doctor, turning to +me. "How do you think it would suit your case?" + +"It does n't become the patient to choose his own nostrums," said I, +laughing. "But I wonder, Doctor, that you have n't long ago tested the +value of this by an experiment upon yourself." + +"Physicians are proverbially shy of their own medicines," said he. + +"Well, you see," continued the Skipper, "we had a rough run down the +Labrador shore; rainstorms and fogs so thick you could cut 'em up into +junks with your jack-knife. At last we reached a small fishing station +away down where the sun does n't sleep in summer, but just takes a bit +of a nap at midnight. Here Wilson went ashore, more dead than alive, +and found comfortable lodgings with a little, dingy French oil merchant, +who had a snug, warm house, and a garden patch, where he raised a few +potatoes and turnips in the short summers, and a tolerable field of +grass, which kept his two cows alive through the winter. The country +all about was dismal enough; as far as you could see there was nothing +but moss, and rocks, and bare hills, and ponds of shallow water, with +now and then a patch of stunted firs. But it doubtless looked pleasant +to our poor sick passenger, who for some days had been longing for land. +The Frenchman gave him a neat little room looking out on the harbor, all +alive with fishermen and Indians hunting seals; and to my notion no +place is very dull where you can see the salt-water and the ships at +anchor on it, or scudding over it with sails set in a stiff breeze, and +where you can watch its changes of lights and colors in fair and foul +weather, morning and night. The family was made up of the Frenchman, +his wife, and his daughter,--a little witch of a girl, with bright black +eyes lighting up her brown, good-natured face like lamps in a binnacle. +They all took a mighty liking to young Wilson, and were ready to do +anything for him. He was soon able to walk about; and we used to see +him with the Frenchman's daughter strolling along the shore and among +the mosses, talking with her in her own language. Many and many a time, +as we sat in our boats under the rocks, we could hear her merry laugh +ringing down to us. + +"We stayed at the station about three weeks; and when we got ready to +sail I called at the Frenchman's to let Wilson know when to come aboard. +He really seemed sorry to leave; for the two old people urged him to +remain with them, and poor little Lucille would n't hear a word of his +going. She said he would be sick and die on board the vessel, but that +if he stayed with them he would soon be well and strong; that they +should have plenty of milk and eggs for him in the winter; and he should +ride in the dog-sledge with her, and she would take care of him as if he +was her brother. She hid his cap and great-coat; and what with crying, +and scolding, and coaxing, she fairly carried her point. + +"'You see I 'm a prisoner,' says he; 'they won't let me go.' + +"'Well,' says I, 'you don't seem to be troubled about it. I tell you +what, young man,' says I, 'it's mighty pretty now to stroll round here, +and pick mosses, and hunt birds' eggs with that gal; but wait till +November comes, and everything freezes up stiff and dead except white +bears And Ingens, and there's no daylight left to speak of, and you 'll +be sick enough of your choice. You won't live the winter out; and it 's +an awful place to die in, where the ground freezes so hard that they +can't bury you.' + +"'Lucille says,' says he, 'that God is as near us in the winter as in +the summer. The fact is, Skipper, I've no nearer relative left in the +States than a married brother, who thinks more of his family and +business than of me; and if it is God's will that I shall die, I may as +well wait His call here as anywhere. I have found kind friends here; +they will do all they can for me; and for the rest I trust Providence.' + +"Lucille begged that I would let him stay; for she said God would hear +her prayers, and he would get well. I told her I would n't urge him any +more; for if I was as young as he was, and had such a pretty nurse to +take care of me, I should be willing to winter at the North Pole. +Wilson gave me a letter for his brother; and we shook hands, and I left +him. When we were getting under way he and Lucille stood on the +landing-place, and I hailed him for the last time, and made signs of +sending the boat for him. The little French girl understood me; she +shook her head, and pointed to her father's house; and then they both +turned back, now and then stopping to wave their handkerchiefs to us. I +felt sorry to leave him there; but for the life of me I could n't blame +him." + +"I'm sure I don't," said the Doctor. + +"Well, next year I was at Nitisquam Harbor; and, although I was doing +pretty well in the way of fishing, I could n't feel easy without running +away north to 'Brador to see what had become of my sick passenger. It +was rather early in the season, and there was ice still in the harbor; +but we managed to work in at last; when who should I see on shore but +young Wilson, so stout and hearty that I should scarcely have known, +him. He took me up to his lodgings and told me that he had never spent +a happier winter; that he was well and strong, and could fish and hunt +like a native; that he was now a partner with the Frenchman in trade, +and only waited the coming of the priest from the Magdalenes, on his +yearly visit to the settlements, to marry his daughter. Lucille was as +pretty, merry, and happy as ever; and the old Frenchman and his wife +seemed to love Wilson as if he was their son. I've never seen him +since; but he now writes me that he is married, and has prospered in +health and property, and thinks Labrador would be the finest country in +the world if it only had heavy timber-trees." + +"One cannot but admire," said the Doctor, "that wise and beneficent +ordination of Providence whereby the spirit of man asserts its power +over circumstances, moulding the rough forms of matter to its fine +ideal, bringing harmony out of discord,--coloring, warming, and lighting +up everything within the circle of its horizon. A loving heart carries +with it, under every parallel of latitude, the warmth and light of the +tropics. It plants its Eden in the wilderness and solitary place, and +sows with flowers the gray desolation of rocks and mosses. Wherever +love goes, there springs the true heart's-ease, rooting itself even in +the polar ices. To the young invalid of the Skipper's story, the dreary +waste of what Moore calls, as you remember, + + 'the dismal shore + Of cold and pitiless Labrador,' + +looked beautiful and inviting; for he saw it softened and irradiated in +an atmosphere of love. Its bare hills, bleak rocks, and misty sky were +but the setting and background of the sweetest picture in the gallery of +life. Apart from this, however, in Labrador, as in every conceivable +locality, the evils of soil and climate have their compensations and +alleviations. The long nights of winter are brilliant with moonlight, +and the changing colors of the northern lights are reflected on the +snow. The summer of Labrador has a beauty of its own, far unlike that +of more genial climates, but which its inhabitants would not forego for +the warm life and lavish luxuriance of tropical landscapes. The dwarf +fir-trees throw from the ends of their branches yellow tufts of stamina, +like small lamps decorating green pyramids for the festival of spring; +and if green grass is in a great measure wanting, its place is supplied +by delicate mosses of the most brilliant colors. The truth is, every +season and climate has its peculiar beauties and comforts; the +footprints of the good and merciful God are found everywhere; and we +should be willing thankfully to own that 'He has made all things +beautiful in their time' if we were not a race of envious, selfish, +ungrateful grumblers." + +"Doctor! Doctor!" cried a ragged, dirty-faced boy, running breathless +into the yard. + +"What's the matter, my lad?" said the Doctor. + +"Mother wants you to come right over to our house. Father's tumbled off +the hay-cart; and when they got him up he didn't know nothing; but they +gin him some rum, and that kinder brought him to." + +"No doubt, no doubt," said the Doctor, rising to go. "Similia similibus +curantur. Nothing like hair of the dog that bites you." + +"The Doctor talks well," said the Skipper, who had listened rather +dubiously to his friend's commentaries on his story; "but he carries too +much sail for me sometimes, and I can't exactly keep alongside of him. +I told Elder. Staples once that I did n't see but that the Doctor could +beat him at preaching. 'Very likely,' says the Elder, says he; 'for you +know, Skipper, I must stick to my text; but the Doctor's Bible is all +creation.'" + +"Yes," said the Elder, who had joined us a few moments before, "the +Doctor takes a wide range, or, as the farmers say, carries a wide swath, +and has some notions of things which in my view have as little +foundation in true philosophy as they have warrant in Scripture; but, +if he sometimes speculates falsely, he lives truly, which is by far +the most important matter. The mere dead letter of a creed, however +carefully preserved and reverently cherished, may be of no more +spiritual or moral efficacy than an African fetish or an Indian +medicine-bag. What we want is, orthodoxy in practice,--the dry bones +clothed with warm, generous, holy life. It is one thing to hold fast +the robust faith of our fathers,--the creed of the freedom-loving +Puritan and Huguenot,--and quite another to set up the five points of +Calvinism, like so many thunder-rods, over a bad life, in the insane +hope of averting the Divine displeasure from sin." + + + + + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK, DR. SINGLETARY *** +By John Greenleaf Whittier + +** This file should be named 9588.txt or 9588.zip *** + +This eBook was produced by David Widger + +Project Gutenberg eBooks are often created from several printed +editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the US +unless a copyright notice is included. Thus, we usually do not +keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition. + +We are now trying to release all our eBooks one year in advance +of the official release dates, leaving time for better editing. +Please be encouraged to tell us about any error or corrections, +even years after the official publication date. + +Please note neither this listing nor its contents are final til +midnight of the last day of the month of any such announcement. +The official release date of all Project Gutenberg eBooks is at +Midnight, Central Time, of the last day of the stated month. A +preliminary version may often be posted for suggestion, comment +and editing by those who wish to do so. + +Most people start at our Web sites at: +https://gutenberg.org or +http://promo.net/pg + +These Web sites include award-winning information about Project +Gutenberg, including how to donate, how to help produce our new +eBooks, and how to subscribe to our email newsletter (free!). + + +Those of you who want to download any eBook before announcement +can get to them as follows, and just download by date. This is +also a good way to get them instantly upon announcement, as the +indexes our cataloguers produce obviously take a while after an +announcement goes out in the Project Gutenberg Newsletter. + +http://www.ibiblio.org/gutenberg/etext03 or +ftp://ftp.ibiblio.org/pub/docs/books/gutenberg/etext03 + +Or /etext02, 01, 00, 99, 98, 97, 96, 95, 94, 93, 92, 92, 91 or 90 + +Just search by the first five letters of the filename you want, +as it appears in our Newsletters. + + +Information about Project Gutenberg (one page) + +We produce about two million dollars for each hour we work. The +time it takes us, a rather conservative estimate, is fifty hours +to get any eBook selected, entered, proofread, edited, copyright +searched and analyzed, the copyright letters written, etc. Our +projected audience is one hundred million readers. If the value +per text is nominally estimated at one dollar then we produce $2 +million dollars per hour in 2002 as we release over 100 new text +files per month: 1240 more eBooks in 2001 for a total of 4000+ +We are already on our way to trying for 2000 more eBooks in 2002 +If they reach just 1-2% of the world's population then the total +will reach over half a trillion eBooks given away by year's end. + +The Goal of Project Gutenberg is to Give Away 1 Trillion eBooks! +This is ten thousand titles each to one hundred million readers, +which is only about 4% of the present number of computer users. + +Here is the briefest record of our progress (* means estimated): + +eBooks Year Month + + 1 1971 July + 10 1991 January + 100 1994 January + 1000 1997 August + 1500 1998 October + 2000 1999 December + 2500 2000 December + 3000 2001 November + 4000 2001 October/November + 6000 2002 December* + 9000 2003 November* +10000 2004 January* + + +The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation has been created +to secure a future for Project Gutenberg into the next millennium. + +We need your donations more than ever! + +As of February, 2002, contributions are being solicited from people +and organizations in: Alabama, Alaska, Arkansas, Connecticut, +Delaware, District of Columbia, Florida, Georgia, Hawaii, Illinois, +Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maine, Massachusetts, +Michigan, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New +Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, +Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina, South +Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Vermont, Virginia, Washington, West +Virginia, Wisconsin, and Wyoming. + +We have filed in all 50 states now, but these are the only ones +that have responded. + +As the requirements for other states are met, additions to this list +will be made and fund raising will begin in the additional states. +Please feel free to ask to check the status of your state. + +In answer to various questions we have received on this: + +We are constantly working on finishing the paperwork to legally +request donations in all 50 states. If your state is not listed and +you would like to know if we have added it since the list you have, +just ask. + +While we cannot solicit donations from people in states where we are +not yet registered, we know of no prohibition against accepting +donations from donors in these states who approach us with an offer to +donate. + +International donations are accepted, but we don't know ANYTHING about +how to make them tax-deductible, or even if they CAN be made +deductible, and don't have the staff to handle it even if there are +ways. + +Donations by check or money order may be sent to: + +Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation +PMB 113 +1739 University Ave. +Oxford, MS 38655-4109 + +Contact us if you want to arrange for a wire transfer or payment +method other than by check or money order. + +The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation has been approved by +the US Internal Revenue Service as a 501(c)(3) organization with EIN +[Employee Identification Number] 64-622154. Donations are +tax-deductible to the maximum extent permitted by law. As fund-raising +requirements for other states are met, additions to this list will be +made and fund-raising will begin in the additional states. + +We need your donations more than ever! + +You can get up to date donation information online at: + +https://www.gutenberg.org/donation.html + + +*** + +If you can't reach Project Gutenberg, +you can always email directly to: + +Michael S. Hart <hart@pobox.com> + +Prof. Hart will answer or forward your message. + +We would prefer to send you information by email. + + +**The Legal Small Print** + + +(Three Pages) + +***START**THE SMALL PRINT!**FOR PUBLIC DOMAIN EBOOKS**START*** +Why is this "Small Print!" statement here? You know: lawyers. +They tell us you might sue us if there is something wrong with +your copy of this eBook, even if you got it for free from +someone other than us, and even if what's wrong is not our +fault. So, among other things, this "Small Print!" statement +disclaims most of our liability to you. It also tells you how +you may distribute copies of this eBook if you want to. + +*BEFORE!* YOU USE OR READ THIS EBOOK +By using or reading any part of this PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm +eBook, you indicate that you understand, agree to and accept +this "Small Print!" statement. If you do not, you can receive +a refund of the money (if any) you paid for this eBook by +sending a request within 30 days of receiving it to the person +you got it from. If you received this eBook on a physical +medium (such as a disk), you must return it with your request. + +ABOUT PROJECT GUTENBERG-TM EBOOKS +This PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm eBook, like most PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm eBooks, +is a "public domain" work distributed by Professor Michael S. Hart +through the Project Gutenberg Association (the "Project"). +Among other things, this means that no one owns a United States copyright +on or for this work, so the Project (and you!) can copy and +distribute it in the United States without permission and +without paying copyright royalties. Special rules, set forth +below, apply if you wish to copy and distribute this eBook +under the "PROJECT GUTENBERG" trademark. + +Please do not use the "PROJECT GUTENBERG" trademark to market +any commercial products without permission. + +To create these eBooks, the Project expends considerable +efforts to identify, transcribe and proofread public domain +works. Despite these efforts, the Project's eBooks and any +medium they may be on may contain "Defects". Among other +things, Defects may take the form of incomplete, inaccurate or +corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other +intellectual property infringement, a defective or damaged +disk or other eBook medium, a computer virus, or computer +codes that damage or cannot be read by your equipment. + +LIMITED WARRANTY; DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES +But for the "Right of Replacement or Refund" described below, +[1] Michael Hart and the Foundation (and any other party you may +receive this eBook from as a PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm eBook) disclaims +all liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including +legal fees, and [2] YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE OR +UNDER STRICT LIABILITY, OR FOR BREACH OF WARRANTY OR CONTRACT, +INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE +OR INCIDENTAL DAMAGES, EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE +POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGES. + +If you discover a Defect in this eBook within 90 days of +receiving it, you can receive a refund of the money (if any) +you paid for it by sending an explanatory note within that +time to the person you received it from. If you received it +on a physical medium, you must return it with your note, and +such person may choose to alternatively give you a replacement +copy. If you received it electronically, such person may +choose to alternatively give you a second opportunity to +receive it electronically. + +THIS EBOOK IS OTHERWISE PROVIDED TO YOU "AS-IS". NO OTHER +WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, ARE MADE TO YOU AS +TO THE EBOOK OR ANY MEDIUM IT MAY BE ON, INCLUDING BUT NOT +LIMITED TO WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR A +PARTICULAR PURPOSE. + +Some states do not allow disclaimers of implied warranties or +the exclusion or limitation of consequential damages, so the +above disclaimers and exclusions may not apply to you, and you +may have other legal rights. + +INDEMNITY +You will indemnify and hold Michael Hart, the Foundation, +and its trustees and agents, and any volunteers associated +with the production and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm +texts harmless, from all liability, cost and expense, including +legal fees, that arise directly or indirectly from any of the +following that you do or cause: [1] distribution of this eBook, +[2] alteration, modification, or addition to the eBook, +or [3] any Defect. + +DISTRIBUTION UNDER "PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm" +You may distribute copies of this eBook electronically, or by +disk, book or any other medium if you either delete this +"Small Print!" and all other references to Project Gutenberg, +or: + +[1] Only give exact copies of it. Among other things, this + requires that you do not remove, alter or modify the + eBook or this "small print!" statement. You may however, + if you wish, distribute this eBook in machine readable + binary, compressed, mark-up, or proprietary form, + including any form resulting from conversion by word + processing or hypertext software, but only so long as + *EITHER*: + + [*] The eBook, when displayed, is clearly readable, and + does *not* contain characters other than those + intended by the author of the work, although tilde + (~), asterisk (*) and underline (_) characters may + be used to convey punctuation intended by the + author, and additional characters may be used to + indicate hypertext links; OR + + [*] The eBook may be readily converted by the reader at + no expense into plain ASCII, EBCDIC or equivalent + form by the program that displays the eBook (as is + the case, for instance, with most word processors); + OR + + [*] You provide, or agree to also provide on request at + no additional cost, fee or expense, a copy of the + eBook in its original plain ASCII form (or in EBCDIC + or other equivalent proprietary form). + +[2] Honor the eBook refund and replacement provisions of this + "Small Print!" statement. + +[3] Pay a trademark license fee to the Foundation of 20% of the + gross profits you derive calculated using the method you + already use to calculate your applicable taxes. If you + don't derive profits, no royalty is due. Royalties are + payable to "Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation" + the 60 days following each date you prepare (or were + legally required to prepare) your annual (or equivalent + periodic) tax return. Please contact us beforehand to + let us know your plans and to work out the details. + +WHAT IF YOU *WANT* TO SEND MONEY EVEN IF YOU DON'T HAVE TO? +Project Gutenberg is dedicated to increasing the number of +public domain and licensed works that can be freely distributed +in machine readable form. + +The Project gratefully accepts contributions of money, time, +public domain materials, or royalty free copyright licenses. +Money should be paid to the: +"Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation." + +If you are interested in contributing scanning equipment or +software or other items, please contact Michael Hart at: +hart@pobox.com + +[Portions of this eBook's header and trailer may be reprinted only +when distributed free of all fees. Copyright (C) 2001, 2002 by +Michael S. Hart. Project Gutenberg is a TradeMark and may not be +used in any sales of Project Gutenberg eBooks or other materials be +they hardware or software or any other related product without +express permission.] + +*END THE SMALL PRINT! FOR PUBLIC DOMAIN EBOOKS*Ver.02/11/02*END* diff --git a/9588.zip b/9588.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..e15e6a0 --- /dev/null +++ b/9588.zip diff --git a/LICENSE.txt b/LICENSE.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6312041 --- /dev/null +++ b/LICENSE.txt @@ -0,0 +1,11 @@ +This eBook, including all associated images, markup, improvements, +metadata, and any other content or labor, has been confirmed to be +in the PUBLIC DOMAIN IN THE UNITED STATES. + +Procedures for determining public domain status are described in +the "Copyright How-To" at https://www.gutenberg.org. + +No investigation has been made concerning possible copyrights in +jurisdictions other than the United States. Anyone seeking to utilize +this eBook outside of the United States should confirm copyright +status under the laws that apply to them. diff --git a/README.md b/README.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..a047eb2 --- /dev/null +++ b/README.md @@ -0,0 +1,2 @@ +Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for +eBook #9588 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/9588) |