The Galaxy Magazine [partial] (May, 1870)
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TEE AG A: To Aiko: VOL. IX.—MAY, 1870.—No. 5. PUT YOURSELF IN HIS PLACE. . By CHARLES READE, Author of “Foul Play,” “Griffith Gaunt,” etc. CHAPTER XL. OCTOR AMBOYNE and Raby cried out, and tried to interfere; but Grace’s movement was too swift, furious, and sudden; she was upon the man, with her stiletto high in the air, before they could get to her, and in- deed the blow descended, and, inspired as it was by love, and hate, and fury, would doubtless have buried the weapon in a rascal’s body; but Jael Dence caught Grace’s arm: that weakened, and also diverted the blow; yet the slight, keen weapon pierced Coventry’s cheek, and even inflicted a slight wound upon the tongue. That very moment Jael Dence dragged her away, and held her round the waist, writhing and striking the air; her white hand and bridal sleeve sprinkled with her bridegroom’s blood. As for him, his love, criminal as it was, supplied the place of heroism: he never put up a finger in defence, “ No,” said he, despairingly, “let me die by her hand; it is all I hope for now.” He even drew near her to enable her to carry out her wish: but, on that, Jael Dence wrenched her round directly, and Doctor Amboyne disarmed her, and Raby marched between the bride and the bridegroom, and kept them apart: then they all drew their breath, for the first — time, and looked aghast at each other. oe Not a face in that room had an atom of color left in it; yet it was not until — the worst was over, that they realized the savage scene. _ The bridegroom leaned against the wardrobe, a picture of despair, with blood trickling from his cheek, and channelling his white waistcoat and linen; the bride, her white and bridal sleeve spotted with blood, writhed feebly aie Jael Dence’s arms, and her teeth clicked together, and her eyes shone wildly. At that moment she was on the brink of frenzy. Raby, a man by nature and equal to great situations, was the first to recover self-possession, and see his way. “Silence!” said he, sternly. ‘“Amboyne, here’s a wounded man; attend to him.” * Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1870, by SHztpon & Company, in the Clerk’s Office or tke District Court for the Southern District of New York, 38
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cl Ny mys \ MI i \ ja et ‘ wil uh) Wi NIMNH HY \\, Vy yy PHIM THOM THT a RAAT RRs NIN : THAT CRUSHED FIGURE WITH DISHEVELLED HAIR, AND RABY’S EYE GLEAMING OVER THE LETTER IN HIS HAND, TOLD HIM AT ONCE WHAT WAS GOING ON.—p. 464. , Se
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584 PUT YOURSELF IN HIS PLACE. [May, He had no need to say that twice: the doctor examined his patient zealously, and found him bleeding from the tongue as well as the cheek ; he made him fill his mouth with a constant supply of cold water, and applied cold water to the nape of his neck. _ And now there was a knock at the door, and a voice inquired, rather impa- tiently, what they were about all this time. It was Mr. Carden’s voice. They let him in, but instantly closed the door. ‘ Now, hush!” said Raby, “and let me tell him.” He then, in a very few hurried words, told him the mat- ter. Coventry hung his head lower and lower. Mr. Carden was terribly shaken. He could hardly speak for some time. When he did, it was in the way of feeble expostulation. “Oh, my child! my child! what, would you commit murder ?” “Don’t you see I would?” cried she, contemptuously, “sooner than he should do it, and suffer for it like a felon. You are all blind, and no friends of mine, I should have rid the earth of a monster, and they would never have hanged me. I hate you all, you worst of ail, that call yourself my father, and drove me to marry this villain. One thing, you won’t be always at hand to pro- * tect him.” ** ]’ll give you every opportunity,” said Coventry, doggedly. ‘You shall kill me for loving you so madly.” “She shall do no such thing;’ said Mr. Carden. “Opportunity? do you know her so little as to think she will ever live with you? Get out of my house, and never presume to set foot in it again. My good friends, have pity on a mis- erable father, and help me to hide this monstrous thing from the world.” This appeal was not last: the gentlemen put their heads together, and led Coventry into another room. There Doctor Amboyne attended to him, while Mr. Carden went down and told his guests the’ bridegroom had been taken ill, so seriously indeed that anxiety and alarm had taken the place of joy. The guests took the hint and dispersed, wondering and curious. Meantime, on one side of a plaster wall Amboyne was attending the bride- groom, and stanching the effusion of blood; on the other, Raby and Jael Dence were bringing the bride to reason. She listened to nothing they could say until they promised her most solemnly, that she should never be compelled to pass a night under the same roof as Fred- erick Coventry. That pacified her not a little. Doctor Amboyne had also great trouble with his patient: the wound in the cheek was not serious ; but, by a sort of physical retribution—of which, by the by, I have encountered many curious examples—the tongue, that guilty part of Frederick Coventry, though slightly punctured, bled so persistently, that Am- boyne was obliged to fill his mouth with ice, and, at last, support him with stim- ulants. He peremptorily refused to let him be moved from Woodbine Villa. When this was communicated to Grace, she instantly exacted Raby’s prom- ise ; and, as he was a man who never went from his word, he drove her and Jael - to Raby Hall that very night, and they left Coventry in the villa, attended by a surgeon, under whose care Amboyne had left him with strict injunctions. Mr. Carden was secretly mortified at*his daughter’s retreat, but raised no objection. Next morning, however, he told Coventry; and then Coventry insisted on leaving the house. “Iam unfortunate enough,” said he: “donot let me sepa- rate my only friend from his daughter.” _ Mr. Carden sent a carriage off to Raby Hall, with a note, telling Grace Mr. »ventry was gone of his own accord, and appeared truly penitent, and much f.
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1870. ] PUT YOURSELF IN HIS PLACE. ae 585 shocked at having inadvertently driven her out of the house. He promised also to protect her, should Coventry break his word,.and attempt to assume marital rights without her concurrence. This letter found Grace in a most uncomfortable position. Mrs. Little had returned late to Raby Hall; but, in the morning, she heard from Jael Dence that Grace was in the house, and why. The mother’s feathers were up, and she could neither pity nor excuse. She would not give the unhappy girl a word of comfort. Indeed, she sternly refused to see her. ‘No, ” said she: “Mrs. Coventry is unhappy; so this is no time to show her how thoroughly Henry Little’s mother despises her.” | These bitter words never reached poor Grace, but the bare fact of Mrs. Lit- tle not coming down stairs by one o’clock, nor sending a civil message, spoke volumes, and Grace was sighing over it when her father’s letter came. She went home directly, and so heart-broken, that Jael Dence pitied her deeply, and went with her, intending to stay a day or two only. But, every day, something or other occurred, which combined with Grace’ s prayers to keep her at Woodbine Villa. Mr. Coventry remained quiet for some days, by which means he pacified Grace’s terrors. - On the fourth day, Mr. Beresford called at Woodbine Villa, and Grace re- ceived him, he being the curate of the parish. He spoke to. her in a sympathetic tone, which let her know at once he was partly in the secret. He said he had just visited avery guilty, but penitent man ; that we all need forgiveness, and that a woman, once married, has no chance of. happiness but with her husband. Grace maintained a dead silence, only her eye began to glitter. Mr. Beresford, who had learned to watch the countenance of all those he spoke to, changed his tone immediately, from a spiritual to a secular adviser. “Tf I were you,” said he, in rather an off-hand way, “I would either forgive this man the sin into which his love has betrayed him, or I would try to get a divorce. This would cost money: but, if you don’t mind expense, I think I could suggest a way——” | Grace interrupted him. From whom did you learn my misery, and his vil- lainy? I let you in, because I thought you came from God; but you come from a villain. Go back, sir, and say that an angel, sent by him, becomes a devil in my eyes.” And she rang the bell with a look that spoke volumes. Mr. Beresford bowed, smiled bitterly, and went back to Coventry, with whom he had a curious interview, that ended in Coventry lending him two hundred pounds on his personal security. To dispose of Mr. Beresford for the present, I will add that, soon after this, his zeal for the poor subjected him to an affront. He was a man of soup-kitchens and subscriptions. One of the old fogies, who disliked him, wrote letters to Zhe Liberal, and demanded an account of his re- ceipts and expenditure in these worthy objects, and repeated the demand with a pertinacity that implied suspicion. Then’ Mr. Beresford called upon Doctor _ Fynes, and showed him the letters, and confessed to him that he never kept any accounts, either of public or private expenditure. “I can construe Apollonius Rhodius—with your assistance, sir)’ said he; “but I never could add up pounds, shillings, and pence ; far less divide them except amongst the afflicted.” “Take no notice of the cads,” said Doctor Fynes. But Beresford eaten meekly that a clergyman’s value and usefulness were gone when once a slut = thrown upon him. Then Doctor Fynes gave him high testimonials, ang é parted with mutual regret,
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586 oe PUT YOURSELF IN HIS PLACE. [May, It took Grace a day to get over her interview with Mr. Beresford ; and when with Jael’s help she was calm again, she received a letter from Coventry, indited in tones of the deepest penitence, but reminding her that he had offered her his life, had made no resistance when she offered to take it, and never would. There was nothing in the letter that irritated her; but she saw in it an at- tempt to open a correspondence. She wrote back: “Tf you really repent your crimes, and have any true pity for the poor crea- ture whose happiness you have wrecked, show it by leaving this place, and ceas- ing all communication with her.” This galled Coventry, and he wrote back: *‘ What, leave the coast clear to Mr. Little? No, Mrs. Coventry; no.” Grace made no reply, but a great terror seized her, and from that hour preyed constantly on her mind, the fear that Coventry and Little would meet, and the man she loved would do some rash act, and perhaps perish on the scaffold for it. This was the dominant sentiment of her distracted heart, when one day, at eleven A. M., came a telegram from Liverpool : “Just landed. Will be with you by four. “ HENRY LITTLE.” Jael found her shaking all over, with this telegram in her hand. “Thank God you are with me,” she gasped. “Let me see him once more, and die.” This was her first salad but, all that day, she was never in the same mind for long together. She would burst out into joy that he was really alive, and she should see his face once more. Then she would cower with terror, and say she dared not look him in the face, she was not worthy. Then she would ask wildly, . who was to tell him? What would become of him? _ “Tt would break his heart, or destroy his reason.” *‘ After all he had done and suffered for her!” Oh! why could she not die before he came? Seeing her dead body, he would forgive her. She should tell him she loved him still, should always love him. She would withhold no comfort. Perhaps he would kill her. If so, Jael must manage so that he should not be taken up or tormented any more, for such a wretch as she was. But I might as well try to dissect a storm, and write the gusts of a tempest, as to describe all the waves of passion in that fluctuating and agonized heart: the feelings and the agitation of a life were crowded into those few hours, dur- ing which she awaited the lover she had lost. At last, Jael Dence, though she was also much agitated and perplexed, de- cided on a course of action. Just before four o’clock, she took Grace up stairs, and told her she might see him arrive, but she must not come down until she was sent for. ‘I shall see him first, and tell him all: and, when he is fit to see you, I will let you know.” Grace submitted, and even consented to lie down for half an hour. She was now, in truth, scarcely able to stand, being worn- out with 59 mental struggle. She lay passive, with Jael Dence’s hand in hers. When she had lain so about an hour, she started up suddenly, and the next
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1870. ] 3 PUT YOURSELF IN HIS PLACE, | 587 moment a fly stopped at the door. Henry Little got out at the gate, and walked up the gravel to the house. Grace looked at him from behind the curtain, gazed at him till he disappeared, and then turned round, with seraphic joy on her countenance. ‘“ My darling!” she murmured; “more beautiful than ever! Oh misery! misery!” One moment her heart was warm with rapture, the next it was cold with de- spair. But the joy was blind love; the despair was reason. She waited, and waited, but no summons came. She could not deny herself the sound of his voice. She crept down the stairs, and into her father’s library, separated only by thin folding-doors from the room where Henry Little was with Jael Dence. Meantime Jael Dence opened the door to Henry Little, and, putting her fin- ger to her lips, led him into the dining-room, and shut the door. . Now, as his suspicions were already excited, this reception alarmed him seri- ously. As soon as ever they were alone, he seized both Jael’s hands, and, look- ing her full in the face, said: “One word——is she alive ?” ‘‘ She is.” “Thank God! Bless the tongue that tells me that. My good Jael! my best friend!” And, with that, kissed her heartily on both cheeks. She received this embrace like a woman of wood ; a faint color rose, but re- tired directly, and left her cheek as pale as before. He noticed her strange coldness, and his heart began to quake. “ There is something the matter?” he whispered. ‘¢ ‘There is.” “ Something you don’t like to tell me?” “Like to tell you! I need all my courage, and you yours.” ** Say she is alive, once more.” “She is ‘alive, and not likely to die: but she does not care to live now. They told her you were dead: they told her you were false: appearances were © such she had no chance not to be deceived. She held out for a long time; but they got the better of her—her father is much to blame—she is—married.” “* Married!” ee Yes ! ? “Married!” He leaned, sick as death, against the mantel-piece, and gasped so terribly that Jael’s fortitude gave way, and she began to cry. After a long time, he got a word or two out in a broken voice. “The false—inconstant—wretch ! Oh, Heaven! what I have done and suf- fered for her—and now married !—married! And the earth doesn’t swallow her, nor the thunder strike her! Curse her, curse her husband, curse her children ! may her name be a by-word for shame and misery——” ‘Hush! hush! or you will curse your own mad tongue. Hear all, before you judge her.” “TI have heard all; she is a wife; she shall soon be a widow. Thought I was false! What business had she to think I was false? It is only false hearts that suspect true ones. She thought me dead? Why? Because I was out of sight. She heard there was a dead hand found in the river. Why didn’t she go and see it? Could all creation pass another hand off on me for hers? No; for I loved her. She never loved me.” “She loved you; and loves you still. When that dead hand was found, she
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588 se PUT YOURSELF IN HIS PLACE, 3 | [May, fell swooning, and lay at death’s door for you, and now she has stained her hands with blood for you. She tried to kill her husband, the moment she found you were alive and true, and he had made a fool of her.” “ Tried to kill him! Why didn’t she doit? I should not have failed at such work. I love her.” | “Blame me for that: I stopped her arm, and I am stronger than she is. I say she is no more to blame than you. You have acted like a madman, and she suffers for it. Why did you slip away at night, like that, and not tell me?” “T left letters to you and her, and other people besides.” “ Yes, left them, and hadn’t the sense to post them. Why didn’t you Ze// me? Had ever any young man as faithful and true a friend in any young woman as you had in me? Many a man has saved a woman’s life, but it isn’t often that a woman fights fora man, and gets the upper hand: yet you gave me nothing in return ; not even your confidence. Look the truth in the face, my lad: all your trouble, and all hers, comes of your sneaking out of Hillsborough in that daft way, without a word to me, the true friend, that was next door to you: which I nearly lost my life by your fault ; for, if you had told me, I should have seen you off, and so escaped a month’s hospital, and other troubles that almost drove me crazy. Don’t you abuse that poor young lady before me, or I shan’ t spare you. She is more to be pitied than you are. Folk should look at home for the cause of their troubles: her misery, and yours, it is all owing to your own folly and in- gratitude: ay, you may look ; I mean what I say—ingratitude.” The attack was so sudden and powerful, that Henry Little was staggered and silenced ; but an unexpected defender appeared on the scene: one of the fold- ing-doors was torn open, and Grace darted in. “How dare you say it is his fault, poor ill-used angel! No, no, no, no; I am the only one to blame. I didn’t love you as you deserved. I tried to die for you; and fadled. I tried to kill that monster for you; and faz/ed. I am too weak and silly; I shall only make you more unhappy. Give me one kiss, my _ own darling, and then kill me out of the way.” With this she was over his _ knees and round his neck in a moment, weeping, and clutching him with a pas- sionate despair, that melted all his anger away, and soon his own ‘tears fell on her like rain. <4 cy Grace! Grace!” he sobbed, ‘ how could you? how could you?” on’t speak unkindly to her,” cried Jael, “or she won’t be alive a day. She is worse off than you are; and so is he too.” “You mock me: he is her husband. He can make Net live with him. He can ” Here he broke out cursing and blaspheming, and called Grace a viper, and half thrust her away from him with horror, and his face filled with jealous anguish ; he looked like a man dying of poison. Then he rose to his feet, and said, with a sort of deadly calm, “ Where can I find the man?” _ Not in this house, you may be sure,” said Jael: “nor in any house where she is.” Henry sank into his seat again, and looked amazed. “Tell him all,” said Grace. “Don’t let him think I do not love him at all.” “T will,” said Jael. “ Well, the wedding was at eleven; your letter came at half-past twelve, and I took it to her. Soon after that, the villain came to her, and she stabbed him directly with this stiletto. Look at it; there’s his blood upon it: I kept it to show you. I caught her arm, or she would have killed him, I
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1870.] PUT YOURSELF IN HIS PLACE. f 389 believe. He lost so much blood, the doctor would not let him be moved. Then she thought of you still, and would not pass a night under the same roof with him ; at two o’clock she was on the way to Raby: but Mr. Coventry was too much of a man to stay in the house and drive her out ; so he went off next morn- ing, and, as soon as she heard that, she came home. She is wife and no wife, as the saying is, and how it is all to end, Heaven only knows.” - “Tt will end the moment I meet the man: and that won’t be long.” | “There! there!” cried Grace, “that is what I feared. Ah, Jael! Jael! why did you hold my hand? They would not have hung me. I told you so at the time: I knew what I was about.” “Jael,” said the young man, “of all the kind things you have done for me, that was the kindest. You saved my poor girl from worse trouble than she : now in. No, Grace ; you shall not dirty your hand with such scum as that: is my business, and mine only.” In vain did Jael expostulate, and Grace implore. In vain did Jael assure him that Coventry was in a worsé position than himself, and try to make him see that any rash act of his would make Gracé even more miserable than she was at present. He replied that he had no intention of running his neck into a halter ; he should act warily, like the Hillsborough trades, and strike his blow so cun- ningly, that the criminal should never know whence it came. “I’ve been in a good school for homicide,” said he ; “and I am an inventor. No man has ever played the executioner so ingeniously as I will play it. Think of all this scoun- — drel has done to me: he owes me a dozen lives, and I’ll take one. Man shall never detect me: God knows all, and will forgive me, I hope. If He doesn’t, I can’t help it.” He kissed Grace again and again, and comforted her; said she was not to blame ; honest people were no match for villains: if she had been twice as sim- ple, he would have forgiven her at sight of the stiletto; that cleared her, in his mind, better than words. He was now soft and gentleasalamb. He begged Jael’s pardon humbly, for leaving Hillsborough without telling her. He said he had gone up to her. room ; but all was still; and he was a working man, and the sleep of a work- ing woman was sacred to him—(he would have awakened a fine lady without ceremony). He assured her he had left a note for her in his box, thanking and blessing her for all her goodness. He said that he hoped he might yet live to prove by acts, and not by idle words, how deeply he felt all she had done and suffered for him. ™ Jael received these excuses in hard silence. “That is enough about me,” said she, coldly. “If you are grateful to me, show it by taking my advice. Leave vengeance to Him who has said that vengeance is His.” The man’s whole manner changed directly, and he said doggedly : “Well, I will be His instrument.” “ He will choose His own.” “ll lend my humble coéperation.” : “Oh, do not argue with him,” said Grace, piteously. ‘When did a man ever yield to our arguments? Dearest, I can’t argue: but I am full of misery, and full of fears. You see my love; you forgive my folly. Have pity on me; think of my condition: do not doom me to live in terror by night and day: have I not enough to endure, my own darling ? There, promise me you will do nothing rash to-night, and that you will come to me the first thing to-morrow. Why, you have not seen your noting yet; she is at Raby Hall.” :
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a. * PUT YOURSELF IN HIS PLACE. [May, “My dear mother!” said he: “it would be a poor return for all your love if I couldn’t put off looking for that scum till I have taken you in my arms.” And so Grace got a reprieve. They parted in deep sorrow, but almost as lovingly as ever, and Little went at once to Raby Hall, and Grace, exhausted by so many emotions, lay helpless on a couch in her own room all the rest of the day. For some time she lay in utter prostration, and only the tears that trickled at intervals down her pale cheeks showed that she was conscious of her misera- ble situation. Jael begged and coaxed her to take some nourishment: but she shook her head with disgust at the very idea. For all that, at nine o’clock, her faithful friend almost forced a few spoonfuls of tea down her throat, feeding her like a child: and, when she had taken it, she tried to thank her, but choked in the middle, and, flinging her arm round Jael’s neck, burst into a passion of weeping, and incoherent cries of love, and pity, and despair. ‘Oh, my darling! so great! so noble! so brave! so gentle! And I have destroyed us both! He forgave me as soon as he saw me! So terrible, so gentle! What will be the next calamity? Ah, Jael! save him from that rash act, and I shall never complain; for he was dead, and is alive again.” “We will find some way to do that between us, you, and I, and his mother.” “Ah, yes: she will be on my side in that. But she will be hard upon me. She will point out all my faults, my execrable folly. Ah, if I could but live my time over again, I’d pray night and day for selfishness. They teach us girls to pray for this and that virtue, which we have too much of already ; and what we ought to pray for is selfishness. Butno! I must think of my father, and think of that hypocrite ; but the one person whose feelings I was too mean, and base, and silly to consult, was myself. I always abhorred this marriage. I feared it, and loathed it; yet I yielded step by step, for want of a little selfishness: we are slaves without it, mean, pitiful, contemptible slaves. O God, in mercy give me selfishness! Ah me, it is toolate now. Iam a lost creature; nothing is left me _ . but to die.” ) Jael got her to bed, and sleep came at last to her exhausted body; but, even when her eyes were closed, tears found their way through the lids, and wetted her pillow. ; So can great hearts and loving natures suffer. Can they enjoy in proportion? Let us hope so. But I have my doubts. Henry Little kept his word, and came early next morning. He looked hope- ful and excited: he said he had thought the matter over, and was quite content to let that scoundrel live, and even to dismiss all thought of him, if Grace really loved him. “Tf I love you!” said Grace. ‘Oh, Henry, why did I ask you to do nothing rash, but that I love you? Why did I attempt his life myself? because you said in your letter It was not to revenge myself, but to save you from more calamity. Cruel, cruel! Do I love him?” “T know you love me, Grace: but do you love me enough? Will you give up the world for me, and let us be happy together, the only way we can? My darling Grace, I have made our fortune ; all the world lies before us; I left Eng- land alone, for you; now leave it with me, and let us roam the world together.” ** Henry !—what !—when I cannot be your wife!”
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1870. ] PUT YOURSELF IN HIS PLACE. 591 “You can be my wife ; my wife in reality, as you are his in name and nothing else. It is idle to talk as if we were in some ordinary situation. There are plenty of countries that would disown such a marriage as.yours, a mere cere- mony obtained by fraud, and cancelled by a stroke with a dagger and instant separation. Oh, my darling, don’t sacrifice both our lives to a scruple that is out of place here. Don’t hesitate; don’t delay. I have a carriage waiting out- side ; end all our misery by one act of courage, and trust yourself to me; es I ever fail you?” “For shame, Henry, for shame!” ‘It is the only way to happiness. You were quite right; if I kill that wretch we shall be parted in another way, always parted ; now we can be together for life. Remember, dearest, how I begged you in this very room to go to the United States with me: you refused: well, have you never been sorry you re- fused? Now I once more implore you to be wise and brave, and love me as I love you. What is the world tous? You are all the world to me. * Answer him, Jael, oh answer him!” “‘ Nay, these are things every woman must answer for herself.” “And Ill take no answer but yours.” Then he threw himself at her feet, . and clasping her in his arms, implored her, with all the sighs and tears and elo- quence of passion, to have pity on them both, and fly at once with him. She writhed and struggled faintly, and turned away from him, and fell ten- derly towards him, by turns, and still he held her tight, and grew stronger, more passionate, more persuasive, as she got weaker and almost faint. Her body seemed’on the point of sinking, and her mind of yielding. ; But all of a sudden she made a desperate effort. ‘‘Let me go,” she cried. “So this is your.love! With all my faults and follies, I am truer than you. Shame on your love that would dishonor the creature you love. Let me go, sir,” I say, or I shall hate you worse than I do the wretch whose name I bear.” He let her go directly, and then her fiery glance turned to one long lingering look of deep but tender reproach, and she fled sobbing. He sank into a chair, and buried his face in his hands. After a while, he raised his head, and saw Jael Dence looking gravely at him, “Oh, speak your mind,” said he, bitterly. y “You are like the world. You think only of yourself: that’s all I have to say.” “You are very unkind to say so. I think for us both: and she will think with me, in time. I shall come again to-morrow.” He said this with an iron resolution that promised a Fs and steady struggle, to which Grace, even in this first encounter, had shown herself hardly equal. Jael went to her room, expecting to find her as much broken down as she was by Henry’s first visit; but, instead of that, the young lady was walking rapidly to and fro. At sight of Jael, she caught NE by the hand, and said, “ Well!” “He is coming again to-morrow.” “Is he sorry?” “ Not he.” “Who would have thought he was so wicked ?” This seemed rather exaggerated to Jael; for with all Mrs. Little’s teaching she was not quite a lady yet in all respects, though in many things she was always one by nature. “Let it pass,” said she. | “Tt is a man’s part to try, And a woman’s to deny.” “‘ And how often shall I have to deny him I love so dearly?”
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592 PUT YOURSELF IN HIS PLACE. [May, “As often as he asks you to be his mistress; for, call it what you like, that is all he has to offer you.” Grace hid her face in her hands. Jael colored. “Excuse my blunt speaking; but sometimes the worst word is the best: fine words are just words with a veil on.” “Will he dare to tempt me again, after what I said?” “ Of course he will: don’t you know him? he never gives in. But, suppose he does, you have your answer ready.” “Jael,” said Grace, “you are so strong, it blinds you to my weakness. I resist him, day after day! I, who pity him so, and blame myself! Why, his very look, his touch, his voice, overpower me so that my whole frame seems dis- solving: feel how I tremble at him, even now. No, no; let those resist who are sure of their strength. Virtue, weakened by love and pity, has but one resource to fly. Jael Dence, if you are a woman, help me to save the one thing I have got left to save.” “T will,” said Jael Dence. In one hour from that time they had packéd a box and a carpet-bag, and were on their way to a railway station. They left Hillsborough. In three days Jael returned, but Grace Coventry did not come back with her. The day after that trying scene, Henry Little called, not to urge Grace again, as she presumed he would, but to ask pardon: at the same time we may be sure of this, that, after a day or two spent in obtaining pardon, the temptation would have been renewed, and so on forever. Of this, however, Little was not con- Scious ; he came to ask pardon, and offer a pure and patient love, till such time as Heaven should have pity on them both. He was informed that Mrs. Coven- try had quitted Hillsborough, and left a letter for him. It was offered him; he snatched it and read it. “My OWN DEAR HENRY,—You have given me something to forgive, and I forgive you without asking, as I hope you will one day forgive me. I have left Hillsborough to avoid a situation that was intolerable and solicitations which I blushed to hear, and for which you would one day have blushed too. This part- ing is not for ever, I hope; but that rests with yourself. Forego your idea of vengeance on that man, whose chastisement you would best alleviate by ending his miserable existence ; and learn to love me honorably and patiently, as I love you. Should you obtain this great victory over yourself, you will see me again. Meantime, think of her who loves you to distraction, and whose soul hovers about you unseen. Pray for me, dear one, at midnight, and at eight o’clock every morning; for those are two of the hours I shall pray for you. Do you remember the old church, and how you cried over me? I can write no more: my tears blind me so. Farewell. “ Your unhappy paseiisnh' RACE. Little read this piteous letter, and it was a heavy blow to him; a blow that all the tenderness shown in it could not at first soften. She had fled from him; she shunned him. It was not from Coventry she fled.; it was from him. He went home cold and sick at heart, and gave himself up to grief and deep regrets for several days. But soon his powerful and elastic mind, impatient of impotent sorrow, and
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1870. ] PUT YOURSELF IN HIS PLACE 593 burning for some kind of action, seized upon vengeance as the only thing left to do. At this period he looked on Coventry as a beast in human shape, whom he had a moral right to extinguish; only, as he had not a legal right, it must be done with consummate art. He trusted nobody; spoke to nobody; but set him- self quietly to find out where Coventry lived, and what were his habits. He did this with little difficulty. Coventry lodged in a principal street, but always dined at a club, and returned home late, walking through a retired street or two; one of these passed by the mouth of a narrow court that was little used. Little, disguised as a workman, made a complete reconnaissance of this lo- cality, and soon saw that his enemy was at his mercy. | But, while he debated within himself what measure of vengeance he should | take, and what noiseless weapon he should use, an unseen antagonist baffled him. That antagonist was Grace Carden. Still foreboding mischief, she wrote to Mr. Coventry, from a town two hundred miles distant: “Whatever you are now, you were born a gentleman, and will, I think, re- spect a request from a lady you have wronged. Mr. Little has returned, and I have left Hillsborough ; if he encounters you in his despair, he will do you some mortal injury. This will only make matters worse, and I dread the scandal that will follow, and to hear my sad story in a court of law as a justification for his violence. Oblige me, then, by leaving Hillsborough for a time, as I have done.” On receipt of this, Coventry packed up his portmanteau directly, and, leaving Lally behind to watch the town, and see whether this was a ruse, he went directly to the town whence Grace’s letter was dated, and to the very hotel. This she had foreseen and intended. He found she had been there, and had left for a neighboring watering-place : he followed her thither, and there she withdrew the clue; she left word she was gone to Stirling; but doubled on him, and soon put hundreds of miles between them. He remained in Scotland, hunting her. Thus she played the gray plover with him she hated, and by the beloved hands from crime. When Little found that Coventry had left Hillsborough, he pieintided to him- self that he was glad of it. “ My darling is right,” said he. ‘I will obey her, and do nothing contrary to law. I will throw him into prison, that is all.’ With these moderated views, he called upon his friend Ransome, whom of course he had, as yet, carefully avoided, to ask his aid in collecting the materials for an indictment. He felt sure that Coventry had earned penal servitude, if the facts’ could only be put in evidence. He found Ransome in low spirits, and that ex- cellent public servant being informed what he was wanted for, said drily, “ Well, but this will require some ability: don’t you think your friend Silly Billy would be more likely to do it effectually than John Ransome ?” “Why, Ransome, are you mad?” “No, I merely do myself justice. Silly Billy smelt that faulty grindstone ; and I can’t smell a rat a yard from my nose, it seems. You shall judge for your- self. There have been several burglaries in this town of late, and planned by a master, This put me on my mettle, and I have done all I could, with my small force, and even pried about in person, night after night, and that is not exactly my business, but I felt it my duty. Well, sir, two nights ago, no more, I had the luck to come round a corner right upon a job: Alderman Dick’s house, full of
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594 PUT YOURSELF IN HIS PLACE, [May, valuables, and the windows well guarded ; but one of his cellars is only covered with a heavy wooden shutter, bolted within. I found this open, and a board wedged in, to keep it ajar: down I went on my knees, saw a light inside, and heard two words of thieves’ latin; that was enough, you know; I whipped out the board, jumped on the heavy shutter, and called for the police.” | “ Did you expect them to come?” “Not much. ‘These jobs are timed so as not to secure the attendance of the police. But assistance of another kind came; a gentleman full dressed, in a white tie and gloves, ran up, and asked me what it was. ‘Thieves in the cellar,’ said I, and shouted police, and gave my whistle. The gentleman jumped on the shutter. ‘I can keep that down,’ said he. ‘I’m sure I saw two policemen in Acorn street: run quick;” and he showed me his sword-cane, and seemed so hearty in it, and confident, I ran round the corner, and gave my whistle. Two policemen came up; but, in that moment, the swell accomplice had pulled all his pals out of the cellar, and all I saw of the lot, when I came back, was the swell’s swallow-tail coat flying like the wind towards a back slum, where I and my bob- bies should have been knocked on the head, if we had tried to follow him ; but indeed he was too fleet to give us the chance.” “ Well,” said Henry, “that was provoking: but who can foresee everything all in a moment? I have been worse duped than that a good many times.” Ransome shook his head. ‘An old officer of police, like me, not to smell a swell accomplice. I had only to handcuff that man, and set him down with me . on the shutter, till, in the dispensation of Providence, a bobby came by.” He added by way of corollary, “ You should send to London for a detective.” “ Not I,” said Henry. “I know you for a sagacious man, and a worthy man, and my friend. I’ll have no one to help me in it but you.” “Won’t you?” said Ransome. “Then I’ll goin. You have done me good, Mr. Little, by sticking to a defeated friend like this. Now for your case; tell me all you know, and how you know it.” Henry complied, and Ransome took his notes. Then he said, he had got some old memoranda by him, that might prove valuable: he would call in two days. He did call, and showed Henry Coventry’s card, and told him he had picked it up close by his letter-box, on the very night of the explosion. “ Mark my words, this will expand into something,” said the experienced officer. Before he left, he told Henry that he had now every reason to believe the swell accomplice was Shifty Dick, the most successful and distinguished crimi- nalin England. “I have just got word from London that he has been working here, and has collared a heavy swag; says he will go into trade: one of his old pals let that out in jail. Trade! then heaven help his customers, that is all.’ . ‘You may catch him yet.” ‘When I catch Jack-a-lantern. He is not so green as to stay a day in Hills- borough, now his face has been close to mine; they all know I never forget a face. No, no; I shall never see him again, till I am telegraphed for, to inspect his mug and his wild-cat eyes in some jail or other. I must try and not think of him ; it disturbs my mind, and takes off my attention from my duties.” Ransome adhered to this resolution for more than a month, during which time he followed out every indication with the patience of a beagle ; and, at last, he called one day and told Little Hill had forfeited his bail, and gone to Canada at the expense of the trade ; but had let out strange things before he left. There was a Swell concerned in his attempt with the bow and arrow: there was a swell
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1870. ] PUT YOURSELF IN HIS PLACE. 595 concerned in the explosion, with some workman, whose name he concealed; he had seen them on the bridge, and had seen the workman receive a bag of gold, and had collared him, and demanded his share; this had been given him, but not until he threatened to call the bobbies. ‘“ Now, if we could find Hill, and get him to turn Queen’s evidence, this, coupled with what you and I could furnish, would secure your man ten years of penal servitude. I know an able officer at Quebec. Is it worth while going to the expense?” Little, who had received the whole communication in a sort of despondent, apathetic way, replied that he did not think it was worth while. ‘My good friend,” said he, “I am miserable. Vengeance, I find, will not fill a yearning heart. And the truth is, that all this time I have been secretly hoping she would return, and that has enabled me to bear up, and chatter about revenge. Who could believe a young creature like that would leave her father and all her friends © for good? I made sure she would come back in a week or two. And to think that it is I who have driven her away, and darkened my own life. I thought I had sounded the depths of misery. I was a fool to think so. No, no; life would be endurable if I could only see her face once a day, and hear her voice, though it was not even speaking tome. Oh! oh!” , Now this was the first time Little had broken down before Ransome. Hith- erto, he had spoken of Coventry, but not of Grace; he had avoided speaking of her, partly from manly delicacy, partly because he foresaw his fortitude would give way if he mentioned her. But now the strong man’s breast seemed as if it would burst, and his gasping breath, and restless body, betrayed what a price he must have paid for the dog- ged fortitude he had displayed for several weeks, love-sick all the time. Ransome was affected: he rose and walked about the room, ashamed to look at a Spartan broken down. When he had given Little time to recover some little composure, he said, “Mr. Little, you were always too much of a gentleman to gossip about the lady you love; and it was not my business to intrude upon that subject ; it was too Geiicate. But, of course, with what I have picked up here and there, and what you have let drop, without the least intending it, I know pretty well how the land lies. And, sir,a man does not come to my time of life without a sore and heavy heart ; if I was to tell you how I came to be a bachelor——but, no; even after ten years, I could not answer for myself. All I can say is that, if you should do me the honor to consult me on something that is nearer your heart than revenge, you would have all my sympathy, and all my zeal.” | “Give me your hand, old fellow,” said Little, and broke down again. But, this time, he shook it off quickly, and, to encourage him, Mr. Ransome said, “To begin, you may take my word Mr. Carden knows, by this time, where his daughter is. Why not sound him on the matter?” Henry acted on this advice, and called on Mr. Carden. He was received very coldly by that gentleman. After some hesitation he asked Mr. Carden if he had any news of his daughter, “T have.” The young man’s face was irradiated with joy directly. “Ts she well, sir?” “Tes.” “Ts she happier than she was ?” «She is content.” “Has she friends about her? Kind, good people; any persons of her own cex, whom she can love ?”
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596 PUT YOURSELF IN HIS PLACE. [May, “She is among people she takes for angels, at present. She will find them to be petty, mean, malicious devils. She is in a Protestant convent.” “In aconvent? Where?” “Where? Where neither the fool nor the villain, who have wrecked her happiness between them, and robbed me of her, will ever find her. I expected this visit, sir; the only thing I doubted was which would come first, the villain or the fool. The fool has come first, and, being a fool, expects me to tell him where to find his victim, and torture her again. Begone. fool, from the house you have made desolate by your execrable folly in slipping away by night like a thief, or rather like that far more dangerous animal, a fool.” The old man delivered these insults with a purple face, and a Joud fury, that in former days would have awakened corresponding rage in the fiery young fel- low. But affliction had tempered him, and his insulter’s hairs were gray. He said, quietly, “You are her father. I forgive you these cruel words.” Then he took his hat, and went away. Mr. Carden followed him to the passage, and cried after him, “The villain will meet a worse reception than the fool. I promise you that much.” Little went home despondent, and found a long letter from his mother, telling him he must dine and sleep at Raby Hall that day. She gave him such potent reasons, and showed him so plainly his refusal would infuriate his uncle, and make her miserable, that he had no choice. He packed up his dress suit, and drove to Raby Hall, with a heavy heart and bitter reluctance. O ceca mens hominum ! CHAPTER, XLI IT was the great anniversary. On that day Sir Richard Raby had lost for the Stuarts all the head he possessed. His faithful descendant seized the present opportunity to celebrate the event with more pomp than ever. A month before the fatal day he came in from Hillsborough with sixty yards of violet-colored velvet, the richest that could be got from Lyons: he put this down on a table, and told his sister that was for her and Jael to wear on the coming anniversary. ‘ Don’t ‘tell me there’s not enough,” said he; “for I inquired how much it would take to carpet two small rooms, and bought it; now what will carpet two little libraries will clothe two large ladies ; and you are neither of you shrimps.” While he was thus doing the cynical, nobody heeded him: quick and skilful fingers were undoing the parcel, and the ladies’ cheeks flushed, and their eyes glistened, and their fingers felt the stuff inside and out; in which occupation Raby left them, saying, “ Full dress, mind! We Rabys are not beheaded every day. ”? Mrs. Little undertook to cut both dresses, and Jael was to help’ sew them. But, when they came to be tried on, Jael was dismayed. Why, I shall be half naked,” said she. “Oh, Mrs. Little, I couldn’t: I should sink with shame.” _ Mrs. Little pooh-poohed that, and an amusing dialogue followed between these two women, both of them equally modest, but one hardened, and perhaps a little blinded, by custom. Neither could convince the other, but Mrs. Little renpiwered Jael by say- ing, “I shall wear mine low, and you will mortally offend my brother if you don’t.”
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1870. } PUT YOURSELF IN HIS PLACE, 597 Then Jael succumbed, but looked forward to the day with a simple terror one would hardly have expected from the general strength of her character. Little arrived and saw his mother for a minute or two before dinner. She seemed happy and excited, and said, “Cheer up, darling, we will find a way to make you happy. Mark my words, a new era in your life dates from to-day: I mean to open your eyes to-night. There, don’t question me, but give me one kiss and let us go and make ourselves splendid for poor Sir Richard.” When Little came down stairs he found his uncle and a distinguished-looking young gentleman standing before the fire: both were in full dress. Raby had the Stuart orders on his breast, and looked a prince. He introduced Little to Mr. Richard Raby with high formality; but, before they had time to make ace quaintance, two ladies glided into the room, and literally dazzled the young men, especially Dissolute Dick, who knew neither of them. Mrs, Little, with her oval face, black brow and hair, and stately but supple form, was a picture of matronly beauty and grace; her rich brunette skin, still glossy and firm, showed no signs of age; but under her glorious eyes were the marks of trouble, and though her face was still striking and lovely, yet it reveal- ed what her person concealed, that she was no longer young. That night she looked about eight-and-thirty. The other lady was blonde, and had a face less perfect in contour, but beau- tiful in its way, and exquisite in color and peach-like bloom: but the marvel was her form; her comely head, dignified on this occasion with a coronet of pearls, perched on a throat long yet white and massive, and smooth as alabaster; and that majestic throat sat enthroned on a snowy bust and shoulders of magnificent breadth, depth, grandeur, and beauty. Altogether it approached the gigantic; — but so lovely was the swell of the broad white bosom, and so exquisite the white and polished skin of the mighty shoulders adorned with two deep dimples, that the awe this grand physique excited was mingled with profound admiration. Raby and Henry Little both started at the sudden grandeur and brilliance of the woman they thought they knew, but in reality had never seen; and Raby, dazzled himself, presented her, quite respectfully, to Dissolute Dick. “This is Miss Dence, a lady descended, like the rest of us, from poor Sir Richard ; Miss Dence; Mr. Richard Raby.” Jael blushed more deeply than ladies with white and antique busts are in the habit of doing, and it was curious to see the rosy tint come on her white neck, and then die quietly away again. Yet she curtsied with grace and composure. (Mrs. Little had trained her at all points ; and grace comes pretty readily, where nature has given perfect symmetry.) Dinner was announced, and Raby placed the Dissolute between his sister and the magnificent Beauty dead Sir Richard had developed. He even gave a reason for this arrangement, “ All you ladies like a Rake: you Jraise sober fellows like me ; but what you prefer is a Rake.” , As they were rustling into their places, Mrs. Little said to Dick, with a de- licious air of indifference, “Ave you a rake, Mr. Raby?” “T am anything you like,” replied the shameless fellow. All the old plate was out, and blazing in the light of candles innumerable. There was one vacant chair, Dick asked if there was anybody expected. “Not much,” said Raby drily. ‘That is Sir Richard’s chair, on these occa-
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598 PUT YOURSELF IN HIS PLACE. [ May, sions. However, he may be sitting in it now, for aught I know. I sincerely hope he is.” “Tf I thought that, I’d soon leave mine,” said Jael, in a tremulous whisper. “ Then stay where you are, Sir Richard,” said the Rake, making an affected motion with his handkerchief, as if to keep the good Knight down. In short, this personage, being young, audacious, witty, and animated by the vicinity of the most beautiful creature he had ever seen, soon deprived the anni- versary of that solemn character Mr. Raby desired to give it. Yet his volubili- ty, his gayety, and his chaff were combined with a certain gentlemanlike tact and dexterity ; and he made Raby laugh in spite of himself, and often made the la- dies smile. But Henry Little sat opposite, and wondered at them all, and his— sad heart became very bitter. When they joined the ladies in the drawing-room, Henry made an effort to speak to Jael Dence. He was most anxious to know whether she had heard from Grace Carden. But Jael did not meet him very promptly, and, while he was faltering out his inquiries, up came Richard Raby, and resumed his atten- tions to her: attentions that very soon took the form of downright love-making. In fact he stayed an hour after his carriage was announced, and being a young man of great resolution, and accustomed to please himself, he fell over head and ears in love with Miss Dence, and showed it then and thereafter. It did not disturb her composure. She had often been made love to, and could parry as well as Dick could fence. ’ She behaved with admirable good sense; treated it all as a polite jest, but not a disagreeable one. | Mrs. Little lost patience with them both. She drew Henry aside, and asked him why he allowed Mr. Richard Raby to monopolize her. “ How can I help it?” said Henry. ‘He is in love with her; and no won- der: see how beautiful she is, and her skin like white satin. She is ever so much bigger than I thought. But her heart is bigger than all. Who’d think she had ever condescended to grind saws with me?” ‘Who indeed? And with those superb arms ?” . ‘Why, that is it, mother; they are up to anything: it was one of those su- perb arms she flung round a blackguard’s neck for me, and threw him like a sack ; or I should not be here. Poor girl! Do you think that chatterbox would make her happy?” _ “Heaven forbid! He is not worthy of her. No man is worthy of her, ex- cept the one I mean her to have, and that is yourself.” “*Me, mother! are you mad ?” “No: you are mad, if you reject her. Where can you hope to find her equal ? In what does she fail? In face? why it is comeliness, goodness, and modesty, personified. In person? why-she is the only perfect figure I ever saw. Such an arm, hand, foot, neck, and bust, I never saw, all in the same woman. Is it sense? why she is wise beyond her-years, and beyond her sex. Think of her great self-denial: she always loved you, yet aided you, and advised you to get that mad young thing you preferred to her—men are so blind in choosing women. Then think of her saving your life ; and then how nearly she lost her own, through her love for you. Oh, Henry, if you cling to a married woman, and still turn away from that angelic creature there, and disappoint your poor mother again, whose life has been one long disappointment, I shall begin to fear you were born with- out a heart.”
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ert peb ow sii ti fi qt y4 , 4 anal AN EDITOR’S TALES. Ripniifyye's 14 ™ sts ays ga No. V. ‘THE SPOTTED DOG. PART II.—THE RESULT. URING the next month we saw a good deal of Mr. Julius Mackenzie, and made ourselves quite at home in Mrs. Grimes’s bed-room. We went in and out of the Spotted Dog as if we had known that establishment all our lives, and spent many a quarter of-an hour with the hostess in her little parlor, dis- cussing the prospects of Mr. Mackenzie and his family. He had procured for himself decent, if not exactly new, garments out of the money so liberally pro- vided by my learned friend the Doctor, and spent much of his time in the library of the British Museum. He certainly worked very hard, for he did not altogeth- er abandon his old engagement. Before the end of the first month the index of the first volume, nearly completed, had been sent down for the inspection of the Doctor, and had been returned with ample eulogium and some little criticism. The criticisms Mackenzie answered by letter, with true scholarly spirit, and the Doctor was delighted. Nothing could be more pleasant to him than a corre- spondence, prolonged almost indefinitely, as to the respective merits of a 7d ora rév, or on the demand for a spondee or an iamb.'. When he found that the work was really in industrious hands, he ceased to be clamorous for early publication, and gave us to understand privately that Mr. Mackenzie was not to be limited to the sum named. The matter of remuneration was, indeed, left very much to our- selves, and Mackenzie had certainly found a most efficient friend in the author whose work had been confided to his hands. All this was very pleasant, and Mackenzie throughout that month worked very hard. According to the statements made to me by Mrs. Grimes, he took no more gin than what was necessary for a hard-working man. As to the exact quantity of that cordial which she imagined to be beneficial and needful, we made no close inquiry. He certainly kept himself in a condition for work, and so far all went-on happily. Nevertheless, there was a terrible skeleton in the cupboard, —or rather out of the cupboard, for the skeleton could not be got to hide itself. A certain portion of his prosperity reached the hands of his wife, and she was behaving herself worse than ever. The four children had been covered with de- cent garments under Mrs. Grimes’s care, and then Mrs. Mackenzie had appeared at the Spotted Dog, loudly demanding a new outfit for herself. She came not only once, but often, and Mr. Grimes was beginning to protest that he saw too much of the family. We had become very intimate with Mrs. Grimes, and she did not hesitate to confide to us her fears lest “John should cut up rough,” be- fore the thing was completed. ‘“ You see,” she said, “it is against the house, no doubt, that woman coming nigh it.” But still she was firm, and Mackenzie was not disturbed in the possession of the bed-room. At last Mrs. Mackenzie was provided with some articles of female attire; and then, on the very next day, she and the four children were again stripped almost naked. The wretched creature must have steeped herself in gin to the shoulders, for in one day she made a sweep of everything. She then came in a state of furious intoxication to the Spotted Dog, and was removed by the police under the express order of the landlord.
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612 THE SPOTTED DOG. _ [May, We can hardly say what was the most surprising to us, the loyalty of Mrs. Grimes or the patience of John. During that night, as we were told two days after- ward by his wife, he stormed, with passion. The papers she had locked up in order that he should not get at them and destroy them. He swore that everything should be cleared out on the following morning. But when the morning came he did not even say a word to Mackenzie, as the wretched, downcast, broken- hearted creature passed up stairs to his work. ‘ You see I knows him, and how to deal with him,” said Mrs. Grimes, “ There ain’t another like himself nowheres ; he’s that good. A softer-hearteder man there ain’t in the public line. He can speak dreadful when his dander is up, and can look———; oh, laws, he just can look at you! But he could no more put bis hands upon a woman, in the way of hurting—no ‘more than be an archbishop.” Where could be the man, thought we to ourselves as this was said to us, who could have put a hand—in the way of hurting—upon Mrs. Grimes? On that occasion, to the best of our belief, the policeman contented himself with depositing Mrs. Mackenzie at her own lodgings. On the next day she was picked up drunk in the street, and carried away to the lock-up. At the very mo- ment in which the story was being told tous by Mrs. Grimes, Mackenzie had gone to the police office to pay the fine, and to bring his wife home. We asked with dismay and surprise why he should interfere to rescue her,—why he did not ‘leave her in custody as long as the police would keep her? ‘‘ Who’d there be to look after the children?” asked Mrs. Grimes, as though she were offended at our suggestion. Then she went on to explain that in such a household as that of poor Mackenzie the wife is absolutely a necessity, even though she be an habitual drunkard. Intolerable as she was, her services were necessary to him. . “ A husband as drinks is bad,” said Mrs. Grimes,—with something, we thought, of an apologetic tone for the vice upon which her own prosperity was partly built; “but when a woman takes to it, it’s the-——devil.” We thought she was right, as we pictured to ourselves that:man of letters satisfying the magistrate’s demand for his wife’s misconduct, and)taking the degraded, half-naked creature once more home to his children. We saw him about twelve o’clock on that day, and he had then too evidently been endeavoring to support his misery by the free use of alcohol. We did not speak of it down in the parlor; but even Mrs. Grimes, we think, would have ad- mitted that he had taken more than was good for him. He was sitting up in the bed-room with his head hanging upon his hand, with a swarm of our learned friend’s papers spread on the table before him. Mrs. Grimes, when he entered the house, had gone up stairs to\give them out to him; but he had made no at- tempt to settle himself to his work. “All this kind of thing must come to an end,” he said to us with a thick, husky voice. ‘We muttered something to him as to the need there was that he should exert a manly courage in his troubles. “Manly!” he said. “Well, yes; manly. A man should be a man, of course. There are some things which a man can’t bear. I’ve borne more than enough, and I’ll have an end of it.” We shall never forget that scene. After a while he got up, and became al- most violent. Talk of bearing! Who had borne half as much as he? There were things a man should not bear. As for manliness, he believed that the truly manly thing would be to put an end to the lives of his wife, his children, and himself at one swoop. Of course the judgment of a mealy-mouthed world would be against him, but what would that matter to him when he and they had van- ished out of this miserable place into the infinite realms of nothingness? Was he » .
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1870.] THE SPOTTED DOG. | 613 fit to live, or were they? Was there any chance for his childrén but that of be- coming thieves and prostitutes? And for that poor wretch of a woman, from out of whose bosom even her human instincts had been washed by gin,—would not death to her be, indeed, a charity? There was but one drawback to all this. When he should have destroyed them, how would it be with him if he should af- terwards fail to make sure work with his own life? In such case it was not hanging that he would fear, but the self-reproach that would come upon him in that he had succeeded in sending others out of their misery, but had flinched when his own turn had come. Though he was drunk when he said these horrid things, or so nearly drunk that he could not perfect the articulation of his words, still there was a marvellous eloquence with him. When we attempted to answer, and told him of that canon which had been set against self-slaughter, he laughed us to scorn. There was something terrible to us in the audacity of the argu- ments which he used, when he asserted for himself the right to shuffle off from his shoulders a burden which they had not been made broad enough to bear. There was an intensity and a thorough hopelessness of suffering in his case, an openness of acknowledged degradation, which robbed us for the time of all that power which the respectable ones of the earth have over the disreputable. When we came upon him with our wise saws, our wisdom was shattered instantly, and -flung back upon us in fragments. What promise could we dare hold out to’ him that further patience would produce any result that could be beneficial? What further harm could any such doing on his part bring upon him? Did we think that were he brought out to stand at the gallows’ foot with the knowledge that ten minutes would usher him into what folks call eternity, his sense of suffering would be as great as it had been when he conducted that woman out of court and along the streets to his home, amidst the jeering congratulations of his neigh- bors? “When you have fallen so low,” said he, “that you can fall no lower, the ordinary trammels of the world cease to bind you.” Though his words were knocked against each other with the dulled utterances of intoxication, his intel- lect was terribly clear, and his scorn for himself, and for the world that had so treated him, was irrepressible. We must have been over an hour with him up there in the bed-room, and even then we did not leave him. As it was manifest that he could dono work on that day, we collected the papers together, and proposed that he should take a walk with us. He was patient as we shovelled together the Doctor’s pages, and did not object to our suggestion. We found it necessary to call up Mrs. Grimes to assist us in putting away the “opus magnum,” and were astonished to find how much she had come to know about the work. Added to the Doctor’s manuscript there were now the pages of Mackenzie’s indexes, and there were other pages of reference, for use in making future indexes, as to all. of which Mrs. Grimes seemed to be quite at home. We have no doubt that she was familiar with the names of Greek tragedians, and could have pointed out to us in print the per- formances of the chorus. “A little fresh air "Il do you a deal of good, Mr. Mac- kenzie,” she said to the unfortunate man,—“ only take a biscuit in your pocket.” We got him out into the street, but he angrily refused to take the biscuit which she endeavored to forcé into his hands. That was a memorable walk. Turning from the end of Liquorpond street up Gray’s Inn Lane toward Holborn, we at once came upon the entrance into a miserable court. ‘‘ There,” said he; “it isdown there that I live. She is sleep- ing it off now, and the children are hanging about her, wondering whether moth- er has got money to have another go at it when she rises. I’d take you
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614 THE SPOTTED DOG. [May, down to see it all, only it'd sicken you.” We did not offer to go down the court, abstaining rather for his sake than for our own. The look of the place was as of a spot squalid, fever-stricken, and utterly degraded. And this man whe was -our companion had been born and bred a gentleman,—had been nourished with that soft and gentle care which comes of wealth and love combined,—had re- ceived the education which the country gives to her most favored sons, and had taken such advantage of that education as is seldom taken by any of those fa- vored ones; and Cucumber Court, with a drunken wife, and four half-clothed, half-starved children, was the condition to which he had brought himself! The -world knows nothing higher nor brighter than had been his outset in life,—noth- _ ing lower nor more debased than the result. And yet he was one whose time and intellect had been employed upon the pursuit of knowledge,—who even up to this day had high ideas of what should be a man’s career,—who worked very hard and had always worked,—who, as far as we knew, had struck upon no rocks -in the pursuit of mere pleasure. It had all come to him from that idea of his youth that it would be good for him “to take refuge from the conventional thral- dom of so-called gentlemen amidst the liberty of the lower orders.” His life, as he had himself owned, had indeed been a mistake. We passed on from the court, and crossing the road went through the squares of Gray’s Inn, down Chancery Lane, through the little iron gate into Lincoln’s Inn, through the old square, than which we know no place in London more con- ducive to suicide, and the new square, which has a gloom of its own, not so po- tent, and savoring only of madness, till at last we found ourselves in the Temple Gardens. I do not know why we had thus clung to the purlieus of the Law, ex- cept it was that he was telling us how in his early days, when he had been sent away from Cambridge—as on this occasion he acknowledged to us, for an at- tempt to pull the tutor’s nose, in revenge for a supposed insult—he had intended to push his fortunes as a barrister. He pointed up to a certain window in a dark corner of that suicidal old court, and told us that for one year he had there sat ‘at the feet of a great Gamaliel in Chancery, and had worked with all his ener- gies. Of course we asked him why he had left a prospect so alluring. Though his answers to us were not quite explicit, we think that he did not attempt to conceal the truth. He learned to drink, and that Gamaliel took upon himself to rebuke the failing, and by the end of that year he had quarrelled irreconcilably with his family. There had been great wrath at home when he was sent from Cambridge, greater wrath when he expressed his opinion upon certain questions of religious faith, and wrath to the final severance of all family relations when he told the chosen Gamaliel that he should get drunk as often as he pleased, After that he had “taken refuge among the lower orders,” and his life, such as it was, had come of it. In Fleet street, as we came out of the Temple, we turned into an eating house -and had some food. By this time the exercise and the air had carried off the fumes of the liquor which he had taken, and I knew that it would be well that he should eat. We had a mutton chop and a hot potato and a pint of beer each, and sat down to table for the first and last time as mutual friends. It was odd to see how in his converse with us on that day he seemed to possess a double identity. Though the hopeless misery of his condition was always present to him, was constantly on his tongue, yet he could talk about his own career and his own character as though they belonged to a third person. He could even laugh at the wretched mistake he had made in life, and speculate as to its consequen- ces. For himself he was well aware that death was the only release that he ee A ee
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1870. ] THE SPOTTED DOG. 615 could expect. We did not dare to tell him that if his wife would die, then things might be better with him. We could only suggest to him that work itself, if he would do honest work, would console him for many sufferings. ‘ You don’t know the filth of it,” he said tous. Ah, dear; how well we remember the terri- ble word, and the gesture with which he pronounced it, and the gleam of his eyes as he said it! His manner to us on this occasion was completely changed, and we had a gratification in feeling that a sense had come back upon him of his old associations. “I remember this room so well,” he said, “when I used to have friends and money.” And, indeed, the room was one which has been made memorable by Genius. ‘ I-did not think ever to have found myself here again.” We observed, however, that he could not eat the food that was placed before him. A morsel or two of the meat he swallowed, and struggled to eat the crust of his bread, but he could not make a clean plate of it, as we did, regretting that the nature of chops did not allow of ampler dimensions. His beer was quickly finished, and we suggested to him a second tankard. With a queer, half-abashed twinkle of the eye, he accepted our offer, and then the second pint disappeared also. We had our doubts on the subject, but at last decided against any further offer. Had he chosen to call for it, he must have hada third; but he did not call for it. We left him at the door of the tavern, and he then promised that in spite of all that he had suffered and all that he had said he would make another effort to complete the Doctor’s work. ‘Whether I go or stay,’ he said, “I’d like to earn the money that I’ve spent.” ‘There was something terrible in that idea of his going! Whither was he to go? The Doctor heard nothing of the misfortune of these three or four inauspicious days. The work was again going on prosperously when he came up to Lon- don at the end of the second month. He told us something of his banker, and something of his lawyer, and murmured a word or two as to a new curate whom he needed ; but we knew that he had come up to London because he could not bear a longer absence from the great object of his affections. He could not bear to be thus parted from his manuscript, and was again childishly anxious that a portion of it should be in the printer’s hands. “ At sixty-five, sir,” he said to us, “a man has no time to dally with his work.” He had been dallying with his all his life, and we sincerely believed that it would be well with him if he could be contented to dally with it to the end. If all that Mackenzie said of it was true, the Doctor’s erudition was not equalled by his originality, or by his judg- ment. Of that question, however, we could take no cognizance. He was bent upon publishing, and as he was willing and able to pay for his whim, and was his own master, nothing that we could do would keep him out of the printer’s hands. He was desirous of seeing Mackenzie, and was anxious once even to see him at his work. Of course he could meet his assistant in our editorial room, and__ all the papers could easily be brought backwards and forwards in the old despate ro box. But in the interest of all parties we hesitated in taking our revered and reverend friend to the Spotted Dog. Though we had told him that his work was being done at a public house, we thought that his mind had conceived the idea of some modest inn, and that he would be shocked at being introduced to a place which he would regard simply as a gin-shop. Mrs. Grimes, or if not Mrs. Grimes, then Mr. Grimes, might object to another visitor to their bed-room ; and Mackenzie himself would be thrown out of gear by the appearance of those clerical gaiters upon the humble scene of his work. We, therefore, gave him such reasons as were available for submitting, at any rate for the present, to hav-
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616 THE SPOTTED DOG. [May, ing the papers brought up to him atour room. And we ourselves went down to the Spotted Dog to make an appointment with Mackenzie for the following day. We had last seen him about a week. before, and then the task was progressing well. He had told us that another fortnight would finish it. We had inquired also of Mrs. Grimes about the man’s wife. All she could tell us was that the woman had not again troubled them at the Spotted Dog. She expressed her belief, however, that the drunkard had been more than once in the hands of the police since the day on which Mackenzie had walked with us through the squares of the Inns of Court. It was late when we reached the public house on the occasion to which we now allude, and the evening was dark and rainy. It was then the end of Janu- ary, and it might have been about six o’clock. We knew that we should not find Mackenzie at the public house; but it was probable that Mrs. Grimes could send for him, or at least could make the appointment for us. We went into the little parlor, where she was seated with her husband, and we could immediately see, from the countenance of both of them, that something was amiss. We be- gan by telling Mrs. Grimes that the Doctor had come to town. “ Mackenzie ain’t here, sir,” said Mrs. Grimes, and we almost thought that the very tone of her voice was altered. We explained that we had not expected to find him at that hour, and asked if she could send for him. She only shook her head. Grimes was standing with his back to the fire, and his hands in his trousers pockets. Up to this moment he had not spoken a word. Weasked if the man was drunk. She again shook her head. Could she bid him to come to us to- morrow, and bring the box and the papers with him? Again she shook her head. “T’ve told her that I won’t have no more of it,” said Grimes; “nor yet I won’t. He was drunk this morning—as drunk as an owl.” : ‘‘He was sober, John, as you are, when he came for the papers this after- noon at two o’clock.”” So the box and the papers had all been taken away ! “And she was here yesterday rampaging about the place, without as much clothes on as would cover her nakedness,” said Mr. Grimes. “I won’t have no more of it. I’ve done for that man what his own flesh and blood wouldn’t do. I know that; and I won’t have no more of it. Mary Anne, you'll have that table cleared out after breakfast to-morrow.” When aman, to whom his wife is usually Polly, addresses her as Mary Anne, then it may be surmised that that man is in earnest. We knew that he was in earnest, and she knew it also. “ He wasn’t drunk, John—no, nor yet in liquor, when he come and took away that box this afternoon.” We understood this reiterated assertion. It was in some sort excusing to us her own breach of trust in having allowed the manu- script to be withdrawn from her own charge, or was assuring us that, at the worst, she had not been guilty of the impropriety of allowing the man to take it away when he was unfit to have it in his charge. As for blaming her, who could have thought of it? Had Mackenzie at any time chosen to pass down stairs with the box in his hands, it was not to be expected that she should stop him violently. And now that he had done so, we could not blame her; but we felt that a great weight had fallen upon our own heart. If evil should come to the manuscript, would not the Doctor’s wrath fall upon us with a crushing weight ? Something must be done at once. And we suggested that it would be well that somebody should go round to Cucumber Court. ‘I’d go as soon as look,” said Mrs. Grimes, “but he won't let me.” | “You don’t stir a foot out of this to-night ; not that way,” said Mr. Grimes. “* Who wants to stir?” said Mrs. Grimes,
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1870.] THE SPOTTED DOG, | 617 We felt that there was something more to be told than we had yet heard, and a great fear fell upon us. The woman’s manner to us was altered, and we were sure that this had come not from altered feelings on her part, but from circum- stances which had frightened her. It was not her husband that she feared, but the truth of something that her husband had said to her. “If there is anything more to tell, for God’s sake tell it,” we said, addressing ourselves rather to the man than to the woman. Then Grimes did tell us his story. On the previous evening Mackenzie had received three or four sovereigns from Mrs. Grimes, be- ing, of course, a portion of the Doctor’s payments ; and early on that morning all Liquorpond street had been in a state of excitement with the drunken fury of Mackenzie’s wife. She had found her way into the Spotted Dog, and was being actually extruded by the strength of Grimes himself—of Grimes, who had been brought down from his bed-room by the row when he was only half-dressed— when Mackenzie himself, equally drunk, appeared upon the scene. “ No, John; not equally drunk,” said Mrs. Grimes. ‘“ Bother!” exclaimed her husband, go- ing on with his story.. The man had struggled to take the woman by the arm, and the two had fallen and rolled in the street together.. “I was looking out of the window, and it was awful to see,” said Mrs. Grimes. We felt that it was “awful to hear.” A man, and such a man, rolling in the gutter with a drunken woman—himself drunk—and that woman his wife! “ There ain’t to be no more of it at the Spotted Dog; that’s > all, ” said John Grimes, as he finished his part of the story. Then, at last, Mrs. Grimes became voluble. All this had occurred before nine in the morning. ‘The woman must have been at it all night,’ she said. **So must the man,” said John. .“ Anyways he came back about dinner, and he was sober then. I asked him not to go up, and offered to make him a cup of tea. It was just as you’d gone out after dinner, John.” “He won’t have no more tea here,” said John. “And he didn’t have any then. He wouldn’t, he said to me, but went up stairs. What was 1 todo? I couldn’t tell him as he shouldn’t. Well; during the row in the morning John had said something as to Mackenzie not coming about the premises any more.” “Of course I did,” said Grimes. “He was a little cut, then, no doubt,” continued the lady; “and I didn’t think as he would have noticed what John had said.” “‘T mean it to be noticed now.” “‘He had noticed it then, sir, though he wasn’t just as he should be at that hour of the morning. Well, what does he do? .He goes up stairs and packs up all the papers at once. «Leastways, that’s as I suppose. They ain’t there now. You can go and look if you please, sir. Well, when he came down, whether I was in the kitchen, though it isn’t often as my eyes is off the bar, or in the tap-room, or busy drawing, which I do do sometimes, sir, when there are a many calling for liquor, I can’t say ;—but if I ain’t never to stand upright again, I didn’t see him pass out with the box. But Miss Wilcox did. You can ask her.” Miss Wilcox was the young lady in the bar, whom we did not feel ourselves called upon to examine, feeling no doubt whatever as to the fact of the box having been taken away by Mackenzie. In all this Mrs. Grimes seemed to defend herself, as though some serious charge was to be brought against her; whereas all that she had done had been done out of pure charity ; and in exer- cising her charity towards Mackenzie she had shown an almost exaggerated kind- ness towards ourselves. ’
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618 THE SPOTTED DOG. [May, “Tf there’s anything wrong, it isn’t your fault,” we said “Nor yet mine,” said John Grimes. * No, indeed,” we replied. “Jt ain’t none of our faults,” continued he; “only this: you can’t wash a blackamoor white, nor it ain’t no use trying. He don’t come here any more, that’s all. A man in drink we don’t mind. We has to put up withit. And they ain’t that tarnation desperate as is a woman. As long as aman can keep his legs he’ll try to steady hisself; but there is women who, when they’ve liquor, — gets a fury for rampaging. There ain’t a many as can beat this one, sir. She’s that’ strong, it took four of us to hold her; though she can’t hardly do a stroke of work, she’s that weak when she’s sober.” We had now heard the whole story, and, while hearing it, had determined that it was our duty to go round into Cucumber Court and seek the manuscript and the box. We were unwilling to pry into the wretchedness of the man’s home ; but something was due to the Doctor; and we had to make that appoint- ment for the morrow, if it were still possible that such an appointment should be kept. We asked for the number of the house, remembering well the entrance into the court. Then there was a whisper between John and his wife, and the husband offered to accompany us. “It’s a roughish place,” he said, “but they know me.” “He'd better go along with you,” said Mrs. Grimes. We, of course, were glad of such companionship, and glad also to find that the landlord, upon whom we had inflicted so much trouble, was still sufficiently our friend to take this trouble on our behalf. ‘It’s a dreary place enough,” said Grimes, as he led us up the narrow arch- way. Indeed it was a dreary place. The court spread itself a little in breadth, but very little, when the passage was passed, and there were houses on each side of it. There was neither gutter nor, as far as we saw, drain; but the broken flags were slippery with moist mud, and here and there, strewed about between the houses, there were the remains of cabbages and turnip-tops. The place swarmed with children, over whom one ghastly gas lamp at the end of the court threw a flickering and uncertain light. There was a clamor of scolding voices, to which it seemed that no heed was paid; and there was a smell of damp, rot- ting nastiness, amidst which it seemed to us to be almost impossible that life should be continued. Grimes led the way, without further speech, to the middle house on the left hand of the court, and asked a man who was sitting on the low threshold of the door whether Mackenzie was within. “So that be you, Muster Grimes ; be it?” said the man, without stirring. ‘ Yes; he’s there, I guess, but they’ve been and took her.” Then we passed on into the house. “No matter about that,” said the man, as we apologized for kicking him in our passage. He had not moved, and it had been impossible to enter without kicking him. It seemed that Mackenzie held the two rooms on the ground floor, and we entered them at once. There was no light, but we could see the glimmer of a fire in the grate; and presently we became aware of the presence of children. Grimes asked after Mackenzie, and a girl’s voice told us that he was in the inner room. The publican then demanded a light, and the girl, with some hesitation, lit the end of a farthing candle, which was fixed in a small bottle. We endeay- ored to look round the room by the glimmer this afforded, but could see nothing but the presence of four children, three of whom seemed to be seated in apathy on the floor. Grimes, taking the candle in his hand, passed at once into the
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1870.] THE SPOTTED DOG. | 619 other room, and we followed him. Holding the bottle something over his head, he contrived to throw a gleam of light upon one of the two beds with which the room was fitted, and there we saw the body of Julius Mackenzie stretched in the torpor of dead intoxication. His head lay against the wall, his body was across the bed, and his feet dangled on to the floor. He still wore his dirty boots and his clothes as he had worn them in the morning. No sight so piteous, so wretched, and at the same time so eloquent, had we ever seen before. His eyes were closed, and the light of his face was therefore quenched; his mouth was open, and the slaver had fallen upon his beard; his dark, clotted hair had been pulled over his face by the unconscious movement of his hands. There came from him a stertorous sound of breathing, as though he were being choked by the attitude in which he lay¥ and even in his drunkenness there was an uneasy twitching as of pain about his face. And there sat, and had been sitting for hours past, the four children in the other room, knowing the condition of the parent whom they most respected, but not even endeavoring to do anything for his comfort. What could they do? They knew, by long training and thorough experience, that a fit of drunkenness had to be got out of by sleep. To them there was nothing shocking in it. It was but a periodical misfortune. ‘She'll have to own he’s been and done it now,” said. Grimes, looking down upon the man, and alluding to his wife’s good-natured obstinacy. He handed the candle to us, and, with a mixture of tenderness and roughness, of which the roughness was only in the manner, and the tenderness was real, he raised Mackenzie’s head and placed it on the bolster, and lifted the man’s legs on to the bed. Then he took off the man’s boots, and the old silk handkerchief from the neck, and pulled the trousers straight, and arranged the folds of the coat. It was almost as though he were laying out one that was dead. The eldest girl was now standing by us, and Grimes asked her how long her father had been in that condition. “Jack Hoggart brought him in just afore it was dark,” said the girl, Then it was explained to us that Jack Hoggart was the man whom we had seen sitting on the door-step. “And your mother?” asked Grimes. “The perlice took her afore dinner.” “ And you children ;—what have you had toeat?” In answer to this the girl only shook her head. Grimes took no immediate notice of this, but called the drunken man by his name, and shook his shoulder, and looked round to a broken ewer which stood on the little table, for water to dash upon him; but there was no water in the jug. He called again, and repeated the shaking, and at last Mackenzie opened his eyes, and in a dull, half-conscious manner looked up at us. “Come, my man,” said Grimes, “shake this off and have done with it.” “ Hadn’t you better try to get up?” we asked. There was a faint attempt at rising, then a smile,—a smile which was terrible to witness, so sad was all which it said; then a look of utter, abject misery, coming as we thought from a momentary remembrance of his degradation ; and after that he sank back in the dull, brutal, painless, death-like apathy of absolute unconsciousness. ‘“Tt’ll be morning afore he’ll move,” said the girl. “She’s about right,” said Grimes. “ He’s got it too heavy for us to do any- thing but just leave him. We'll take a look for the box and the papers.” And the man upon whom we were looking down had been born a gentleman, and was a finished scholar,—one so well educated, so ripe in literary acquire- - ment, that we knew few whom we could call his equal! Judging of the matter
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620 THE SPOTTED DOG. [May, by the light of our reason, we cannot say that the horror of the scene should have been enhanced to us by these recollectious. Had the man been a shoe- maker or a coal-heaver, there would have been enough of tragedy in-it to make an angel weep,—that sight of the child standing by the bedside of her drunken father, while the other parent was away in custody,—and in no degree shocked at what she saw, because the thing was so common to her! But the thought of what the man had been, of what he was, of what he might have been, and the steps by which he had brought himself to the foul degradation which we wit- nessed, filled us with a dismay which we should hardly have felt had the gifts which he had polluted and the intellect which he had wasted been less capable of noble uses. ¢ Our purpose in coming to the court was to rescue the Doctor’s papers from danger, and we turned to accompany Grimes into the other room. As we did so the publican asked the girl if she knew anything of a black box which her father had taken away from the Spotted Dog. ‘The box is here,” said the girl, “ And the papers?” asked Grimes. Thereupon the girl shook her head, and we both hurried into the outer room. I hardly know who first discovered the _ sight which we encountered, or whether it was shown to us by the child. The whole fire-place wds strewn with half-burnt sheets of manuscript. There were scraps of pages of which almost the whole had been destroyed, others which were hardly more than scorched, and heaps of paper-ashes, all lying tumbled together about the fender. We went down on our knees to examine them, thinking at the moment that the poor creature might in his despair have burned his own work and have spared that of the Doctor. But it was not so. We found scores of charred pages of the Doctor’s elaborate handwriting. By this time Grimes had found the open box, and we perceived that the sheets remaining in it were tumbled and huddled together in absolute confusion. There were pages of the various volumes mixed with those which Mackenzie himself had written, and they were all crushed, and rolled, and twisted, as though they had been thrust thither as waste-paper—out of the way. ‘“’Twas mother as done it,” said the girl, “and we put ’em back again when the perlice took her.” There was nothing more to learn—nothing more by the hearing which any useful clue could be obtained. What had been the exact course of the scenes which had been enacted there that morning it little booted us to inquire. It was enough and more than enough that we knew that the mischief had been done. We went down on our knees before the fire, and rescued from the ashes with our hands every fragment of manuscript that we could find. Then we put the mass all together into the box, and gazed upon the wretched remnants almost in tears. ‘‘You’d better go and get a bit of some’at to eat,” said Grimes, handing a coin to the elder girl. ‘It’s hard on them to starve ’cause their father’s drunk, sir.” Then he took the closed box in his hand, and we followed him out into the street. ‘I’ll send or step up and look after him to-morrow,” said Grimes, as he put us and the box intoacab. We little thought, when we made to the drunkard © © that foolish request to arise, that we should never speak to him again. As we returned to our office in the cab that we might deposit the box there ready for the following day, our mind was chiefly occupied in thinking over the undeserved grievances which had fallen upon ourselves. We had been moved by the charitable desire to do services to two different persons, to the learned Doctor, and to the red-nosed drunkard, and this had come of it! There had been nothing for us to gain by assisting either the one or the other. We had taken infinite trouble, attempting to bring together two men who wanted each
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1870.] THE SPOTTED DOG. 621 other’s services, working hard in sheer benevolence; and what had been the result? We had spent half an hour on our knees in the undignified and almost disreputable work of raking among Mrs. Mackenzie’s cinders, and now we had to face the anger, the dismay, the reproach, ‘(and—worse than all—the agony of the Doctor. As to Mackenzie, we asserted to ourselves again and again that noth- ing further could be done for him. He had made his bed, and he must lie upon it; but, oh! why—why had we attempted to meddle with a being so degraded ? We got out of the cab at our office door, thinking of the Doctor’s countenance as we should see it on the morrow. Our heart sank within us, and we asked ourselves, if it was so bad with us now, how it would be with us when we re- turned to the place on the following morning. But on the following morning we did return. No doubt each individual reader to whom we address ourselves has at some period felt that indescribable load of personal, short-lived care, which causes the heart to sink down into the boots. It is not great grief that does it; nor is it excessive fear; but the un- pleasant operation comes from the mixture of the two. It is the anticipation of some imperfectly understood evil that does it—some evil out of which there might perhaps be an escape if we could only see the way. In this case we saw no way out of it. The Doctor was to be with us at one o’clock, and he would come with smiles, expecting to meet his learned colleague. How should we break it to the Doctor? We might indeed send to him, putting off the meeting, but the advantage coming from that would be slight, ifany. We must see the injured Grecian sooner or later; and we had resolved, much as we feared, that the evil hour should not be postponed. We spent an hour that morning in ar- ranging the fragments. Of the first volume about a third had been destroyed. Of the second nearly every page had been either burned or mutilated: Of the third but little had been injured. Mackenzie’s own work had fared better than the Doctor’s; but there was no comfort in that. After what had passed I thought it quite improbable that the Doctor would make any use of Mackenzie’s work. So much of the manuscript as could still’be placed in continuous pages, we laid out upon the table, volume by volume—that in the middle sinking down from its original goodly bulk almost to the dimensions of a poor sermon; and the half-burned bits we left in the box. Then we sat ourselves down at our ac- customed table, and pretended to try to work. Our ears were very sharp, and: we heard the Doctor’s step upon our stairs within a minute or two of the ap- pointed time. Our heart went to the very toes of our boots. We shuffled in our chair, rose from it, and sat down again, and were conscious that we were not equal to the occasion. Hitherto we had, after some mild literary form, pa- tronized the Doctor—as a man of letters in town will patronize his literary friend from the country; but we now feared him as a truant school-boy fears his mas- ter, and yet it was so necessary that we should wear some air of self-assurance ! And then he was with us, wearing that bland smile, which we knew so well, and which at the present moment almost overpowered us. We had known that he would wear that smile, and had especially feared it. ‘ Ah,” said he, grasping us by the hand, “I thought I should have been late. I see that our friend is not here yet.” | “Doctor,” we replied, “a great misfortune has happened.” “A great misfortune! Mr. Mackenzie is not dead?” “No; he is not dead. | Perhaps it would have been better that he had died long since. He has destroyed your manuscript.” The Doctor’s face fell, and his hands at the same time, and he stood looking at us. “1 need not tell you, Doctor, what my feelings are, and how great my remorse.”
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622 Pe THE SPOTTED DOG. [May, “ Destroyed it!’? Then we took him by the hand and led him to the table. He turned first upon the appetizing and comparatively uninjured third volume, and seemed to think that we had hoaxed him. “ This is not destroyed,” he said, with a smile. But before we could explain anything, his hands were among the fragments in the box. “As I am a living man, they have burned it!” he ex- claimed. ‘“1—I—I—” Then he turned from us, and walked twice the length of the room, backwards and forwards, while we stood still, patiently waiting the explosion of his wrath. “ My friend,” he said, when his walk was over, “a great man underwent the same sorrow. Newton’s manuscript was burned. I will take it home with me, and we will say no more about it.” We never thought very much of the Doctor as a divine, but we hold him to have been as good a Christian as we ever met. But that plan of his of saying no more about it could not quite be carried out. We were endeavoring to explain to him, as we thought it necessary to do, the cir- cumstances of the case, and he was protesting his indifference to any such details, when there came a knock at the door, and the boy who waited on us below ushered Mrs. Grimes into the room. | As the reader is aware, we had, during the last two months, become very intimate with the landlady of the Spotted Dog, but we had never hitherto had the pleasure of seeing her outside her own house. “Oh, Mr. ,” she began, and then she paused, seeing the Doctor. We thought it expedient that there should be some introduction. ‘“ Mrs, Grimes,” we said, “this is the gentleman whose invaluable manuscript has been destroyed by that unfortunate drunkard.” ‘Oh, then ;—you’re the Doctor, sir?”? The Doctor bowed and smiled. His heart must have been very heavy, but he bowed politely and smiled sweetly. ‘Oh, dear,” she said, “I don’t know how to tell you!” ~ “To tell us what?” asked the Doctor. ' “What has happened since?” we demanded. The woman stood shaking before us, and then sank intoachair. Then arose to us at the moment some idea that the drunken woman, in her mad rage, had done some great damage to the Spotted Dog,—had set fire to the house, or injured Mr. Grimes personally, or perhaps run a muck amidst the jugs and pitchers, window glass, and gas lights. Something had been done which would give the Grimeses a pecuniary claim on us or on the Doctor, and the woman had been sent hither to make the first protest. Oh, when should we see the last of the results of our imprudence in having attempted to befriend such a one as Julius Mackenzie! “If you have anything to tell, you had better tell it,” we said, gravely. ‘“‘ He’s been, and Pe * Not destroyed himself?” asked the Doctor. “Oh yes, sir. He have indeed,—from ear to ear,—and is now a lying at the Spotted Dog.” * * * * * * * * * And so, after all, that was the end of Julius Mackenzie! We need hardly say that our feelings, which up to that moment had been very hostile to the man, underwent a sudden revulsion. Poor, overburdened, struggling, ill-used, aban- doned creature! The world had been hard upon him, with a severity which al- most induced one to make complaint against Omnipotence. The poor wretch had been willing to work, had been industrious in his calling, had had capacity for work ; and he had also struggled gallantly against his evil fate, had recognized and endeavored to perform his duty to his children and to the miserable woman who had brought him to his ruin! And that sin of drunkenness had seemed to
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1870, ] THE SPOTTED DOG. ee us -to be in him rather the reflex of her vice than the result of his own vicious tendencies. Whether it had been so from the first we never knew. They had both in truth been drunkards as long as they had been known in the neighbor- hood of the Spotted Dog; but it was stated by all who had known them there that he was never seen to be drunk unless when she had disgraced him by the public exposure of her own abomination. Such as he was, he had now come to his end! This was the upshot of his loud claims for liberty from his youth upwards ;—liberty as against his father and family ; liberty as against his college tutor; liberty as against all pastors, masters, and instructors ; liberty as against the conventional thraldom of the world! He was now lying a wretched corpse at the Spotted Dog, with his throat cut from ear to ear, till the coroner’s jury should have decided whether or not they would call him a suicide! Mrs. Grimes had come to tell ug that the coroner was to be at the Spotted Dog at four o’clock, and to say that her husband hoped that we would be pres- ent. We had seen Mackenzie so lately, and had so much to do with the employ- ment of the last days of his life, that we could not refuse this request though it came accompanied by no legal summons. Then Mrs. Grimes again became vol- uble, and poured out to us her biography of Mackenzie as far as she knew it. He had been married to the woman ten years, and certainly had been a drunk- ard before he married her. ‘As for her, she’d been well nigh suckled on gin,’ said Mrs. Grimes, “though he didn’t know it, poor feilow.” Whether this was true or not, she had certainly taken to drink soon after her marriage, and then his life had been passed in alternate fits of despondency and of desperate efforts to improve his own condition and that of his children. Mrs. Grimes declared to us that when the fit came on them—when the woman had begun and the man had followed—they would expend upon drink in two days what would have kept the family for a fortnight. “ They say as how it was nothing for them to swallow forty shillings’ worth of gin in forty-eight hours.” The Doctor held up his hands in horror. “ And it didn’t, none of it, come our way,” said Mrs, Grimes. “ Indeed, John wouldn’t let us serve it for ’em.”’ She sat there for half an hour, and during the whole time she was telling us of the man’s life ; but the reader will already have heard more than enough of it. By what immediate demon the woman had been instigated to burn the husband’s work almost immediately on its production within her own home, we never heard. Doubtless there had been some terrible scene in which the man’s sufferings must have been carried almost beyond endurance. “And he had feelings, sir, he had,” said Mrs. Grimes; “he knew as a woman should be decent, and a man’s wife especial. I’m sure we pitied him so, John and I, that we could have cried over him. John would say a hard word to him at times, but he’d have walked round London to do him a good turn. John ain’t to say edicated hisself, but he do respect learning.” | When she had told us all, Mrs. Grimes went, and we were left alone with the Doctor. He at once consented to accompany us to the Spotted Dog, and we spent the hour that still remained to us in discussing the fate of the unfortunate man. We doubt whether an allusion was made during the time to the burned manuscript. If so, it was certainly not made by the Doctor himself. The trag- edly which had occurred in connection with it had made him feel it to be unfitting even to mention his own loss. That such aone should have gone to his account in such a manner, without hope, without belief, and without fear,—as Burley said to Bothwell, and Bothwell boasted to Burley,—that was the theme of the Doc- tor’s discourse. “ ‘The mercy of God is infinite,” he said, bowing his head, with
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. RN DSSE a THE SPOTTED DOG. [May, closed hands. To threaten while the life is in the man is human. To believe in the execution of those threats when the life has passed away is almost beyond the power of humanity. At the hour fixed we were at the Spotted Dog, and found there a crowd as- sembled. The coroner was already seated in Mrs. Grimes’s little parlor, and the body as we were told had been laid out in the tap-room. The inquest was soon over. The fact that he had destroyed himself in the low state of physical suffer- ing and mental despondency which followed his intoxication was not doubted. At the very time that he was doing it, his wife was being taken from the lock-up house to the police office in the policeman’s van. He was not penniless, for he had sent the children out with money for their breakfasts, giving special caution as to the youngest, a little toddling thing of three years old ;—and then he had done it. The eldest girl, returning to the ;house, had found him lying dead upon , the floor. We were called upon for our evidence, and went into the tap-room accompanied by the Doctor. Alas! the very table which had been dragged up stairs into the landlady’s bed-room with the charitable object of assisting Mac- kenzie in his work—the table at which we had sat with him conning the Doc- tor’s pages—had now been dragged down again and was used for another pur- pose. We had little to say as to the matter, except that we had known the man to be industrious and capable, and that we had, alas! seen him utterly prostrated by drink on the evening before his death. The saddest sight of all on this occasion was the appearance of Mackenzie’s wife, whom we had never before seen. She had been brought there by a po- liceman, but whether she was still in custody we did not know. She had been dressed, either by the decency of the police or by the care of her neighbors, in an old black gown, which was a world too large and too long for her. And on her head there was a black bonnet which nearly enveloped her. She was a small woman, and, as far as we could judge from the glance we got of her face, pale, and worn, and wan. She had not such outward marks of a drunkard’s career as those which poor Mackenzie always carried with him. She was taken up to the coroner, and what answers she gave to him were spoken in so low a voice that they did not reach us. The policeman, with whom we spoke, told us that she did not feel it much,—that she was callous now and beyond the power of mental suffering. ‘“She’s frightened just this minute, sir; but it isn’t more than that,” said the policeman. We gave one glance along the table at the burden which it bore, but we saw nothing beyond the outward lines of that which had so lately been the figure of aman. We should have liked to see the countenance once more. The morbid curiosity to see such horrid sights is strong with most of us.’ - But we did not wish to be thought to wish to see it,—especially by our friend the Doctor,—and we abstained from pushing our way to the head of the table. The Doctor himself remained quiescent in the corner of the room the furthest from the spectacle. When the matter was submitted to them, the jury lost not a moment in declaring their verdict. They said that the man had destroyed himself while suffering under temporary insanity produced by intoxication. And that was the end of Julius Mackenzie, the scholar. On the following day the Doctor returned to the country, taking with him our black box, to the continued use of which, as a sarcophagus, he had been made very welcome. For our share in bringing upon him the great catastrophe of his — — Jife, he never uttered to us, either by spoken or written word, a single reproach. That idea of suffering as the great philosopher had suffered seemed to comfort him. “If Newton bore it, surely I can,” he said to us, with his bland smile,
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1870. ] THE SPOTTED DOG. } 625 when we expressed our regret. Something passed between us, coming more from us than from him, as to the expediency of finding out some youthful scholar who could go down to the rectory, and reconstruct from its ruins the edifice of our friend’s learning. The Doctor had given us some encouragement, and we had begun to make inquiry, when we received the following letter :— «¢____ RECTORY, ,»18—. “ DEAR MR. :—You were so kind as to say that you would endeavor to find for me an assistant in arranging and reconstructing the fragments of my work on The Metres of the Greek Dramatists ; your promise has been an addi- tional kindness.” Dear, courteous, kind old gentleman! For we knew well that no slightest sting of sarcasm was intended to be conveyed in these words. “Your promise has been an additional kindness ; but looking upon the matter carefully, and giving to it the best consideration in my power, I have determined to relinquish the design. That which has been destroyed cannot be replaced ; and it may well be that it was not worth replacing. I am old now, and never could do again that which perhaps I was never fitted to do with any fair prospect of success. I will never turn again to the ashes of my unborn child; but will console myself with the memory of my grievance, knowing well, as I do so, that consolation from the severity of harsh but just criticism might have been more difficult to find. When I think of the end of my efforts as a scholar, my mind reverts to the terrible and fatal catastrophe of one whose scholarship was in- finitely more finished and more ripe than mine. *¢ Whenever it may suit you to come into this part of the country, pray remem- ber that it will give very great pleasure to myself and to my daughter to wel- come you at our parsonage. “Believe me to be, my dear Mr. , “Yours very sincerely, 3 9 eel e We never have found the time to accept the Doctor’s invitation, and our eyes have never again rested on the black box containing the ashes of the unborn child to which the. Doctor will never turn again. We can picture him to our- selves standing, full of thought, with his hand upon the lid, but never venturing to turn the lock. Indeed we do not doubt but that. the key of the box is put away among other secret treasures, a lock of his wife’s hair, perhaps, and the little shoe of the boy who did not live long enough to stand at his father’s knee. For a tender, soft-hearted man was the Doctor, and one who fed much on the memories of the past. We often called upon Mr. and Mrs. Grimes at the Spotted Dog, and would sit there talking of Mackenzie and his family. The woman soon vanished out of the neighborhood, and no one there knew what was the fate of her or of her chil- dren. And then also Mr. Grimes went and took his wife with him. But they could not be said to vanish. Scratching his head one day, he told me witha dolorous voice that he had made his fortune. ‘ We’ve got as snug a little place as ever you see, just two mile out of Colchester,” said Mrs. Grimes, tri- umphantly,—* with thirty acres of land just to amuse John. And as for the Spotted Dog, I’m that sick of it, another year’d wear me to a dry bone.” We looked at her, and saw no tendency that way. And we looked at John, and thought that he was not triumphant. Who followed Mr. and Mrs. Grimes at the Spotted Dog we have never visit- ed Liquorpond street to see. ANTHON: TROLLOPE.
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NATURE AND DRESS. N the discussion of the physiological or utilitarian view of dress, it is neces- | sary first to examine into the structure and function of the skin, or exterior coating of our bodies, which the clothing is intended to protect. We accordingly find that it consists of two distinct or separate layers, the external, scarf-skin, or epidermis, being composed of minute scales or cells which are kept soft and flexible by an oily secretion furnished by certain glands; while the deep layer, true skin, or derma, contains nerves, bloodvessels, glands, and a fibrous tissue which holds the other parts in their proper position. Each of these layers, there- fore, has its special function. That of the epidermis is to protect the delicate parts beneath from injury, and by the oily coating to prevent desiccation. That of the derma is to furnish a lodgment for the nerves of touch and for the almost innumerable glands by which perspiration and certain effete products are re- moved from the body, as well as for the bloodvessels by which blood is to be conveyed to these glands, Though in the preceding statement of the function of the two layers of the skin the epidermis appears to occupy an almost unimportant position, it is of especial interest, since it is the portion with which the clothing comes in contact. Consisting as it does of cells which are continually reproduced from the lower layer, it is evident that those which form the absolute surface must be constantly removed by and attached to the clothing with which they are in contact. The oily particles and the saline material of the perspiration, by their removal, also aid in soiling the underclothing, imparting to ita peculiar color which was for- merly very fashionable and known as 7’/sadeau, a term which was derived from the story of Isabella, daughter of Philip II., who is said to have made a vow during the war with Holland not to change her linen until Ostend was taken. The siege lasted three years, and the probable tint of the Archduchess’s linen became a matter of such general public interest that the supposed “ dingy-whitish yellow” was adopted as the court color. As a steam engine requires the continual introduction of fuel and water and the removal of the ashes and products of combustion to keep it in action, so the human machine demands the continual introduction of combustible food and water and the removal of the resulting effete matters. In the accomplishment of the latter purpose the skin is one of the most efficient of all the organs, since about ene-fourth of the total excrementitious material passes out through the glands with which it is provided. This glandular system of the skin is so exten- sive that it is calculated that if the tubes of which it is composed were arranged in a straight line, they would extend over a distance of about thirty miles. We must therefore conclude, from its extent alone, that the proper action of the glandular system of the skin is essential for the maintemance of health, and any- thing that interferes with it or obstructs the secretions will, sooner or later, cause disease. The skin glands are, it is true, in the derma or under-skin ; but their ducts open on the surface of the epidermis. It therefore follows that, if the external scales or cells of the latter are not removed from time to time and as fast as they are produced, the mouths of the ducts will become choked or even closed, and the action of the glands interfered with or entirely stopped. The examination of the facts just stated shows that in persons who, from any
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1870.] NATURE AND DRESS. 627 cause, neglect the use of the bath, and there are many such, the changes of the underclothing should be frequent, if the function of the skin is to be maintained in its integrity, and health thereby preserved. The want of the proper attention to the cleansing of the exterior of the body is not unfrequently the cause of the foul breath from which many persons suffer ; for since it is one of the functions of the skin to remove odoriferous materials, it follows that if these do not pass off by the natural channel they will, in an altered or perverted state, seek an exit through the lungs or some other organ. The garments worn next to the skin should not only be frequently changed, but they should also be well aired and thoroughly dried, especially when the person is sick. It is scarcely necessary to add that the airing should not be according to the Scotch method, which consists in allowing a healthy person to wear the underclothing for a week or so before the invalid puts it on. The materials used for clothing are linen, cotton, wool, and silk. In some countries one or two of these articles are employed to the entire exclusion of the ‘others ; but in regions like that in which New York is situated, where the ther- mometer at one time indicates a temperature many degrees below the zero of Fahrenheit and at another rises to roo deg. in the shade, it is necessary to adapt the external clothing to these extreme changes; for the covering that meets the conditions that prevail in the winter season is utterly unbearable in summer, and the light tissues that are suited to the latter are but a sorry protection against the rude blasts of winter. Impressed with the importance of deciding the question of the conducting power of such materials in a philosophical manner, Sir Humphry Davy made an extensive series of experiments to settle the matter satisfactorily. The ap- paratus he employed, though exceedingly simple, was very ingenious, and showed that not only did the conducting power vary with different tissues, but also with the looseness or closeness of the texture of the cloth. Davy’s apparatus con- sisted of a small glass flask or bottle, in which a thermometer was placed so that the bulb was as near as possible to the centre of the flask. The space hetween the bulb and the vessel being filled with the material to be examined, and the apparatus immersed in boiling water, the time required for the heat to pass through the tissue to the thermometer, and produce an elevation of a given num- ber of degrees in the liquid of the latter, represented the conducting power of | the material. The results of many trials showed that linen was the best con- ductor ; then cotton, wool, and silk, in the order in which they have been men- tioned, silk being the worst of all. . In the course of these experiments, Davy also discovered that the manner of packing the material greatly influenced: its conducting power. When it was closely packed it was good; when it was loosely packed it was bad, owing to the fact that the loosely-packed material entrapped a larger amount of atmospheric air in its meshes, the low or bad conducting power of which is well known. From the results obtained by Davy, it is evident thatin hot climates, where it is desirable to conduct away the heat produced in the body as fast as possible, the clothing should be made of linen or cotton, and the cloth woven as closely as possible. In cold regions, on the contrary, wool and silk should be used, and the cloth woven loosely to take advantage of the non-conducting power of the air. Though the conclusions arrived at in the preceding paragraph may be just when applied to torrid and frigid zones, it is nevertheless a very prevalent opin- ion that it is best in our climate to wear flannel next to the skin throughout the year, and confine the changes to the external garments. In this, as in many
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628 NATURE AND DRESS. [May, other matters, the dictates of experience are founded on facts that have been overlooked or underestimated. It appears at first sight best to wear linen next to the skin in the summer to remove the heat; but we find, when we examine the’matter more closely, that the sudden variations of temperature, amounting in New York often to more than twenty degrees in as many hours, render it more important that we should rather aim at protecting the body from these, than seek to retain or convey away the heat developed. This can only be done by wearing flannel or silk next to the skin; and when this habit has once been formed, the wearer generally prefers them at all seasons to either cotton or linen, since they do not produce the chilling effect caused by the :atter, when after ex- ercise one stands in.a draught or currént of air, and thereby promotes the evapora- tion of the perspiration moisture with which they are imbued. The superior value of underclothing made of wool or flannel, when the body is exposed to great changes of temperature, is illustrated by the experience of many navy officers, one of whom relates that when in command of the British ship Valorous, he was so strongly impressed from former experience with a . sense of the efficacy of the protection afforded by the constant use of flannel next to the skin, that when, on his arrival in England in December, after two years’ service amid the icebergs of the coast of Labrador, the ship was ordered to sail immediately for the West Indies, he ordered the purser to draw two ex- tra flannel shirts and pairs of drawers for each man, and instituted a regular daily inspection to see that they were worn. These precautions are stated to have been followed by the most happy results. He proceeded to his station with a crew of one hundred and fifty men; visited almost every island in the West Indies, and many of the ports on the Gulf of Mexico; and, notwithstand- ing the sudden transition from extreme climates, returned to England without the loss of a single man, and without any on the sick list on his arrival. The same officer, when in command of a brig that lay for nine weeks off Vera Cruz, preserved the health of his crew, though in constant communication with. other vessels, many of which lost from twenty to fifty men each. The color of the external garments is not only a subject of zsthetic interest, but it is also of importance from a hygienic point of view. Many of our readers are doubtless familiar with the experiments of Franklin, in which he placed small pieces of cloth of different colors on snow in the sunlight, and found that those which were darkest in tint sank to the greatest depth in a given period of time, thus demonstrating that dark surfaces absorb light and heat with far great- er rapidity than those which are light-colored. In like manner, Dr. Stark found that when pieces of cloth of different colors were exposed to vapors, and particu- larly to those which, like camphor, are highly odoriferous, the vapor is condensed chiefly on the dark-colored surfaces. Dr. Stark states the conclusions to be drawn from these results as follows: “Tf it be thus certain that odorous particles have not only a particular affinity for different substances, but that the color of these substances materially affects their absorbing or radiating quality, the knowledge of these facts may afford use- ful hints for the preservation of the general health during the prevalence of con- tagious diseases. From their minute division and vast range of action, latent poisonous exhalations or effluvia, inappreciable by the balance, may no doubt exist to a dangerous extent without being evident to the sense of smell. But in most cases it will be found that, when contagious diseases prevail to such an ex- tent, the emanations from the sick will, if attended to, give the surest indica- tions of the contamination of the surrounding air. Besides, even if we allow
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1870. ] NATURE AND DRESS. 629 that infectious exhalations have no necessary connection with odors, the experi- ments will afford the strongest possible presumption that emanations of an infectious nature, in common with odors and vapors, are emitted on the one hand, and on the other received, according to the same general laws. Next, therefore, to keeping the walls of hospitals, prisons, or apartments occupied by a number of persons, of a white color, I would suggest that the bedsteads, tables, seats, etc., should be painted white, and that the dresses of the nurses and hospi- tal attendants should be of a light color. On the same principle, it would appear that physicians and others, by dressing in d/ack, have unluckily chosen the color of all others the most absorbent of odorous and other exhalations, and of course the most dangerous to themselves and patients.” In connection with the question of absorption of emanations by clothing, we may Call attention to the fact that materials made from such animal growths as wool and silk seem to absorb odorous animal exhalations with greater avidity than those made of linen or cotton, which indicates the advisability of using the latter materials at least for the external clothing of hospital attendants and nurses, and so reducing as much as possible the opportunity for the conveyance of diseases by clothing. Of all variable social customs, the most sath is that of the style or fashion of the dress; and, as in the case of the color, it may be examined from either an esthetic or hygienic point of view. Adopting the latter, we are at once brought face to face with the oft-repeated discussion as to whether it is best to support the clothing from the shoulders or from the hips. This case of suspenders versus corsets or girdles may be investigated both historically and physiological- ly. In accordance with the first, we find that dress was originally adopted rather for moral than hygienic reasons, and consisted of an apron suspended by a gir- dle fastened around the waist. In climates where this Adamic costume can be worn it is still retained, and, though there may be many exceptions, the figures of the peoples who employ it are generally marked for their physical develop- ment and beauty. Following the primitive there appeared two styles of dress, the classic, which has in these latter days become the modern flowing skirt, and the Eastern, which has degenerated into the pantaloon. These were similar to the Adamic costume, in that the support was derived chiefly fron the girdle, as is shown by an exam- ination of Greek, Roman, and Eastern styles of dress. Among the Greeks both sexes wore an undergarment called the chiton, made at first of wool, then of linen, and finally of silk. The Doric chiton was so short as scarcely to reach to the knee. It was made of two square pieces sewed to- gether, and fastened over the shoulder by clasps; it usually had short sleeves, and was slit up the side, as in the figure of Diana, to allow freedom of motion to the limbs. Among the Spartans the virgins appeared among the men without any other covering; only the married women wore the external garment. The Ionic chiton reached to the feet, and both kinds were fastened by a girdle around the waist, over which the chiton was drawn to fall in folds, which often hid the girdle entirely. Over the chiton the women wore a short jacket that did not reach to the girdle. The external garment for both sexes was called the pep- lum, and was worn in such a manner as to derive its support chiefly from the folds thrown around the waist. The Roman underdress was the tunic, which only differed from the Grecian chiton in name, The external dress of the men was the toga, and that of the women the stola, which was fastened by a gintio around the waist.
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630 NATURE AND DRESS. [May, This brief review of classic dress shows that it was so arranged as to be sup- ported from the hips by means of the girdle. The upper extremities were thus untrammelled in their movements, and the shoulders only carried the weight of the small amount of clothing that descended to the waist. The variations in climate being met by an increase in the number of tunics, the external garments _ were not worn within doors; we may consequently say that the weight of the costume fell at all times almost entirely on the hips. As a consequence the hu- man form reached a high degree of perfection, if we may judge from the statues that have been preserved to us from those times, and of which the Venus of Milo, so generally spoken of in works on physiology, is an example. In this connection we would respectfully call the attention of the modern Amazons to their earlier namesakes, who, though they also wore trousers, still retained a sufficient regard for their physical development to avoid strapping down their shoulders. In the East the heaviest part of the dress of both sexes has been similar, from time immemorial, to the modern trousers, made very loose, suspended from the hips by a girdle, and fastened around the ankle. In this costume the upper part of the body is covered by a short, loose jacket, thus forming a dress which, though it differs in appearance from the classic, agrees with it in giving great freedom of motion to the upper extremities, and throws the weight chiefly on the hips. In our own time these early costumes are still worn, and artists tell us that if we would see the human form in its perfection we must seek for it where they are retained, and not among those whose chests are strapped down and de- formed by the so-called suspenders. In the physiological discussion of the relative merits of suspenders and gir- dies or corsets, it is necessary to pay due regard to sex, and in obedience to the dictates of polite custom we may first examine into the physiological necessities of dress in woman. By virtue of her relations to the function of reproduction, woman is so constructed that the hips are much broader than in man. Owing to this, the bones of the lower extremities are very far apart, and the gait is un- steady, or an awkward waddle. By the use of the skirt this awkwardness is con- verted into a graceful undulating movement; and having made this discovery, there is but little doubt that woman will hereafter, in obedience to the exsthetic element in her nature, continue to wear the present style of dress, The use of the skirt being premised and granted, shall it be suspended from _ the hips or from the shoulders? Our opinion is, from the hips, most decidedly, and for the following reasons. In woman respiration is accomplished chiefly, and in certain conditions entirely, by the elevation and expansion of the upper part of the chest. To use a medical phrase, it is thoracic, and not abdominal, as in man, Anything, therefore, that interferes with the performance of this func- tion should be carefully avoided, so as to leave it perfectly free and untrammelled in its action. Even the clothing about the upper part of the chest should rest as lightly as possible on the shoulders, and all strapping down should be dis- carded. Another objection to the use of straps is their tendency to interfere with the breasts, and in view of the sensitiveness of these organs it would appear that it would be wise to arrange the clothing rather to support them than to press them down. : Admitting that the use of the corset, or improved girdle, is desirable, it should be made of firm, properly-woven material, and fitted to the figure of the wearer in such a manner as to make the hips the chief point of support. Corsets should never be tightly laced, and they should always be laid aside during the
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1870. ] NATURE AND DRESS. 631 hours of sleep, since they are intended to serve as an attachment for the dress worn during the day, and not to reduce the diameter of the waist. When prop- erly made, they not only carry the skirts in the best manner and bear no incon- siderable part of the weight of the clothing of the chest, thus leaving respiration free, but they also support the breasts, and assist in preserving the youthful ‘ap- pearance of the figure. In men, as we have already stated, tranquil respiration is rather abdominal than thoracic; it would, therefore, appear at first sight that the use of shoulder- ‘braces was indicated; but if we examine the subject closely, we find that there are excellent reasons why we should withhold our decision until other matters have been considered. We may consequently ask, why is it that the schoolboy and the professional runner girdle their waists tightly when preparing for a race ? Why does the pugilist, sailor, carpenter, and almost every kind of mechanic and laborer throw off his suspenders, if he has any, and draw his belt tight when at work? The self-evident answer is, to give support to the abdominal muscles and organs, and to remove all impediments to the free action of the respiratory muscles of the chest; for though respiration may be abdominal in man when he © is in the quiescent state, it becomes almost entirely thoracic when he is under- going exertion of any kind, for then the muscles of the abdomen are generally in a continued state of contraction, and the rhythmic respiratory movement is impos- sible ; thoracic respiration is, therefore, instantly established, and the system re- bels against anything that tends to interfere with the freedom of motion about the muscles of the upper part of the chest. If these facts have any weight, and if it is admitted that when the body is in a state of action it is wise to have the shoulders free from everything that tends to confine their movements, is it not best, since man may at any moment be called upon for such violent exertion, to have his dress so arranged that he may at all times be prepared to meet the exigencies to which he is liable ? And is it not probable that the failure to throw the weight of a part of the garments on the hips, and the persistent use of suspenders, has been a powerful agent in the pro- duction of the narrow chests that we so commonly see, and which present the shape that would be produced by a weight continually dragging on the upper part of the chest, just as in some savage tribes the head is compressed into a certain form by strapping it down with bands and boards? | The fashion or style of cut of clothing, independently of the question of the manner in which it should be supported, hardly comes within the scope of such an article as this. We may, however, state that in the great majority of instances, the introduction of extremes has been owing to the desire of those who suffered from some deformity to conceal it by changing the fashion. Thus, unequal hips were made symmetrical by a device well known to ladies, patches were intro- duced to cover wens, long-tailed coats to hide deformed legs, flowing wigs to conceal humps, and shoes two feet long to cover ugly feet. Many such inven- tions still retain a place among us, and will probably remain for centuries to come. Meanwhile, we can gratefully express our thanks for the disappearance of others, and hope that in the future the cultivation of a more refined taste will prevent the infliction of such enormities on unoffending people. JOHN C. DRAPER,
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CHANET, $¢ \ \ J HAT a singular odor!” soliloquized Miss Holcum, snuffing the air | with a slight tremor of disgust about her nostrils. | She said odor instead of sael/, because she was a teacher of several years’ standing in one of the common schools .of New York, and had learned in the ex- ercise of her profession to express herself with an elegance of the Johnsonian species. She was accustomed to remark to her scholars, “ Before you speak, al- ways consider not only your thoughts, but also the language in which you pro- pose to give them utterance.” She was at this moment ascending the third staircase of the cheap, plain, and even seedy lodging-house in which she had her parlor—bedroom—kitchen, or, in other words, her one room in which she studied, slept, and did such small cooking as was needed for her tea and breakfast. In this simple fashion she had lived for years, not merely because her earnings were small, and not at all be- cause she was stingy, but mainly because she was a noble, unselfish woman, who had it at heart to educate a youthful orphan cousin. “Tt is burning charcoal,” she added, after an instant. “Can it be that some poor mortal is seeking his death?” School-teaching alone had not given her the wisdom to reach this suspicion. She was a reader of novels ; she had an imagination, and a native longing after the unusual; she was capable of conceiving a suicide, and of conceiving herself as saving him. Where a practical, common-sense man would merely have smelt fire, this fanciful, impulsive woman scented a tragedy of the heart. We shall see which of these two characters best suited the exigency that was now agonizing in this bare and musty old lodging-house. The wildest imagination is some- times the truest common-sense. “Tt may be that young foreigner,” thought Janet Holcum. She ran up an- other flight of stairs, hurried along a musty, dusty passage, and stopped before a door marked by dirty fingers. Timorous and modest, she looked at it with hesi- tation as well as anxiety ; but the charcoal fumes were stronger here, and began to make her sick and faint ; she felt that she could not hesitate long. After rap- ping and receiving no answer, she put her mouth to the keyhole and called, also without effect. “Oh dear! what shall I do?” she groaned, confident now that a tragedy was passing within, and looking about her vainly for help. She had already learned that this fifth story was. unoccupied except by the pale, slovenly, haggard young foreigner, whose step she had frequently heard, pacing to and fro for hours, over her head. As she remembered that he was a man, and that she had never been introduced to him, she thought of running down stairs and summoning some. other man to save him. But the poisonous air demanded instant action; she tried the lock unavailingly, and then flung herself desperately against the door ; the miserable bolt-catch gave way, and she was within. Unable to breathe in the mephitic atmosphere of the room, she rushed across it, opened a window and thrust her head out. Looking back from this position, she saw something which made her shudder. There was a painter’s easel ; on the easel was a picture with its face turned from her ; behind the easel, on the floor of one corner of the room, was a wretch-
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1870.] CHANET. 633 ed bed, and on this, the chest and head concealed by the picture, lay the mo- tionless form ofa man. The moment Janet had drawn one long breath of the out-of-door air she hastened to this terrible corner. No time to look at the man: no leisure to query whether he were alive or dead: she lifted him by the shoul- ders, dragged him to the window, and seated him by it ina chair. Her only dis- tinct consciousness as to his condition was that the temple which dropped against her cheek was not entirely cold. But the appearance of the suicide, as she held him up in the chair, was _ alarming. His face ash-colored, his lips blue and contracted, his head drooping helplessly on one shoulder, he seemed to be already in another world. She scarcely noticed that he did not look to be more than twenty-five years of age ; that his long, curling, yellow hair, although neglected, was beautiful; that his wasted and ghastly features were classic in outline. Two or three times she called loudly for assistance: “Help! Murder!” But outside there was only a wilderness of roofs; inside, the musty old lodging-house seemed another desert. She was left alone with her awful question of death or life ? Presently her enigma responded. The response was only a sigh, but it came from this side of the tomb ; it was the triumph of nature over supernature, the hail of a soul returning from the shades. The man was already breathing, and it was not long before he opened his eyes. Into these eyes Janet sent her sweet- est and most pitiful smile, seeking thereby to encourage the sick and sorrowful spirit within. Not a word was uttered, for the one was as yet too ill to speak, and the other felt that here was a misery too profound to be questioned. After a while, seeing that her patient could hold up his head, Janet hastened to the pan of charcoal, which was still burning, and deluging it with water from a pitch- er, extinguished its poisonous embers. When she returned to the window the invalid looked in her face with so much intelligence that she ventured to address him. “You will be better soon,” she said. ‘The air of the room is becoming puri- fied. It was that charcoal which made you ill,” “Yes, it was te sharcoal,” replied the young man, with a marked German ac- cent. ’ ' . “T hope that you will be more careful about it in future,” she continued, be- lieving that she was talking to a would-be suicide, but not quite certain of it, “T subbose so,” was the weak-voiced, indifferent, non-committal answer. She looked anxiously into the fine face which was now beginning to reassume somewhat of its natural color and beauty. “If you are suffering under any trouble,” she said, “I trust and desire that you will tell me of it. Perhaps I can aid yon,” “T haf but one drubble,” he replied. “ It is life.” Wicked as the sentiment seemed to her, the man who uttered it did not seem wicked, but only pitiable. _In the quivering droop of his lip, and in the fixed but unseeing stare of his blue eyes, there was a profound anguish and a calm desperation which made her think of the unsounded, motionless waters of the Dead Sea covering ruined cities. She had never before seen such sorrow; at least she had never before seen sorrow expressed with such frankness; and the spectacle impressed her the more terribly because of its novelty. The youth now rose, steadied himself with difficulty, rubbed his forehead and his eyes, struck his hand repeatedly on the back of his neck, obviously confused, dizzy, and in pain. Janet felt that feminine delicacy ordered her to leave him ; but she did not dare, lest he should rekindle his charcoal. Turning away in order
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634 CHANET. [May, to gain time for reflection, she found herself near the easel, and she examined the picture. It was a landscape representing a scene on the North River which she had visited and which she instantly recognized. Although unfinished, she was so little a judge of painting that she did not perceive that, and she thought it beautifully done. Of a sudden it occurred to her womanly wit and sensibility that here was something whereby she might gain a hold upon this victim of despair and draw him back to a willingness to live. “Did you do this?” she asked. “Are you a painter?” His face brightened the merest trifle as he caught her look of interest. “Yes, I am a bainter,”’ he answered. “Let me turn it to the light for you,” he added, with a courtesy of manner strangely at variance with his coarse and even dirty clothing. “ You see it is not vinished yet,” he went on, looking kind- ly at her, as if he detected her ignorance of art and pitied her for it. “TI know the place,” she said, forcing a smile of encouragement. “I have had the pleasure of visiting it. How well you have represented it!” “So you haf peen there?” he replied, with just the faintest possible smile of gratification. “It is a pewtiful spot.” “ Why don’t you sell it?” ~ “What! sell it so? It is not vinished.” “Then why don’t you finish it?”’ she added, trembling with anxiety to make him promise to do so. “T haf not time,” he said, his gloom returning. ““Oh, but you ave time,” she urged eagerly. “You shad/ have time.” He eyed her meditatively, earnestly, and solemnly, as if querying whether he should tell her his miserable story, While he hesitated, this excellent Janet Holcum was praying in her heart that Heaven would guide him toward goodness and safety. “See here,” he said at last, “I will dell you someting. You haf saved my life. I will dell you why I wanted to die. I had no money. I could not get food. I could not bay for my room. I had had drubbles pevore—over in Cher- many. Und now I had nota cent in my bocket. So at last I tires out, und I gives it up. I lights my sharcoal, und I lies down to sleep it out. That is my shtory.” | In spite of his strong German accent he was sublime, and terrible, and pitia- ble. The tears rushed into Janet’s eyes, and stepping suddenly forward she caught both his hands, as if she would prevent him by force from again attempt- ing his life. “T t?ank you,” was the simple response of a man whose sensibility and quickness enabled him to understand sympathy which had not been uttered. “You must not do this again,” she urged as soon as she could speak. “I will see that you have friends. You shall have time to finish your picture. I - will help you sell it. Have you eaten to-day?” : “1 haf no abbedide.” | She understood that he had not eaten, and the tears shone in her eyes again. “Come down to my room,” she said. “You must! You can take some tea, at any rate. Come down and sit with me, at least, while I eat.” “ T am opliged,” he answered as he followed her. ‘ But you must excuse my abbearance,” he added, glancing at his ragged clothing, stained with grease and daubed with paint. “I am not fit for the gombany of a lady.” “T am only a poor schoolmistress,” she smiled. “And in youl can respect the artist.”
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1870. ] CHANET. 635 He bowed with a courteous grace which gave him the air ret a gentleman, in spite of his wretched raiment. Arrived in her little parlor-bedroom with this strange companion, Janet Hol- cum’s heart fluttered. It was the first time that a man had been with her there alone. If visitors should arrive, what would they think? Of course it would be impossible to explain that here was a gentleman whom she had caught trying to commit suicide, and whom she had undertaken to cure of his self-destroying pro- pensities by means of tea and sympathy. Moreover, what would this man him- self think of her? She was squeamish about situations because (and here we come to a fact which I have not hitherto dared to mention)—well, she was squeam- ish because she was an old maid. It is curious, but it is none the less true, that a woman of thirty-eight is usually more fastidious about appearances, and even about realities, than a girl of eighteen. Enlightening meditations, perhaps some dangers avoided, perhaps some scandals innocently incurred, a habit of life which has become a governing motive, are the explanations of this singular phenomenon. Well, Janet Holcum, being thirty-eight years of age, blushed and was troubled at the thought of being alone with this handsome man of twenty-five, although he might be looked upon as little more than a ghost returned from beyond the grave. Presently her nat- ural good sense, strengthened by a perfect uprightness of heart, came to her sup- port. “Pshaw!” she thought, “I am old enough to be, his aunt; besides, I am saving him from death. Let who will blame me, I am doing my duty.” Having had lunch that day, she had proposed to go without dinner, and con- sequently she had slight provision for a meal. She might have run out to make purchases, but she was afraid to leave her Tartar to himself for the present, and, moreover, haste seemed to be more important than plenty. She lighted her gas — stove, got her tea to drawing, and set out a store of graham crackers, butter and cheese. Then followed a moderate rapett and a conversation which lasted well into the evening. Drawn out by sympathy, the guest told his whole story. His name, he stat- ed, was Ernst Rodolf Hartmann, and he was the youngest son of an official in. the civil service of Prussia. Carried away by the liberal ideas so common among European students, he had attached himself, after leaving the University of Ber- lin, to a secret club of republicans, whose object was to substitute democracy for the Hohenzollerns. The club had been ferreted out by the police ; Ernst and two or three other members had been condemned to a brief imprisonment : moreover, he had been disinherited and disowned by his father, a furious loyalist. Worst of all, a beautiful girl to whom he was betrothed had, during his confine- ment, been driven or coaxed into a marriage with some old baron. This last sorrow, which he related with childlike candor and simplicity, made Janet Hol- cum blush to her ears even while her heart throbbed with pity. When he rose to return to his room he seemed to be at least temporarily reconciled to the struggle of life. “JT will dry it a leetle longer, if you will gif me a hand,” he said. “I will go to bainting again.” “Oh! how can you talk of it so coolly!” she exclaimed with heartfelt solem- nity and even with horror. “ Don’t you know that what you have done to-day is very wicked? Forgive me!” she added instantly, remembering how misera- ble he had been, and looking with pity at his wasted face. By the way, she talked very little of her Johnsonese to this man ; for, in the first place, she sup-
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636 CHANET. [May, ‘posed that he, being a foreigner, might not understand it ; and secondly, she had. to be so earnest with him that only the simplest words seemed suitable. “What could I do?” heasked. “A gentleman may not pea peggar. Pe- sides, I was not a bainter at home. Mein faders were to make of me a panker. Bainting was merely my fancy. I had no hope of success in it. What could I do?” _ Will you promise to come to take breakfast with me?” “1 bromise—upon my honor.” “Remember now—upon your honor! Good night.” He took her hand, and before she could guess what he meant to do, he kissed it. Notwithstanding the perfect simplicity of his manner, notwithstanding that the action was obviously a mere expression of civility and gratitude, Janet Hol- cum, who had never before had her hand kissed,blushed again until it seemed to her that her hair was turning scarlet. Without noticing her confusion, this ragged gentleman said sweetly “ Goot night,” and bowed himself out of the room. From this good-night forward Janet was burdened and blessed with another labor of love. She had a suicide to reform; a soul without hope to fill with hope ; a man without work to provide with work ; a lover of lager to satisfy with black tea; a brand to snatch from all sorts of burnings. It was not only a heavy load to carry, but a delicate one to handle. Her orphan, as she soon began to call him, must not eat in her room for fear of Mrs. Grundy. She must content herself with letting him go to cheap restaurants for his dinner, and with occa- sionally carrying him a cup of tea to wash down the dry bread which she knew was his only supper. As for converse, she firmly invited him to see her every Sunday evening; she sometimes dropped into his den to look at his work and cheer him on with it; oftener still, she took a walk with him in the hall or an evening promenade in the streets. She was proud of herself, and yet ashamed of herself. It struck her as al- most indelicate that she should support a man, especially a. young and handsome one. Moreover, her labor of love was a fearful expense, compared with her small income. She was soon obliged to draw on her savings bank deposit, and that had always been kept in a consumptive state by the needs of her girl cousin, At first she thought of getting up a subscription for her painter, or of interesting some rich school committeeman in his behalf; but very shortly she took such a fancy to him that she did not want any one else to earn a claim to his gratitude ; and so she went on paying out her savings for his necessities. When winter arrived and fuel must be had, she bought it for him, although he tried to do with- out. Next came an overcoat and a pair of mittens and some heavy undercloth- ing, because she could not bear to see him walking the streets with a red nose and fingers. It was in vain for him to refuse; she absolutely forced him to take. Meantime small profits from his brush. The picture which she had thought perfect really had but five or six days’ work upon it, and needed a month more. And when it was done it brought only twenty-five dollars. It was of no use for her to scold the picture-dealer for his sharpness, and to endeavor to move his pity by telling him the tale of the German’s poverty. The man of art replied that it was not a known name; that paintings sold in the American market mainly by force of reputation ; that he had his own living to make, and that she might take the money or leave it. “Tf he can do a figure picture, and do it first-rate,” said this rational mon- ster, “I can be more liberal with him. There are so many landscapes! Every American artist can make landscapes.”
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1870.] CHANET. 637 On this hint Ernst commenced a figure picture. It was his forte; he had simply tried a landscape because he had judged that to be the favorite genre in America; he had known that he could not hope to excel in it. A beautiful group was soon sketched, representing a scene from King Philip’s war, the interior of a cabin lighted by its own flames, a beautiful girl in the grasp of Wampanoag warriors, a father and brother struggling manfully against her captors, and in the near background, faintly seen through the shattered door, a coming relief of Puritan riders. Janet Holcum, the patriotic New Englander, was delighted with what she thought already a perfect success, and wanted to sell the group as it was. “No,” judged Ernst. “I cannot avvord to waste virst impressions. This is the most divvicult bart of the bainting, though the quickest. But it will need a long time to make it goot enough. It will need all winter,” he con- cluded, with a piteously apologetical glance at Janet. “Go on,” she said, flushing with the noble heart-beat of self-sacrifice as she caught sight of this mute appeal. “This time I know you will triumph. We can live till it is done.” “Heaven pless you!” he replied, taking her hand and kissing it by force. “You are the noplest woman upon the earth.” The kiss and the praise brought a deeper blush than one often sees on such a pale, sallow face as that of Janet. For we must come now to a weighty secret ; we must make an avowal which is almost tragic. Not content with dowering this poor stranger with her worldly wealth, Janet had already begun to give him the treasures which she had received direct from Heaven. All the love which lies hidden in the heart of a good and pure old maid, all the vast abyss of sensi- bility which exists in a feminine nature that has found no natural outlet, had in her case been stirred to the profoundest depths by the penniless, friendless, handsome, clever youth whom she had saved from death. Useless to struggle against the infatuation ; it had commenced too insidiously, as mere humanity ; then it had crept on too slyly, in the guise of mere charity Oh, how cunning it had been! All at once there was a flaming transformation, and she found her- self the victim of a first passion, as much in love as if she were a young girl. Resist? She tried in vainto do so. Runaway? She could not give up her position, lest she should thereby fail to complete her cousin’s education, and leave Aim to starve. Once more, self-sacrifice: though all her life had been self-sacrifice, she must go on with it; she must love and suffer and be silent. And so the mischief proceeded at a terrible rate, for every day added to its mag- nitude. What made things worse was that Ernst was nobly conscious of his obligations, and profuse in thanks, in praises, in the most’ delicate and charming attentions. If he met her on the street, he took his hat entirely off his comely head and saluted her as schoolma’ams are not always saluted. If he walked with her, he had the air of escorting aduchess. He would leave his beautiful labor at any moment, to greet her return to the house with a smile, or to run on her er- rands, His whole deportment toward her was a continual burning of incense. She had never before known such a finished gentleman: more than that, she had never met a sweeter and finer nature. She comprehended at last that even his attempted suicide was a proof of his high self-respect and sense of honor, in- asmuch as it was an effort to escape from the degradation of living by incurring debts which he could not discharge. That stoical declaration, “If I could haf baid my room rent, I would haf gone on another month,” seemed to her now something like a patent of nobility. Unaware of her own grandeur of character,
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638 CHANET. [May, she worshipped his grandeur of character. Finally, she worshipped his genius, which had begun to show her the universe of glory that there is in art, and which was able to seize ideas scarcely perceptible to her unpractised esthetic vision, and place them before her in the resurrection robes of drawing and color. Ah well! she was desperately in love with him, and she could not help ad- mitting it to her accusing conscience, and could not put aside the scornful finger of her sense of womanly shame. But did he know it? As yet she was suffi- ciently herself to hope that he did not. Although she could not meet him with- out feeling a blush run through her whole face, although his praises and the touch of his hand made her tremble from head to foot, she trusted that she was keeping her fiery secret. And so she was: a young man does not easily suspect that a woman thirteen years his senior has a passion for him; and if Ernst no- ticed her tremors and changes of color, he imputed them to womanly delicacy and Puritan shyness. While Janet, locked in her own room, was looking in the glass at her pale face, high cheek bones, square jaws, straight mouth, and in- cipient wrinkles, while she was wishing with both tears and shame that all that supportable plainness were beauty and youth, he, steadily at work, did not think ‘of her at all, or only thought of her as his “ goot vriend.” His handsome coun- tenance, now pink and white in color as well as classic in outline, was not shad- owed by the slightest cloud from the fires of love, unless indeed he remembered now and then his lost jungfrau in faderland. About the time that “ The Rescue” (as Janet christened the scene from Philip’s war) reached its finishing point, Ernst encountered an American artist named Stanley. Stanley was a portrait painter in high fashion, who made six thousand dollars a year and spent it all on himself and some poor relations. Too generous and soft-hearted to save money, he wanted to study in the galleries of Europe without ever having the first spare dollar for the voyage, and talked of launching into genre pictures or “high art” without ever being able to give up his pot-boiling labor in kit-kats. The result of this existence, acting upon this kindly spirit, was that while Stanley envied the chances of more famous artists, he honestly admired their productions. Meeting Ernst at the Academy, he fell into chance conversation with him, liked his naive and badly pronounced but judicious criticisms, went with him to his lodgings, and fell in love with “The Rescue.” His florid face flushed crim- son with enthusiasm as he exclaimed, “By Jove! you are on the road to fame. You needn’t have apologized for your room. This picture furnishes it like a palace. I wish I was a poor devil. I wish I could live in this style and try to do something good. But I can’t. I must dress in a certain way and go to cer- tain parties and live in a certain quarter. If I didn’t, I should lose my run among certain people. * And then,” he added as he thought of his mother and aunt, “ then there would be trouble.” Thenceforward Stanley came often to Ernst’s room to watch the progress of “The Rescue,” and to tell him that it was sure of success. It was not long, either, before he gave the young German another startling piece of information. “ That old girl down stairs is in love with you,” he said through a cloud of tobacco smoke. “What old curl?” asked Ernst, staring with the calm innocence of a child. “ Miss Holcum.” ‘“‘T hope you are misdaken,” replied the German gravely and almost solemnly, as if he already perceived an awful duty before him. “T should think you might see it,” grinned Stanley. “I sawit the first even-
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1870.] CHANET. 639 ing we called on her. It was plain enough to-day when she travelled up here to look at the picture. She can’t come near you without coloring and shaking.” Ernst became still more solemn, and was evidently in profound thought. “You must be careful and not trifle with her young affections,” Stanley con- | tinued, with a rather hard-hearted smile, such as we accord to the heart troubles of old maids. | *‘] shall not dryvle with them,” replied Ernst, with a seriousness which si- lenced the American, | During Stanley’s next visit Ernst said to him, “I have peen seeing for my: self, und I pelieve you are right.” “Right? Oh, about the shadow.” “No. Apout Miss Chanet Holcum, I pelieve she is in lofe with me.” “Well, what are you going to do?” laughed Stanley. “T haf but one thing todo. If she wishes to marry me, I must marry her. I owe her my life.. I owe her this picture, which you say is goot. I haf lived on her money. As aman of honor I must sacrifice myself to her; that is, if she wishes it. What else can I do?” “Good Lord ! don’t be a fool,” remonstrated Stanley. ‘You don’t love her, of course.” “‘T haf the very highest resbect for her. She is an atmirable woman.” “Yes. I know. I suppose so. But this is carrying respect and gratitude a little too far. She is twelve or fifteen years older than you. You could not be happy with her. Come now! don’t be hasty.” “T will not be hasty. It all debends on whether she lofes me a great teal. We will see.” When Ernst, convinced that Janet “lofed. hima great teal,’ felt himself bound to declare an affection for her and ask her to be his wife, the poor, lonely, hitherto unloved girl was fairly broken down by the revelation. She burst into tears, threw herself on her old, hard sofa, buried her face in the threadbare cush- ion, and sobbed out a spasm of mingled joy and terror. “Oh! can this be true?” she finally burst forth, when she became conscious of his hand in hers. “Is it true?” she demanded, sitting up and looking eager- ly athim. “Ifit isn’t, take it back. Don’t tell it me any more. It would kill * me—to find out that it isn’t true—oh, it would kill me.” ‘It is endirely drue, my tear Chanet,” was the adorable falsehood of the chivalrous German. “I owe all to you. My life will not bay the debt. But I do not insist upon marriage excebt when you wish it. You must chudge for yourself when it will be brudent.” At this moment Janet caught a view of herself in her mirror. Flushed with joy and love, she looked almost handsome, and it seemed to her for a moment that she was young and desirable. The illusion helped her to believe what she could not help longing to believe. Drawn by Ernst’s pitying embrace, she be- lieved that it was the embrace of affection, and she let her head fall upon his shoulder with the words, “Oh, my darling!” Henceforward they were engaged, though when they would be married neither of them could say, not even the old and wise (only half wise) Janet. With her, life was a delicious dream, forgetful altogether of the hard past and careless often of the doubtful future. With him, life was a point of honor and of duty, an obedience to self-respect and a rendering of obligations. His ways were natur- ally so caressing, and he was so conscientiously assiduous in his attentions to her, that he thoroughly deceived even the suspiciousness of her humble and shy
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640 CHANET. [May, nature. In the main she believed entirely in his affection, amazing as the acquisi- tion seemed to her, and much as she doubted her worthiness of it. It is quite possible that there was not at that time in New York a happier woman than this _ almost penniless old maid, betrothed to a young artist who was encumbered with debts and who did not love her. Such are the joys of this world: half of them, at least, delusions ; the other half transitory. At last “ The Rescue” was sold. Stanley went with Ernst to the picture deal- er’s ; demanded, with much pomp of manner, a private audience ; exposed the canvas in the best light, and asked five hundred dollars for it. “Tt is worth it,” confessed Mr. Moineau. “Only there is no name. If you would put your name to it, Mr. Stanley ?” “Mine! Iam only a portrait painter.” “Yes. But you are known. It would sell the picture.” “ Gif him the name,” interposed Ernst, with the eagerness of a beggar grasp- ing at alms. “It’s a downright swindle,” said the generous American. “I couldn’t do such a group to save my life. I won’t take the credit of it.” ‘Both names?” suggested the dealer in genius. It was agreed to; the picture went on the market as the joint production of Stanley and Hartmann. The latter, perfectly satisfied and indeed overjoyed, pocketed the five hundred dollars ; the former, in spite of his private disclaim- érs, pocketed something considerable in the way of glory. At Ernst’s request Janet Holcum had kept a strict account of her expenses in his behalf; and although he had used sharp economy, the balance against him amounted to four hundred and thirty dollars. On reaching home, he went to her room, gave her a smile of child-like joy in response to her smile of anx- iéty, and tossed the sum of his earnings into her lap. Instead of hailing his _ good fortune with gladness, she seemed to shrink from the money, laid it coldly on a table, rose to her feet with a pale face, and said in a strange voice, “ Well— you are free.” : “No, my tear Chanet,” he replied. “Iam your slave.” “That is not what I want,” she stammered, trembling visibly. “I cannot submit to any such understanding. Mr. Hartmann, it is my duty to tender you your liberty.” } “ My tarling Chanet, what does this mean?” asked Ernst, putting his arm around her waist and drawing her to him. “ My self-respect impels me to it,” she said, beginning to cry. “I fear that you proposed to me out of a sense of obligation. The obligation is now can- celled. It was weak in me to accept you. I must make amends for it. Indeed, indeed I must—you are free.” The gentlest caresses, the sweetest protestations answered her and over- whelmed her fainting resolution. After a minute, and a very little minute it was too, she could not help letting her head go on his shoulder and sobbing out, “Oh! can I believe you? You make me so perfectly happy that I must be- lieve you. Oh, you are my life, my all. I worship you.” For a week or more this sunshine of confidence and joy shone through an unclouded heart. She loved her man—her first man, remember—gathered late in her maying—with a sort of double affection—the love of a betrothed and of a mother. And because he returned it, or rather because she believed that he did, she felt that she owed him a life of gratitude, adoration, obedience, every sweet sentiment and every good work. She was amazingly influenced by him;
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1840.] CHANET. 64i one might almost say, revolutionized. A teetotaller, believing that the wine re- commended by Paul to Timothy was not intoxicating, and that all drinkers of ale and cider deserved the names of tipplers and guzzlers, she found nothing hateful now in the smell of lager. A hater of tobacco, she filled Ernst’s pipe. An admirer of Johnsonian diction, she talked to him like a little child. There is no knowing whither this youth might not have carriéd this mature woman, She was infatuated. From one point of view, it was laughable; from another, it was beautiful and pathetic. It is not in the nature of things that a woman of thirty-eight, who is engaged to a handsome man of twenty-five, should remain always calmly sure of her con- quest. An event was approaching which was destined to cast upon this happy heart a shadow of uneasiness. As Janet sat, one holiday afternoon, beside her Ernst, watching the growth of meaning and beauty under his pencil, she said to him abruptly, “ My little cousin will be here soon.” “So?” replied the painter without stopping his work. “I must get her a bresent; shall it pe a toll?” | “A doll! She wouldn’t thank you. She is nineteen years old.” “So!” exclaimed Ernst, looking up in surprise. “Then she cannot pe fery little.” “T have got her a situation in my school. She has finished her education and must begin to earn her living.” “That is goot,” smiled the artist. “ We will make one family.” ! ** My darling, I wanted to tell you—” hesitated Janet. “We must say noth- ing about our engagement for the present. That is, I would rather you would not, if it makes no difference to you.” “Why?” asked the painter, stopping his work and staring at her in surprise. “‘ Because,”’ stammered and blushed this engaged old maid— because I am ashamed. Not of you / Ohno, dearest. But she will think it so queer. And then it may never come to anything—we are so poor. At least it may be a long time first. Well, until our way is a little more clear before us, I would rather the engagement should be kepta secret. You are not annoyed, are you, Ernst?” “No,” replied Ernst, calmly, not understanding too well, and not caring quite enough. “Well,” continued the shy and fastidious Janet, “then it shall be so. We will be just good friends in the eyes of Nellie until—until it shall seem best to let her know 4: On the morrow arrived Nellie Fisher, a plump, lively, laughing little blonde, with eyes of a deep turquoise blue, hair of the lightest and flossiest flaxen, a face somewhat broad and nose somewhat short, beautiful in the German peasant style, but undeniably beautiful. Ernst, who was present at the meeting of the two cousins, glanced at the visitor so frequently and with an expression so full of mysterious meaning, that Janet’s interest was aroused. At the first chance for an aside she said to him, “ Well, what do you think of her ?” “She looks like the one in Chermany,” he replied, lost in meditation, his | eyes both tender and sombre, his soul in other years and lands. Janet turned pale. Does the reader divine what she foresaw? ' Well, it happened. Ernst’s heart was empty. Janet did not inhabit it; had not even entered into it. The unnamed girl whom he had loved in Prussia had by heroic efforts been so far expelled from it, that he did not desire ever again to see her. But
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642 | | CHANET. | [May, her former residence there had so moulded the abode, that any one who re- sembled her could seize upon it, occupy it, and fill if. What now happened to the young man was apparently love at first sight, but was really no more than the transferring of an old love to a new object. A week after he first met Nellie Fisher the thought of her could fill him with delicious reveries, while the thought of his troth-plight to Janet Holcum was sufficient to make him meditate once more upon suicide. And the girl? He and she met every day, and two or three times a day. | In spite of his conscientious efforts to control himself, there was in his manner. toward her a tenderness, which, reinforced by his beauty, his graceful address, and the glamour of his artistic ability, could not but move the heart of a child of nineteen who had never hoped for so fine an admirer. Ina little while Nellie began to flutter at sight of him, and to pet him in spite of her flutterings. “Isn’t he charming ?” she said to her cousin. “Do you think so?” replied Janet, half gratified and half anxious. “T really like his accent now. I thought it ridiculous at first.” So did I.” “What does she mean?” queried Nellie, marvelling at this dryness and brevity. “Oh, I suppose I know. Heis poor,and I am poor, and we mustn’t —flirt. Well—I suppose we—mustn’t.” She went to the glass, looked at her lily skin, wished her nose were longer, arranged her flaxen hair, and wondered whether he liked her. “ Do you know how you could flatter me?” she said before long to Ernst. “ How?” he asked coolly, for she tempted him in a distressing manner, and | he felt that he must allow himself no expansion. “Oh! you don’t want todo it,” she replied, with a little sunny pout which she had and which was irresistible. “I am sure I wish to blease you,” he said, unable to bear her pout. “ How can I flatter you?” “You could put me into one of your pictures.” “TJ should be charmed to do it,” admitted the over-tempted artist. The next day the two women beheld Nellie’s bewitching face, drawn and colored with all the fervor of an art which loves, smiling from Ernst’s canvas. The younger blushed and bridled with joy to see herself there and so beautiful ; the elder wore a fixed, ‘mechanical smile, and said repeatedly, ‘‘ What an excel- lent likeness !” He had never put Janet’s face into his creations. She did not blame him for that ; she believed that he could do nothing agreeable with it; she surveyed her- ' self in the glass and sighed, “I am so ugly!” But to see Nellie on that easel, painted by his hand and painted so well, it was driving a dagger into her beat- ing heart. , That very day Ernst, in a fit of noble remorse and self-sacrifice, said to Janet in private, “I wish you would let me inform Nellie of our troth-plight. I think it would pe petter.”’ ! She grew so faint, under the terrible revelation which he had unintentionally made, that for a moment she could not answer him; and even when she spoke, it was only to ask for delay. “Stop!” she said, pressing her hands upon her eyes. “Let me think. I must consider this.” He offered to slide his arm around her waist in his usual caressing style; but she gently stopped him, looked earnestly in his face, smiled with an unspeakable ae
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1870.] CHANET. 643 piteousness, and gently glided away; her whole manner saying, “Ah, my dar- ling! you don’t wish to do it, and why do you "do it?” “Ts it possible that she gomprehends me ?” thought Ernst, folding his arms and shaking his head with the air of a man who is trying to stand firm against himself. He appreciated fully the self-abnegation and heroism of Janet’s char- acter; he knew that if he once confessed to her that he did not love her, she would instantly free him from his engagement; and there was the image of Nellie pleading with him for his sake, if not for hers also, to make the confession. He shook his head and set his teeth until he had faced down the temptation, and had decided that, whether Janet permitted it or not, he would inform her cousin of the betrothal. But during the day, while superintending her classes with her usual conscien- tious thoroughness, Miss Holcum also came to a decision. On reaching home in the afternoon she sent Nellie out on some distant errand, and then walked slowly up to Ernst’s room. “My tear Chanet! I am so glad to see you!” he said, coming towards her with extended hands and his sweetest smile. ‘‘ My poor child, you look tired,” he added, glancing pityingly at her unusually pale face. ‘There, sit down und take some rebose. Do you see my bicture? I have made some changes.” Raising her patient eyes to the canvas, Janet perceived that the portrait of Nellie hac been so altered as to be no longer recognizable. Throbbing with ad- miration for this man, who could divine her heart so perfectly, and who could do what must have been hateful to him at the mere bidding of his sensitive con- science, she rose up with suddenly flushed cheeks, seized both his hands, printed one hot kiss on his smooth, white forehead, and then drew back, holding him at arms’ length, in order to worship him. “Ernst, I know what you have done,” she said, firmly. “I thank you for your noble intentions. But sacrifice for sacrifice! It is my turn now. Ernst, my own darling, we must separate. I was born for you, but you were not born for me. We must end this engagement. I must end it, or despise myself. I do end it. I break it.. You are free. There!” She tore herself away from him and attempted to rush out of the room. “Chanet! Chanet!” he called, springing after her and seizing her in his arms. “It must not peso. You are the noplest woman on-earth. I worship — you. I cannot lose you.” “Oh! don’t!” implored Janet, looking up at him in despair, for he was tax- ing her almost beyond her strength. After a moment, rallying all the power of her soul, she added, “‘ See here, Ernst! let us speak the truth. Do you love me better than you love any one else?” How could he have the seeming cruelty to answer her “No”? He did what most gentle-hearted men would have done—he told her a pitying, self-sacrificing falsehood. He said, “I do.” F She was too clear-sighted to be deceived, and too high-souled to accept an unwilling heart. “Look at this Bible, Ernst,” she continued, drawing from her pocket a little Testament that never quitted her. ‘ Put your hand upon it;” and here, seizing his fingers, she clasped them around the book. ‘ Now tell me whether you love me better than any other.” ; Fook “You trife me into a gorner,” replied the artist piteously. ‘ Well, I swear. I swear that I resbect und atmire you more than any other human peing. Is it not enough ?” “Do you love Nellie?”
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644, | CHANET. | [May, “¢ She is so like——” he stammered. “Well, she will soon be in ldve with you,” said Janet, with a last supreme effort. ‘(Take her. Make her happy.” She had been leaning away from him, She now turned, with the revulsion of a billow, threw her arms around his neck, covered his face with kisses and tears, and then once more leaned back from him to look at him. ‘That is the end of all between us,” she said, in a hoarse, deep voice, totally unlike her usual utterance. ‘ Henceforward I shall do my duty, and you must help me do it. One thing—never tell Nellie of this: it would darken her happi- ness. And now—good-bye.” She dragged herself away from him, ran down stairs, and locked herself in her room. ‘Mein Gott!” murmured Ernst, left to himself. ‘I shall lose a heart worth den tousand of mine. But it is petter. She is wiser. I could not lofe her. I should end by making her unhabby as now—und more so. She is wise for us poth.” The next day, to the astonishment and annoyance of Nellie Fisher, but by the positive dictation of Janet Holcum, the two women removed from their lodg- ings to a cheap boarding-house. There was, however, one good thing about the change: the boarding-house had a parlor where Mr. Hartmann could be re- ceived with a sense of spotless propriety; and, what was delightful, he always had to be received by Miss Fisher, the elder cousin excusing herself on pretence of business, illness, etc. One can easily see that all this had to end in a second troth-plight, and that the parties to it could not be other than Ernst and Nellie. It was “petter”: youth must have youth; love must have love. In these bar- gains mere respect and gratitude are not a fair exchange for the unreasoning, in- stinctive, potent impulse of the heart. Almost the first use that Nellie made of her betrothal was to run down to Ernst’s studio; entirely, as she declared, to look at the new picture; but mainly, no doubt, to look at the artist. She, too, like Janet before her, observed a change in the personages of the little drama. She had never known that her likeness had been obliterated, and she did not discover it now, for it had been restored in all its beauty. But in the face of one of the principal female figures, a face which, though not. absolutely handsome, was sublime with an expression of noble and tender resignation—in this face, which looked up to heaven as if it had de- scended from thither, Nellie recognized the countenance of Janet Holcum. “Why! you have got in Cousin Jennie, too,” exclaimed the delighted girl. “Oh, you creature! you have made her finer than me.” “J wanted to tignify the bainting,” said Ernst, simply, “with the bortrait of the pest woman in the world.” “‘Isn’t she!” replied Nellie, pressing her face gratefully against his shoulder. “T am so glad you do her justice. I owe everything to her. Oh! I wouldn’t cause her a grief for the world.” The picture having been sold to Moineau for the large sum of seven hundred and fifty dollars, it was decided that Ernst’s prospects of success were good enough to justify marriage, and Janet ruled that Nellie must go home for that purpose to the residence of an old aunt in Connecticut. The girl having departed, Janet felt able to have one interview with Hart- mann, not with the object of indulging in any weak reproaches or bemoanings, but to bid him a last farewell. She was going to Ceylon, she informed him, as English teacher in one of the schools of the “ American Board of Foreign Mis- sions.” ;
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1870.] GONDOLIEDS. 645 “Oh! it is too far!” implored the young man. “If you must go away, let it pe still in this gountry. There is the Freedmen’s Bureau schools in the South.” “People return from the South,” she replied. ‘*I must go whence I shall never return.” | It was the only complaint, the only cry of despair that was uttered by this martyr, at least in human ears. When Stanley heard of Miss Holcum’s proposed departure, he said to Ernst, in surprise, “I thought she was to be your missionary. What! have you taken the mitten? Oh, you clever dog! You know the difference between an old maid and a new one.” “See here,” said the German, with solemnity. “I do not want you, one of my pest vriends, to desbise me; und I want you to resbect Miss Holcum as she ought to be resbected. I will dell you everything, und you must dell no one.” Before he had half finished his story of the broken engagement, Stanley rose from his seat, dropped his cigar, and walked up and down the room, rubbing his eyes with his hands, just like an affected boy. “By Jove!” he exclaimed, when the narrator had ceased. “If she wasn’t in love with you, I’d be tempted to marry her myself. She’s not a chicken, and she’s not a beauty, but she’s pure gold.” “‘She’s a berfect lady und a grand gentleman in one,”’ said Ernst. The urgencies of the Board sent Janet off to Ceylon before the marriage. Hartmann and Stanley accompanied her as far as the Narrows, and then, from the deck of the tug, watched her as she leaned over the taffrail, waving farewell to friends and native land. As the lonely figure of this loving, self-sacrificing, heroic, sublime martyr faded from their sight, the American said, “God bless her!” And the German added, with his eyes full of tears, “ Sancta Chanet, ora pro nobis /” J. W. DE FOREST. - GONDOLIEDS. I, YESTERDAY. | EAR Yesterday, glide not so fast ; Oh, let me cling To thy white garments floating past: Even to shadows which they cast I cling, I cling. Show me thy face Just once, once more. A single night Cannot have brought a loss or blight Upon its grace. Nor are they dead whom thou dost bear, Robed for the grave ; See what a smile their red lips wear: To lay them living wilt thou dare Into a grave ?
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646 GONDOLIEDS. May, I know, I know, I left thee first. Now I repent; I listen now; I never meant To have thee go. Just once, once more, tell me that word Thou hadst for me. Alas! although my heart was stirred, I never fully knew or heard It was for me. O Yesterday, My Yesterday, thy sorest pain Were joy, couldst thou but come again, Sweet Yesterday. II. TO-MORROW. All red with joy the waiting west ; O little swallow, Canst thou tell me which road is best? Cleaving high air, with thy soft breast For keel, O swallow, Thou must o’erlook My seas, and know if I mistake : I would not the same harbor make Which Yesterday forsook. I hear the swift blades dip and plash Of unseen rowers ; On unknown lands the waters dash: Who knows how it be wise or rash To meet the rowers ? “ Premi! Premi!”* Venetia’s boatmen lean and cry: With voiceless lips, I drift and lie Upon the twilight sea. The swallow sleeps. Her last low call Had sound of warning. Sweet little one, whate’er befall, Thou wilt not know that it was all In vain, thy warning. I may not borrow A hope, a help. I close my eyes ; Cold wind blows from the Bridge of Sighs ; Kneeling, I wait To-morrow. VENICE, May 30, 1869. _* The cry of the gondoliers in Venice whenever they approach a corner of the canals. —
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TEN YEARS IN ROME. THE INQUISITION. ANY‘persons perusing the recent canons De Ecclesia Christi (which have | \ | been passed in the CGécumenical Council now sitting, and only await the Pope’s signature), have probably failed to see the full significance of Canon VI. and Canon XII. These canons are as follows : “ Whoever says that the authority with which the Catholic Church proscribes and condemns all religious sects separated from tts communion ts not prescribed by Divine right; or that about religious truths only opinions, not certainties, can exist, and that therefore all religious sects are to be tolerated, let him be anath- ema.” “ Whoever says that Christ, our Saviour and Sovereign, has conferred upon the Church the power to direct only by advice and persuasion those who turn aside, not to compel them by orders, by coercion, and by external verdicts and statutory punishments, let him be anathema.” Here is not only an approbation of all the means of repression which Rome has resorted to in the past, but the reéstablishment of the system upon entirely new authority. Up to the present time the punitory discipline of the Church has been tacitly received and acted upon, as the tenet of infallibility has. But henceforth, upon the Pontifical ratification of these canons, the Index and the Inquisition become articles of faith. Henceforth Romanists must. believe, under pain of damnation, that it is right to punish with torture and death those who dissent from Papal teachings. The Church has never relinquished her au- thority over a// persons in all places. Repression goes hand in hand with con- version. Three millions of books and pamphlets stand on the lists of the In- dices Prohibitory and Expurgatory. The Inquisition is an organized institu- tion, whose chief is the Pope. He is represented by a Prefect recently appoint- ed, Cardinal de Luca, Vice-President of the Council. He hasastaff of seventeen ecclesiastics with official residences and archives. I suppose every man has a forte in reading. Don Quixote loved romances; Tennyson chooses the Arthurian legends. For my own part, records of the past history of the Church have a peculiar charm. From the Catacombs to the Crusades, through her vicissitudes of sorrow, triumph, crime, and holiness, there is not a scene but is full of instruction, With much leisure and one of the finest libraries of the world at command, I indulged my taste fully. Every sincere Romanist hates a heretic as a personal enemy. To me the records of the In- quisition had the zest of a novel of the sensation type. The documents from which transcripts and translations are made in this article passed into my hands as custodian of the library where they are deposited. I transcribed them be- cause I felt interested in their contents. Let me preface them with one or two observations. The canons cited above, making the Inquisition a newly-organ- ized institution, are confirmations of the decree of the Fifth Council of Lateran, A. D. 1515, which was subsequently approved by the Council of Trent. Canon XII. conforms all previous regulations on the subject, and puts the doctrine on an entirely new basis. Henceforth it will supplant the decrees of the Fifth 42
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_ 648 TEN YEARS IN ROME. [May, Lateran Council as the fundamental authority for all such coercive measures as the Romish clergy can venture on in countries where they have any degree of power. | | The conduct of Inquisitors is regulated by the “Sextus Decretalium Liber,” containing the bull of Clement IV. De Hereticis, a very vindictive fulmination against all disbelievers in Rome. The “Sext Decretals,” with the “Clem- entines” and “ Extravagantes,” comprise the body of canon law binding all ec- clesiastics. E In the Library of the Index, under the head of “RECORDS,” there exists a remnant of the archives of the Inquisition. The main bulk of the memorials, however, have been destroyed from fear of their falling into unfriendly hands. A notable volume, well preserved, is bound in black, with a red cross on the cover, and thus inscribed: i PRAXIS SACRA ROMANAE INQUISITIONIS. From its appearance, it has been well used. The late Cardinal Mai informed me that its date was 1520 to 1540. It was the basis of the famous Spanish Car- tilla, used by the Dominicans. In the inside of the cover is the word “ SECRETO.” It is divided into two parts. The first treats of the mode of arresting and hunt- ing out persons suspected of heretical pravity. The second prescribes the mode of questioning the accused, applying torture, and conducting executions and ab- jurations. The following is extracted. from the chapter entitled “ Audience of Torture”: The criminal being brought into the audience, all the Inquisitors and the Ordinary be- ing present, he shall’ be told that it is agreed for the sake of truth to question him, and his answers shall be carefully noted. He shall be told that he already knows, that often and at various times he has been admonished to tell the entire truth concerning all that he has done, or said, or seen other persons do, or heard them say, in offence against God, and against our Holy Mother the Roman Catholic Church, especially concerning that which is laid to his charge—which he has not chosen to do. It is evident after examination that he keeps back and hides many things, especially such and: such [declaring to him wherein he is deficient, and why he is put to the torment, whether it be for things that he has done vor said, or for his intention to do such things, or in case that. he denies this, or for concealing accomplices]. And for greater justification it has been commanded to bring him to this audience, in order to admonish him again, as now he is admonished in the name of the Lord our God, and of His glorious and blessed Mother, the Virgin Mary, to tell and entirely confess the truth concerning that which is known from witnesses, and all besides that he has done, heard or seen other persons do or say, in offence of our Holy Catholic Faith, with- out hiding anything that relates to himself or them, and not bring false witness either against himself or any other, because by this confession he will acquit his conscience as a faithful Christian, and there shall be used with him that mercy which may have place where justice shall not be done. The criminal shall answer as he chooses. If negative, let him be told that his pro- cess has been seen by competent judges, who declared that he must Tf wien dite ‘is! skid he be put to the torment that he might tell the whole truth, confesses anything, he If the torment is given him 7 caput alienum (on account of an- must ratify it after twenty- ether), the monition only is made to him, giving him to understand four hours, as if he had how from his process it results that he knows of other persons, etc., said itin the torment. and that he keeps it back and hides it; and it must not be said to him that he should speak of himself, neither in the monition, nor in the discourse of torment, because: he is held
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1870.] TEN YEARS IN ROME. 649 to be convicted, and in questioning him against himself, there might arise a doubt of this if he cleared himself of any indications. The scene of the following needs description. I saw it four years ago. It is an underground hall, divided into two aisles by six massive stone pillars, three in arow. At the upper end was a dais and a chair of state decorated with red vel- vet and the arms of the Cardinal Prefect. On a table below the dais were laid the “Compéndium” and other documents, also a crucifix and holy water. Round it sat four friars, Dominicans, masked frequently, and at a little side table sat the Fiscal, attended by a sergeant-at-arms. A curtain hung along the first row of pillars, screening off the rest of the hall. Behind it was the torture chamber. Nothing remains in this hall at present but staples fixed into the wall to which the prisoner was fastened, eight similar ones in the roof to which the pulleys were attached, and the chain that held the prisoner condemned to death by flagellation.* When the prisoner was sentenced to the torture, the curtain was drawn back, and the executioner stepped forward. The copy of the “ Ordo” be- fore me tells the rest: i CHRISTI NOMINE INVOCATO. PATER NOSTER. AVE MARIA. « We pronounce, after considering the acts and merits of the said process, the indica- tions and suspicions that result from it against the said —————, that we ought to con- demn him, and we do condemn him to be put to the question of torment [declare whether it is tobe by pulleys, or by water and cords, etc.], in which we command that he be and remain for so long a time as may appear well to us, that in it he may tell the truth con- cerning what is witnessed and laid in charge against him, with a protestation which we make, that if, in the said torment, he should die or be wounded, or if there be any effusion of blood or mutilation of member, the blame and charge must be his, not ours,: because he would not tell the truth. And by this our sentence we do pronounce and command in: these writings and by them. (Signature of Judge.) | Then the prisoner shall be taken to the chamber of torture, whither the Inquisitors: shall also go. When there, he was admonished to tell the truth, and not let himself be brought into so great trouble. He said, ete. He was told to tell the truth, or the Executor of Justice would be called in. He said, etc. The Executor of Justice was called in, and’ his oath was taken that he would do his business well and faithfully, and that he would Keep the secret ; all which he promised. He was told to tell'the truth, or orders would be given to’strip him, He said, etc. He was stripped. He was then examined by the doctor and surgeon, who said that they saw no reason why he should not be put to the torture. He was told to tell the truth, or he would be commanded to mount the hes He said, etc. He was put on the rack. He was told to tell the truth, or his body would be bound, He said, etc: He was ordered to be bound. He was told to tell the truth, or, if not, they would command his right foot to be made fast for the torture ultima contorsio (an extreme tightening of the cords), He said, etc, They commanded it to be made fast. * See THe GALaxy for March— The Propaganda.”
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4 650 TEN YEARS IN ROME. _ [May, He was told to tell the truth, or they would command his left foot to be fastened in like manner. He said, etc. It was ordered to be done. He was told to tell the truth, or they would order the binding of the right arm to be stretched. He said, etc. It was commanded to be done. And the same with the left arm. It was executed, He was told to tell the truth, or they would order the fleshy part of his arms and thighs to be made fast for the fisibus astrictio (compression with fine cords that cut into the flesh). He said, etc. It was done. And the Inquisitor shall urge the criminal to tell the truth, and not let himself be brought to so great torment; and the physician and surgeon were called in, who certified as to what class he might be placed in. He was ordered to tell the truth, or they would order the first turn of the wheel. He said, etc. It was ordered to be done. He was ordered to tell the truth, or a lighted match would be applied to the soles of his feet. He said, etc. It was done for ten minutes. He was told to tell the truth, or they would order the second turn of the wheel. He said, etc. It was commanded to be done. He was told to tell the truth, or they would order the third turn of the wheel, He said etc.’ It was done. This generally. suffices for Class I. and women. Under the head of “ Particular Directions,” we find the following : When the physician is called in, he shall certify if the criminal is liable to die under the torture by reason of heart disease, etc. ; or is liable to epilepsy or other fits ; or is of weak constitution ; or, if it be a woman, whether she be a virgin, or pregnant, and, if the latter, whether premature delivery would result from the torture of the rack. I omit two sentences here of the most revolting character, showing how wo- men in this condition may be tortured without great risk. The work in question is supposed to be in the handwriting of Cardinal Caraffa, and some idea of its na- ture may be gathered from his instructions to inquisitors respecting nuns suspected of heretical pravity: “Ad domos religiosarum veniens, fecit exprimi mammillas earundem, ut sic physice si esset inter corruptela, experiretur.”’ A woman’s hair was shaven before torture, and an additional ingenuity seems to have framed par- ticular tortures for her which could not be inflicted on a man. This class of persons formed class one. Class two were more robust, and able to endure anything. In addition to the rack, there are directions for the derefta, or iron cap. This was a supplementary punishment to the rack. It consisted of a basin-shaped cap of iron, fastened by two bolts behind. It was heated, but not to burning heat, and the head of the victim was forced into it. It generally produced idiocy and blindness. The torments ad arbitrium were used simultaneously with the rack, pulleys, etc. Some of them recall the days of Pagan Rome. Thus: A woman might have her nipples burned off, but singly. The nails might be pulled out, but no more than three at once. Sharp nails might be placed be- tween the toes, and the foot compressed. The same with the hand. The beard might be eradicated with forceps, etc., etc. The “bed of anguish,” fittingly so called, might be used for virgins and youths under nineteen. It consisted of © two boards thickly studded with short, sharp iron points. The victim being stripped was placed on one, and the other was laid upon him and pressed down
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-1870.] TEN YEARS IN ROME. | 651 by iron weights. A foot-note says, “This may be continued for twenty hours if water be thrown over the criminal.” ‘The time during which the torture con- tinued was not to be “inserted in the sentences, nor yet voted, but put in the ordinary form, ad arbitrium.’ If the criminal died while actually under torture, the Inquisitors were severally to absolve each other. Ifa woman went into con- vulsions during torture, she was to be restored to consciousness ere the torture continued. By an old decree the torture was not to be repeated. This was found incon- venient, and was thus disposed of: The torture is not repeated, but continued. After the first audience, let the criminal be taken to his cell, the Judge saying, ‘‘ We have compassion on thee for this time.” It may - be continued without any new reasons occurring, in order to bring to the criminal’s mem- ory anything that in his excitement may have been forgotten. It has been so continued even a third time, if in the interim the criminal has been allowed to recover so that he may be able to support the torment, and that it may be administered justly. The continuation — is executed on account of the torture not having failed by any accident to interrupt it, such as the fainting of the criminal, or seizure with convulsions in the torture-chamber, as often happens to women; and this is properly only a continuation, inasmuch as the act was not perfectly finished, and for this no new consultation is necessary, neither is there an- other vote, but it is continued after a conference of the Inquisitors and Ordinary, without previous reading of monitions, or pronouncing of sentence. The etc. which occurs so frequently in this work is explained in a small red- ink note to mean “whatever the Inquisitor shall deem in accordance with the case.” “A very wide margin indeed. We continue our translation of the chap- ter on the Audience of Torture: All that the criminal says has to be set down, and the questions that were put to him, and his answers, without omitting anything, and how they ordered fr the torture is of pulley, him to be stripped, and his arms to be bound, and the rounds of it must be entered how cord that are put on him, and how they ordered him to be placed the irons were put, and th Llonel Mice 4 Bind bel eat aii a deel ans the weights, and how he on the rack, and how to bind his legs, head, and arms, and declaring 12, hoisted, and how if his thighs, or shins, or arms were compressed, etc., and what many times, and how long was said to him at each of these operations; so that all that be was up each time. passes be written without leaving anything more to write; and {1s of the rack, it shall f ’ be said how many turns when he confesses anything, he shall be asked why he did not de- of the wheel, and wheth- clare that before ; and whatever appears most necessary to under- er supplementary tortures stand how much credit may be given him in other matters. were deemed neceBsary. And then the Lords Inquisitors may say that for various considerations they suspended the said torment for the present, with protestations that they had not tormented him suffi- ciently, and that if he would not tell the truth, they reserved it in their power to continue the torment whenever it should please them; and then the prisoner may be taken away to his cell. And this business was finished at — o’clock before or after midday; and so far as it appeared the said N——— was sound, and without skin broken, Let it be observed, that, as for those who are pertinacious, before determining their causes, there must be made to them three monitions, at least, by theologians of science and conscience, in order to undeceive them, and endeavor to bring them to their senses, and so it shall be set down in the processes, all which shall be done in the audience hall, the Inquisitors, or some of them, being present. The following is the form of the death-sentence : i Seen by us, the Inquisitors against heretical pravity and apostasy in —-—-—— and its neighborhood, by Apostolical authority, together with the Ordinary of the said diocese of
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652 TEN YEARS IN ROME. [May, , a process of criminal suit which before us has pended, and pends between par- ties, the one being the Proctor Fiscal of the Holy Office, prosecutor, and the other the criminal, ——-——, defendant, inhabitant of —--——, who is here present. And by rea- son that the said Proctor Fiscal appeared before us, and presented his accusation, and what by it is prayed, and after the merits of the process on to its conclusion, and having had of our own accord deliberation with persons of letters and right conscience : We de- clare the charges of ———— against the said —— fully proven, as well by evi- dence as by his own confession ; and that for the better preservation of the Holy Catholic faith it becomes necessary to punish offenders without mercy. Therefore we relax the person of the said ——-—— to the secular justice and arm, especially to ——-——, chief magistrate of this city of ——-——,, and his lieutenants, whom we pray and charge very affectionately, as we by right best can, to deal kindly and piously with him. Done this —— day of , in the vear of our Lord , and signed and sealed by us the said Inquisitors. Would the uninitiated reader imagine that this meant breaking alive on the wheel, burning, drowning, or decapitation? Similar in awful significance are the old judicial records of sus. per coll, and, in the case of witches, convicta et combusta. Frequently the miserable victim conjured up imaginary crimes, un- happily also inculpating innocent persons, or he abjured his errors. It is the custom of some writers to sneer at the weakness of Archbishop Cranmer and others who recanted; but they can form no adequate idea of the effect of tor- ture upon a weakened and excited frame. True, the English prelate had not so suffered; but he was a man remarkably sensitive to pain. When the thumb- screw was placed on William of Orange at his request, he confessed he would have subscribed to any creed rather than bear it. The form of abjuration pre- scribed in the manual before us is very stringent in its pledges: ' I, ————, being found guilty of —-———, do admit myself worthy of punishment and condemnation, which all who oppose the Holy Catholic Faith deserve ; and I promise that I will never unite with heretics and depraved persons, and that so far as in me lies I will persecute them all, and the heresies of which I know them to be guilty. I will reveal and make known to any Inquisitor of heretical pravity, or prelate of the Holy Church, wherever I may be, all their designs. And if at any time, which God forbid, I act contrary ‘to the things above said, or against any one thing or part of them, that in such case I may be had and held for an impenitent relapsed, and submit myself to the correction and severity of the sacred canons, that on me, as a person found guilty of the said crime of heresy, the sentence and penalties contained in them may be executed. Then it is added: He shall be cautioned to consider well what he has abjured: because if, failing so to do, he fails again into any heresy, he incurs the penalties of one relapsed, and shall be deliv- ered over to the secular arm without any mercy; and the same if he does not keep what is contained in his sentence. All persons dismissed from the Holy Office shall swear that they will keep secret all that has passed in their own case, and all that they have seen, known, heard, or under- stood in any way. Very curious are the cautions enjoined in making arrests, precautions still observed in Rome: It is very desirable that the business of the Holy Office be despatched quietly and noiselessly ; and therefore the commissaries are commanded to inform the familiars that when they bring the criminals to the prison they must endeavor to set out and to enter - towns under the closest disguise, and if possible by night or earlv in the morning ; and a
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1870.] TEN YEARS IN ROME. 653 when they reach Rome they shall only enter the city at these hours ; with a warning giv- en them in the name of the Tribunal that this caution is of so great importance, that if they do not observe it proceedings will be taken against themselves. Also the Commissary shall recommend and command the persons who bear witness, or who take part whatever in these affairs, to keep the same secret. The Commissary, in order to preserve the secret, shall have a very good place of safe-keeping for his papers, under lock and key, in such manner that no person may see them ; and with regard to let- ters, when such are received from the Tribunal, he shall return thither the originals, with an answer stating what he has done. Here I conclude my extracts from this remarkable volume. The “ Liber Sententiarum,” or Book of Sentences, furnishes us with one or two rather un- known facts. It is a compilation of documents, each being the sentence passed on a prisoner, authenticated with signature and seal. One is very brief, but hor- ribly significant—“ Jz muro includantur,” that is, built up within four walls. This occurs with the addition of “fetters and chains.” Death was sometimes inflicted secretly by an instrument shaped like a large caldron. Such an one was found in 1848 in the Holy Office at Rome. It was five feet four and a half inches high, and three feet two and a half inches round. It had a lid, composed of two halves having an orifice in the middle through which the head of the victim passed, the two parts being fastened by bolts. A slow fire was then lighted, and kept at a certain heat, during which the accused had opportunity of recanting or confessing. If he persisted in denial, after a certain number of hours, the fire was augmented, and so on, until death ensued. Near this caldron five female scalps with long tresses were found, which are accounted for by the ordinance of the “ Praxis” that a woman’s hair should be cut off before the infliction of tor- ture. The following is the oath of the employees of the Inquisition : The priest of the Secret, with the cross carried before him, shall say to the persons about to take the oath, all kneeling before him, and placing their hands on the Holy Gos- pels: I swear to God and to Holy Mary, and to this sign of the Cross, and to the words of the Holy Gospels, that I will be in favor, defence, and help of the Holy Catholic Faith, and of the Holy Inquisition, its officers and ministers ; and I will make manifest and dis- cover all and whatsoever heretics, abettors, defenders, and concealers of them, disturbers and impeders of the said Holy Office; and that I will not give them favor or help, nor screen them, but as soon as I know it, I will make it known and declare it to the said Lords Inquisitors; and if I do the contrary, may God call me to account as He would him who knowingly commits perjury. Amen. The oath of a bishop is: ‘“ Heretics, schismatics, and rebels to our said Lord the Pope, and his successors, I will to the utmost of my power persecute and destroy.” The fourth Lateran Council, Canon III., thus defines the duties of kings in this respect: “ Pro defensione fidei prestat juramentam, quod de terris sue jurisdictionis subjectos universos hereticos ab Ecclesia denotatos, bona fide pro viribus exterminare studebunt.” This is confirmed by the 45th Canon of the Council of Constance. From the “ Decretals ” we learn the regulations of the Inquisition in general. The “ Directory”? of Nicholas Eymeric, Inquisitor of Castile in 1356, is a prac- tical synopsis of thése decrees. It is expounded in full by Pefia and approved by Gregory XIII. There are three modes of proceeding against heretics—by information, by accusation, and by inquiry. The accusation is to be through the attorney of the Holy Office, instructed by secret denouncers. Jformation is — to be made secretly, and no person is exempt from its obligation, whatever bond
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654 TEN YEARS IN ROME. [May, or oath he may take to the contrary. Juguiry takes place in the absence of in- formers. A suspicion arising from ill report justifies arrest. The victim is re- quired to furnish all particulars of time and place, to allow of the charge being made out against him. To prove heresy, the testimony of infidels and of Jews may be taken. The testimony of a wife against her husband, of a child against its parent, of brother against brother, is admissible. All witnesses are bound to secrecy. The criminal must not see them or know who they are. A witness may be tortured to obtain further evidence, if it is surmised that he conceals aught. The Inquisitor is urged to use craftiness to ensnare the accused into admissions, to promise him liberty, or to threaten torture. Not to commit himself, the Inquisitor, “for greater security of conscience, may employ vague terms capable of a double interpretation.” No defence is permitted after a confession is extracted. A heretic has no right of appeal to the Pope. Lest the accused carry charms framed of texts of Scripture, etc., “tHis witchcraft is to be remedied by stripping the criminal naked and searching him narrowly.” If weak and timid, let him be frightened by horrible threats. If a person dies by the torture, the Inquisitors must absolve each other. Degrees of suspicion are classed as “light, vehement, and violent.” A person /ightly suspected is to be brought out before the multitude, admonished, and made to do penance. This accomplished, he was released. Ignominious penance, such as standing in a sheet in the church, followed abjuration after vehement suspicion. But violent suspicion was visited more severely. They were attired in the sam- benito, a yellow sack with the St. Andrew’s cross in red upon it, and perpetually imprisoned on bread and water. The children of executed heretics may be fed by the church, but “scantily,” that they may be sensible of their father’s crime. Confiscation follows conviction. ‘“ Heretics may be punished by. flogging, but blood must not be shed.” The memory of every man who incurs inquisitorial punishment, whatever his rank, is to be accursed, and his progeny infamous. Offending fathers have no control over children, offending husbands no control over their wives. Relapsed heretics are all to be burnt. Penitents are to be imprisoned for life. The degrees of punishment may be seen in what remains of the prison of the Holy Office at Rome. Lesser delinquents had cells on the ground floor, miserably ventilated and lighted feebly, but still large enough to move about in. A.graver class were lodged in a floor below—close, wholly dark cells, and scarce space enough to take two steps in. A lower depth was reserved for the worst kind, and appropriately called “little ease,”’ a misshapen pit wherein there was no place for standing upright or lying at length, where the captive was bent double and fed with just enough to sustain life. Inset propdrtion of weight and number fetters and manacles were added. The worst was an iron girdle from which chains were attached to the legs and arms, the latter being additionally secured by a second chain attached to an iron collar. A staple in the floor kept the miserable captive in one spot. The sworn jailer might not speak to him, however summoned. To no call, or entreaty, or cry of despairing agony might he answer by word or sign. I have endeavored to condense the voluminous “ Directory” as well as the commentary of Farinacius; but much more remains equally interesting, which I cannot find space to quote. Let us turn to the consideration of the prac- tical working of these regulations in Italy from the Council of Trent onwards, At the very time that Paul III. was reluctantly convening the bishops and fa- thers in the Tyrol, he was quietly preparing a new Inquisition, to be conducted on surer principles, having Rome for its seat and centre of government. The bull
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1870.] TEN YEARS IN ROME. 658 of indiction for the Council of Trent was promulgated May 22, 1542; a con- stitution for the establishment of a supreme and universal Inquisition at Rome, July 21, 1542. The Council began its debates, without the Germans, in 1545 ; but the new Inquisition anticipated every doctrinal conclusion by commencing its operations in Italy in 1543. The bull of Paul II]. named six cardinals to be commissaries and inquisitors general in all cities, towns, lands, and places of the Christian republic, on both sides of the Alps, to act as his delegates. They were to act independently of the local bishops and civil authorities, imprisoning all guilty or suspected persons, proceeding against them until final sentence ; punishing with due penalties those’ — whom they convicted, and taking possession of the property of condemned per-. sons. The new Universal Roman Inquisition had a fiscal (attorney), a proctor, public notaries, and other necessary officers, who might be priests or monks of any order. The Pope reserved the graces of reconciliation and absolution to himself, but otherwise the Inquisitors were to cite and inhibit in all parts of the world. Power was withdrawn from all other judges, which was plainly enough an arrogation to himself and his commissaries of the power of life and death over the subjects of every government in the world. Orlandini, in his “ History of the Society of Jesus,” clearly points out that Ignatius Loyola advised the for- mation of the Inquisition. The new Cardinal Inquisitors were not slow in using their powers. They first began with the press. Books were destroyed, and many more disfigured ; printers were forbidden to carry on their business with- out license of the Holy Office. Even to this day they usurp this power in Rome, deciding what may be sold and what printed. The word /mprimatur has a pow- erful significance there. ‘The cardinals, being unable to make inquisition in per- son, empowered Father Tommaso Maria di Bologna, Inquisitor over the cities of Ferrara and Modena, much suspected of harboring secret presses. They empowered him and his substitutes to visit all libraries, offices, churches, monas- | teries, and private houses, search for books, burn the bad ones, and enforce on all booksellers, printers, officers of customs, and other delinquents, the penalties of forfeiture, stripes, fines, suspension of trade, imprisonment, or banishment (July, 1543). In Tuscany severe penalties were enacted on the possessors of heretical books. After the completion of the search, twenty-two persons were brought out in procession, with the usual apparel of ignominious penance. Among them was Bartolomeo Panchicerichi, a gentleman who had served the Grand Duke of Tuscany as Ambassador at the French Court. They underwent shameful exhibition in the cathedral, and at the same time a company of women appeared in like manner at the Church of St. Simone (A. D. 1586). In all Italy it excited a marked antipathy, but especially at Naples. The proclamation of the Pope was attended with disastrous consequences. A riot ensued. Three thousand soldiers were ordered out to quell the riot; but the people fought des- perately, and before the bells rang in the evening for the De Profundis the last of the three thousand had fallen, and their bodies, heaped together with a greater number of the people, choked the streets. The record of the Holy Office has the following entries: ? Fannio, hung and burnt, 1550. Pestilent heretic, Dominico, burnt. 1550. Galeazzo Treccio was questioned with torment, burnt in the Milanese. 1551. Giovanni di Montalcino, burnt. Rome. 1553. [He was an eminent man, Professor of Metaphysics in the Uhiversity of Bos logna, and a faithful expositor of the New Testament. ]
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656 TEN YEARS IN ROME. [May, Francesco Gambia, strangled, beheaded, and burnt. Como. 1554. . Pomponio Algieri, burnt. Rome. 1555. Veraglia, burnt at Turin, 1557. [This was remarkable. Veraglia was a Capuchin friar, an inquisitor, and the son of an inquisitor, and had signalized himself by killing Waldenses. But while striving to make himself master of the controversy, he was converted, and himself suffered for the truth.] Luigi Pascal, burnt. Rome. 1560. [He was burnt in the presence of Pius IV., and was a young man of great piety and zeal. Padre Sacchini speaks of him as “a very confident and cunning master of impiety.” The General of the Jesuits, Laynez, went to him. He was a veteran controversialist, the only man acquainted with the Fathers at Trent, where he defended the Papacy, and had encountered Beza in the conference of Poissy. But here his arguments failed. Four persons were drowned between 1562 and 1567 at Venice for heresy. The few words convicta et combusta are generally all that remains to tell the story of Christian heroism and of fiendish malice. } The disquietude in Rome was so great in consequence of the spread of the Reformation that every one was suspected. Cardinal Morone, who had been one of the apostolical legates at Trent, was imprisoned, as well as Foscherati, Bishop of Modena. Two more cases deserve special mention. Dr. Thomas Wilson, afterward principal Secretary of State to Queen Elizabeth, took refuge in Rome, to escape the displeasure of Queen Mary. He was informed against for having written an objectionable book on rhetoric and another on logic. It is true that Julius III. had granted absolution to all the realm of England, but Dr. Wilson was nevertheless accounted amenable to the Inquisition. He was imprisoned and sentenced to death. But, a few days preceding his execution, Paul IV. died, and the inhabitants of Rome gave full vent to their abhorrence of the sys- tem. The people as one man forced the gates of the prison of the Inquisition, released the prisoners, and burnt the building to ashes. With the greatest diffi- culty they were prevented from wreaking the same fate on the Convent of the Minerva, the abode of the Dominicans, who, more than any other order, were active persecutors. The crowd broke off the head of a fine statue of the late Pope, rolled it about the streets for three days, and finally threw it into the Tiber. - They sought to treat the Pope’s corpse in a similar manner, but it was hastily hidden in a vault. The Commissary of the Inquisition was wounded, and his house burnt down. The arms of Caraffa were everywhere defaced, for it was Cardinal Caraffa who was mainly instrumental in creating the Congregation of the Inquisition. The present building was erected by Pius V., and an inscrip- tion attests the year of its completion, 1569. At that time, a letter conveys the intelligence that persons were every day burnt, strangled, or beheaded, that all the jails and places of confinement were full. Pius V. was the first Pope who bore the title of Supreme Inquisitor. It has been assumed by all his successors to the present time. ) In the destruction of the prison of the Inquisition, Dr. Wilson escaped. The second case is still more interesting. Fra Tommaso Fabiano di Mileto, a Fran- ciscan friar, was sentenced on the 16th December, 1564, at Rome, and, I grieve to say, by the excellent and saintly Cardinal Borromeo. He denied the Papal supremacy, priestly celibacy, purgatory, the necessity of confession, and tran- substantiation. This was his sentence: ‘ You shall be walled up in a place sur-
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1870.] TEN YEARS IN ROME. 657 rounded by four walls, where, with anguish of heart and abundance of tears, you shall bewail your sins and offences.” The four walls were built up around him, leaving sufficient space to kneel down. A small opening was left at the top, for food to be dropped in, and in this place the prisoner was to be kept to putrefy and expire in his own filth. Such a place was found in the Inquisition at Rome, and the soil was analyzed. It proved tobe a horrible compost of human bones, hair, and filth! In 1855, an English gentleman describes the finding of one of these prisons in Spain. “I had often heard talk in Spain of the emparedados, or persons walled up, and doubted about them; but at length I sawit. About. fifteen years ago (1840) the building of the Inquisition of Seville, being in ruins, was inhabited bya poor man, with his wife and child. This last, knocking about one of the rooms, moved a brick in the wall, where there proved to be what is called uz czttaron, covering or marking a space in the wall about a yard anda half wide by a foot or more in depth. At the bottom of this place were found, and I saw, the bones of two persons.” At Rome, there was found in 1848 the horrible quick-lime bath, which certainly excelled in sensation any story of the “New York Ledger” type. It was a square pit about five feet by two and a half. It was entered by a trap-door fastened by a spring which gave way at the touch of the foot. The condemned was deluded by hope of pardon, and told to go tothe Father Commissary. His way lay directly over this stone, which at the least pressure gave way beneath him. The pit was then filled up with quick- lime. In 1848 a basket was found in this cell full of skulls, the skeletons be- longing to them being on the floor. I am glad to relate the escape of Fra Tommaso from his frightful prison, He was subsequently burned in effigy, November 8, 1565. Throughout Northern Italy, the progress of the Reformation seemed coinci- dent with that of letters. A famous academy flourished at Modena, and others at Bologna and Ferrara. Muratori speaks of the contempt exhibited by the stu- dents toward priests and friars. Among them was the famous Castelvetro, who was ordered to appear at Rome. He obeyed, but, frightened by the aspect of things, escaped from the city under cover’of the night. He was excommunicated for contumacy, and died at Chiavenna, 1574. Among the philosophers of this age was Giordano Bruno. He travelled in France, Germany, and England, making open profession of the Reformed faith. After a while he returned to Italy, and stopped in Padua, where he thought himself safe from the Inquisition, He was, however, arrested and carried to Venice. Bellarmine was then the In- quisitor, and with this most astute controversialist Bruno waged a stubborn con- flict. Two years passed, and then, the Inquisitors unable to overcome his firm- ness, he was brought into the presence of the Cardinals of the Congregation of the Holy Office, and after being degraded from his priestship, was delivered over to the civil power. He replied to all their statements, ‘ Perhaps you feel great- er pain in pronouncing the sentence than I do in receiving it.” From the hall of the Inquisition he was conveyed to a city prison, and after a week brought out for execution. The stake was erected opposite the Dominican convent, Santa Maria sopra Minerva. He was solicited again to recant, but in vain, and ona crucifix being brought him, he turned away his head with an expression of great aversion. Thus, on the 7th of February, 1600, one of the first scholars of Europe was done to death. The case of Galileo Galilei belongs to this period, and is too well known to need repetition. I have seen his recantation, forced from him despite his convictions. Baronius advised Paul V, that the ministry of Peter was “zo feed and fo kill,”
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658 TEN YEARS IN ROME. [May, and the Pope acted up to it thoroughly. His Pontificate is disgraced by cruel persecutions. Among many examples, the following may be cited: About 1595, an Englishman, thirty years of age, met the Host carried in procession, and, seized with an utter revulsion at what he deemed blasphemy, knocked the pyx out of the priest’s hand, exclaiming, “It is an idol!” Five days after he was led from the prison of the Inquisition back to that spot, where his hand was cut off, and his tongue cut out; then he was scorched with blazing torches, and finally burnt alive. _ There is preserved in the Vatican the Manual of the Inquisitor Lerri, from which I- extract this table of fees: TO THE NOTARY, For making out the summary (and if the process be long, the labor shall be considered) - - 1 scudo* For each page of the summary = - - - - - - - - 4 bol. For each letter - - - - SUR Ne) Rte - - - - - 3 bol. For any citation of witnesses - : - - ~ - - - - 2 bol. For the citation of the criminal - - . - - - - - = 3 bol. For the decree of defence - : » - - - - - - - 2 bol. For any kind of security - - ~ - . - - - ~ - 20 bol. For each witness in defence - - - - - - - - - 6 bol. For every page of the copy of the process = - - - ° - - - 4 bol. For the decree of torture - ° - - - ° - - - - 2 bol. For the citation to the sentence - - - - - ~ - - 4 bol. For the sentence - ~ - - ° - - ~ - - ° 1 scudo* For the copy of the sentence = * ~ - - - - - - * 20 bol. For the relaxation (burning) - - - - - - - - . 10 bol. For the congregation - - - - - - - . - - - ro bol. For the visit to the criminal’s house - . - - - * - ~ 20 bol. TO THE LORD FISCAL, For any witness at instance of the criminal - - - - - . - - 12 bol. For the torture - - - - - - - - - . - 20 bol. For the congregation - - - - - - ~ - - - 20 bol. For the visit to the house - - - ~ - - - . . - 40 bol. For the sentence - - - - - - . - - ~ - 1x scudo* TO THE SERGEANTS, For the capture of the criminal in the city (when this takes place out of town, regard must be had to the distance) - - - - - - - - - - 1 scudo* For the torture - - - - - - - - - - - 40 bol. For the visit to the house - - - - - - - - - - 20 bol. For accompanying the criminal to the sentence = - - - - - - 40 bol. * Of gold. f Thus, for being torn from the bosom of his family, for each act of malignant accusation, for every stage of suffering, for imprisonment, for torture, and even for being carried to the stake, the victim was to fay. Ruffians and tormentors were bought at his own cost, to murder him piecemeal! The perusal of the in- structions of Lerri to the Inquisitors, as of all documents relating to the Holy Office, leaves the impression that it was very active, and interfered with all the affairs of political, domestic, and social life. The signature “R. CarRptis BEL- LARMINUS” appears on the sentence of Fulgentio Manfredi, a very learned and liberal person, who was hanged and burnt after torture. Gregory XV. issued seven bulls in support of the Inquisition, which were ordered to be enforced in all countries. To this Pope’s reign belongs the story of De Dominis, Arch- bishop of Spolato. He abjured Romanism, and was appointed by James I. Dean of Windsor, Master of the Savoy, and Rector of a Berkshire parish. He is the author of two folio volumes, “De Republic4 Ecclesiastica.” After his quarrel with King James, he was allured by specious promises into Roman territory,
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1870.] TEN YEARS IN ROME. 659 where he was seized, and it is believed poisoned. The Romans, as in the case | of Cardinal d’Andrea, would not believe that he died a natural death. His body was Carried to the Church of the Minerva in a coffin smeared with pitch, and de- livered over to the civil power. It was dragged out of the coffin, the remnants of putrid flesh falling from the bones, and then the loathsome mass, together with a bundle of books, was consumed in the Campo di Fiori. Want of space compels me to omit the record of the Quietists and Molinists, and we come to the final overthrow of the Inquisition throughout Italy. Resis- tance was made in all directions, The rise oi Freemasonry counteracted the secret society of the Inquisition, and, from attending to heretics, the Inquisitors turned to Masons. Clement XII. condemned them by a bull, A. D. 1738, and in 1739 the Cardinal Vicar of Rome issued an edict, denouncing capital punish- ment of all Freemasons detected within the Papal States. When the Empress Maria Theresa, in common with other sovereigns, abolished many dangerous . ecclesiastical privileges, she required the Archbishop and the Inquisitor in Milan to refrain from prohibiting books. The Primate failed to satisfy her, and she abolished his power, and placed it in the hands of the judicature. The Inquisi- tion was abolished in Parma, February 21, 1769. Similar measures were taken in Tuscany by the Grand Duke Pietro Leopoldo. Ferdinand VI., King of the Two Sicilies, abolished the Sicilian Inquisition in 1782, declaring “that it had ever been hateful to the people, disobedient to the sovereign, and hostile to the laws.” The Viceroy Caraccioli entered the hall of the Holy Office in state, and ordered the prisoners to be set at liberty. The ill-gotten wealth of the office was forfeited to the crown. The iron cages containing human skulls were taken down and split asunder, in order that every trace of the odious institution might be blotted out of memory. The archives were ordered to be burnt, and the ashes scattered to the wind. In 1809, in the Pontificate of Pius VII., the French troops entered Rome. They demolished in part the prison of the Inquisition. But on the fall of Napoleon I., when the Pope returned to Rome, it was revived in full force, and at this moment a cardinal enjoys a salary of five thousand scudi per annum as its Prefect. Finally, for the third time, on a bright June morning in 1848, while yet the heap of Pontifical and cardinalitial carriages was burning in the Piazza di S. Pietro, an armed crowd presented themselves at the gates of the Inquisition. They were soon battered down, and a hush of awe fell on the assemblage as it entered those sinister portals. There was nothing very revolting, however, in the pleasant, lux- urious apartments of the custode, abodes of secret licentiousness and cunningly- devised cruelties. The contents were quickly destroyed, and a pike being thrust through the two portraits of Paul 1V. and Pius VII., they were solemnly con- signed to the flames amid general execrations. The instruments of torture humanely destroyed by the French had not been restored, except the caldron previously described. Down below, in cells not eight feet square, dripping with damp and overrun with rats, two prisoners were discovered alive, half demented with silence, darkness, and famine. They were unable to speak or comprehend that they were free. With tears in their eyes, and low murmurs of pity, the crowd conducted them up stairs on their shoulders, for they were unable to walk, The first discovered was a nun, about thirty-five years old, and still bearing traces of beauty and comeliness. Her monastic habit was so worn and ragged that it scarcely covered her. She had had no change of linen for over five years, and in winter and summer the same food and bedding. The former consisted of a loaf of black, sour bread per day, weighing a pound, and at noon a small
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660° MAY-SONG. (May, pannikin of stewed haricot beans. The bedding was laid on an erection of brick, and consisted merely of a heap of straw perfectly rotten and mildewed, with a blanket in like condition. The other prisoner was a bishop, and still wore his faded purple soutane. He was nearly seventy, and it was a pitiable sight to see his wretched, uncared-for age, and the settled expression of hopeless despair on his countenance. His left side was paralyzed. The multitude that only a few hours before shouted, ‘“‘ Down with the priests!” knelt and kissed the old man’s hand with passionate fervor. They hoisted the two victims in chairs, and carried them through the city, with the hair and other relics of torture. Dreadful as the sight was, it was a full proof that the Court of Rome does not consider it safe to follow its own rules, or, instead of two, how many more might have been found. The Roman Parliament decreed the erection of a pillar opposite the palace of the Inquisition, to perpetuate the memory of its destruction. But before that or any other monument could be erected, the French army besieged and took the city. With the gallant fight at the gate of San Pancrazio terminated ‘the hopes of freedom, the significant manifesto of the Roman Committee announcing five days afterwards, “ By the help of treachery, the enemy has conquered. Romans, wait patiently ; the hour of freedom will come.” As he was led by the excited crowd back to the Vatican, the Pope said to Monsignor Borromeo, ‘It is said, ‘Put not your trust in princes’; but I would ‘say, Princes, put not your trust in the people.” A true reading of events. The Romans have been too much trifled with to be trusted ; consequently the first act of his restoration was to restore the palace of the Inquisition, and to place within its walls his late most prominent opponents. MAY-SONG. 7 HILE|I linger in her room, Singing idly at her feet, St douce est la Marguerite, Are the clover blossoms sweet? Are the apple treés in bloom, While I linger in her room? Is there murmuring of bees While I murmur at her feet, SZ douce est la Marguerite ? Is there singing swift and sweet By the brook-side, in the trees ? Is there murmuring of bees ? In the springtime of the year, Sitting singing at her feet, St douce est la Marguerite, Is there then no other sweet Thing to see or have or hear In the springtime of the year? ROBERT WEEKS,
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GEORGE SAND. \ \ YE are all of us probably inclined now and then to waste a little time in Y vaguely speculating on what might have happened if this or that par- ticular event had not given a special direction to the career of some great man or woman. If there had been an inch of difference in the size of Cleopatra’s nose ; if Hannibal had not lingered at Capua; if Cromwell had carried out his idea of emigration; if Napoleon Bonaparte had taken service under the Turk—and so on through all the old familiar illustrations dear to the minor essayist and the de- bating society. I have sometimes felt tempted thus to lose myself in speculating on what might have happened if the woman whom all the world knows as George Sand had been happily married in her youth to the husband of her choice. Would she ever have taken to literature at all? Would she, loving as she does, and as Frenchwomen so rarely do, the changing face of inanimate nature—the fields, the flowers, and the brooks—have lived a peaceful and obscure life in some happy country place, and been content with home, and family, and love, and never thought of fame? Or if, thus happily married, she still had allowed her genius to find an expression in literature, would she have written books with no passionate purpose in them—books which might have seemed like those of a good Miss Mulock made perfect—books which Podsnap might have read with approval and put without a scruple into the hands of that modest young person, his daughter? Certainly one cannot but think that a different kind of early life would have given a quite different complexion to the literary individuality of George Sand. Buiwer Lytton, in one of his novels, insists that true genius is always quite in- dependent of the individual sufferings or joys of its possessor, and describes some inspired youth in the novel as sitting down while sorrow is in his heart and hun- ger gnawing at his vitals, to throw off a sparkling and gladsome little fairy tale. Now this is undoubtedly true in general of any high order of genius ; but there are at least some great and striking exceptions. Rousseau and Byron are, in modern days, remarkable illustrations of genius, admittedly of a very high rank, governed and guided almost wholly by the individual fortunes of the men them- selves. So too must we speak of the genius of George Sand. Not Rousseau, not even Byron, was in this sense more egotistic than the woman who broke the chains of her ill-assorted marriage with a crash that made its echoes heard at last in every civilized country in the world. Just as people are constantly quot- ing nous avons changé toyt cela who never read a page of Moliére, or Jour en- courager les autres without even being aware that there is a story of Voltaire’s called “* Candide,” so there have been thousands of passionate protests uttered in America and Europe for the last twenty years by people who never saw a vol- ume of George Sand, and yet are only echoing her sentiments and even repeat- ing her words. In a former number of THE GALAxy I expressed casually the opinion that George Sand is probably the most influential writer of our day. I am still, and deliberately, of the same opinion. It must be remembered that very few English or American authors have any wide or deep influence over peoples who do not speak English. Even of the very greatest authors this is true. Compare, for example, the literary dominion of Shakespeare with that of Cervantes. All na-
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662 . GEORGE SAND. | [May, tions who read Shakespeare read Cervantes: in Stratford-upon-Avon itself Don Quixote is probably as familiar a figure in people’s minds as Falstaff; but Shakespeare is little known indeed to the vast majority of readers in the country of Cervantes, in the land of Dante, or in that of Racine and Victor Hugo. In something of the same way we may compare the influence of George Sand with that of even the greatest living authors of England and America. What influ- ence has Charles Dickens or George Eliot outside the range of the English tongue? But George Sand’s genius has been felt as a power in every country of the world where people read any manner of books. It has been felt almost as Rousseau’s once was felt; it has aroused anger, terror, pity, or wild and rap- turous excitement and admiration ; it has rallied around it every instinct in man or woman which is revolutionary ; it has ranged against it all that is conservative. It is not so much a literary influence as a great disorganizing force, riving the rocks of custom, resolving into their original elements the social combinations which tradition and convention would declare to be indissoluble. I am not now speaking merely of the sentiments which George Sand does or did entertain on the subject of marriage. Divested of all startling effects and thrilling dramatic illustrations, these sentiments probably amounted to nothing more dreadful than the belief that an unwedded union between two people who love and are true to each other is less immoral than the legal marriage of two uncongenial creatures who do not love-and probably are not true to each other. But the grand, revo- lutionary idea which George Sand announced was that of the social indepen- dence and equality of woman-—-the principle that woman is not made for man in any other sense than as man is made for woman. For the first time in the his- tory of the world woman spoke out for herself with a voice as powerful as that of man. For the first time in the history of the world woman spoke out as woman, not as the servant, the satellite, the pupil, the plaything, or the goddess of man. Now I intend at'present to write of George Sand rather as an individual, or an influence, than as the author of certain works of fiction. Criticism would now be superfluously bestowed on the literary merits and peculiarities of the great woman whose astonishing intellectual activity has never ceased to produce, dur- ing the last thirty years, works which take already a classical place in French literature. If any reputation of ourtday may be looked upon as established, we . may thus regard the reputation of George Sand. She is, beyond comparison, the greatest living novelist of France. She has won this position by the most legitimate application of the gifts of an artist. With all her marvellous fecundity, she has hardly ever given to the world any work which does not seem at least to have been the subject of the most elaborate and patient care. ‘The greatest temptation which tries a story-teller is perhaps the temptation to rely on the at- tractiveness of story-telling, and to pay little or no attention to style. Walter Scott’s prose, for example, if regarded as mere prose, is rambling, irregular, and almost worthless. Dickens’s prase is as bad a model for imitation as a musical performance which is out of tune. Of course, I need hardly say that attention to style is almost as characteristic of French authors in general, as the lack of it is characteristic of English authors; but even in France, the prose of George Sand stands out conspicuous for its wonderful expressiveness and force, its al- most perfect beauty. Then of all modern French authors—I might perhaps say of all modern novelists of any country—George Sand has added to fiction, has annexed from the worlds of reality and of imagination, the greatest number of original characters—of what Emerson calls new organic creations. Moreover, George Sand is, after Rousseau, the one only great French author who has looked 7 Se ee eee
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1870.] GEORGE SAND. 663 directly and lovingly into the face of Nature, and learned the secrets which skies and waters, fields and lanes, can teach to the heart that loves them. Gifts such as these have won her the almost unrivalled place which she holds in living liter- ature, and she has conquered at last even the public opinion which once detested and proscribed her. I could therefore hope to add nothing to what has been al- ready said by criticism in regard to her merits as a novelist. Indeed, I think it probable that the majority of readers in this country know more of George Sand through the interpretation of the critics than through the pages of her books. And in her case criticism is so nearly unanimous as to her literary merits, that I may safely assume the public in general to have in their minds a just recognition of her position as a novelist. My object is rather to say some- thing about the place which George Sand has taken asa social revolutionist, about the influence she has so long exercised over the world, and about the woman herself. For she is assuredly the greatest champion of woman’s rights, in one sense, that the world has ever seen; and she is, on the other hand, the one woman out of all the world who has been most commonly pointed to as the appalling, example to scare doubtful and fluttering womanhood back into its sheepfold of submissiveness and conventionality. There is hardly a woman’s heart anywhere in the civilized world which has not felt the vibration of George Sand’s thrilling voice. Women who never saw one of her books, nay, who never heard even her zom de plume, have been stirred by emotions of doubt or fear or repining or ambition, which they never would have known but for George Sand, and perhaps but for George Sand’s uncongenial marriage. For indeed there is not now, and has not been for twenty years, I venture to think, a single “revolutionary” idea, as slow and steady-going people would call it, afloat any- where in Europe or America, on the subject of woman’s relations to man, so- ciety, and destiny, which is not due immediately to the influence of George Sand, and to the influence of George Sand’s unhappy marriage upon George Sand herself. | ‘The world has of late years grown used to this extraordinary woman, and has lost much of the wonder and terror with which it once regarded her. . I can quite remember—younger people than I can remember—the time when all good and proper personages in England regarded the authoress of “Indiana” as a sort of feminine fiend, endowed with a hideous power for the destruction of souls and an inextinguishable thirst for the slaughter of virtuous beliefs. I fancy a good deal of this sentiment was due to the fearful reports wafted across the seas, that this terrible woman had not merely repudiated the marriage bond, but had actually put off the garments sacred to womanhood. That George Sand appeared in men’s clothes was an outrage upon consecrated proprieties far more astonishing than any theoretical onslaught upon old opinions could be. Reformers indeed should always, if they are wise in their generation, have a care of the proprieties. Many worthy people can listen with comparative forti- tude when sacred and eternal truths are assailed, who are stricken with horror when the ark of propriety is never so lightly touched. George Sand’s pantaloons were therefore regarded as the most appalling illustration of George Sand’s wickedness. I well remember what excitement, scandal, and horror were created in the provincial town where I lived some twenty years ago, when the editor of a local Panjandrum (to borrow Mr. Trollope’s word) insulted the feelings and the morals of his constituents and subscribers by polluting his pages with a translation from one of George Sand’s shorter novels. Ah me, the little novel might, so far as morality was concerned, have been written every word by 43
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664 GEORGE SAND. [MAy, Miss Phelps, or the authoress of the “Heir of Redcliffe”; it had not a word, from beginning to end, which might not have been read out'to a Sunday school of girls; the translation was made by a woman of the purest soul, and ‘in her own locality the highest name; and yet how virtue did ‘shriek out against the publication! The editor persevered in the publishing of the novel; spurred on to boldness by some of his very young and therefore fearless coadjutors, who thought it delightful to confront public opinion, and liked the notion of the stars in their courses fighting against Sisera, and Sisera not being dis- mayed. That charming, tender, touching little story! I would submit it to- day cheerfully to the verdict of a jury of matrons, confident that it would be de- clared a fit and proper publication. But at that time it was enough that the story bore the odious name of George Sand; public opinion condemned it, and sent the magazine which ventured to translate it to an early and dishonored grave. I remember reading about that time a short notice of George Sand by an English authoress of some talent and culture, in which the Frenchwoman’s novels were described as so abominably filthy, that even the denizens of the Paris brothels were ashamed to be caught reading them. Now this declaration was made in all good faith, in the simple good faith of that class of persons who will pass wholesale and emphatic judgment upon works of which they have never read a single page. For I need hardly tell any intelligent person of to-day, that whatever may be said of George Sand’s doctrines, she is no more open to the charge of indelicacy than the authoress of “ Romola.” I cannot myself remem- ber any passage in George Sand’s novels which can be called indelicate ; and indeed her severest and most hostile critics are fond of saying, not without a certain justice, that one of the worst characteristics of her works is the delicacy and beauty of her style, which thus commends to pure and innocent minds cer- tain doctrines that, broadly stated, would repel and shock them. Were I one of George Sand’s inveterate opponents, this, or something like it, is the ground I would take up. I would say: “The welfare of the human family demands that a marriage, legally made, shall never be questioned or undone. Marriage is not a union depending on love or congeniality, or any such condition. It is justias sacred when made for money, or for ambition, or for lust of the flesh; or for any other pupose, however ignoble'and base,'as when contracted in the spirit of the purest mutual love. Here is a woman of great power and daring genius, who says that the essential condition of marriage is love and natural fitness ; that a legal union of man and woman without this is no marriage at all, but a detestable and disgusting sin. Now the more delicately, modestly, plausibly she can put this revolutionary and pernicious doctrine, the more dangerous she becomes, and the more earnestly we ought to denounce her.” ‘This was in fact what a great many persons did say ; and the protest was at least consistent and logical. But horror is an emotion which cannot long live on the old fuel, and even the world of English Philistinism soon ceased to regard George Sand as a mere monster. Any one now taking up “ Indiana,” for example, would perhaps find it mot quite easy to understand how the book produced such an effect. Our novel-writing women of to-day commonly feed: us on more fiery stuff than this. Not to speak of such accomplished artists in impurity as the lady who calls her- self, Ouida, and one or two others of the same school, we have young women only just promoted from pantalettes, who can throw you off such glowing chapters of passion and young desire as would make the rhapsodies of ‘‘ Indiana” seem very feeble milk-and-water brewage by comparison. Indeed, except for some of the descriptions in the opening chapters, I fail to see any extraordinary merit
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1870.] GEORGE SAND. 665 in “Indiana”; and toward the etid it seems to me to grow verbose, weak, and tiresome. “Leone Leoni” opens with one of the finest dramatic outbursts of emotion known to the literature of modern fiction; but it soon wanders away into discursive weakness, and only just toward the close brightens up into a burst of lurid splendor. It is not those which I may call the questionable nov- els of George Sand—the novels which were believed to illustrate in naked and appalling simplicity her doctrines and her life—that will bear up her fame through succeeding generations. If every one of the novels which thus in their time drew down the thunders of society’s denunciation were to be swept into the wal- let wherein Time, according to Shakespeare, carries scraps for oblivion, George Sand would stiJl remain where she now is, at the head of the French fiction of her day. It is true, as Goethe says, that “ miracle-working pictures are rarely works of art.” The books which make the hair of the respectable public stand ‘on end, are not often the works by which the fame of the author is preserved for posterity. It is a curious fact that at the early time to which I have been alluding, little or nothing was known in England (or, I presume, in America) of. the real life © of Aurore Amandine Dupin, who had been pleased to call herself George Sand. People knew, or had heard, that she had separated from her husband, that she had written novels which depreciated the sanctity of legal marriage, and that she sometimes wore male costume in the streets. This was enough. In England, at least, we were ready to infer any enormity regarding a woman who was un- sound on the legal marriage question, and who did not wear petticoats. What would have been said had people then commonly known half the stories which were circulated in Paris; half the extravagances into which a passionate soul and the stimulus of sudden emancipation from restraint had hurried the au- thoress of “Indiana” and “Lucrezia Floriani”? For it must be owned that the life of that woman was, in its earlier years, a strange and wild phenomenon, hardly to be comprehended perhaps by American or English natures. I have heard George Sand bitterly arraigned even by persons who protested that they were at one with her as regards the early sentiments which used to excite such odium. I have heard her described by such as a sort of Lamia of literature and passion ; a creature who could seize some noble, generous, youthful heart, drain it of its love, its aspirations, its profoundest emotions, and then fling it, squeezed and lifeless, away. I have heard it declared that George Sand made “copy ” of the fierce and passionate loves which she knew so well how to awaken and to fos- ter; that she distilled the life-blood of youth to obtain the mixture out of which she derived her inspiration. The charge so commonly (I think unjustly) made against Goethe, that he played with the girlish love of Bettina and of others in order to obtain a subject for literary dissection, is vehemently amd deliberately urged in an aggravated form, in many aggravated forms, against George Sand. Where, such accusers ask, is that young poet, endowed with a lyrical genius rare indeed in the France of later days, that young poet whose imagination was at once so daring and so subtle; who might have been Béranger’and Heine in one, and have risen to an atmosphere in which neither Béranger nor Heine ever floated? Where is he, and what evil influence was it which sappéd the strength of his nature, corrupted his genius, and prepared for him a premature and shameful grave? Where is that young musician, whose pure, tender, and lofty strains sound sweetly and sadly in the ears, as the very hymn and music of the Might- Have-Been—where is he now, and what was the seductive power which made a plaything of him and then flung him away? Here and there some man of
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666 GEORGE SAND. [May, stronger mould is pointed out as one who was at the first conquered, and then deceived and trifled with, but who ordered his stout heart to bear, and rose su- perior to the hour, and lived to retrieve his nature and make himself a name of respect; but the others, of more sensitive and perhaps finer organizations, are only the more to be pitied because they were so terribly in earnest. Seldom, even in the literary history of modern France, has there been a more strange and shocking episode than the publication by George Sand of the little book called ‘Elle et Lui,” and the rejoinder to it by Paul de Musset called “ Lui et Elle.” I can hardly be accused of straying into the regions of private scandal when I speak of two books which had a wide circulation, are still being read, and may be had, I presume, in any New York bookstore where French literature is sold. The former of the two books, “She and He,” was a story, or something which purported to be a story, by George Sand, telling of two ill-assorted beings whom fate had thrown together for a while, and of whom the woman was all tenderness, love, patience, the man all egotism, selfishness, sensuousness, and eccentricity. The point of the whole business was to show how sublimely the woman suffered, and how wantonly the man flung happiness away. Had it been merely a piece of fiction, it must, have been regarded by any healthy mind as a morbid, un- wholesome, disagreeable production ; a sin of the highest esthetic kind against true art, which must always, even in its pathos and its tragedy, leave on the mind exalted and delightful impressions. But every one in Paris at once hailed the story as a chapter of autobiography, as the author’s vindication of one epi- sode in her own career—a vindication at the expense of a man who had gone down, ruined and lost, to an early grave. Therefore the brother of the dead man flung into literature a little book called “He and She,” in which a story, substantially the same in its outlines, is so told as exactly to reverse the condi- tions under which the verdict of public opinion was sought. Very curious in- deed was the manner in which the same substance of facts was made to present the two principal figures with complexions and characters so strangely altered. In the woman’s book, the woman was made the patient, loving, suffering victim ; in the man’s reply, this same woman was depicted as the most utterly selfish and depraved creature the human imagination could conceive. Even if one had no other means whatever of forming an estimate of the character of George Sand, it would be hardly possible to:accept as her likeness the hideous picture sketched by Paul de Musset. No woman, I am glad to believe, ever existed in real life so utterly selfish, base, and wicked as his bitter pen has drawn. I must say that the thing is very cleverly done. The picture is at least consistent with itself, As a character in romance it might be pronounced original, bold, brilliant, and, in an artistic sense, quite natural. There is something thoroughly French in the easy and delicate force of the final touch with which de Musset dismisses his hideous subject. Having sketched this. woman in tints that seem to flame across the eyes of the reader; having described with wonderful realism and power her affectation, her deceit, her reckless caprices, her base and cruel co- quetries, her devouring wantonness, her soul-destroying arts, her unutterable self- ishness and egotism; having, to use a vulgar phrase, “turned her inside out,” and told her story backwards, the author calmly explains that the hero of the narrative in his dying hour called his brother to his bedside, and enjoined him, if occasion should ever arise, if the partner of his sin should ever calumniate him in his grave, to vindicate his memory and avenge the treason practised upon him. “Of course,” adds the narrator, “the brother made the promise—and I have since heard that he has kept his word.” I can hardly hope to convey to
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1870.] GEORGE SAND. 667 the reader any adequate idea of the effect produced on the mind by these few simple words of compressed, whispered.hatred and triumph, closing a philippic, ora revelation, or.a libel of such extraordinary bitterness and ferocity. The whole episode is, I believe and earnestly hope, without precedent or imitation in literary controversy. Never, that I know of, hasa living woman been publicly exhibited to the world in a portraiture so hideous as that which Paul de Musset drew of George Sand. Never, that I know of, has any woman gone so near to deserving and justifying such a measure of retaliation. For if it be assumed—and I suppose it never has been disputed—that in writing “Elle et Lui” George Sand meant to describe herself and Alfred de Musset, it is hard to conceive of any sin against taste and feeling, against art and morals, more flagrant than ‘such a publication. The practice, to which . French writers are so much addicted, of making “copy” of the private lives, characters, and relationships of themselves and their friends, seems to me in all cases utterly detestable. Lamartine’s sins of this kind were grievous and glar- ing ; but were they red as scarlet, they would seem whiter than snow when com- pared with the lurid monstrosity of George Sand’s assault on the memory of the. dead poet who was once her favorite. The whole affair indeed is so unlike any- thing which could occur in America or in England, that we can hardly find any canons by which to try it, or any standard of punishment by which to regulate its censure. I allude to it now because it is the only substantial evidence I know of which does fairly seem to justify the worst of the accusations brought against George Sand; and I do not think it right, when writing for grown men and women, who are supposed to have sense and judgment, to affect not to know that such accusations are. made, or to pretend to think that it would be proper not to allude to them. They have been put forward, replied to, urged again, made the theme of all manner of controversy in scores of French and in some English publications. Pray let it be distinctly understood that I am not entering into any criticism of the morality of any part of George Sand’s private life. With that we have nothing here to do. I am now dealing with the question, fairly belonging to public controversy, whether the great artist did not deliberately deal with human hearts as the painter of old is said to have done with a pur- chased slave—inflicting torture in order the better to learn how to depict the strug- gles and contortions of mortal agony. In answer to such a question I can only point to “ Lucrezia Floriani” and to “ Elle et Lui,” and say that unless the uni- versal opinion of qualified critics be wrong these books, and others too, owe their piquancy and their dramatic force to the anatomization of dead passions and discarded lovers. We have all laughed over the pedantic surgeon in Mo- ligre’s “ Malade Imaginaire,” who invites his fiancée as a delightful treat to see him dissect the body of a woman. I am afraid that George Sand did sometimes invite an admiring public to an exhibition yet more ghastly and revolting—the dissection of the heart of a dead lover. | But in truth we shall never judge George Sand and her writings at all if we insist on criticising them from any point of view set up by the proprieties or even the moralities of Old England or New England. When the passionate young woman, in whose veins ran the wild blood of Marshal Saxe, found herself surrendered by legality and prescription to a marriage bond against which her soul revolted, society seemed for her to have resolved itself into its original ele- ments. Its conventionalities and traditions contained nothing which she held herself bound to respect. The world was not her friend, nor the world’s law. By one great decisive step she sundered herself forever from the bonds of what
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668) _ GEORGE SAND. [May, we call society. She had shaken the dust of convention from her feet ;. the: world was all before her where to choose. No creature on earth is so absolutely: free as the Frenchwoman who has broken with society. There, then, stood this) daring young woman, on the threshold of a new, fresh, and illimitable world; a» young woman gifted with genius such as our later years have rarely seen, and) blessed or cursed with a nature so strangely uniting the most characteristic qual- ities of man and woman as to bein itself quite unparalleled and unique. Just think of it—try to think of it! Society and the world had no longer any laws: which ‘she recognized. Nothing was sacred; nothing was settled. She had to evolve from her own heart and brain her own law of life. What wonder if» she made some sad mistakes? Nay, is it not rather a theme for wonder and admi-. . ration that she did somehow,come right at last? I know of no one who seems. to me to have been open at once to the temptations of woman’s nature and man’s. nature except this George Sand. Her soul, her brain, her style may be described, from one point of view, as exuberantly and splendidly feminine; yet no other woman has ever shown the same power of understanding and entering into the: nature of aman. If Balzac is the only man who has ever thoroughly mastered the mysteries of a woman’s heart, George Sand is the only woman, so far as I) know, who has ever shown that she could feel as a man can feel. I have read: stray passages in her novels which I:-would. confidently submit to the criticism) of any intelligent men unacquainted with the text, convinced that they would» declare that only a man could have thus. analyzed the emotions of manhood. I) have in my mind just now especially a passage in the novel “ Piccinino” which, were the authorship unknown, would, I am ‘satisfied, secure the decision of a: jury of literary experts that the author must be a man. Now this gift of entire: appreciation of the feelings of a different sex or race is, I take it, one of the rarest and highest dramatic qualities. Especially is it difficult for a woman, as our social life goes, to enter into the feelings of a man. While men and women alike admit the accuracy of certain pictures of women drawn by such artists.as Cervantes, Moliére, Balzac, and Thackeray, there are few women—indeed, per- haps there are no women but one—by whom a man has heen so painted as to challenge and compel the recognition and acknowledgment of men. In THE: ~GALAXY some months ago I wrote of a great Englishwoman, the authoress of “Romola,” and I expressed my conviction that on the whole she is entitled. to higher rank as a novelist than even the authoress of “Consuelo.” Many, very many men and women, for whose judgment I have the highest respect, differed from me in this opinion. I still hold it, nevertheless ; but I freely admit that. George Eliot has nothing like the dramatic insight which enables George Sand: to enter into the feelings andthe experiences of a man. I go so far as to say that, having some knowledge of the literature of fiction in most countries, I am. not aware of the existence of any woman but this one who could draw a real, | living, struggling, passion-tortured man. All other novelists of George Sand’s sex—even including Charlotte Bronté—draw only what I may call “women’s men,” If ever the two natures could’ be united in one form, if ever a single human being could have the soul of man and the soul of woman at once, George Sand might be described as that physical and psychological phenomenon. Now the point to which I wish to direct attention is the peculiarity of the temptation to which a nature such as this was necessarily exposed at every turn when, free of all restraint and a rebel against all conventionality, it confronted the world and the world’s law, and stood up, itself alone, against the domination of custom and the majesty of tradition. I claim, then, that when we have taken all these °
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1870.] GEORGE SAND 669) considerations into account, we are bound to admit that Aurora Dudevant de- serves the generous recognition of the world for the use which she made of her. . splendid gifts. Her influence on French literature-has been on the whole a puri- fying and strengthening power. The cynicism, the recklessness, the wanton, licentious disregard of any manner of principle, the debasing parade of disbelief : in any higher purpose or nobler restraint, which are the shame and curse of mod- ern French fiction, find no sanction in the pages of George Sand. I:remember. ‘no passage in her works which: gives the slightest encouragement to the “noth- ing new, and nothing true, and it don’t signify” code of ethics which has been so much in fashion of late years. I find nothing in George Sand which does not do homage to the existence of a principle and a law in everything. This daring: woman, who broke with society so early and so conspicuously, has always insisted, through every illustration, character, and catastrophe in her books, that the one only reality, the one only thing that can endure, is the rule of right and of virtue. Nor has she ever, that I can recollect, fallen into the enfeebling and sentimental theory so commonly expressed in the works of Victor Hugo, that the vague abstraction society is. always to bear. the blame of the faults committed by the individual man or woman. Of all persons in the world Aurora Dudevant might — be supposed most likely to adopt this easy and complacent theory as her guiding: principle. She had every excuse, every reason for endeavoring to preach up the doctrine that our errors. are society’s and our virtues our own. But I am not aware that she ever taught any lesson save the lesson that men and women must: endeavor to. be heroes and heroines. for themselves, heroes and heroines. though’ all the world else were craven and weak and selfish and unprincipled. Even. that wretched and lamentable “Elle et Lui” affair, utterly inexcusable as it is when we read between the lines its secret history, has at least the merit of being an earnest and powerful. protest against the egotistical and debasing: indulgence of moral weaknesses and eccentricities which mean and vulgar minds are apt to regard as the privilege of genius. ‘Stand upon your own ground ; be your own ruler ; look to yourself, not to your stars, for your failure or success ; always make your standard a lofty ideal, and try persistently to reach it, though all the temptations of earth and all the power of darkness strive against you””—this and nothing else, if I have read her books rightly, is the moral taught by George Sand, She may be wrong in her principle sometimes, but at least. she always. has.a principle. She has.a profound and generous faith in the possibilities of human nature ; in the capacity of man’s heart for purity, self-sacrifice, and self- redemption. Indeed, so far is she from holding counsel with wilful weakness or sin, that I think she sometimes falls into the noble error of painting her heroes as too glorious in their triumph over temptation, in their subjugation of every passion and interest to the dictates of duty and of honor. Take, for instance, that extraordinary book which has just been given to the American public in’ Miss Virginia Vaughan’s excellent translation, “ Mauprat.”: If I understand that magnificent romance at all, its purport is to prove that no human nature is ever plunged into temptation beyond its own strength to resist, provided that it really wills resistance ; that no character is irretrievable, no error inexpiable, where there is sincere resolve to expiate and longing desire to retrieve. Take again that exquisite little story, ‘‘La Derniére Aldini”; I do not know where one could find a finer illustration of the entire sacrifice of man’s natural impulse, passion, interest, to what might almost be called an abstract idea of honor and. principle. I have never read this little story without wondering how many men ore ever has known who, placed in the same situation as that of Nello, the hero,
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67a ~ ' GEORGE SAND. [May, would have done the same thing; and yet so simply and naturally are the char- acters wrought out and the incidents described, that the idea of pompous, dra- matic self-sacrifice never enters the mind of the reader, and it seems to him that Nello could not do otherwise than as he is doing. I speak of these two stories particularly, because in both of them there is a good deal of the world and the flesh ; that is, both are stories of strong human passion and temptation. Many of George Sand’s novels, the shorter ones especially, are as absolutely pure in moral tone, as entirely free from even a taint or suggestion of impurity, ~ as they are perfect in style. Now, if we cannot help knowing that much of this great woman’s life was far from being irreproachable, are we not bound to give her all the fuller credit because her genius at least kept so far the white- ness of its soul? Revolutions are not to be made with rose water ; you cannot have omelettes without breaking of eggs. Iam afraid that great social revolu- tionists are not often creatures of the most pure and perfect nature. It is not to patient Griselda you must look for any protest against even the uttermost tyran- ny of social conventions. One thing I think may at least be admitted as part of George Sand’s vindication—that the marriage system in France is the most de- based and debasing institution existing in civilized society, now that the buying and selling of slaves has ceased to be a tolerated system. I hold that the most ardent advocates of the irrevocable endurance of the marriage bond are bound by their very principles to admit that in protesting against the so-called marriage system of France George Sand stood on the side of purity and right. Assuredly she often went into extravagances in the other direction. It seems to be the fate of all French reformers to rush suddenly to.extremes ; and we must remem- ber that George Sand was not a Bristol Quakeress or a Boston transcendentalist, but a passionate Frenchwoman, the descendant of one of the maddest votaries of love and war who ever stormed across the stage of European history. Regarding George Sand then as an influence in literature and on society, I claim for ber at least four great and special merits. First, she insisted on calling public attention to the true principle of marriage; that is to say, she put the question as it had not been put before. Of course, the fundamental principle she would have enforced is always being urged more or less feebly, more or less sincerely ; but she made it her own question, and illuminated it by the fervid, fierce rays of her genius and her passion. Secondly, her works are an exposi- tion of the tremendous reality of the feelings which people who call themselves practical are apt to regard with indifference or contempt as mere sentiments. In the long run the passions decide the life-question one way or the other. They are the tide which, as you know or do not know how to use it, will either turn your mill and float your boat, or drown your fields and sweep away your dwellings. Life and society receive no impulse and no direction from the influences out of which the novels of Dickens or even of Thackeray are made up. These are but pleasant or tender toying with the playthings and puppets of existence. George Sand constrains us to look at the realities through the medium of her fiction. Thirdly, she insists that man can and shall make his own career; not whine to the stars and rail out against the powers above, when he has weakly or wantonly marred his own destiny. Fourthly—and this ought not to be considered her least service to the literature of her country—she has tried to teach people to look at nature with their own eyes, and to invite the true love of her to flow into their hearts. The great service which Ruskin, with all his eccentricities and extravagances, has rendered to English-speaking peoples by teaching them to use their own eyes when they look at clouds, and waters, and grasses, and hills, George Sand has rendered to France.
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1870.] ARBUTUS. , ” ont I hold that these are virtues and services which ought to outweigh even very grave personal and artistic errors. We often hear that this or that great poet or romancist has painted men as they.are; this other as they ought to be. I think George Sand paints: men as they are, and also not merely as they ought to be, but as they can be. The sum of the lesson taught by her books is one of confidence in man’s possibilities, and hope in his steady progress. At the same time she is entirely practical in her faith and her aspirations. She never expects that the trees are to grow up into the heavens, that men and women are to be other than men and women. She does not want them to be other; she finds the springs and sources of their social regeneration in the fact that they are just what they are, to begin with. Iam afraid some of the ladies who seem to base their scheme of woman’s emancipation and equality on the assumption that, by some development of time or process of schooling, a condition of things is to be brought about where difference of sex is no longer to be a disturbing power, will find small comfort or encouragement in the writings of George Sand. She deals in realities altogether; the, realities of life, even when they are such as to shal- low minds may seem mere sentiments and ecstasies ; the realities of society, of suffering, of passion, of inanimate nature. There is in her nothing unmeaning, nothing untrue; there is in her much error, doubtless, but no sham. I believe George Sand is growing into a quiet and beautiful old age. After a life of storm and stress, a life which, metaphorically at least, was “worn by war and passion,” her closing years seem likely to be gilded with the calm glory of an autumnal sunset. One is glad to think of her thus happy and peaceful, ac- cepting so tranquilly the reality of old age, still laboring with her unwearied pen, still delighting in books, and landscapes, and friends, and work. The world can well afford to forget as soon as possible her literary and other errors. Of the vast mass of romances, stories, plays, sketches, criticisms, pamphlets, political articles, even, it is said, ministerial manifestoes of republican days, which she poured out, only a few comparatively will perhaps be always treasured by posterity ; but these will be enough to secure her a classic place. And she will not be re- membered by her writings alone. Hers is probably the most powerful individ- uality displayed by any modern Frenchwoman. The influence of Madame Ro- land was but a glittering unreality, that of Madame de Staél only a boudoir and coterie success, when compared with the power exercised over literature, human feeling, and social law, by the energy, the courage, the genius, even the very errors and extravagances of George Sand. JusTIN MCCARTHY. ARBUTUS. E were seeking but arbutus, My fair, laughing love and I; Nor would even violets suit us, Though we passed them ever by. And we scorned to pluck wild pansies, Purpling banks within our reach: Ah! we had sweet “thoughts ” without them, Which had never passed to speech.
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672. ARBUTUS, [May,. For my love, as Shakespeare hath it, Was “immaculate, white.and, red” ;, So-I called her my, Arbutus, In those days.which now are. fled., “JT have found.it!” cried she gaily, Showing buds cool winds had fanned, “Is it mine?” I asked, enclosing. More than flowers in my hand, Ah, that moment! By ambitions., Hid from. even memory’s sight, By dead hopes as thickly covered As those buds by leaves: from light— Yet as surely as the spring comes,. With the feeling in the air Of a subtile life pervading: Sod and branch. that»still are-bare, . I:am haunted by this memory, Changing with a curious power, Till each varied sound or saying- Seems the echo of one hour, In the street a Styrian peasant Sturdily his organ ground, While the music through the casement Rang with hard metallic sound. Though the strain was from Lucfa, Tale of love and hate’s strange powers, I thought little of Edgardo— I could smell arbutus flowers! : Last night, lingering in a ball-room, I caught but a fleeting glance Of a fair young face uplifted, In the pauses of the dance, Toward dark eyes which were bestowing More than woman oft receives— I seemed kneeling on green mosses, With my hand upon the leaves! As long years pass o’er that lover, - Will that waltz tune always be What some slight thing is to most men— What. arbutus is to me? ANNE CRANE SEEMULLER,
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A MARSHAL OF FRANCE. “SHE name of Bugeaud, Marshal of France and Duke of Isly, is not un- FE known on this side of the Atlantic, but it is. probable that very few fully, understand the true character of the man, and the important services he rendered, to his country and his profession. Although present and distingwished in in many of the battles of the First Em- pire, he was too low in rank to gain a conspicuous place in the histories of the, time. When in after life he held the highest grades in the army, his most bril- liant actions and most meritorious services were performed in Algeria, and: not on the battle-fields of Europe, so that it is not strange that he is not well KANE: by the world at large. I believe that during his wholé service he was never unsuccessful when in, command ; and a close study of his career indicates that this uniform success is. not attributable to good fortune only, but to the admirable sense, the intimate, knowledge of men and of-his profession, the energy and determination which. belonged to his well-marked character. He presents an example worthy of study, and imitation to all who reverence patriotism, honor, skill, and courage; and it is a pleasant task to endeavor to sketch the salient points of his character and, career for the benefit of American readers. Thomas Robert Bugeaud de la Pigonnerie was born of a noble family in the, ancient city of Limoges, in the province of Guienne, in 1784. At the age of , twenty he entered a light infantry regiment as a private soldier; he,was.made.a_ corporal at Austerlitz; a sub-lieutenant in 1806. He participated in the bloody Prussian and Polish campaigns of 1806 and 1807; was wounded and highly dis- tinguished at Pultusk. Soon after the treaty of Tilsit his regiment was ordered | into Spain, and at the time of Dupont’s memorable capitulation at Baylen (June, . 1808), he was a lieutenant of infantry, commanding a voltigeur company of his regiment. At the moment of the capitulation hin company formed part of a detachment of twelve hundred men, under Dupont’s orders and included in the terms of surrender, but not actually with the main body. When the commander of this detachment. received the notification of the capitulation, and that he was included in its terms, Bugeaud, though so low in rank, at once took it upon him- , self to urge his commander in the most vigorous terms to decline surrendering, | and to force his way to Madrid, Bugeaud, who knew the country well, clearly, explained the route to be followed and the measures to be taken, at the same time offering to perform with his company the duty of rearguard during the whole march. His energy and good sense convinced his commander, who at once carried out the plan proposed. The,retreat was accomplished with complete success ; and during the whole of this dangerous and difficult march of thirty leagues Bugeaud and his voltigeurs covered the rear of the column, From this time until the first abdication of Napoleon, he served under Suchet in Spain, and passed through all the grades in succession until he became;a colonel. In the remarkable campaigns and. sieges conducted by. the army of Aragon Bugeaud had his full share, and was often selected for dangerous com- mands and expeditions demanding the highest degree of vigor, courage, and skill. He was in the assault of Lerida. In his report of the siege of Tortosa, upon the occasion of a desperate sortie by the Spaniards, Suchet says: “Captain.
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674 A MARSHAL OF FRANCE. [May, of Grenadiers Bugeaud, of the One Hundred and Sixteenth, was remarked for his intrepidity in pursuing the enemy.” In May, 1811, while Suchet was engaged in the siege of Tarragona, an attack was made by an English fleet and a portion of the Spanish army of Valencia upon Rapita, a small port near the mouth of the Ebro, on the coast road leading from Valencia to Barcelona, and about six hours’ march from Tortosa. The result was that on the second night after the landing, the little garrison, having exhausted its means of defence, abandoned the post, and marched toward Am- posta, a small fort between Rapita and Tortosa; Amposta having been in the mean time surrendered by a detachment of Valencians. That same night the governor of Tortosa detached 800 infantry and 50 cavalry, the whole commanded by Chief of Battalion Bugeaud, to the relief of Amposta and Rapita. Bugeaud surprised and dispersed the beleaguerers of Amposta. Adding to his command 150 men from its garrison, he at once resumedshis march toward Ra- pita. On the way he met the retreating garrison of the latter, about 104 men, and united them with his command. Reaching Rapita about daylight, he immediately attacked and defeated the greatly superior numbers opposed to him, captured all their artillery, killed about 80 men, and took many prisoners. Suchet closes his account of this expedition by saying that “Chief of Battalion Bugeaud, who directed this affair, gave proof of capacity and intrepidity.” During the siege and battle of Saguntum the One Hundred and Sixteenth played a conspicuous and important part. Upon the capitulation of Valencia Suchet says: “General Robert, appointed governor of the city, and Chief of Battalion Bugeaud, appointed military commandant, both firm and capable offi- cers, with 1,200 grenadiers and voltigeurs, took possession of the city,” etc. At the affair of the Col d’Ordal (September, 1813), “the battalion of the One Hun- dred and Sixteenth, conducted by its commandant, Bugeaud, turned the left of the second redoubts.” In the affair of the next day, near Villa Franca, the head of the French column met with a partial check, when “ Bugeaud’s battalion came rapidly up and reéstablished the combat.” At the siege of Tarragona, at the combat of Secla, and on many other occasions, he so bore himself as to establish a high reputation in the army of Aragon. When, in consequence of the battle of Victoria, Suchet fell back from Valencia to the line of the Ebro, Bugeaud commanded the rearguard. - Before the close of 1813 he became lieutenant-colonel of the Fourteenth of the line, and in that capacity commanded the advanced posts when Suchet held the line of the Llobregat. ‘ He was particularly distinguished in this kind of ser- vice, and on this occasion captured many of the enemy’s detachments, while he invariably repulsed all attacks made by them. During the “Hundred Days” Bugeaud, now colonel of the Fourteenth, and again under the orders of Suchet, was at the commencement of hostilities posted at the little town of Chatelard in Savoy. He was in command of the advanced guard of.the army of the Alps, and soon renewed the bold strokes that had gained him so high a reputation in the army of Aragon. A reference to the map will show that the Isére is the most important stream in the part of Savoy with which we are now concerned. Its main valley—prob- ably that followed by Hannibal in his passage of the Alps—leads to the pass of the Little St. Bernard. Close to the pretty little village of St. Pierre d’Albigny, nearly nine miles above Montmélian, the main stream is joined by its principal affluent, the Arc or Maurienne, which leads to the well-known pass of Mont Cenis. About ten miles above the junction just mentioned, the Isére receives
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1870.] A MARSHAL OF FRANCE. 675 another affluent, the Arly; and about two miles above its mouth the Arly is joined by a small stream called the Beaufort, which heads near the Little St. Bernard. On the right bank of the Arly, near its mouth, is the little town of ! Hépital, now known as Albertville ; opposite, on the left bank, is Conflans—the two connected by a bridge. Chatelard, already mentioned as Bugeaud’s post, is about eight miles north of St. Pierre d’Albigny, in the midst of the mountains, and separated from the valley of the Isére by a difficult mountain range, trav- ersed in 1815 only by foot paths, and occasionally a bad mule track. On the day appointed for the general advance of the French, June 15, 1815, Bugeaud was ordered to move from Chatelard into the valley of the Isére, defeat a Piedmontese detachment which guarded it, and gain possession of Conflans and l’Hépital. The Piedmontese advanced guard held St. Pierre d’Albigny. Bugeaud sent three companies by a difficult mountain path into the Isére valley, with orders to conceal. themselves at a point about one and a half miles in rear of the Piedmontese, The remainder of the regiment attacked in front at 3 A.M., and by 4 o’clock the whole advanced guard was killed or captured, not a man escaping to give the alarm. Half an hour later a Piedmontese brigade was encountered, coming in search of its missing advanced guard. This was soon . put to flight with heavy loss, and pursued beyond Conflans, which, with l’H6pital, thus fell into the hands of the French. Another Piedmontese detachment was posted at Moustier, some fifteen miles beyond Conflans. <A few days after the occurrences just related, Bugeaud sent a detachment which by a circuitous march of eleven hours, over horrible roads, occupied the Piedmontese line of retreat in rear of Moustier. Vigorously at- tacked in front, the Piedmontese fled in disorder, but surrendered upon conning in contact with the detachment posted in their rear. The Piedmontese owed the disastrous results of these encounters chiefly to the faulty arrangement of their advanced posts. It is true that they conformed to the system then and now observed by most armies, but it is a system that has been followed only through a blind spirit of routine, and will in only a few Begi liar cases bear the test of experience or enlightened theory. The method pursued by Bugeaud, and recommended in his work on outpost service in Africa, is applicable in principle to all cases, and against any enemy. It is, in general terms, to dispense with the line of continuous sentinels ; to throw the advanced posts very far from the main body, and to employ very few men on the duty. The avenues by which considerable bodies would naturally approach should be occupied and observed by the advanced posts, who should during the day station a few vigilant men on the points commanding the most extensive views. After dark the posts are pushed still further to the front, pre- ceded as before by the sentinels, all carefully concealed by rocks, bushes, ete. No fires and no smoking should be allowed, especially at night. During the day the guards trust mainly to their eyes; in the night they depend chiefly on their ears. In no case should the advanced posts attempt to fight; they are merely to give the alarm as quietly and promptly as possible, and then escape as best they can. Bugeaud states that during the many years of his service in Spain, he never lost any of his advanced posts, and that in no case did any of his men on that duty fail to escape and reach the designated rendezvous. It is almost needless to add that in the case of detachments liable to be attacked in rear, posts should be established to guard against this danger, as well as against a front attack.
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> 676 _A MARSHAL OF FRANCE. [May, On the 27th June, the Fourteenth, reinforced by a battalion of the Twentieth, ‘held Conflans and l’H6pital. Prisoners captured from an Austrian reconnoitring party gave information “that the Allies were advancing: one corps, about 20,000 strong, under Count ‘Bubna, by Mt. Cenis and down the valley of the Maurienne, upon Montmélian and Chambéry ; another of 10,000 men, under General Trenk, from the Little St. -Bernard, by the main Isére and the Val de Beaufort, upon Conflans and Mont- mélian. The whole were commanded by General Frimont, It was with Trenk’s division that Bugeaud had to deal. Colonel Bugeaud immediately forwarded this information to Marshal Suchet, *recommending that the troops in the Maurienne should move in the night to re- inforce him. All night the Colonel awaited their arrival. Instead, there reached him at daybreak the bulletin of the battle of Waterloo. A few moments later ‘came the deputation bringing the eagle given the regiment at the Champ de Mai. About the same time a rumor of the second abdication spread through the ranks. , The Colonel comprehended at once the fatal effect which such disastrous in- telligence might produce upon his men, about to give battle against overwhelm- ing odds, and in a position of great difficulty. He immediately called in all the detachments, leaving only a few cavalry soldiers at the outposts ; formed his command in mass, and with a steady voice read the bulletin of the fatal battle. The tone of his voice, the expression of his face, told his men that he was not discouraged. He then presented the new eagle, and after a short and inspiriting address, called upon the officers and men to swear that they would not abandon their colors or their post. This was no sooner done than a cavalry sergeant galloped up,'and reported— — “ The enemy. is here.” ‘So much the better,” exclaimed the Colonel ; “he can- not find us in a better frame of mind. 'Gentlemen—to your posts !” Bugeaud intended fighting on the right bank of the Arly. He made all his apparent preparations for defence, however, on the left bank, with the object of attracting all the enemy’s forces there, and inducing him to abstain from cross- ing the river one or two leagues further up, and thus forcing the French to re- tire without fighting. As soon as the Allies were all collected in its front, the camp on the left bank was to be abandoned without a serious combat ; and if the Allies should then at- tempt the passage of the river, the French would enjoy the great advantage of fighting a portion of the hostile army, separated from the rest by the river. But to induce the enemy to attempt the passage, it would not answer to hold the -barik of the river; a retreat must be feigned, by showing some troops in the distance, while those who were to attack were to be hidden behind accidents of the ground, within four or five hundred yards of the point where it was intended to fight. Such were Bugeaud’s ideas, and so he explained them to all the men the evening before the affair, so that every one understood what was intended, and could play his part intelligently. Bugeaud reserved for himself the difficult task of the command of the three companies posted on the left bank of the Arly. The result justified his expectation. Two Austrian columns, one arriving from the Val de Beaufort, the other from the Tarantaise, united in front of the camp on the left bank, and at once attacked with a good ideal of impetuosity. After having driven the skirmishers back on their supportp two or three times,
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1870.] A MARSHAL OF FRANCE. 677 Bugeaud retired upon ‘a ford below the village, when to his great surprise he saw the Austrians crossing the bridge, which ought not to have been abandoned to them until the detachment on the left bank had recrossed. In this extremity he threw the ‘three companies into a factory at the confluence of the Arly and Isére, and ordered them to hold out to the last, promising to relieve them in a quarter of an hour. He then crossed the river, and soon overtook the column retreating onthe road to Chambéry. At the sound of his voice the column halted, a little in confusion. He drew out the three grenadier companies, caused ~ them to load with two balis, and marched against the Austrians, who were de- bouching from the village in close columns. He paid no attention to the skir- mishers, but moved straight toward the main column. The enemy received the grenadiers with a smart fire, to which the latter made no other reply than ‘to quicken their pace, and the enemy began to give way be- fore the French fired a shot ; but when within forty paces they delivered a volley which cut down the whole head of the column, rushed upon the Austrians with the bayonet, and ina moment heaps of dead were piled up in the streets of l’H6pital ; four hundred men and twenty officers were taken, the rest were driv- en across the stream, and many were drowned. The Colonel now went to the rear and captured all the skirmishers, who had been cut off from the bridge. In this affair St. Duterail, the last lineal descend- ant of Bayard, lost his life. The right bank thus regained, the three companies left at the mouth of the river were recalled, and all the troops posted in the posi- tions determined upon the evening before. The Austrians made several new attempts to carry the town, but on each occasion met with the same fate. De- spairing at last of forcing the bridge, they formed a heavy column behind an ~ aqueduct, forded the Arly near its mouth, and advanced toward the,Chambéry road. Informed that his line of retreat was menaced, Bugeaud moved out from VY H6pital with six companies. His first impulse was to march toward the Cham- béry road, which the Austrian head of column had already reached ; but a sudden reminiscence made him change direction. Heé remembered that during the siege of Tortosa the skilful and gallant General Chlopicki, with a weak detachment, had gained a marked success over a sortie of 8,000 Spaniards by threatening their road of retreat to the town. Therefore, instead of attacking the head of the column, Bugeaud moved directly for the ford by which it had crossed, and the result was precisely as he expected. As soon as the march toward the ford was well pronounced, the Austrians began to fall back, at first in good order, but soon in such confusion that they became a mob by the time the river was reached simultaneously ‘with the French, whose fire made a terrible carnage among them. This column was completely dispersed and demoralized. At the same time another unsuccessful attack was made upon the town. So, for a long time, it continued. During the interval between the attacks the Austrians kept up a heavy artillery and musketry fire, to which the French made no reply, but occupied themselves in putting their arms in order to repulse the next attack. At length the cartridges were nearly exhausted in spite of the great economy ‘with which they wete used ; by some blunder the ammunition train was a mile or two in rear. He therefore retired to the first ridges of the valley, and there took a posi- tion from which he could command the debouche from the town, cover the junc- tion of a battalion of the Sixty-seventh momentarily expected from a point high- er up the valley, and receive his cartridges, which were immediately distrib- uted. The Austrians at once threw two battalions into l’ H6pital, but did not at-
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678 A MARSHAL OF FRANCE. [May, tempt to debouche. Suddenly a discharge of artillery up the valley indicated the approach of the Sixty-seventh. Immediately the six French companies of gren- adiers and voltigeurs threw themselves into l|’H6pital, which they carried with- out difficulty. Under cover of this attack the junction with the Sixty-seventh was effected, and at the same moment there arrived from Montmélian another battalion of the Twentieth. These fresh troops, excited by the spectacle of the battle-field, demanded to be led to the attack; the Colonel decided to gratify them, and made all his arrangements accordingly. The troops were on the point of advancing when an officer of the general staff arrived from the Marshal, with the information that the fate of France had been decided on the plains of Water- loo, that he had just concluded an armistice with Count Bubna, and that hostili- ties must cease. Thus ended this combat, in which for ten hours 1,750 French soldiers re- pulsed the repeated attacks of from 0,000 to 10,000 Austrians. The Austrians left 2,000 men on the field, and lost 960 prisoners ; in addition the houses of Con- flans were crowded with wounded. The French lost 20 killed and 130 wounded. These extraordinary results were clearly due to Bugeaud’s admirable arrange- ments and method of fighting, which consisted in keeping his men under cover until the decisive moment, and then moving rapidly out, firing but littl—and that at close range—and then attacking? with the bayonet. Such is Bugeaud’s account of this passage of arms, memorable not only for its incidents and results, but also from the fact that it was the last combat fought and the last success achieved under the eagles of the First Empire. Bugeaud now retired from the service, and betook himself to agricultural pursuits, on his estate at Excideuil in Périgord. Here he remained until 1830, when he was recalled to the army as colonel of the Sixty-sixth of the line. During his retirement he brought to his new pursuits the same activity and intelligence that had characterized him as a soldier. He did much toward im- proving the system of agriculture, and ofganized the first agricultural society in France. In the year 1831 he was elected a deputy from the Dordogne, and served many years in that capacity. He took an active part in the labors of the . Chambers, and frequently delivered speeches, which were sometimes wanting in polish, but always frank, sensible, and bold. In 1831 he became general of brigade. Soon after he was in command at Blaye, where the Duchess de Berri was imprisoned, and subsequently escorted her to Palermo. He acquitted himself of this unpleasant duty faithfully and courteously; but a deputy of the Liberal party, M. Dulong,. having in the Chamber of Deputies stigmatized him as “a jailer,” a duel ensued in which M. Dulong lost his life. The Liberal press made this the occasion of very bitter at- tacks upon Bugeaud, and never ceased pursuing him with abuse, of which one example must suffice. During the attempted insurrections of 1832 and 1834 in _ Paris, Bugeaud took an active and important part in their repression. In the course of that of 1834, the occupants of a certain house were massacred by a party of troops. The portion of the press hostile to Bugeaud long accused him of orderitig this murder, although it was clearly proved that the troops who com- mitted it were not under his command, and that he was not near the place at the time. These bitter and unjust attacks caused much unmerited injury to Bugeaud ; they continued during his.life, and it is probably the case that even with the gen- eral public of France his fame does not yet stand as high as it should be placed by his great qualities.
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1870.] A MARSHAL OF FRANCE. 679 In the early part of 1836 General Arlanges, serving with the army in Algeria, established his brigade at the mouth of the Tafna, to cover the water communi- cation between Oran and Tlemcen; he was blockaded there by a large force of Arabs. In June of that year General Bugeaud was sent with a reénforcement of three regiments of infantry to raise the blockade. As soon as he had com- pleted the landing of his troops, he went to the camp of General Arlanges, caused all the officers to be assembled in his presence, and made a spirited ad- dress, well calculated to restore whatever they might have lost of their natural energy and fire. He concluded by saying, “ But the most important thing, gen- tlemen, is to maintain the moral courage of your men. You may tell them that I have never been beaten, and that I am sure that they will not allow me to lose in Africa that great advantage.” He then dismissed them, keeping with him only the chiefs of artillery, of the engineers, and of the train. He ordered them to embark at once all the field guns and wagons, keeping the draught animals to carry packs ; wishing, he said, to make the command, if not as light as the Arabs, at least movable enough to go anywhere. As soon as the news of this order spread through the camp, the inferior officers waited upon Bugeaud, and offered strong objections to the removal of the guns, urging that they kept up “the morale” of the men, kept the Arabs at a distance, and reduced the number of wounded. But Bugeaud explained clearly that although cannon were necessary in Europe, they were not so in Africa against the Arabs, who had none, and over whom the French already possessed the sufficient advantages of organiza- tion, discipline, and tactics ; that he did not wish to keep the Arabs at a distance, but, on the contrary, to give them confidence to approach, in order to engage them in a serious combat by turning suddenly upon them. He maintained also that trains of wagons and artillery on wheels made rapid marches impossible ; tied down the columns to certain routes ; prevented pursuit with any chance of success ; rendered all combats in broken ground more murderous, by enabling the enemy to select their own time and place of attack without fear of pulse beyond a few hundred yards, and by prolonging the combat. Having carried out the measures indicated, Bugeaud, with 6,000 men, marched from Tafna to Oran. The enemy, as usual, attempted to harass the flanks and rear; but the column, freed from its impediments, and guided by a strong hand, vigorously repulsed every attempt. From Oran he marched to Tlemcen, through a country wholly hostile, and near Tlemcen fought the combat of Sikkak, which marked the commencement of the new method of warfare in Algeria. Large bodies of Arabs, conducted by Abd-el-Kader, being repelled and pursued with a vigor and persistence to which they had not been accustomed, scattered and fled with a loss of 1,200 killed and some 200 prisoners—this being the first instance in which they lost prisoners. Bugeaud was not troubled again, and soon returned to France, where he now received the grade of lieutenant-general. | Early in 1837 he was again sent to Oran, in command of the province, and with instructions to make a treaty with Abd-el-Kader. The treaty was signed in May, 1837. Immediately thereafter Bugeaud returned to France, and took an active part in the proceedings of the Chamber of Deputies. In his legislative capacity he opposed the occupation of the whole of Algeria as involving too great sacrifices ; but when the Arabs resumed hostilities by proclaiming the holy war in 1839, he was soon selected as the only general who had given proofs of suffi- cient capacity, and in December, 1840, was appointed Governor-General. Prior to his appointment no uniform policy had been adopted and persistently pursued 44
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680 A MARSHAL OF FRANCE. [May, by the French; there was a constant change of plans. Many brilliant exploits had been performed, but no permanent results*obtained. The French held only the ground they fortified and garrisoned ; the range of the guns of their forts and blockhouses marked the area of the territory they controlled. Their columns traversed the country, leaving as little trace as the ship ploughing the waves of the ocean. Forgetting the precepts and practice of Bugeaud, the French had re- turned to their system of heavy columns, dragging slowly after them long trains of artillery and wagons. On the other hand, the Arabs had established a species of government under’ Abd-el-Kader, which insured a certain unity of action. They held all the cities in the western province, except Oran and Mostaganem ; occupied many points in the province of Algiers ; and, in fact, carried their hostilities up to the very walls of the cities held by the French. With the arrival of the new Governor-General the aspect of affairs rapidly changed. He determined to occupy permanently certain important points, such as Blidah, Milianah, Oran, Tlemcen, Constantine, Setif, and others, about fifteen in all; to abandon the smaller posts, blockhouses, intrenched camps, etc. ; and With the troops thus made disposable, fo move through the whole country with numerous columns, He accompanied the more important columns himself, tak- ing with him reserves, habitually kept for the purpose at Algiers and Blidah. The troops were made as light as possible, so as to be able to move with great rapidity, and follow the enemy wherever they might take refuge, whether among the mountains or in the desert. The only artillery used by the expeditionary columns consisted of mountain howitzers, which, with their carriages and ammunition, were carried by pack mules, and so arranged that a few minutes sufficed to unload and prepare for action. The cavalry were mounted on native horses, their equipment and clothing as light as possible, their arms consisting of a musket and sabre; they carried only what was indispensable. When the time for action arrived, they left all their impedimenta under guard of the infantry, and went into battle entirely un- encumbered. From among the friendly natives very valuable bodies of light cavalry were also organized. The supplies were all carried by pack animals, The sick and wounded were transported on the backs of mules, in litters es- pecially devised for the purpose. For the infantry the old-fashioned tent was replaced by the shelter tent, now so well known and so generally used. They carried no spare clothing, care be- ing taken before an expedition set out that every man was provided with ser- viceable shoes and clothes; so that the knapsack was devoted to the rations, four packages of cartridges, and the little tools required for keeping the clothes and arms in order. The infantry soldier always started with eight days’ rations of biscuit, rice, salt, sugar, coffee, pepper, and prepared vegetables for soup. Of these rations, four days’ supply was sewed up in a bag, and regarded as a re- serve for emergencies; when the rest of the supply was exhausted, a new issue was made. A train of pack mules carried rations for ten or fifteen days. If the expedition remained out for a longer time, it was supplied by a special convoy, or from a field magazine established for the purpose. Meat was supplied by cattle or sheep driven with the column, Two packages of cartridges were carried in the cartridge box. The blanket was rolled on the knapsack, with the shelter tent. For.each squad of eight men there were three cooking utensils, carried by the men in turn—the gamelle, lidon, and camp kettle. Each man was also provided with a tin cup, and a tin canteen covered with cloth. The clothes were made loose, generally left unbut-
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1870. ] A MARSHAL OF FRANCE. : 681 toned over the breast; the stock was replaced by a scarf of cotton cloth; the kefi, a soft, light cap with a straight visor, was universally adopted. Each expeditionary column was usually composed of three or four battalions of infantry, two squadrons of cavalry, two mountain howitzers, and a pack train. The order of march was generally as follows: the cavalry, the main body of the infantry, the artillery, the litters for sick and wounded, the pack train, the beef cattle, and a strong rearguard. The bivouac was in the form of.a square, the infantry forming the faces; the cavalry, staff, artillery, and baggage in the centre. During the night grand guards were posted in advance of the fronts of the square. The march was commenced at from three to six o’clock A. M., ac- cording to the season. Every hour the advanced guard halted twenty minutes to allow the rearguard to close up, and started again only when it had done so. About the middle of the march there was an hour’s halt, when coffee was made. On ordinary marches the bivouac was reached not later than from two to three in the afternoon; the requisite number of cattle were then killed, and the even- ing meal prepared. Before starting in the morning rice only was eaten. When a quick movement became necessary during a march, all the trains were placed in a suitable position under guard of one or two battalions, while the cavalry and the remainder of the infantry, leaving their valises and knapsacks with the guard, moved out entirely unencumbered. With numerous columns thus organ- ized, the work of conquest advanced with wondertul rapidity. The hostile tribes were attacked and pursued with the utmost vigor, their deserted villages, standing crops, silhos, etc., destroyed, until they submitted. They were generally required to pay a fine in money and cattle, to recognize the authority of chiefs placed over them by the French (these chiefs being always members of the tribe, and generally those who had formerly held the same rank), and were held responsible for the tranquillity of their own district, as well as for carrying out all orders relating to the preservation of order and the general ad- ministration of the country. On their side the conquerors promised entire amnesty for the past, and full respect for the customs and'religion of the natives. The result of the operations of 1841 and 1842, conducted by Bugeaud, and under his orders by such ‘men as Lamoriciére, the Duke d’Aumale, Baraguay d’Hilliers, Changarnier, and Bedeau, was that, with the exception of the Kabyles, most of the tribes were reduced to submission ; the power of the Emir was broken, and he was a fugitive in the desert, or on the borders of Morocco. He had with him some of the tribes from Oran, and occasionally attacked the tribes friendly to the French. In 1843 he received two very severe blows. On the 16th of May the Duke d’Aumale, with about 600 cavalry, surprised the Smalah of the Emir at the sources of the Taguin, and entirely dispersed it, taking many prisoners. In the autumn the remains of his regular troops were destroyed at Oued-Malah. The consequence of these disasters was that Abd-el-Kader remained away from the theatre of war for some time, and used every effort to draw.over the Emperor of Morocco to his cause. In 1843 Bugeaud received the baton of a Marshal of France. He now de- termined to take advantage of the Emir’s absence to give a severe lesson to the most troublesome of the Kabyles, who constantly fomented disorders, and did much harm by their attacks upon the friendly tribes. The Flissas, being the most annoying, were selected as the recipients of the proposed chastisement. They were accordingly warned that they would be punished if they did not sub- mit to certain specified conditions before a designated day. On the day fixed, May 4th, 1844, the Marshal entered their country at the head of some 7,000 to
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682 A MARSHAL OF FRANCE. [May, 8,000 men. Overcoming great difficulties in the passage of rivers, paths almost impracticable, mountains nearly inaccessible, he burned up, in spite of a vigor- ous resistance, all the villages, crops, and orchards he met with, and finally de- feated the Kabyles with great destruction. Having accomplished his purpose, he moved towards the frontier of Morocco, to meet the storm brewing there. For some time the troops of Morocco had been gathering on the frontier ; on the 30th of May they attacked and were repulsed by Lamoriciére, who was in observation. The Marshal promptly joined him with reinforcements, and other columns were ordered up in support. While awaiting their arrival another at- tempt was made to arrange the difficulty by negotiation; but General Bedeau, who was sent for the purpose, was so badly received that it was necessary to rescue him and his escort by force. Within a week the French crossed the frontier, and occupied the pleasant little town of Ouchda, to the west of which extends a vast barren plain, varied only by slight undulations of the ground, Here Bugeaud remained until the 13th of August, partial engagements occurring frequently. It was his deliberate determination to wait here until the enemy had received all his reinforcements, for it was his opinion that a regular army of a cer- tain strength—not much less than 15,000 to 20,000, for instance—can defy undis- ciplined masses, however numerous ; in fact, he went so far as to believe that the more numerous the latter, the more easily would they be defeated, and the more decisive would the result be. That this opinion was well founded is proved by many examples in ancient and modern history, and it was soon Bugeaud’s fortune to add another conclusive instance to the series. _ But the circumstances of this case peculiarly exalt the moral courage he dis- played at this time. The natives of Oran had long dreaded the Moroccans ; consequently, as soon as hostilities broke out, they were greatly excited. Some feared the success of the Moroccans and prepared to submit to them to avoid punishment; others, hating their Christian conquerors, anxiously awaited the first opportunity to rise against them and join their enemies. The longer the delay, the greater the excitement became, and the more dangerous the conse- quences of any partial defeat to the French. The Marshal, as was usual with him, patiently adhered to his plan, until at last, on the 12th of August, some re- inforcements having joined, and everything indicating that the Moroccan army had reached its maximum, he determined to attack. The same evening he as- sembled his officers, laid before them his plan of battle, and explained all its phases with clearness and confidence. On the 13th the manceuvres of the battle were rehearsed, under the guise of a foraging expedition, so that every one knew exactly what he had todo. The march was continued into the night, when the troops bivouacked where they halted. A little before dawn the army resumed its march, and a few hours later came in sight of the enemy’s camp, established ona series of hills overlooking the plain. The advance continued until the Isly was reached and forded, when the Marshal ordered the execution of the manceuvres rehearsed the day before. The battalions were arranged in echelons on the centre, each nearly to form a square, the whole forming a wedge. The cavalry were inside in two columns, ready to move out through the in- tervals between the echelons. The artillery was posted at several points, so as to fire through the intervals; on this occasion the Marshal had brought with him several 12-pounders on wheels. The advance continued slowly, bnt without hesitation, the point of direction being the enemy’s centre. When the advanced guard was near the Moroccan camp, and the guns began to tell, the Mohamme- dans suddenly passed from complete security to great excitement. |
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1870. ] A MARSHAL OF FRANCE. 683 The negro guard—the corps @ élite of the army—the well-mounted horsemen of the desert, the foot soldiers from the mountains, the artillery manned by rene- gades, all now came into action. Some 40,000 Mohammedans now swarmed around the French columns, numbering hardly 10,000 combatants, and the brav- est came on at a gallop to penetrate the intervals. But as soon as they reached the reéntering angles of the echelons, now formed in squares, they were fired upon from all sides, and those who remained alive quickly sought safety in flight. New assailants made the same attempt, only to meet the same fate. Now was proved the accuracy of the Marshal’s judgment. As soon as the enemy began to suffer heavily, their chiefs began to quarrel, and terrible confusion grew up in their army ; the attacks became disconnected and partial; individual horsemen rode up close to the French ranks, and there found death instead of victory. The Marshal now threw out his cavalry—the Chasseurs d’Afrique, under Colonel Thenis, the Spahis, under the renowned Yusuf. The Chasseurs attacked the infantry with great impetuosity, and with the aid of the French infantry and artillery quickly routed them. The Spahis swept over the plain, took many pris- oners, captured the parasol or badge of office of the Moroccan general, but failed to accomplish Bugeaud’s full purpose, which was to gain a distant defile towards which the masses of fugitives were flying ; the distance and the ditficul- ties of the ground prevented this, so that the mass of the beaten army escaped. “Eight hundred dead were left on the field, besides those carried off by theif friends ; some 3,500 to 4,000 were wounded, and many prisoners taken. A thou- sand tents, as many beasts of burden, twelve to fifteen guns, a large quantity of ammunition, and an immense number of fetters intended for the captured officers, were the material trophies of this decisive day, which cost the victors not over 100 in killed and wounded. This battle not only decided the war, but by its moral effect upon the natives vastly strengthened the French ascendancy, and rendered their conquests secure. Bugeaud was rewarded with the title of Duke of Isly. Up to the battle, the excitement had kept the troops in good health, notwith- standing the intense heat; but on the following day serious sickness showed itself, so that within a few days several convoys of 500 sick were sent to the rear. Returning one day from an inspection of the sick, Bugeaud exclaimed, “What kind of an army is this that is all going into hospital?” Then reflecting for a moment, he added, in a lower tone, “ When there is no more oil in the lamp, it must go out. We will fall back at once.” This was done. | The result of Isly, together with the bombardment of Tangiers ‘on the 6th of August, and the capture of Mogador on the 15th by the French fleet under the Prince de Joinville, was a treaty of peace with Morocco, signed on the roth September, 1844. | During the remainder of this year, and up to September, 1845, Algeria was quite tranquil. Abd-el-Kader roamed along the frontier, seeking a chance to invade the country or to excite insurrection, but failed in his attempts up to the time of the Marshal’s return to France in September, 1845. He had no sooner reached France than he was obliged to return immediately, in consequence of serious outbreaks extending over the greater part of Algeria. A series of accidental circumstances kindled the flame, which for a time threat- ened the supremacy of the French. Our space will not permit us to describe the prompt movements by which the new insurrection was put down. It must suffice to state that active and energetic operations continued during the remain- der of 1845, and the years 1846 and 1847. In the beginning of May of the latter year little remained to be done except the conquest of those portions of the Ka- byles who still held out.
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684 A MARSHAL OF FRANCE. [May, The moment seemed propitious for undertaking this task. The troops were numerous, thoroughly accustomed to war in Africa, and in excellent condition. The Government in Paris, influenced no doubt by the threatening condition of affairs at home, prohibited further operations ; but Bugeaud determined to take the full responsibility of carrying out the measures he deemed necessary. He proposed to lead a column from Algiers to Bougie, turning the Jurjura and following the Bougie river; turning off to the right or left whenever it might be necessary to reach and chastise the refractory tribes. He was to be aided by Bedeau, who, with a column from Constantine, was to effect a diversion from the east. On the 6th May the Marshal left Algiers with 8,000 men. On the 14th, when on the point of entering the hostile territory, he assembled his officers, as his habit was, and as we have seen him do on the banks of the Arly and at Isly, explained the plan of campaign, and reminded them of the principles he had laid down for mountain warfare. He had, it is stated, just received the formal order to abandon his enterprise, or to bear whatever conse- quences might ensue. He continued his march, full of bitterness towards the Government, but kind as ever to his command. On the evening of the 15th, the column bivouacked on the left bank of the Bougie, opposite the villages of the Beni-Abbes, situated among the moun- tains on the opposite bank. About midnight the Kabyles awakened the French by a sharp musketry fire. The men were ordered to remain recumbent, while the grand guards repulsed the attack. A little before dawn the advance was sounded. The knapsacks and baggage were left under a guard of three battalions, while the remainder of the troops crossed the stream and quickly ascended the heights, The Marshal directed the movements with his customary skill, and everything proceeded successfully up to the attack on Azrou, the last and most elevated village, which was very obstinately defended as the last stronghold of the Beni- Abbes. The resistance was desperate, and most honorable to the Kabyles ; but at last the French forced their way in, and the representatives of the Beni-Abbes offered to submit. Next day deputations from all the parties defeated on the 16th came to the camp, and the new organization of the country was arranged. On the 2oth the column reached Bougie without meeting further opposition, and on the 21st was joined by Bedeau, who, at the head of 7,000 to 8,000 men, had beaten several hostile tribes on his march. The Marshal’s work was thus accomplished with entire success ; but it was his last expedition in Africa.. Deeply incensed with the Government at home, he bade adieu to the army at Bougie, declaring that he had played his part, and would never return to Africa. In the fall of the same year Abd-el-Kader surrendered. Since that time there has been no general war. Partial outbreaks have occurred, but the dominion of the French has been gradually and surely extended and consolidated. When the revolution of 1848 had broken out, Bugeaud was at last sent for by the King, and, in the night.of the 23d and 24th February, charged with the com- mand in Paris. Although the evil effects of irresolution and delay had rendered the task difficult and delicate, he promptly assumed the responsibility, and imme- diately arranged for the defence of the Tuileries, and a vigorous attack upon the positions of the revolutionists. Just as the columns were moving out to their work the King, unwilling to retain his throne at the cost of the blood of his subjects, determined to abdicate. The troops were therefore recalled, and most of the general officers, changing their uniforms for the garb of civilians, quietly escaped through the throng. The Marshal disdained disguise or concealment, ‘and clad in his uniform went out into the crowd. Instantly hundreds of muskets were aimed at him, with cries of “ Down with Bugeaud! Death to Bugeaud!”
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1870.] A MARSHAL OF FRANCE. 685 With the same coolness and self-possession that he had displayed on so many battle-fields, he raised his hand to enforce silence, and simply said, ‘* What, my children ! will you slay a Marshal of France?” Immediately every musket was lowered, and amid cries of “ Long live Bugeaud!” the old warrior returned un- molested to his home. Upon the accession of Louis Napoleon as Prince Presi- dent, Bugeaud was appointed general-in-chief of the army of the Alps, but before joining his command he expired of the cholera at Paris on the roth of June, 1849. Bugeaud was a large man; he possessed a vigorous constitution, ‘and a re- markably powerful voice. During the latter part of his life his hair was very white; he wore no beard; his forehead was high and open; his brown eyes were fixed and brilliant; his expression was firm and penetrating, but very kind. One of his most marked characteristics was.the care and consideration he always showed for his troops. He never required long marches unnecessarily ; he al- ways chose comfortable bivouacs for them, when possible ; he took care to insure the prompt delivery of supplies, and avoided all useless fatigue and annoyance. Often after a march, if a colonel happened to be particular about the alignment before stacking arms, the men would mutter, “ Wait! wait! If Father Bugeaud sees you, you will catch it!” ,As in truth was very sure to be the case. To Bu- geaud was due the change in organization and the mode of warfare in Africa which insured the success of the French; and the beneficial effects of his mea- sures are to be clearly seen in the war of the Crimea and in the Italian campaign of Magenta and Solferino. A careful consideration of his career and writings will show that he was a man of remarkable clearness of view; that his ideas were decided, systematic, and original ; and that before undertaking any operation, whether large or small, he uniformly determined upon some distinct plan, in accordance with which he worked. The story of his life would be incomplete did it contain only his purely military achievements. He organized the service of the administration of the native tribes ; as early as 1844 he had developed the institution of the “ Bureaux Arabes,” and established one in each military department; his reiterated in-- structions for the guidance of the administrative officers were conceived in a spirit of extreme kindness, humanity, and justice towards the natives. He occu- pied himself seriously with the question of colonization, and had well-matured ideas on the subject. While under his command the army of Africa carried out great and important works, very useful in aid of colonization. No sooner did they return from an expedition than they were set to work. They erected public buildings of all kinds, constructed aqueducts and wells, opened roads, drained extensive marshes, and planted gardens; in short, they left everywhere the traces of civilization and industry. Bugeaud published a number of small works, chiefly on military subjects. Among them is an account of his operations in 1815, from which is taken the description given in this article; a valuable treatise on advanced posts and mountain warfare; sketches of various details of the art of war; also papers on agriculture, colonization, the socialist question, etc. In writing as well as in conversation he possessed remarkable clearness and very vivid powers of de- scription ; so much so that it is related that Thiers said that he never met any officer who could convey so clear an understanding of a battle as Bugeaud. Although born of a noble family, he had no aristocratic Aaufeur in his charac- ter, but conversed familiarly with the soldier, the colonist, and the peasant, did all in his power to aid them, and endeavored to disseminate sound ideas among them. So little did he regard the distinctions of civil rank, that it is said that he
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686 WARBLE FOR LILAC-TIME. [ May. would never take the trouble to pay the fees necessary to secure the formal de- livery of his patent as Duke of Isly; well aware, perhaps, that he conferred more distinction upon the title than it could upon him. Generous, kind, with a noble heart, and of dauntless valor, he appreciated noble sentiments and courage wherever he found them, without regard to position in life. With such a char- acter, and with such a career, it is not wonderful that his soldiers loved him. G. B. M. WARBLE FOR LILAC-TIME. ARBLE me now, for joy of Lilac-time, Sort me, O tongue and lips, for Nature’s sake, and sweet life’s sake, Souvenirs of earliest summer—birds’ eggs, and the first berries ; Gather the welcome signs (as children, with pebbles, or stringing shells) ; Put in Apri] and May—the hylas croaking in the ponds—the elastic air, Bees, butterflies, the sparrow with its simple notes, Blue-bird, and darting swallow—nor forget the high-hole flashing his golden wings, The tranquil sunny haze, the clinging smoke, the vapor, Spiritual, airy insects, humming on gossamer wings, Shimmer of waters, with fish in them—the cerulean above ; All that is jocund and sparkling—the brooks running, The maple woods, the crisp February days, and the sugar-making ; The robin, where he hops, bright-eyed, brown-breasted, With musical clear call at sunrise, and again at sunset, Or flitting among the trees of the apple-orchard, building the nest of his mate; .The melted snow of March—the willow sending forth its yellow-green sprouts ; —For spring-time is here! is here! and what is this in it and from it? ‘Thou, Soul, unloosen’d—the restlessness after I know not what; Come! let us lag here no longer—let us be up and away ! -O for another world! O if one could but fly like a bird! O to escape—to sail forth, as in a ship! To glide with thee, O Soul, o’er all, in all, as a ship o’er the waters ! —Gathering these hints, these preludes—the blue sky, the grass, the morning drops of dew ; (With additional songs—every spring will I now strike up additional songs, Nor ever again forget, these tender days, the chants of Death as well as Life ;) The lilac-scent, the bushes, and the dark-green, heart-shaped leaves, Wood violets, the little delicate pale blossoms called innocence, Samples and sorts not for themselves alone, but for their atmosphere, To tally, drench’d’ with them, tested by them, Cities and artificial life, and all their sights and scenes," My mind henceforth, and ali its meditations—my recitatives, My land, my age, my race, for once to serve, in songs, (Sprouts, tokens ever of death indeed the same as life,) To grace the bush I love—to sing with the birds, A warble for joy of Lilac-time. WALT WHITMAN,
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THE LADY GRUACH’S HUSBAND. OME years ago, before monitors or even iron-clad ships were thought of, S the enormous and now utterly useless man-of-war Pennsylvania lay at the Washington Navy-yard. Much had been expected of her; and her colossal size, and her enormous battery of one hundred and twenty heavy guns, were looked upon with pride by all “true Americans.” It was determined that the President of the United States, accompanied by the members of his Cabinet, the principal officers of the Army and Navy, and other persons of like distinction, should visit her for an “inaugural” entertainment, and that in honor of the occa- sion he and they should be saluted by the discharge of all her guns. The gen- tlemen were accompanied by a large number of ladies, and a more numerous and representative party was probably never gathered on the decks of a national ves- sel. The salute began, and the rapid discharge of the heavy ordnance produced a remarkable effect on the civilian visitors. Very soon the men were stunned or worried, and showed strong symptoms of nervous anxiety. The women, on the contrary, to the surprise of all, showed no fear, but rather delight, and were cheer- fully excited, not concealing an inclination to laugh at and crow over the nervous weakness of their masculine companions. The firing went on, and became a pro- tracted and apparently endless series of regular explosions. For the discharge of one hundred and twenty guns at intervals of only three seconds occupies six min utes ; and six minutes, measured by three-second counts, even in silence, seem as if they would neverend. But when, as in this case, each interval is marked by a roar that stuns the ears and a concussion that shakes the heavens and the earth, and fills the air with flame and smoke, the performance becomes oppressive and tries nervous endurance to the utmost. And on this occasion a striking natural phe- nomenon, full of moral significance, was presented to the curious student of human nature. It was observed that as gun followed gun the men, who were so disturbed at first, became quiet, self-possessed, indifferent, and at last cheerful, while the women, who at first were so filled with life and gayety, soon showed signs of weariness, then of nervous excitement, and finally of terror, looking forward with dread to the inevitable and regularly-recurring shock; so that before the salute was over most of them were in a state of extreme distress, some were hysterical, and some had fainted. Their nerves could bound with elasticity at a single fillip, but succumbed under repeated blows; while the masculine nature toughened under resistance to the protracted strain. This modern instance helps us to understand the story of a lady whose life and actions, with those of a man whose name would have been unknown to the world but for his connection with her, fill an interesting chapter in the traditional history of Scotland. Her name was Gruach, and she came of a family whose strong and grasping hands had made them what was then called noble. There is reason for believing that she was very beautiful, and yet more for the assur- ance that she had in a rare degree those winning ways and womanly wiles that give the weaker half of mankind so much influence for good or evil over the stronger. Unimaginative, without tenderness, with a cruel, remorseless nature, and a bright, clear intellect that saw at once the end that she desired and the means of its attainment, she was a type of those female politicians who in the
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688 THE LADY GRUACH’S HUSBAND. (May, past ages of the world’s moral rudeness have sought and, by intrigue, by sug- gestion, and by the stimulus of sexual temptation and feminine craft which made the strength of men their instrument, have attained that great end of woman’s ambition, social preéminence. For Gruach was ambitious—so ambitious that, noble as she was, and called the Lady, she burned with unquenchable desire to bear the name of Queen, as we are told in old chronicles. Most women are more ambitious than most men. They find their stimulus to action in the desire and hope of triumph over others; men theirs in the do- ing of that which done completely insures triumph, which they take gladly enough it is true, as the due and sign of their superiority. Men love power for its own sake and their pleasure in its conscious exercise ; and contented with its real possession, they are often willing that others should remain ignorant whose head and hand they have obeyed. Women, less imaginative, and, outside of love, more practical and material than men, covet power for the visible elevation which it insures to them, and yet more for that which it enables them to give to those they love. For women who have in its best form the womanly nature are more ambitious for those they love than for themselves. They seek and will make great sacrifices for the advancement of their brothers, lovers, husbands, children, and sometimes their sisters; and have been known to rejoice even in thé tri- umphs of their dearest female friends. But where a woman is without tender- ness and the capacity of devotion, and is withal able, crafty, and ambitious, she is the most unscrupulous and remorseless creature under the canopy of heaven. A tigress has no less compunction when she bears a white gasping infant off into the jungle. Of such ambitious sort was Gruach; but like the tigress, whose bright, sleek beauty, and sinuous charm, seem to have been hers, she also had sexual and maternal instincts, the former stronger and more enduring than the latter. And so she loved, after her kind, and was married to a man whose per- son pleased her eye, whose spirit and daring roused her sympathy and won her respect, and whose position and whose aspirations were such that she hoped by her union with him to reach the highest round attainable of fortune’s ladder. This man was a cousin of the King of Scotland, and, failing heirs of the royal body, the next claimant of the throne. He was a valiant soldier and a great captain ; in combat fearless, and in the field a bold and skilful leader. He too was ambitious, and restless under the constraint of inferior position. He had in a great degree what the Lady Gruach was without—imagination and reflec- tion ; yet he liked the stir and bustle of an active life ; and although himself of a kindly nature, he fretted at the benign and gentle rule of his royal cousin, whose nobility and strength of character were tempered by meekness, and at last, when our story opens, by the sobering influence of age. This man had, too, a richer, although a less stable moral nature than his wife’s ; and unlike her, he was weighted in the race of their ambition with scruples, the heaviest of all clogs on those who make success the end and goal of living. If a man has but steadfast purpose, and is entirely unscrupulous, he may obtain very great advancement with very moderate ability ; and if opportunity and great ability unite in favor of the unscrupulous and persistent man, his road to distinction is so nearly smooth and easy, that the obstacles he meets with are only such as furnish him a pleas- urable excitement in surmounting or removing them. His chances of success, however, are exactly in proportion to his utter lack of scruple when he is called upon to decide between a bad course which may lead to, and a good one which may lead from, the object of his ambition. Thus, suppose a journalist, for in- stance, to have attained a desired position by fawning, craft, and intrigue, and by
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1870.] THE LADY GRUACH’S HUSBAND. 689 the remorseless use of every means that would rid him of men who would thwart his plans—a course which is possible to men who are incapable of discussing or even of apprehending a great principle, and who have only that meanest of all forms of intellectual ability, political craft (itself a mere manifestation or out- come of unscrupulousness)—such a man, if the change of circumstances should make a change of party, or of principle, or of faith seem necessary to his success, will sell himself and his. pledges and his memories, with as little scruple as a butcher sells mutton from the shambles. We might say that he would sell his soul to the devil, if he had a soul worth the devil’s buying. But beside sucha man how respectable is Faust! And verily he does wisely, and he has his re- ward, For in one scale is success, and in the other so many scruples as make that dram of ill called failure ; and the object of his life is the former. Now, of this kind was the Lady Gruach ; but her husband, tossed by passion and borne on the strong current of unrestrained desire, and being without anchorage to the firm bottom of well-settled principle, yet feared to cut loose from al] moral moor- ings, and showed in his career how difficult and, perplexing it is to be both cor- rupt and scrupulous. He was of the stirp of Beeth, who called themselves Mac Beeth ; but in the chronicles, and in the great tragedy founded on them, his name is conmpuani into Macbeth. In their marriage the Lady Gruach and her husband were as happy as such a couple could be. They loved each other; she brought him chil- dren, including at least one son; their position was exalted, and their means am- ple. But she, constantly coveting the crown, and finding him not without ambi- tion, so worked upon him through his fondness for her, and by her steadiness of purpose, that he came to look upon the violent removal of his sovereign Dun- can as an act to which he might bring himself, and at last he satisfied his wife by swearing that he would murder the King and usurp the throne on the first opportunity. But for a time no opportunity was offered. At last, however, it came in a manner least expected. | A nobleman named Macdonwald, assisted by the King of Norway and the Thane of Cawdor, headed a revolt against King Duncan; and Macbeth, whose wishes could not have been accomplished by his taking the second place ina re- bellion, stood by his kinsman, and fought for the throne which it was his interest to _ protect, that it might be, if not his, at least his nearest cousin, Duncan’s. In two battles bloodily fought and gallantly won Macbeth, assisted by another valiant and able captain named Banquo, crushed the revolt so completely, that Duncan, hearing of his victory, sent two noblemen immediately with orders for the death of the Thane of Cawdor, and the induing of Macbeth with the traitor’s lost title and dignities. As Macbeth, before the King’s messengers had reached him, was marching homeward, he was met upon a heath by three withered, man-like hags, of the sort that by superstition and cruelty in the young, rude ages of the world were made to believe themselves witches. These hailed him first as Thane of Glamis, which he had recently become by inheritance; next as Thane of Cawdor, of his succession to which dignity he was ignorant; and last as King to be thereafter. They also hailed his companion and fellow commander as the father of kings. It is possible that these persons were the disguised agents of a faction inimical to Duncan, who, taking advantage of the belief then existing in witchcraft, adopted this course to egg on these successful generals to an expedition against the throne. But it is more probable that some prophecy of a person who fancied herself gifted with second sight was fitted to the story of Macbeth after his career had become a part of the traditions of Scotland.
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690 THE LADY GRUACH’S HUSBAND. [May, The verification came so hard on the heels of the seeming prediction as to the thaneship of Cawdor, that Macbeth’s soul was at once filled with a turbulent conflict of good and evil suggestion as to his attainment of the highest honor promised him ; and he immediately thought of his sworn purpose of killing his roy- al kinsman. He was so wrapped up in self-communing that he paid no attention to the King’s noble messengers ; but he came to no decision.except that he would take the crown, come to him as it might; and after starting away from the thought of the murder once or twice, he sought the relief of present quiet in the reflection that, let come what will, we can worry through it with time and oppor- tunity. But although he determined.to do nothing, he constantly thought of the violent removal of all living hindrances to his attainment of the throne; for, at his first audience of the King, Duncan declaring his eldest son, Malcolm, heir apparent, with the title of Prince of Cumberland, Macbeth immediately said to himself that this new dignity was a step which he must fall down or else o’erleap. But this man was one of those moral cowards who do not speak their evil pur- poses, or even give them names to themselves. He would have, as he said, his eyewink at his hand, and yet would have that to be which the eye feared to see when it was done. Thus it was that, in writing a letter to the Lady Gruach, in which he told her of the prediction of the witches, he dropped no hint which even she could understand that he saw the crown nearer than before. And in this letter, written at such a time and under such circumstances, he showed his love for her, and his pleasure that he was able to satisfy at least in part her ambi- tious cravings. As Gruach was reading her husbana’s letter and revolving in her mind the moral feebleness which years had discovered to her in him, and the means that she must use to goad him on to win her triumph, a messenger entered and re- ported to her that King Duncan was coming to her castle that very night. She saw so instantly that here was the opportunity for the King’s murder, and de- cided so instantly that it should be done, that, stirred by the great and unexpected news, in the fierce delight of her soul she almost interrupted the messenger by the exclamation, ‘ Thou’rt mad to say it!”? As she summoned up her spirits to her suddenly imposed task, her husband entered, and she, with no word of en- dearment or delight to the man that came to her safe from two battles, hailed him by his and her two new titles. Then, in a few words fraught with all the character of the speakers, the die was cast for both of them, and for Duncan. He told her that the King was coming there that night, and to her pregnant question, ‘And when goes hence?” he, not only knowing well what she meant, but also remembering what he had before sworn to her to do, answered, ‘“ To-morrow—as he purposes.” This he did, wishing at the time that Duncan should not leave the castle alive, and showing this wish in his face. For Macbeth, although a good dissimulator with his tongue, and having a rare gift at making excuses, yet with all his bravery in battle could not control either his nerves or the expres- sion of his countenance. Surprise of soul or sense made him start like a fright- ened horse; and his face always revealed the emotion that his lips belied. And because of this, Gruach partly pitied him and partly despised ; for she, not free of speech, except in chiding and in exhortation, was free from all such nervous weakness, and stood a shock as if her white breast was marble, and her cold blue eyes were sapphires. Without hesitation she set his task clearly before him and undertook its prep- aration. She had at once to play the gracious and honored hostess before the King, and to keep her husband up to the point of criminality from which he was
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1870.] THE LADY GRUACH’S HUSBAND. 691 ever faltering. The latter, as the King supped, slunk away and fell to communing with himself about the murder and its consequences ; and after the manner of men who have not the faculty of cutting themselves loose from that which they have passed, he began to go over again in mind considerations which he should have either yielded to or set finally aside before, and which his wife would not have thought of seriously at all. In this mood of moral vacillation she came upon him, then determined to abandon the murderous project; and, to use a phrase that she applied to herself, she so “chastised him with valor of her tongue” that he repented of his repentance, and undertook the assassination. He did not, however, venture to trust himself, or she did not venture to trust him, to decide the moment when he should take the final step; and it was arranged between them that her striking on her bell should be the signal for his entrance of the King’s chamber. As he was awaiting this summons in the court, his heated imagination caused his eye to be deceived with an illusion. He thought he saw a dagger floating in the air, with its handle toward his hand, and that it moved before him toward Duncan’s chamber, blood breaking out upon it as it went. He had an easy task. Gruach had made the two body-guards who slept in the King’s chamber drunk, and had emboldened herself by wine, so that when she laid their daggers ready for her husband’s use she was tempted to take the business off his hands, but that the old King’s face reminded her of her fa- ther’s, and threw across that dark and awful hour the bright, soft memory of the days when she was without her woman’s passions. But she did not yield or flinch a momeut. That little gleam of sentiment is the only one that falls upon the figure of this woman, who yet was so sexually attractive that, in spite of her re- lentless hardness, her husband could hardly speak to her, even in the most terrible moments, without some endearing diminutive—word caressings to which she made no response. There she waited for him at midnight in the open court, and there he found her as, with his hands all blood, he came from Duncan’s chamber. She greeted him with no word of comfort, or sympathy, or even of excitement; and when he looked at his gory hands and spoke of them with horror, she only reproached him with his folly. And then he told her of his emotion while he was doing the * murder, and how he heard a voice crying out to those in the castle to sleep no more, for Macbeth was murdering sleep; and he broke out into tender and touching exclamations about the good angel that he had murdered. All this was so strange to Gruach, so foreign to her nature, that not only could she not comprehend it, she could not apprehend it; and she asked him, with wonder, re- proach, and pity in her tones, “ What do you mean?” But his only reply was to tell her again—for his soul was filled with frightful imaginings—how the voice © called on all the house to sleep no more, and proclaimed that he, the murderer of sleep, should sleep no more himself. And yet, even with the stimulus of that dread moment, she could not apprehend his meaning, and asked him, as she might have © asked a servant the day before about a noise in the courtyard, ‘‘ Who was it that thus cried?” She was so hard of heart, so literal of apprehension. In all their conversation throughout their lives it was always he who revealed the sight of more in an act or an event than the act or the event itself. Imagination and fancy made his utterance rich with twin-born thoughts, each beautifying and lighting up the other ; his stout, soldier’s heart was ever running over with senti- ment and tenderness ; to all of which she never made response. She saw only the material forms, the literal significance, and the hard necessities of things ; and to meet the latter she bent all the energy of her sinewy soul. And now, seeing
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692 THE LADY GRUACH’S HUSBAND. (May, that he had in his confusion brought away the daggers, she ordered him back with them. He refused to look again upon his work ; when she, taking the dag- gers from him, said she would go, for to her eye the sleeping and the dead were just the same, and that she feared no painted devil. So absolutely unimpressi- ble and unimaginative was this woman’s nature! And yet in the end it was she who expiated most grievously that murder of innocent sleep which her husband heard clamored through the house ; and it was she who was haunted by the blood of the murdered Duncan. The guilty husband and his guiltier wife went to their chamber, whence they were summoned by the arrival of two noblemen, Macduff and Lenox, who waited upon the Kingat hiscommand. The murder having been discovered by Macduff, Macbeth entered the King’s chamber with Lenox, and there, ina seeming frenzy of wrath, drew his sword and slew the two chamberlains, dreading that they should be questioned. While he was absent the Lady entered, and was told that Dun- can had been murdered. With cool perception of the requirement of the situa- tion she exclaimed, “ Woe, alas! what, in our house?” and trusted her tongue no further. But when Macbeth came from the scene of his crime, he broke forth into a wordy and fanciful exclamation of grief, very beauiifully expressed, but too daintily phrased for a genuine utterance of manly emotion. He mourned that he himself had not died before that hour, and declared that from that time there was nothing in the world worth living for. And so when Macduff asked him why he had killed the chamberlains, he answered with a diffuse and overwrought descrip- tion of his own emotions and the dreadful spectacle which had so moved him ; but his speech had not in it the clear and simple ring of honesty. Gruach saw at once that he had blundered in killing the men, and had thus attracted rather than diverted suspicion ; and she saw also that he was overdoing his expression of grief and horror; and therefore instantly diverted attention from him by seeming to faint and by calling for assistance. She succeeded thus in diverting Macduff’s mind, and gained time for consultation. The crime committed, Macbeth, who, when the way before him was clear, was a man of prompt and decided action, immediately claimed the succession, which, as the King’s two sons had fled and thus brought some suspicion on themselves, he could do with reason; and went straightway to Scone to be ins’ vested with the sovereignty. Duncan’s sons had vaguely suspected foul play on the part of their cousin ; but there was one man who suspected it with more reason. This was Banquo, who had heard the tempting prediction of the witches, and to whom on that occasion, and once afterward, Macbeth had dropped a hint that it would be well for them to consult together at a future time for their common benefit; but the rapid course of events had prevented any communication between them. Ban- quo, however, on Macbeth’s suggestion that if his fellow-general would cleave _ to him, it should be to his honor, had assented, with the proviso that he lost no honor by so doing. Macbeth remembered this; and some time having now passed, the presence of his former friend became oppressive to him. For Ban- quo’s was a simple and a loyal soul; and from his eyes looked forth a calm integrity of purpose that fretted Macbeth like a constant, dumb reproach. He could not but remember, too, that the same evil power which had promised him the honors which he now possessed, yet did not quite enjoy, had said that Ban quo’s issue should sit upon the throne of Scotland, and thus profit by his crime to the exclusion of his own issue. Haunted by this thought, and by the pure and dignified serenity of Banquo’s presence, he determined that he should die; and
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1870.] THE LADY GRUACH’S HUSBAND. 693 now, having entered upon his career of crime, he needed no stimulus or support from his wife, and took his measures promptly and alone. Nay, proud of his decision, he not gnly kept it to himself, but when Gruach suggested the same action, he who before had leaned on her, now did not even tell her that he had been beforehand in this matter, but bade her to remain innocent of the intention until she applauded the deed. Complimenting Banquo with wordy dissimulation, he invited him to be pres- ent as chief guest at a banquet; and discovering that he would ride forth with his son and return in the twilight, he gave orders that both should be assassin- ated. Banquo was slain, although Fleance escaped; and at the banquet the chief assassin entered and informed Macbeth that the most important part of his bloody commission had been executed. This report was soon productive of. a strange scene in the banquet-hall; for Macbeth, who had descended from his state (for so the canopied royal dais at the head of the hall was called), and had taken a seat at the table among his guests, rose to give a general welcome, which he prefaced with an expression of regret for the absence of Banquo. Then, as he turned to take his seat again, he saw it filled with a figure, invisible to all others—the figure of the murdered Banquo. His excited imagination again tricked his eye, and he was the victim of a spectral illusion. . Losing all self- command, he started back and broke out into exclamations of surprise and terror. His wife saw at once the nature of his emotion, and, with supreme tact, she at once assured the company that the King was only suffering from an affection to which he had been subject from his boyhood, and going to him she upbraided him as if he had been a ghost-frightened child. The illusion was dispelled, and the festivities were resumed. Macbeth again rose to drink a cup to the general joy of the whole table, and again, possessed with the idea of Banquo’s murder, and as if to front it and to face it down, he openly wished for his victim’s pres- ence. His wish was satisfied, as far as he was concerned. ‘The idea in his brain was again pictured on his eye, and Banquo again rose up before him. The guilty man greeted the vision with a shriek, and a conjuration the vivid and ter- rible earnestness of which was in striking contrast with the fanciful utterance of his assumed emotion on the discovery of the death of Duncan. But his wife had told him at the previous appearance that what he saw was an illusion like that of the dagger; and with prodigious bravery, and an effort for self-possession that showed a power of will greater than he had ever had occasion to exert on the field of battle, he fronted the vision, and, addressing it as if it were real, ap- proached it step by step until he finally faced it down. His wife, however, saw that his mind was too much shattered to be trusted longer, and dismissed the company with brief decision, but calm and gracious courtesy. They gone, she did not console him, or show one spark of tenderness for the man whom she had driven into this dreadful strait. She replied briefly to his excited speech, and perceiving, as if she had the physiological knowledge and the penetration of Hammond, the cause of the unsettled condition of his brain, she said to him, ‘You lack the season of all natures, sleep.” -It was true. She made no allusion to the cry that her husband heard sound through the castle as he did his bloody work in Duncan’s bedchamber; probably she did not think of it, for she was yet troubled by no such fancies; but Macbeth had murdered sleep—her sleep as well as his. And this is the last that we see of her until she appears before us a restless wreck, her sleep become a ‘monstrous and perverted mockery of repose, unravelling and rending instead of knitting up her sleive of care, Macbeth, profoundly shaken by the vision at the banquet, and sorely disap- pointed in the escape of Fleance, went the next day to consult the three weird |
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694 ' ‘THE LADY GRUACH’S HUSBAND. [May, sisters. Their incantations procured him assurance that he was safe until Bir- nam wood came to Dunsinane, and that he could be harmed by no man of woman born. But here again he saw the bloody form of Banquo, followed by a long line of his descendants wearing crowns and bearing sceptres. Deeply stirred as he was by this vision, he trusted more to the previous assurance as to his impreg- nable position, and gave himself up to the tyrannical abuse of the power he had usurped. In his course of crime his nature had become perverted, and he whose milk of human kindness and whose pure instincts, at war with his base ambition, had provoked the scorn of the unscrupulous Gruach, abandoned himself to gross excesses of oppression, of blood, and of debauchery. The land groaned under the rule of him who before he became its ruler wished, or fancied that he wished, to attain even his ambitious ends by holy means. He grew old, and his soul became hagyard with crime even more than his body with years. His friends fell from him, and he held his throne only by a sway of terror. Duncan’s sons and Macduff, whose castle he had surprised, and whose wife, children, and re- tainers he had put to death, now by the aid of England made head against him, and he shut himself up in his castle of Dunsinane, secure there until the forest of Birnam came to besiege him, and laughing at all his woman-born enemies. But while her husband thus rioted, with hardened soul, in tyranny and sensual enjoyment, the Lady Gruach (for so she was still called even more than by the name of Queen which she had so coveted) broke down under the protracted con- sciousness of crime. She found out at last what he had meant when he imag- ined that he had murdered sleep. Her nights became, even more than her days, an ever-recurring agony of distracting memories and nervous horror. A disbe- liever in spectres, she herself became a living ghost, and haunted the castle through the night, walking through its darkened rooms and dismal passages a crazed somnambulist. Of this her husband knew nothing; for now their lives were separate. But still, wicked as he was, and wicked as he knew her to be, there lingered in his bad heart more than a memory of his early love. For real love of man for woman and of woman for man is not given because of good, or, God be thanked therefor, withdrawn because of evil. Yet even in this disturbed condition of a strong soul fretted away to feebleness, but not changed in nature, Gruach showed no tenderness. She did not repent; she did not soften; she was not excited to an exaggerated, or even a natural appreciation of her crime. Her speech during her sleep-walking was terrible merely from its vivid memories. It was curt, hard, unyielding, as it had been before. She was oppressed by the memory of the blood spot on her hand, her little white hand. In her former literal fashion, she wondered that an old man should have so much blood in him, thinking only of the bare physical fact; while her husband had thought, as he looked on his hands, of so monstrous a crime did their condition seem to him the sign, that they would redden all the waters of all the oceans. But the smell of the blood offended the dainty nostrils of her whose soul, oppressed by crime, was yet impenetrable to the sense of sin; and she vanishes from our sight with sighs and groans that move us to horror and to pity, but not to sympathy. Birnam wood did come to Dunsinane, borne thither as a concealment of the numbers of the assailants, led by a man not naturally born of woman; and while it was approaching, but before it had been seen, Gruach’s soul became too weak to hold its place within her body, and she died. Her husband, to whom life now could bring no joy, and worse, no sorrow, hearing the cry of women in her chamber, was little disturbed by it. He who, with all his stoutness, had been so promptly apprehensive of terror, was now no longer a man of quick and fine emotion; and she who had told him that his starting would spoil all, could she
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1870.] THE GALAXY MISCELLANY. 695 have been present, would have seen him, in the supreme hour of: his peril, hear unstartled the death cry from the room of the woman he had loved so well. His senses had become dull, his soul hard and callous. But his martial spirit was unbroken, and when he was told that the wood was moving, he roused himself, and although he alternated between defiance and a weariness of life that made the very sunlight seem oppressive, he summoned those who would follow, and went out bravely to his last battle. | “The woman whom thou gavest to be with me she gave me of the tree, and I did eat.” The excuse served the Lady Gruach’s husband no better than it did him who yielded to the first temptress. RICHARD GRANT WHITE. THE GALAXY MISCELLANY. METAPHORS OF THE PEOPLE. ¢¢ O advance,” says Max Miiller, “ was possible in the intellectual life of N man without metaphor ;” and he admirably shows how words multiply and language increases its capacity through the tendency of men to observe resem- blances. “Thus from roots meaning to shine, to be bright, names were formed for sun, moon, stars, the eyes of men, gold, silver, play, joy, happiness, love. With roots meaning to strike, it was possible to name an axe, the thunderbolt, a fist, a paralytic stroke, a striking remark, and a stroke of business, From roots meaning to go, names were derived for clouds, for ivy, for creepers, serpents, cattle and chattel, movable and immovable property.” Metaphorical synonymes became prevalent, as when the sun was called the bright, the golden, the pre- server, from its qualities, or when clouds were called mountains, and rain clouds cows with heavy udders. Metaphor, it is thus seen, is the well-spring from which are drawn the in- numerable synonymes which swell our language. If our words were divested of all but their original, literal meanings, half of what is written from day to day would be unintelligible. We should receive no vivid idea from the description of a man of metle with iron frame and nerves of steel. The language is full of this metaphorical use of words. The fact has been especially noticed by the jokers of the period, who produce some of their easiest effects of wit by wrenching a phrase from its figurative to its literal meaning. For instance, we hear of a man who made a shoe for the foot of a mountain and a hat for the head of a discourse, though it was suggested that the cap of a cli- max would have been as well. We are told of a poor old gentleman who sat down on the spur of the moment; of a gardener who planted a blow on his em- ployer’s face ; of a young lady who fainted at a bare idea, who wore spectacles to cover her naked eyes, who refused to sit in the lap of luxury, even blushing at the mention of the lapse of ages (forgetting that lapse is not the plural. of lap), and who would not go to the sea-shore lest her waist should be encircled by an arm of the sea. Among a list of curiosities might be mentioned the hook and line with which a fisherman caught a cold; the hammer which broke up a meeting; a fluke from the anchor of hope ; one of the spurs of the Rocky Mountains; a hinge from the gates of death ; a story which melted a heart of oak ; buttons from a coat of 45
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696 ‘THE GALAXY MISCELLANY. [May, paint; spectacles for the eyes of a potato; braces for a shoulder of mutton; dye for the beard of an oyster; ear-rings for an ear of corn; cheese made from the milk of human kindness, butter from the cream of a joke, and eggs got from a nest of thieves. | But it is more especially our purpose to note how the talk of the commonest classes develops unceasingly new metaphors and grotesque fancies. There is an odd illustration of this in some of the names for articles of apparel. The common high black hat never had a respectable name, probably on account of the inherent absurdity of the thing itself—stiff, heavy, unventilated, hot as a Dutch oven, and towering up to an unnecessary height. It used to be called a beaver, but that name is no longer correct, the hat being made of silk. Its most common title is the metaphorical one of “ stove-pipe,” which suggests not only its shape, but the heat generated inside of it. In some sections a dress-coat is scarcely known by any other name than ‘“‘swallow-tail.” The title “ shad-belly ” had particular reference to a shape of the front that is now out of vogue; the syn- onyme “claw-hammer ” gives an excellent idea of the tails. But perhaps none of these is as expressive of the present shape of this article of full dress, as the name given by the West Point cadets of “steel-pen.” The narrow standing collar which was at one time fashionable. was called * cut-throat,’? which was pe- culiarly appropriate and suggestive. The white neck-tie used by some clergy- men has generally the appearance of being tied very tight, and seems to acquire from this circumstance the designation of “choker.” The “ waterfall” worn by ladies.was named from the appearance of the curls first used, flowing as it were over the backof the head. The “ Pall Mall Gazette” insists that chignons should be called choux, or cabbages. The earliest definition of the chignon in our lan- guage, given by Colgrave in 1611, runs thus: “Chignon, the chyne or chyne- peece of the necke; also, a knot or knurre in a peece of wood or tymber.” The earliest description is found in the “ Mundus Muliebris,” 1690: Behind the noddle every baggage Wears bundle choux, in English, cabbage. Fairholt defines the “ choux” as ‘‘ the great round boss or bundle of hair, worn at the back of the head, and. resembling a cabbage, from whence the French gave it that name.” United States bills have no popular name but ‘‘greenbacks.” The title of ‘stamps ” for fractional currency was first used at the time, during the civil war, when the scarcity of small change necessitated the use of postage-stamps—in- cluding the gum—in its stead. The name of “shin-plasters” was applied to the old Continental bills, it is said, for the reason that they were so plenty and worthless that the soldiers used them as plasters for slight wounds on their legs. A grotesque fancy has named food ‘ belly-timber,” and its receptacle the bread-basket. It would not be satisfactory to some to speak of a locomotive or an engine, but join the idea of an infuriated animal to the syllable “ gine,” and the word “bullgine” becomes very popular. The dentist has received the titles of “tusk-hoister” and “ tooth-carpenter.”? In the Southwest, during the war, the uneducated people spoke generally of a detachment of cavalry as a “critter- company,” jof infantry as “walk-soldiers,” and of artillery as “ cannon-wagons.” The young men of Chicago are classified as to their skill on the velocipede, it is said, into the “ timid-toddlers,” the “ wary-warblers,” the “ go-it-gracefuls” — and the “ fancy-few.” Still more grotesque was the fancy of a young man who always referred to a stone house as one in which the under-pinning reached clear to the roof, and who, when asked if he would have milk and sugar in his tea, replied, “ No, I gen’ly take my tea barefoot.”
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1870. } THE GALAXY MISCELLANY. 697 In the same way flowers get such names as shepherd’s-dial, because of its susceptibility to changes of weather ; wake-robin and cuckoo-flower, which blos- som when the songs of those birds are first heard; lady’s-smock, “all silver white,” as Shakespeare sings, because it resembles white linen laid out upon the meadows ; lady’s ear-drop, lady’s-slipper, morning-glory, youth and old age, love-lies-a-bleeding, and many more which might be mentioned. In the eastern part of England, evening is called crow’s-time, because of the gathering of the rooks to rest. The word “fall,” for autumn, which is usually called an Ameri- canism, though it is used by Dryden in that’sense, is a pretty metaphor by itself. Local circumstances suggest idiomatic metaphors and descriptive terms. In the Southwest, where people wear colored woollen shirts, they speak with great contempt of a person with a white one as the “man with the biled shirt.” A New Englander talks of whittling through the world, and when he gets the best of a man he makes him “whittle down.” In a country where raccoons are com- mon, the people say that a thing “won’t be done in a coon’s age.” In some English counties where rabbits or conies abound, sandy land is called cony- land, because it is only fit for breeding and feeding rabbits, and a common jest is that it may be ploughed,with two rabbits and a knife. From this it will be seen how appropriate is the name of ome sandy place of resort in New York harbor called Cony Island. All occupations contribute to our fund of metaphorical phrases. Thus, when - a sailor wishes to shake hands with you, he says, “ Tip us your fin”; when he wishes to procure money, he says he wants to “raise the wind”; when he is pursuing an uncertain course, he is “off soundings ” ; when he is the worse for liquor, he is “half seas over” or “three sheets in the wind.” Such phrases get not only into common conversation, but ‘into the finest speeches of the orators. Burke in his eulogium on Charles Townshend said, “ His style of argument was neither dry, nor vulgar, nor subtle and abstruse; he hit the house just detween wind and water’’ The phrase to which we have drawn attention might remind the reader of the mystical song in Swinburne’s ‘‘ Atalanta in Calydon,”’ beginning Between the sunset and the sea, * A correspondent says of common conversation at Nantucket, that the boys in the street never throw a stone; they “heave” it. People out walking or driv- ing are “gone onacruise.” They don’t stop or rest; they “lay by.” A place is not so many rods but so many “ship’s lengths” away. Clothing and knick- knacks generally are “tackle” and “rigging.” Togo from side to side, or from room to room, is to “gam.” They put things “aft,” they “stow them away ” or “haul them over,” they “show a light,” and every man is a captain. When dying, a sailor says that he is about to “slip his cable,” but a Califor- nia stage avivay! on his death-bed was still more expressive. “ Bill,” said he toa brother “whip,” “I am on the down grade, and I can’t reach the brake.” “Then,” said his friend, mindful that he had made no disposition of his prop- erty, “hadn’t you better hand in your checks ?” A man who is entirely able to take care of himself is called in some places a “whole team”; and if he is very remarkable in that respect, the phrase is inten- sified and he becomes a “ whole team and a horse to spare,” or ‘‘a whole team with a cross dog under the wagon.” ‘Two people who agree very well are said tohitch horses. Itis always considered a good thing to have the “inside track” in business or love-making or any other undertaking. A man who has driven horses all his life is an “old whip,” the same as a sailor is an “old salt” or an “old tar.” The title of “land shark,” which the sailor gives to a lawyer or
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698 THE GALAXY MISCELLANY. [May, usurer, is not so complimentary. In the far West, where bison abound, a smart man is a “roarer,’”’ and a very smart one a “ ring-tailed roarer.” The New England farmer expresses his contempt for a man by calling him small potatoes and few in a hill. He says of a person who has an exaggerated opinion of himself, that he thinks he is “*some pumpkins,” the pumpkin being one of the largest vegetables which the farmer raises ; but when he desires to express his belief in the correctness of his own opinion, he remarks that he thinks he knows beans when he sees them. In England it is customary to say, “I am as faint as beans,” which is not intended as a denial of the nutritious character of that vegetable, but is said to derive its significance from the fact that bean blossoms have a very sweet odor, which weakens any one who sleeps under their influence. The housewife speaks of a laconic or petulant man as being “as short as pie-crust.” Even in the city streets a fellow who is boiling over with wrath is sometimes advised to “simmer down.” The editorial room itself has borrowed an expression from the kitchen. The editors of great metropolitan dailies do not disdain to remember that the process of boiling down is applied by prudent cooks for the purpose of reducing an article to its solid essences: Therefore, when a manuscript is received in which a few ideas are flooded by a vast quantity of words, he hands it to his assistant and instructs him to “boil it down.” Thus a dozen pages of foolscap frequently dwindle into one and make only a paragraph or a city item. The reaching of the popular mind after odd fancies is illustrated in Mark Twain’s humorous explanation of the etiquette of the bar-room on the Pacific coast. He says: In a mining camp in California, when a man tenders you a “smile,’’ or invites you to take a “ blister,” it is etiquette to say, ‘‘ Here’s hoping your dirt’ll pan out gay.’’ In Washoe, where you are requested to “‘ put in a blast,’ or invited to take your ‘‘ regular poison,” etiquette admonishes you to touch glasses, and say, ‘*Here’s hoping you’ll strike it rich in the lower level.”” And in Honolulu, when your friend the whaler asks you to take *“fid” with him, it is simply etiquette to say, ‘‘ Here’s eighteen hundred barrels, old salt.’ But “ drink hearty ’’ is universal. This is the orthodox reply the world over. In San Francisco, sometimes, if you offend a man, he proposes to take his coat off, and inquires, “Are you on it?” If you are, you can take your coat off too. In Virginia City, in former times, the insulted person, if he were a true man, would lay his hand gently on his six-shooter, and say, “Is he heeled?”” But in Honolulu, if Smith offends Jones, Jones asks (with a rising inflection on the last word, which is excessively aggravating), ‘‘ How much do yor weigh?”? ‘* Sixteen hundred and forty pounds—and you?” ‘‘ Two ton to adot; at a quarter past eleven this forenoon ; peel yourself—you’re my blubber.” The sentimental method of asking a person to drink is in the formula, “ Sup- pose we shed a tear.” The operation, strange as it may seém, is identical with “taking a smile.” There is a frequent toast in some places which seems to con- tain considerable truth, viz.: ‘‘ Well, here’s another nail in my coffin.” On the Mississippi river they take a very practical view of the ceremony, and say to their friends, ““Won’t you come and wood up?” thus implying that strong potations supply the fuel of life. In cholera times a false notion prevailed that imbibition would prevent one from taking that disease, and a popular style of invitation was, “ Let’s disinfect.” This may as well be offset by a mention of the Western bar-room salute, “ Won’t you hist in some pizen?” The last form, however, is almost too strictly correct and literal in its character to be appropriate in the present article. 3 In view of the word canard, meaning duck in French, it is noticeable that in many parts of the United States a common remark, when a person is telling an improbable story, is, “I hear ducks.” Among fishermen such an exaggerated narrative would be a “fish story,” but in a locality where rumors of sea-serpents were prevalent it might be called a “snake story.” In French it is a duck story,
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1870. ] THE GALAXY MISCELLANY. 699 and the original “canard” is said to be that of a person who related that he had eighteen of those voracious fowls; that he cut up one of them and fed it to the remaining seventeen; he cut up another, and fed it to the remaining sixteen ; another, and fed it to the fifteen; and so on until there was but one left, which had consequently eaten all the other seventeen ducks. ‘ A person describing the process of shooting will sometimes say, “I let fly at it.” Miiller suggests an ingenious explanation of this phrase from the fact that when hawks were supplanted by fire-arms the names of the birds of prey formerly used in hawking were transferred to the new weapons. Mosgue¢, the name of a sparrow-hawk, so called on account of his dappled (#uscatus) plumage, became the name given to a heavier sort of artillery. Sacre in French and saker in English mean both hawk and gun; and the Italian Zerzeruzo/o, a small hci is siesely connected with ¢erzwolo, a hawk. _ This subject is further illustrated by the thousands of homely metaphorical proverbs which have gained currency in all parts of the world. How expressive of penury to say of a man, “He is out atthe elbows”; of compulsion to say, ‘“* His nose was brought to the grindstone” ; of humility and. repentance to say, “He was brought to his marrow-bones” ; of receiving a strong hint to say, “ He went away with a flea in his ear”; of-sudden energy to say, “ He took the bull by the horns,” or “ He took time by the forelock ” ; of useless repining to say, “ He is crying for spilled milk,” or “He is shivering for last year’s snow.” What could be better to say of a boaster than, “He is awful great among eggs with a stick,” unless it is the Scotch proverb, ‘ He is a hard man to draw a sword ata haggis”? To those familiar with that dish there must be something extremely ludicrous in the idea of a pompous man approaching it, sword in hand, with fierce gestures, when one blow would shatter it into a thousand quaking frag- - ments. It is surprising how many illustrations are drawn from a single subject. Take for instance the dog, the animal most commonly attached to man. We know how in literature almost every sort of figure is drawn from this quadruped. Even a man may be called merely a dog as a term of insult, or in a quizzical sense a sly dog, or a sad dog; and Wendell Phillips almost invariably speaks of a cring- ing person as a spaniel. It is unnecessary to follow out, as in the case of boot, the compound words which have been derived from some peculiarity of the dog, as dog-eared, dog-trot, dog-latin, dogged, dog-cheap, dog-cart, dog-days, dog- star, sun-dog, dog-tooth, dog-fish, dog-fly, dog-grass, dog-wood, dog-lichen, dog- bane, dog-rose, dog-tooth-violet, dog-tooth-spar, dog-watch, etc. ; not to speak of names drawn from various varieties of the canine species, as cur, hound, or the adjectives, as whining, fawning, etc. It is strange that the name of the dog should be so generally used in an offensive aud opprobrious sense, when the an- imal itself has always been so noble and faithful a friend to man. The proverbs containing references to dogs are almost without end, many of them having the merit of wit ; as when it is said in speaking of a quarrel between friends, “ While the dogs growled at each other, the wolves devoured the sheep”; or in speak- ing of an idle man, “ The lazy dog leaned against the wall to bark”; or in speak- ing of one who smiles and fawns for favor, “ The dog earned his living by wag- ging his tail.” One proverb at least recognizes the affection that should exist between this brute and his master—“ Love me, love my dog.” A country lover sings in the Gloucestershire dialect : | Mine hostess’ moid (and her name twur Nell). A pretty girl and I loved her well. I loved her well, and good reauzon why Because she lov’d my dog and I.
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700 ‘THE GALAXY MISCELLANY. [May, From the grotesque sayings I have illustrated there is but a step to poetry. This is shown in such proverbs as, ‘Some. men are hammers, others anvils” ; “ Better bend than break”; “ Huge winds blow on high hills” ; “ The only vic- tory over love is flight”; ‘Content is the philosopher’s stone which turns all it touches into gold”; “ The sun-dial only counts the bright hours,” etc. From these again there is but another step to the writings of Ossian and the “ Ars Poetica” of Snorri Sturluson, which had a hundred and twenty metaphori- cal synonymes for an island, and almost as many for Odin. GEORGE WAKEMAN. ; ,;) EASTER. ” THE seventeenth of April, 1870, is set apart, insome branches of the church TL universal, asa “Suaday of Sundays ”— the day in this year of the annually recurring festival of Easter. . Some, even of those who regard the event commemorated as imcomparably the greatest in history, will not observe Easter, because, among other reasons, they think such observance would be unwise conformity to regulations of the - Catholic Church. They seem to forget, or not to know, that, though they may refuse to celebrate the feast, they cannot escape some compliance with the church requirements for determining the day. Every time they date a letter or a docu- ment, they yield obedience, guoud hoc, to the edict of a Pope of Rome, filtered through an Act of the British Parliament. That April 17th is April 17th, and not April 5th, is due to the acceptance of the Gregorian in place of the Julian calendar—and its acceptance with the loss of the ten days dropped by Papal au- thority for ecclesiastical reasons. Others, on the contrary, deem even the day itself, apart from its subject, worthy of peculiar veneration, as a day religiously kept from the earliest Chris- tian times, and unerringly determined from the course of the moon by specific rules arranged and enjoined by the first CEcumenical Council. But the truth is that the proper time for celebrating Easter was a matter of dispute from an early period certainly, perhaps from the very first. The dispute grew warmer as the years advanced, and by the middle of the second century the schism was clearly defined—the Eastern Church celebrating it upon that 14th day of the moon which happened upon or next after the vernal equinox, and the Western upon the Sunday following. The division existed till the year 325, in which the Council of Nice introduced uniformity by making the practice of the Eastern Church conform to that of the Western. With respect to the time of Easter, the Coun- cil did no more. It laid down no authoritative rule for determining the proper Sunday to be observed. It framed no lunar cycle; and as Easter depends upon the course of the moon, such a cycle is an essential element in the calculation. The cycle employed varied from time to time, till the adoption, long after the adjournment of the Council, of that of Dionysius, consisting of 532 years. The Dionysian cycle made the year too long by about seven ninths of a day ina century—a small, but a gradually increasing error. Its effect became fully ap- parent in the sixteenth century; and after several attempts at correction had been made, Pope Gregory XIII. took up the matter in earnest and had the whole subject revised. He issued a brief in. March, 1582, abolishing the old calendar and establishing the one now in use, known as the Gregorian calendar or new style. A short description of some of the essential features of this calendar, so far
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1870. ] THE GALAXY MISCELLANY. 7OL as its church use is concerned, and the method by which Easter day in any given year is determined by it, may not prove uninteresting to readers of THE GALAXY. The directions for finding Easter will be confined to the years 1800 to 1899 inclusive, as for any year before 1800 or after 1899 certain corrections would be necessary, the explanation of which might extend this article too far. One point settled by the brief of the Pope was the time of the vernal equinox. This equinox seems to have had the tender regard of calendar makers. In con- sequence of the inaccuracies of the Roman calendar in use before Julius Cesar’s pontificate, it had been thrown forward (nominally) to the latter part of May. Czesar promptly restored it to its appropriate place in March. In consequence of the too great length of the average year adopted in the Julian calendar, it had gradually receded from March 2ist, in 325, to March 1tth, in 1582. The Pope thought that it should occur upon the same day that it did in the year of the great Church Council; and, to make it conform to his sense of propriety, did not scruple to drop ten nominal days, by ordering October 5th; 1582, to be called October 15th, etc. It is possible that the much mooted doctrine of Papal infallibility was then so fully acknowledged that good Catholics and subjects of his Holiness did not murmur at this apparent loss of time. But when the new calendar came to be adopted in England, in 1752, eleven days had to be de- stroyed, and their destruction caused great commotion and indignation among the people. They reviled the Government and mobbed the Minister of State for curtailing, as they supposed, their precious lives; and thought, with grim satis- faction, that the Astronomer Royal was punished with death for his share in the matter, though the good man died ten years after the event complained of, and at the ripe age of seventy. That no further accident should happen to the ver- nal equinox, to the end of time, the new calendar ordained that March 2ist should always be the day of its annual return; and therefore it is that Easter day is the Sunday following that 14th of the moon which happens upon or next after the 21st of March. [The Book of Common Prayer has /#// moon instead of the fourteenth day— an error which, in some way, crept into the explanation given in the Act of Parliament which established the new style in England, and was copied thence. ] A day certain might have been determined upon for Easter without impair- ing its commemorative character; and since all the movable feasts of the church and the whole of Lent depend upon it, the advantage of having it a fixed and not a movable festival would have been considerable in a worldly point of view, and the loss, in a religious sense, little or nothing. That Gregory did not, at the time he decided the date of the equinox, establish Easter upon a specific Sunday following it, is due to his having had greater reverence for the usage of the past than respect for the convenience of the future. His reverence for an- tiquity did not prevent him, however, from having a moon constructed for church use which, with nominal adherence to ancient custom, was contrived with some view to ease of calculation, to secure the celebration of the feast at the same time in all places, and to prevent the confounding of Easter with the Jewish Passover. As the time of appearance, at any vlace, of a new moon of the heavens de- pends upon the latitude of that place. it is evident that, with the astronomical moon to rely upon, Easter would oc: asionally have to be observed at different times in different latitudes. The calendar moon, which indeed varies but little in the main from that which ! Shines fair with ali her virgin stars about her,
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702 THE GALAXY MISCELLANY. [May, prevents this, and makes it possible for churchmen, throughout the greater part of the world, to mourn and to rejoice together. In the arrangement of the calendar moon the use of the Metonic cycle was retained. This is a period of nineteen years, in which time the new moons re- turn upon the same days of the year as before. For-example, in 1862 there was a new moon on the first of January ; a new moon will not again occur upon Jan- uary Ist until 1881, and the successive new moons of this latter year will fall upon the same days as in 1862. This device for computation was so highly esteemed in Athens, where it was first employed, that the order of any year in the period was engraved on a tablet in letters of gold. From this circumstance, the number showing what year of the moon’s cycle any given year is, is called the golden number of that year. The cycle always begins. with a year in which the first new moon falls upon the first of January. This occurred the year be- fore the beginning of the Christian era. A. D. 1 was, therefore, the second year of the cycle, and its golden number 2; A. D. 18 was the nineteenth and last of that cycle, andits golden number 19; A. D. 19 begana new cycle, and its golden number was I. Hence, to find the golden number of a year: add 1 to the year of our Lord and divide the sum by 19; the remainder, if any, is the golden num- ber ; but if nothing remain, then Ig is the golden number, A convenient use of the golden number is to find the epact. The age of the moon on the first of January, in any year, is the epact of that year. On January Ist, 1870, the moon was twenty-eight days old, and 28 is the epact of this year. The epact of the year immediately preceding our era was 0. The calendar luna- tions are alternately thirty and twenty-nine days. Twelve such lunations make 354 days; so that if a new moon occur upon January Ist, one will also occur upon December 2iIst, and the following January Ist will be the eleventh day of the moon. Thus in passing from one year to the next, the epact increases by eleven. The epact of A. D. 1 was, therefore, 11; that of A. D. 3 was 33, or rather 3, since a lunation cannot exceed thirty days, and thirty must be rejected. These epacts might have been found by diminishing the golden numbers of the years respec- tively by 1 and multiplying the result by 11. In like manner, the epact of any year (from 1800 to 1899 inclusive) may be found by diminishing the gold- en number of the year by 1 and multiplying the remainder by 11 ; the result, if less than 30, is the epact; if 30 or more, divide by 30, and the remainder is the epact. The succession of epacts has not been so regular as would appear from the foregoing. Various corrections have been made, one to put the calendar moon in advance of the real moon, others to prevent its getting too far from the real moon, and one correction of a correction ; but by 1800 these had counterbalanced each other, and so far as we are concerned, the effect is the same as if no dis- turbances had occurred. The device for putting the calendar ahead of the real moon was to wide the epact of the year preceding our era 1 instead of o, and thus, by putting the first moon in advance, put all succeeding oncs also in advance ; and the reason for it was to make Easter always fo//ow the Jewish Passover. This object, which was dear to the hearts of early Christians, hds ceased to have other than historical interest to us, and we can bear with equa ‘imity what might fairly reanimate the dust of Gregory and of Clavius, viz.: that, Owing to a slight uncompensated error, ‘the Passover now occasionally follows Easter by nearly a month. This prece- dence of Easter will occur in §872 and in four other years of the present century. The use of the epact is to find Easter. January and February have together
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1.870. ] THE GALAXY MISCELLANY. 703 fifty-nine days (February 29th in leap year is not counted in the calendar moon), the period of the first two lunations ofthe year. March Ist will, therefore, fall upon the same day of the moon as January Ist. The epact thus gives the age of the moon on the first of March. Since the March lunation is to have thirty days, the day of the next new moon is found by taking the epact from thirty-one. Ifthe epactis 23, March Ist is the 23d of the moon, the next new moon will be upon March 8th, and the 14th of this moon will be thirteen days after (as the day of the new moon is counted as the f#rs¢ day), upon March 2ist, and the frst Possible day of Easter will be one day after that 14th, viz.: March 22d. And, similarly, when the epact is less than 23, the moon on which Easter depends begins its lunation in March. If, then, the epact is 23 or less, the first possible day of Easter will be tound by taking the epact from 45. If, however, the epact is 24, the day of the next new moon will be March 7th, its 14th will be March 2oth—defore the vernal equinox../ This will not be the paschal moon, and the next moon must be taken; and the moon which begins its lunation in April must always be taken when the epact exceeds 23. If, then, the epact exceeds 23, extend March into April by calling April 1st, March 32d, etc. ; the day of the paschal new moon will be found, for reasons similar to those be- fore given, by taking the epact from 6), and the first possible day of Easter by taking it from 75. If the remainder, in either case, is 31 or less, the day indicated will be in March ; if more than 31, diminish it by 31, and the remainder will be a day in April. But the first possible day of Easter is not Easter, unless it is Sunday. To tell whether it is Sunday, and if not, to pass from it to the date of the first Sun- day after it, its calendar letter and the dominical letter of the year must be known. The calendar letter of a day in the week, for any given year, is that one of the first seven letters of the alphabet which designates that day throughout the year. Put down the letters, : AN Be Ov Pes PE ¢ and let A belong to the first of January, B to the second, etc. Ifthe year begins on Sunday, A designates Sunday, B Monday, and A, B, C, etc., are respectively the calendar letters of Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, etc., for that year. A always belongs to the first of January, whatever day of the week that may be. For con- venience, number the letters as follows : ' A GFEODCB Oo) risaiegy grigs G When the epact is 0, the first possible day is April 14th, of which the calendar letter is F (number 2), as any one may determine by counting forward, taking A for January Ist, B for January 2d, etc. As the epact increases, the number of the calendar letter of the first possible day increases with it (till the epact exceeds 23), and is always two in advance. Therefore, when the epact is 23 or less, increase it by 2 and divide the sum by 7 (as there are but seven calendar letters); the remainder will be the number, in the above list, of the calendar letter of the first possible day of Easter. When the epact is 24, the first possible day is April 20th, and its calendar letter E, of which the number, 3, is the same as the remainder left after dividing the epact by 7; and a like remark applies whenever the epact is greater than 23. Hence, when the epact exceeds 23, divide it by 7; the remainder will be the number of the calendar letter required. As February 29th in leap year has no letter assigned to it, the regular order of
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704, THE GALAXY MISCELLANY. [May, the letters is disturbed by the occurrence of that day; but as the same disturb- ance affects the epact in the same way, the method given will serve to determine the proper letter in.leap year, as well as in any other. ° The calendar letter of Sunday (des Domini) in any year is the dominical let- ter of the year. Ifa year consisted of an exact number of weeks, the dominical letter would be the same for every year. But a common year consists of fifty- two weeks and owe day, and hence begins and ends on the same day of the week. If, then, such a year should begin on Sunday, and have A for its dominical let- ter, the following year would begin on Monday, and in it A would be Monday and G the dominical letter. The order of dominical letters for successive com- mon years is, therefore, as in the numbered list. The occurrence of leap year dis- turbs the order of succession, for February 29th has no letter, though it takes. a day of the week. This throws the dominical letter forward one ; and a leap year has two such letters, one for January and February, and one for the rest of the year. As Easter occurs after February, the second of the two is the only one necessary to find. To find the dominical letter of a year, suppose that the Gregorian calendar had been in use from the beginning of the Christian era; take G (numbered 1 in the list) for the letter of A. D. 1, then F (numbered 2) would have been for A. D. 2; and as the number of the Sunday letter increases by one as the years do, the number of that letter would be (disregarding leap years for the moment) the same as that of the year, or rather (there being but seven letters used) the same as the remainder left after dividing the year by 7. Buta leap year has two dominical letters, and for every such year elapsed one more must be added to the letter. The number of leap years which have occurred up to any given year may be found by taking the quotient of that year divided by 4, neglect- ing the remainder. Hence, to find the dominical letter of any year from 1800 to 1899 inclusive: add to the year of our Lord its fourth part, omitting fractions, and divide the sum by 7; the remainder will be, in the list previously given, the number of the dominical letter required. In reality, E, and not G, should be given as the dominical letter of A. D. 1, and the number of the letter would now exceed by two that of the year increased by its fourth part, were it not that 1700 and 1800 were not leap years in the Gre- gorian calendar, and two must be rejected from the number of leap years as de- termined. As these corrections would counterbalance each other, neither of them need be considered. | If the first possible day of Easter (found as directed) is not-Sunday, enough must be added to its date to carry it forward to Sunday. Its calendar letter and the dominical letter of the year are known. Suppose, for example, its letter is C,and the dominical letter F ; we must then go forward D, E, F, three days ; that is, we must add to the date of the first possible day the difference between the number of C (5) and that of F (2). If the calendar letter were F and the do- minical letter C, we would (as the letters for successive days of the week must be taken in regular advancing order as they stand in the alphabet) go forward G, A, B, C, four days; that is, we would add to the date of the first possible day the difference between the number of F increased by seven (9) and the number of C (5). Hence, if the number of the calendar letter exceeds that of the domin- ical, diminish the former by the latter; if the number of the calendar letter is less, increase it by 7 and diminish the sum by the number of the dominical letter ; add the remainder, in either case, to the date of the first possible day of Easter, and the result will be the date of Easter day. V. 4 4 if = 4
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- DRIFT- WOOD. NAVAL ECONOMICS. THERE is a grim headsman in every Con- gress who moves to abolish the Military Academy, and another who moves to abol- ish the Naval Academy ; there is a member who demands an Army of 16 regiments, and another member who thinks the millennium might come if we could only cut the Navy down, Mr. Spencer of Alabama is at pres- ent superintending the last-named task, and his bill for that purpose seems to be based on folly and built up with fallacy. But, as Senator Spencer does cut half a million out of the naval budget, it becomes us, as pru- dent taxpayers, to find out exactly how he does it. He does it on the principle of that astute philosopher who got down his horse’s food to a peck, a quart, a pint, a gill, nay, to a solitary oat a day, and who was just one oat short of solving a great problem in re- trenchment and reform, when the ungrate- ful, unscientific, mean-spirited, and grasping beast took advantage of that last oat, and died. Even so would Senator Spencer effect his naval economies. He “discharges” line officers—he has no spite against the staff—until he has reduced rear-admirals from 10 in number to 5 ; commodores from 25 to 12; captains from 50 to 40; com- manders from 90 to 75; lieutenant-com- manders from 180 to 100; masters from 160 to 100; ensigns from 160 to 100; graduated midshipmen from 72 to 0; and acting mid- shipmen from 286 to 250: relenting to lieu- tenants, he increases their number from 180 to 200. In brief, Mr. Spencer proposes to get rid somehow of 351 line officers out of 1,233, retaining 882 in the Navy; and by this exploit he expects a maximum reduc- tion in the expenses of government of $7109,- 520 a year for sea duty, or a mimimum re- duction of $594,000 for shore duty. Bravely! But why stop here? We can lop and chop with this sharp Spencerian axe, like a boy with his new birthday hatchet. Why not reduce all our expenses to a half, a quarter, an eighth, an oat a day? Our outgoes, according to Mr, Boutwell, were last year, beyond the interest on the debt, about $190,000,000. Quick with the axe, and cut down the horde of tax-gatherers, the army of customs officers, judges, marshals, minis- ters, consuls. Stay, here is a good point of departure. What is the use of a second Sena- tor from each State? He is the fifth wheel of a coach. In ordinary times he is well enough, but in hard times we must re- trench. Decapitation is disagreeable, but we must be fitm; retrenchment is ruthless, but our duty is clear, since this one item will relieve the dear people of 36 times $5,000 a year, besides vast perquisites of penknives, postage, soaps, and toothpicks. Senator Spencer’s bill grated harshly on the ear, which was just filling with the Onei- da’s story and the conduct of Copp, Stewart, Muldaur, and Williams. How many en- signs of young Copp’s stamp shall we be lucky enough to get rid of as useless, by re- ducing them from 160 to100? Mr. Lincoln had a jest at the expense of one of his na- val advisers, that the latter not only never saw the sea, but couldn’t imagine what it was like. Millions of inland people who nev- er saw the sea know what our Navy is and means, and to be ignorant of this is worse than not to know what the sea is like. Its prestige of 1812 helped for fifty years to ward off attack ; and then, after half a century, it was revived and made vaster by great sailors and great victories. But we are now once more behind the age in naval equipment, having dragged in the rear while other pow- ers are going ahead. Our watchword has been economy ; theirs, efficiency. And it is on a very practical ground that the appeals to spare our Navy rest. It is not on the ground of national pride, regarding the Navy as distinctively and proverbially American in conception, novel in its mate- rial and management, novel in its theories and practice, and successful in that novelty, The potent plea is not justice but prudence, and not sentiment but policy. To save a paltry half million, we let go experience and tested efficiency, valor, fidelity, and skill, which ten millions may not buy back in that moment of exigency which to a nation like ours is always imminent. We need more officers, ships, and men. ‘* The American people,” says Mr. Robeson, “ are accustomed to success on the ocean, and would not for- give a policy which, at the first sign of a for-. eign war, sent our Navy hurrying ignomin-
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706 iously to our shores. Yet we have not, at this time, on any foreign station, a squadron whose combined force would avail for a day against the powerful sea-going iron-clads which both France and England have on the same stations. . . In the event of a war,” adds the Secretary, “ our ships would _ be uselessly sacrificed, or obliged to find safety in neutral ports, or, abandoning the sea, and leaving our commerce to its fate, to seek on our own shores the protection of our monitors and forts.” Let us have what economy we can get this side of stupidity, and no more. We must draw the line somewhere, and stupidity is a good point at which to drawit. It has been said, and I believe correctly, that even Spain has in Cuban waters alone more sailors and marines than we in our whole Navy. To dispense with a great army, we need a Navy strong enough to shield our shores, if not to carry our flag unchallenged in all seas. History, besides, shows that the commer- cial success of a people is in the ratio of its prowess, and that an unprotected marine is sooner or later pounced upon. In 1868, while our ships of war in commission num- bered 57, with a tonnage of 55,485, those of France in commission numbered 150, with a tonnage of 250,000, and those of England 191, with a tonnage of 328,614. Our war- ship tonnage was one-eightieth of our mer- cantile tonnage, while that of France was one-eighth of hers, and that of England one- seventeenth of hers. The discrepancy has since become vaster, because France and England have strengthened their navies. Yet, as it is, it is reckoned on the very ebb of our commerce ; what, then, shall we need with its flood? We mean to become, if we can, the first maritime power on the globe ; to crowd the Pacific with our commerce ; to create and protect new Chinese, Japanese, Indian, Central American, South American trade; to build Darien canals or ship-rail- ways ; to establish insular coaling stations and half-way houses for repairs in various seas; to guard the prodigious coast-line which some new patch of acquired land seems to be ever extending ; and while we contemplate these great tasks, and call, like other nations, for the required estimates of officers, ships, and men, there come paltry bills of half-million saving, where the word of ambition should be liberality. - Armies may be disbanded and great land establishments reduced to a handful ; but the spectator is conscious that when a million DRIFT-WOOD. [May, citizen-soldiers melt back into the common nation, so leavening it into a nation of sol- dier-citizens, it is like the fading of the clansmen, when Roderick Dhu dispersed them with a wave of the hand, and that with the first bugle-note they come again, Navies cannot be so extemporized. You cannot, in these prosaic days, stamp your foot, and find a new fleet answering the summons. Instead of diminishing the num- ber of officers, we had better give them more men and ships to command. TRADE-MARKS. History tells us that the town of Gold- smith was once the scene:of prodigious ex- citement. Main street is, as all the world knows, the Rialto, the Strand, the Broad- way of Goldsmith, where six rival mercers dispense dry goods to the country round. On the historic day I speak of, one of these drapers startled the town by the following announcement? ATAHUALPA SPOOL-COTTON SEVEN CENTS A SPOOL, Now everybody knows that country mer- chants actually paid the importers, at this epoch, seven and a half cents for Atahuallpa cotton ; and hence this poster, in electrifying the village, horrified the trade. ‘‘ Sharp,” said the latter, “is at his old tricks to draw cus- tom”; and accordingly, before that placard had five minutes affronted the day, Sharp’s next neighbor announced, in larger letters, “ Atahuallpa Cotton, Six Cents a Spool.” Whereupon, the next dealer proclaimed “ At- ahuallpa Cotton, Four Cents”; a fourth went down to three cents, the fifth to two, and the sixth actually blazoned in his show- window, “Atahuallpa Cotton Given Away !” All Goldsmith bought spool-cotton that day at competition prices; the two newspapers united in deprecating a “ cut-throat competi- tion, ruinous to the growth of Goldsmith, inflicting a treacherous stab at our best in- terests, and setting back ten years at least the dry-goods development of Pythagoras county ;”’ and meanwhile the tide of trade poured into Tape and Brady’s, where grin- ning clerks, yardstick in rest and scissors drawn, met customers who asked for ‘‘some o’ that ’ere spule cotton you give away,” by the baffling and exasperating response, ‘“‘ How many yards? Jest wait till I measure off deliberate.” Next day Sharp had a “ Card to the Citi- zens of Goldsmith” both in the “ Argus”
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1870. ] and “ Aurora,” explaining that he had of- fered a stock of ‘‘ Atahualpa ” cotton, which he could sell for seven cents, as it cost six ; and that customers, and even lynx-eyed deal- ers, to say nothing of the “ Argus,” had confounded this with the “ Atahuallpa,” spelt with a double 7, the brand hitherto known in the Goldsmithian market. Imitation of trade-marks has but one end, deception, and one means, fraud. To en- trap the unwary, to steal others’ honors, to drive from the market by cunning a fabric that entered through worth—this is the ob- ject of imitating trade-marks. Pilfering a trade-mark, or so much of it as can be sto- len without punishment, implies a double robbery, namely, of profits and of reputation. I read yesterday the story of a suit, brought, let us pretend, by the Wilkesbarre Iron Company, to restrain, let us say, the Pilot Knob Ore Corporation from calling some of the products of its furnace “ Wilkesbarre Bars.” The real case is flagrant ; for why does a Pennsylvania firm borrow a distinc- tively Missouri name to describe its wares, or a Missouri firm a Pennsylvania name? Why does a Texan house hit on the title Apalachicola, which a Florida house has made famous? or a Nevada factory, imita- ting a Georgia line of goods, call them, not the Yuba, but the Chattahoochie? Every- body knows why—that the imitator may pass his wares as the original, and the new firm palm itself off as the old. What was the word Chattahoochie when selected as a trade-mark? Nothing. It might as well be Mamamouchi, which would then have be- come as famous, because excellent goods make any name illustrious. But trade-mark counterfeiters would reap where they have not sown, and gather where they have not strewn. Only inferior goods need to borrow titles, and they mar a merited reputation: they both steal the man’s purse and filch from him his good name. Goldsmith haberdashers, for example, know that the Atahuallpa cotton of England has 200 good yards to the spool, while the At- ahualpa cotton of America measures but 175. The keenest eye can hardly tell the odds be- fore buying, so closely are the size of spool, color of wood, label, and everything else im- itated, save for that legal loophole of the ex- tra 7. “Curious,” says Sharp, “about that ere Atahallpa cotton. It’s all out of the market now, and I don’t suppose the Brit- ishers know what druv it. You see, Mr. Quilibet ””»—it was an August dogday, and DRIFT-WOOD. 707 we were idling in the breezy village—“*a lady would say to me, ‘I don’t kind o’ like your Atahallpa cotton this year.’ ‘Why _ not, ma’am?’ ‘It don’t hold out,’ says she ; ‘too much spool and too little cotton.’ ‘ Did your cotton have two /s or one in the name ?’ says I, laughing. But the truth is, some couldn’t read, and some couldn’t see with- out glasses, und some were keerless, and some that had been bit seemed to forgit, like the woman with the indigo, which was which, So finally, new brands druv it out altogether.” Nearly all valuable trade-marks have been imitated. Take the most extraordinary collection of consonants in Welsh, the long- est-winded word in German, the harshest guttural in Hottentot, and it will not avail. Take the beautiful poetical lines, Aldiborontiphoscophormio, | Where left’st thou Chrononhotonthologos ? which contain two fine trade-marks—they would be successfully counterfeited. Take as a device the most hideous animal in herald- ic zoology, and some cheat will produce a griffin with one less claw or a unicorn a little less rampant. To show a trade-mark that has not suffered is to show an exception to a rule which applies alike to medicines and mechanism, furniture and food. Look at Sharp’s window, yonder. In one corner are skeins of “J. W. and F. Bramble’s sewing silk,” and, near by, the “J. W. F. Bramble’s,” made by a man in Connecticut named John Smith. Here are piles of goods called “ Royal Standard,” and rival piles of * Royal Stannard”; fabrics styled ‘ Black Lion,” and others styled ‘ Black Lyon” ; thread called “Sterling,” and other thread called “ Stirling”; gloves marked “ Alex- dre,” and others “ Alexander”; or “‘ Cour- voisier ” and “ Curvoisier.” The shopman may innocently hand either fabric to the buy- er, because the trick is to find a word of the same sound with a different spelling, and so, by deceit of the ear, to prevent detection of the eye. Sharp is not only a linen-draper, but sells those materialized ideas called “notions.” These “notions,” too, are pla- giarized, from pens to perfumery. Here a pen-maker advertises: “ The original and popular numbers 303, 404, 170, 351, having been assumed by other makers, an injunc- tion was granted by the Supreme Court of New York at General Term, January, 1867, against the use by others of the number 303.” Whereupon, one inquires why the other imitators did not use A BC or DE F
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708 as-a brand for their pens? Yonder is a fes- toon of unguent-pots and perfumery, stacked up in a gothic architecture, with Sharp’s proverbial taste. There are one, two—no less than five Farinas represented in the fragrant pile, as makers of the genuine Jean Marie Farina Cologne water. Near Rome or Naples'there used to be, I believe, a poor and miserable family of lazy peasants bear- ing this famous name. Different distillers have taken off in succession every male mem- ber of it, and made each.a partner, on a pit- ~ tance, in some large house, so that the latter ‘can manufacture “ Farina” cologne. I fear that we never shall get the subject into bet- ter odor than this last, where, accordingly, let us drop it. MERCY TO BURGLARS. DuRING the year of grace 1869, Governor Hoffman granted to State prisoners, as his late report shows, 86 pardons and 20 com- mutations—a round twelvemonth’s work, averaging two a week. Of these cases, one was that of Levi Conger, convicted in Onta- rio county, March 9, 1869, of burglary and larceny, and sentenced for two years, but re- leased in six months ; concerning whom we are now coolly told that the Judge and Dis- trict Attorney always had some doubts, “ and the guilty party has since confessed, aver- ring that Conger had no connection with the crime.” The State has therefore magnani- mously “pardoned” Conger for the crime he did not commit; but whether he on his part has been equally high-minded, and has pardoned the State for the imprisonment, Governor Hoffman does not say. There are half a dozen similar cases, quite refuting the slander that the eyes of Justice are no longer “bandaged” in these times of ours. - However, in general, Governor Hoffman, at least on his own showing, has used his ex- ecutive clemency with discretion, and as spar- ingly as the number 106 will suffer us to sup- pose. That he knows it is no light matter to prematurely return caged criminals to so- ciety, is clear from his adducing a strong rea- son for every ca8e of mercy. But there is one class -of jail-birds whom governors, I think, ought to be specially cautious of let- ting loose, namely, housebreakers. As a crav- DRIFT-WOOD. [MAy. ing to pardon counterfeiters is proof enough, to my thinking, of a man’s unfitness to be President, so is a propensity for pardoning burglars of his unfitness to be Governor. These crimes differ from some as heavily punished — bigamy, deadly assault, man- slaughter, or what not—in their wide-spread. influence. Counterfeiting alarms and troub- les innocent people for thousands of miles ; and burglary is the town’s terrorism, The special evil of these crimes is that they unset- tle society. In a bar-room quarrel, half a dozen drunken roughs stab each other: bad for the victims, but the event carries no dread to people unaccustomed to fight in bar-rooms, or who expect stabbing if they do. Whena bigamist’s sentence is commuted, most mar- riageable young women do not thereupon tremble lest he marry them all at once; but a relay of burglars arriving ina community strikes terror at once. And, for one, I see no harm in drawing this distinction in crimes, instead of that of intrinsic heinousness, for questions of pardon. Take, again, the case of the counterfeiter : he rarely imposes on bankers and brokers, but oftenest on laborers or farmers; and when, therefore, these criminals are profuse- ly pardoned, it is not so much public funds as poor people that suffer. Clemency must be cautious that covers burglars—a class of culprits that poison the stream of domestic life the world over. The man who threads obscure London or New York streets at night, may know he takes his life in his hand ; but the housebreaker is the terror of the timid and helpless, and the discourager of household economy. These are the very pests of society. Everybody who has suffer- ed from them owes a grudge to the novelists of the “Paul Clifford” and “ Jack Shep- pard” school, as well as to the newspa- pers of that school which finds its market in joking these villains with flippant slang, The community owes a grudge, and ought to pay it in full, toa Governor who, through personal weakness or political favor, lets loose these scourges after just conviction. There is a conspicuous rarity or absence, however, of such cases in Governor Hoffman’s pardons for 1869. PHILIP QUILIBET,
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LITERATURE AND ART. AMERICAN AND ENGLISH LITERATURE. Emerson’s “Society and Solitude,” a cluster of twelve essays or chapters pub- lished by Fields, Osgood & Co., is the most, perhaps the-only important book which has appeared in this department of literature during the month, Mr. Emerson discourses easily, cheerfully, and almost always with a deep meaning underlying the clear flow of his language, on Society and Solitude, Art, Eloquence, Works and Days, Books, Courage, Success, Old Age, and other. subjects. Some of these essays have already appeared in the print of our periodi- cal. literature ; a few, we believe, were first given to the public in the once famous, now almost forgotten “ Dial,” the organ of Trans- cendentalism, which used to send forth so many noble, lofty strains, and not a few vague, querulous, and pretentious pipings. All that Emerson has written deserves to be preserved, and is indeed pretty certain to preserve itself; and this volume vindicates in every page its title to individuality and permanence. If there is not a great deal ‘needed to be said about it here, the reason simply is that the book is so faithfully and purely Emersonian that to criticise it prop- erly would be to analyze Emerson once more —a task somewhat superfluous. The very first page or two of the first essay contains an exposition of a peculiar form of human nature which only Emerson’s wonderful union of poetic insight, philosophical com- - posure, and sharp common sense could have accomplished within such limits, Here is a soul walled off, one would have thought, » from that of Emerson’s by rigid barriers of uncongeniality, which yet he has possessed himself of, penetrated, and made intelligible and living to the apprehension of all who read the essay. “This is only a fragmentary illustration of the quiet, dominant force which the book exhibits almost everywhere. A calm, consoling tone is audible through- out—in the essay on Old Age especially. Some of our more fastidious apostles of culture will doubtless raise the hands and eyes of wonder over Mr. Emerson’s recom- mendation to people in general to be con- tent with translations of foreign books; and we, for ourselves, utterly decline to take his advice about reading no book that is not a year old. But there are few critics or read- ers of any intelligent class who will not en- joy the perusal of this calm, wise book, and be thankful for its counsels and its encour- agement, “ HEDGED-IN,” by Miss Phelps (Fields, Osgood & Co.), is already, we believe, a great success. It belongs to that class of sermon- in-romance which, as Thackeray says, “ will be listened to wherever it is preached, and sets the whole world sympathizing.” A poor and ignorant girl sins and becomes an out- cast, is driven about the world like another Jean Valjean, until a pure and noble Chris- tian lady takes pity on her, shelters and re- deems her ; and the ignorant sinner, brought to knowledge and repentance, dies glorified. Nothing very new about this, certainly ; the same story has been told by dozens of writers already, and by some of far greater fibre and force than Miss Phelps. But there is a quiet, simple pathos about this story which is sure to touch the popular heart ; and many of the characters are drawn with an easy skill which has much fascination in it. There are some figures common to fiction, accepted and recognized by it, about the existence of which in any world out of fiction we do not feel quite certain. Such a figure is the " heroine of “ Hedged-In.” The transcendent glory of her penitence converts her into a sort of creature hardly fit to belong to earth at all, and Miss Phelps had really nothing left to do when she had brought her peni- tent to this exalted and rarefied condition but to put her to death. We doubt whether a better moral effect could not be produced, to say nothing of the artistic effect, by pitch- ing the tone of the whole performance a little lower, making the heroine, in her re- generation, a little more like such women as the world commonly sees. But it is settled in fiction that girls like poor Nixy may be — reformed into such angelic beings as she ‘be- * comes ; and such a portraiture is perhaps no more open to reasonable complaint than an Undine or a Una. Judged therefore as a mere denizen of fiction, this heroine of Miss Phelps’s is a touching and tender creation ; and we read her story with sympathy and
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710 interest. Out of very old materials the authoress has contrived to present the read- ing world with something that will be ad- mired for its freshness as much as for its simplicity and pathos. MAy we confess that we found Gail Ham- ilton’s “Battle of the Books” dreadfully tiresome? In fact, we broke down over it. A whole volume about a quarrel between a lady and her publishers! The book is bitter, but not very biting; it is sharp and snappish, and it pains one to read, just as he is pained to hear a lady scolding anybody in the public street. Gail Hamilton has a quarrel with Mr, Fields, and she contends that—but really the whole affair is a private quarrel about prices and percentages with which you and we, dear readers, have no more to do than we have with Gail Hamil- ton’s washing bill. So we go about our business, and pass on. GARIBALDI’s book, “The Rule of the Monk, or Rome in the Nineteenth Century,” may be brought into a review of American and English literature by virtue of the Eng- lish translation made (we presume) by Mrs. Chambers, and published by Harper & Bros, Of course it has no value as a novel or even a romance ; the gallant old soldier evidently had great difficulty in keeping his dramatis persone together anyhow,-and he often goes near to forgetting them and the story alto- gether. The book is interesting only as a spirited exposé des motifs on the part of Gari- baldi. It is a prolonged philippic, often very extravagant, but always very sincere, ° and occasionally quite eloquent, against the rule of the priest in Rome, The adventures of the principal personages are sometimes rather improbable, and the attempt at de- lineation of character is amusing. We like those parts of the book best where the story and the fictitious personages evaporate alto- - gether, and nothing is left but Garibaldi hime self, the noble old soldier with a dash of the poet and the zmprovvisatore in him, pour- ing out to the skies and the winds the pas- sionate plaint of a patriot against his coun- try’s wrongs. The preface by Mrs. Chambers is asad blemish. Its laudation of Garibaldi is so extravagant as to become broadly ludi- crous, and yet it is, we doubt not, perfectly sincere. One of the clearest proofs of Gari- ‘baldi’s genuine greatness is that the utter- most efforts of such admirers as Mrs. Chambers and her husband have not been ~ LITERATURE AND ART. [May, able to make the world think little ot him. “The Rule of the Monk,” on the whole, is worth reading ; and it is evidently Garibal- di’s own work—not, like other things pub- lished in his name, the tinkered-up job of some hack penman. Miss ALCOTT continues to work out her rich and new vein of fiction. She has just given to the world, through the publishing house of Roberts Bros. of Boston, a story called “An Old-fashioned Girl,” In this book Miss Alcott ventures on the bold experi- ment of projecting her mind into the future, and carrying the fortunes of her heroine for- ward through six or seven years beyond the date of this present writing. It seems the first part of the book was written as a serial publication in 1869, and it gave evidence of its date; but there were so many demands urged for a sequel, ‘in beseeching little let- ters that made refusal impossible,” that Miss Alcott had to give in, and shingle out into the fog, to adopt the language of the West- ern joke—in other words, build her story out into the future. No reader, young or old, ought to blame the pertinacity on the one hand, or the compliance on the other, which has produced this pleasant volume. The *‘ Old-fashioned Girl” is not, perhaps, quite equal in freshness and animation to “ Little Women,” but she is a chip of the same block, and is sure to have a cordial welcome from the public. THE author of ‘Scandaroon,” a hand- some little volume of verse, had a good purpose in view when he set his pleasant, graceful pen to work. This little volume is a satire on the municipal maladministration and judicial corruption of New York. What a theme for a Manhattan Juvenal or Dryden or Butler—we mean the author of Hudibras, not Hudibras’s living imitator—what a theme for a great satirist of any kind! But to assail such a fortress of corruption with this smooth and easy verse is like attacking an iron door with pipe stems. There is some smartness in the verses here and there, but the general impression they leave behind is that of polished feebleness and gentle mo- notony. As we are talking of verses, we may as well say that we do not think the latest series of the Hans Breitmann ballads by any means equal to its predecessors. Is Mr. Leland now merely trying to imitate him-
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1870. self, or making copy to order? Certainly the humor of this latest issue of the ballads seems to us very heavy, elaborate, and fan- tastic—the contortions of the sibyl without the inspiration. Let us remark that the complete edition of the ballads just pub- lished by Messrs. Peterson of Philadelphia is a very elegant volume. A VERY important service has been ren- — dered to elementary education by Miss Eliza A. Youmans in the preparation of her little _ “First Book of Botany, designed to culti- vate the observing powers of children,” The multitude of text-books upon this branch of school study ‘sufficiently attests the general interest in it, but it is not a little surprising that we should have had to wait so long for a rational introduction to the subject. Miss Youmans starts upon the obvious principle that the only way to get a knowledge of the vegetable kingdom is by the study of plants themselves ; not the memorizing of lessons about them, with occasional references to the objects, but the habitual and systematic study of the real things—the book being designed only as a help to this end. Upon this point she is emphatic and inflexible. Where the objects of study are remote and inaccessible, as in geography, it is admitted that book statements must be accepted ; but where the very things the pupil is thinking and inquiring about abound everywhere, *‘ overhead, underfoot, and all around, grass, weeds, flowers, trees, open and common to everybody,” she insists that to neglect these and to stop with mere book statements con- cerning them is pure educational absurdity. The aim of this little work is twofold; first to lay a proper foundation for the knowledge of the vegetable kingdom, and, second, to do it in such a manner as shall thoroughly cultivate the pupil’s observing powers and the mental processes which de- pend upon observation. In an elaborate argument appended to the work, on the “Educational Claims of Botany,” Miss You- mans has presented this aspect of the subject with much clearness and force. In this dis- cussion she shows, first, that the revelation of nature begins. by the direct intercourse of the mind with surrounding objects, and that the laws of true mental growth require that this intercourse of the mind with things themselves should be kept up and methodi- cally cultivated. She next passes the_pre- vailing system of popular instruction under criticism, and shows that it makes no pro- 46 LITERATURE AND ART. VAS vision for this species of training, or for carrying out that objective method of study by which nature begins the work of mental development. What is now needed in gen- eral instruction is to supply this extensive want. We need a fourth fundamental branch of study, in addition to reading, writing, and arithmetic, which shall train the powers of observation regularly and systematically, as mathematics train the powers of calcula- tion. For this purpose the writer claims that botany takes precedence of all other subjects. The materials it offers for study are so common as to be everywhere acces- sible ; the characters of plants are presented ‘in intimate relations of dependence so as to bring out the relations and dependences of thought; the language is the most perfect of all the sciences, each term defining a pre- cise idea, while the scope of the science is such that it is fitted to carry the pupil through an extended and unbroken course of acquisition from particulars to generals, from simple facts to the higher truths and larger principles which rest upon them, The inadequacy of the common object les- sons, their incoherence and disconnection, and the advantages offered by elementary botany for organizing this kind of study, are impressively shown, ‘This essay cannot fail to attract the attention of thoughtful teach- ers, as it not only goes to the root of educa- tional questions, but is an admirable exam- ple of lucid and forcible presentation. It is no vague and aimless criticism of existing school methods. Nothing is easier than to. point out defects; nothing harder than to remedy them. But it is the merit of this work that its searching strictures on the current educational practice are accompanied by an actual “measure of relief.” The au- thoress not only shows what is lacking, but she offers what is wanting. She has de- veloped a plan of botanical study in which there are no “lessons” to be learned, but which carries the pupil straight to the living objects which are to be studied, and secures the continuous action of the mind upon them. The observations are guided by blank forms termed schedules, in which the pupil notes down the characters he finds, and then pinning the written description to the specimen, they are handed to the teacher as the report of the child’s judgment in the case. In this manner the pupil is regularly trained to observe, to compare, to infer, and. to describe, while the knowledge he acquires becomes a real and solid acquisition. Somee
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712 thing of this kind, it cannot be denied, was much needed; mere book botany is of very small educational value. Of the thousands who graduate in our high schools and col- leges, and who give the allotted three months to this subject, how few there are who know one plant from another or who have the slightest mental concern in them. They learn a few hard words, and pry a little into the inner mysteries of vegetable structure, and in a few months after leaving school their hurried verbal acquisitions crumble completely out of the memory. By the plan here proposed the plants are the real books to be studied, the printed manual being ~) merely a guide to their inspection, like the guide to a picture gallery. The subject thus becomes an out-of-door study, in which the yard, the garden, the fields, and the forest furnish the objects of an inexhaustible men- tal interest. “PIONEER BIOGRAPHY,” consisting of sketches of the lives of some of the early settlers of Butler county, Ohio, by James McBride, of Hamilton (Vol. 1., Cincinnati, Robert Clarke & Co., 1869), is the fourth of the “ Ohio Valley Historical Series.” Two at least of this collection are among the most valuable works in Western—we had almost said American—history. We refer to Bou- quet’s Expedition and Clark’s Campaign. As these books increase in number, we are disposed to think that it will be found that it would have been better to submit them to a uniform editorship—say, a committee of the Historical Society. The work before us contains the biographies of eight of the dis- tinguished pioneers of Butler county, Ohio, They are all interesting. But as others suc- ‘ceed them, judging from this volume, there will inevitably occur much useless repetition Of the events of the St. Clair, Harman, Wayne, and Harrison Indian campaigns, ‘inasmuch as most of the pioneers bore a part in at least one of those expeditions. Again, the preparation of such papers as these by descendants of the pioneers whose lives are related, is apt to result in too great a redundancy of personal details without any historical bearing, and—what is worse—in an unconscious over-indulgence in genealo- gy. Now, we confess to great sympathy in all the adventures of Samuel Toughheart, who nobly struggled with the Indian, the wilder- ness, and starvation ; but we openly declare, without the slightest hesitation, that we can take no possible interest in learning that his LITERATURE AND ART. [May, third daughter, Jerusha, married Jabez Thompson, who was a merchant at Four Corners, and postmaster at that place seve- ral years ; that they left two sons, the eldest of whom, Habakkuk, married Jemima, the daughter of Seth Siles, etc., etc., etc., bring- ing the history of the family down to the present day. Avoid it, we pray you. The publishers have done their work ad- mirably, and produced a beautiful book, al- though their proof-reader should not have so lightly passed two or three such little mat- ters as “they encamped near the present sight of Farmer’s College” (p. 32). ITALIAN LITERATURE. THE attention devoted in the United States to the languages and literatures of France and Germany would appear to be nearly equally divided. And yet it is within very few years that this equality has been reached, for a comparatively general culti- vation of the French long preceded among us any study of the German. We have but to glance at the published courses of study in the various educational establishments throughout the country to appreciate this. Meantime, both of these languages have far distanced the Italian in our esteem, and so much indeed has the last been lost sight of, that many persons not unreasonably sup- pose its claims to be too meagre for assertion, We yield it all the credit it deserves as the most beautiful and musical of tongues, but apparently care not to be informed that it possesses merits of a more solid nature, Indeed, from the indifference manifested concerning its literature, we might be led to imagine it had none. “Criticism,” says the ‘ London and West- minster Review,” “is usually silent on the literature of Italy, or, if it speaks, mentions her only to repeat, in worn-out phrases, a feeble mockery of gratitude toward the country which first trod the path we all have followed.” , : More than twenty years ago an American scholar, in discussing the claims of the most important foreign literatures upon our atten- tion, presented those of the literature of Italy somewhat thus: It was the blaze of her genius that first broke the intellectual night of the dark ages, and the labors of her profound philologists that restored to light the buried literature of antiquity. Villani originated literary history, the philosopher of Pisa founded the present system of physics and astronomy, and Amalfi was the cradle
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LOI 1870. ] of jurisprudence. She rekindled, in short, the slumbering fires of civilization, and the names of her statesmen, her warriors, her poets, are among the brightest on the rolls of fame. Look back upon the literary annals of the now living nations. Contemplate the thou- sands and tens of thousands who have struggled for that most unattainable of earthly glories—universal reputation! Of them all, how many have reached it? The enumeration is short and easily made. England claims two, Shakespeare and Mil- ton; France two, Corneille and Racine ; Spain one, Cervantes ; Portugal one, Ca- moéns ; Italy four, Dante, Petrarch, Tasso, Ariosto. The voice of the present day, which upholds their claim to this high eminence, is the echo of bygone years ; and if it be true, as Chateaubriand asserts, that there are to be no more universal literary reputations, Italy might rest content with the trophies she has already won in the field of letters. In civil and political history, her writers have gained their greenest laurels, Greece produced but five great historians, Rome not so many; England, intellectually rich as she is, did not, a century ago, possess one wor- thy of being ranked with the first masters, while Italy already boasted of a Machiavelli, a Guicciardini, a Sarpi, a Davila, and a Ben- tivoglio—each a model. Nor is it of their own countrymen alone they have won the suffrages. Bolingbroke compares Davila with Livy, and accords to Guicciardini a higher rank than to Thucydides ; and Gib- bon says that Guicciardini, Macchiavelli, Sarpi, and Davila are justly reputed the first historians of modern Europe. The literature of any language may be safely challenged to produce an equal amount of beautifully-inspired lyric poetry as enriches the Italian. Here Italy is with- out a rival. Her favorite lyric bard is Fili- caja. He has quaffed deep draughts both of Helicon and of —— Siloa’s brook that flowed _ Fast by the oracle of Ged. He combines energy, sweetness, pathos; and more nearly than any poet—in our own tongue at least—approaches the language of inspiration. The fervid strain of patriotism in the fourth canto of “Childe Harold” is a nearly literal translation of one of his sonnets. Lord Byron thus renders it : Canto IV. Verse XLII. Italia, O Italia! thou who hast The fatal gift of beauty, which became A funeral dower of present woes and past, LITERATURE AND ART. 713 On thy sweet brow is sorrow ploughed by shame, And annals graved in characters of flame. O God, that thou wert in thy nakedness Less lovely or more. powerful, and couldst claim Thy right, and awe the robbers back who press To shed thy blood, and drink the tears of thy dis- tress ! XLII. Then might’st thou more appal; or, less desired, Be lonely and be peaceful, undeplored For thy destructive charms ; then, still untired, Would not be seen the armed torrents pour’d Down the deep Alps; nor would the hostile horde Of many-nationed spoilers from the Po Quaff blood and water; nor the stranger’s sword Be thy sad weapon of defence, and so, Victor or vanquished, thou the slave of friend or foe, Sonnet. By FIicaja, Italia, Italia, o tu cui feo la sorte Dono infelice di bellezza, ond’hai Funesta dote d’ infiniti guai Che in fronte scritti per grandoglia porte ; Deh fossi tu meu bella, o almen pit forie, Onde assai pit ti paventasse, 0 assai T’amasse meu chi del tuo bello ai rai Par che si strugga, e pur ti sfida a morte I Che or git dall’ Alpi non vedrei torrenti Scender d’armati, né di sangue tinta Bever |’onda del Po gallici armenti ; Né te vedrei, del non tuo ferro cinta, Pugnar col braccio di straniere genti, Per servir sempre o vincitrice o vinta. The Italian is the mother tongue of the poetry of Europe, and in it all nations have found imperishable models of excellence. The obligations to it of English literature in particular are neither slight nor few. Chaucer, who passed some time with Pe- trarch in Padua, has transfused much of the taste of Laura’s lover into his own “ poesie,” and several of the finest among his Canter- bury tales are taken from Boccaccio, The plots of many of Shakespeare’s plays, and in some cases whole scenes, as in “ All’s Well that Ends Well” and in “ Cymbeline,” | also come from the Italian. Henry How- ard, Earl of Surrey, released English poetry from the forms of the Middle Ages, and imi- tated Petrarch’s sonnets with such success that the taste for them became general. Spenser copied the form and _ spirit of their poetical compositions, as his “ Faery Queene” plainly shows. Wyatt and the Wartons acknowledge their obligations to the Italian. Dryden, too, has borrowed from Boccaccio. Who has not dwelt long and rapturously on the opening lines of Gray’s beautiful elegy? They are translated from a stanza of Dante. Milton owes much to Tasso and his brother poets, and expresses himself to that effect in several passages of _ his works. Byron, too, has freely scattered
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714 gems from Pulci, Berni, and Ariosto over his own luxuriant language. The belief that the Italian, with all its grace, is wanting either in conciseness or energy, is an erroneous one. It retains the vigor of the Latin inversions, with the further advantage of more licenses of contraction than any modern language admits of. Dante and Alfieri abound in passages of unsur- passed compactness, and, where description needs it, of grating harshness. In the opin- ion of Sismondi, Cesarotti’s poetic trans- lation of Ossian is superior to the English prose, and the Italian version of Tacitus— the most sententious of historians—is con- densed into ‘a smaller compass than the original, There is, moreover, in their scientific com- positions a vigor and chasteness equally re- moved from a fondness for flimsy hypothesis and the unprofitable repetition of mere facts. It displays constant elegance and ingenuity of an elevated cast, joined with rare per- severance in the combination of details. “ Nothing,” says Lord Brougham, “can be conceived more perfectly vigorous, and at the same time more simple and elegant, than the geometrical investigations of the Italian mathematicians.” The investigations left unfinished by New- ton have been pursued by the Italian phi- losophers with an ardor unsurpassed even by his talented successors in England. The works of Beccaria and of Comparetti con- tain discoveries and materials for discov- eries as important to those who follow them as was the great work of Grimaldi to Sir Isaac Newton himself. Benjamin Frank- lin had the works of Beccaria translated into English, and Priestley contended that the value of his labors in electricity far surpassed all that had been done before and after him. In the prosecution of her scientific inqui- ries Italy, like her neighbors, has availed herself of the mighty moral engine, asso- ciation. Florence, Rome, Bologna, Turin, Padua, Verona—all have their academies of science, whose researches and transactions are published at stated periods and at great expense. The memoirs of the Italian So- ciety of Verona form the most valuable col- lection among them, and they are frequently referred to by the English and French mathe- maticians as of high authority. Of the host of continental imitators who sprang up on the path struck out by Sir Walter Scott, Manzoni and Grossi are among the most distinguished. Nor have LITERATURE AND ART. [ May, they fallen short of their model in the at- tainment of a healthy, manly style. They have not Jabored to reproduce the sickening horrors that fill the ultra-romantic novels of which we have too many in English. Their characteristics, and that of the school of which they are the head, are a deep-rooted antipathy to the principle of aristocracy, an ardent patriotism, and a high moral tone, beautified and set forth in all the richness of their -musical language. Guerrazzi’s * Siege of Florence,” says an English critic, ‘has life enough for fifty novels, and poetry enough for five poems,” Pellico is the great modern dramatic poet of Italy. In 1820 his tragedy of ‘‘ Francesca da Rimini” had just been received with a frenzy of enthusiasm from the borders of the Alps to the shores of Sicily. He was laboring in concert with the aristocracy of national genius and learning, all sanguine in the success of their country’s social rein- statement. He was enjoying the friendship of Schlegel, of Monti, Foscolo, Byron, and Brougham. Imagine him thus, in the vigor of youth, in the first flush of fame, torn from friends, home, and country, and sen- tenced to endure under “the Leads” of Venice and in the dungeons of Spielberg that most dreadful of earthly calamities— hopeless solitary imprisonment. Surely, we might say, the victim of such tyranny, on breathing again the free air of heaven, with his foot on his “native heath,” would pour forth his eloquence in cries of malediction and vengeance against his oppressors! He has poured forth his eloquence; but ’tis that of a heart o’errunning with all that is mild- est, kindest, godliest in our nature. There are tears for his brethren in chains, prayers. for his jailers, forgiveness for his persecu- tors. In tones of subdued agony that re- semble the melancholy music of some im- prisoned bird, he recounts the sufferings, longings, hopes of his damp cell. There is no repining, no incoherent raving. They are the glowing outpourings of a soul ani- mated by all that is noble in patriotism, elevated in philosophy, most admirable in Christianity. Such is the book of Silvio Pellico., This enumeration has omittted many illus- trious names, such as Vico, “the greatest genius Italy has produced since the days of Dante and Michael Angelo,” says Gioberti, Filangieri, Pindemonte, Goldoni, and Ugo Foscolo, who from his writings on the Ital- ian classics during his many years’ residence
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1870. ] in England is better known to many English readers. Then, too, meriting mention are Cesari and Giordani at the head of the re- naissance of Italian prose. Manzoni is distinguished not only as a nov- elist, but as a lyric poet. His “ Il Cinque Maggio” (The Fifth of May, date of the death of Napoleon) is a grand specimen of poetic inspiration. Like Foscolo, Manzoni had never incensed the conqueror when in power, and now, standing before his bier, he could speak of him in accents of truth, despite a severe Austrian censorship. The circumstances under which this great ode was given to the public, living under a government where its publication was sim- ply impossible, are characteristic of the his- tory of the period. The terror still inspired by the name of Napoleon was such that, throughout all Austrian Italy, not a solitary picture or portrait of Napoleon could be found, and his magnificent statue by Canova was buried at Brera. At that time the cen- sorship required the deposit of two copies of every work to be published, one of which was to be returned with the zmprimatur in case permission to print was accorded, the ‘ other copy remaining for deposit in the ar- chives. This exaction was found extremely onerous, as in the case of a work of any length, the preparation of two manuscript copies was a matter of serious labor. Grad- ually the custom of accepting one copy was tacitly established. Deeply agitated on hearing the intelligence of Napoleon’s death, and under the excitement of inspiration, Manzoni completed the ode in two days. He knew perfectly well that permission to print it would be refused by the censorship, and made up his mind to secure its publica- tion through the censorship’s own refusal. Accordingly he made his application, care- fully filing with it ¢wo copies of the ode. The result was what he had foreseen. One copy was returned him with the inevitable refusal. The other, abstracted by some official em- ployee, copied, recopied, and multiplied, was within twenty-four hours spread all over Milan from the bureau of censorship, This ode is also associated with another interesting literary reminiscence. A few months after the events just related, Lamar- tine published an ode entitled “‘ Bonaparte,” closely resembling the ode of Manzoni, and containing the same number of stanzas, the same number of ideas, and many of the same ideas. This, of course, gave rise to vivacious commentary and criticism, as well in France LITERATURE AND ART. 715 as in Italy. Lamartine and his friends claimed the resemblance to be accidental. It may have been so, Leopardi, a contemporary of Manzoni, is fully his equal as a lyric poet. Out of two hundred pages of a volume of his poetry, it may be safely affirmed that there is nothing of mediocrity in it. Sainte-Beuve, who has translated several of his elegies with great success, places him in the same intellectual family with Byron and Shelley. What Vic- tor Hugo and Lamartine are to France, and Byron and Shelley to England, Manzoni and Leopardi are to Italy. To these two names the Italians add a third, that of Giuseppe Giusti. We pass without mention the names of at least a dozen other lyric poets of merit. The name of Goldoni, the Venetian Moliére, has come down to us accompanied by the traditional fame with which we are all famil- iar, and yet the name of his successor, his equal as a dramatist, his superior as a writer, is hardly known out of Italy. We refer to Alberto Nota. Manzoni was not, as is generally sup- posed, the first in Italy to introduce the his- torical novel. Bazzoni, of Milan, achieved quite a success with his “Il Castello di Trezz’o” and “ Falco della rupe.” But he forever disappeared the moment when, in 1827, Manzoni gave his “ Promessi Sposi” to the world. Its success in Europe was colossal, and the effect of this success upon Manzoni most singular. As though alarmed at the noise of his popularity, he modestly retired from the field, ceding the place to his friend Grossi, whose ‘** Marco Visconti” was thén nearly ready for publication. For an historical novel, the history predominated too powerfully, “ Marco Visconti” is really a very valuable essay on the historical Mi- lanese Middle Age. As a novel, it is a fail- ure; as an historical study, a great success. Among the modern historians, Italy pos- sesses writers of high merit, such as Vincenzo Coco, Botta, and Micali, author of a remark- able work—“ Italy before the domination of the Romans.” Colletta was a Neapolitan general in the army of Murat. Exiled in 1821, he occu- pied his leisure hours in writing that portion of the history of Naples which had passed under his own eyes. Having completed his work, he submitted it to the judgment of two friends, men of high literary fame, Giordani and Niccolini. The two came together, read the work, and when half through Giordani ex- claimed: “This soldier is a great writer and
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716 an eminent historian.” They encouraged Colletta to enlarge the scope of his work, and to write the entire history of the king- dom of Naples down to the reign of Murat. His history as first written and submitted to Giordani and Niccolini forms the eighth _ book of the entire work. Colletta labored many years upon it, but did not live to see it published. ‘ La Storia del reame di Napoli” is a classic work, and Colletta the greatest historian of modern Italy. Another creditable historical work is “Commentaries on the French Revolu- tion,” in fact, a history of modern Europe, by Lazzaro Papi, who is also known from his excellent translation of Milton’s “ Para- dise Lost.” Botta, as the continuator of Guicciardini has well recognized merit. Cesare Cantu, still an active writer, made his début in 1829 with a history of Como, highly praised by Manzoni. He has pro- duced numerous historical works of merit, among which his “ Life of Erasmus” is one of the best. Troya, a sort of incomplete Muratori, has left a work of great erudition in his ‘‘ History of the Barbarians.” Count ‘Balbo, his disciple, has surpassed his master in his “ Life of Dante” and his “ History of Italy under the Barbarians. An admirable historical novel is that of Ranieri, ‘‘ History of Italy from the Fifth to the Ninth Century.” The distinguished statesman, the Marquis Gino Capponi, contributed to his country’s literature an admirable historical essay en- titled “Letters on the Lombards,” which, for its erudition in matter and elegance in style, may be compared to Augustin Thier- ry’s “ Lettres sur !’Histoire de la France.” The history of the Italian Middie Ages has been admirably treated by Cibrario, Litta, Capecelatro, and Luigi Tosti. The volu- minous works of Tiraboschi and Ginguené, too large for most individual libraries, may be advantageously replaced by Emiliani Giudici’s “ History of Italian Literature.” We should like to dwell on Vannucci’s “History of Antique Italy.” It contains an unsurpassed picture of the decay and fall of the Roman Empire. Farini’s “ His- tory of the Roman States” has been trans- lated into English by Mr. Gladstone. As we approach the present period, we find the tide of authors swelling, and have LITERATURE AND ART. [ May. no room even for mention of the names of at least fifty writers in lyrical and dramatic poetry, antiquities, and modern politics who are entirely worthy of it. ! And now we come to a name to which not a few paragraphs, but entire chapters should in justice be devoted. In 1838, there was. comparative silence in the philosophical world. In Germany, the brilliant period of the Hegels and the Schellings was rapidly reaching its decline; the Scotch School, under Hamilton, simply held to the tra- ditions of Reid and Dugald Stewart; in France, the Eclectic system reigned without a rival; while in Italy, with the honorable exception of two learned men, Rosmini and Mammiani, the metaphysicians were still in- effectually struggling against the disastrous influence of Condillac and Destutt de Tracy, and the doctrine in vogue, that of Galluppi, was but little more than the substitution of mitigated for pure sezs7sm. Under these cir- cumstances, the apparition of the “ Teorica”’ of Gioberti was like a flash of lightning in a clear sky. In 1840, he followed with his “Introduction to the Study of Philosophy.” This was succeeded by a purely literary work, by many critics thought to be his finest, the “ Essay on the Beautiful.” The’ immense eruditon compressed into the bril- liant pages of this little work is almost in- credible. Itis as nearly as possible a perfect work. Few philosophers have possessed the varied and practical talents of Gioberti, In 1851, he completed his ‘Del Rinno- vamento civile d'Italia,” at once his polit- ical testament and the great work of his ripe maturity, which may be called “ The Bible of Count Cavour.” A remarkable passage in it is his admirable portrait of King Carlo Alberto, his former persecutor, who, in 1833, drove him into exile. There are more dramatic poets—among them Giacometti, whose tragedies we have seen rendered by Ristori—more lyric poets, and of novelists a legion; but we forbear. The breaking down of the political barri- *ers of Italy has greatly aided in the elevation of Italian prose to a uniform standard ; and from Italian talent we may yet confidently look for results even more brilliant than this century has thus far furnished.
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MEMORANDA. By MARK TWAIN, INTRODUCTORY. In taking upon myself the burden of edit- ing a department in THE GALAXY magazine, I have been actuated by a conviction that I was needed, almost imperatively, in this par- ticular field of literature. I have long felt that while the magazine literature of the day had much to recommend it, it yet lacked stability, solidity, weight. It seemed plain to me that too much space was given to po- etry and romance, and not enough to statis- tics and agriculture. This defect it shall be my earnest endeavor to remedy. If I suc- ceed, the simple consciousness that I have done a good deed will be a sufficient re- ward.* In this department of mine the public may always rely upon finding exhaustive statis- tical tables concerning the finances of the country, the ratio of births and deaths, the percentage of increase of population, etc., etc.—in a word, everything in the realm of statistics that can make existence bright and beautiful. | Also, in my department will always be found elaborate condensations of the Patent Office Reports, wherein a faithful endeavor will at all times be made to strip the nutri- tious facts bare of that effulgence of imagina- tion and sublimity of diction which too often mar the excellence of those great works.t In my department will always be found ample excerpts from those able dissertations upon Political Economy which I have for a long time been contributing to a great metro- politan journal, and which, for reasons ut- terly incomprehensible to me, another party has chosen to usurp the credit of composing. And, finally, I call attention with pride ito the fact that in my department of the magazine the farmer will always find full market reports, and also complete instruc- tions about farming, even from the grafting of the seed to the harrowing of the matured crop. I shall throw a pathos into the sub- ject of Agriculture that will surprise and delight the world. Such is my programme; and I am per- suaded that by adhering to it with fidelity I * Together with salary. + N. B.—No other magazine in the country makes a specialty of the Patent Office Reports. shall succeed in materially changing the character of this magazine. Therefore I am emboldened to ask the assistance and en- — couragement of all whose sympathies are with Progress and Reform. In the other departments of the magazine will be found poetry, tales, and other frothy trifles, and to these the reader can turn for relaxation from time to time, and thus guard against overstraining the powers of his mind. MARK TWAIN. P. S.—1. I have not sold out of the “ Buf- falo Express,” and shall not; neither shall I stop writing for it. This remark seems necessary in a business point of view. 2. These MEMORANDA are not a “ humor- ous” department. I would not conduct an exclusively and professedly humorous de- partment for any one. I would always pre- fer to have the privilege of printing a serious and sensible remark, in case one occurred to me, without the reader’s feeling obliged to consider himself outraged. We cannot keep the same mood day after day. I am liable, some day, to want to print my opinion on jurisprudence, or Homeric poetry, or inter- national law, and I shall doit. It will be of small consequence to me whether the reader survive or not. I shall never go straining after jokes when in a cheerless mood, so long as the unhackneyed subject of inter- national law is open to me. I will leave all that straining to people who edit professed- ly and inexorably “ humorous” departments and publications. 3. I have chosen the general title of Mrm- ORANDA for this department because it is plain and simple, and makes no fraudulent promises. I can print under it statistics, hotel arrivals, or anything that comes handy, without violating faith with the reader. 4. Puns cannot be allowed a place in this department. Inoffensive ignorance, benig-— nant stupidity, and unostentatious imbecil- ity will always be welcomed and cheerfully accorded a corner, and even the feeblest hu- mor will be admitted, when we can do no better ; but no circumstances, however dis- mal, will ever be considered a sufficient ex- cuse for the admission of that last and sad- dest evidence of intellectual poverty, the Pun. M. T.
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718 THE FACTS IN THE CASE OF THE GREAT BEEF CONTRACT. . IN as few words as possible I wish to lay before the nation what share, howsoever small, I have had in this matter—this mat- ter which has so exercised the public mind, engendered ‘so much ill-feeling, and so filled the newspapers of both continents with dis- torted statements and extravagant comments. The origin of this distressful thing was this—and I assert here that every fact in the following résumé can be amply proved by the official records of the General Govern- ment: John Wilson Mackenzie, of Rotterdam, Chemung county, New Jersey, deceased, contracted with the General Government, on or about the roth day of October, 1861, to furnish to General Sherman the sum total of thirty barrels of beef. Very well. He started after Sherman with the beef, but when he got to Washington Sherman had gone to Manassas ; so he took the beef and followed him there, but arrived too late ; he followed him to Nashville, and from Nash- ville to Chattanooga, and from Chattanooga to Atlanta—but he never could overtake him. At Atlanta he took a fresh start and followed him clear through his march to the sea. He arrived too late again by a few days, but hearing that Sherman was going out in the Quaker City excursion to the ‘Holy Land, he took shipping for Beirut, calculating to head off the other vessel. When he arrived in Jerusalem with his beef, he learned that Sherman had not sailed in the Quaker City, but had gone to the Plains to fight the Indians. He returned to Amer- ica and started for the Rocky Mountains, After eighteen days of arduous travel on the Plains, and when he had got within four miles of Sherman’s headquarters, he was tomahawked and scalped, and the Indians got the beef. They got all of it but one bar- rel, Sherman’s army captured that, and so, even in death, the bold navigator partly ful- filled his contract. In his will, which he had kept like a journal, he bequeathed the contract to his son Bartholomew W. Bar- tholomew W. made out the sassiNadee bill and then died: THE UnrTep STATES In acct. with JouN W1LSON MACKENZIE, of New Jersey, deceased, ‘To thirty barrels of beef for General Sherman, a$i0oo - - -- - 2s ee ec et 8 $3,000 “To travelling expenses and transportation- - 14,000 Total ---*e*- 2+ eee 28 © & $17,000 Rec’d Pay’t. MEMORANDA. [May, He died then; but he left the contract to Wm. J. Martin, who tried to collect it, but died defore he got through. /7 left it to Barker J. Allen, and he tried to collect it also. He did not survive. Barker J. Allen left it to Anson G. Rogers, who attempted to collect it, and got along as far as the Ninth Auditor’s office, when Death, the great Leveller, came all unsummoned, and foreclosed on Aim also. He left the bill to a relative of his in Connecticut, Vengeance Hopkins by name, who lasted four weeks and two days, and made the best time on record, coming within one of reaching the Twelfth Auditor. In his will he gave the contract bill to his uncle, by the name of O-be-joyful Johnson, It was too undermin- ing for Joyful. His last words were : ‘“*‘ Weep not for me—Z am willing to go.” And so he was, poor soul, Seven people inherited the contract after that. But they all died. So it came into my hands at last. It fell to me through a relative by the name of Hub- bard—Bethlehem Hubbard, of Indiana. He had had a grudge against me for a long time ; but in his last moments he sent for me, and forgave me everything, and weep- ing gave me the beef contract. This ends the history of it up to the time that I succeeded to the property. I will now endeavor to set myself straight before the nation in everything that concerns my share in the matter. I took this beef con- tract, and the bill for mileage and transporta- tion, to the President of the United States, He said: “Well, Sir, what can I do for you?” I said : * Sire : On or about the roth day of Octo- ber, 1861, John Wilson Mackenzie, of Rot- terdam, Chemung county, New Jersey, de- ceased, contracted with the General Govern- ment to furnish to General Sherman the sum total of thirty barrels of beef—” He stopped me there, and dismissed me from his presence—kindly, but firmly. The next day I called on the Secretary of State, He said : “ Well, Sir?” I said: “ Your Royal Highness: On or about the roth day of October, 1861, John Wilson Mackenzie, of Rotterdam, Chemung county, New Jersey, deceased, contracted with the General Government to furnish to General ‘Sherman the sum total of thirty barrels of beef—” : “That will do, Sir—that will do; this
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1870. ] office has nothing to do with contracts for beef.” I was bowed out. I thought the matter all over, and finally, the following day, I visited the Secretary of the Navy, who said, Speak quickly, Sir; do not keep me wait- ing.” I said: “Your Royal Highness : On or about the Ioth day of October, 1861, John Wilson Mackenzie, of Rotterdam, Chemung county, New Jersey, deceased, contracted with the General Government to furnish to General Sherman the sum total of thirty barrels of beef—” Well, it was as far as I could get. He had nothing to do with beef contracts for General Sherman either. I began to think it was a curious kind of a Government. It looked somewhat as if they wanted to get out of paying for that beef. The following day I went to the Secretary of the Interior. I said: “Your Imperial Highness: On or about the roth day of October—” “That is sufficient, Sir—I have heard of you before. Go—take your infamous beef contract out of this establishment. The In- terior Department has nothing whatever to do with subsistence for the army.” I went away. But I was exasperated now. I said I would haunt them; I would infest every department of this iniquitous Government till that contract business was settled ; I would collect that bill, or fall as fell my predecessors, trying. I assailed the Postmaster-General; I besieged the Agri- cultural Department ; I waylaid the Speaker of the House of Representatives. Zhey had nothing to do with army contracts for beef. I moved upon the Commissioner of the Patent Office. I said: “Your august Excellency: On or about 3 “ Perdition ! have you got here with your incendiary beef contract, at last? We have nothing to do with beef contracts for the army, my dear Sir.” “Oh, that is all very well—but some- body has got to pay for that beef. “It has got to be paid zow, too, or I'll confiscate this old Patent Office and everything in it.” “But, my dear Sir—” “It don’t make any difference, Sir. The Patent Office is liable for that beef, I reckon ; and liable or not liable, the Patent Office has got to pay for it.” Never mind the details. fight. The Patent Office won, It ended in a But I MEMORANDA. 719 found out something to my advantage. I was told that the Treasury Department was the proper place for me to goto. I-went there. I waited two hours and a half, and then I was admitted to the First Lord of the Treasury. I said: “ Most noble, grave and reverend Signor: On or about the roth day of October, 1861, John Wilson Macken—” . “That is sufficient, Sir. I have heard of you. Goto the First Auditor of the Trea- sury.” I did so. He sent me to the Second Au- ditor. The Second Auditor sent me to the Third, and the Third sent me to the First Comptroller of the Corn-Beef Division. This began to look like business. He ex- amined his books and all his loose papers, but found no minute of the beef contract, I went to the Second Comptroller of the Corn-Beef Division. He examined his books and his loose papers, but with no success, I was encouraged. During that week I got as far as the Sixth Comptroller in that di- vision ; the next week I got through the Claims Department; the third week I be- gan and completed the Mislaid Contracts Department, and got a foothold in the Dead Reckoning Department. I finished that in three days. There was only one place left for itnow. I laid siege to the Commissioner of Odds and Ends. To his clerk, rather—he was not there himself. There were sixteen beautiful young ladies in the room, writing in books, and there were seven well-favored young: clerks showing them how. The young women smiled up over their shoul- ders, and the clerks smiled back at them, and all went merry as a marriage bell. Two or three clerks that were reading the news- papers looked at me rather hard, but went on reading, and nobody said anything. How- ever, I had been used to this kind of alac- rity from Fourth-Assistant-Junior Clerks all through my eventful career, from the very day I entered the first office of the Corn-Beef Bureau clear till I passed out of the last one in the Dead Reckoning Divi- sion. Ihad got so accomplished by this time that I could stand on one foot from the mo- ment I entered an office till a clerk spoke to me, without changing more than two, or . maybe three times. So I stood there till I had changed four different times. Then I said to one of the clerks who was reading : “Tllustrious Vagrant, where is the Grand Turk?”
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720 “ What do. you mean, Sir? whom do you mean? Ifyou mean the Chief of the Bu- reau, he is out.” ** Will he visit the harem to-day ?” The young man glared upon me a while, and then went on reading his paper. But I knew the ways of those clerks. I knew I was safe, if he got through before another New York mail arrived. He only had two more papers left. After a while he finished them, and then he yawned, and asked me what I wanted. “Renowned and honored Imbecile : On or about—” ‘Vou are the beef contract man. me your papers.” He took them, and for a long time he ransacked his odds and ends. Finally he found the North-West Passage, as J re- garded it—he found the long-lost record of that beef contract—he found the rock upon which so many of my ancestors had split before they ever got to it. I was deeply moved. And yet I rejoiced—for I had sur- vived. I said with emotion, ‘Give it me. The Government will settle now.” He waved me back, and said there was some- thing yet to be done first. *‘ Where is this John Wilson Macken- zie?” said he. yn, Bg “ When did he die?” “ He didn’t die at all—he was killed.” ‘“c“ How ? » “'Tomahawked.” “ Who tomahawked him?” “ Why, an Indian, of course. You didn’t suppose it was a superintendent of a Sun- day school, did you?” “No. An Indian, was it?” “The same.” “ Name of the Indian?” “His name! JZ don’t know his name.” “ Must have his name. Who saw the tomahawking done ?” “T don’t know.” “ You were not present yourself then?” “ Which you can see by my hair. I was absent.” “Then how do you know that Macken- ie is dead?” “Because he certainly died at that time, and I have every reason to believe that he has been dead ever since. I mow he has, in fact.” “We must have proofs. the Indian?” ‘Of course not.” Give Have you got MEMORANDA. [May, “Well, you must get him. Have you got the tomahawk?” “T never thought of such a thing.” “You must get the tomahawk. You must produce the Indian and the tomahawk, If Mackenzie’s death can be proven by these, you can then go before the commis- sion appointed to audit claims, with some show of getting your bill under such head- way that your children may possibly live to receive the money and enjoy it. But that man’s death must be proven. However, I may as well tell you that the Government will never pay that transportation and those travelling expenses of the lamented Macken- zie. It may possibly pay for the barrel of beef that Sherman’s soldiers captured, if you can get a relief bill through Congress making an appropriation for that purpose ; but it will not pay for the twenty-nine bar- rels the Indians ate.” “Then there is only a hundred dollars due me, and ¢fat isn’t certain! After all Mackenzie’s travels in Europe, Asia, and America with that beef; after all his trials and tribulations and transportation; after the slaughter of all those innocents that tried to collect that bill! Young man, why didn’t the First Comptroller of the Corn- Beef Division tell me this?” “He didn’t know anything about the genuineness of your, claim.” “Why didn’t the Second tell me? why didn’t the Third? why didn’t all those divi- sions and departments tell me?” ‘“‘None of them knew. We do things by routine here. You have followed the rou- tine and found out what you wanted to know. It is the best way. It is the only way. It is very regular, and very slow, but it is very certain.” “Yes, certain death. It has been, to the most of our tribe. I begin to feel that I,. too, am called. Young man, you love the bright creature yonder with the gentle blue eyes and the steel pens behind her ears—I see it in your soft glances; you wish to marry her—but you are poor. Here, hold out your hand—here is the beef contract ; go, take her and be happy! Heaven bless you, my children!” This is all that I know about the great beef contract, that has created so much talk in the community. The clerk to whom I bequeathed it died. I know nothing fur- ther about the contract or any one connected with it. I only know that if a man lives long enough, he can trace a thing through the
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1870. | Circumlocution Office of Washington, and find out, after much labor and trouble and delay, that which he could have found out on the first day if the business of the Circumlocution Office were as ingeniously systematized as it would be if it were a great private mercantile institution. GEORGE WAKEMAN. THE closing days of March saw the fin- ishing of a busy and useful life and a prom- ising career, in that they witnessed the death of the journalist whose name stands at the head of these remarks. Mr. Wakeman was talented and versatile, and was blessed with a diligence so persistent that it was itself a high talent. He worked very hard, and in various fields of labor; but whatever his deft hand and his fertile brain undertook to do, they did well. Whether it was to stand in a jostling crowd at night and take down a wild political harangue in short-hand on his shirt-collar and his wristbands ; or make a response to a toast at a social gathering ; or report stenographically, write out, and telegraph a four-column speech, all in the space of six hours ; or pen a pleasant maga- zine article or an odd newspaper sketch ; or dash off a dozen graceful chapters of fash- ion gossip to let a lady journalist take a holi- day—the result was the same in every case: the work was done we//. Mr. Wakeman’s first magazine article was written for THE GALAxy—“ Torturing the Alphabet ”’—and it was so generally liked and so widely copied that it made his name extensively known at once. He afterwards wrote articles for all the leading literary pa- pers and periodicals of the day. Yet he was always at his post, and ready to move ata moment’s notice when a stenographic report of a speech or a meeting was required for the “‘ World’s ” columns. He would have continued to contribute to THE GALAXY had he lived, and it was pur- posed that his humor should enrich and his fancy grace this department of the magazine especially. George Wakeman had in his fine nature that persuasive goodness and gentleness that win not simply the esteem but the love of all who come within their influence ; and he had likewise that unwavering fidelity to his friend- ships which retains the love so garnered while life lasts. It is hard for most of us to comprehend how a man can be beloved by every creature who knows him—the good MEMORANDA. 721 and the bad, the high and the low, the rich and the poor, the proud and prosperous, and the humble and helpless—but he éxperienced it all his days, and to him it was no mystery. One journalist, in speaking of this, finely says, “His enemies were never born.” For years no writer’s death has called forth such loving things as were sown _ broadcast through the newspapers concerning George Wakeman. The Legislature of the State (he was official reporter of the House) took public notice of his death, and adopted reso- lutions which testified to his high worth and the great and warm regard in which he was held. Let me add my earnest tribute to the grand sum of regret which makes this death conspicuous in that it is manifestly so singu- larly sincerely, and profoundly mourned, ABOUT SMELLS. IN a recent issue of the “ Independent,” the Rev. T. De Witt Talmage, of Brooklyn, has the following utterance on the subject of “Smells”: I have a good Christian friend who, if he sat in the front pew in church, and a working man should enter the door at the other end, would smell him instantly. My friend is not to blame for the sensitiveness of his nose, any more than you would flog a pointer for be- ing keener on the scent than a stupid watch-dog. The fact is, if you had all the churches free, by reason of the mixing up of the common people with the uncom- mon, you would keep one-half of Christendom sick at their stomach. If you are going to kill the church thus with bad smells, I will have nothing to do with this work of evangelization. We have reason to believe that there will be laboring men in heaven ; and also a num- ber of negroes, and Esquimaux, and Terra del Fuegans, and Arabs, and a few Indians, and possibly even some Spaniards and Por- tuguese. All things are possible with God. We shall have all these sorts of people in heaven ; but, alas! in getting them we shall lose the society of Dr. Talmage. Which is to say, we shall lose the company of one who could give more real “tone” to celes- tial society than any other contribution Brooklyn could furnish. And what would eternal happiness be without the Doctor?» Blissful, unquestionably—we know. that well enough—but would it be déstingué, would it be vrecherché without him? St. Matthew without stockings or sandals; St. Jerome bareheaded, and with a coarse brown blan- ket robe dragging the ground ; St. Sebastian with scarcely any raiment at all—these we should see, and should enjoy seeing them ; but would we not miss a spike-tailed coat
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722 and kids, and turn away regretfully, and say to parties from the Orient: ‘* These are well enough, but you ought to see Talmage of Brooklyn.” I fear me that in the better world we shall not even have Dr. Tal- mage’s “good Christian friend.” For if he were sitting under the glory of the Throne, and the keeper of the keys admit- ted a Benjamin Franklin or other laboring man, that “friend,” with his fine natural powers infinitely augmented by emancipa- tion from hampering flesh, would detect him with a single sniff, and immediately take his hat and ask to be excused. To all outward seeming, the Rev. T. De Witt Talmage is of the same material as that used in the construction of his early predecessors in the ministry; and yet one feels that there must be a difference some- where between him and the Saviour’s first disciples. It may be because here, in the nineteenth century, Dr. T. has had advan- tages which Paul and Peter and the others could not and did not have. There was a lack of polish about them, and a looseness of etiquette, and a want of exclusiveness, which one cannot help noticing. They healed the very beggars, and held inter- course with people of a villanous odor every day, If the subject of these remarks _ had been chosen among the original Twelve Apostles, he would not have associated with the rest, because he could not have stood the fishy smell of some of his comrades who came from around the Sea of Galilee. He would have resigned his commission with some such remark as he makes in the extract quoted above; “ Master, if thou art going to kill the church thus with bad smells, I will have nothing to do with this work of evangelization.” He is a disciple, and makes that remark to the Master; the only difference is, that he makes it in the nineteenth instead of the first century. Is there a choir in Mr. T.’s church? And does it ever occur that they have no better manners than to sing that hymn which is so suggestive of laborers and mechanics : ** Son of the Carpenter! receive This humble work of mine?” Now, can it be possible that in a handful of centuries the Christian character has fallen away from an imposing heroism that scorned even the stake, the cross, and the axe, to a poor little effeminacy that withers and wilts under an unsavory smell? We are not prepared to believe so, the reverend “MEMORANDA. [May, Doctor and his friend to the contrary nots withstanding. DISGRACEFUL PERSECUTION OF A BOY, IN San Francisco, the other day, ‘a well- dressed boy, on his way to Sunday school, was arrested and thrown into the city pris- on for stoning Chinamen.” What a com- mentary is this upon human justice! What sad prominence it gives to our human dispo- sition to tyrannize over the weak! San Francisco has little right to take credit to herself for her treatment of this poor boy. What had the child’s education been? How should he suppose it was wrong to stone a Chinaman? Before we side against him, along with outraged San Francisco, let us give him a chance—let us hear the testimony for the defence. He was a “ well-dressed” boy, and a Sunday-school scholar, and, therefore, the chances are that his parents were intelligent, well-to-do people, with just enough natural villany in their compositions to make them yearn after the daily papers, and enjoy them ; and so this boy had oppor- tunities to learn all through the week how to do right, as well as on Sunday. It was in this way that he found out that the great commonwealth of California imposes an unlawful mining tax upon John the foreign- er, and allows Patrick the foreigner to dig gold for nothing—probably because the de- graded Mongol is at no expense for whiskey, and the refined Celt cannot exist without it. It was in this way that he found out that a respectable number of the tax-gatherers—it would be unkind to say all of them—collect the t&x twice, instead of once ; and that, in- asmuch as they do it solely to discourage Chinese immigration into the mines, it is a thing that is much applauded, and likewise regarded as being singularly facetious. It was in this way that he found out that when a white man robs a sluice-box (by the term white man is meant Spaniards, Mexicans, Portuguese, Irish, Hondurans, Peruvians, Chileans, etc., etc.), they make him leave the camp ; and when a Chinaman does that thing, they hang him. It was in this way that he found out that in many districts of the vast Pacific coast, so strong is the wild, free love of justice in the hearts of the peo- ple, that whenever any secret and mysterious crime is committed, they say, “ Let justice be done, though the heavens fall,” and go straightway and swing a Chinaman, It was in this way that he found out that by
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1870.] studying one half of each day’s “local items” it would appear that the police of San Fran- cisco were either asleep or dead, and by studying the other half it would seem that the reporters were gone mad with admiration of the energy, the virtue, the high effective- ness, and the dare-devil intrepidity of that very police—making exultant mention of how “the Argus-eyed officer So-and-so” cap- tured a wretched knave of a Chinaman who was stealing chickens, and brought him gloriously to the city prison ; and how “the gallant officer Such-and-such-a-one ” quietly kept an eye on the movements of an “‘ unsus- pecting almond-eyed son of Confucius” (your reporter is nothing if not facetious), following him around with that far-off look of vacancy and unconsciousness always so finely affected by that inscrutable being, the forty-dollar policeman, during a waking in- terval, and captured him at last in the very act of placing his hands in a suspicious manner upon a paper of tacks left by the owner in an exposed situation; and how one officer performed this prodigious thing, and another officer that, and another the other—and pretty much every one of these performances having for a dazzling central incident a Chinaman guilty of a shilling’s worth of crime, an unfortunate whose mis- denieanor must be hurrahed into something enormous in order to keep the public from noticing how many really important rascals went uncaptured in the mean time, and how overrated those glorified policemen actually are. It was in this way that the boy found out that the Legislature, being aware that the Constitution has made America an asylum for the poor and the oppressed of all na- tions, and that therefore the poor and op- pressed who fly to our shelter must not be charged a disabling admission fee, made a law that every Chinaman, upon landing, must be vaccinated upon the wharf, and pay to the State’s appointed officer ¢ex dollars for the service, when there are plenty of doctors in San Francisco who would be glad enough to do it for him for fifty cents. It was in this way that the boy found out that a Chi- naman had no rights that any man was bound to respect; that he had no sorrows that any man was bound to pity; that nei- ther his life nor his liberty was worth the purchase of a penny when a white man needed a scapegoat; that nobody loved Chinamen, nobody befriended them, nobody spared them suffering when it was conve- nient to inflict it; everybody, individuals, MEMORANDA. 723 communities, the majesty of the State itself, joined in hating, abusing, and persecuting these humble strangers. And, therefore, what could have been more natural than for this sunny-hearted boy, tripping along to Sunday school, with his mind teeming with freshly-learned incentives to high and virtuous action, to say to himself: “ Ah, there goes a Chinaman ! not love me if I do not stone him.” And for this he was arrested and put in the city jail. Everything conspired to teach him that it was a high and holy thing to stone a Chinaman, and yet he no sooner at- tempts to do his duty than he is punished for it—he, poor chap, who has been aware all his life that one of the principal recrea- tions of the police, out toward the Gold Re- finery, was to look on with tranquil enjoy- ment while the butchers of Brannan, street set their dogs on unoffending Chinamen, and make them flee for their lives.* Keeping in mind the tuition in the hu- manities which the entire “ Pacific coast” gives its youth, there is a very sublimity of grotesqueness in the virtuous flourish with which the good city fathers of San Fran- cisco proclaim (as they have lately done) that “The police are positively ordered to arrest all boys, of every description and God will ‘wherever found, who engage in assaulting Chinamen.” Still, let us be truly glad they have made the order, notwithstanding its promi- nent inconsistency ; and let us rest perfectly confident the police are glad, too. Because there is no personal peril in arresting boys, provided they be of the small kind, and the reporters will have to laud their perform- ances just as loyally as ever, or go without items. The new form for local items in San Francisco will now be: “The ever vigilant and efficient officer So-and-So succeeded, yesterday afternoon, in arresting Master Tommy Jones, after a determined resist- ance,” etc., etc., followed by the customary * I have many such memories in my mind, but am thinking just at present of one particular one, where the Brannan street butchers set their dogs on a Chinaman who was quietly passing with a basket of clothes on his head; and while the dogs mutilated his flesh, a butcher increased the hilarity of the occa- sion by knocking some of the Chinaman’s teeth down his throat with half a brick. This incident sticks in my memory with a more malevolent tenacity, perhaps, on account of the fact that I was in the employ of a San Francisco journal at the time, and was not al- lowed to publish it because it might offend some of the peculiar element that subscribed for the paper.— EpiTror MEMORANDA.
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724 statistics and final hurrah, with its uncon- scious sarcasm: “ We are. happy in being able to state that this is the forty-seventh boy arrested by this gallant officer since the _ new ordinance went into effect. The most extraordinary activity prevails in the police department. Nothing like it has been seen since we can remember.” THE STORY OF THE GOOD LITTLE BOY WHO DID NOT PROSPER. [The following has been written at the instance of several literary friends, who thought that if the his- tory of “‘ The Bad Little Boy who Did not Come to Grief” (a moral sketch which I published five or six years ago) was worthy of preservation several weeks in print, a fair and unprejudiced companion-piece to it would deserve asimilar immortality.—EpITOR MEMORANDA. ] ONCE there was a good little boy by the name of Jacob Blivens, He always obeyed his parents, no matter how absurd and un- reasonable their demands were ; and he al- ways learned his book, and never was late at Sabbath school. He would not play hookey, even when his sober judgment told him it was the most profitable thing he could. do. None of the other boys could ever make that boy out, he acted so strange- ly. He wouldn’t lie, no matter how con- venient it was. He just said it was wrong to lie, and that was sufficient for him. And he was so honest that he was simply ridicu- lous. ‘The curious ways that that Jacob had surpassed everything. He wouldn’t play marbles on Sunday, he wouldn’t rob birds’ nests, he wouldn’t give hot pennies to organ- grinders’ monkeys ; he didn’t seem to take any interest in any kind of rational amuse- ment. So the other boys used to try to rea- son it out and come to an understanding of him, but they couldn’t arrive at any satis- factory conclusion; as I said before, they could only figure out a sort of vague idea that he was “afflicted,” and so they took him under their protection, and never al- lowed any harm to come to him. This good little boy read all the Sunday- school books; they were his greatest de- light. This wasthe whole secret of it. He believed in the good little boys they put in the Sunday-school books ; he had every confidence in them. He longed to come across one of them alive, once ; but he nev- er did. They all died before his time, maybe. Whenever he read about a particularly good one, he turned over quickly to the end to see what became of him, because he wanted to travel thousands of miles MEMORANDA. [May, and gaze on him; but it wasn’t any use; that good little boy always died in the last chapter, and there was a picture of the funeral, with all his relations and the Sun- day-school children standing around the grave in pantaloons that were too short, and bonnets that were too large, and everybody crying into handkerchiefs that had as much as a yard and a half of stuff in them. He was always headed off in this way. He never could see one of those good little boys, on account of his always dying in the last chapter. Jacob had a noble ambition to be put in a, Sunday-school book. He wanted to be put in, with pictures representing him glori- ously declining to lie to his mother, and she weeping for joy about it; and pictures rep- resenting him standing on the doorstep giving a penny to a poor beggar-woman with six children, and telling her to spend it freely, but not to be extravagant, because extravagance is a sin; and pictures of him magnanimously refusing to tell on the bad boy who always lay in wait for him around the corner, as he came from school, and welted him over the head with a lath, and then chased him home, saying “ Hi! hi!” as he proceeded. That was the ambition of young Jacob Blivens. He wished to be put in a Sunday-school book. It made him feel a little uncomfortable sometimes when he reflected that the good little boys always died. He loved to live, you know, and this was the most unpleasant feature about be- ing a Sunday-school-book boy. He knew it was not healthy to be good. He knew it was more fatal than consumption to be so supernaturally good as the boys in the books were ; he knew that none of them had ever been able to stand it long, and ‘it pained him to-think that if they put him in a book he wouldn’t ever see it, or even if they did get the book out before he died, it wouldn’t be popular without any picture of his funeral in the back part of it. It couldn’t be much of a Sunday-school book that couldn’t tell about the advice he gave to the community , when he was dying. So, at last, of course he had to make up his mind to do the best he could under the circumstances—to live right, and hang on as long as he could, and have his dying speech all ready when his time came. But somehow, nothing ever went right with this good little boy; nothing ever turned out with him the way it turned out with the good little boys in the books
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1870. | They always had a good time, and the bad boys had the broken legs; but in his case there was a screw loose somewhere, and it all happened just the other way. When he found Jim Blake stealing apples, and went under the tree to read to him about the bad little boy who fell out of a neighbor’s apple tree, and broke his arm, Jim fell out of the tree too, but he fell on Az, and broke his -arm, and Jim wasn’t hurt at all. Jacob couldn’t understand that. There wasn’t anything in the books like it. -And once, when some bad boys pushed a blind man over in the mud, and Jacob ran to help him up and receive his blessing, the blind man did not give him any blessing at all, but whacked him over the head with his stick and said he would like to catch him shoving Azm again and then pretending to help him up. This was not in accordance with any of the books, Ja- cob looked them all over to see. One thing that Jacob wanted to do was to find a lame dog that hadn’t any place to stay, and was hungry and persecuted, and bring him home and pet him and have that dog’s imperishable gratitude. And at last he found one, and was happy; and he brought him home and fed him, but when he was going to pet him the dog flew at him and tore all the clothes off him except those that were in front, and made a specta- cle of him that was astonishing. He ex- amined authorities, but he could not under- stand the matter. It was of the same breed of dogs that was in the books, but it acted very differently. Whatever this boy did, he got into trouble. The very things the boys in the books got rewarded for turned out to be about the most unprofitable things he could invest in. Once when he was on his way to Sunday school he saw some bad boys starting off pleasuring in a sail-boat. He was filled with consternation, because he knew from his reading that boys who went sailing on Sunday invariably got drowned. So he ran out on a raft to warn them, but a log turned with him and slid him into the river. A man got him out pretty soon, and the doctor pumped the water out of him and gave him a fresh start with his bellows, but he caught cold and lay sick abed nine weeks. But the most unaccountable thing about it was that the bad boys in the boat had a good time all day, and then reached home alive and well, in the most surprising manner. Jacob Blivens said there was nothing like these MEMORANDA. 725 things in the books. He was_ perfectly dumbfounded. When he got well he was a little discoure | aged, but he resolved to keep on trying, any- how. He knew that so far his experiences wouldn’t do to go in a book, but he hadn’t yet reached the allotted term of life for good - little boys, and he hoped to be able to make a record yet, if he could hold on till his time was fully up. If everything else failed, he had his dying speech to fall back on. He examined his authorities, and found that it was now time for him to go to sea as a cabin boy. He called on a ship captain and made his application, and when the captain asked for his recommendations he proudly drew out a tract and pointed to the words: “To Jacob Blivens, from his affec- - tionate teacher.” But the captain was a coarse, vulgar man, and he said, ‘ Oh, that be blowed! ¢Aat wasn’t any proof that he knew how to wash dishes or handle a slush-bucket, and he guessed he didn’t want him.” This was altogether the most extraordinary thing | that ever had happened to Jacob in all his life. A compliment from a teacher, on a tract, had never failed to move the tenderest emotions of ship captains and open the way to all offices of honor and profit in their gift —it never had in any book that ever he had read. He could hardly believe his senses. This boy always had a hard time of it. Nothing ever came out according to the au- thorities with him. At last, one day, when he was around hunting up bad little boys to admonish, he found a lot of them in the old iron foundry fixing up a little joke on four- teen or fifteen dogs, which they had tied together in long procession and were going to ornament with empty nitro-glycerine cans made fast to their tails. Jacob’s heart was touched. He sat down on one of those cans—for he never minded grease when duty was before him—and he took hold of the foremost dog by the collar, and turned his reproving eye upon wicked Tom Jones. ‘But just at that moment Alderman McWel- ter, full of wrath, stepped in. All the bad boys ran away; but Jacob Blivens rose in conscious innocence and began one of those stately little Sunday-school-book speeches which always commence with “Oh, Sir!” in dead opposition to the fact that no boy, good or bad, ever starts a remark with “Oh, Sir!” But the Alderman never waited to hear the rest. He took Jacob Blivens by the ear and turned him around, and hit him a whack in the rear with the flat of his hand; and in an
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726 instant that good little boy shot out through the roof and soared away toward the sun, with the fragments of those fifteen dogs stringing after him like the tail of a kite. And there wasn’t a sign of that Alderman or that old iron foundry left on the face of the earth; and as for young Jacob Blivens, he never got a chance to make his last dying speech after all his trouble fixing it up, un- less he made it to the birds; because, al- though the bulk of him came down all right in a tree-top in an adjoining county, the rest of him was apportioned around among four _ townships, and so they had to hold five in- quests on him to find out whether he was . dead or net, and how it occurred. You never saw a boy scattered so.* Thus perished the good little boy who did the best he could, but didn’t come out ac- cording to the books. Every boy who ever did as he did prospered, except him, His case is truly remarkable. It will probably never be accounted for. THE aged Professor Silliman toox tne homely-looking specimen of New Jersey coal, and said he would make a test and de- termine its quality. The next day the own- ers of the grand discovery waited on him again, eager to hear the verdict which was to make or mar their fortunes. The Pro- fessor said, with that impressive solemnity which always marked his manner : “Gentlemen, I understand you to say that this property is situated upon a hill-top— consequently the situation is prominent. It is valuable—immensely valuable—though as -acoal mine I am obliged to observe that it is a failure. Fence it in, gentlemen—fence it in, and hold to it through good and evil fortune till the Last Day; for I am con- vinced that it will be the best point from which to view the sublime spectacle of the final conflagration. I feel satisfied that if any part of the earth shall remain uninjured after that awful fire, it will be this coal mine of yours!” “Just about the close of that long, hard winter,” said the Sunday-school superinten- dent, “as I was wending toward my duties * This catastrophe is borrowed (without the un- known but most ingenious owner’s permission) from a stray newspaper item, and trimmed up and altered to fit Jacob Blivens, who stood. sadly in need of a doom that would send him out of the world with écla¢ -—Eprror MEMORANDA. MEMORANDA, [May, one brilliant Sabbath morning, I glanced down toward the levee, and there lay the City of Hartford!—no mistake about it, there she was, puffing and panting, after her long pilgrimage through the ice. A glad sight? Well, I should say so! And then came a pang, right away, because I should have to instruct empty benches, sure; the youngsters would all be off welcoming the first steamboat of the season, You can imagine how surprised I was when I opened the door and saw half the benches full! My gratitude was free, large, and sincere. I re- solved that they should not find me unap- preciative, I said: *** Boys, you cannot think how proud it makes me to see you here, nor what re- newed assurance it gives me of your affec- tion. I confess that I said to myself, as I came along and saw that the City of Hart- ford was in—’ “* No! but ts she, though !” “ And, as quick as any flash of lightning, I stood in the presence of empty benches ! I had brought them the news myself.” A JOURNAL has at Jast been found which excuses the inhumanity of Captain Eyre. It is the Toronto “Globe.” It even says the Oneida ran into the Bombay—which she doubtless did, if she was on her way to America stern foremost. There are some natures which never grow large enough to speak out and say a bad act ¢s a bad act, until they have inquired into the politics or the nationality of the man who did it. And they are not really scarce, either. Cain is branded a murderer so heartily and unani- mously in America, only because he was neither a Democrat nora Republican. The Feejee Islander’s abuse of Cain ceased very suddenly when the white man mentioned casually that Cain was a Feejee Islander. The next remark of the savage, after an awkward pause, was: “Well, what did Abel come fooling around there for?” IT is stated with a show of authority, that diamond engagement-rings are rapidly going out of fashion, and emeralds, opals, or pearls taking their place. It is an excellent move, and one which should meet with hearty sym- pathy. If the idea be followed up faithfully to its extremest capabilities, matrimony will be brought within the reach of all.
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een chee in 08 Sa — CONCERNING a passage in Lowell’s “Among my Books,” and a notice of it in THE GALAXY, a controversy lately arose in a certain literary circle; and as the con- troversy involves an artistic principle, it is worth mention here. The critic in THE GALAXY, complaining gently of Mr. Lowell’s “little occasional pedantries of style,” gives as an illustration the passage in one of the recently published essays alluding to “a lucky throw of words which may come up the sices of hardy metaphor or the absace of conceit.” In vindication of this passage, and of the famous “ decuman” line in ‘ The Cathedral,” and similar expressions, the champions @ /’outrance of Mr. Lowell’s style say that in every such case there is a dis- tinct, coherent, genuine meaning and thought in the words, and that the reader has no right to complain if his knowledge of Eng- lish is not rich enough to enable him to keep closely up with the author. Mr. Lowell is, as we all know, a man of the most varied acquirements ; he understands the phraseol- ogy of all manner of games of skill as well as he does the language of Chaucer ; and it is quite open to him, say his champions, to draw his metaphors, as in the case of the “‘sices ” and they absace,” from the techni- calities of the gamester. Then arises the question—How far is a poet or essayist war- ranted in carrying Out this principle? When does such a practice cease to be legitimate artistic freedom, and become pedantry and conceit? May an author draw his phrases and metaphors from any and every special field of study which he has cultivated? May Oliver Wendell Holmes thus compel us to follow him into the technicalities of surgery, and William Morris use up his knowledge of decorative upholstery, and Bryant give his readers all manner of puzzling metaphors drawn from the jargon of the editorial room and the printing office, and Mrs. Stowe expect her mascuhue readers to follow her if she chooses to revel in metaphorical illus- tration drawn from the mystery of house- keeping andthe toilet? . If this be legiti- mate, nothing short of universal knowledge will enable a reader to be sure of keeping up with the meaning of the literature of his time, We think, however, that pedantry 47 ) gs 301 Pera eat as precisely consists in the adoption of some special or technical jargon not actually need- ed for the expression of the author’s mean- ing, and not likely to come within the gene- ral knowledge of the cultivated reader., Ev- erything is lawful in literature which is ne- cessary ; but it is very seldom necessary to indulge in what we may call a technical metaphor. It is quite true that there is high example for the practice. Dryden was very fond of thus airing any little scrap of technical knowledge he might have picked up, and Jean Paul Richter runs riot in variety of illustration drawn from botany, chemistry, physiology, handicraft, and so forth. But this is Dryden’s occasional weakness, and Jean Paul’s gravest and most damaging; de- fect. Lowell has one of the clearest in- tellects in the world, and can write a pure, nervous, and noble Saxon English, We cannot afford to allow him to fall even for a moment into the ways of the euphuists and the précieuses. — WE have lately heard an anecdote so charming that, albeit it is a little personal and not very new, we cannot resist the temp- tation to print it, especially as it is true. In this our city of New York is acertain public institution founded and maintained by the benevolence of a private citizen. Some few years ago there came to New York on a tour a foreign prince of renowned name, who brought with him as one of his. sudfe a literary man who is smart and cynical, and who is the son of one of the greatest women known to the literature of our day, or indeed of any day. A New York lady assists in showing the distinguished party over the building. The prince asks many intelligent questions, and looks through his eyeglass carefully at everything ; the young literary man in his suze is evidently rather bored. At last, having heard how many francs the build- ing cost, the literary man becomes interested, and begins to demand particulars, which are duly given, “And Monsieur the founder. gave all that money?” he asks of the New York lady. “Yes, certainly.” “Then how many francs a year does it bring him in?” “Not one franc—nothing at all.” “That old gentleman gave all that money away and gets
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728 nothing in return?” “Not a centime!” The literary man shrugs his shoulders, turns tohis chiefand murmurs : “ Mats, mon prince, guel imbécile that old man, and what fools these Americans must be!” — THEY are “ pushing things ” in London with amazing vigor towards an equality of man and woman. We are tame and slow indeed on this side the ocean when com- pared with the reformers on that side. For instance, they have now a Radical Club in London which meets once a week or so, for the free and full discussion of some of the gravest questions concerning man’s life and destiny, and ladies as well as gentlemen are invited to take part in the debates. Lord and Lady Amberley are, we have heard, members of the club. Lately the discus- sions have turned upon the possibility of eradicating, by legal or moral measures, or both combined, one of the most cruel and crying sins and shames of our civilization, and we are told that the philosophers of both sexes are to discuss this subject together. Well, we don’t venture to pass any hasty opinion, This may be a right thing to do; it may be necessary, and therefore proper ; and we are quite certain that it is done for the very best. But we should not wonder if some of the slower people in London thought the world must really be coming to .an end when such things can be. We are not squeamish, but we do confess that the idea of this extraordinary council and con- sultation of the philosophers in pantaloons ‘and the philosophers in petticoats on such ‘a subject does startle us not a little. In the name of the Prophet, what next—and next? Is it really then regarded as a possibility that all» the influences and effects arising from difference of sex are but superficial, and ean be eliminated and got rid of just by philosophy and habitude? Evidently some people think so; and perhaps the experi- ment is worth trying. We are glad it is be- ling tested in England first. Let us not try lit'here until we are perfectly certain that it has ‘been completely successful there. We may-seem a little slow, but we can make up for our present tardiness by wonderful rapidity of progress hereafter if we are sat- isfied ‘that the London philosophers are in the right, and that among the scientific and the earnest there is no such thing as sex, _ We often hear of somebody who boasts or whose friends boast for him, that he NEBULA. [May, speaks a foreign language like a native, is constantly mistaken for a native, and so forth. A writer in one of our weekly papers lately spoke of Mr. Burlingame as having been commended for his knowledge of Chinese dialects, whereas we are assured that Mr. Burlingame knew nothing of Chi- nese, and always required the presence of an interpreter. That, however, only prompts us to ask the question whether the sort of personage of whom we spoke in the open- ing line of this paragraph does anywhere or ever did exist? We want to be convinced of the existence of the American or English- man who speaks a foreign language “like a native,” or is ever mistaken in Paris or Florence for a Frenchman or an Italian. We have one method at least of testing the probability of such a phenomenon. Which of us evex met any foreigner, however ac- complished, who spoke English in such a manner as to be mistaken for an English- man or an American? Of course, we are not speaking of a “foreigner” who was brought to this country or England when an infant and has lived here all his life. //e is practically no foreigner at all ; our tongue is his habitual tongue. But a genuine for- eigner—did you ever meet any such who could speak English so well that you did not discover his foreign origin? Kossuth was a master of language; the study of English was a passion with him; and yet after ten years of residence in England he could not utter one sentence which did not at once re- veal him as a foreigner. Louis Blanc has lived more than twenty years in England ; he can write and speak the language with per- fect fluency and grammatical precision ; but no one ever did or will mistake him for an Englishman. Almost in every sentence he uses some little unidiomatic word or phrase which would betray him if he cared to con- ceal his nationality. Fechter has been ten years in England, and probably no man liv- ing has made greater efforts to obtain per- fect mastery of the language; and we all know whether he has succeeded. The Rus- sians have the best gift of tongues, but we never met a Russian whom we could mis- take for an Englishman. The late Alexan- der Herzen, who lived many years in Lon- don, could hardly speak any English. Now, Sir, or Madame, or Miss, who, having spent a season or two in Paris or Dresden, are pleased to believe that you speak French or German like a native, be kind enough to tell us why you think you have accomplished in 5
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1870.]} that time a feat which Kossuth and Fechter could not accomplish in ten, nor Louis Blanc in twenty years? You don’t actually think that you are so very much more clev- er and capable than Kossuth and Fechter and Louis Blanc? Besides, you can’t get over the accent. Parisians profess to find the foreign twang of the Emperor Napoleon III. quite obvious and /renoucé, and the great Napoleon never learned to speak French like a Frenchman, — IN one of Boucicault’s comedies an old joke is introduced, and never fails to raise a laugh. An Irishman, arraigned on some charge or other, is asked whether he pleads “‘ Guilty or Not guilty,” and answers by ask- ing, “ How could I know, your honor, till I, have heard the evidence?” It seems very. funny and absurd doubtless, but after all how caz aman know sometimes whether he is guilty or not guilty until he has heard the evidence? How can we fairly judge of any of our own actions, until we know what other people think of them? Many aman is quite convinced that he has justice and right on his side, that invevery step of some particular transaction he has. acted wisely, properly, righteously, who, if; he could; hear a statement of the case from. the mouths of. impartial witnesses, might have the intelli- gence to see and the candor to acknowledge, that he was wrong from the first: to last, On the other hand, many a man has in his own heart declared himself guilty, and: grieved and shamed over his wrong doing, who, if he could but know how others, better quali, fied to judge, have regarded him, might, thus — hearing the evidence, have taken courage and declared himself Not guilty. Of course > there are people enough who think them- selves always in the right, and who could never by any possibility be brought even to doubt for a moment their own immacu- lateness and infallibility. . Indeed, there are literally no limits to the capacity for self- deception possessed by certain persons. There are men and women who could roba .. church while all the time firmly believing themselves the most honest of Christians; and it is not by any medns impossible that Messalina may have considered herself a virtuous matron. But there are other hu- man beings so conscientious, and so candid, that they would judge justly of their own doings if only they could be brought to ex- amine them from the point of view of some- body else—in other words, who cannot tell NEBULA, 729° whether they are guilty or not guilty until they hear the evidence. The old joke which Dion Boucicault revived and adopted may. perhaps be converted into a deep philosoph- . ical saying by anybody who has leisure and. wit enough to argue it out. — “MANy a shaft at random sent” hits something or other which “ the archer little meant” to touch, We have heard an anec- dote illustrative of this truth, which has. probably not appeared in print before, and. which has been told us as a piece of genuine, history. It happened in a large city—never mind what city. There were two pretty sis- ters who had married, one an eminent law- yer, the other a distinguished literary man, Literary man dies, and leaves younger sis- ter a widow. Some years roll away, and the widow lays aside her weeds. Now, then, it happens that a certain author and critic has occasion, on a broiling day in summer, to call on the eminent lawyer, husband of the elder sister, He finds the lawyer pleading and sweltéring in a crowded court, sees that | the lawyer is suffering dreadfully from the heat, pities him, rejoices that he himself is not a lawyer, and goes for a cool saunter under the sheltering trees of a fashionable park and garden. Among the ice-eating, fanning crowd there he meets the younger of our two sisters, and for the moment he thinks he is speaking to the elder. “Oh, Mr. ——,” answered the lady, “how dread- fully hot it is here!” ‘Yes, Madame,” re- plies our Iu kless critic, “it is hot here; but I can adite you the heat of this place isn’t a circumstance, when compared with the heat of the place where your poor dear husband. is suffering to-day!” <A horror- stricken expression comes over the face of the lady ; she rises from her chair and floun- ces indignantly away. And “ Me miserable,” soliloquizes our wretched critic, “I have been mistaking the one sister for the other, jand she thinks I meant to say that her hus- band is—not in heaven!” — SOME time or other, the publishers of. “Littell’s Living Age” would do well to take a look at the cover of that really excel- lent publication, and see if its title is not be- coming rather a misnomer. “Living Age,” with an emblazonment of such periodicals on its front! “ Dead Age,” or ‘Dark Age,” or “ Dead-and-Alive Age.” would be a more appropriate title. Why, there are depicted on this page the covers of British publica-
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/ 730 tions which went down to the grave years and years ago. Glancing over the whole is like walking in a literary cemetery. The “Prospective Review,” the “Literary Ga- zette,” the * Retrospective Review,” the “* Bi- ographical Magazine,” ‘ Ainsworth’s Mag- azine,” “ Bentley’s Miscellany,” “ Sharpe’s London Magazine >__these and various other ghosts stand sheeted and shrouded on Lit- tell’s cover, as the representatives of the “ Living Age” of English literature. Why not the “ Penny Magazine”? Nay, indeed, why not “ Ye British Mercurie” ? — ONE other word about Fechter—not of him. When he was about to play Ra- venswood, the hero of “The Bride of Lam- mermoor,” in London, there was great trou- ble among the younger race of dramatic crit- ics, who, strong on Féval and Sardou and Dumas fils, had very slight acquaintance in- deed with Walter Scott. A Nebulous Per- son happened at that time to be in London, and to be in the way of meeting great dra- matic critics and hearing them talk, Listen- ing one day with that deference to superior wisdom which he hopes is a part of his char- acter, the Nebulous Person heard one critic —a man of some distinction too—say. to another of the craft: “I feel so tired! I have been reading up ‘ The Bride of Lammer- moor,’ and it is such rubbish!” This was said in the most perfect sincerity, not in the tone of one who throws off an epigram or ventures on a paradox, but in the full con- viction that every hearer must sympathize with a man who was compelled by the hon- orable call of duty to read such dreary stuff. as Scott’s “ Bride of Lammermoor !” Mac- aulay compared the novel with some of the tragedies of Aischylus, but we of the newer school have changed all that. The critic who thus talked represented very fairly the average judgment of both New York and London criticism to-day. — ‘AN article on Shelley lately appeared in one of our magazines, in which the con- duct of the poet towards his first wife was condemned very severely, and, on the face of things, very justly. But is there not something to be said on the other side ‘which has never yet been publicly said? — Shelley’s behavior to his first wife would seem to be utterly reprehensible, but we have heard that there are persons living who could give a new complexion’ to the story. Recent “disclosures” and controversies do certainly very much discourage any further NEBULA. [May, groping into the history of dead poets; but we have been told that if justice were done to Shelley in this case, the judgment of the world might be reversed. We have heard that there are persons living who could tell a tale of proud patience on the poet’s part— of patience, and of a firm resolve to bear with any censure and any odium, rather than enter on a personal vindication which would have hurt the memory of others. Certainly, all we know of Shelley leads, us to believe that having once resolved on such a course he would keep to it firmly and proudly ; that he would not, having once proclaimed silence, gather round him on every possible occasion a circle of admiring cojidantes, and proceed to whisper into their willing ears his own version of his sufferings and his wrongs. But we have heard it asserted that his memory can be vindicated, and would have been long before now but for his own injunction that silence should be kept. A NEW competitor for the strategic laurels of the Tennessee River campaign of 1862 is Anna Ella Carroll of Maryland. She pro- duces a plan of advance which she laid before the War Department, November 30, 1861 ; and we are bound to say that it isa good military document, and that its line was the one actually followed. The only question is, how many people were thinking of the same problem, and plying the War Bureau with plans for solving it? for, in America, every man is his own strategist. But there is another feature in this Carroll claim: the petitioner prays Congress for “suitable compensation for suggesting cer- tain plans of operation for the armies of the United States during the war.” Now Hea- ven forbid that a// the plans of operation suggested to our armies should be subjects of compensation, for their number was legion Whether Anna Ella Carroll may not rank with those who projected the Tennessee River campaign, we shall not say ; but suppose, for a moment, we paid for all the suggestions for moving the Army of the Potomac on to Richmond? There is a third point for these “Sixteenth Amendment” days. A woman certainly did make a good military plan, and she says she formed it ‘in a tour -to the West,” undertaken “with the hope of being useful in the exigency,” after “‘care- ful observation,” and from ‘information - elicited from pilots and other practical men.” - We sometimes say women cannot be sol- diers ; cannot they be strategists ?