The Cosmopolitan 1887-11: Vol 4 Iss 3

Page 1

‘THE COSMOPOLITAN. VoL. IV. NOVEMBER, 1887. THE NOLBE ART OF SELF-DEFENSE. BY JULIAN HAWTHORNE. is difficult to un- derstand how there could ever have been a period in the world’s history when what has been called the noble art of self- defense (with the fists understood) was an art unpracticed or un- known. How could any boy conduct any manner of relations with other boys without giving and receiv- ing an incidental bloody nose or black eye? It may be true, as the divine Watts maintains, that our little . hands were never made to ' tear each other’s eyes ; but there was never a doubt in the mind of any healthy and wholesome youth as to what his little fists were made for. The new-born babe comes into the world with clinched fists, in token, doubtless, of his purpose to take his own part in that world later on; and it is long before he outgrows the influence of that early instinct : if not, so much the worse for him. When a boy is insulted, when his rights are invaded, when he feels himself in danger of feeling fright- ened, what is the natural and proper thing forhim todo? To cry? To run away and tell mamma? To call names? To smile sweetly and make a polite remark? I trow 17 not! I admit that there may be boys and boys ; but the boy who is a boy, in any de- cent and tolerable sense of the word, that boy sets his teeth, doubles up his fists, the blood flies to his face (all ready to be tapped), and he pitches in. It is a fine thing to do, and to see ; it is as natural as eating apples ; and the effect upon the digestion, circula- tion, and higher moral qualities generally, is vastly better. Of course, in an artificial age, and among effete nations, there may be boys who are corrupt and inhuman from their birth ; and such boys may, for aught I can tell, act, under provocation, in either one of the ob- jectionable ways enumerated above ; or they may scratch, or bite, or pull hair, or kick shins. Indeed, now that I consult my mem- ory, and am by it transported to a far-distant epoch, when I had my abode in the land of Dante, Raphael, Numa Pompilius, and the Pope—in short, when I was in Italy—I recol- lect finding the Italian boys singularly and revoltingly deficient in the knowledge and practice of those rules and traditions that are the birthright of the Anglo-Saxon. They never used their fists; they used to stand off at a distance and throw stones; they were wont to express a hope that their ene- mies might die of a stroke of apoplexy ; and if forced to close quarters, they even scrupled not to draw their wretched little pocket- knives. That was in the evil days of the French and Austrian occupation, when the spirit: of the people was broken. Let us hope that the children of this age are chil- dren of more light, and that the bloody nose

Page 2

174 of childhood is as much an article of faith with them as the Pope’s toe of maturity. It is the first step toward an appreciation of free gévernment and independent traditions. For my own part, though the event oc- curred when I was no more than nine years of age, I still vividly remember, and shall never forget, the thrill of noble joy that traversed my diminutive frame the first time I fairly knocked an adversary down. It was in the back-yard of a boarding-house in Liv- erpool, England. The yard was paved with broad flagstones, and was surrounded with high brick walls. The dispute between my antagonist and myself began on the steps of the kitchen door, and was occasioned, very likely, by a diversity of opinion as to right- ful ownership of an eleemosynary piece of pie; but upon that point I am open to cor- rection. What is certain is, that we arose and fought in the center of the yard, and that the party of the second part received an unexpected right-hander on that portion of his countenance where the nose meets the upper lip. He fell over backward, to my own surprise and extreme satisfaction ; the circumstance that he was, then and after- ward, a particular and cherished friend of mine not in the least diminishing the latter emotion. The delight of battle is no re- specter of persons, and the taste of blood is stimulating, no matter whose veins supply it. No grudge was borne on either side; whereas, supposing, for example, that I had eaten his pie and had then omitted to knock him down for it, an ill-feeling might have been engendered that would have rendered our innocent little lives unhappy and malig- nant. To return, however, to my original propo- sition : those ages were well named dark that knew nothing of fisticuffs ; and I am inclined to think rather that the manly art lacked a historian than that it lacked expo- nents. In the Dark Ages knights wore ar- mor ; and, doubtless, little is to be gained by pommeling a man who is all over steel helms and hauberks. But the common sort of people were not thus accoutered, and we are free to believe that they cuffed one an- other in a hearty and unaffected human fashion. On the other hand, the historians and poets were so fully occupied in recount- ing the achievements of the knights that they had no leisure to describe the minor THE COSMOPOLITAN. warfare of the underlings. It is a pity, but it is now unavoidable ; and be it understood that, if I question the statement that boxing was ‘‘revived’’ only in the last century, I do so without wishing to detract from the glory of its renowned revivers, any more than I would if the valiant Cribb (or who- ever he was who first professed the science) were now alive and anxious to correct my misapprehensions. It is, of course, unnecessary to remind the learned and scholarly reader that boxing was known to the ancient Greeks and Ro- mans, and doubtless to the ancient Egyp- tians likewise. But there was probably more iron in their blood than there is in ours ; and they were in the habit of binding iron about their fists ; a blow with one of which would not need to be delivered be- neath the ear in order to knock a man out. Iam modern enough not to like this method of reinforcing the natural energies ; nor do I, either, feel any sympathy for the now fashionable boxing-glove. The human hand presents a group, or rather a row, of four knuckles; and nothing better adapted to promote mutual respect and cordiality be- tween human beings has ever been devised by human ingenuity. Their native merit should neither be muffled nor sharpened ; let them do what they can, and what they can not do is better left undone. The cestus is out of date, or survives only in the shape of the treacherous and dastardly ‘‘ knuckle- duster.’’ As against the glove, there are other arguments upon which I may touch later. Meanwhile, I am willing to concede that one of the most admired and effective feat- ures of the art of fist-fighting, as practiced during the last hundred years, may be of modern invention. The very word ‘ box’”’ is a confirmation of this view. It is derived from an old German noun signifying cheek ; and to box aman meant to fetch him a bang on the cheek or the ear; in other words, to hit him a swinging or roundabout blow. Now, this is the instinctive blow of the un- educated fighter, the reason being that a swinging blow, when it reaches its mark, is more telling than a blow of any other kind. It is enforced by the lateral swing and weight of the whole body; and when it arrives, something has to go: sometimes it is the knuckles, sometimes it is the wrist ;

Page 3

THE NOBLE ART OF SELF-DEFENSE. 175 but generally speaking it is the person who gets hit. This blow, however, is open to two serious objections: first, it is easily parried ; and, in the second place, it exposes the striker to a detrimental retort. Accord- ingly, science has dismissed it (except in special predicaments) in favor of the straight- forward blow, which, though lacking the stunning impact of the other, is much more difficult to ward off, can be delivered more swiftly, and does not so expose the body to acounter. Moreover, as regards its inferior force, that is a matter of comparatively small consequence. A blow between the eyes does not need to be heavy enough to floor an ox in order to be instructive. In- deed, it is surprising how effective a reason- ably light knock may be, if delivered in the right way and on the right place. The trained prize-fighter may not much mind such a blow; but to the unpracticed ama- teur it is full of significance and persuasion. It is enough ; and enough is as good as a feast, not to speak of a funeral. Furthermore, when you have dazed your adversary with the straight hit, you may (if you like) go in and finish him with a round-hander. But I do not advise it: we are not all the Marquis of Queensberry, nor is it necessary to restrict so agree- able a pastime as a square stand- up fight to a paltry ten or twelve minutes. Take your time, and enjoy yourself: you may have to wait a long time before the oppor- tunity recurs. Shoulder-hitting, as it is tech- nically termed, may, then, be regarded as the point of differenti- ation between ancient and modern fisticuffs ; and a very important point it is; for all the science of defense depends upon it—the par- rying, the countering, the dodg- ing, and the innumerable nimble wiles and devices whereby the fighter foils his adversary’s efforts and enhances hisown. It seems to the uninitiated a very easy thing to hit a man when you are angry; and nothing but ex- perience will show how nearly impossible it is for the unin- itiated person in question, no matter how angry he may be, to hit the man, if the man understands boxing. But, indeed, the experiment is not likely to be a protracted one. Some hitting will doubtless take place, as between the man of science and the man of impulse ; but it will probably be very one-sided, and so, also, will be the countenance of the man of impulse the next morning. As may be inferred from the triumphant issue of my own first appearance in the arena, I continued to take a lively interest in pugilism ; and fortune so far favored my predilections as to make me an inhabitant of England at the time when Mr. John C. Heenan and Mr. Thomas Sayers delighted the world with their memorable exhibition of prowess. It was a period of splendid ex- citement ; and I doubt whether the recent Jubilee of the English monarch aroused so much genuine interest and enthusiasm as did that immortal encounter. The fun began at least six weeks before the cham- pions appeared in the ring. All the papers took a hand in fostering it, and Wilkes’s Spirit of the Times presented from week to week an exhaustive history of the manly art, from the earliest times to the passing day, together with glowing biographies of all the famous heroes of the ring. In the HOW THE ITALIAN BOYS FIGHT.

Page 4

176 shop-windows were displayed portraits of Mr. Sayers and Mr. Heenan, with short hair, short trunks, heavy boots, and deter- mined visages, posing in attitudes of de- fensive offensiveness, The features of nei- ther of them were cast in the classic mold of beauty ; but what an arm Sayers had, and what thews and sinews and towering pro- portions were Heenan’s! One shudders, and yet rejoices, at the thought of the prob- able results of their collision. Accounts of their incredible feats of train- ing were daily bulletined, together with absorbing descriptions of the efforts of the police not to capture them and put them under bonds to keep the peace. The police were successful, as they always are, Prob- ably none of them could read ; at all events, they never succeeded in getting a share of the knowledge possessed by every other human being in England as to the exact whereabouts and movements of the men of muscle. As the appointed date of the battle drew near, it seemed as if it would be neces- sary to pitch the ring in the center of the American prairies in order to accommodate the crowd that wanted to witness the fight. The day arrived. On awak- ing that morning, I was fully convinced, for a few moments, that I had been a spectator of § THE COSMOPOLITAN. the event from beginning to end; but it turn- ed out that I had only dreamed I was. The day passed in a tremor of excitement and impatience to know the result. The next day everybody was up at dawn, to get early copies of the papers. Whohadwon? That question was not answered: it never has been to this day: but what a fight it was! Neither won: both won. Sayers’ arm was broken and his head was in chancery ; but Heenan’s eyes were fast closing upon the light of day ; and what was Sampson him- self without his eyes ? It was described how, with the police in full pursuit, and just before his last eye retired from business, the gigantic Ameri- can, who was as fresh as paint as far as his muscular energies were concerned, led the way across the English meadows, leaping over the hedges like a steeple-chase winner, the rag, tag, and bobtail of the crowd panting after him in vain, with the policemen in the HOW AMERICAN BOYS FIGHT,

Page 5

THE NOBLE ART OF SELF-DEFENSE. PURSUING THE AMERICAN CHAMPION, rear of all. After having (as all Americans will always maintain he did) bested the Eng- lish champion in the ring, it was only to be expected that he would outfoot the English bobbies in a race. Each side claimed the belt, and the up- shot of it was that both champions got one, and thereafter traveled fraternally about the country, exhibiting themselves, with the belts on, to enchanted audiences. He who pens these lines saw them stand side by side on the balcony of a hotel, smiling sheepishly at the tumultuous multitude be- low, while something glittered around the base of their waistcoats. Cheers rent the air; the heroes giggled, ducked, and van- ished. With them vanished the golden era of the professional ring. Mr. Thackeray had, shortly before, as- sumed the editorship of the Cornhill Maga- zine; and it was stated that he was present at the fight. He thereupon wrote an article for the magazine, casting strong doubts upon the assertion, and then launching out and giving his views regarding the contest and cognate matters. But had Mr. Thackeray actually attended, he would have found him- self in good company. Nocompany was too good for Champion Sayers and Champion Heenan. In fact, they were both of them good honest fellows. In after years I had the honor of making

Page 6

178 the acquaintance of the American winner— the Benicia Boy, as we fondly dubbed him— a tall, grave, urbane gentleman, with red- dish brown hair and a purple mustache. He wore black broadcloth and a tall hat, and diamonds sparkled here and there. I won- der what the present champion of the world would have done if pitted against that indi- vidual. We hada sand-bag hanging up in the college gymnasium ; it was suspended by a long rope to a horizontal iron bar half- way from floor to ceiling. The strongest man in the college—and he was pretty strong —had once hit this bag so hard that it swung up on a level withthe bar. One day Heenan dropped in. We suggested that he should hit the bag. He glanced at the bag, and stripped off his black broadcloth coat, and laid it, with its silken lining outward, over the back of a chair. Then he walked up to the bag, poised himself a moment, and his arm shotout. The bag flew upward with an impetus that carried it completely round the bar once, and nearly round the second time. As it fell, Heenan shook his head sadly, and turned away. No one spoke; but, as he slowly inserted himself into the silk lining, he remarked : ‘*Boys, you should have seen me when I was fit!’’ The muscles at the back of his shoulders were about of the appearance and consistency of ammonites—a variety of extinct cephalo- podic mollusks, whose coiled stone remains occur in certain geologic strata. This great man afterward was obliging enough to afford me some enlightenment as to the esoteric mysteries of his favorite science, and even expressed himself measur- ably interested in my possible future profi- ciency. ‘*You’ve got a first-class barrel,’’ he re- marked, ‘‘and you’re well set up on your legs ; your head’s too big, but you’ve got a notion of taking care of it. Now, I’ll tell you what I’ll do with you. After you get through your four years in college here, you come and spend four years with me. It ’ll pay you. Just let me have the care of you, and when the time is up, I’d be willing to back you against any man of your weight in the ring !”’ I need scarcely say that the recipient of this offer was immediately fired with an am- bition upon the intensity of which I now THE COSMOPOLITAN. look back with envious admiration, to enter the prize-ring under the auspices of Heenan —to voyage to England and bring back from there the crown of glory of which he had so unrighteously been half defrauded—what nobler name could a young son of Harvard and Massachusetts set before himself? But when I came to discuss the proposition in the family circle, I was grieved to find that ‘the immediate arbiters of my destiny wholly failed to sympathize with my aspirations. They flatly and arbitrarily objected to render illustrious the name of the family by orna- menting it with the laurels of a prize-fighter. When I imparted this untoward information to my gallant instructor, he too was deeply pained. ‘“Well,’’ he sadly said, ‘‘ it’s not for me to go against what the folks at home say : but if a young fellow has a talent, I do think it’s a pity not to educate him up toit. I tell you fairly, I would put you in the way of making a reputation : I don’t know what they may have in mind for you: but I’d be willing to give odds that, whatever your profession may be, it won’t bring you half the money, nor half the splurge, that you’d have got if you took up with me.’’ Such was his con- clusion ; and, when I review the events of my career, I am very far from feeling pre- pared to dogmatically pronounce him in the wrong. Certainly, boxing was a finer science in Heenan’s era than it is now. One cause of modern carelessness is the general introduc- tion of the glove. When you fight with the naked fist you have to be careful where you strike. The bones of the head of a trained prize-fighter are as hard as stone. Unless you catch him in a soft place, you are likely to harm yourself more than him: and the soft places are strictly limited in number, and much more difficult to reach than any one who has not made the attempt would be apt to believe. Consequently, the most accurate education of arm and eye was necessary in the assailant ; and a corresponding deftness in defense on the part of the assailed. But the fist protected by a glove may strike any- where indifferently, without danger to the fist. It follows that the old skill, no longer needed, is no longer employed. Pugilism degenerates into slugging, and no special qualifications beyond strength and pluck are required to excel in it.

Page 7

THE NOBLE ART OF SELF-DEFENSE. There are still a number of good fighters, men who fight ‘‘ with their heads,”’ as they callit; meaning thereby not that they butt like rams or negroes, but that they bring the mind to the assistance of the body ; they bring to the play of the arm something of the judgment, finesse, and strategy that are practiced by eminent professors of the small- sword. But these men are exceptional. The majority of prize-fighters have no other idea of boxing than simply to butcher their oppo- nent. The process is performed in two move- ments. First you rush your man ; that is, you run at him, striking right and left, until you have him rattled: and then, at a mo- ment when his action is controlled rather by his physical sensation than by his scientific training, you bring in your round-hander on his jugular and knock him out. That is what glove-fighting in four rounds amounts to: and the Marquis of Queensberry has done more to degrade the ring than any mere bruiser who ever fought. It is also a mistake to suppose that the boxing-glove is less injurious to the person with whom it comes in contact than the bare fist is: The fist cuts, but the glove stuns, like a sand-club or a piece of lead pipe, and is more apt to produce congestion of the brain and other internal injuries. No prize- fighter was ever hurt by letting him bleed: and on the other hand, he may be seriously injured by the muffled blow that produces the jar without breaking the skin. More- over, these glove contests have brought in the fashion of matching second or third-rate men against first-rate ones, the bets being made on the question as tothe number of rounds during which the former can contrive to hold out against the latter. What earthly sense or profit can there be in such a per- formance as that? Of course the boxing-glove has its use, like the button on the foil ; it enables the pupil to learn the rudiments of the science—how to assume the proper positions, and how to use his arms. Gentlemen who move in polite society can not afford to go about with faces scarred, seamed, and discolored; it is not the fashion, and fashion must be considered. But I would banish the glove from every- thing in the shape of an ‘‘exhibition,”’ whether amateur or professional. If the ex- hibitors are unwilling to try conclusions with nature’s weapons in the state of nature, 179 let them amuse themselves and their friends in some other way. The laws do not favor boxing as a pro- fession : but the laws in force against pro- fessional boxing have only served to aggra- vate what is objectionable init. They at- tempt to do too much : and they are not in accord with the weight of popular predilec- tion. Nobody who has been a boy, and isa man, could avoid feeling interested in such a battle as, for example, that between Sayers and Heenan. Comparatively few men, on the other hand, would enjoy a blind, unscientific slugging match. But the law makes no dis- tinction. Prize-fighters ought to be recog- nized as a distinct class of the community ; they should be regularly educated andtrained for their calling, and only such as received diplomas should be allowed to practice ; they should be heavily taxed ; they should be al- lowed to fight only on condition of being as equally matched as possible ; they should be liable to be disbarred from their pursuit for unprofessional or irregular conduct ; and certain places should be provided where, and where only, the fights should be permitted to come off. Such regulations as these would possess two great advantages over those at present on the statute-book : First, they could be enforced ; and, secondly, they would keep thousands of unfit and unworthy men out of the profession. It is only by discriminating between the good and the bad men that the’ former can be made better and the latter eliminated. If you bring them together under a common sentence of opprobium, you do your best to make them all worthy of that sentence, and, as a matter of course, you fail to put a stop totheir performances. I say, ‘‘asa matter of course,’’ because I am sure that a love of pugilism is ineradicable in human nature, as at present constituted : and until it is eradi- cated, it will find means to be gratified. Our society presents a singular anomaly of very rank human nature pretending to control itself by very abstract moral didacticism. This is only one instance of the futility of any such pretense. A littlefrankness would save a great deal of trouble. We are in the habit of saying that prize-fighting is brutal, and when we have said that, we seem to think that it is condemned beyond appeal. But what if it be brutal? I admit that it is brutal: and the reason that I approve it is,

Page 8

THE COSMOPOLITAN. i HEENAN HITTING THE SAND-BAG. The nature precisely because it is brutal. which I share in common with the race of mankind has a brutal element in it, and that element delights in:struggle, blood, and fighting. I by no means exalt this element to precedence before all others ; but I am not ashamed of it, and I do not deny it, because I recognize it as being the indispensable basis of much that is strongest and most ef- fective in me, and in mankind. I see it mentioned with an accent of pious horror that So-and-so and So-and-so, men of special eminence and distinction in the community, were present at Madison Square Garden to see Mr. Sullivan fight the big Maori. It seems to me that it was just because Messrs. So-and-so were eminent and distin- guished that they attended the séamnce in question ; it was the quality in them that sympathized with that fight that enabled them to fight the fight and win the victory whereby their distinction and eminence was achieved. You must take men as they are, and not expect them to be /ofus teres atque rotundus to-day, and mutilated abortions to- morrow. We are not perfect ; we are not al- together lovely ; but we shall never even stand a chance of becoming so if we emas- culate ourselves. All this is apart from a discussion of the value of a practical knowledge of boxing by amateurs, which I presume no one would

Page 9

WE ARE UNFAITHFUL. 181 seriously question. A man is all the better a citizen for the knowledge that he can de- fend himself at need ; and women are not averse from feeling that the man of their choice can defend them. Novelists are apt toinciude a fist or two in the portraits of their popular heroes. Nor need the benefits of boxing as an exercise be enlarged upon. But I am tired of seeing this absurd and undigni- fied spectacle of the law puffing and panting in pursuit of a gang of thieves and black- guards intent on getting up a scrapping- match, and arriving on the ground in time to find a little bloody sawdust. If the exter- mination of our bruisers be the object, would it not be wiser to elect them to the legisla- ture? Ordinary persecution can only mul- tiply them. KNOCKED OUT. WE ARE UNFAITHFUL. By May RILEY SMITH. Ir man could rule, his love of change would mar The purple dignity that wraps the hills ; Pluck out from the blue sky some perfect star, And set it elsewhere, as his fancy wills ; Train the gnarled apple-tree more straightly up; Lift violet’s head, so long and meekly bowed ; With some new odor fill her purple cup, And gild the rosy fringes of a cloud. For, mark! Last year L loved the violet best, And tied her tender colors in my hair; To-day I wear on my inconstant breast A crimson rose, and count her just as fair. We are unfaithful. Only God is true To hold secure the landmarks of the past ; To paint year after year the hare-bell blue And in the same sweet mold its shape to cast. O, steadfast Nature, let us learn of thee! Thou canst create a new flower at thy will, And yet, through all the years canst faithful be To the sweet pattern of a daffodil. 18

Page 10

THE PRIEST’S STORY. By M. FULANO. N a stormy evening toward the end of October, the Abbé Maurin, a tall, white-haired old man, with a gentle yet en- ergetic expression, whom the chances and changes of a long life had consigned to Saint Gandolph, a fishing village on the coast of Brittany, where he had the spiritual charge of some five hundred poor people, sat sip- ping his coffee at the end of a frugal repast. The Father had been listening to his sis- ter, Catherine, at once servant and house- keeper, who had been reading the latest intelligence in the Petit Journal. A para- graph in the paper awoke in the Abbé’s mind reminiscences of the past, and led him to relate the following episode in his career: I. I was young at the period of which I speak, and was making my first long jour- ney, burning with enthusiasm for the Faith, but still enveloped in much of the ignorance of youth. Although strengthened by severe study, I was subject to the illusions peculiar to my time of life: indeed, even now I am not altogether free from them. I had landed at Alexandria, and as the canal had not then been built, I was obliged to take the railway through the desert to reach Suez, where the Minerve was waiting to take me toChina. Aseven this European invention was run with Asiatic deliberation, I had some time on my hands and availed myself of it to visit Cairo, where I put up at the Hotel du Nil. In the gardens of that hostelry I came upon a scene that startled me. It was a pleasant spot, filled with palms and flowers and sheltered from the winds. For this reason it was the daily resort of a crowd of interesting invalids—pretty women whose physicians had sent them to Egypt in the hope of arresting the progress of disease. Their pale faces made one dream. Attenu- ated by suffering, and with eyes rendered brilliant by fever, they lay stretched all day on their reclining-chairs. The blue of the sky into which they gazed seemed to melt into that of their eyes. It was a spectacle especially attractive to me, for I had never yet spoken to one of these beings who seemed so far removed from my daily life, and who made one com- prehend what a companion a woman can be. Until then, sister, I had only spoken to you and to my poor mother, two saints whom I adored, but not women whom I could love. The Seminary, and then the Mission House, had been all my world. Of what went on beyond them I knew nothing. Among these poor invalids, who appeared no longer to belong to earth, was one that made a powerful impression on me. She was tall and slender, dark, and pale. The ex- pression of her great eyes was extremely gentle, and while they seemed ever inquir- ing, ever searching, there were depths ofsym- pathy and kindness in them. I had never seen such eyes. A finely-molded mouth and delightfully small, regular white teeth com- pleted a remarkable physiognomy. The lady might have been twenty-eight, but her male companion was forty. I learned afterward that they were a Monsieur and Madame Deroy. Her name was Marie; his, Octave. They had come to Egypt to spend several months in the hope of restoring Madame Deroy to health, but finding life in Cairo somewhat monotonous, they had de- cided to see something of the far East, and proposed to journey leisurely in that direc- tion. They were to be my fellow-passengers on the M/inerve. All this I discovered through an incident that threw me into the company of these de- ligktful people. I proposed making an ex- cursion tothe ‘‘ Virgin’s Tree,’’ the one that sheltered the Mother of Our Lord, when on that historical journey to Egypt with the Divine Child. Hearing of my intention, M. Deroy came up to me, hat in hand, and said, with exquisite politeness : ‘*Monsieur Abbé, we are fellow-country- men, and if you will permit it, we will join you in your pious pilgrimage.”’ I of course agreed, and we made the excur- sion together. Having only a day at Cairo, I was compelled to leave my companions at its conclusion in order to ‘‘do”’ the Sphynx,

Page 11

THE PRIEST'S STORY. the Pyramids, and the other regulation sights, and did not see them again until we met on shipboard. Madame Deroy was not often visible dur- ing the day, but she came on deck every evening and remained there far into the night, reclining motionless on her chaise longue, gazing into the sky, or watching the vessel’s wake. Sometimes, at a gesture from this graceful creature, I approached. She invited me to take a camp-stool and sit down by her. Then long conversations would follow between the pretty woman and the ignorant priest. It is true I had my ideas about things in general, but they did not assist me in under- standing her hints. Her tones were soft and pleasant, but her language was often so vague that her meaning had to be surmised. But how was I, who knew nothing at all of the conventional intercourse of the great world, to interpret it? Ah! I have since learned that this very reticence has a charm for the initiated, but I have also come to understand that there is nothing more dis- agreeable than to be thrown into the com- pany of those who use this language and to be unable to meet them on equal terms. Despite my inability to talk fluently about nothing, I replied as well as I could to this gentle prattle, and Marie seemed to be pleased at my efforts to overcome my embarrass- ment. Thus, by the time we had reached the end of the Red Sea, we had become quite friendly. Early one morning I had gone on deck and as I was about settling myself down to a perusal of the*‘ Travels’’ of Father Huc, one of the most interesting works ever written on China, who should I see coming toward me, like a fairy, but the charming Marie. Such an apparition at such an hour surprised and delighted me. She noticed it and said, with a sad smile : ‘‘I see you’re astonished to see me on deck so early, but you have only yourself to thank for it.’’ “p>” ‘* Yes, Monsieur Abbé, I must talk to you by daylight, for it seems to me that at night you are a little agitated—a little——”’ ** How so?”’ ‘*But I will not keep you in suspense. Take two camp-stools and we'll go and sit out in the bow, where we shall get a breath of air and be undisturbed.” 183 This woman had a way of speaking to me that seemed to inspire me immediately with a passionate desire to comply with her wishes. As soon as we were seated, she said very seriously : ‘*Monsieur Abbé, up to the present time we have been, you and I, only ordinary trav- eling companions. A commonplace meet- ing, such as occurs in the experience of almost every one, usually ends at the door- step. I have been to you what one should be to an agreeable person to whom one is but slightly known, and I feel sure that if our intercourse should go no farther you would carry away the same remembrance of me that you have preserved of so many other chance acquaintances. Ido not wish it to be so for—I am wretched.’’. ‘You, madame ?’”’ ‘‘Yes, I wish to put an end to my suffer- ing by securing your aid. Since I have had the good fortune to meet a priest like you, allow me to speak to you as I would were you in the confessional. M. Deroy is still sleeping, and I have a good hour before me in which to tell you what I wish you toknow. Listen, I beg of you, and may my story sug- gest to you some method of administering comfort to my soul, which is filled with the bitterest anguish.”’ I would have answered, but there was in Marie’s look and accent something that told me I had only to listen. SoI kept silent, and she went on: ’ II. “‘T can’? tell, Monsieur Abbé, what you think of Octave and me. I am about to en- lighten you. Octave is my—lover, and I worship him. My husband has driven me from his house, for I am married and the mother ofa son and a daughter. But I have no longer either husband, home, or children ! I adore my lover, and I am about to die for my fault and for my love!”’ These words were uttered with such energy, such profound sadness, and such simplicity, that I felt deeply moved. Marie noticed it and, after a pause, went on : ‘‘Isn’t it terrible? But I am speaking to a priest who to-morrow may be a martyr, to a man who is going to face death for the Faith, and not a mere fashionable abbé. Therefore I speak with perfect freedom and entire frankness. If my story causes you the

Page 12

184 slightest annoyance, say so, and I will stop. But be indulgent, for one must have suffered much to be willing to make a confession like mine. Besides, I feel it’’—and here she smote herself vigorously on the chest—‘‘ I am going to die. Still I could wish to live for him I love, and for my children. whom I per- haps might see again if I could stay here long enough.”’ I protested that I should have been most anxious to hear her, even had my sacred office not made it my duty to do so. ‘‘I was born in Paris,’’ the beautiful Marie continued, ‘‘ of parents in comfortable circumstances, and in that intellectual center whence come forth our great artists and scientists. My father was a distinguished physician. Alwaysabsorbed in his patients, he was but rarely with his family. My mother, who was in feeble health, allowed me to a great extent to have the care of the household. At fifteen it was I who enter- tained my father’s guests. ‘‘In spite of these surroundings, which would naturally tend to make me precocious, I was at eighteen one of the best educated and most modest girls in Paris. I wished to marry, not that I might leave my parents, whom I loved dearly, but to know what mar- riage really was like, since I so frequently heard it discussed around me. ‘*My father, although highly esteemed as a savant, was stilla man of the world. He performed his duties to his fellow-creatures when they were required, but he never made useless sacrifices to theinjury of his reputa- tion or his interests. And he carried this principle into everything. ‘* Having a daughter who must be married sooner or later, he kept the matter in view without her noticing it. My father never invited to his house those romantic young students who made it their business to as- sault the female heart. His younger profes- sional brethren always found in him a wise and willing counselor, but they were not admitted to his intimacy. No one com- plained of it, or even noticed it, so clever was my father in freeing himself from those social observances that at the most only secure a cheap popularity. He felt that ex- treme kindness was often but another name for weakness of character, and used often to say that it was a mistake to be too prodigal of one’s good offices. THE COSMOPOLITAN. ‘*Such a man was Dr. Hormoy. He has left a great reputation for talent and wisdom, but he erred grievously in the single act of his life that he had most set his heart on doing well—securing his daughter’s happi- ness. ‘*In accordance with his principles, my father had chosen me a husband, not from the social circle in which we moved, but from among the fashionable, the wealthy, and the idle. It was amid such surroundings, ac- cording to his theory, that my life would be calm, happy, and filled with all the enjoy- ments that a fortune can command. ‘*My husband was neither very good nor very bad—rather good than bad. He was young, elegant, and owned handsome horses and fine carriages, but was not much of a thinker. I don’t know whether I loved him or not. I was too young to know. Never having been called upon to choose, having lost my mother some time before, I had no natural adviser, and I was too proud to dis- cuss with strangers the wisdom of my father’s choice, since I entertained for him a love and admiration that knew no bounds. Thus I became Madame de Larcy. ‘* The first six months passed as the first six months of married life usually pass. I wished to see everything, and my husband took me wherever it was permissible for a fashionable young wife to go—to Italy, Switzerland, Holland. All this delighted me, and as Henri was exceedingly attentive, I was considered the happiest bride in Paris. ‘*T coincided in this opinion, for I had no reason to think otherwise. Ere long I be- came a motherand my first child, a son, was born. The joys of paternity made Henri very happy, and he was, if possible, more attentive to me than before. It is always the way with the first child. Two years later my beloved daughter was given me. Engrossed with the care of my darlings, over whom I watched with jealous care, I had no leisure to think of other things. But, be- ginning with the fifth year of my married life, I began to reflect, and thought I noticed, to my great surprise, that outside my absorb- ing love for my children, there was in my heart a void I could not explain. ‘‘My husband now neglected me. Im- mersed in his pleasures, he did not take pains not to let me see the little interest he feltin me. His conversation turned on rac-

Page 13

THE PRIEST'S STORY. 185 ing, the club, and other vacuities of an idle life. His eagerness to wait on me had en- tirelydisappeared. Nothing in me that had formerly attracted him seemed any longer to afford him any pleasure. HadIarival? I never knew, and my self-respect made me revolt at the thought of finding out through the use of spies now so fashionable in our set. Besides, if I am to be frank; I must confess that I did not have the feeling that renders pardonable the boldest and least excusable measures sometimes resorted to by jealous women. I understand now that I did not love my husband; but then I did not com- prehend the cause of my own indifference. ‘‘T had acertain amount of affection for the father of my children ; but this man, as such, had been unable to inspire me either with love, jealousy, or hate. ‘“We still lived together, apparently on good terms, but having separate apartments, and rarely speaking. Intimate friends sometimes noticed our coldness, and also several of Henri’s perfectly unjustifiable fits of ill-humor, but, as I made light of every- thing, their attention was not seriously drawn to the matter. Besides our house was always attractive. Weentertained in good style, and, thanks to my light-heartedness, our invitations were much sought after. Henri was proud of our popularity, and was candid enough to give me all the credit. ‘‘Of course I received attentions from gentlemen admirers, but they never went very far as I never allowed them to see that I understood their object. My husband did not notice these harmless advances, and was unable to imagine that I could think of any one but him. Indeed, it had long been a habit of his to judge me from a single stand- point, and he never appeared to think that others could see me in any different light. He had-also become very silent, talked but little, and was often out ofhumor. Nothing pleased him ; in fact, he sought to quarrel with me over the merest trifles, such as a flower pinned in my bonnet in a way that did not suit him. Formerly extremely reg- ular in his habits, he now never came home until very late. When I questioned him as to the cause of this new departure, he would answer me incoherently. He acted like a man in his cups, although he did not drink. ‘‘ What change was being wrought in the man to whom my life was bound? The ex- planation was an easy one. Something had happened that is happening every day in the fashionable world. Henri had lived too well. The son of a very wealthy father, he had at twenty-five indulged to excess in all the pleasures that money can buy. When he married me he was worn out, and at forty even his mind was affected. I only knew this afterward, but you may imagine what I had to suffer as the wife of such a man. ‘* When I came to understand his real con- dition, I was filled with the deepest pity. Every moment of my time was devoted to the task of keeping the truth from the world, which never suspected what I went through in performing it. But my own youth, al- though it had not been wasted in excess of pleasure, like his, was still being sacrificed to duty that neither brought me elevation of soul nor satisfied my heart. My brain was filled with a thousand things that I guessed at rather than knew. When some other wo- man spoke to me of her happiness, I felt like bursting into tears. When, in the spring- time, I saw the leaves coming out on the trees and heard the birds chirping, my bosom heaved, my heart throbbed both with sadness and joy. I seemed to live a new physical life, but nothing within responded to my aspirations. ‘*In the summer when we were at the sea- shore I remained long hours on the sands gazing at the waves from which, it seemed to me, might come an answer to the longings that filled my whole being. In vain I ques- tioned the ocean, and watched the horizon: nothing came of it. Thus the days and the weeks passed with unbroken monotony. Then the cold of winter came on, and we returned to Paris to resume the life of wretch- ed luxury that every one envied me—boxes at the opera, calls to make and receive, but amid all I felt more isolated than ever, my soul full of desires, but without experien- cing any of the supreme felicity of which I dreamed. ‘‘Nothing was more painful to me than the social tyranny that compelled me to listen to men, the best of whom were mere chatterers. Tobe able totalk agreeable non- sense, to hint a scandal concerning some of their best friends, to give witty versions of improper anecdotes, such were the achieve- ments on which their reputation as good talkers was based.

Page 14

186 ‘*T perused all the publications of the day, as much to enable me to forget as to furnish subjects for conversation. I read every- thing, and must admit that I was charmed, in spite of myself, with certain popular authors, but my admiration was of short duration. The ideal within me soon caused me to abandon my reading. I had lost my time, but my imagination had come forth unsullied from the contact. ‘‘My children were growing up, and the care of their education afforded me a pleasant diversion from the thoughts that were brood- ing within me. My father had given me a thorough training. I know nearly all the European languages, and Iam a good musi- cian. I taught my children all they had learned up to the moment of our cruel sepa- ration, and the hours I devoted to them, al- though often painful, were none the less the happiest and the best employed of my short existence. Perhaps God has willed that some day they are to recall the care and af- fection I lavished upon them. But unfor- tunately Nature has decreed that children of such tender years soon forget those who are no longer vith them and working for them. I am to them already only a memory. ‘‘In May, 18—, my husband and I went to the opening exhibition of the Salon, and both were struck by the portrait of a lady painted by a celebrated artist. On seeing the ease of the pose, the richness of the col- oring, and the animation the painter had infused into the canvas, I exclaimed invol- untarily : ‘Oh.! what a pretty picture. IfI should have my portrait painted, I should want it to look like that.’ ‘** Tf you wish it,’ replied Henri, who hap- pened to be in good humor, * you shall have at.’ ***Do you know the artist ?’ ‘**No; itisn’t necessary. I’ll see my pict- ure dealer.’ ‘** But there are artists whodon’t paint for every one.’ ‘** Bah ! you’ve only to pay enough. shall see.’ ‘The next day my husband began his and learned that Octave Deroy painted very few portraits, being absorbed in more important work. He cared little for the branch of art that Van Dyck and so many others have adorned. M. Deroy only attempted a portrait when the subject in- We search, THE COSMOPOLITAN. spired him. The traditional wealthy Ameri- can might cover the canvas with dollars without succeeding in tempting him. He was in easy circumstances, and in the enjoy- ment of an income that permitted him to work in any way he might fancy. ‘The difficulties to be overcome only in- creased our eagerness. It would seem that the history of our lives is written in advance in the Book of Destiny. My husband labored hard to overcome the painter’s ob- jections. He sought an introduction to him, invited him to call on us, and thus by de- grees M. Deroy became an haditué of the house. No reference was ever made to my portrait, but at the end of three months he himself proposed to paint it. He became, as I have said, a regular visitor, but always at hours when others were calling ; we were rarely alone. But his glances were for me. I saw and listened to him with pleasure. He spoke little, but sensibly. When by chance a subject of conversation was started in which he took an interest, his face light- ened up and assumed a new expression. It seemed to me that I thought precisely as he did, and that all that he said was quite true. ‘‘A month after our first meeting, it ap- peared to me that I had always known him. My sympathy with him increased daily, and I was thrilled with secret pleasure when I heard his footstep. This indefinable hap- piness, which I scarcely dared confess to my- self, had transformed me. I forgot all my ennui, and kept embracing my children as if bent on smothering them. I wished to share with them the emotions I was ex- periencing. I decked my house with flowers on the days when he called on me. ‘* My husband saw nothing ofall this, and, ofcourse, did not suspect these changes, as, for a long time, he had fallen into the habit of neither looking at nor speaking to me. Octave was extremely reserved with me, but I had reason to believe that my sympathy was reciprocated. This great artist is timid, and many interviews in his studio were necessary before he would confess his love. M. Deroy had lived apart from the fashion- able world. He had always been a worker, and a hard worker. Having gained the grand prix de Rome, and been elected a member of the Institute, he had not had time to fritter away his life in pleasure, or to waste it in salons and clubs.

Page 15

‘At the moment of our meeting, Octave had just put an end to a /zasion that had left in his heart, if not an open wound, at least a deep-seated pain, which was caused not only by broken ties and the strength of former affection, but by the disappointment arising from his having endowed the object of his preference with sentiments and at- tributes she did not possess. This artist- nature looked only on the bright side of things, and only abandoned its faith when confronted with the most irrefragable of proofs. He gave me a detailed account of all the circumstances, concealing nothing. The loyalty and kindness with which he re- ferred to the woman who had deceived him made me like him still better. For her he had not a single bitter word. ‘“You must excuse me, Monsieur Abbé, for entering into these details ; but you can understand with what satisfaction I recall the life and thoughts of the man who has loved me so tenderly. His confessions as to the past proved how great was his affection for me. ‘*Octave met me ata moment when his loving heart felt the need of real and deep affection. Mine was as empty as his, and responded to his aspirations. We loved each other, but being both loyal, we were unable to contemplate, without fear or re- morse, the consequences of unlawful rela- tions that many enter upon with careless indifference. We therefore hesitated, and hesitated long. We were forced, he at forty and I at thirty, to consider ourselves more than usually fortunate when we could secretly press each other’s hands. Ah! how sweet were those rare moments ! How happy he seemed when he could give mea furtive kiss in the recess of some alcove. How happy was I when he took my arm on leav- ing the theater to lead me to my carriage. ‘‘Our loveentered upon a new phase when my husband consented to my going to Octave’s studio to sit for my portrait. There we were alone, unrestrained as to our words and gestures, with no witnesses to annoy us. Still, during these long séances, our conduct was irreproachable. It was because Octave’s love was noble and unselfish that it was kept in check by a regard for my reputation. He was desperately enamored of me, but he well knew how I would suffer if impru- dence on his part should rob me of the re- THE PRIEST'S STORY. 187 spect of the world, or the affection of my children. ‘‘We, therefore, resolved to restrain our- selves, taking delight in this unconstrained intercourse, but determined to give no cause for the gossip of censorious tongues. III. ‘THE sittings at the studio had already lasted a long time. My husband, who gener- ally troubled himself very little about me, remarked that it took a great while to paint my portrait, and sometimes asked when it would be finished. My replies were not very satisfactory, for I had no goodexcuse to give him. Thus I had arrived at the point—a new experience for me—where I had some- thing toconceal. Thistroubled me, for I felt that the time was rapidly approaching when I should be compelled to take decisive action. ‘*My husband rarely visited us during the sittings ; and when he did so, was always announced by aservant. M. Deroy’s a/elier was very large, and was lighted by a great bay window looking out on the Boulevard de Clichy. Opposite the window was a wide door-way entirely concealed by a curtain. Beyond it was an antechamber, and a door opening on the stair-way. The latter was never fastened on the inside, as much through the artist’s careless habits as through defer- ence to me; but Octave’s servant, who oc- cupied a room on the same landing, had strict orders not to allow any onetoenter the studio without being announced, when his master was not alone. ‘‘One day, unfortunately, these orders, whether through negligence or treason, were not obeyed. As usual, I was sitting in a large arm-chair in ballcostume. Octave, not being in the mood for working, was talking to me, and pressing his lips on my hands, my neck, my hair. He was whispering words of love, and I felt more excited than usual. For the first time I was greatly moved, and we exchanged kisses that were to bind us to each other for ever. ‘‘Octave being thus seated at my feet, looking at me, and fondling me, we neither of us noticed that it was growing dark, and that it was long past the hour when I gener- ally went home. Suddenly the ancient tapestry that covered the door was pushed aside, and I saw my husband appear, revolver in hand.

Page 16

188 ‘* Octave, whose back was to the entrance, saw nothing, but, aroused by my cry ofalarm, rose, and following my glance, threw himself upon Henri with the intention of disarming him. My husband motioned him away. ‘* * Be calm, you have nothing to fear.’ ‘** Sir, I await your orders,’ was Octave’s reply. ‘**T have nothing to say to you; I do not know you. I could kill you both without being seen, but I have no desire to create a scandal, since ! am not only the guardian of my own good name, but of that of my chil- dren. I am only concerned with your life ; your death or mine would not change any- thing. Besides, I have no quarrel with you ; we are not friends, and you have, therefore, not betrayed me. You are simply playing a man’s game, and getting all the good from life you can. Therefore, be calm. As to you, madame, your account will be settled at my leisure, and monsieur is not at all concerned in our disputes. Return home, and wait for me.’ ‘* With these words he left us. ‘‘My husband gone, I burst into tears. Octave did what he could to soothe me, but felt as strongly as I did the gravity of the sit- uation. We were not guilty in the common acceptation of the term, but I loved Octave and belonged to him, body and soul. He knew how I adored my children. He knew that by nature I am truthful, and that a life of falsehood, the result of any closer rela- tions, would have been repugnant to me and could not have lasted long without resulting in scandal. ‘* Besides it is a difficult thing fora woman in society to deceive her husband without some one being cognizant of it. No doubt to triumph over obstacles should increase the pleasure of victory; but the man must be intensely selfish, as he risks little, while the woman may lose everything. Octave loved me too much to wish to make me mis- erable, and had therefore resigned himself to the Platonic love that was limited to long interviews and a few stolen kisses. ‘*T will not assert that this condition of things could have lasted; but, up to the moment when my husband surprised us, I swear before Heaven that we were inno- cent. ‘* After I had become somewhat calm, our first impulse was to fly, but it was only an THE COSMOPOLITAN. impulse. My unwillingness to leave my children was stronger than my love. ‘** All will happen as God wills,’ I said to Octave. ‘Iam readyto endure anything. I am going home to atone for my fault. Adieu, mon ami; I love you; do not forget me, but do not try to see me again. You shall not be left in ignorance of my fate, dead or living.’ ‘* Hardly had I reached the hétel when my husband came in search of me. He was pale, but calm. He motioned me to a seat, and sat down opposite to me. ‘** As you observe, madame, I do not act as others do. Under similar circumstances the deceived husband, who surprises his wife in flagrante delictu, as a rule kills her and her lover. Then he is summoned before the assize court and is acquitted ; or else he avenges the stain upon his honor by fight- ing a duel with the lover, whom he kills, or who, as sometimes happens, kills him. In both cases it creates a scandal that casts a cloud over the children’s future. But I do not wish them to suffer for their mother’s crime, or their father’s dishonor. They are innocent and ought not to be punished. In this matter there is only one culprit—your- self. You alone must be assailed in the single relation you still hold sacred—your motherhood.’ ‘*T tried to reply, but he would not let me speak and went on : ‘**Tn ancient times, the outraged husband could lawfully cause his guilty wife to disap- pear without being held responsible for his conduct. The laws to-day donot permit the use of such a mode of vengeance. I am sorry for it ; but I have found something that will take its place without committing assas- sination.’ ‘*T shuddered and remained silent. He whom I feared so little, who was so little calculated to inspire terror, made me afraid. It seemed to me that I had to do with a ma- niac, from whom I might expect anything. Noticing my emotion, he said: ‘**Do not be afraid, my vengeance may prove very sweet to you. I am going to cause you to disappear——but voluntarily.’ ‘** Disappear? You are mad.’ ‘**Not at all. My plans are perfected ; they are very simple. You are ailing and will go to Madeira—alone, or with your paramour—and you will never return.’

Page 17

THE PRIEST'S STORY. ‘** But he is not my paramour ; I swear it. Why do you wish to rob me of my children, who are my joy and my life?’ ““*T know that you love your children, and that is why I am determined that they shall not be dishonored. My resolution is not to be shaken. You will start on this journey as I wish you to do, or I shall begin proceedings against you in the courts for criminal intercourse. I shall be the laugh- ing-stock of Paris, but you will find all doors closed against you, and my children will succeed to an inheritance of misery. Choose !’ ‘*This man, who had long since lost all en- ergy, became in a moment incredibly fero- cious under the spur of insult and wounded self-love. He was pitiless ; neither prayers nor tears could turn him from his purpose. Like all those who suffer from mental dis- ease, he had become infatuated with his own plan—this diabolical idea—and insisted on it with unparalleled obstinacy. ‘“‘T am at the confessional, Father, and must keep nothing back. I was wildly in love with Octave; but in the punishment my husband sought to inflict upon me, I did not look forward for a moment to our union. By the next day I had decided to yield to his wishes, persuaded that I should be able to find some way of again seeing my dear children, and watching over them. ‘In a few days my husband’s horrible scheme was carried out. My son, now eight, had been sent to boarding-school and my daughter consigned toaconvent. All the servants had been discharged and the horses sold. It was announced that M. and Mme. de Larcey had started for Algiers on account of madame’s health, which was such as to give little hope of her ultimate recovery. My husband left with me and accompanied me as far as Marseilles. There he placed a portmonnaie in my hands and said : ‘** Now, madame, you are dead to me, but the world will not learn of your decease un- til my return to Paris at the expiration of a year. Go wherever you please except to the United States. To-morrow evening I shall be at Havre, and in eight days at New York. I shall travel for exactly a twelvemonth, then I shall come back to Paris and announce your death.’ ‘Strange as it may appear, such was the scheme my poor husband had conceived for 189 wreaking his revenge on me. Three days later I returned to Paris to seek my children, but the most careful and prudent investiga- tion led to no result. I visited all the schools without discovering the slightest trace of them. Nowhere could I find that a boy and girl had recently been entered that bore the least resemblance to mine. Henri had deceived me. By resorting to strategem I finally discovered that my dear ones had been left for three days in the neighborhood of Rouen, with a farmer who had taken them to their father on his arrival at Havre. After that I lost all traces of them. Instead of sailing for New York, as he pretended he was about to do, he set out on a small craft belonging to an English gentleman, but whose name I was unable to learn. ‘*This intelligence overwhelmed me, and all hopes of again seeing my children ex- pired within me. I wanted to die, for the mother alone had survived the disaster. What was Itodo? What was to become of me? Iwas wild! I had taken lodgings in a small hotel in the Faubourg St. Germain under an assumed name. I drove about ina cab, with drawn blinds, from morning till night. The days were passed in the search for my dear ones ; the isolation and the de- privation of their caresses constituted a severe penance for my fault. ‘*T wanted to forget Octave and to take ref- uge in a convent in some locality where there were still real ones. I had had no news from my friend, for I had not written to him in spite of my promise. Besides I was very ill; I felt that my suffering was aging me rapidly. I did not wish to see him again, for I feared that he would not think that I bore much resemblance to my former self. ‘*As all my luggage had been left at Mar- seilles, 1 was compelled to return there, and set out in that direction without having fully determined where to go to conceal my- self. In the refreshment-room at the Lyons station I encountered Octave on his way back from Marseilles. Imagine our surprise at this unexpected meeting. My friend had been very anxious about me, and had passed days in roaming about the neighborhood of our residence in the endeavor to learn what was going on. The day of our departure he discovered our destination, and two days later was at Marseilles. But scarcely had he succeeded in obtaining our address there,

Page 18

190 when he heard that I had left again for Paris. He followed me and we met at Lyons. IV. ‘‘From that moment our fortunes were united. We set out for Italy. M. Deroy knew the country thoroughly. He had lived there and, as an artist, had traveled over it in all directions. Heenabled me to appre- ciate its beauty. With him I admired the chefs-d’ euvre that one finds everywhere, even in the smallest towns. Butone’s mind must be at ease to find in the achievements of genius the pleasure they are designed to give. My troubled soul, my unsettled mind, could find peace only in the beauty of nature, since it alone could draw me away from my- self. The Gulf of Naples, Sorrento, the Lake of Como, Maggiore, and the lofty peaks of Switzerland somewhat assuaged my sorrow. These entrancing scenes, haunted for centuries by happy lovers, wit- nessed the avowal of sentiments until then unknown to me, and which filled my heart with joy ineffable. These great spaces, at once imposing and delightful, produced such an effect on me that for a time I seemed to myself to be less guilty than I was; but the waters, the forests, and the mountains will never give back the tears I shed in view- ing them. ‘‘Thus I lived for a year, happy in my lover's society, but dying with an unsatis- fied desire to see my children. I found in Octave’s heart all that the purest love and the most tender friendship could supply, but the remembrance of my dear ones was stronger than his affection, and I felt that I was gradually fading away. ‘* Woman is not made for liberty. The land that we have just been traversing proves it. Woman isa slave ; she is made to have her destiny fixed by others, not to shape it for herself. Christianity has elevated, but not emancipated her. By being subject to the law of maternity, she is compelled to occupy an inferior position. Only the unfruitful woman has any chance of independence ; but even she is ever the subject of the man to whom fate has assigned her. Her happiness is subordinated to her master’s fortunes. The woman of the East is, therefore, relatively speaking, the only one who can be said to be happy, for she has never known the ficti- tious importance that our artificial manners THE COSMOPOLITAN. have given to her more cultivated sisters. Love is not a sacred sentiment, it is an in- toxication of the senses to which one aban- dons one’s self with pleasure when it is the result of mutual sympathy, but which is hateful when it is shared with a being one can neither love nor esteem. The caresses of aman for whom one has no affection are dis- gusting. God alone knows the heart-tor- tures of a young girl who has been forced to contract a marriage because women must be wedded to men who are thus bound by law to protect them. ‘‘T have been united to one whom I did not love, but whom I might have loved had he been able to understand me, for I was vir- tuous and kind-hearted. But he treated the young girl whom fate had thrown in his way like the women who sell themselves for gain. Without trying to please me he soon abandoned me to an isolation that could not but lead me to cherish hopes of attaining to a happiness he either could not, or did not know how to, make me understand. ‘‘This man, bereft of every feeling of deli- cacy, this man, long without the power of taking the initiative, had suddenly regained it only to overwhelm me with the greatest misfortunes that can happen to a womar ; and I could do nothing to break the force of the blow. I was culpable, and culpable mainly through his misdoing. Still I was willing to suffer the greatest hardships that my children might not be left a heritage of shame. A lawsuit and a separation would have created a scandal that would have left traces. Some day myson would have learn- ed to despise his mother. I could not calm- ly look forward to such a fate. I wished for death that I might, at least, leave to my babes the heritage of an unsullied name. ‘‘Thus was I condemned to seek solace in the grave. I had no weapon with which to struggle against my husband’s terrible vengeance. A culpable wife and mother, I went away with my lover, and in spite of all the happiness I. have experienced with him, I feel that unless I see my children again, my strength will soon be exhausted. ‘*Save me, Monsieur Abbé, save me!’’ With these words poor Marie burst into tears, but she soon recovered her equanimity on seeing M. Deroy appear at the other end of the deck. Then she added bitterly: ‘*To-day it is he who excites my com-

Page 19

passion, for I am no longer the wife beloved for her beauty and who lived on his affec- tion, but a sad companion, smitten by the hand of God, whose soul is as sick as her body. ‘‘T have told you my story as unreserved- ly as if I had been kneeling in the confes- sional, but I do not ask for absolution. If my crime is great, you know that I have greatly expiated it. Itis a year to-day since my children weretorn from me. According to my htusband’s horrible scheme, the dar- lings must to-day be wearing mourning for their mother. How could I make them understand, even if I should be so fortunate as to see them again? I feel now that I can do anything, but I can not live without them. I have promised, under compulsion, to dis- appear to save their reputation—not mine. What would {it matter to me even if my shame were published to the world, so iong as I could embrace them once more? Would they not pardon me when they knew what I have gone through, and that I am covering myself with disgrace in order that I may again feel their kisses on my lips? Com- pared with this, what is my good name, or my husband’s? ‘*T shall lose my lover whom I idolize. He will leave me for love of me. He will worship me at a distance, and will not think of again renewing relations that can no longer be maintained, since with me matern- al love dominates all others. Ah, how well the wretch knew what he was doing ! ‘*T beseech you, Monsieur Abbé, help me to find my children. There are laws in all lands, but even the unworthy wife, who has broken solemn vows, still remains the mother of herchildren. Maternity is sacred everywhere, even unto death! No human tribunal will refuse a mother the caresses of her dear ones. I shall, therefore, brave all with your aid, which you will grant me, will you not?”’ I had not time to reply as M. Deroy had come up tous. The young woman took his arm, pressed my hand, and turned toward the salon. Even now I can still hear the sound of her caressing voice—even now, when so many years have passed over my head. Never have I been so moved as by this soul, sochastely human ! Was there still something she wished to impart tome? I can not tell. THE PRIEST'S STORY. 191 V. A FEw hours after Marie had finished her story a terrible sand-laden breeze arose that obscured the sun. It was the dangerous kamsim, so much dreaded, and so enervating that even the strongest become weak and helpless under its influence. The passen- gers who had come on deck to get a breath of air were forced to return to their cabins, where the heat was intense. The ship it- self seemed to groan under some invisible burden. The creaking of the masts and the noise made by the machinery could be heard far more distinctly than usual. This greatly frightened many of the passengers, who believed that the vessel was about to founder. The officers and crew were sparing of their explanations. It is very difficult to make a sailor talk at a time when he is com- pelled to think both of his duty and of his personal safety. As to his superiors they are compelled to be silent. I had remained on deck, not from bravery, but because the revelations of this adorable woman had given meso much food for re- flection that I never thought of taking ref- uge from the gale, and I had not yet no- ticed anything unusual in our position. I was, however, soon aroused from my thoughts by a terrible shock followed by great excitement among the officers and crew. The captain at his post gave orders I could not understand, and it seemed to me that the ship, while it still kept in motion, was not making any headway. Nothing could be seen, nothing but clouds of sand that only permitted occasional glimpses of a range of low arid bluffs that seemed to be nothing more than a succession of sand hills. Nothing within the range of vision suggested life ; we were floating on a sea of fire, enveloped in a burning mist and sur- rounded on all sides by an unexplored desert, which might well inspire the bravest with terror. In fact we were now quite near Cape Guardafui, in the country of the Som- alis. This terrible region is not subject to law since there is nothing but wretchedness ‘to govern. The few inhabitants live on the shore in huts made from the débris of ship- wrecks. With scarcely any animals or tilla- ble land, these miserable outcasts live on the prey that the sea washes up at their feet. They watch for shipwrecks with calm

Page 20

192 ferocity. Indeed it is said that a sheik of one of these villages spends his time in praying Mohammed to strand many vessels on this inhospitable coast. Such was the locality into which the Minerve had drifted at the close of the day. I began to be anxious, and went resolutely to the captain to ascertain why the vessel was almost motionless. It seemed to me that that official would not refuse to reply to a question put by a priest, who, in case of disaster, might be able to encourage the weak-hearted. Nor was I in error. This brave man, who successfully concealed the terrible torture he was suffering, replied frankly: ‘‘Wearein real danger. An acci- dent has occurred to the machinery; the steering gear is out of order, and I can not tell where we are. There is nothing for it but coolness and courage.’’ The crew were thoroughly disciplined and obeyed the captain’s orders without appar- ently noticing the dangers that surrounded us on all sides. Night had fallen, black and hopeless. Nothing was to be’seen but the red and white lights on the ship itself; the heat was stifling. The passengers had again come on deck to get air, but only encountered gusts of sand that dried the lips and burned the eyes. The night wore on but no relief came, and one by one the weary passengers went below, so that by two o’clock in the morn- ing no one but the crew remained on deck. Thanks to the coolness of our captain I was the only one on board who knew the gravity of the situation. Powerless to do anything in our own behalf, we could only await the dawn that would soon appear. Suddenly I heard a terrible crash, and at the same instant the ship seemed to split intwo. Ina few moments a compact half- dressed mass of humanity filled the deck, and with one accord threw themselves upon the small boats in a kind of fury. All dis- cipline was at once at an end. There were no longer either captain, sailors, or passen- gers, only a crowd of terror-stricken men, women, and children. My appeals to them to be calm were wasted on deaf ears ; I was not listened to. Nothing was to be heard but cries of distress in all dialects and languages. What as- sailed my ears during that terrible night can not be described. The human voice at THE COSMOPOLITAN. such times has tones that can not be imi- tated, and that resemble nothing with which we are acquainted. When so many in the prime of life suddenly find themselves face to face with death a last despairing cry is uttered that I still shudder to recall. Although the darkness of the night and the clouds of sand nearly blinded me, | could still make out in the vessel’s wake, by a faint light, a mass of heads and arms that seemed to be struggling toward some point to me invisible. Then I felt a shock that forced me overboard, and I saw nothing more. Exactly what happened and why I am still alive I find it difficult to relate. I de- scribe the scene rather from intuition than from what I really saw. The ship had struck on one of the immense reefs that line this desolate coast and Had broken in two. A few guns had been fired, but with no other effect than to bring down on the wreck a cloud of famished Somalis, who killed such of the passengers and crew as were still alive. The dawn, which we had so anxiously awaited to save ourselves from shipwreck, only showed me a heartrend- ing spectacle of desolation, pillage, and slaughter, confirming the remark of a former traveler in this hideous region, that ‘‘the only harvest here gathered is the harvest of death.’’ * The sun, which shone with its ordinary brilliancy, had already arisen a long time. I had thrown myself down on an old palm- tree mat, in front of a wretched hut, while around me was spread the wreckage of my poor ship over which several wild-looking Be- douins were quarreling. Nothing remained of the passengers and crew but their soiled clothing, those that the waves had spared having been pitilessly murdered. The mas- sacre had been perpetrated at a short distance from the scene of the wreck, amid a series of deep gorges formed by the torrents that rush down from the Guardafui and that form pools of water around which is the collection of gourguis where the bandits, by whom I am surrounded, live. I rose up greatly surprised that my life had been spared amid the general slaughter, and dragged myself toward the cabins to see if I could not discover some of my unfortu- nate companions. The crowd of Somalis * Georges Revvil.

Page 21

THE PRIEST'S STORY. 193 opened before me respectfully, and I looked foran hour with my own eyes on scenes I have not the heart to describe. The mur- dered travelers had not yet been buried, but their clothing had already been partially transferred to their Bedouin assassins, or had been piled up in the huts under guard, awaiting the arrival of the sheik who was to preside at the distribution. In spite of my terrible situation, I took courage from the deference with which I was treated to approach these torn garments to search for traces of her whose name I will never again pronounce. I examined one by one the women’s dresses spread before me, but happily hers was not among them. The ruffians had not profaned her beautiful body. The horror with which the discovery of a wound inflicted on her by these human wolves would have inspired me I was not to know. By enshrouding her forever in the depths of the sea, the Good Father had con- doned her fault and had purified her. Death had bestowed on her the second baptism she so greatly coveted. But why was / still alive? This melan- choly examination had deeply moved me, and I burst into tears. I then understood the nature of my feelings for this rare crea- ture. I felt both joy and rage in my heart ; joy at seeing that she had not been brutally murdered ; rageat the thought that she had drawn her last breath in the arms of him who had proved her ruin. Why had I not perished with her? Why had I not been able to whisper just once in her ears the word that had thrilled through my being from the very first moment I had seen her ? I fell on my knees and prayed God to par- don his servant these guilty thoughts. The sun was going down and my emotion was such that it had not occurred to me to inquire why I alone had survived the great disaster. Only bands of wild dogs could be seen yelping around the place where the bodies of the murdered travelers had been thrown. The horrible sight made me forget the bruises I had received, but had scarcely felt, before being cast ashore. My stomach, however, was in rebellion from want of food, and I directed my steps toward a collection of gourguis, before the doors of which I no- ticed several ancient hags squatting in the sand. On seeing me one of them arose, came toward me, and motioned me to enter the largest cabin. I did so. The interior of the gourvgui was as bare and uninviting as the terrible country in which I had been cast. At my entrance an old. white-bearded man prostrated himself to the ground, and offered me a cup of goat’s milk, which I drank with eagerness. Then a collo- quy by signs took place between us, eked out with a few Arab words, from which I gath- ered that the sheik of this wretched place had been cured of a serious illness by a Christian priest from Abyssinia, and that he had sworn an oath to the Prophet to spare the lives of all Christian priests who might fall into his hands. That is the reason why your poor brother is still numbered among the living. Two days later a ‘“piroque,’’ manned doubtless by some of the murderers of my fellow-passengers, rowed me up a small creek, where I embarked on a Somalis boat, and the following day I succeeded in board- ing a European steamer that landed me at Aden. Since that terrible night I have worked out my destiny, obeying my superiors, and serv- ing God like a good Christian in whatever corner of the globe I may have happened to find myself. I have seen my fellow-beings born and die ; I have administered the consolations of religion to men condemned to the most ter- ribleof punishments ; I have been compelled to fight for my own life ; I have seen those I loved perish ‘n hospitals and on the field of battle ; I have been a witness of the most terrible tragedies ; I have, in short, seen all forms of human suffering, but nothing has ever obliterated the memory of the wreck of the Minerve. Was it the loss of that fine vessel and the miserable end of such numbers of my fellow- creatures that so affected me? No, my good sister, it was the beloved, adored woman whom I still mourn. When one of these ex- ceptional creatures comes into our lives it is for ever ! God has made nothing better than woman, and our holy religion would not be sur- rounded with so much poetry were it not associated with the pure face of the Virgin Mary and with so many saints, guiltless and guilty. She who produced this deep im- pression on me was the realization of my

Page 22

194 THE COSMOPOLITAN. ideal, and her image has remained so graven on my memory that the old man will never forget. She was the only woman who ever made my heart throb tumultuously—it was for the first and the last time. Here the aged missionary bent his head as if ashamed of the confession; he fell back in his chair and tears came into his eyes. Then rising with a manly gesture, he threw back his white hair, and, turning to- ward Catherine, who had been deeply affected by the recital, he said : ‘* Tt is late, sister, we must retire !’’ HOW WE MET. By LovIsSE CHANDLER MOULTON. WHILE Summer with her slow, reluctant feet Went by, and lingering, smiled, as loth to part, What fond delusions warmed one lonesome heart ! Though lives by fate were severed, thoughts could meet : So met we, dear, as bodiless spirits greet ; Met and were blind, foreseeing not the smart Of hopes that hope not, and of tears that start From eyes which look what lips may not repeat. Here for a day—then gone beyond the sun Brief is the way, and soon the journey done— And less or more of love why should we measure? But Fate avenges pleasant things begun ; And Retribution spares not any one, And no gods pity those who steal their treasure. AT WAKING. By EDITH M. THOMAS. Ort have I wakened at the break of day, And from my window looking forth have found All dim and strange the long-familiar ground ; But soon I saw the mist glide slow away, And leave the hills in wonted green array, While from the stream-sides and the groves around Rose many a pensive, day-entreating sound, And in the fields young life began to play. Will it be even.so when first we wake Beyond the night in which are merged all nights,— The soul sleep-heavy and forlorn will ache, Deeming herself mid alien sounds and sights ; And then the gradual day with comfort break Along the old deeps of being, the old heights?

Page 23

A BRIGHTER HOPE FOR WOMEN. By SHIRLEY DARE. 1. — ING marks the progress of the world more than its advance in its methods of benevolence. As to the spirit of such work, all advance must be in the direction of the grandly simple model set forth cen- turies ago in a parable of exceeding tender- ness—help for those who need help, as they need it ; no more, no less. As to the meth- ods of good-will, they are often a return to antique forms—the hospital, the wayfarer’s house, the retreat for the aged and home- less. Far be it from me to decry the real good of our present institutions, which do more to make the world tolerable than we dream, even for ourselves. If our roads and the steps to our picture galleries are not over- run with festering beggars, it is thanks to the county house and the asylums. Yet, still, it remains that for children there is no charity like that which took the orphan or the apprentice directly into the family, or gave him to kindly, well-bred religious teachers from whom he received training more close and parental than that of paid nurses and superintendents can ever be. For women we have the higher education and the lower, almost without price. The formulated maxim of society to-day is, that the only help necessary is to provide train- ing for young women. All other sorts of help are dismissed as useless and mischiev- ous. This is the favorite strain of ideas reported from addresses at ladies’ clubs and alumnze dinners. As the cherished views of women not used to having their opinions treated lightly, we may follow their inten- tions to their results. And the very first that confronts one dealing with the world at first hand, and not from novels and reviews, is one that the comfortable people, who prescribe education as the panacea for all evils not connected with themselves, singularly over- look. Educate a woman, these wise people say, and you fit her to command a liberal income in the higher professions. Train her in the minor arts and callings, and her livelihood is insured. Would to heaven it were so! But education has not meant success for men, judging from the crowd of poor law- yers and physicians, not by any means poor in merit, that our best colleges produce, and the scores of English and German uni- versity men you may find struggling for every chance of employment, from report- ing to working in cracker bakeries. There is hardly work enough in the world for the men educated for it ; and the invasion of women into the market-place can only increase the competition to a fearful pass. That women have every right to work and earn a living goes without saying. We have to deal with consequences, with facts as they are, not as we wish them to be. When fifty women apply for every opening on the press, as contributor, correspondent, or department editor; when every paying newspaper and press agency is loaded down with manuscript, what follows? The best-known writers, wo- men whose wit, experience, and knowledge of society best fits them for their work, complain that they can not receive a third of the prices paid for articles in 1880. One of the three foremost women on the newspapers to-day, a woman whose wealth makes it re- markable that she should be in that gallery at all, was surprised when the equally wealthy proprietor of an old city daily desired her to write for five dollars a letter, because he had ‘‘so many applications from women whose work compared with her own, who were glad to work at that rate.’’ She took the place presumably at a compromise rate. ‘‘Why should I pay your prices?”’ the editor and proprietor of the oldest Boston society paper said to a well-trained writer. ‘‘T run newspapers to make money, and there are any number of women on Beacon Street and Back Bay glad to send me work at three dollars a column to pay for their gloves, and plenty of young lawyers on Court Street willing to do the same to get something to eat.’’ If this is what Harvard andthe higher education prepares for us all, I fear we will come to think as contemptuously of clerks

Page 24

196 and students as any strong-handed baron of the Middle Ages. ‘‘T think it is better to have all I can do at half price, than to ask more and do less,” a useful and popular writer on the staff of a leading magazine said to me three years ago. She thought herself fortu- nate in being able to write day and evening, but the last word from her was that she had broken down, insane from overwork. The case is no better with artists or musicians. I see well-born women, carefully educated, well connected, living at the top of business blocks, cooking and sleeping in their studios, often keeping their rooms a week at atime without passing the endless stairs tothe street, growing thin and haggard with privation, and toiling ceaselessly at their brushes as any shopworker at her sew- ing machine. The difference between the two grades of work is only in the cleverness of the craftswoman, not in the price paid, or the close conditions of labor. Add to this the difficulty of getting paid for art work, the trickery that rich dealers are not at all above practicing on women as well as men artists—keeping a picture sent for sale tillsome cheaper hand can copy it, and then returning the original as unsalable, borrow- ing a pretty design and having it adopted by a clever copyist—and you have a glimpse of the vexations that wring the souls and impoverish the lives of artists. As for teachers, ask any educational agency for the chances of employment. There are a hundred applicants for every vacancy likely to occur in the next five years, and this hundred is doubled every other year by the shoals of girls graduating from normal schools. Women doctors are nearly as badly off as artists, though they usually have some capital to begin on. But when the little inheritance from father or grandfather is spent in waiting, the young doctor must live on her own pellets if she is a homcepath, or give services for board in country resorts, as the custom is. In all vocations, the effect of crowding them with the graduates of American train- ing schools, competing with the yet more carefully drilled adventurous women from continental homes, must be to cut down the rates of work, and bring them to an East In- dian standard—merely enough for covering rice and ghee ; leaving out, perhaps, a thou- THE COSMOPOLITAN. sand people of genius in all professions over the globe, and dividing work and wages among the tens of thousands qualified, it is doubtful if the rate for skilled labor of any sort would average much over a dollar aday. These are facts, my masters, not at all carrying out the pretty pictures of the story writers, whose girly-girls in family disaster and loss of property have only to pick up their pens and write a magazine article, or go into fruit-raising, or beekeeping, and buy a farm, and new-furnish the house the first season on the profits. Might these redoubt- able young women but condescend to give the rest of the world some inkling of their secret of success! Every year the competi- tion of real life grows more intense, till no favorite with gifts and genius feels secure in her place, or keeps it but at cost of sleep- less vigilance and effort. The thousand successes are offset by tens of thousands of women to whom life is a constant strain of body and thought, with only lightening enough of the toil to be en- durable. It is enough to know, from medi- cal reports, that the majority of cultivated women are aged at fifty, with the wrinkles and gray hair fit for seventy-five, and soon after die of overstrain, or break down in mind. Imbecility and hysteria increase, to say nothing of insanity, while the standard of effective labor, intellectual and physical, rapidly lowers, because the stamina of the race is worn out. What comes between the training and the end, the histories of women’s lives, of a grade above the working class, that demands so much deserved pity, I spare you. For twenty years Ihave known the lives of these self-dependent women, their struggles, their bafflings, their partial successes. I have never taken a lantern and gone out into the highways to pick out the chief sufferers and relate their tale. I have but remembered what has come under my own eye, what others know and exclaim at for the moment and the next hour have forgotten. Should I write these histories of heartbreak, madness, and the grave, no newspaper would print a recital so somber ; the world would put up its hands begging to be spared the shock to itssensibilities. Indeed, such stories are too sacred to be told the common ear, even of charity. One must have suffered to under- stand them.

Page 25

A BRIGHTER HOPE FOR WOMEN. The most of the people in the world are like the amiable parent told of in my young days, who, wakened by his child crying with the toothache, rose and spanked it into quiet, and returned to his slumbers. The better part of educated men and women know the truth of these bitter experiences— doctors, lawers, the few ministers who have right to their calling, and the rare women like Mrs. Thomas H. Burton, the Princess Alice, and some of the most refined women of society to-day, to whom, as to Récamier, ‘‘friendlessness and misfortune have the same attraction that favor and success have for vulgar souls.’’ Let it suffice that for those clear spirits, who know best the history of their kind and day, the suffering of one- half the world is not so annoying as the heedlessness of the other half, seeing which one is persuaded that we are hardly so far from the Dark Ages as the world flatters it- self, and civilization scarce registers an hour past the dawn. But it is not God’s will that this obscurity and indifference should last one moment longer than heats can be found to see and carry out the work of blessing. The help for the worst woes of dependent women is at hand. II. THE need of woman for protection is old as the race. The Medieval Age, in its direct fashions of striking at evil, left lessons for all-coming time, and nothing better has been devised forthe great army of superfluous wo- men than the original idea of the convent. The word means simply a gathering, a com- munity, and was a body of women collected for protection and support, in rude times when superfluous women were got rid of with less decency than dispatch. Within strong walls they were safe from marauders, and gave themselves to religion and needle- work, which were the two occupations of the sex in castle bower as well as convent cell. Later, all feminine arts flourished in conven- tual soil. The confectionery and pastry of convents was in high repute, as it is in Spanish and South American countries to- day. Cordials, perfumes, preserves, em- broideries, the most costly illuminating and miniature painting, all swelled the convent income; and convent gardens, where bushels of rose leaves were gathered for distilling and wall fruit hid the stones, were vignettes of Eden. 19 197 Vows and austerities are not inherent in convent life, nor even a religious profession. The eyes of the destitute and struggling have ever turned to the idea of the convent as a haven of rest and shelter, an idea not by any means carried out within its walls, yet somehow destined to work out its ful- fillment. The peaceful, orderly lives of com- munities have a fascination for outsiders, and with all their drawbacks the Shaker and Mennonite villages have been a very sanc- tuary to friendless families. Food, generous in kind and quantity, comfort and neatness, company and support, the sense of security forlifein pure air and peaceful scenes, work, steady but not oppressive, fill the measure of human wants more nearly than the rest of life can without these. Moreover, no law of nature prevents communities from adding grace and freedom to their lives if they elect. Why should not shrewdness and liberality seize the best part of convent and com- munity systems, and improve them after an enlightened fashion? Thrift and sim- plicity are no blood kin to superstition and vagary. To seize and improve on these models is what the new Country Homes for Women propose to do. The plan is simple but comprehensive. A dwelling-house, with dormitories, stu- dios, and workshops, gardens, orchard, and greenhouse, poultry yard and apiary, is to become the home of dependent women of good behavior, refinement, and intelli- gence. There they will be received and trained in such crafts as they prove best fit for—gardening, fruit-raising, wood-working, preserving and confectionery, fine printing and binding, or more familiar works of the needle and decorative art; those strictly unable to pay for board and training at the very low rates giving their services in re- turn, when trained, to cancel the debt. This opens the door for some of the ablest women, who are also the poorest in purse. But the house is not designed for a mere training school, but a home for life for wo- men who desire its shelter, and can either pay for it or give acertain amount of work in return. It offers training of a sort not easily found by women, especially in light handicrafts, shelters the needy pupil while teaching her, taking her finished services in payment, and afterward still offers such a home and certainty of support as most wo-

Page 26

198 men dream of and never find, if she chooses to remain and pay for it in work or money, at the lowest cost. A girl or woman of uncertain age, without income, as yet untrained to business of any sort, presents herself ; just two conditions are required—good behavior of a sort to be ac- ceptable to other ladies and willingness to work. She finds a quiet, attractive country house, not at all like an institution, near a tural station, in easy reach of city lessons, markets, and sales-rooms. She has a room with closet, simply and comfortably fitted, well ventilated, and warmed in winter. The large sitting-room and dining-room are what they would be in a well-ordered family— charming as artistic taste can make inex- pensive furnishing, with windows full of flowers, and telling decorative touches. A choice library and music are matters of course ; a resident doctor is not so often found, though necessary in a houseful of women. Attic studios are shared by artists; a sunny workshop with latticed casements, planing bench, lathe and joiner’s tools rank- ing as much a studio as any ofthem, and one of the most profitable. Kitchen, pantry, and confectionery, or, in old-fashioned phrase, the still-rooms, are to be as pleasing as any rooms in the house, that work in them may share attractiveness. They are planned to make work light, with a dozen contrivances for comfort specially designed for the house. Imagine a kitchen where, with ventilating hood and patent cooker, the dinner for fifty persons goes on in midsummer without perceptibly heating the room! where a polished white-wood floor, a tile-finish wainscot, swing windows that let sweet brier in, and low Shaker chairs really tempt one to join the pea-shelling or berry-hulling there! One side is a cool little dairy and ice-room, where the making of ‘*dulcet creams,’’ moussés, whips, and glacés is in order ; a dainty tiled closet is for mys- teries of distilling sweet waters, and putting up herbs, for the herbery in the garden is counted as a source of revenue, and a favor- ite branch of garden work with women. Without, a skillful gardener teaches to prune and graft, dig, weed, and transplant in the most careful fashion, and women will find that with sharp, light tools, shade hats, flannel blouse suits, gauntléts and cork- soled shoes, gardening has nothing dread- THE COSMOPOLITAN. ful. Even weeding a strawberry bed is light work, with a low cricket to sit on, a mat to kneel on, and leave to come in by eleven in the forenoon till noon heat is over. Among these avocations, the woman whose only idea is that she must earn her bread quickly finds, or practiced eyes find for her, whatshecan best do. Perhaps she has some gift of gardening or fancy work, not enough to depend on in the world. Here she learns how toturn it to account, how to dispatch things in a business manner, and make work salable, how to favor herself, and how to give a good account of herself in aday’s work. At first she may or may not be worth her salt to any one, but example, the working spirit about her, the stimulus of good fare and relief from anxiety are all but irresistible, and with some experienced person at hand to say, ‘‘ Just here you fail,’’ or, ‘‘ This should be so,’’ the least capable wake up to creditable, profitable perform- ance. Nor is she turned off with her new-found craft to peddle her work as best she may, un- used to buying orselling, with the chance of starving over herunsold ware. This work, of standard quality, is taken ata fixed value, and credited against her board and clothing, which, if desired, is supplied at cost. Some of this work is to be turned in directly to the needs of the house, especially sewing for other inmates, upholstering and repairing, or housekeeping help and gardening, for most of the supplies will be grown on the place. The rest will be sold by experienced hands, and the high quality of everything offered will make this no uncertain profit. All over her expenses, the rates of which are fixed and definite, goes to the worker, just as if she gave her work to any dealer. III. THE central idea of the new plan is, not training alone, but protection, and so much help as the strongest of us are the better for, through life. Ordinary systems give the girl or woman three months’ to three years’ training in classes, and then throw her out in a world of difficulties and dishonesties to struggle orsink asshemay. The human being can not be finished off in any class course for the conduct of life, and the protect- ory aims to do thoroughly what various systems do partially and timidly. It really

Page 27

A BRIGHTER HOPE FOR WOMEN. often seems as ifthe societies for the benefit of women were afraid of doing as much good as they might. The protectory will train women, not by hasty class lessons, but by the daily, hourly supervision and working with the teacher, which is the only training worththename. It lends the sagacity of ex- perienced brains to the beginnerin her small business venture with the world, and when fairly started, if she chooses to remain in its shelter, paying with her work or her money as is convenient, it is her home, as far as any roof can be that is not her own or her father’s house. If she finds in herself spirit and aptness for independence, with an opening for her talents in the common ways, she goes freely, leaving and taking a bless- ing. Fear not that any of this care will injure the fiber of her spirit, and lead to a weak de- pendence. There is a vast difference between the aid that develops and the aid that weak- ens, a distinction that seems to wholly escape the propounders of the self-help doctrine. A woman is the better fitted to act for herself when she has so absorbed the ways and words of experts that she knows precisely what to do and say, or what is within her- strength and what beyond it. There is sad lack of penetration and judgment in the be- stower when help disables instead of refresh- ing. The great thing in the new plan, which is not to be lost sight of, and which guards against all weakening of moral fiber, is that benefits are to be scrupulously paid for in money or work, and that of no indifferent sort. Such a house is the last place where a fribble, or viewy, useless enthusiast will find herself at home. It is possible that such a one, seeing the pleasure of well- ordered busy lives, would be shamed out of her uselessness, and take life in earnest. It is more than likely that a serene, healthful existence with steady, not burdensome, du- ties would cure meager souls of their vapors and hysterical tendencies, and bring women to a saner, sweeter experience than their present ideals. If such a protectory offers women more for their labor than they can receive in any other way, it is no more than can be carried out by wise administration. Country homes, giving women the benefit of pure air, in reach of the city for business advantages, 199 cost one-tenth that the same accommodation would intown. The gardens offer the best work for many women, especially school- teachers desiring change of occupation, and it is the suggestion of a worn-out teacher that gave prominence to this part of the scheme. Besides this, gardens and greenhouse will furnish much of the food for the year, and sales of fruit and flowers pay for the rest as well as for lighting the house. It was signif- icant that the plan of raising flowers was no more than mentioned when a Boston florist desired to engage all that could be brought, and this not out of sympathy for the under- taking. but as a mere business advantage. Careful estimates for buildings, cost of living, and instruction prove that twenty- five women and over can be provided with the best training and every comfort essential to a refined person, including medical care in common ailments, for less than two hundred dollars a year. No woman alone can com- mand such advantages for twice the sum, and when this is paid, not by her unassisted earnings alone, but by her salable work, the assurance of comfort and shelter is beyond price. The protectory desires to assure women that whosoever will work shall eat, and share the good of the land. No institu- tion fare is contemplated, but a scale of liv- ing that will compare with that of the best women’s colleges. Good living in every sense is the foundation idea of these country communities for women. This is no mere fancy sketch. A convent, a convening in its real meaning, without rigor, whose piety betrays itself in good work, a community where personal rights are sacred and distinct, are things not im- impossible in this age of the world. Nor is the world without notable thrift which yet masks the angles of its staircases with flow- ers and delights in soft colors and dainty linen sweet with lavender; which can be generous as well as frugal in the right place. Nor is it wanting in that essence of ladyhood and Christianity that makes it possible even for women to live together, not in any strained pretense of homes or sisterhoods, but in the courtesy, fairness, and honor that knits strangers together and gives the only true home feeling after we leave our mother’s knee. Is humanity, is womanhood, too poor for such community of needs and help?

Page 28

THE CHIEF CITY OF A MOORISH DESPOT. By JOSEPH T. ALLING. T is only fifteen miles across the Strait from Spain to Morocco, but that inter- vening distance marks a much greater sepa- ration than can be expressed in lineal meas- ure. It separates civilization from barbar- ism, free institutions from a slave mart and a despotic villain. Morocco is sometimes called the ‘‘ China of the West,’’ and it deserves its name, for it is fully as much behind the times, and is even more of a mystery. There is really less known about some parts of it to-day than there is about the center of Africa. Its area has never been accurately computed, and its population is variously estimated at from two and a half to eight millions; the very names of the tribes that compose it being unknown. Its high mountains, the loftiest on the Mediterranean, are unex- plored, and many of its inland cities have never been entered by a European. In these days, when sight-seers are trying to get out of the beaten paths of travel, a visit to this mysterious land will furnish a delightful diversion from the comparative monotony of the ‘‘ grand tour.’’ Railroad trains to Malaga or Cadiz, and steamers thence to Gibraltar, bring the visitor within three hours’ ride of Tangier, and although the Straits of Gibraltar have earned a repu- tation among qualmy travelers very similar to that of the English Channel, one can be safely landed on African soil without any trouble whatever, though the process of dis- embarking looks a little formidable to the uninitiated. The waters of the harbor, open to the waves of the Atlantic, are apt to be very rough, and often make wild work for the small boats, in which voyagers are set on shore. The commotion incident to all such landings is increased by the frenzied shout- ing and gesticulation of the bare-headed, bare-armed, bare-legged wild Arabs, who man the small boats, and nearly come to blows for the profit of carrying you ashore. Until very recently this process has been a literal ‘‘carrying ;’’ for passengers have been compelled to jump from the small boats knee-deep into the water, and wade up the beach, or else be carried astride the back of some stalwart native @ /a Sinbad the Sailor ; but now a little pier has been erected by the joint contributions of the foreign consuls res- ident in Tangier, so that one can land with- out much trouble and with no sacrifice of dignity. Think of a distinguished United States Senator, or a foreign diplomat in ep- aulets and gold lace, astride the back of a ragged boatman! Think again of the fleas those rags may harbor and be thankful for progress and the pier! The road from the pier to the city gate, for Tangier is a walled town, lies along the sandy beach and through a portico, or cov ered court, where the baggage is deposited before a number of magnificent looking Moors, who, clothed in snowy turbans and long white robes, sit cross-legged upon low platforms. With their flowing beards and their grave and dignified demeanor, these men might be Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, for ‘‘patriarch’’ is written upon every linea- ment of face and form; but their duties are not at all patriarchal in nature, for they are merely the custom-house officials, and they open satchels and rummage trunks as han- dily as the smart inspectors in the New York custom-house. The ceremony of inspection being ended, ragged slaves pick up the baggage and lead the way into the city. It must be confessed that the first view of Tangier is unpropi- tious. The huge cracks in its old walls give ominous prophecy of a fall at no distant day. Its streets are abominably filthy, and so rough and crooked that Blondin once wrote in a hotel register here that it was needless for him to prove his balancing powers any further, because he was able to say that he had walked up and down the main street of Tangier and had not fallen. While the traveler is wondering what kind of accommodations such a filthy town can fur- nish, and whether knives, forks, and spoons are fashionable in Africa, he is ushered into the clean, paved corridors of a comfortable hotel. At its /ad/e-d’ hdte sandal-shod Moors in complete Oriental dress glide noiselessly

Page 29

THE CHIEF CITY OF A MOORISH DESPOT. about the table. In the coffee-room, after dinner, the guests lie luxuriously upon the raised divans, smoking, sipping their coffee, and chatting with their fellow-travelers, who are chiefly French, German, and Spanish, with an occasional Italian or Englishman. An American is a vara avis; but when he does appear he will find himself more com- fortably lodged than in most of the ostenta- tious hotels in the large European cities. Tangier is one of the oldest existing cities in the world, having been known to the Phcenicians under the name of Tingis several centuries before Christ. How much greater antiquity it may claim is a matter of doubt. According to some accounts it antedates the founding of Rome by seven hundred years, stretching back beyond the first Greek Olympiad, andeven beyond Homer’s mythi- cal wars, owing its foundation to the tribes that were driven out of the promised land by Joshua. This claim would seem like a huge joke were it not for the fact that it is vouched for by two credible historians, Moses of Chorene, in his ‘‘ History of Ar- menia,’’ written in the fifth century, and Procopius, the most eminent historian of the Eastern Roman Empire, in his ‘‘ History of the Vandals,’’ written in the sixth century. Both these writers mention a pillar standing in ‘‘Tingis in Mauretania’’ that bore the inscription that those who erected it were the Canaanites who had fled from their native land before Joshua the Robber, ‘"In6ovs 0 Anérys.’’ Procopius possessed the advantage of having served as private secre- tary to Belisarius during the successful wars he waged in these regions, and may have seen the pillar himself. Though scholars do not doubt the existence of this interest- ing monument, it must be admitted that they question the genuineness of the inscrip- tion, so that it looks as ifit were a deliberate attempt to manufacture a bogus antiquity. Apparently the world was just as willing to be humbugged in the sixth century as it is said to be in the nineteenth. Whether the Canaanites ever possessed the old town or not, it certainly has been a pos- session of the Phoenicians, Romans, Van- dals, Moors, Portuguese, and English, the latter having acquired it as part of the dowry of Catherine of Portugal on her mar- riage with Charles II. in 1662. Aftertwenty- two years of occupation, the English con- 201 cluded that the game was not worth the candle ; so the fortifications were dismantled, the harbor spoiled by the destruction of the stone breakwater, and the place abandoned to the Moors, who have held it ever since. It is difficult to foretell the future of Mo- rocco. Since France took possession of Tunis,thereby violating her pledge to acquire no African territory beyond Algiers, the other European powers are naturally jealous lest French influence should become para- mount in Morocco also, and thus control the whole Barbary coast. There is certainly a tendency in this direction, and the govern- ments of France, England, Germany, Spain, and Italy are represented in Morocco by ex- perienced diplomatists, all intent on playing an imperial game of ‘‘ grab.’’ It isnot easy to say how long the Sultan will be able to maintain himselfas despot, but in view ofthis international jealousy, which prevents any nation from taking the first step, it looks as though the end were still a long way off, and that medievalism would continue to flourish, at least to the end of the nineteenth century. It may be stated as a general truth that barbarism can not exist alongside of the im- provements of the age without showing the characteristic symptoms of infection. No kind of vaccination is proof against exposure to steam and electricity. If this be true, how does it happen that a state of affairs that we have called medievalism exists in a country so near to Europe and so accessible to the world’s commerce as Morocco? The truth is, the attitude of the Sultan is such that Morocco has never been ‘‘ex- posed.’’ That autocratic individual, Muley- Hassan by name, adopts the belief of Louis XIV. that he is the embodiment of the state ; his own caprice and the welfare of the nation being synonymous in his estimation. He has decided that the introduction of civilized ways would be inconvenient for him, and therefore he closes the doors of Morocco, whether of ingress or egress, just as closely as he can, rendering communication with the outside world difficult and in many in- stances impossible. This is accomplished partly by a system of duties which are levied both upon imports and exports, and which he imposes, increases, and diminishes at his own sweet will. A few years ago the country was blessed with a splendid crop of wheat, which was

Page 30

202 eagerly sought at good prices by European buyers. But such communication with the outside world did not please his Majesty. The export duty on wheat was raised toa point where it became prohibitive, and the surplus grain rotted in the barns of its owners. Nor was this performance as short- sighted as it seems. It would be political suicide for the Sultan to allow Europeans to settle largely in Morocco, for his peculiar methods of conducting government and ad- ministering justice would go down before modern ideas as quickly as a medieval castle would crumble before the fire of modern heavy artillery. Morocco is behind the times, a thousand years behind in methods and morals. The people have no rights that the Sultan is bound to respect. If one of them acquires a little property that his Majesty desires, it is taken from him without a moment’s warn- ing. If the luckless possessor of a good farm or a handsome horse is not willing to relinquish it at the first intimation that the Sultan would be pleased with it, he is ar- rested on some fictitious accusation and put to death, or at any rate whipped till he turns the desired property over to the imperial rascal, when he is allowed to go on his way a beggared man, and in all probability a cripple for life. So keen is the scent of the Emperor and his officers after property of every kind that his subjects ate universally compelled to live in a state of apparent poverty, abstaining from the luxuries of life not only, but even from itscomforts, unless they can manage to secure the protection of some foreign power through its consul, or ally themselves in trade with some foreigner toward whom the Sultan will not dare to use high-handed measures. Thus the merchants of Tangier, whose bazaars are full of tempting fabrics, act as the resident agents of some foreign house, or else are under the protection of one of the foreign consuls, each of whom is entitled by law to acertain number of pro- tégés, or clients, among the native subjects, whose goods are thus protected from seizure. This right the American Consul has just re- nounced, because the Sultan has complained that many of his people, after securing foreign protection, were withdrawing from their allegiance and refusing to pay taxes or su mit to his authority, and that thus he was THE COSMOPOLITAN. losing control of his own subjects. There have been many abuses of this system of protection undoubtedly, and some of them have been traced to the Consulate of the United States, but one can easily see that his Majesty would be jealous of any custom that put restraint upon his peculiar methods of financiering. It has been intimated that the Sultan does not dare to treat foreigners as he treats his own subjects, but let no one imagine that foreign residents are free from annoyance. They are sure to be grossly swindled sooner or later, either by the Sultan himself, or by some of his less pretentious imitators, F against whom no legal redress can be ob- tained, for the Moorish judges are corrupt, and their courts will not accept the testi- mony of a ‘‘ Christian dog,’’ while Moham- medan witnesses can be hired at a dollar a dozen to swear to anything under the sun. One’s only recourse under these circum- stances is to hisconsul, whodemands repara- tion in the name of his government. Ifthe nation involved is energetic and able to en- force its demands, reparation is promptly made; but iftheSultan thinks that the consul is not able to follow up his verbal protest by the armed protest of his government, he is very likely to refuse all satisfaction for the in- jury. The position of the American Govern- ment in this particular is most humiliating. It seems to have neither the power nor the desire to protect its citizens who travel or reside abroad. Our ministers and consuls have been often told to back out as best they could from some proper demand for justice, because the government could not and would not sustain them. One American represen- tative abroad recently told a fellow-country- man that if he wanted effectual protection he must go to the English Consul for it, as it could not be obtained under the much vaunted stars and stripes. But to return to the Sultan. His rapacity knows no bounds. The last governor or Tangier was an able official, who took good care of imperial interests, and who was also an honest and courteous gentleman, trusted and loved by the people of his district. His wife and two children had every advantage that wealth and rank could afford. A few years ago he died, when the Sultan seized every bit of property that could be found, and turned the wife and children out from under

Page 31

THE CHIEF CITY OF A MOORISH DESPOT. their own roof. To-day they are paupers, sleeping in the streets of Tangier and beg- ging their bread from door to door. The government is legally entitled to the property of any man who dies without chil- dren, the widow having no rights whatever. An incident that happened not long ago will illustrate the workings of this law. A slave, who was digging a well, was crushed by the caving in of the sides. With achivalry in strong contrast to their financial meanness, several Moors attempted a rescue and lost their own lives in the effort. A few hours after the accident the government officials visited the miserable hovel of the unfortunate slave, and found there a newly born baby, born since its father’s death. On the ground that the slave had no child at the time of his decease, the officers insisted upon turning the sick woman and child intothe street, and seized the straw bed and few worthless effects that constituted their whole property. For- tunately there were foreigners residing in Tangier who interfered, and were able to delay eviction fora day or two till the mother could be turned into the street without the risk of immediate death. Notwithstanding this, colossa. imperial peculation, private enterprise in the same direction is visited with summary punish- ment. The Sultan desiresa monopoly. A thief—not an official—is punished by having his hand cut off at the wrist, which is plunged into a pot of boiling pitch, in order to cauterize the wound and prevent fatal bleeding. The bastinado is used on the slightest provocation. Not long ago the keeper of the prison was asked by an Ameri- can traveler, whom for some reason he was anxious to please, what this punishment of the bastinado was like. The answer was that he should see for himself. In a few minutes a man was brought in, fastened to the floor face downward, and terribly beaten upon the upturned soles of his bare feet. The screams and entreaties of the poor wretch were so heartrending that our countryman interfered and begged for mercy, when the punishment was immediately stopped. ‘* What has this man done?’’ said he to the officer. ‘“‘Nothing,’’ was the reply. ‘‘Then what are you whipping him for? ”’ was the amazed question, which was an- swered in a tone of equal astonishment : 203 ‘* Why, didn’t you ask to see a man bas- tinadoed ?’’ They had gone into the street, seized a passer-by, and severely whipped an inoffen- sive man merely to gratify the curiosity of an amiable foreigner. These are but instances of the greed, dis- honesty, and cruelty of the Moorish Govern- ment, and those traits more than anything else are the cause of the rigid exclusion of foreigners ; for if they were admitted freely, Moorish methods of judicial procedure would have to conform to modern ideas of justice. An honest judiciary is, however, about the last thing that the Sultan wants, for the ras- cality that he daily commits would then be rendered impossible, so he retains the old officials in office, and pays them no salary, leaving them to get their living through bribes and extortion, while he puts up the bars against Europeans and their civiliza- tion, and pays heavy damages to swindled foreigners whose country is able to enforce its demands. About the only thing in Morocco that is at allin keeping with this year of grace is the magnificent light-house on Cape Spartel, which throws its beams far out upon the At- lantic, warning ships off the rocky coast, and guiding them toward the Straits of Gibral- tar. Can we give the greedy old Sultan credit for at least one piece of humanity and unselfishness so necessary for the safety of foreign commerce and human life? Alas, no! Ships would be lost and lives sacrificed ifthe world waited for the Emperor of Mo- rocco to properly protect his coast ; so Eng- land, France, Spain, and Italy have assumed the expenses of a Moorish light-house, to- ward the maintenance of which the Sultan does not contribute a single penny. In other particulars the country is equally behindthe times. Its only post-office system is that of running couriers, and the French, English, and Spanish consuls have been compelled to establish post-offices of their own in order to secure communication with the outside world. A few petty newspapers are published in Tangier, but the Sultan has lately issued acircular in which he threatens to suppress them all because they are pub- lished without his authority, and contain criticisms of his government. ‘‘Oh, honor- able judge !’’ Inland commerce is carried on entirely on

Page 32

204 the backs of camels, donkeys, and horses, which go in caravans across the desert. The only plows and harrows in use are of the most primitive description, and the country is so poorly developed agriculturally that less than one-hundredth of the available farming land is cultivated, and a single fail- ure of the harvest causes famine. Think of famine in a land where oranges, lemons, figs, dates, olives, and almonds grow almost with- out care ; where the palmetto, the cork, and the citron flourish, and where mignonette grows wild in the fertile fields! Think of the narrowness of a government that has closed profitable iron, antimony, and gold mines, and that prefers to have lions, leop- ards, hyenas, and wild boars roam the coun- try rather than admit civilized men with their civilized methods! Yet these are the descendants of the knightly Moors who were one of the most cultured and enlightened nations of the world when they were driven out of Granada by Ferdinand and Isabella in that otherwise memorable year, 1492. Fez and Morocco are the two capitals of the empire, the Sultan having a palace in both places; but Tangier is the chief port and one of the most important cities in Morocco, being the place of residence of the diplo- matic corps. Yet, in spite of its metropoli- tan pretensions, and its population of fifteen thousand souls, it can boast of but one pas- sage-way that merits the name of street. For the rest, it is a mere tangle of lanes and alleys, which form a labyrinth in which a stranger is instantly and hopelessly lost. These lanes run to every one of the thirty- two points of the compass. They describe circles, ellipses, and parabolas, triangles, pentagons, and parallelograms, and every other form known to geometry, except that defined as ‘‘the shortest distance between two points.’’ The public does not seem to have any permanent right of way through them, for they are liable to be blocked up at any time by the extension of some house so far into the roadway that the passage is given up as a through route, and one must go around. Many lanes are spanned by houses that are built upon timbers laid across from one side to the other—a style of architecture much in vogue among those who own upon both sides of the roadway. Upon many of the houses the representa- tion of a hand is roughly painted in red. and THE COSMOPOLITAN. is most efficacious in warding off the ‘‘ evil eye.’”’ This malign influence is supposed to emanate particularly from Christians—a superstition that excludes travelers from many places that would otherwise be acces- sible. Let the visitor peer into an open door, from which a bedlam of shrill voices assails him, and he will see fifteen or twenty little children sitting cross-legged upon the floor, and rocking backward and forward, with folded arms, as they chant verses from the Koran. This is the only kind of school they have in Tangier; but here the children sit all day long in a semi-circle around an old man, their teacher, wearily singing out their appointed tasks. What one sees of these schools must be seen quickly; for the mo- ment a foreigner is observed the door will be slammed in his face, and his view of the school limited to the thirty or forty little sandals left outside in the street. Of course, every American will be inter- ested to see a mosque; but in Tangier he will have to content himself with a sight of the outside. The large, square tower of the principal mosque is covered with bright glazed tiles of all colors, and from its lofty summit one hears the ‘‘ Muzzein,’’ or call to prayer: ‘‘God is good; God is great; God is God; come to prayer;’’ and sees the faithful bending their steps toward the open door which no Christian is allowed to enter. The interest that attaches to the religion of the country is increased by the fact that one of the heads of the Mohammedan Church, the Grand Shereef of Wazan, lives but a few miles outside the city of Tangier. Though the Sultan of Turkey lays claim to the title of ‘‘ Father of the Faithful,’’ this Moorish Shereef is theoretically the greatest man in the Mohammedan world, being the most di- rect living descendant of the Prophet. He is possessed of vast authority, being greatly venerated by the people, while foreign inter- est in this unique character is deepened by his recent marriage to an Englishwoman. Across the street from the mosque sit the lawyers, just as their ancestors, the Scribes, must have appeared when they sat over against the temple. Their little four-by-six offices look for all the world like a row of large ovens in the side of the wall, with lids that swing up on hinges and form a protec- tion from the sun. These venerable-looking ‘*Scribes and Pharisees’’ sit cross-legged

Page 33

THE CHIEF CITY OF A MOORISH DESPOT. upon the floor, writing out their legal pa- pers either upon the floor itself or upon a short section of a log set on end before them, which answers the double purpose of a writ- ing-desk and of a primitive document file, a rubber band passed around it serving to hold the papers in place. Then there are the doctors, with a few po- tions compounded from herbs, but relying principally upon the heroic remedy of burn- ing with a hot iron. For weak eyes they burn the forehead ; for lame back they burn the back, and soon. Pretty rude doctoring this seems, but no more backward than the rest of their civilization. To any one who likes to ‘“‘shop’’ Tangier would be a paradise; for even a very small purchase necessitates a vast amount of this desultory kind of business. Though the masculine intellect can not usually compre- hend the charms of shopping, it must share in the feminine delight that is sure to be in- spired by the bazaars of this strange city. Some are entered from the street ; some from the court which occupies the center of most Moorish houses ; some are on the ground floor, and some are tucked away in odd cor- ners upstairs; but all are filled with the most fascinating wares that a matter-of-fact American ever saw. Gaudy cushions and slippers made of the famous Morocco leath- er, embroidered scarfs and table covers, gauzy Arab wraps and barbaric fabrics, huge piles of rugs and quantities of brass- ware, Oriental costumes of great richness, scimetars, daggers, and long Moorish guns inlaid with mother-of-pearl; the whole set off by a floor of dainty tiles and perfumed by the smoke of burning pastiles or the scent of attar of roses: doesn’t that sound attrac- tive ? In curious juxtaposition with these bar- baric wares, triple-plated knives and forks from Connecticut show that Yankee enter- prise is not quite overlooked, even in Moroc- co. The proprietor, in his robe and turban, is stately and courteous, usually speaks French and Spanish in addition to his native Ar- abic, and makes a harmonious figure in the picturesque scene. One can not, however, buy things in a hurry, unless he is willing to pay several times their value, but must take plenty of time to bargain, or, better still, pay several visits to the store before purchasing, each time slightly increasine 205 his offer for the desired goods. If this course be pursued, the proprietor will gradually lower his price, until the goods can be bought for much less than the original fig- ure. The more visits made the better the bargain. The pedestrian must look out for himself in the narrow streets and alleys, where he can often stretch out his arms and touch the buildings on both sides, and the ap- proach of some huge camel or little donkey; whose load in either case fills the roadway from wall to wall, makes necessary many a hasty flight into some convenient doorway. Wandering in these narrow lanes, or in the one broad street that winds from the land- ing pier through the city to the market- place, one meets a most interesting variety of life. Slaves of every description crowd and quarrel as they fill their quaint earthen jars at one of the broken-down fountains from which the whole town is supplied, or go about the streets carrying goatskins, from which they offer water to thirsty passers at so much adrink. As their shrill voices pro- claim the freshness and coolness of their stock, one realizes that he has before him an Oriental custom which gives new meaning to Isaiah, liii. 1, where the prophet calls out, as though hawking the ‘‘ water of life:’’ ‘Ho, every one that thirsteth, come ye to the waters, come buy without money and without price.’’ These slaves form a considerable part of the population of Tan- gier. They are mostly of the deep black Guinea negro type, brought from across the Desert of Sahara, though sometimes unfor- tunates of other races are kidnapped and sold into slavery. Public auctions are fre- quently held in the main street of the ba- zaars, at which children can be purchased for from twelve to twenty dollars, while full- grown men and women are sold at prices ranging from fifty to one hundred dollars. Masters have absolute power over their slaves, even that of life and death, and in case of sale transfer them by means of a deed, just as we transfer a farm. Under the circumstances, it is a little difficult to say whether they are real estate or personal property. Soldiers with their red-peaked hoods, blue robes, and enormously long guns fraternize with Moorish peasants carrying their curved

Page 34

206 yalaghans or daggers. Magnificent-look- ing Moorish merchants and officials stride haughtily by in their white robes, jostling against wild Riff men from the coast, with but one long lock left on their shaven heads by which Mohammed can pull them up to heaven in his own good time. The Jews proclaim their nationality by black skull caps and purple robes, while the women, wrapped in white from head to foot, and veiled so closely that only one eye is left vis- ible, gaze curiously at the foreigners whose wives and daughters immodestly display their pretty faces in the public streets. Outside the heavy gates the scene becomes one of noise and confusion. The Soko, or market-place, is filled with a motley and pict- uresque throng. A dusty caravan of camels has just come in from the desert or is loading to start on its return trip to Fez or Morocco ; dirty tents of goatskin have been pitched by roaming Berbers from the inland tribes, whose ancestors were the original inhabitants of the land; an Arab musician earns a few coins by vigorously beating his tom-tom and blowing his pipe; strings of patient little donkeys pass, urged on by the angry shout, ‘‘ Arvah zeed arvane mek,’’ which conveys the-tender injunction to ‘‘Go more, go to your mother ;’’ while knots of people gather here and there to listen to the story-teller, to watch the snake charmer with his ugly pets, and to wonder at the magician who breathes fire and swallows swords. An evening stroll through the city and perhaps a little way into the surrounding country will crown an interesting visit with a memorable conclusion. Step into the coffee-house, not so much to drink the thick, black coffee or to see the gambling, as to hear the Moorish music. There one will find four or five musicians seated cross-legged upon the floor, playing on the guitar and the cym- bals, or sawing curious instruments of the THE COSMOPOLITAN. mandolin order, with funay hump-backed bows about a foot long. Their music is in- harmonious but strangely fascinating ; mi- nor themes, whose gradually accelerating movement acquires a momentum that seems to carry the musicians beyond the power of self-control, and they burst into a wild chorus, singing faster and fiercer till the air seems full of wailing and gnashing over their an- cient glory, gone but never forgotten. Leaving the coffee-house, wander, lantern in hand, through the dark and silent streets, taking care not to stumble over the beggars. who lie asleep upon the filthy cobble-stones, looking like heaps of rags. If the moon has risen seek the higher ground outside the walls where one can overlook the town. There lie the dark waters of the bay, the white and silent city with its minarets glistening in the moonlight and the beauti- ful curves of a few lordly palms rising above the houses, as stately in their solitude as the Moors who live beneath them. About one is the dark foliage of the fig-tree and the con- torted branches of the gigantic cacti; the distant snarl of a coyote adds its share of weirdness to the moment, and as one turns toward his hotel with the Moorish music still ringing in his ears it will be a wonder in- deed if his excited imagination does not lead him to fancy himself in Bagdad enjoying one of the famous nocturnal strolls of Haroun Al Raschid, the time one of the thousand and one Arabian nights described by the unwearied Fatima, and the party Camaralzaman, Mustapha, and Aladdin car- rying his little lamp. Great as is the charm that attaches to this strange country, there will be in many minds a predominating feeling of deep sad- ness at the depressing spectacle of the cruelty and rapacity of the rulers, and the misery and low estate of the ruled; an existence without hope either in life or death.

Page 35

THE “SHOW” THAT CAME TO SEQUATCHEE VALLEY. By F. D. MURFREE. I. ATURE did her best for Sequatchee Valley. Between those long parallel lines of wooded ranges has been lavished every grace of landscape, every advantage of soil and many a treasure of mineral re- source. And, as though these gifts were not sufficient, art brought a masterpiece, in the estimation of the simple-minded pop- ulation, when a notable circus company, known as Slate’s Great Moral Hippodrome and Zoological Exhibition, passed through the favored region. A certain village, set in rolling green meadows, was all agog. It had broken out with juveniles as though with the measles. About the great white tents were also crowded adults of various ages, sizes, and colors, eager to obtain a _ surreptitious glimpse of sawdust, of trained horses, per- chance the gleam of tinsel and spangles decorating some punctual performer. Above the mingled noises rose the frightful din of the calliope, and ‘‘ Shoo Fly ”’ shrilly domi- nated over quiet meadows and summe: woods, more accustomed to the mocking bird’s carol and the field lark’s cry. The mid-day glare of sunshine rested on the tents and vans; on the luxuriant crops a-down the long narrow valley ; on the hazy slopes of the distant Cumberland Moun- tains ; on the gleaming lines of the railroad close at hand ; on the passenger train that with a sullen annunciatory roar and shrill whistle swept around the curve and drew up at the wooden station. Two men in front of that structure watched its approach. One belonged to the large class of countrymen that come to town often and stay late, that spend much time in saloons and on street corners favoring an audience with valuable opinions, vaticina- tions, or narrations. He sat on a high goods- box, his heels drumming against it, his hat drawn over his eyes, a quid of tobacco in his mouth, the very personification of the rustic loafer. The other, the bareback rider of the circus company, had an odd look of being neither old nor young and an expression of habit- ual fretfulness. To rural eyes his flashy shop-made suit was the extreme of fashion- able elegance, and in contrast to the rural appreciation of the magnitude of this occa- sion his indifference to the near approach of two o’clock seemed consummate reckless- ness. His listless eyes turning from the train rested on a little white house near at hand, with lilac and althea bushes in the yard, and a primly ordered garden at one side. Suddenly the door opened and a woman came quickly down the gravel walk, stopped at the little gate, andlaid her hands upon it. She was tall and meager; her hair, growing thick and low, was white, so white that it seemed to flash back the sunlight in restless sparkles as snow does. Her face was pale, but, in contrast to those sad color- less masses about her brow, it was almost swarthy. Yet, despite the pallor and the sharp outlines, and the pathos of burning anxieties, that face had a strong power, the power of an absorbing emotion and an en- during purpose. The strolling circus attaché, Tom Hart, was not usually impressionable ; now, how- ever, he was impressed. ‘‘Who’s that woman?’’ he asked of the countryman perched on the goods-box; ‘she’s mighty cur’us looking.’’ ‘‘An’ the Widder Blake don’t look no cur’user ’n what she is,’’ responded the - other. The rapt eagerness on her worn features intensified as she gazed in asort of anguish of expectancy on the faces framed by the car window ; a pause, the momentary stoppage was over, the clang and roar again rose on the air, and the woman turned away with a dreadful despondency in her eyes. ‘*How’s she cur’us?’’ asked Tom Hart. ‘*Waz-al,’’ drawled the other, ‘‘ she come here some ten or ’leven year ago from No’th Caliny, an’ from the fust folks noticed she was sorter cur’us in her head. Ye see her son—a mighty peart boy, fourteen or fifteen year old an’ ez strong ez an ox—he got in a

Page 36

208 scuffle one day at a fair with another hill- country feller *bout a jack-knife, an’ this ‘ere young Blake fotched him a lick ’twixt his eyes an’ he fell down fur dead. An’ young Blake’s uncle happened ter be in town, and he hustled the boy off on the kyars. An’ t’other feller, he laid in a swound a long time, but they brung him to at las’.”’ ‘‘T ain’t heard about the crazy part yet,”’ remarked Tom Hart, drily. ‘* Well, I'm comin’ ter that,’’ replied the leisurely narrator. ‘‘ Ye see, Blake’s mother was mighty nigh de-stracted when she found out her boy was gone, an’ nobody knowed whar. Her hair, it turned white as driven snow in jes’ one night. An’ she was sorter flighty fur awhile. An’ ever since this here branch road has been built she’s got it in her head that her boy’s a-comin’ back on the train ; they had tole her he went off on the kyars, an’ she made up her mind he had ter come back on ’em. Ev’y time they turn the curve she’s thar at the gate a-waitin’. Pas- senger or freight, it’s all the same ter her. Well, they ain’t hearn one word from that feller sence that day. Some thinks he’s dead, an’ some thinks he’s still a-livin’ ; if he is he'll never come back.”’ ‘‘Why don’t he write to his folks?’’ pro- pounded Tom Hart, taking a final whiff of his cigar and tossing the stump down on the railroad track. ‘* He couldn’t read nor write nor nothink, he was such an ignorant cuss. He never had been out of the hills in his born days till he went down ter the fair with his uncle —never had seen a town, nor kyars, nor nothink. You dunno anythink ’bout the mountain folks in No’th Caliny nor Tennes- see nuther,’’ nodding, with the disparage- ment of high culture, toward the blue hills. ‘*They’re the mos’ ignorant folks in this worl’. ”’ He evidently relished thus figuring as the exponent of civilization in expounding worldly differences. ‘*T reckon,’’ he continued, ‘‘ the feller was too green ter git anybody ter write fur him, or mebbe 'fraid. You see when he went away he thought t’other boy was dead.”’ There was a pause. Tom Hart again looked, with the approbation of a town man of bucolic tastes, at the trim cottage with its surroundings of leaf-flecked grass and THE COSMOPOLITAN. clustering roses, and background of woods- lot, wheré a meditative cow or two stood in the shade. ‘‘She’s got a pretty nice little place,’’ he remarked. “*Tis that,’’ acceded the other. ‘‘ An’ she’s a mighty fine manager, she is. She didn’t have nothink sca’cely when she come here, but somehow she gits along astonishiu’ well. She managed ter rake an’ scrape enough ter finish payin’ fur that ther little place o’hern, an’ ev’y now an’ then she makes out ter buy a pig here an’ a cow thar, an’ such like. An’ thar never was sech a woman for luck. When other folks’s sheep die with the rot, she never loses a one, an’ the smut ’'ll be on ev’y body’s wheat ’ceptin’ hern. She has ter work mighty hard though. She’s up early an’ down late, but she makes a right sharp chance o’ money, fust an’ last. An’ what d’ye think she does with it?’’ glancing up with a grin. Tom Hart looked a listless interrogative. ‘*She says she’s savin’ it up for ter send her son Johnny to school! An’ by this time, ef he ain’t dead, he’s a man, grown— twenty-four or five year old.’’ The speaker laughed lazily but with evi- dent enjoyment. His respect for the Widow Blake’s worldly possessions was not suffi- cient to cancel his appreciation of this ab surdity. He had no sense of any pathetic phase of the story. ‘*Folks say,’’ he continued, ‘‘she even lays his suit of clothes out fur him ev’y day, an’ breshes ’em reg’lar. Them clothes is breshed mighty nigh threadbare.’’ He laughed again. There was a long pause. Tom Hart re- marked that he wished he was in her son Johnny’s shoes. That was a decent sort of little place, and he was damned tired of the dog’s life he was leading. Then he lan- guidly moved his shoulder from the red cedar post, straightened himself with an effort, and strolled toward the tent. ‘* Mighty easy life,’’ soliloquized the rus- tic, gazing after him disparagingly, ‘‘ ridin’ a gentle horse ’round a ring. Easy as fallin’ off a log.’’ H. In the great yellow-white tent the audi- ence, with the immobility characteristic of rural frequenters of the circus, watched the

Page 37

THE “SHOW” THAT CAME various artists in spangles and tights. The nearest approach to applause was the chorus of guffaws that greeted at intervals some favorite witticism ofthe clown. There was no lack of close attention—noticeably in- creased when one of the heavy vans was rolled into the arena. The red boards were removed, and through the iron bars were re- vealed two immense lions, and in a separate compartment, judiciously fenced from his companions, a virulent looking leopard that evinced its gratitude for its abrupt presenta- tion to a position of note by seizing the bars in its forepaws, shaking them violently, and grinning viciously at the audience. Suddenly there appeared upon the saw- dust an impressive figure, a man of gigantic stature, of unusua] strength, and great length of limb. His movements were as supple and as suggestive of covert power as the movements of a tiger. He wore silk tights and a blue velvet doublet profusely garnished with silver ; the gratified specta- tors remarked, with that pleasing indiffer- ence to the peril of other people which has been a characteristic of spectators from the days of Roman gladiators to the days of Blondin, that he carried only a light whip. As he advanced he looked a very Hercules for strength, a young Apollo for beauty of form and face. But he was only the most ordinary of mortals, bedecked with the poor gaudiness of cheap stage finery, following a disreputable and dangerous calling, sadly addicted to drink and cards, and, as he often said of himself with defective grammar and a vile provincial accent, ‘‘The onluckiest pore creetur what walks a-top o’ God A’mighty’s earth.”’ This was Signor Brunelleschi, the noted lion-tamer, or in plain English, one Jack Topp. No applause greeted him, but there, as an intent curiosity in many faces and a craning forward of many heads during the half- minute that he approached the cage; in another instant the door was flung open, he sprang forward with an indescribable elasti- city of motion, the door was slammed, and Signor Brunelleschi walked up and down the confined space, with head erect and an easy confident manner, while now and then the light whip cracked sharply above the cowering brutes that crawled after him and fawned upon him. TO SEQUATCHEE VALLEY. 209 The pleased and attentive audience— pleased in the secondary sensation of the vanquished brutes, as it was not to have the more thrilling sensation of the vanquished man—was gratified that Signor Brunelleschi should put his head into the mouth of first one lion then the other. Then he held one lion by the hind feet, the forepaws grasping the bars convulsively, while the other lion leaped over and under its horizontal compan- ion. Then these maneuvers were repeated with the leopard, and the grave and busi- ness-like air with which that leopard went through his share of the entertainment was indeed worth seeing. Then the leopard was again shut out ; then after the firing of two pistols handed through the bars by a bandy- legged supe in red velvet—the noise sending the lions cowering to the other extremity of the cage—large steaks of bloody beef were presented by the ruby supe to Signor Brunel- leschi. Excited expectation on the part of the spectators touching the probability that the lions, tasting blood, would become more ferocious, and a decided and growing im- pression that this time Signor Brunelleschi had done it once too often! But no! he bounded suddenly from the cage and the lions were shaking the bars, growling fur- iously, evidently regretting bitterly that they had not lunched on Signor Brunelleschi as well as on the bloody steaks. The lion tamer found-his friend, Tom Hart, awaiting him. ‘* Let’s have a beer, Jack,’’ said Tom. ‘* Jest ez soon ez I ken git shucked o’ these ’ere traps,’’ replied the lion-tamer. Big and strong as he was the expression of his countenance was mild and acquiescent, and he spoke in a soft voice, with low- spirited inflections and an incongruous mix- ture of the accent noticeable in the lower classes in cities and the fa/ozs characteristic of certain hilly regions of the Southern sea- board States. It was with some reason that Jack Topp inveighed against his luck. He had lived much of the time out of employment, to-day in abject want, to-morrow recklessly squan- dering the money obtained by fortuitous odd jobs and signalizing his brief prosperity by falling unresisting into any petty scrape into which his wild associates might choose to lead him. So many and varied had been his vicissitudes that his mental attitude

Page 38

210 had come to be an acquiescent despond- ency. ‘“‘Ef I buy a ticket in a lottery, the cussed thing is sure to bust ; an’ ef I was ter bet on four aces I b’lieves I’d be beat outern my money somehow’n other,’’ he would say. He had climbed to his present elevation by slow degrees, having begun with the office of watering the elephant. The bare- back rider was now-a-days his constant com- panion, and it was his habit ‘to aver that, ‘*Tom’s the bes’ feller in the world, an’ ef it hadn’t a-been fur Tom Hart, God only knows what would have become o’ pore Jack Topp.”’ No one could say what service Tom Hart had ever rendered him except to scold him violently when he did or said anything at variance with his mentor’s views, to lend him small sums of money—which, however, was a reciprocal accommodation—and to give him a great deal of advice, to which he always listened with much docility and fol- lowed as far as in him lay. Some specula- tion had obtained among the circus people as to the origin and growth of this friend- ship. It was said that Jack Topp was a weak-minded fellow, ready to be led by any one enterprising enough to take charge of him ; that Tom Hart was a selfish fellow who wanted a friend willing to sing his praises, fight his battles, and endure his temper. But the theory generally received was, that one of the men had done some- thing, perhaps long ago, of which the con- sequences were serious, and that the other was cognizant of the facts. Moreover, it was the prevalent impression that Jack Topp was the perpetrator of the indefinite some- thing. ‘‘ Else ’ow does it ’appen,’’ demanded the Cockney ring-master, convincingly, ‘‘ that Jack is allers a-follerin’ of ’im and a-mindin’ as he’s bid." That’s what I say.”’ Tom Hart, however, knew no more of the athletic lion-tamer’s early history than did the rest of his nomadic companions. Though Jack Topp was weak and confiding, he told nobody of one dark episode. He firmly be- lieved that to the shadow it had cast over his life might be referred the great superfluity of ill fortune that had fallen to his lot. He tried to lose the recollection in drink, in his gambling habit, in his roistering life with wild comrades ; but it would not vanish, THE COSMOPOLITAN. and he had come to endure it with an un- complaining acquiescence that in a digni- fied subject might rise to some height of pathetic fortitude. He was not a dignified subject, however, not morally picturesque enough, perhaps, for this sort of thing ; only a traveling charlatan pursued by an unfor- gotten and unavailing remorse wherever he went in his ceaseless wanderings. The two men strolled toward a little grocery where they obtained the liquid re- freshment they sought ; then they sauntered aimlessly along the railroad track toward the wooden depot. A sudden prolonged shrill whistle anda metallic sound vibrating along the rails por- tended the approach of the train. From the little white house set on the green slope of the hill the woman that Tom Hart had noticed a few hours ago came with the same hurried steps down the front walk and stood at the gate waiting for the cars to pass—the same haggard hunger in her intent eyes, the sharp agitation of expectation in her worn, thin face, the convulsive clasping of her pallid hands. Hart did not notice her and he had already forgotten the story told by the lounging countryman; but as he and his friend stepped from the track to the grassy path which served as sidewalk Jack Topp’s eyes fell upon her. She glanced at him impatiently, for in passing close to the little gate he in- tercepted her view of the train, now at a standstill. Thesun shone full upon his mas- sive figure, and his straw hat pushed far back on his head revealed every line of his mild, handsome, acquiescent face. Her ex- pression suddenly changed and he was shaken by a subtle, indefinable thrill. The momentary pause seemed to lengthen itself into long hours. Howcould he inter- pret the look that flashed from her startled eyes to his startled eyes? In it was com- pressed the anguish of agonized expectation and bitter endurance and crushing disap- pointments ; of a new wild hope, an im- perious questioning, and a clutching fear. If he had had a wider range of mental vision, it might have seemed that she was telling him some strange sad story and making some strong appeal in an unknown language, which, try as he might, he could not com- prehend. But he was a very dull fellow, with scant imagination. Heonly knewthat

Page 39

THE “SHOW” THAT CAME TO SEQUATCHEE VALLEY. “he was desperately agitated, wistful, shaken, with a rush of bewildering emotion in his heart and a whirl of chaotic ideas in his slow brain. Unconsciously, he slackened his pace. ‘What are you a-dawdlin’ along that-a- way fur, Jack ?’’ said Tom Hart, fretfully. ‘*Come on if you’re a-comin’, and if you ain’t, set yourself down and rest ; but what- ever you do, don’t keep me a-waitin’ on your slow bones all day.”’ Jack obediently quickened his steps, and in another second was in a line with his friend. But more than once he glanced back at the eager face set in its frame of snow- white hair, with its old long agony of ex- pectation and its new look of almost terrified surprise. As the lion-tamer and his companion lounged slowly along the grassy path, Jack said suddenly : ‘‘Did you notice’ that thar woman by the fence, Tom, back thar a piece—an old woman with white hair?’’ ‘“No, I didn’t,” said Tom ; ‘‘it keeps me busy a-noticin’ of young wimmin—let alone old—and a-havin’ the young wimmin a-no- ticin’ of me.”’ After this Jack was so silent and inatten- tive that his friend, speaking to him and re- ceiving no reply, suddenly lost his temper and rated him soundly, with great temerity considering the fact that the strong arm of the giant by his side could have killed him with one blow. ‘*T declare to God, Jack Topp,”’ he said in righteous anger, ‘‘ you are so cussed stupid it’s enough to drive aman stark mad to have anything todo with you. Why don’t you answer my question, ’stead of pokin’ along like an idiot. I never see such a stupid in all my life.’’ ‘I'm mighty sorry, Tom,’’ said Jack, meekly and propitiatingly, his heavy arms hanging useless by his side. ‘‘I’lldo better ef I kin.”’ ‘* You're too damned stupid to do any bet- ter,’’ retorted Tom, still in high dudgeon. ‘‘Seems to me you git sillier every day.”’ ‘‘Seems so to me, too,’’ replied the ath- lete, with a sigh. When the two men had turned a curve in the road and were lost to view she went slowly into her house. A neighbor who chanced to come in a little later thought he 211 had never seen her so ‘‘queer.’’ She spoke at random, evidently absorbed in reflection ; she now and then lifted her knitting from the stout work-basket by her side and laid it down without taking a stitch ; her face had lost its intense eagerness, and into it had come an anxious bewilderment. Once ina pause in the talk she said to herself, evi- dently unconscious that she was speaking aloud : ‘*But my Johnny air nothin’ but a boy, an’ that thar air a full-grown man.”’ ‘‘She gits worse, ’stead o’ better, pore cretur,’’ said the neighbor, pityingly ; ‘‘’tis cur’us she ken hold her own so well ina trade.’’ For he had come to treat for a certain coveted spotted calf, and he found that, de- spite her inattention, the widow could not be inveigled into giving him anything approxi- mating the excellent bargain his soulcraved. He went away after a time, leaving her sit- ting motionless by the window, her eyes fixed on the hills about the horizon and the flare of gold and ruby flakes that enriched the western heavens. She was waiting for the cloud that would soon appear in a long belt above the delicate tints of the far-off fields, rising, thinner and thinner, until it should stain the pale sapphire sky, and for the shrill scream of the locomotive that would soon follow. Ill. In a dreamy preoccupation the lion-tamer dressed for the evening performance, and as he walked with his accustomed impressive- ness of mien into view of the audience, he had only a blurred and indistinct sense of the motley semi-circle with its tiers of curious eyes. He did not recover his self-command until after he was shut into the cage, and it came to him a moment too late. For the larger of the two lions laid caressingly, as it had often done, a huge heavy fore-paw on his shoulder. Unnerved as he was he stag- gered slightly, and there was no fiercethreat in the eyes that met the savage eyes of the brute. A sullen, low growl rose upon the air—a sudden spring—a mass of blue and silver and tawny brown swayed violently to and fro—then the blue and silver were streak- ed with long, crimson stains, and the sullen growl rolled through the shrill shrieks of the frightened audience.

Page 40

212 The man’s incredible strength and courage stood him in good stead. Infuriated though the lions were, they perceptibly cowered as his loud, fierce voice rang upon the air. Be- fore the frightened assistant could fire through the bars the pistols kept close by for such a contingency he had pulled himself up on one knee and was laying about him fiercely with the light whip and his heavy fists, the blood streaming from a dozen wounds with every movement he made. The sharp crack of a pistol sent the brutes trem- bling to their corner, the man dragged him- self to the door of the cage, dragged himself out, the door was slammed with a resound- ing bang, a mangled heap was lying upon the ground, and a red current soaked into the sawdust. There was a short interval filled with ex- clamations, conjectures, and wildly excited talk, but it was presently announced that the physicians declared Signor Brunelleschi had sustained no serious injury, and had merely fainted from loss of blood. The exhibition, therefore, would proceed. The members of the band, pale and ner- vous, resumed their instruments ; the tra- peze performer made his flying leaps with his heart in his mouth; the bareback rider was soon speeding around the ring, spring- ing over bright-colored scarfs or through gaudy hoops as he went, the sense of sicken- ing horror still upon him ; but to all appear- ance the performances were characterized by their usual zest, and the audience, recovering from its terror, was soon chuckling over the stale witticisms of the clown or gazing in open-mouthed absorption at the showy feats of the acrobats. IV. MEANTIME Signor Brunelleschi had been carried to the nearest dwelling, the little white house on the hillside close to the rail- road. The facts had been anticipated in the an- nouncement of a medical dictum. The phy- sician did not arrive for some little time, and the man, still in his blue and silver costume, with its significant crimson streaks and splotches, lay insensible upon the bed in a dimly lighted room. Two or three of the circus employees were around him and several of the town-people. Outside the house a large crowd had collected, mostly THE COSMOPOLITAN. from the impecunious assemblage about the tent, much disappointed that the door had closed upon an even greater sensation than any within the magic canvas walls they had left. The Widow Blake, washing the red stains from the lacerated face, saw the eyes of the wounded man open suddenly and look into hers with an unmeaning stare. No instinct warned her now. She did not even recog- nize these as the eyes that had so stirred her hungered heart three short hours ago. He was a fellow-creature in anguish ; her wo- man’s nature responded now to no demand save this. ‘“*Tt’s an even chance,”’ the doctor said with the frankness characteristic of certain learned practitioners in the treatment of charity cases. Already the circus authorities had proclaimed to any physician that might undertake the case that noremuneration was to be expected from them ; they didn’t owe Jack Topp one red, and he hadn’t a cent, it was declared, to bless himself with. ‘‘An even chance,’’ said the physician. ‘‘ He may die before daylight and he may pull through altogether.’’ Then he prepared some pallia- tives and cheerfully took his departure. The moments passed slowly. The wound- ed man lay in adeep stupor. The breath of dew-steeped clover was wafted in at the win- dow ; the breeze, grown stronger, swept down from distant hills, bringing in its freshness a subtle suggestion of wild gorges and precipices, and odorous masses of ferns that overhang rock-lined mountain streams. Above the monotonous chant of insects rose fitfully the blare of the band in the illumi- nated tent, idealized into a semi-trazsparent structure of yellow light and ruby gleams against the darkness. Suddenly are heard mingled increasing stir and movement and the murmur of many voices ; the spectators are dispersing and the performance is over. What an exuberance of vitality ; what hot hearts, quick hopes, strong muscles. And two hours ago this helpless mass of quiver- ing agonies was as eager, as alert, as power- ful as that surging humanity outside the window. Presently the crowd has gone, the great tent disappears as suddenly as if by magic; the heavy vans roll slowly away one by one; the last curious lingerer about the Widow

Page 41

THE “SHOW” Blake’s door saunters totown. The loneli- ness of night reasserts itself. The late risen moon shows a red, distorted face through the eastern mists. A Whip-poor-will plains sud- denly from a tree high in the darkness, and in the deep wood rises the ill omen of an owl’s melancholy cry. Toward midnight a look of consciousness came intothe wounded man’s face ; but when he spoke his words seemed wild and wan- dering. ‘What did he say?’’ asked one of the Widow Blake’s self-constituted assistants. In her voice, as she replied, there was the monotonous and passionless quietude pecu- liar to the speech of the people who inhabit this mountain region. ‘‘I didn’t rightly hear,’’ she said. ‘‘’Twar suthin’ ’bout ’n a woman with black hair.”’ The silver moon, red and distorted no longer, had climbed so high that she looked in at the window. Squares of pallid light fell through the tiny panes and a ghastly gleam crept along the floor and across the patchwork quilt till it touched the pallid face on the pillow. Jack Topp opened his eyes. ‘‘They said ez how I’ve got ter die, didn’t they ?’’ he asked faintly. Somebody replied no; the doctor thought he would get well. ‘‘See how strong you are,’’ taking the uninjured right arm and holding it up. Jack Topp clenched his fist, straightened the arm, and turning his wounded head looked with admiration at the swelling muscles. ‘Yes, it’s pretty strong,’’ he said with a smile. Then he restlessly moved his head to its old position and the smile faded. ‘‘It’s been my ruin,’’ he murmured. They thought he meant that the con- sciousness of his wonderful strength had be- trayed him into carelessness while in the cage. Silence again. “T think I’ll die this time, I’m such a onlucky pore cretur,’’ drawled Jack Topp. ‘‘T hope you are prepared to go,”’ said an old man who for many years had been busy with the spiritual and temporal affairs of his neighbors. A violent agitation came into the muti- lated face ; some strong horror seized and tore him as the teeth of the wild beast had 20 THAT CAME TO SEQUATCHEE VALLEY. 213 done ; he lifted desperate, appealing eyes to the woman who bent above him, her white face framed in whiter hair. ‘‘T ain’t prepared ter go,’’ he cried pite- ously in a louder voice with curious breaks. and quavers in it; ‘‘ but it ain’t dyin’ I’m afeard on. I'd die ez easy ez goin’ ter sleep ef I could jest know ez that thar pore fool, George Haynes, war a-livin’ yit. Ef he war a-livin’——”’ A wild shriek burst from the Widow Blake’s lips ; it rose sharp on the quiet air; it rang shrill over dewy low-lying meadows ; it struck frantic echoes from the cold gray rocks overhanging the Sequatchee River near by ; it died far away in the recesses of the forest. The medicine had fallen from her cold shaking hands ; she had sunk down by the bedside ; her eager fingers clutched the man’s uninjured right arm ; her eager eyes were fixed on his wild eyes. She knew him now. ‘*You never done it, Johnny,’’ she cried in frantic haste. And a tumult of complex passions had come into the voice which had seemed incapable of expressing human emo- tion. ‘‘ You never done it. He got well arter all, an’ no harm war done. An’ you never done no hurt, dear. An’ he’s hearty now an’ gone ter Californy with his folks. An’ your hands is clean, Johnny—clean as clean can be!"’ Joy never kills. There is in all the Ma- teria Medica no panacea that can work such wonders as the change the jaunty young doctor found when he came the next morn- ing. ‘‘ You can’t die handy like other peo- ple,’’ he said, with more interest than was his wont in charity patients. ‘‘We’ll soon have you up again and clawing lions as brisk as ever.”’ Jack Topp laughed languidly, but the widow interposed with indignant reproof. ‘“He won’t ever git sight of no lions agin —much less a chanceter bea clawin’ of’em,’’ she said imperatively. Poor Jack Topp seemed made for submis- sion. He passed from the strict code of the circus company and the rigid rule of Tom Hart to the iron surveillance of his mother. But he apparently liked her authority. He acceded without protest to her commands; he manifested a child-like deference to her opinions ; he lay watching her as she came and went with a pleased wonder in his eyes.

Page 42

214 He seemed to grow younger, going back to meet her recollection of the slim stripling who had left her so long ago, and aftera time she too began to retrace her way along the years. Beneath the heavy masses of snow- white hair those deep, haggard lines of anx- iety were softened and well-nigh obliterated ; a gentle light cameinto her intent eyes ; her step grew elastic ; sometimes she laughed. Nobody in Sequatchee Valley had ever heard her laugh till now. She has developed something of rustic humor with a touch of good-natured sarcasm, and her sallies are relished as piquant wit by her son, against THE COSMOPOLITAN. whom they are chiefly directed and who is clumsy and sheepishly embarrassed in these wordy encounters. They are simple folks and ignorant, but very happy, for he has no desire to resume his wanderings, and is sat- isfied with the monotonous routine and the rural tasks about the little place. Perhaps this content is merely temporary ; perhaps it is due to the inertia of the mountaineer reasserting itself ; perhaps it is the expres- sion of a soul at rest. At all events, some- thing of a tame cat is Signor Brunelleschi, since he has relinquished the noble art of intimidating lions. TWO SONNETS. By GEORGE EDGAR MONTGOMERY. I, THE NEw SonGc. (Suggested by the study of Charles Darwin.) Au, wilder, sweeter than the music sung By any lute-voice in this age of ours, Sweeter than old child-fancy when it flowers In trembling beauty on a poet’s tongue, Was that new cry within us when he flung His thought to men, the precious thought which dowers Life with a deeper sense of deathless powers, Hope with the dream that it is ever young ! He lifted darkness from the face of time And from the face of nature: we to-day, Seeing with his sight, foretell a song shall rise Out of his wider world and wider skies, A song far-reaching as the farthest chime Heard in the heart of years that roll away. II. EVOLUTION. Ir it be true, as our new masters teach, That life was once bereft of sound and sight, That darkness is the chrysalis of light, And the mute tongue the motherhood of speech, That we whose groping hands have dared to reach Beyond the limits of our day and night, Rose from the slime of ages to a height Where God gives promise to the soul of each,— Then why should love, the very gentlest part Of a man’s nature, and the power which binds Life to a life as leaf is bound to tree, Not grow and deepen in the human heart Till in the future of the world it finds Hate banished from the sunlands and the sea.

Page 43

THE CALIFORNIA RANCH. By ELLA STERLING CUMMINS. 5. A PECULIAR institution is the Califor- niaranch. It is an outgrowth of the days of gold and silver, gradually merged into those of the grain and the vine. Well does the Westminister Review say : ‘‘Califor- nia was first the treasury, then the garden spot of the world, for agriculture has won the day, and the ‘ rancher’ is king.”’ Originally the Spanish word ‘‘ rancho”’ meant a rude hut, as of posts covered with branches, or a thatch, where herdsmen or farm laborers might live or lodge at night ; also a large farming establishment for rear- ing cattle and horses ; but now, while it may mean all this, it has come to signify very much more. Not like the Eastern farm, nor yet like the Southern plantation, it has char- acteristics of its own that mark it as a pecu- liarly Western sort of property. It may be a quarter section with a ‘‘shanty’”’ on it, or merely a few acres under a high state of cul- tivation, with elegant buildings, where some wealthy man is amusing himself, playing at farming ; or it may be an estate equal to asmall kingdom. It may bea certain piece of land set apart for somespecial production, where everything is done on a colossal scale, and this constitutes the typical ranch of the West, which is the wonder of the civilized world. Like a small principality, it is apart from the outside world, interested in its own in- ternal affairs, and having a standing army within its borders to bring mother Nature under subjection. Tremendous pieces of farming machinery of fantastic shape, drawn by many horses, do the real work. The days of old-fashioned hand-rakes, scythes, and cradles are over. Now the farmer rides through his acres like a conqueror on his chariot, mowing down his enemies ; he even loads and unloads his hay by machinery, which swoops up an entire wagon load and places it on the stacks in one movement, by means of net-work and derrick. To such marvelous perfection have these machines been brought that one of these automata, the combined harvester, will head the grain, thresh and sack_it with lightning rapidity, tossing it out ready to be carried away and stored, with the aid of only three men, thus doing the work of twenty-three. Like a modern afrit, it wings its way along, per- forming its wonders, neither going on a strike for higher wages nor indulging in a perverted thirst, unfitting it for duty. To see a number of these fantastic inven- tions at work can not fail to awaken the be- wilderment of the new-comer. One may have seen pictures, or even have obtained a sight of them in the annual State fair, but the impression made was like that of the gnu or the hippopotamus in a menagerie—rather doubtful things, appearing to be made only for exhibition : on their native heath they seem very different; and so with these won- derful instruments of autonfatic farming, which make the colossal California ranch a possibility. Not thus did it begin, but as a small tract, added to from time to time. Perhaps the owner arrived on the scene in a white-topped wagon, or a ‘‘ prairie-schooner,’’ as it was called, taking up a section of land, putting up the rudest of cabins, and working early and late to make it support himself and family ; then, as prosperity smiled upon him, he added a section here and there—perhaps bought the farm of some near neighbor of a more roving disposition—-or perhaps he was himself absorbed by some rich land specu- lator, and thus the property grew like a snow- ball to its present size. Many are the romances and pretty stories connected with these ranches, the most in- teresting being those of a Spanish flavor. Much has been written by sentimental per- sons of the injustice that appears to exist in the fact that so few of the descendants of the old Spanish families are now landowners ; but to those on the ground, who hear every pioneer tell his grievance concerning the way in which he was prevented from making a fortune in land, it is an old story. This habit of early settlers is well satirized by Mark Twain, who tells his experience in re- gard to the purchase of St. Louis. After

Page 44

216 gazing at the city with a sad, disappointed smile, he said: ‘‘ Twenty years ago I could have bought the entire town for six million dollars, but I foolishly allowed the oppor- tunity to pass ; now it can not be bought for less than hundreds of millions.’’ And it is much the same with the former Spanish owners of these old ranches. If they had not sold their possessions when the country was new and the land comparatively cheap, their families would have no grievances to re- hearse to-day. In a certain adobe house in the sleepy town of Monterey lives the remnant of one of the oldest of these Spanish families, this meager house and lot being the only property left in their possession out of all their past splendid estates. To eke out an anxious existence they take an occasional boarder, and frequently pour forth their discontent at what Fate hasbrought tothem. Inthedays of ’49 their father owned three separate estates in different parts of the county, one being the magnificent Paso Robles Spring property, now a health and pleasure resort for the entire State. Living in their past glory, they point with pride to a water-color hanging on the wall. It is no work of art-- only a simple little thing—but it tells a pa- ; " uly My ' ‘et a | THE COSMOPOLITAN. thetic story. It is a sketch of the place as it then was—-acomfortable adobe house with walks and flowers, and vineyard in the fore- ground, while rolling land is seen in the distance, covered with cattle, and onone side the famous spring prized even in their day. Of all these good, good things they have but this small bit of landscape on the wall. Becoming interested in the story, the summer boarder asked : ‘* But why was the property sold? did you not hold on to it?”’ ‘Oh, we heard that the Americans would steal the land if we did not sell; so we were forced to do so.”’ ‘‘But did they ever do so to your own knowledge ?’’ ‘*No, they did not; but this was what we understood. When the Americans came, there was great excitement; and it was said that they would not hesitate to enforce squatters’ titles with the shotgun, if neces- sary, and get everything away from us for nothing. So my father thought it wiser to get as much as possible before the trouble began ; and now we have next to nothing, and the Americans are rich with the very property we sold them.”’ ‘*But were not the four thousand dollars Why UNDER THE DATE PALMS IN SANTA RARBARA.

Page 45

THE CALIFORNIA RANCH. SHEEP-SHEARING ON A RANCH, you received in 1849 a very good price for that time ?’’ ‘Gh, now /”’ Still, the great wonder is that, under the circumstances, there was so little injustice done to these generous, thriftless landown- They sold their lands or mortgaged them of their own free will ; and the Amer- icans simply held them to their contracts, which they have always considered an in- justice. The truth of the matter is, that the early Spanish settler was ignorant of Anglo-Amer- ican law as well as careless, unthrifty, and extravagant. Because of the first misfor- tune he failed to understand the meaning of a mortgage; and after borrowing money on his land, construed the policy of the law to mean to pay back when he pleased. By rea- son of the second he sold his land, not by the acre but by the mile, the league, and the grant, which method has been the cause of much wearisome litigation in these after times. The boundaries being vaguely de- yes; but think what it is worth ers. a mountain to a fined—for example, from certain creek—sometimes a doubt arose as to whether it was Little Pilarcitos or Big Pilarcitos that was meant in the original grant. And thus their lands have passed from them, and through the hands of many others since, cut up into thousands of homes for thousands of industrious, thrifty fami- lies. It can scarcely be called an injustice that such is the fact : it is the same tale that is told all over the world, and will be so long ‘As myrtles grow, and roses blow, And morning brings the sun.”’ One of the pleasant exceptions to the gen- eral rule is the Gonzalez Ranch, held by the sons of an old Spanish family, in whose pos- session it has been for forty-five years. It lies in the Salinas Valley, covering a space of twelve miles, in the shape of a rectangle, all fenced into small farms. In the center is the town of Gonzalez, containing five hun- dred inhabitants, all of whom gain their liv- ing from the productions of this one ranch. Its special products are wheat and barley, which are raised in such abundance that this

Page 46

218 one ranch can load five ships for England with these precious grains, and the value of the product has been at times one hun- dred and ninety thousand dollars per sea- son. All around this fertile spot in the Salinas Valley are other similar ranches, some even larger in extent, all sown in wheat and barley, so that when harvest-time draws near, whichever way the eye may glance over an immense extent of territory, the land is one vast sea of shimmering grain. Perhaps the largest single estate at any one time held by one man is the Glenn Ranch, in Colusa County, which several years ago contained fifty-five thousand acres, with sixteen and a half miles frontage on the Sacramento River. The fencing alone is one hundred and fifty miles long. In 1880 the owner received eight hundred thousand dollars for the wheat he shipped to London. Another celebrated wheat field is that con- tained in the Bidwell Ranch, which covers an area of twenty-two thousand acres, or nearly thirty-six miles. Not only are to be found here the staples of life, but the grounds are beautified with every kind of growth found in temperate and semi-tropical climates : the trees are a noble array of na- tive as well as foreign woods. Adjoining Chico, a place of five thousand inhabitants, as it does, the famous ranch stands as a sort of mother to the town, giving employment to many of its people and adding much to its prosperity. The perfection of the agri- cultural machinery universal in California was shown here not long ago, when the wheat standing in the field at sunrise in June was cut, threshed, carried a mile or more to the mill, ground into flour, taken to General Bidwell’s place, and, in the form of delicious biscuit, served for breakfast. The story is told, that among the unique products of the Bidwell place is a certain Egyptian corn, or wheat, the original seed of which was obtained from a mummy's hand, for which there is a great demand all over the world, it being of a superior quality. Another peculiarity is that all the grapes raised on the estate are used exclusively for raisins, vinegar, etc., no wine-making being permitted there. Among the most highly cultivated is the famous Robinson Ranch, now twenty years old, covering eight thousand five hundred acres, or thirteen miles, and having a front- THE COSMOPOLITAN, age of seven miles on the Sacramento River, with a fresh-water tidal column of sixty feet from the sea. The products are diversified, being most complete in variety; but the great wonder is the beauty to be found in what is called ‘‘the home-place,’’ where over a hundred acres are set out in magnificent parterres of flowers and fields of roses, orna- mental fruits and shrubs in royal profusion —a flower-garden on a gigantic scale. A dream of semi-tropical splendor is ‘**Fernwood,”’ the magnificent Dingee estate of eight hundred acres, historically known as ‘‘ The Col. Jack Hayes Place.’’ It is su- perb in its situation, lying on the borders of the city of Oakland, only an hour's ride over the bay from San Francisco, and within the soft atmosphere of the warm belt. Although it is January, the roses and lilies at my feet are magnificent, while the eye glances at a series of exquisite views, finishing with old Pacific itself. The winding avenue of cy- press and pine is of thirty years’ growth, while that specimen of the celebrated Cali- fornia big tree is a marvel away from its native forest ; and the lemon tree, springing to a height of twenty feet, is unsurpassed in the State. Are yov fond of pure-blooded Jerseys, so choice that they are registered at each birth? Here they are, a herd of them, in all stages from the grandmother down to the tiny calf of a week old, and worth a for- tune, every one. I fear, however, that there are many like the child who was led out to ad- mire them the other day, and was told, ‘‘ Just think, dear, this Jersey heifer of Mr. D.’s is worth thirty thousand dollars,’’ and who re- sponded, quickly and practically, ‘‘ Why doesn’t he sell it and get the money ?”’ Exceedingly picturesque is the great house with its terraces of flowers ; decidedly valu- able, the creek and lake containing the water supply for the whole country round: while nature and man seem leagued together to make it complete and finished in every part. But even this Eden-like spot is yielding to the spirit of the day, and a certain plot of two hundred acres is to be subdivided into five and ten-acre tracts for suburban resi- dences, to encourage visitors from the far- away East to take up their homes beneath Californian skies. And who shall say it is not better after all, for even Adam and Eve left the garden to make themselves a home ! While California can propose an improve-

Page 47

THE CALIFORNIA RANCH. 219 ment on the original plan, and offers the Garden of Eden itself as a site for ‘‘the home-place."’ A typical example of California farming is illustrated by the Huffman Ranch. It is a magnificent property devoted to wheat and barley, surrounding the town of Merced, and extending over twenty thousand acres. When the plowing season comes on, a grand procession makes its appearance, com- posed of ten eight-mule teams and machin- ery of the latest invention, performing the feat of plowing sixty acres a day. When harvest draws near, a new kind of string darkens the horizon. It is the combined harvester, a California invention, a sort of traveling magician, and two of these mech- anisms being set to work will perform wonders. Each one will cut, thresh, and sack about fifty acres per day, with the aid of about five men and thirty mules, accom- plishing the work that formerly required forty men. Marvelous improvements are constantly in progress, and next summer steam is to supplant mule-power, while the grand canal, in process of construction for the last four years, will then be completed, thus supplying irrigation for six hundred thousand acres. The ultimate design of the owners, Crocker and Huffman, is to cut the ranch up into small farms and make it a land of homes. Very charming isthe romantic tale of Temelik Hall on the Rogers Ranch. In con- tradistinction to the frame buildings uni- versally found on these estates is to be seen a castle of white limestone, or silica, set about with columns. Around it is a wall of gray-stone, with twenty years’ growth of ivy. Very picturesque is the rounded gate- way of stone, with its inner wicket, espe- cially when three lovely girls in light mus- lin, with wide-brimmed hats, lean against it, looking out at the world before them. At one side are a creek and a rus- tic bridge, and among the foliage especially noticeable are the cypress trees, so straight and black, while adding to the picturesqueness of the scene are the white stone steps lead- ing from the upper tothe lower gar- den. The house is built upon an old Indian mound, from which occa- sionally are cast up relics and In- dian skulls, just enough to gratify one’s love for the marvelous. From the cupola is to be seen a most beautiful view over the tops of the trees, an enchanting scene of farms and vineyards and hills, shining out in the sun- light, and the distant Sonoma and Napa val- leys in miniature. But the romantic tale—let us have it, by all means, in the midst of all these facts and figures. Who built such a house as this, when other men were content with cabins ? It was back in the days of 1852 that this land was held by a wealthy mine-owner, who be- lieved that his cavern in the hill held inex- haustible riches. Yet, even then he was not happy. He had set his heart upon winning - the hand of the belle of the county, and mak- ing herhis bride. As was the fate of women in those days, she was besieged by lovers who could not do enough to please her, and she was, of course, coquettish, and played them off, one against another. In a fit of desperation he conceived a bril- liant plan to show his superiority to the others, and to change her willful ways and make her listen to him. He must have known something of the heart of woman. To live in the most magnificent house in the country, and be the mistress of it, would soften any woman’s heart. He turned the gold from his mine into a stone quarry in his land, and rapidly the castle went up, the WOODEN WHEELED CART AND PLOW COMBINED. A relic of early times in Los Angeles. 2 SR eg ee

Page 48

THE COSMOPOLITAN. AN ORANGE GROVE IN LOS ANGELES, admired and envied of the country around. But, alas! before it was finished the gold gave out, and he was left aruined man, with neither lands, nor gold, nor bride, and it was left to many other hands to bring it to its present stage of beauty. If he does not come back and wander among those columns on moonlight nights, and sigh and sigh for his wasted life, then it must be because he is still in the flesh and afraid he might be taken for a prowler of the night. About ten years ago a certain engineer, while in reduced circumstances and almost without hope for the future, found himself in a beautiful valley of San Luis Obispo. Shabby and moneyless as he was, a great desire crept into his heart as he observed the beauty and value of the position. ‘If ever I should become rich,’’ he said, ‘‘the first thing I would do would be to come back here and buy this valley.’’ Soon thereafter he joined a party of pros- pectors on their way to the Apache-haunted border of Arizona. Their friends, in a spirit of satire, advised them to take their tomb- stones with them, for they would need them.

Page 49

THE CALIFORNIA RANCH. But the reckless prospectors went on their way, and after the discovery of the wonderful jode called the ‘‘ Tough Nut,”’ which brought them their fortunes, named the town that sprang up around them ‘‘ Tombstone,”’ in derisive deference to the advice that had been given them. As soon as the engineer could realize his good fortune, he bethought him- self of the lovely valley, and going back and finding it still open to purchase, soon be- came the proud owner. Ever since he has been known among our wealthy ranchmen as the possessor of the ‘* Gird’’ Ranch. To those who have a fondness for olives it will be a pleasure to know that that indus- try flourishes among us. The Elwood Cooper Ranch is devoted to the pale-green little fruit exclusively, but its oil with diffi- culty competes with the clever decoctions of the cotton seed that are sold for very much less than the real article, and also with the cheap labor used in putting up the foreign importations. It is said, however, that the product was sold last year for fifty thousand dollars; and in time it is hoped that the seductive olive will come to be grown in such profusion that it will be looked upon as‘a necessity ratherthan a luxury, and be found upon every table. II. “TI want free life, and I want fresh air, And I sigh for a canter after the cattle ; The crack of a whip, like shots in a battle, The medley of horns and hoofs and heads, That wars and wrangles, and scatters and spreads ; The green below and the blue above, And dash and and danger, and life and love.”’ Tuis is the life of a cattle ranch, which is distinct, utterly and completely, from any other kind of a ranch; but even cattle ranches vary in different parts of the State. Toward the southern portion the Mexican element enters in ; at the north it is com- posed mostly of American youths. The term ‘‘ vaqueros’’ is applied, however, all over the State to the cattle herders, passing through a sort of degradation into ‘‘ buc- caros,’’ and lastly ‘‘ buccaroos.’’ We have no ‘‘cowboys.’’ They are a product of re- gions further east and south, and this term is resented by the California cattle men. A cattle ranch is a stupendous thing, scarcely to be portrayed on paper in the mere enumeration of figures and numbers. When I say that one firm of cattle kings— that of Lux & Miller—owns one hundred 21 221 and sixty-two thousand domestic animals, in neat cattle, sheep, and pigs, with two great cattle ranches, and eight main farms, beside twenty thousand acres in grain; compris- ing in all seven hundred thousand acres, or one hundred and nine miles of land, the mind can scarcely take it in. Perhaps it may give a clearer idea to say that they own all the land on the west bank of the San Joaquin River for fifty miles, and early all on the opposite side ; and it is said of them that in driving their beef cattle to market in San Francisco, for over a hundred miles they drive them over their own land, and “put up’’ each night at one of their own ranches. There is a marvelous tale told in the spring-time of California’s mingled seasons, when the tinkle of the cow-bell is heard coming up from the mild winter valleys, up across the snow-capped Sierras, where the back of winter is hardly yet broken. It is the train and herd of cattle making its way to the sweet new springing grass of the Sierra valleys. Sometimes the tiny calves are gathered up at the crucial point, and shipped by cars across the snow of the sum- mit ; but there is nothing more impressive than to hearthe tinkling bells of this bovine pilgrimage up from thevalleys to their sum- mer quarters, day after day, a steady, endless stream of melody mingled with mountain harmonies. Up in the extreme north is the ranch of Ayres and Poore, which is situated in three States— California, Oregon, and Nevada. One of the owners of the ranch, when asked how many cattle he had, laughingly said, ‘*Qh! I have one cow on a thousand hills.”’ There are many things to be told of this great cattle range, but I feel that the term ‘*home-place’’ deserves a special mention. It is familiarly applied to the spot where there is a place of refuge for man or beast ; sometimes it is a magnificent building, with all its complete out-buildings ; sometimes a mere place of shelter. On this ranch they are merry, and have been designatea by such curious names as ‘‘The Dug Out,”’ ‘‘ Island Place,’’ ‘‘Sage Hen,’’ etc.; and during a winter that is particularly hard and cruel they serve for feeding places for such cattle as are unable to find enough nourishment in the little valleys where they are herded. Around them are high mountain peaks cov-

Page 50

222 ered with snow, and indeed the men them- selves are hemmed in and can not escape un- til spring, but in the deep little valley may generally be found enough herbage to keep the cattle until the day of escape. The vaqueros in this latitude are mostly young American boys raised in that part of the country. The rancheros used to think that they never would amount to anything, some of them coming from idle and shiftless stock ; but in spite of this fact this kind of life seems specially adapted to them, and brings out the better side of their natures, in many instances causing them to become of the greatest worth to their employers. Their trustworthiness is tried to the extreme, especially in driving the fattened beef cattle to market, for they have to be treated with the tenderest care, and watched night and day, to see that they are not driven hard or frightened into a stampede, lest they become poor and unfit for sale, beef cattle being sensitive to the least roughness of treatment, and showing it immediately in their appear- ance. These vaqueros may never own a horse of their own, but each one has his silvered saddle and stirrups, as well as an elegantly wrought bit, exquisitely finished and inlaid with silver. The favorite boot is one with a peculiar, small, but high heel, which would be laughed at in the cities or even in the towns. But the vaquero smiles disdainfully and says, ‘‘ I am not a footman, but a horse- man,’’ much as the cavalryman says to the infantryman. This peculiar heel is especially adapted to the stirrup and the spur of these dashing horsemen of the north. One of the chief sources of pride to the cattle king is the fast horse, of blooded stock, that he owns, on whose fine points he dwells with a more than jealous eye. He may re- joice in his wife and family, but that partic- ular horse is possibly a matter of more con- cern to him than all the world beside. It was in this high region that a magnificent horse, with satin coat, was being freshly shod one day, his owner gazing on him with unsatiated eyes. Passing hy was a merchant, whose hobby was hunting, and upon his shoulder was a fine new gun. Stopping a mo- ment, he exhibited it to the cattle man with feelings of pride, saying he had given one hundred and twenty-five dollars for it. The other scanned it over carefully and said : THE COSMOPOLITAN. “‘ How will you trade? I'll give you my horse for it.’’ The merchant scanned the horse over in turn, and then shook his head. ‘‘No, I rather think the gun is worth more than the horse.”’ Then the owner of the satin-coated steed laughed him to scorn for his ignorance of the fine points of the piece of horse-flesh be- fore him. ‘* Why, man, that horse of mine is brother to Harry Wilkes, one of the fastest trotters in the world! I’ve refused twenty thousand dollars for him, and got twenty-five hundred only last week for one of his colts. How would you like to trade now ?”’ There is asmall kingdom to be found in Kern County, in the Haggin & Carr system of ranches.. It isa great tract divided into small farms, with a grand canal system of irrigation, and is carried on by small fam- ilies, to whom it is sublet in a kind of colony. Nothing in nature is so satisfying to the eye, filling it with continual delight, as this sight of field after field in the endless succes- sion of the Marquis of Carabas in the old fairy story, forming an unending wave of sea-green, stretching out like the infinity of horizon of old ocean itself. Here also are many dairies with their complement of peaceful cows, shining tins, foaming milk, and fresh, sweet butter. But more* wonderful than all are the blooded stock. One can scarcely choose be- tween the great Narman horses, with manes like lions, and the delicate-limbed race- horses. As for the corrals of pretty colts, so tame that they come in great droves, answer- ing your call, all shapely and symmetrical, and unlike the ordinary gawky thing, they seem like a new kind of animal. Traveling through this wonderful region, a lady cried out: ‘I am perfectly wild over it all. Although I have lived all my life in Califor- nia, I never dreamed of such placesas these.’’ Still further south is the Nejuil Ranch, comprising forty thousand acres. Chief among its possessions are the vast herds of sheep that wander over its broad domains. Perhaps nothing is more interesting than to watch the processes by which the wool is obtained. The sheep-shearers are mostly of Mexican origin, and when they put in their appearance present a picturesque sight, with their gay neckerchiefs and swarthy

Page 51

THE CALIFORNIA RANCH. countenances. They would do well in a picture, but as human beings they are to be avoided. Cruelty and love of gaming are their chief characteristics. They snip, snip the sheep, and if they take out a piece of flesh with the wool, they snip out another alongside to make it nice and even, mean- while chanting some queer little rune. Then a vat of acids is prepared, into which they drop the poor creatures, old sheep and little lambs, thumping them down with poles, in order that they may be well immersed, not caring for the raw, tender flesh exposed by their brutality, nor for the feebleness of the lambs, which scarcely know which way to go. The old sheep, which has passed through several seasons of this sort of thing, imme- diately swims through the vat to the place of egress, and passes out; not so the lamb, which struggles and strangles, with that cruel pole pushing it down under the bitter waters, not knowing what to do. Many of them are thus drowned, and the imp-like shearer, uttering an ugly oath, fishes them out. At night these inhuman beings sit up and gamble away every dime earned through the day to the sharpers who follow in their wake, but the next day go to work again, chanting and snipping with accustomed celerity. It is with a quickened pen that I come to the most picturesque, the most highly culti- vated and garnished of the California ranches—the Baldwin, near Los Angeles. It is scarcely to be classed with the others, having an air of elegant luxury which ac- cords more with the fanciful tale of a ro- mancer than with the sombertruth. A tract of land nearly ten miles square is cut up into many small farms, dotted with forests and beautified with flowers, but it is the ‘‘ home- place’’ of the owner, fit to be the palace of some island princess. At the foot of the Sierra Madre covered with eternal snow, in a warm, delicious valley never touched by the slightest frost, where the blossoms may peep out at any moment, and the fruit grow in perpetual season, lies an orange grove, glistening with its golden fruit. An hour’s brisk drive behind the pair of blooded horses belonging to the ranch, taking us through vineyards and orchards of oranges, limes, lemons, and other choice fruits, brings us finally to the center. Here is the nucleus of a small village, the old-fashioned adobe, cool 223 and comfortable, now given over to the help, since the building of the new house—board- ing-houses for the small army of helpers and their families, a school for their children, stables and buildings—in all fifty houses in the place. From the ever melting snows comes a supply of water so great that the artificial lakes that beautify the scene cover an area of eight acres. The island in the center is a bower of beauty, and a place of habitation for flocks of wild fowl] of all kinds —ducks, geese, swans, and herons. At the boat-house are moored handsome gondolas, tempting one to a sail. But the crowning piece of perfection is the dainty bit of archi- tecture that peeps out of the banana, magno- lia, and palmetto trees on the edge of the lake. It is formed upon the design of a Maltese cross, the interior finished with inlaid woods, the porticoes and walks lead- ing to its portals flagged with marble and granite. Much might be said of the stables of cele- brated horse-flesh and the private mile track, complete in every detail, or the variety of fowls and perfection of the buildings, but it is impossible in a limited space. As if this California fairy-land were not shining enough, the splendors of eighty peacocks, disporting their brilliant plumage in full glory, dazzle the eyes and surfeit us with beauty. Perhaps the ranches destined to wield the greatest influence in California in the future are those lately deeded for the foundation and endowment of a University, by ex-Gov- ernor Stanford and wife, in commemoration of their son, Leland Stanford, Jr., a bright- minded boy of sixteen, who died in the midst of his bloom. They include the Gridley, the Vina, and the Palo Alto prop- erties. The Vina, an immense tract of fifty- five thousand acres, contains the largest vineyard in the world, while Palo Alto is known to be the greatest horse farm. These ranches have grown to their present dimen- sions by an absorbing process, which has united ten or fifteen ordinary tracts under one name; yet each of these separate ranches has a romance of its own. The marvels of these great ranches would re- quire an entire article. The blooded stock of Palo Alto is celebrated all over the world in view of the remarkable records made by its young horses, and the place itself for its

Page 52

224 many peculiar features. Nothing is more touching than the bit of sentiment that provides in this royal home for horse-flesh a place of refuge for the old and infirm steeds of a day long past and gone. Here is to be seen Occident, the wonder of the world fifteen years ago, with his record of 2:16, 3-4, and beside a number of old car- riage horses of the family are the ponies which young Leland used to ride, exempt from bridle and bit for the remainder of their days. This estate is carried on more on the plan of a paternal form of government than any other in California, for the personal interests of the little world therein contained are made a special matter of study, chapels, both Protestant and Catholic, and kinder- gartens being provided for the families of the workmen employed. The gradual growth of this kindly spirit toward the children of these poorer classes, and the perception of the need of a practical educa- tion for such, has doubtless been the origin of the desire to found this wonderful uni- versity. Two or three sections of the grant of these magnificent properties to a board of trustees, by Senator Stanford and wife, will convey an idea of its spirit. SECTION 14.—To afford equal facilities and give equal advantages in the university to both sexes SECTION 15.—To establish and maintain at such a uni- versity an educational system which, if followed, will fit the graduate for some useful pursuit, and to this end to cause the pupils, as early as may be, to declare the par- ticular calling which in life they may desire to pursue, but such declaration shall not be binding, if, in the judg- ment of the president of the university, the student is not by nature fitted for the pursuit declared. Section 16.—To prohibit sectarian instruction, but to have taught in the university the immortality of the soul, the existence of an all-wise and beneficent Creator, and that obedience to His laws is the highest duty of man. It might seem that with these estates of baronial magnitude, together with many others not even mentioned, there would be no land left for those who might come later ; EDS ma Sos THE COSMOPOLITAN. but such is not the case. In the northern coast counties there are thousands and thou- sands of opportunities for settlers. In San Luis Obispo, Ventura, and Monterey a hard-working, frugal farmer can soon secure a home for himself. At the head of the Sacramento Valley, in Shasta or Siskiyou, there is just as good grain and fruit land, which can be taken up, as any that has al- ready been turned by the plow. Nota sin- gle day passes that white-topped immigrant wagons, occupied by resolute men and women, with their little flock peering out, do not creak along over the bad roads in Lassen and Modoc counties. Strong quali- ties are required of pioneers, both of the old and of the new day. There have been cases known where a man with two hundred dol- lars settled on a quarter section, put up a ‘*shanty,’’ cleared an acre or two for garden and grain, and then went to work for the neighbors, and within three years, by dint of industry and economy, found himself in possession of a nice little farm and a cottage worth two thousand five hundred dollars. The story is told in a daily paper of a man who came from Missouri five years ago with a family, and taking up a quarter sec- tion in Shasta County, went to work in the same way that a million pioneers had done before him ; and to-day, after all his hard- ships, he has three full sections of land, a barn, a pretty cottage, a profitable vineyard and orchard. His ranch is worth twenty- five thousand dollars, upon which he has borrowed ten thousand dollars to enable him to reach out and add to his possessions, thus possibly starting another colossal Cali- fornia ranch. There is no danger for many years to come that land can not be found for homes. In the words of the good old Sunday-school hymn, ‘* Thousands now are safely landed Over on this golden shore, Thousands more are on their journey, Yet there’s room for thousands more.”

Page 53

THE ORIGIN OF LOVE AND BEAUTY. By JOEL BENTON. F any two words serve to condense or tell the history of the world more completely than any other, we must ascribe the palm to love and beauty. They sum up the whole essence of art and poetry. On their behalf wars have been hotly waged, and industry has, in every country and time, plied its remorseless tasks. How tersely and truly Emerson crystallizes their purport in a couplet, when he says : “The sense of the world is short— To love and be beloved.”’ Nor is Walter Scott’s ascription less sweep- ing and universal, when he asserts in his lay : “ Love rules the court, the camp, the grove, And men below, and saints above." A recent able writer, impressed with this overwhelming part that love and beauty play in human affairs has just undertaken in a remarkable book* an encyclopedic treatment of what he calls ‘‘ Romantic Love and Personal Beauty.’’ That he hasatheory on the subject does not make him less inter- esting; for, without such an impulse, he must have wearied of and broken down in completing his laborious task. Critics will differ from him as to the truth of his postu- late, which he tries so ingeniously to sub- stantiate, but his enthusiasm warms every page, and adds a piquant interest to his theme. It is Mr. Finck’s idea—and he takes up the gauntlet on his very first page by com- bating a German writer who holds the op- posite view—that what we know and call romantic love is a modern, or at least a post- medieval passion. Neither our complex love nor gallantry, he says, has had a long existence, comparatively. ‘‘We look for them in vain among modern savages, in vain among the ancient civilized nations. Romantic love is a modern sentiment, less than a thousand years old.”’ *ROMANTIC LOVE AND PERSONAL Beauty. Their development, casual relations, historic and national pe- culiarities. By Henry /. Finck. The Bible even, he thinks, takes no ac- count of it, and if, in Roman literature, par- ticularly in Ovid, there is to be seen ‘‘a vague foreshadowing of some of the ele- ments’’ of it, they are exceptional or rudi- mentary merely, and what there was of it relapsed in the Dark Ages. He accounts for this absence by the fact that women, until modern times, were held in more or less brutal subjection. The Troubadours of Italy and France and the German Minnesingers seem to stand in his way, but he brushes them aside by saying that ‘‘ their conduct scarcely harmonized with their preaching.”’ Their poetic effusions were of little account, as they were ‘‘ almost invariably addressed tomarried women.’’ Thedoctrine of modern love means ‘‘the romantic adoration of a maiden by a youth,’’ and our writer admits that in Dante’s ‘‘ Vita Nuova’’ this feeling is definitely revealed. But he says: ‘‘ The feelings experienced by Dante were obvious- ly not shared by his contemporaries, who found them too subtle and sublimated for their comprehension. They were un- symptomatic of their time or of any time,” because ‘‘they were too ethereal to quite correspond with reality. ‘It remained for Shakespeare to combine the idealism with the realism of love in pro- per proportions. The colors with which he painted the passion and sentiment of modern love are as fresh and as true to life ason the day when they were first put on his canvas. Like Dante, however, he was emotionally ahead of his time, as an examination of con- temporary literature in England and else- where shows. But within the last two cen- turies love has gradually, ifslowly, assumed among all educated people characteristics that formerly it possessed only in the minds of a few isolated men of genius.”’ I shall address myself to Mr. Finck’s theory further on ; but, for the present, will continue with his facts and material, which are the most exhaustive, I am sure, ever brought together on this subject, and make a veritable apotheosis of love and beauty. Empedocles and Judah Leo, an Italian

Page 54

226 writer, as well as others, have tried to iden- tify cosmic love in some way with the human instinct ; but the suggestion is more fanciful than real, says our author. A subt- ler chemistry, too, than the desire between potassium and phosphorus for oxygen pre- vails in the human heart. As Burns says: ‘* The attraction of love, I find, is in inverse proportion to the attraction of the Newton- ian philosophy. In the system of Sir Isaac, the nearer objects are to one another, the stronger is the attractive force. In my sys- tem, every milestone that marked my pro- gress from Clarinda awakened a keener pang of attachment to her.”’ There 1s something nearer to human love in the lovesand courtships of birds. They seem really to select their mates with ref- erence to an individual preference, if not with some idea of beauty, which is occasion- ally operative, though generally the element of strength or gymnastic activity, or the vigor of song in the male is what most at- tracts the female. Birds, like the sandskip- per and parrot, have been known to pine hopelessly and even die when losing their mates. To show that bird love is further analogous to that which animates the human breast, examples of the gay Lothario are not wanting. Mr. Harrison Weir ‘‘ has him- self observed and has heard from several breeders that a female pigeon will occasion- ally take a strong fancy for a particular male and will desert her own mate for him. Some females, according to another ex- perienced observer, Riedel, are of a profligate disposition, and prefer almost any stranger to their own mate.’’ On the other hand some males in the domestic state, let us add, to keep the account between the sexes even, ‘*are so successful in their gallantries that they must be shut up on account of the mischief which they cause.’’ It seems evi- dent, too, that there are bachelors and maids among birds who either find it difficult to marry, or who prefer the idler life their condition makes possible. In one respect, birds preserve a quality of romantic love that makes it superior in their case ; that is, they renew each year the old courtship. Audubon notes this peculiarity in his observations on wild flocks of Canada geese. He says: ‘‘The birds which have been previously mated renewed their court- ship as early as the month of January, while THE COSMOPOLITAN. the others would be contending and coquet- ting for hours every day.’’ After the cere- mony was over they ‘‘ were careful to keep in pairs.’’ He observed, also, that the older the birds were ‘‘ the shorter were the prelim- inaries of their courtship,”’ all of which ison a parallel line with the experienced—the widow and widower—in human life. If Darwin’s doctrine of human evolution is ever proven beyond peradventure, it will not seem strange that so many of the complex emotions of romantic love exist in the lower species. Mr. Finck’s observations on other animals, as well as on birds, make him con- clude that ‘‘the four traits of romantic love, which are doubtless present in the passion of animals, are jealousy, coyness, individual preference, and admiration of personal beauty.’’ In so far as this induction holds, then the perception or nervous sensibility of the lower orders of animals is in advance of ‘‘the human savage,’’ whose courtship con- sists in knocking a girl on the head, and carrying her forcibly from her own to his tribe. In Latourneu’s ‘‘ Sociologie’’ it is stated that ‘‘among the Cafres Cousas, the senti- ment of love does not constitute a part of mar- riage.’’ ‘‘The idea of love, as we understand it,’’ says Du Chaillu, in speaking of a tribe of the Gabon, ‘‘appears to be unknown to this tribe.’’ Tothe same effect testifies Monteiro, when he remarks: ‘‘The negro (purely savage) knows not love, affection, or jeal- ousy. In all the long years I have been in Africa, I have never seen a negro manifest the least tenderness for or to a negress. I have never seen a negro put his arm round a woman’s waist, or give or receive any caress whatever that would indicate the slightest regard or affection on either side. They have no words or expres- sions in their language indicative of affection or love.’’ Among the Hottentots, other observers find the same condition of things. Lubbock says that in Yariba ‘‘a man thinks as little of taking a wife as of cutting an ear of corn; affection is altogether out of the question.”’ Some exceptions, however, to this array of evidence are frankly admitted, which the author sets down in part as conjugal love, which is a quite different matter. This, he admits, exists where pre-matrimonial love does not. The legends of Lovers’ Leaps and

Page 55

THE ORIGIN OF LOVE AND BEAUTY. Maiden Rocks are not allowed to be of much value, however, as scientific evidence. The very methods by which a savage lover obtains his wife extinguish at once all the sentiment that could be supposed to exist ; and these methods are three—capture, pur- chase, and service. ‘‘ When a girl is cap- tured and knocked on the head she can hardly be said to be courted and consulted as to her wishes ; and the man, too, in such cases, owing to the dangers of the sport, is apt to pay no great attention to a woman’s looks.and accomplishments, but to bag the first one that comes along.’’ When a girl is purchased, the parents’ or father’s wishes are chiefly considered ; and when she is won by a term of service, ‘‘ the suitor’s work is not done to please the daughter, but to recom- pense the parents for losing her.’’ It is in- teresting to note that girls and widows not only vary in price when they are obtained for pay, but this variation ‘‘is in both direc- tions.’’ Among the Turcomans a wife may be purchased for five camels if she be a girl, or for fifty if a widow ; whereas, among the Tunguse, a girl costs from one to twenty reindeer, while widows are considerably cheaper. One who is disposed to be altogether cyn- ical about progression in love might say of the modern article that the two customs of capture and purchase still prevail. In the modern elopement, however, through the chamber window, the passion of Romeo for Juliet can not be denied. If love ever be- comes a conflagration, it is here. But in the mating of millionaires or fortunes, love's temperature, on occasions that are not posi- tively rare, suggests that the mercury is not infrequently a neighbor to zero. The poetical account that is given from Aristophanes of the origin of love explains the old idea, which still vaguely survives, that every soul has somewhere its particular mate, and explains also the tribulations that occur in finding it. According to this poet-philosopher there were once three sexes, descended, respectively, from the sun, earth, and moon, and each had a duality of heads, arms, and legs. But the beings so endowed were round, and revolved about with the facility of a Fourth of July fire-wheel. In process of time they grew so fierce and power- ful that Zeus was put to his wits’ ends to know what to do with them, as they at- 227 tempted at one time to storm heaven and overpower even the gods. He did not wish to destroy them outright ; ‘‘ so he directed Apollo to cut each of them in two, which was done ; and thus the number of human beings was doubled. Each of these half beings now continually wandered about, seeking its other half. And when they found each other, their only desire was to be reunited by Vulcan, and never be parted again. And this longing and striving after union—this is what is meant by the name of love.’’ As the separations that necessitate this union were made in heaven, we can now see why all perfect matches are supposed to be ordained there. The ill-assorted and irri- table ones are those that spring up without knowledge and in a haphazard fashion, whereby two halves that never belonged to- gether are unequally yoked. Mr. Finck seems to doubt Emerson's dic- tum that ‘‘all mankind lovea lover.’’ He thinks, rather, that the world considers him a ‘‘tremendous and ridiculous bore.’’ But Emerson was not speaking of'a lover as a private companion. He had reference in- stead to the sympathy that follows his aim and pursuit. Emerson also voices the high aspiration of the maiden—which Mr. Finck does not refer to—when he makes her say : “O, had I lover noble and free, I would he were nobler than to love me.” We are told that Dr. Johnson ‘‘ laughed at the notion that a man can never be really in love but once, and considered it a mere ’ romantic fancy.’’ St. Béuve is quoted as saying that lovecan never outlast five years, by which, I presume, he means baffled love ; while Longfellow thought that every in- stance of love of this sort left a scar forever. The precocity of romantic love in modern times is not left unnoticed. ‘‘ Cases are known of men of genius who fell in love at an age varying from six to nine years,” and in America, ‘‘ few lads, if they have an artistic temperament, escape past their tenth or twelfth year.’’ Heine, who is placed next to Shakespeare as a depository of modern love, believed second love more melancholy than first love; because, in first love it seems as if the passion must never cease. In the second state, it is sorrowful to know that some day our most ecstatic raptures will subside. But there is a disagreement on this

Page 56

228 point. George Eliot questions the matter thus: ‘‘How is it that the poets have said so many fine things about our’ first love, so few about our later love? Are their first poems their best? or are not those the best which come from their fuller thought, their larger experience, their deeper-rooted affec- tions? The boy’s flute-like voice has its own spring charm ; but the man should yield a richer, deeper music.’’ It is not pleasant though to think that ‘‘the greatest authority makes Romeo’s unparalleled passion his second love, and that even Werther’s famous love, notwithstanding Goethe’stheory, is not his first.”’ The philosophy of first love, Mr. Finck thinks, is, in most cases, this: ‘‘ Man first falls in love with woman, woman with man, not with a particular man or woman. Thus it is that at an early age thousands of impa- tient youths marry their Rosalinds before they have had time or opportunity to meet their Juliets.’’ Among the developments of modern love are the coquette and the flirt. Our author thinks the male coquette is a trifle superior to the female coquette, because he is ‘‘ actu- ated by admiration of beauty as well as by pride ; the female coquette, by pride alone.”’ But there should be ajury of both sexes to decide this. It is the woman offender, of course, who engages the literary attention of the other sex. Aldrich says of her: ‘* Above ker fan, She’d make sweet eyes at Caliban.”’ Victor Hugo once said, ‘‘God created the coquette as soon as He had made the fool.’’ Rochefoucauld called coquettes ‘‘ the quacks of love.’’ Congreve is not so unmerciful as some in describing the purpose of the co- quette. He says: “**Tis not to wound a wanton boy Or amorous youth that gives the joy ; But ‘tis the glory to have pierced the swain For whom inferior beauty sighed in vain.” The flirt differs from the coquette by the presumption, more or less apparent, that no serious thought of love is entertained. Hence a Frenchman has defined flirtation as ‘‘attentions without intentions.’’ But, as our author says, a fossidb/e intention lurks within it. Wespeak, however, of a ‘‘ harm- less flirtation,’ and a ‘‘ heartless coquette.’’ Of the elements that cause love, in spite of THE COSMOPOLITAN. what a hundred moralists say, personal beauty stands first ; and ‘‘is nota woman’s face the compendium of all beauty in the world?’’ Pretty women often complain of this tendency in men, as Fanny Browne complained to Keats, who had, as all poets and artists have, this inclination. To which rebuke Keats answers: ‘‘Why may I not speak of your beauty, since without it I could never have loved you? I can not con- ceive any beginning of such love as I have for you but beauty. There may bea sort of love for which, without the least sneer at it, I have the highest respect, and can admire it in others, but it has not the richness, the bloom, the full form, the enchantment of love after my own heart.’’ At the same time the sources of attraction get somehow even. A girl with a plain face may so cultivate tact and good nature as to surpass the pretty- faced girl across the street, who has neglect- ed everything in her reliance upon her supereminentcharm. But girls and women, however much they may esteem good lodks, are not so much enthralled by beauty as men are. Desdemona falls in love with the Moor despite his color and ugliness. As Othello remarks : ‘She loved me for the dangersI had passed, And I loved her that she did pity them.” Michael Angelo, in surrendering himself to the spell of beauty, says: “The might of one fair face sublimes my love, For it hath weaned my heart from low desires.” It is not Shakespeare alone who couples love with lunacy. The overpowering force of the passion had always allied it with madness and folly. Emerson somewhere says that Nature has overloaded it purposely, so that her designs shall not be thwarted. It unbalances mind, will, and reason from the very start. The Stoics looked upon it as did Plato—mainly as ‘‘ a grave mental disease.”’ But it is a spur to the imagination. It will brighten the face of a country clown. If, as Thomson says, ‘‘a lover is the very fool of Nature,’’ Shakespeare’s saying is not less true : ‘The lunatic, the lover, and the poet Are of imagination all compact.” In another place he says: “Thou blind fool Love, what dost thou to mine eyes, That they behold and see not what theysee?”’

Page 57

THE ORIGIN OF LOVE AND BEAUTY. This idea is also beautifully expressed in the Oriental poem of Leila and Mujnoon. After Mujnoon’s wonderful account of Leila’s beauty the friends he addressed were anxious to see such a paragon, but on beholding her they were astonished at her ugliness. Mujnoon’s answer to their disappointment was, so far as I can recall it, something like this : “To see the beauty that I prize You need to look with Mujnoon’s eyes.”’ Mr. Finck, in order to leave no part of his theme unexplored, takes up the origin of caresses, and especially the kiss, which writers as serious as Spencer and Darwin have not only discussed, but have gravely differed about. Mr. Spencer ‘‘traces the primitive delight in osculation to the gus- tatory sense, Darwin to contact.’’ Lubbock says that kissing was ‘‘entirely unknown to the Tahitians, the New Zealanders, the Pa- puas, and the aborigines of Australia, nor was it in use among the Somats and Esqui- maux.’’ Darwin found that it was unknown in Terra del Fuego. An attempt of a trav- eler to kiss a savage maiden where this trait of civilization was not understood, is thus described : ‘‘ She was greatly terrified, prob- ably imagining him a new species of can- nibal, who had made up his mind to eat her on the spot raw, and without salt and pepper.”’ Promiscuous kissing, up to the time of the Restoration, was, in England, a well-ob- served custom. It appears, at one time, ‘‘ to have been customary on visiting to kiss the host’s wife and daughters.’’ Erasmus re- corded the fashion thus: ‘‘If you go to any place (in Britain) you are received with a kiss by all; if you depart on a journey, you are dismissed with a kiss ; you return, kisses are exchanged wherever you move, nothing but kisses.’’ ‘‘ The word adoration is derived from kissing. It means literally to apply to the mouth.’’ In other words, it means the highest expression of homage. Our author deals, too, with the arts of making love and attracting it. He gives the philosophy of proposals, and tells how to cure love. It has been cynically said that marriage itself is the cure for love; as Byron suggests : “Think you if Laura had been Petrarch’s wife He would have written sonnets all his life?” After depicting the limitations of French 22 229 love and describing the peculiarities of Ger- man, Spanish, and Italian love, Mr. Finck tells us that there is no love so perfect as that which exists in England and America, par- ticularly the American species of it. Itis the kind first depicted by Shakespeare—“‘ ro- mantic love pure and simple ;’’ and itis that which, ‘‘in course of time, will prevail throughout the world.’’ He finds the secret of American beauty, which is so justly cele- brated, in the fact that romantic love, gov- erned by beauty, arranges the most of the marriages here. The ‘‘vredilection for beauty ’’ preserves it : “From fairest creatures we desire increase, That thereby beauty's rose might never die.’’ There are some who will wish that, in the chapters on beauty, he had had a good word for the dimple; but, through a quotation from Wincklemann, we are told that this ‘‘touch of Cupid’s finger’’ was not highly regarded by the Greeks. The causes which produce beauty are so minutely analyzed that so slight a matter as the euphonious words of the Spanish language are said to have an effect on the beauty of Spanish lips. The power of beauty is illustrated by a re- mark of Pascal’s, who “‘ points out that if Cleopatra’s nose had been but a trifle larger, the whole political geography of this planet might have been different.'’ The Greeks ‘considered large eyes an essential trait of beauty, as well as of mental superiority ;”’ and Ninon de LEnclos says that ‘‘ glances are the first d7//et-doux of love.’’ Before the days of romantic love the blonde type of beauty was held in most esteem; now it is said that the brunette claims the pre-emi- nence. As Shakespeare writes : “In the old time black was not counted fair, Or if it were it bore not beauty's name ; But now is black beauty’s successive heir.” But in one respect—the fineness of the hair—the blonde beauty surpasses the bru- nette. The discovery made by the West- minster Review thirty years ago, that the blonde type and blue eyes were going out gradually, which would bea very pathetic fact if it could be universally substantiated, Mr. Finck does not notice. In spite of Sir Lepel Griffin’s dyspeptic statement that there are few pretty girls inthe United States out of Detroit, and that they are only pretty there because they have borrowed their beauty

Page 58

230 from the Queen’s adjacent dominions, our author seems to give the American girl pre- cedence over all other types, though he is himself of German origin. In two or three matters I am sure this pun- gent and voluminous writer is at fault. When he says that Byron’s ‘‘ savage attack on the waltz was dictated by a sort of whole- sale jealousy in regard to all pretty girls,” the reason seems far-fetched. It is much more natural to suppose that it was owing to the fact that his lameness prevented him from taking part in it. He conjectures that the custom of burning widows in India grew out of jealousy ; but it did not. The custom was undoubtedly originated to prevent wives from poisoning their husbands, which offense was one time common. For a wife to know that she must die when her husband did offered the strongest possible motive to her to keep him alive. While his theory that romantic love is a modern growth is made plausible—and partly so because where definite knowledge is slight, counterbalancing evidence is hard to procure—its plausibility is only attained by diminishing the force of certain facts which we do know that are quite antagonistic to it. The struggle that Jacob went through THE COSMOPOLITAN. with to attain Rachel must have had a romantic impulse as the source of it, or else he would have stopped his long ser- vice when he attained Leah. When Isaac lifted up his eyes and wept at the sight of Rebecca, it is difficult to belicve that he was not thrilled by a romantic rapture. The loves of Hero and Leander, and of Abe- lard and Eloise, were as certainly of the ex- alted romantic type as any that take place to-day. Whatever may be the meaning of Solomon’s Song, no such imagery as that which it offers could have been conjured up were romantic love not known. If it were true that Sappho’s most fervent lines referred to the love of one girl for another, she must have used for this peculiar love the symbols that were only suitable for, and that must have been borrowed from a romantic love —the love of a youth for a maiden—then ex- istent. In the early Arabian poets and in the Oriental bards generally, who flourished centuries ago, are to be found the most rap- turous expressions of romantic love. But it may be, and no doubt is, true that in modern times we have fallen upon the highest devel- opment of it. It has, in fact, been more widely and evenly diffused by modern civili- zation. ON A CLOCK. By FRANK DEMPSTER SHERMAN. LONELY once, my love away, To this slave of Time I cried: ‘* Faster on your journey glide, Let your feet no second stay ; Speed the dreary night and day ! !»» He, all heedless, obstinate, Never quickened in his gait. Happy once, my love in sight, To this slave of Time I prayed: ‘* Be your journey slowly made, Loiter with me in delight ; Stay the happy day and night !"’ Obstinate, he heard at last, Heard and hurried twice as fast.

Page 59

By WILLIAM BIG THE e; PORCUPINE, BUFFALO.—II. HORNADAY. Author of ‘‘ Two Years in the Jungle.” Y the sth of November the stuff in the water-hole in Calf Creek, which had I previously done duty as water, became so thick with mud and filth that we could drink it no longer, but had to take it in slices, after the manner of ice-cream. And then, to put the case in cowboy language, we ‘‘ took a tumble to ourselves,’’ or, in other words, resolved to turn over a new leaf. We resolved to move camp, and pulling up stakes forth- with we moved across a corner of the High Divide, and wound our way down to the bottom of a little cafion on the southern slope. At the very point where it gathered in the waters of a score of steep gullies and started them down toward the Yellowstone under the sounding title of Big Porcupine Creek, we unloaded our plunder and made a camp. At the foot of a perpendicular bluff of ‘*hard-pan ’’ Jim McNaney had discovered two days previously, while returning hot and tired from a successful chase after buf- falo, a deep pool of delicious water, without alkali and inexhaustible in quantity. As it lay there so clear and pure, reflecting the blue of the sky in its liquid depths, I declare it seemed worthy of adoration. He whohas never quenched his thirst for days and weeks with liquid mud and alkali can in no wise understand our feelings toward that crystal pool. The scarcity of water in Montana is, it seems to me, the greatest hardship the plains- man has to suffer. I will never forget one little episode of our hunt, which made us sympathize with poor Tantalus as never be- fore. One warm day in October we took the wagon and set out southwest for a four days’ trip to the Buffaio Buttes, our lucky hunting

Page 60

232 ground. Jim and Boyd rode on to hunt buf- falo all day, while I undertook to pilot the wagon twenty miles across country, and take my chances on hitting a miserable little water- hole that they had seen and described to me. Brown drove, and as much by good luck as good management we hit the water-hole fairly and squarely, about half an hour before sunset. It was in the dry bed of Taylor Creek, but, alas! only a single pailful of water remained, and that was like concen- trated lye. There was no other water within fivemiles. Well, before unhitching, I took the pick and shovel and dug a hole in the only moist spot there was. Glorious! water ran into it right liberally. ‘Do you strike any ?’’ called Brown, anx- iously, from the wagon. ‘* Yes, lots of water. and I’ll dig a deep hole.”’ I dug. There was sand ontop; then under that a layer of shale. It looked a little sus- picious, but water ran in from all sides in little streams, and thanking our lucky stars, I dug generously. At last, after no little labor, I had a hole that would hold over half a barrel, with an inclined plane leading down so that our thirsty horses could get to it. While we were busy making camp, wait- ing for the water to run in and settle, Jim and Boyd arrived, with two hind quarters of antelope, and a piece of hump meat from a fine old buffalo bull they had killed that afternoon, number ten. ‘‘Have ye got water?’’ was Jim’s first word. ‘* Yes ; oceans of it. Comeon,’’ and pick- ing up the sable old coffee-pot, I started to lead the way. Jim’s eyes sparkled when he saw the hole brimful of clear, cool water. ‘“By Jove, we’re hooked up, ain’t we? Lord, but I’m thirsty. Let’s fly at it!”’ He dipped up a big cupful, clapped it to his mouth, and began to drink. The first swallow went down, but the next flew out upon the ground. Jim’s face was a picture. ‘“My God! that’s clear alum. It’s just horrible. Don’t taste it, or ye’ll wish ye hadn’t.”’ One cupful of that water would have watered a thousand thirsty men. It tasted just as if some one had dissolved a pailful of Epsom salts, five pounds of alum, and two Unhitch the horses, THE COSMOPOLITAN. ounces of quinine in that miserable hole. I never tasted a more horrible mixture, and the bitterness held its own in one’s mouth for halfan hour. The horses refused it, in spite of their consuming thirst, and although Jim tried desperately to make coffee with it the result was a total failure. He could as easily have made coffee with a canful of kero- sene. Taking the empty coffee-pot on his arm and swearing that we ‘‘must have water,’’ Jim mounted his tired horse, Vic, and rode off down the course of the creek. He was gone over an hour, and came back without a drop of water, but foaming with wrath, and swearing like a cowboy. How did we get along? Well, we had in our grub-box a quart can of tomatoes, which was mostly juice, and we partly quenched our thirst with that for the night ; and the next day, about ten o’clock, we reached water. Our camp at the head of the Porcupine was most romantically situated, and as for the necessities of camp life it was almost per- fect. Two hundred yards from the pool of water we pitched our fine new Sibley tent close to the southern face of a perpendicular bluff that formed a semicircular wall around us, and like a sheltering wing protected us at all times from the cold winds that swept across the bleak level of the High Divide. We banked up the tent all around, and in the head of a deep gulley close by that had just started to eat its way up through the level ground we made a very comfortable ‘* dug-out ’’ to serve Mack as a kitchen, dug an ample fire-place at one side of it, and roofed the whole thing over with poles, gunny bags, rubber blankets, and dirt. In front of our tent was a beautiful bit of smooth ground of an acre in extent, sloping gently from the foot of the bluff to where the stream abruptly cut it off. On this convenient ground we used to feed our ten horses their oats twice a day, load and unload our wagon, spread out fresh buffalo skins and work on them, and also stock up our spoil of skins, skeletons, and hind quarters of buf- falo meat. Halfa mile below we found a few dry cotton-wood logs that served us for fire-wood as long as we remained. Had we been horse thieves or hostile red- skins, instead of peaceful hunters, we could not have chosen a better concealed spot for acamp. There was only one ‘‘ draw’’ lead-

Page 61

THE PASSING OF THE BUFFALO. ing down, which afforded a practicable route for the wagon ; and one night it took two of our cowboys half an hour to find the tent from the high ground above. From every direction save one there came down great precipitous gulleys, and from our tent we looked due south down the rugged little cafion for two miles or so to where the view was abruptly cut off by a lofty isolated butte. It was a perfect cone about five hundred feet high, which from the east, south, and west is a conspicuous landmark for many long miles. The cowboys of the Acorn Ranch say it is plainly visible from a ranch forty miles down the Porcupine. Strange to say, it was absolutely nameless, so far as we could learn, so we christened it Smith- sonian Butte. The evenitg we made our camp on the Porcupine, which proved to be our last per- manent camp, an immense flock of sage grouse flew down to drink at the pool, and in stupid wonder settled within gunshot of the tent. Wecould have killed twenty, I know, and, if the truth must be told, we did kill twelve, and took their skeletons. Perhaps this proceeding was unsportsmanlike, but it was very necessary, for we wanted twenty sage-cock skeletons. The two young buffalo cows that Jim McNaney killed just before we moved over to Porcupine Creek seemed to be the last of the Mohicans, for during the following week we scoured the country for fifteen miles in three directions without finding so much as a hoof-print. At last we decided to go away and give that country a rest for a week, so that it might fill up again with two or three buffaloes. Leaving McCanna and West to take care of the camp, we loaded our blankets and a small assortment of general plunder into the wagon, and pulled about twenty-five miles due west to the Musselshell River. We found a deep valley and a fine stream of crystal clear water rippling through it over a pebbly bed, heavy cotton-wood timber and willow copses along its banks, which were full of white-tailed deer; wild, weird and rugged brakes, covered with ever- green jungle of cedar and pine, bor- dering the river bottom on both sides aud extending back for miles, in which we found a goodly number 233 of blacktail deer, and tracks of elk and grizzly. But I dare not go any farther with that memorable experience, for if we should once get started upon it the business of the hunt might be eclipsed by its pleasures. We all fell in love with the locality, and in compari- son with the hard work, scarcity of game, and lack of scenery in the buffalo country, added to its utter poverty in wood and water, our little hunt on the Musselshell seemed like a genuine holiday pleasure trip. We tried our best to track up elk and griz- zlies, but they made themselves so scarce we never got sight of either. We killed the deer and three wild geese, and feasted like lords—no, like hunters, for lords never en- joy such feasts except when they go a-hunt- ing. We built enormous camp-fires, and for once enjoyed the luxury of having plenty of good dry fire-wood. That was in November, and the clear air was stinging cold. Once we saw the water in our pail freeze over solidly in ten minutes while it stood within four feet of a generous camp-fire. Having no tent we bivouacked in the open, with the mercury at six degrees below zero, and en- joyed it past all telling. But we found no buffalo on either side of the river, and so those halcyon days had to end abruptly five days after they began ; and vainly wishing that we could stay there a month we returned to our snug camp on the Porcupine. We took back with us half a wagon-load of specimens to be cared for, including the half-skinned deer, seven sharp-tailed grouse, two geese, eleven sage grouse, nine Bohe- mian waxwings, andamagpie. All of these birds had to be skeletonized, and the deer- skins had to be finished and made up—a deal of work for one day, I assure you. The day “THE SIZE OF IT.”

Page 62

234 following our return I was literally com- pelled to remain at camp and work on the specimens. The three cowboys went off to hunt buffalo, of course, and after Mack had fled to the Cook’s Delight—otherwise known as the dug-out—Brown, West, and I took ab- solute possession of the tent, and held high carnival. Out of a chaos of dead bodies, skins, bones, flesh, hair, and feathers, we evolved a fine orderly heap of specimens. But alas ! while were doing it Jim and Boyd performed the most brilliant exploit of the entire hunt, and I not there even to see it done. They started early, and rode hard for our historic ground, the Buffalo Buttes, as, by common consent, we had named the group of buttes twenty-two miles southwest, where we found our first buffalo, and close to which we had up to that time killed nine of our fourteen head. Even to go there and return the same day was a hard day’s work for both horse and rider, the ground was so hilly and ‘‘heavy.’’ But the Buffalo Buttes was the charmed spot for buffalo, and thither went Boyd and Jim that day, as fast as their horses could carry them. They reached the Buttes about noon, and just as they were heading for the pass that lay between the groups of buttes Boyd’s sharp eyes saw some dark objects far ahead, which he declared were buffalo. The glass revealed the truth of his assertion. There were four buffalo lying down in a hollow. The hunters at once drew to one side out of sight, and attempted to ‘‘ come a sneak ’’ on their game, as stalking is nearly alwayscalled in Montana. But the game was too wary by half. As the hunters werehurrying forward four burly old buffalo cows suddenly dashed into view in the pass a quarter of a mile away, heading for the High Divide, and almost directly toward the boys. Instantly the hunters spurred off to the left, sprang to the ground, and took positions behind the crest of a low ridge, as close as possible to where the game would pass. It was down grade, beautiful ground to run over, and the cows dashed by like steeple- chasers. The moment they came within range the boys opened fire, and Jim’s third bullet caught the leading cow in one of her neck vertebree. Sheturned a complete sum- mersault, like a rabbit, and landed squarely on her hump with terrific force, legs in air. THE COSMOPOLITAN. The force of the fall seemed to completely knock her life out, for she rolled upon her side and died almost without a struggle. Meanwhile the boys flung lead after the other three cows, and although one was knocked down with a broken hind leg she promptly scrambled up again and ran on. A third cow was also visibly wounded, and while there was no telling how many body shots they all had, they all got away, and headed straight as an arrow could point for our camp. As in every previous instance they ran for the shelter of the ravines. The cowboys sprang into their saddles, and started in hot pursuit. Their horses had already made over twenty miles over heavy ground at a good pace, and were anything but fresh for the effort that lay before them. But that made no difference. Those three cows must be overtaken, even though both horses should drop dead the moment it was done. For the first three miles the country Was as open asa race-course, and there being no chance for strategy the only thing was to ride hard, straight afterthe game. As soon as they got into the hilly ground north of Taylor Creek they saw one of the cows leave the others and make off alone toward the right, a sure sign that she was badly wounded. Boyd at once set out to make a detour and cut in ahead of her, leaving Jim to follow the other two. Twelve miles from the starting point he got ahead of her lay in wait behind a ridge, and when she came up killed her with a shot through the lungs. Six miles beyond the spot where the second cow fell Jim overhauled another in the bed of a little creek, and brought her down to stay ; but the fourth oneagain got away and kept on northeast, which took her past our camp, within a mile of us. Boyd joined Jim again soon after the death of number three ; but by that time their horses could run no longer. Leaving Jim to skin his cow and dress the carcass so as to keep the meat from spoiling, Boyd took both horses and rode to camp, then only two miles away, to get fresh mounts. With a fresh horse under him he led another out to Jim, and away they flew after number four. She ran up into the High Divide, crossed it, and was well down in the ravines on the north side, four miles beyond our camp, when the cowboys found her, headed her off, and brought her down. It was then only

Page 63

\ | MANN \\ \ iN) iN \\" \\ N\ \ \\. nl \ V\) \ ‘ i] \\ \) t\ We \ i} i " \y \ I ) i) HM Mt | Mt I i iH } ' My A Ni Hit ‘Wi i, i ae } Re i |! M i i} | ip i iN i 1 Wi. lh We lili lu Ln lil by T. Schussler. ngraved ry E From Photograph. TROPHIES OF THE HUNT. National Museum. Ss. Mounted by the author in the U.

Page 64

236 THE COSMOPOLITAN. three o’clock, and they skinned her and re- turned triumphantly to camp long before sunset. The last cow of the four lay, as nearly as could be estimated, twenty-five miles from the first one, and only those who have tried to follow a swift-running animal across a labyrinth of ravines and hills that offer a thousand and one chances for the game to give the hunter the slip can appre- ciate the really wonderful feat accomplished by those two boys in the death of all four of those cows. They were ‘‘rustlers’’ of the ‘‘swiftest’’ kind under all circumstances, but more especially when chasing buffalo. Jim was the best shot and the champion hunter of our outfit, and he killed as many buffalo as all the rest of us together, just half of the whole number. And in this connec- tion I may be allowed to remark that out of a total of twenty-eight head of buffalo that we saw from first to last on the trip, only six got away, and not all of those with whole hides. The horses the boys rode first that day were like walking carcasses. When we found them and took them in hand they were wringing wet, with heads hanging, backs humped up, eyes half closed, and shivering as if they had the ague. We rubbed them down at once, put blankets on them, and treated them like thoroughbreds. Had they been Eastern horses both would have died that night ; but they were made of tougher stuff. After a week’s rest and feeding they were once more as fresh as ever. Those cows brought our number of buffalo up to eighteen, and made us think about the possibilities of getting thirty. Thenext day we started out with the wagon to finish the first part of the business with the cows. Jim and Boyd guided us to cow number two, just half-way to the Buffalo Buttes, and, leaving Harvey Brown and I to take off her skin and carve out her complete skeleton in the quick- est time on record, they went on to look for more buffs. We did our work ina tearing hurry, for twelve long miles lay between the end of it and cow number one, and two more beyond that to our camp-ground. As soon as we finished we salted the skin, and leav- ing both it and the skeleton to be picked up on the return, hastened on with the empty wagon. Brown drove, plucky worker that he was, and I piloted. Just half-way to cow number one we came suddenly upon Jim and Boyd, who were off their horses and ‘‘ mon- keying’’ with something down in the bed of a grassy hollow. ‘* Number nineteen /’’ shouted Jim, cheer- fully, as we hove in sight. As sure as I live, they were just in the act of cutting SIBO—our brand, ‘‘ Smithsonian Institution Buffalo Outfit ;’’ and may its memory live forever !--in the thin, cutaneous muscle that lined the inside of a fine cow- skin, just as old buffalo hunters used to mark hides with theirinitials in the destruc- tive days gone by. The boys had discovered the cow strolling toward them across the ‘*bad grounds,’’ and they waylaid and killed her with neatness and dispatch. Talk about luck! Why, the boys swore roundly that ‘*such elegant luck was never seen before in any country !”’ We tumbled that skin into the wagon, in order to take a different route back to number two, and by the time the wagon arrived at the carcass of number one we had her skin off and ready to put aboard. A few minutes later we rattled through the pass, turned down a big hollow on the other side of the buttes, which afforded a practicable wagon route, and just at sunset reached our old camp-ground beside the spring that had so fatally at- tracted so many buffalo to that region. We cut through four inches of ice to get at the water, but there was no snow on the ground, and so we never thought of the cold. We cooked and ate a bountiful supper, then Jim brought out his mouth-organ, and for an hour we listened with rapt attention to its charming music. I say ‘* charming,”’ because that is the word. Besides being a fine shot and a skillful hunter, Jim enjoys the unquestioned reputation of being the champion mouth-organist of all Montana. I never before dreamed that such really delightful and even high-toned music could, by any process, either patent or otherwise, be evolved from such a cheap and insignifi- cant-looking little instrument. But in Jim’s hands it seemed to be transformed into a double-geared cut-balance-wheel pipe organ, with four banks of keys and twenty-seven stops. Even the man who made Jim’s ‘‘harp’’ never dreamed that it was capable of going through such a bewildering maze of marches, waltzes, galops, and giddy ‘‘ va- riations,’’ or he surely would have given it a sonorous name and charged accordingly.

Page 65

Although the night was so searchingly cold that the cowboys had to get up and spread the two fresh buffalo hides over their bed to keep themselves warm, the morning was as fine and clear as the finest of its pre- decessors. As we prepared for a start home- ward, I said : ‘‘Now, boys, I’m going to let some of the rest of you pilot the wagon to-day, and I'll take a little hunt for a change. I want to kill another big bull before this thing is over.”’ Boyd cheerfully volunteered to stay by the wagon, and with Jim for a companion I rode off west into a tract of bad lands that had haunted my mind all the previous day. I told the boys I felt it in my bones that there were buffalo over there. We had gone three miles or so, and were leisurely riding up the bed of a prassy hollow that had very steep sides, when we suddenly rounded a little point and came upon a huge old buffalo bull. The instant he saw us he wheeled and dashed out of sight behind an- other point two hundred yards away. We galloped after him pell-mell, and got to the head of the hollow just in time to see his hump disappear on the farther side of a ridge. Jim was in advance of me, and headed his pony straight for a narrow ledge that led up the steep bank ,and out of the hollow. But just at the bottom of the ascent his pony suddenly shied at a yellow bowlder and leaped off to one side. Seeing the way clear, I spurred forward; and my stout little sorrel quickly scrambled up the rocks, leaving poor Jim cursing and kicking the stupid beast he bestrode. The moment we got upon fair ground I urged my horse to the top of his speed, hoping to overhaul the buffalo immediately, and thus save a long, stern chase. When we got to the top of the hill, the old bull was just disappearing in the next ravine. On we dashed for two hundred yards far- ther, then I pulled up short, slid to the ground, and prepared for a critical shot. I was sure to get one shot at him, and I had an idea that when he got fairly out of the hollow, he would pause a second or two to look back. I determined to stake my chances on his doing so, and not fire into his hind quarters as he went up. Almost the instant I reached the ground the old fellow hove in sight on the opposite 23 THE PASSING OF THE BUFFALO. 237 side of the ravine, scrambling up with won- derful nimbleness and speed for such a huge animal. In a few seconds he reached the top of the bank, wheeled a quarter-way round, presenting his enormous bulk nearly broad- side, and looked back at me. The mornin sun shone full against him, and he certainiy did look fine. With a quick but exceedingly careful aim at his shoulder, back of which lay his lungs, I banged away. The distance was somewhat over one hundred and fifty yards. He gave a great flinch as the ball struck him; and when he wheeled and started to run, I saw, or thought I saw, that his left fore leg was broken. As he disappeared behind the hill I fired again, but my bullet was too late to do any good. In order to hit him I held so close to the crest of the hill that my bullet struck the ground instead of the buffalo, and, with a ricochet, went whizzing off over the ra- vines without harming a hair. By this time Jim was up, and we galloped after the quarry as hard as we could go. The old fellow was mortally hurt ; for in two hundred yards more we overhauled him, still running, but not very fast. As he saw we were upon him he fell into a walk, limping badly. Pres- ently he stopped and faced us, and Jim shouted out to me not to go tooclose. But it was unnecessary. He staggered and fell, and, lurching heavily upon his side, stretched out upon the ground, and soon breathed his last. The ball had broken his left humerus, and also gone through his lungs. He was the only bull killed on the entire hunt with a single shot. It was the 2oth of November, precisely two months from the day good-fellow Brown and I left Washing- ton to get twenty buffalo, if possible, within two months, if possible ; and this was the twentieth buffalo. Theoretically, the hunt was over. While Jim galloped after the wagon, and brought it back to take the skin aboard, I measured and sketched the old bull to my heart’s content. He was a perfect beauty, and as grand as he was handsome. I thought him the largest of all until we put the inexorable tape-line upon him, and found that his height was five feet six inches—the same precisely as that of Jim’s finest bull. That was really too bad, but it couldn’t be helped.

Page 66

238 As if to warn us that, having realized our highest anticipations of success, we had best tempt the fates no farther, it immediately began to grow cloudy and dark, windy and bitterly cold. We made for camp with all speed. Jim and I got there just at dark, ina driving snowstorm that had swept down upon us from the northwest. But the wagon got no farther than cow number two, only half- way. Brown and Boyd again salted all the buffalo skins they had in the wagon, rolled them up, and covered the load as well as they could. Then they took out the horses, saddled one for Brown to ride, packed the bedding on the other, and set out to make the best time possible tocamp. The beacon we put up at our cairn on the Divide ena- bled them to find where camp lay, and, to our great relief, they got in safely about eight o'clock. During the next forty-eight hours we had ‘*a spell of weather,’’ and we had it bad. It was a regular Montana blizzard ; not nearly so bad as they sometimes are, I’m thankful to say, but bad enough for all practical pur- poses. The sky was like a sheet of lead ; it snowed hard, and the snow was swept along in blinding gusts, with which neither man nor beast could do aught but shelter from. Every hour of the day we congratulated our- selves on our wisdom in getting into the sheltered depths of that cafion, close under the lee of that bluff. Had we been in any of our previous camps, we would have had a tough time of it. The cold itself was not so intense ; but it was the rude manner of it that was so objectionable. During those days we spent the time cramming fire-wood into the roaring little Sibley stove (may Heaven bless the inventor of it !) and feeding oats to our storm-beaten horses. The poor brutes huddled together in the bottom of the cafion, tail to the storm, pawed down through the snow occasionally to get a few blades of grass, and then tramped back through the drifts to the camp, where the sound of impatient hoofs on emp- ty feed-boxes always reminded us of our ob- ligations to our faithful companions. During that stormy week we amused our- selves by playing draw poker for gun wads, and hearing Jim play the mouth-organ, eat- ing venison and buffalo meat, and drawing the most astonishing pictures of buffalo that ever saw the lightofday. At odd intervals THE COSMOPOLITAN. I used to get out a note-book and quiz Jim about buffalo and buffalo hunting in the olden time, when they ‘‘ once roamed in vast herds,’’ and so forth. And this reminds me that while the storm is raging itis a good time for the setting forth ofa few dry facts and figures in regard to the extermination ofour bison. It is rather a mean thing to do, totake advantage of the reader the mo- ment I get him cornered; and if he would rather take his chances out in the blizzard than in the tent with my figures beside a roaring Sibley stove, why then I suppose I must try again on a colder day. Up to 1866 the whole of the great western pasture region from the foot hills of the Rocky Mountains eastward to the borders of civilization, and from the Saskatchewan to the Staked Plain of Texas was occupied by buffalo. Within ourown Territory the number of head alive in 1868 must have been about eight millions. Even as late as 1868 Mr. William Blackmore declares that in making a journey of one hundred and twenty miles from Ellsworth to Sheridan they passed through an almost unbroken herd of buf- falo. In those days great tracts of country would be literally black with buffalo, and it seemed as if they could never be all ‘‘ killed off.’’ When the Union Pacific Railway was built from Omaha to Cheyenne, in the years 1886-7, it cut through the center of the great buffalo range, and from it as a base of oper- ations the hunters swarmed north and south, slaying as they went. Thus was the great herd cut in twain never to bereunited. The Staked Plain of Texas presently became the geographical center of the southern herd, and Glendive, Montana, that of the north- ern. In a short time the building of the Atchison, Topeka, and Santa Fé and the Kan- sas Pacific railways thoroughly opened up all parts of the southern buffalo country, and in 1879 there arose a.demand for buffalo robes that proved fatal tothe species. The war of extermination began immediately, and ac- cording to the statistics that have been gath- ered and published by Colonel Dodge, the years 1872-3 and ’4 saw the destruction of over four million three hundred and seventy- three thousand seven hundred and thirty buffalo on the southern range. Thus was this great herd slaughtered out of existence in about three years’ time. The survivors

Page 67

PPP ae re sought refuge in the desolate wastes of the Staked Plain ; but even there the relentless hunters still pursued them, when bull robes sold for only one dollarand twenty-five cents each, and the cows were slaughtered for skins that were worth the paltry sum of only sixty-five cents. That was bad enough, and entirely too bad, but if I could call up before you a vision of the hundreds of thousands of dead buffalo that were heartlessly slain for their tongues, or their humps, or for ‘‘sport’’(!) alone, you would sicken at the sight. Never in the history of the whole animal kingdom has there been such another bloody and cruel carnage, or one that yielded so little in proportion to the total value in- volved. In 1876 the northern herd was probably twenty times as large as the southern, and covered twenty times as much territory. It was estimated by the buffalo hunters that there were five hundred thousand buffalo within a radius of one hundred and fifty miles of Miles City, Montana, alone, and that the northern range contained over a million head. The Northern Pacific Railway was opened *As the result of careful investigation I am _ con- vinced that there are not now more than one hundred and fifty wild buffalo alive in this country, outside of the Yellowstone Park. Of this number there are about eighty head in the Panhandle of Texas, about twenty in the country where our collecting was done, at a liberal estimate perhaps fifty more in other portions of Mon- tana and Wyoming, and, strange as it may seem, half a THE PASSING OF THE OLD BULL AT BAY: MAKING A SKETCH FROM LIFE, THE BUFFALO. for traffic from Glendive eastward in 1880, and the buffalo hunters made an assault in force on the northern herd. Buffalo hides were shipped eastward by the railway and the Missouri River by tens of thousands, until 1884, when the work of extermination was complete. In 1885 not a single fresh hide was in the market, and in the year fol- lowing only two rewarded the inquiries of the buyers. The buffalo were gone forever, not only from the United States, but from the British Possessions as well. Last year the largest fur house in Montreal asked from thirty to forty dollars each for robes, and some of the leading furriers of New York had none at all.* Another fact that stares us unpleasantly in the face is that with the exception of the wild buffalo in National Park, all of which will eventually either wander out or be frightened out and killed, unless the Park is inclosed by a barbed wire fence in time to prevent it, the National Government has not a single buffalo on any of its reservations, nor anywhere else in charge of any one in its em- ploy. In spite of the attention that is being paid in other quarters to the development of dozen head in Southwestern Dakota. It is now stated officially that with the exception of the sixty-eight head in the possession of Warden Bedson, of the Manitoba penitentiary at Winnipeg, there are no buffalo remain- ing in the British Possessions. Within the protected limits of the Yellowstone Park there are between one hundred and one hundred and twenty head in a wild state.

Page 68

240 our animal products, no steps whatever have been taken to preserve bos Americanus from total annihilation. At all events, it now seems reasonably certain that in three years more there will not bea wild buffalo remain- ing on the whole continent of North Amer- ica, except in the National Park. What was to me ¢he crowning episode of our entire hunt occurred while we were wait- ing for the wagons that were daily expected to arrive from Fort Keogh, to haul us back to civilization. By the 23d of November the storm had so much abated that Private West decided it safe to start for the fort with our request for transportation, so he went. The day following it snowed still more ; but although it presently cleared off there was so much snow on the ground and in every couleé that for a long time buffalo hunting was quite out of the question. We tried it several times, but the drifts and snow-filled gullies were too much for us, and we were forced to wait for it to melt off a little. It was not until the 5th of December that the snow had gone off sufficiently to permit an extended hunt, and then Jim and I dis- covered that we were each animated by the same desire, viz.: to make one more trip to the Buffalo Buttes, positively the last ap- pearance and final farewell performance. I said: ‘‘ Let’s put a pack on the Digger, camp over there, and come back the next day if we don’t strike buffalo.” ‘‘T go ye,’’ said Jim, promptly. ‘‘ Less light out to-morrow morning by daylight.’’ It was so agreed. Boyd had gone down Sand Creek to meet the wagons, and Russell had to make a trip to the N-bar line camp to borrow some grub, or we might have had company. The next morning Jim and I got up early, packed my bed, some grub, and a little oats on the Digger, and set out. I rode my ‘‘top horse,’’ old Brownie, and Jim rode his brown pony. He led the Digger, and I rode behind to whip him up. We went down the cajion, climbed up out of it just opposite the Smithsonian Butte, and then bore away straight for the Buffalo Buttes. The snow made them seem much nearer than usual, but they were as far as ever, all the same, if not farther. We cautiously picked our way down through the bad lands, crossed the head of Calf Creek, went over a little ridge, and then crossed the head of the McGinnis Fork of the Porcupine. THE COSMOPOLITAN. To our great joy we found the bad grounds frozen, and as there was not much snow on them we fared finely. In dry weather those bad grounds are like loose sand, into which a horse’s feet sink hoof deep at every step. Wecrossed the crest of the Divide in the bad grounds, and once more our favorite land- mark was in sight. We had crossed two or three ridges on our way down the farther slope of the Divide, when, just as we got into a hollow, all the while on the keen look-out for game, we suddenly espied, two hundred yards to our left and behind us, the light brown humps of three buffs. “Jim ! Jim ! just look yonder !”’ We pulled up short, jumped off, and saw that the buffs had seen us, for they started off ata slow trot. We both made a running stalk up behind some clumps of sage brush, and when we got to them turned loose. One of the buffs was an zmmense old bull, the next largest was an old cow, and the third a two-year-old. I fired at the bull, Jim blazed away at the cow, and then they made off in good earnest. We poured it to them as they ran up a little hill to the east, and got in two more shots apiece. At the last shot the cow fell flat, and lay there, kick- ing madly. “T’ve got one down, Jim. ‘*Good for you, old man !’’ The old bull and the young cow ran over the hill and disappeared, and then we rushed for our horses. While Jim was nervously endeavoring totie the Digger to a sage bush, I shoved’ some more cartridges into my Winchester and mounted my horse. To my everlasting credit I have it to say that I waited, fully half a minute, for Jim to get ready, so that we might start fair. Then we went. Heading old Brownie straight for the point where the last buffalo disappeared, I gave him the reins and jabbed him smartly with the spurs. My great hope was to over- haul that bull before he knew what he was about, and before he got warmed up for a long run. My faithful old horse dashed off like the wind, and as he tore along through that soft snow and stiff sage bush I thanked my lucky stars that I was on my strongest and swiftest horse. This is Jim’s description of the chase, as I partner!’’ cried

Page 69

afterward overheard him relate it to the boys at camp: ‘‘Great Lord’lmighty, fellers, but ye just ought to ’ave seen the way old Brownie flew onto them buffalo! Hejest few up that hill and over it, with the snow-balls a-flying from his feet in every direction. The air wus plumb full o’ flyin’ snowballs, and when I come along they just rained down onto me and my pony. W’y, dang me, if it didn’t seem to me like I never saw a horse run so fast before. He jist flew ! I comeon as fast as I could, but Lord! my old pony was nowhere. Well, sir, that horse run right up onto them buffalo before they knew what they was about. The old gentleman (‘o/d gentleman,’ indeed! Humph!) rode right up even with the old bull, and when he saw he was caught he just stopped, and whirled around to fight. But they sheered off around him, and then the boss let him have it right behind the right fore leg. I never saw a buffalo so surprised in all my life. When I got to the top of the hill, there was the boss and old Brownie a-sasshaying around that old bull, and him standing there with his head down, ready to fight.”’ We overhauled the old fellow about two hundred yards from the top of the hill. As we got alongside, I fired for his lungs, but the motion of my horse utterly destroyed my aim, and the bullet ranged below them, as I found later on. An instant later I found myself on his left side, and gave him a shot fairin the shoulder. Down went the large beast, head foremost, and without waiting to take even a second look I turned my at- tention to the young cow, which was then three hundred yards away, headed down hill and running like the very mischief. Seconds were precious then, and I could not wait to see the bull die. I made up my mind to make another quick dash, the same as at the bull, ride up to the cow, and shoot her in the same way. Putting old Brownie at the top of his speed, we went tearing down the hill through the snow and sage brush, gaining on the little cow at every leap. We got within a hundred yards of her—and then we came to a deep coulée! I saw ahead of us a wide ditch level full of snow, and put the old horse Straight for it, full tilt. But I gave him his head with the thought, ‘‘Old fellow, you can do just as you think best about it.”’ THE PASSING OF THE BUFFALO. 241 He dashed up to the very edge, and saw that it was fartoo wideto leap. Nogo. He suddenly went down on his haunches, gave three or four short, springy jumps sidewise with his fore legs, and stopped. I tumbled myself off instanter, and fired three shots at the little cowas she ran. By that time she was one hundred and fifty yards away. The first one missed her, the other two hit her somewhere, but she ran on. A moment later she disappeared over the top ofa ridge, running south. As soon as possible I got my horse safely across the cou/ée, and push- ed on afterthe cow. There was blood on the trail, but it was dark colored, and there was not half enough of it. I followed half a mile, but finding it led straight toward the Buffalo Buttes I concluded to go back, skin the bull, track down the cow and kill her before sun- down. When we again got in sight of the old bull he was still alive, lying just where he fell, but with his back and head well up. Even lying down on that treeless prairie, he looked as big as acountry school-house. Jim was nowhere in sight and—could I believe my eyes ?>—weither was the cow he had killed ! As the bull saw us coming he staggered to his feet, in spite of his broken leg, and gal- loped off over the hill. But the moment he started, my brown horse—who had more sense than some men I have seen—imme- diately gave chase. After a short run we again overhauled our prize, on the side of a hill, near the crest of which he was once more halted and stood at bay. Thirty yards away from him I pulled up, and gazed upon him with genuine astonishment. Not until that moment had I realized what a grand prize had fallen to me. He wasa perfect monster in size, and just as superbly hand- some as he was big. In his majestic pre- sence the finest of all our other buffalo bulls were quite forgotten, and I thought to my- self : ‘* Until this moment I have never had an adequate conception of the great American bison.’’ He seemed to me then, aye, and he does even now, the grandest quadruped I ever beheld, lions, tigers, and elephants not ex- cepted. His huge bulk loomed up like a colossus, and the height of his great shaggy hump, and the steepness of its slope down to his loins, seemed positively incredible.

Page 70

242 Like Bartholdi’s statue of liberty, he was built on a grand scale. His massive head was crowned by a thick mass of blackish brown hair lying in a tumble of great curly tufts, sixteen inches long, piled up on each other, crowding back upon his horns, almost hiding them, and quite onto his shoulders. Back of that, his hump and shoulders were covered with a luxuriant growth of coarse, straw-colored hair that stood out in tufts six inches long, and opened in great dark fur- rows up and down whenever the bull moved his head from me. The upper half of each fore leg was lost in a huge bunch of long, coarse black hair, in which scores of cockle burrs had caught and hopelessly tangled. The body itself and the loin quarters were covered with a surprisingly thick coat of long, fine, mouse-colored hair, without the slightest flaw or blemish. From head to heel the animal seemed to possess everything the finest buffalo in the world should have, and although by that time no stranger to his kind, I sat gazing upon him so completely absorbed by wonder and admiration that had he made a sudden charge he might easily have bowled me over. It,;was an opportunity of a life-time, such as falls to the lot of few men whose business it is to reproduce animal forms. I studied his lines with absorbing interest, and took one mental photograph of him after another as he stood there with lowered head and angry eyes, watching me intently. Several times his head sank very low, and he viciously pawed the wet snow with his wounded fore leg. But these intervals of anger would pass away, his eyes would lose some of their fire, and he would content himself with simply regarding me. For a good many minutes, I can not say how many, I sat there studying my prize, and as he did not seem seriously inclined to charge me, I determined to make one or two outline sketches of him just as he stood. Accordingly I slid off my faithful old com- rade—horse, I should have said—got out a field note-book and pencil, and with my Winchester lying in the hollow of my left arm ready for use, proceeded to make my sketch. It was a sketch from life with a vengeance, at a distance of thirty paces. I got what I wanted, after a fashion, and although the result was wholly inartistic it has since served me well. THE COSMOPOLITAN. I suppose I spent a quarter of an hour in studying my prize, and then I felt it was high time to end his troubles. It was cruel to keep him standing at all, but it was not done for my personal gratification. When the time came for the death shot, I felt as a man feels when he is compelled to killa favorite dog of noble breed. I had the great beast completely in my power, and I was obliged to be his executioner. He seemed to me like the very last one of his race, that he knew it as well as I, and he also was doomed. People will say this is all put on for effect, but I swear I felt as if I was about to commit a murder. With the greatest reluc- tance I ever felt about taking the life of an animal, I shot the noble beast through the lungs, and he fell down and died. I could write out that death scene down to the smallest details, if I wished ; for I wrote it alldown in my journal the next night. But itis not pleasant reading ; and it makes my crime seem all the greater. I believe I am getting tender-hearted in my old days. It seemed to me I never saw an animal die harder, and his last breath led me to exclaim fervently : 7 ‘“Thank heaven ! it’s over, at last.’’ He was five feet eight inches in vertical height at the shoulder, full two inches taller than the largest of our other bulls, and the length of his head and body, in a straight line from the end of the nose to the rear of the thigh, was nine feet twoinches. His girth was eight feet four inches, and his weight was about sixteen hundred pounds. Like all the other buffaloes we secured, he was muscular from excessive running, but not at all fat. There was not a pound of fat on him, but he carried four old bullets that had been fired into him without effect. He was what old buffalo hunters call a ‘‘stub-horn,”’ and by the nine rings on each horn we know that he was either eleven or twelve years old. Perhaps by this time I have drawn so heavily upon my reader’s stock of patience that he will feel inclined to take this buffalo cum grano salis. etme assure you, I have not exaggerated his size one bit. He is ad- mitted to be ‘‘ one of five thousand,’’ and he who doubts it is respectfully referred to the old bull himself, as he now stands, mounted according to an elaborate series of measure- ments, in the National Museum. I could

Page 71

safely challenge the world to produce his equal ; but modesty forbids my doing so. Jim failed to put in an appearance, so after taking a series ofsketches and measurements I threw off my coat, fell to work, and skinned my prize all alone, save for the help I had from my horse. He turned the huge carcass over for me, with his picket rope attached to the pommel of my saddle, else I would have had a hardtimeof it. I measured the great beast, skinned him completely excepting the head, spread out the hide, cut off the fore and hind quarters, and cut out the hump meat, all in an hour and three-quarters by the watch. I was within three miles of the Buffalo Buttes, with the Digger in tow, when Jim joined me. He was mad and tired. The shot which knocked down his cow struck the base of her horn, and while Jim was watching me ‘‘ a-sasshaying around that old bull,’’ the cow came to her senses, got up, and started for Alaska. When Jim saw her she was a long mile away, and he had a chase of seven or eight longer miles before he got ahead of her, and brought her down to stay. ‘‘Didn’t you think toward the last that you weren’t going to get her?’’ I asked, as a feeler. ‘Git her!’’ saidJim wrathfully. ‘‘ Blank her soul, I’d a-got her if I’d a-had to run her plumb to the Missouri River !’’ THE PASSING OF THE BUFFALO. 243 And I honestly believed him. We never got that wounded heifer. Be- fore reaching the Buffalo Buttes she turned off up Taylor Creek, and ran clear out the country. Jim and I camped that night at our old camp-ground, and after dining sumptuously on buffalo hump broiled on green sticks, cold beans left from breakfast, a small piece of ‘ leather-cake,’’ and coffee made in a tomatocan without milk or sugar, we immediately turned in. On the 13th of December the wagon train arrived, and without losing an hour we left the Porcupine, and got safely across the Yellowstone, into Miles City, just before the running ice became so dangerous that crossing became impossi- ble for I know not how many days. Our entire catch of buffalo amounted to twenty-five head, and the trip yielded, all told, twenty-four fresh skins, sixteen skel- etons, and fifty-one skulls, besides the vari- ous other animal skins and skeletons that "we collected. Thus ended what is likely to be our last experience with buffalo in, their native wilds. It was an experience that I know will never be forgotten by any of those who participated in it, and I shall never cease to feel grateful to the jolly good fel- lows—cowboys, ‘‘ tenderfeet,’’ and soldiers— whose energy and good-will made it a suc- cess. THE ZITHER. By HENRY TYRRELL. AZoLvs, dreaming of a night in spring, Murmured a melody so passing sweet That echo, hush’d to hear, could not repeat. But one frail instrument hung quivering, And caught the music’s breath in every string, There holding it, until the harp should meet Touch gentle as the night-wind’s kiss, to cheat Enchantment, and the voice from slumber bring. Thine, lady, is that magic. The lost strain, As to the breath of May perfumed and bland, Awakens to the passing of thy hand, And with a dying sweetness throbs again. So nevermore can dulcet murmurs move The source of tears, the ecstasy of love.

Page 72

THE PRETTY A SEQUEL SPENDTHRIFTS. TO UNCLE MASON’S MONEY. By HARRIET PRESCOTT SPOFFORD. ELL,’ said Nina, when our own doors had closed upon us, ‘‘ here we are at home in South Boston, and I must say the house looks smaller, and dingier, and more vulgar than I had ever dreamed a house could be, after life contemplated in that palace !”’ ‘‘It looks dearer, and sweeter, and bright- er to me than it ever did !’’ I said ; ‘‘and it’s ours, and has always been ours.”’ ‘* You're just irretrievably and hopelessly common, Cathy !’’ cried Nina. ‘* As if the other wasn’t.”’ ‘‘The other common! I wish it were! I want you to remember that you are respon- sible for what has happened, now. You've ruined your family, that’s what you’ve done ! and I’m glad that you like the little den in which you’ve imprisoned us—at least I’m not glad! I hope it will be as cabined and coffined to you as it is to me, and I wish Ailie Boyle——’”’ ‘Nina,’’ said I, ‘‘ you’re tired, poor dear; don’t talk any more, please. We’ll have din- ner, and then——’”’ ‘‘And then I shall just tell you what I think of you for the pinkest tyrant that ever trod in shoes. You have everything the way you want it, and you never say a rough word, you little cat! and I never get anything as I want it, no matter how much noise I make, and—and—and I love you just the same !’’ And here she began to kiss me, and tocry, and to laugh. ‘* And I dare say you’re ashamed of me be- fore your Grand Panjandrum there, the soli- citor. But I want you to know I’m turned of twenty-one, and—and—We’ re worth a mil- lion apiece, and haven’t a cent to our names !’’ she cried, with a sudden burst of astonished fact and went off in a screaming hysteric, and then of course we got her into bed, with Livia’s and Rowena’s help, and put rubber bags of hot water at her feet, and fed her with port wine sangaree, and dark- ened her room, and went around on tip-toe, and half wished we had never heard of Uncle Mason and his money. But the next day Nina was all right, al- though white and languid, and after break- fast she came down and lay on the lounge in my room, looking out on the dim blue distant sea. ‘“*T say, girls,’’ shesaid, ‘‘didn’t you think I could bear prosperity better? That is to say, ifit is prosperity to be as poor as Lazarus at present. Tell me—You know I had a re- gular old-fashioned hysteric yesterday, kick- ing and screaming and all the rest, just as they do in novels. I feel quite pleased with myself, quite upto the occasion. Well, any- way—that makes everything so shadowy— tell me, is it a dream or is it a fact? Are we the heirs of Uncle Mason’s money, or have I been a little out, and are we really just where we were before ?’’ ‘* We appear to be just there,’’ said I. ‘*You don’t—you can’t—’’ began Nina, starting up; and then the beautiful flush sprang back to her cheeks as she saw Vir- ginia laughing. “‘T thought so,’’ she said, falling back ; ‘‘well, and now what are we going to do?”’ ‘*Juliet is going to have mornings,’’ said I, quickly; ‘‘matinees, you know, receptions, with readers and singers, and have them re- ported in the Sunday journals ; and people will write sonnets, and people will read them, and there will be amateur recitations, and there will be papers, and posing, and— and—all that, you know, and it will be ‘Madly intoxicating,’’ said Virginia. ‘*So that ends Juliet,’’ said Nina; ‘‘ num- ber two; I was number one ; squelched, as you may say.”’ ‘‘Why, Cathy,’’ said Juliet, ‘‘don’t you think intellectual things——”’ ‘‘ Why, to be sure,’’ I said, ‘‘and I think we must try and get invited to one of the intellectual centers, and observe how they manage it ¥ **"Yes,: I see,’’ said Nina. ‘‘She means

Page 73

get sick of the whole thing at the start and throw it up!”’ ‘* Nina, I am——’ ‘‘It’s about time ; ashamed of me, yes. Well, what do you propose instead of Uncle Mason’s house, and Juliet’s mornings, and all?’’ ‘‘Much the same life as we have lived, Nina, only more work among those that need us, as our opportunities have grown more. ’’ ‘‘H’m! I supposed that was about the length and breadth of it. A little more charity, a little more Dante, a little more music. Same old humdrum. Well, Juliet may let you sit down on her, if she pleases ; I shan’t. Now, one more question: what are you going to do about the property ?”’ ‘‘The property? You mean——”’ ‘‘T mean, how am I going to get what I want to spend?’”’ ‘‘Oh! perhaps it had best be divided, in case we shouldn’t all be of one mind always. And then, too, if either of you marry, there would have to be a division.”’ ‘“Yes; there’ll be no lack of husbands at hand for girls with a million apiece, and very fine-looking girls, too,’’ said Nina, un- blushingly. ‘‘ Are you sure it is a million, Cathy ?’”’ ‘‘Nearly twice that. mercenary, Nina?’’ ‘‘Oh, I mean to make it less mighty soon; that is, if we ever get any of it. Now let me tell you: / mean to have a_yacht.’’ ‘‘A yacht !’’ came in horrified chorus. ‘“That is the way to pronounce it; al- though nobody would know it from the anal- ogies of the language. Perhaps I'll call it the Psyche or the Phthisic to have the name correspond with the spelling. I’m bound to do si ‘‘But who ever heard of a woman with a yacht ?”’ cried Juliet. ‘Then somebody can hear of it now. Can you think of any pleasanter way to spend money or time than in a yacht of your own, the size that you sail around the world in, steam and sails too, if you please—every- body in their own stateroom, a servant apiece ; tired of one sky, up and away to another ; not one of us seasick ! Just dream of it—days with the sea rising in a blue ring all around you to meet the sky ; nights out under the stars; nothing but you and the ’ Are you growing THE PRETTY SPENDTHRIFTS. 245 stars and the sea in the world! And we will go up the Mediterranean, and among the Isles of Greece, and up the Nile, and show your solicitor a lot of the forgotten members of his family, sphynxes and mummies——’’ ‘* Nina!” ‘‘And down the Red Sea, and out for the South Sea Islands and far Cathay. We'll see the kingdoms of the earth, the kingdoms of the earth, my dears ; and I shall be queen in that yacht, and you’ll doasI say! Youcan take your old solicitor, no your young soli- citor, along with you, Cathy.’’ ‘* You are going to invite me, then ?’’ ‘‘If you don’t make a death’s head at every feast. And now I am going to tell you an- other thing ; and that’s once for all. Idon’t want any more of your preaching, Cathy. I’ve been doing good to others all my life, and now I am going to do good to myself. I am going to go into society, and I am going to have such dresses as would open Theodora’s eyes. ”’ ‘*The trains reaching out tothe other room, I suppose.”’ ‘“There it is! Now you see the folly of letting that creature have Uncle Mason’s house !’’ And she was running on, but I was not hearing ; for with her last words remem- brance of a look on the solicitor’s face came back to me. ‘‘Well,’’ I heard Juliet saying at last, ‘‘that’s all very fine, ifeverany of us marry and have some one to go with us and take care of us, for I am sure, Nina darling, it wouldn’t do till then. ”’ ‘‘Then I'll make it do! What’s the use of a million dollars, if you can’t do as you want 4 ‘‘Not much,’’ said Virginia. ‘‘We haven’ta million yet,’’ said I. ‘‘And we'd better remember the story of Pierrotte. Something may happen to the whole of Un- cle Mason’s money before we have it. And meantime, Nina, there is Ailie Boyle.’’ And as Ailie came in it was diversion enough for Nina to tell her the whole story, with excla- mation, and outcry, and laughter, and tears, and embraces, and imitation of me, and imi- tation of the solicitor, languor and hysterics forgotten. ‘And we'll take John and Ai- lie along in the yacht,’’ said Nina at the end, ‘‘and that will be chaperoning enough, to say nothing of that old woman, the—’’ and in walked the solicitor. He couldn’t

Page 74

246 help gazing at her then, I thought, with all her colors flying, her eyes glowing, her laugh ringing. And he came and took a seat by me, where perhaps he could see her better. ‘‘Tam sorry to intrude business upon so much gayety,’’ said he, presently, that is when he had achance, and in rather an aside tome. ‘‘ But some leases havejust fallen in, owing to deaths, and for the property that is not real estate there must be an administra- tor appointed. The greater part of the prop- erty, as perhaps you know, is in real estate.’’ ‘“‘Cathy is our man of business,’’ said Nina, ‘‘and gives us our allowance. We spend all ours, and then we spend all hers.”’ ‘* All there is left of it after her poor people have had the first spending,’’ said Virginia. ‘*But there will have to be a division of the real estate made,’’ said he. ‘Very well,’’ saidJuliet. ‘‘ We will leave all that with Cathy and yourself, if you please. What Cathy says is right will be right.’’ ‘*Miss Cathy is your conscience ?”’ ‘Cathy, dear, they’ll turn your head, so that all your old foresight will be ruined. I'll save. you from such a fate. Let our solicitor be our conscience. I do hate a conscience so! It is always in the way, an intrusive, meddlesome affair——’”’ ‘*Thanks,’’ said the solicitor. ‘*That is—I mean—I——’”’ ‘*You mean, Nina,’’ said I, severely, ‘‘ that you never stay to think before you speak.”’ ‘*You mean, ’’ said Juliet, ‘‘that you intend to have your own way, conscience or not.”’ ‘‘Yes,’’ said Nina, a little poutingly, ‘‘ why shouldn’t I? I am long since one-and-twen- ty. Nowif I choose to have a yacht next year, and go into society, and wear point lace and diamonds ns ‘‘An unmarried person of your years in point lace and diamonds !”’ ‘* Well, if I can’t wear point lace and dia- monds without being married, I'll be mar- ried then !’’ ‘* Really, Nina dear,’’ I said, thoroughly mortified, ‘‘I am afraid we have no right to occupy the time of this gentleman——”’ ‘‘ It is quite at your service,’’ he said with that strange air which puzzled me, it seemed half courtesy and half the study of a new species. ‘*T infer,’’ he said turning to Nina, ‘‘ that THE COSMOPOLITAN. the idea of what you call society has some fascination for you.”’ ‘“* Terra incognita,’’ said Nina. ‘‘Latin! We do know something, you see, if we are Kelts of South Boston.”’ ‘Nina, Nina!’’ I exclaimed, half beside myself. ‘‘He will think we are Picts of ancient history !’’ ‘* He may think /am,’’ said Nina, calmly. ‘“*T shall be all the more welcome in society ; I shall be invited everywhere then as much as if I were a Zuni.’’ I trembled, and felt as if I saw that vision of Nina in the white veil going out before my eyes. ‘“Why should one wish to be invited ev- erywhere ?’’ said the solicitor, suddenly. ‘* Because I wish to have allthat any one has, be all that any one is.’’ ‘* But no onecan be all that any one is.’’ ‘*So what does it signify?’’ said Juliet, wearily. ‘*T suppose you are in society ?’’ said Nina, abruptly, after giving him a short survey. ‘*T suppose so, ’’ he laughed. ‘* That is tosay, noone ofall the old names and houses would think of giving a great en- tertainment without you, and you dine every night of your life with Fanueil Hall and the Old State House and the codfish of the House of Representatives. And when the peo- ple of blue blood in Massachusetts are men- tioned, you are one of them and first cousin to all the rest. The Masons are blue blood.”’ ‘* You have said,’’ he replied with the same bow and look. ‘Well,’ she said, ‘‘I want to take the place in society that belongs to the Masons. I want the dresses, and equipages, and jew- els, and acquaintance, and tone, and sense of superiority, and all that. Ah, yes, I see you think it vulgar and ignoble in me, don’t you?’”’ ‘* Yes,’’ he said. ‘Upon my word, you are frank.’’ ‘‘T replied to your question. One of the long-descended obligations of blue blood is speaking the truth, you know.’’ ‘* Dear, dear! what isthe society, then, that I am vulgar for wishing to be a part of ?”’ ‘*How should I say? It goes from one house to another just like it, doesn’t it, to meet the same people in the same toilettes, to exchange the same vapidities, and to eat the same dishes. There is just enough ” struggle to eclipse in dress, and just enough

Page 75

stimulation to the lower senses to keep the thing alive. Isthere opportunity for play of intellect, or for development of the powers that distinguish men and women from fools and brutes ?’”’ ‘‘Dear me, how eloquent!’’ said Nina. ** Any one would know you never went into society and adored dancing !”’ He laughed again. ‘‘His name is in every report of every- thing,’’ said Nina, inan audibleaside. ‘‘ He was born that way.”’ ‘*To be sure,’’ he said. ‘‘ And for those who are so unfortunate the thing is natural. It is otherwise to yearn for such worthless display and fruitless companionship when you are born to better.’’ ‘“The idea! Asif there were anything bet- ter than the best! The best is good enough for me.”’ ‘‘From the expression on your sisters’ faces, Iam afraid you will have to go into this so- ciety alone.’’ ‘‘No,” said Nina; ‘‘ you will take me.”’ My blood fairly curdled with horror. I didn’t know what would come next. ‘*Pray, pray pardon us,’’ Icried. ‘‘My sister has been so excited by all this surpris- ing affair! She has been ill; she hardly knows what she says.”’ ‘‘T am nothing of the kind ; I am nothing of the kind!’’ said Nina. And then she sprang up, and threw her arms round me, and whispered: ‘‘ Oh, you poor little silly Cathy! Don’t you see how he looks down on us?”’ ‘You are giving him every reason to do so,’’ I answered coldly, disengaging myself. ‘‘Oh, Cathy;’’ she cried, ‘‘I have heard that the possession of money hardened the nature, but I never supposed it would make you speak so to me !”’ ‘‘T never supposed you would cause me such mortification,’’ said I. ‘‘ There, we have pursued this long enough. Come, there is some business——”’ ‘‘I’m attending to it,’’ said Nina, with an- other change of front. ‘‘ Cathy thinks,’’ she said to the solicitor, ‘‘that Iam giving you every reason to despise us.”’ ‘To despise—’’ he said with a puzzled look. “Yes. There are some people whose chief faculty is the power ofdespising. They exercise it till years enlighten them, or they THE PRETTY SPENDTHRIFTS. 247 see more of the world than the narrow cre- vice of their home.”’ ‘*And you think Iam oneof them ? Come,’’ he said, ‘‘ we must see far too much of each other to remain on such terms. It is true that our meridian has some of this faculty. She sometimes despises e ‘‘ De toute la hauteur de sa bétise,’’ quoted Nina. ‘* De sa noblesse,’’ he corrected her. ‘‘ But as for me, why should I despise a Mason ?”’ ‘“Why, indeed ?’’ said Nina. ‘‘ Blood will tell. Was there ever a Mason born before with such a foot as that?’’ And she thrust out a foot, which, for all her shapely height, was clad in a number two. ‘‘ Except my sisters,’’ she said. ‘‘ Cathy wears a naught.”’ ‘*Nina !’ I said, ‘‘ this is all too childish.”’ ‘“You should say, Miss Nina,’’ he said, ‘‘of what consequence is it whether your solicitor despises or not? He is only the Mason solicitor.’’ ‘Oh !’’ exclaimed Nina, ‘‘I never said—I never meant—I couldn’t——”’ ‘‘No,’’ he answered, ‘‘ but you see a sharp knife cuts both ways. Now, having proved that two angles that are equal to the same angle are equal to each other, let us go on with our business.’’ And then Nina ran out of the room in a flood of nervous tears, and of course Juliet and Virginia recovered them- selves from the convulsion of horror into which she had thrown them sufficiently to follow, and she deserved all she had when they came up with her. ‘‘There,’’ he said smiling, ‘‘ Miss Nina is quieted.’’ But his manner said, ‘‘I may not find the task so easy with you.”’ And he did not. For I plunged at once into business, trembling at the plunge, but his ready hand helping me almost before I felt the need. ‘Tt is a pleasure to do business with you,”’ he said ; ‘‘ you have an excellent head for it. I will come again for your sisters’ signatures to the new leases when they are drawn up.”’ Livia came in and lighted the gas, and the light made aring like a crown about the great wave in his brown hair as he bent, gathering his papers, and then Rowena brought in tea, and Juliet and Virginia pre- sently followed, and after a little, Nina, considerably disheveled and still bearing traces of her tears. But business done with, I would not let

Page 76

248 the rest of us be found on Nina’s plane. The familiarity of business might be necessary, but any other was out of the question. And while he asked Virginia about her German story, and confessed that Juliet’s construc- tion of a certain passage in Dante was new to him, and discussed the meaning of George Fuller’s vaporous tints with all of them, I hadn’t a word to say. ‘“You were just like ice to him, Cathy,”’ said Nina, when he had gone. ‘‘ Sweet ice ; but so cold it made me shiver. ”’ ‘** You were not,’’ said I. ‘‘T? Ice? No. I am always in hot water, when Iam notintears. And there'll be more tears before we four plebeians are through withthis handsome aristocrat. What do you suppose he thinks of us, Cathy ?”’ ‘‘ What is it to us what he thinks of us? He thinks our business very good business, no doubt. ”’ ‘If she hasn’t the air of a grand duchess already. It doesn’t become you, cushla machree.’ ‘* Pshaw !’’ said Juliet, ‘‘ I’m not ashamed of my origin, if you are.’’ ‘I didn’t know it was anything to be ashamed of,’’ said I. ‘‘And if ever the County Galway was marked on any face, it’s on yours, Cathy. Look now, with the snow-white skin and tose cheek, and great blue eyes with their black lashes long enough for curl-papers, and the black hair of her !”’ ‘* But as long as she’s tallerand larger than most women anyway, I don’t know why you call her little, ’’ said Virginia. ‘* Because she’s so good,”’ said Nina. ‘‘ Be- cause she always gives up her way, and lets me have it instead, the darling! Because ‘little’ is a term of endearment, and the dear thing isn’t going to make it unpleasant when I want to go into society or have my yacht and leave all the virtues and charities to the rest of you. She isn’t going to have that intruding fellow, what’s his name— the solicitor—saying it’s vulgar for me——’”’ ‘* She is going to say it herself, ’’ said I. ‘‘ How money has changed you, Cathy !’’ cried Nina, with great serious eyes. And I felt that after this the solicitor would want no more to do with us than he could help. I happened to be alone when the solicitor came again, the girls having gone on their THE COSMOPOLITAN. shopping crusade for Ailie. And after I had done all he directed, I tried to gather cour- age, and I said: ‘*T have something a little difficult to say to you.”’ ‘*Can I make it easier?’’ he said. ‘*T noticed once, ’’ I went on hesitatingly, ‘‘in speaking of—of the real estate—a look —a singular look glance over your face and goinaninstant. It has caused me a world of conjecture—of suspicion—of fear! What is the nature of this real estate? Where is it?” ‘*Really, Miss Mason—the nature of it? Why, like all real estate, I fancy. And where? All over the city, I might say.”’ ‘Pray be more explicit. ’’ ‘* But—really—allow me to ask what can that signify to you, since the agent attends to all the care ?”’ ‘*T hope you will excuse me,’’ I said. ‘‘But it does signify. It—it is my duty to—if—as I fear—oh, I can read your face! Is it impos- sible for you totake me to see these houses, shops, places——’’ ‘* Absolutely impossible !’’ he exclaimed. ‘* Oh, then,”’ I cried, ‘‘ that settles it! Now I know the whole, and it is the worst I feared. But if other women can live in them, it is strange if I can not look upon them.”’ ‘‘It is impossible !’’ he cried again, his fair face almost dark with its flush. ‘ There is a man of business paid to attend to all this.”’ ‘‘That does not matter; I must know about them.’’ ‘Miss Mason,”’ he said, with a kind of solemnity, ‘‘some of the buildings are places which I can not consent you should know exist !’’ ‘‘You must give mea list ofthem,’’ I said. ‘*T will take a policeman and go. No, no, do not attempt to gainsay me!’’I cried hur- riedly and in one breath. ‘‘It is my duty. Now Icomprehend the whole affair, and why Providence has put this property into our hands. You must help me!’’ I cried turn- ing toward him with clasped hands. ‘‘ Oh, do help me!”’ He did not answer at once. ‘‘ Very well,” he said at last. ‘‘ You must make sure that you will not regret it. But if you are deter- mined that it is your duty to go, it is cer- tainly my duty to accompany you, Miss Mason.,”’

Page 77

And we went. I never can tell you all I saw, half I saw ! into what lanes and courts and impossible ways we plunged. What want, what drunkenness, what sickness we met, what sin, and shame, and suffering ! such filth, such squalor, such children— oh, my heart, such children, and such wo- men! Sometimes I grew chill and weak just with the horror of it; sometimes, do my best, I couldn’t help the sob. We climbed stairs, we dived into cellars, into dark alleys, a policeman on eitherside of us. There had just been a murder in one of the places, a gambler’s den ; a woman lay dead of starva- tion in another. We went swiftly, just for the slight glancing at it; we saw, at any rate, the outside of the whole grief. We reached home just at dark ; and we were no soonerin our sweet warm drawing-room than I fainted dead away. ‘‘T declare, Cathy, you have reduced faint- ing to a fine art,’’ Nina was whispering when I began to be aware of myself again. ‘* And the solicitor so handy.”’ ‘‘Oh, Nina!’’ I exclaimed, trying to sit up and gather my hair that they had been drenching in cologne water. ‘‘ You don’t know what I have seen ! Such homes of suf- fering and sorrow, such dens of iniquity ! And it is out of them that Uncle Mason has been reaping his revenues! This money of his was made of the hearts’ blood of wives whose husbands his liquor shops made drunk- ards, whose children they made orphans. There are whole streets of his houses that are rented for no other thing than crime ; there are buildings where his agent has wrung money from those that hadn’t bread, fever- holes, too, fire-traps—oh, my God! I don’t know what I’m saying, I don’t know what I saw, I didn't know there were such things in the world!’’ And I began to cry fit to break my heart, with the girlsall hanging round me, and the solicitor looking out of the window. “You're saying very disagreeable things,”’ said Nina. ‘‘That’s what you are! and apparently you saw very disagreeable things. And you’re making me see very disagreeable things—I see my yacht sailing away into dim distance.’’ ‘‘ But she is loaded with pale little children bound for fresh air and fresh food,’’ cried Virginia. ‘Oh, Cathy, there is only one thing to do!’’ The solicitor turned and came toward us. THE PRETTY SPENDTHRIFTS. 249 ‘‘He has been crying for all he’s worth himself,’’ whispered Nina. ‘*You must excuse me,’’ he said, ‘‘ but I am sure that you ought not to take any steps or make any assurances, while you are in this excited state. We must talk the whole affair over coolly and rationally, not emotionally.”’ ‘Now is the accepted time !’’ said Nina. ‘“No,”’ he said, ‘‘pardon me. But on your movements now depend, not only your own future and that of those connected with you either now or hereafter, but the fate ofa multitude of others, and it becomes a duty to consider everything with the calmest equipoise possible. Miss Mason’s nerves are unstrung; you yourselves are full of sympathy. Let us dismiss the whole busi- ness now for a day and night. There is some fine music to-night, let me take you there. There is no impropriety in your go- ing out to that, is there? We will havea little dinner at Parker's, where a friend of mine lives who will kindly chaperon you, and we will get the distraction that I. am sure I need almost as much as you.’’ ‘‘A pretty sort of fellow, Uncle Mason,”’ said Nina, ‘‘ to be turning up his nose at us!”’ ‘‘T have no idea that your Uncle Mason was at all aware of the uses to which his buildings were put. He gave largely to every charity——”’ ‘‘He ought to have known,’ I sighed. ‘*Oh, he ought to have known !”’ ‘“Yes, he ought to have known,”’ said the solicitor. And then he sat down by the fire and un- folded the 7ranscript that Livia had just brought in. ‘‘He’s on quite a familiar footing, isn’t he?’’ said Nina, when we had left the room. ‘‘Doesn’t mind making himself quite at home ; and since this disagreeable affair of Uncle Mason’s has turned up, thinks less than ever of us! Put the pink feather in your hat, Cathy. You won’t? You feel like going in sackcloth and ashes? They don’t wear sackcloth and ashes to the Ger- man opera. Whata black hole Uncle Ma- son’s money is slipping into! We must have a cup of tea in the drawing-room, Cathy, before we go. You look like a ghost.’’ ‘‘Qh, I have seen ghosts !’’ I said. ‘‘T am afraid you are hardly equal to

Page 78

250 going,’’ said the solicitor, rising and coming toward me when I reappeared. ‘‘ But if you are, it is better than sitting here, and going over things again ; a little time acts with one sometimes like the buffer of rail- way trains; it breaks the force of a shock. And you have had a great shock. You never heard Materna, did you? You will be taken out of yourself, then.’’ And he poured me some tea, when Livia brought it in, and sent Rowena for an extra wrap, for I was really so dazed that I didn’t know whether it was cold or warm. ‘* There is something in him,’’ whispered Nina again. ‘‘ He is making a great sacri- fice in going to the opera in business-dress and with a horde of great creatures like us ; we're almost as tall as the Valkyrie our- selves. And all his womenkind will be there; and those that won’t will have sent their eye glasses !’’ But all through that roaring, rushing music the scenes of the day kept going and coming about me, only perhaps transfigured inamanner. I suppose the music soothed me, although I must confess that a melody here and there would have been refreshing ; but just as one seemed to be coming, it was snatched away intoa stofm of sound, and was only a ghost of a dream of itself, like happiness, like human happiness. But Juliet was on fire with the delight of it. ‘* All the other operas are froth beside it,”’ she cried, as we drove home. ‘‘ How triv- ial all their little love affairs seem, like the play of paper dolls. But here the men and women are human, and the gods ‘“‘ Are superhuman,”’ said Nina. ‘*Oh, you see it is Fate, it is Necessity, it is Law, set to music!’’ Icried. ‘‘ Even the gods must obey it. It is the grandest, the most glorious idea in all art, and to-night of all nights was the night to hear it !’’ ‘* We can not escape Fate, is the reason of it,’’ said Virginia. ‘* And our fate is not to have the spending of Uncle Mason's money,’’ said Nina. ‘Do you want to spend that foul money ?’’ asked Juliet. * ‘‘Humph ! what has that to do with the Niebelungenlied? I would give more for a bunch of little Irish songs than for the whole trilogy. I watched for a tune till my ears ached. And as for your fate—Na- poleon conquered circumstances.”’ THE COSMOPOLITAN. ‘‘Oh, we must hear the whole of these operas,’’ cried Juliet. ‘“‘l’m afraid we can’t afford it now,’’ I said before I thought. ‘‘No,’’ said Nina. ‘‘We never shall afford anything again. If all the liquor shops and dens of evil at the North End have to be reformed, it will end by our keep- ing a shop ourselves, or becoming Little Sisters of the Poor, or some other dreadful masqueraders. I shall insist, though, on Ailie’s being taken care of.’’ ‘All but the blue satin brocaded with pearls."’ ‘‘And as for those vile places, I feel so taken by surprise. It would have seemed natural enough if I had heard of them in New York, or Baltimore, or London ; but I never dreamed there were such things in Boston !”’ The next day I had told the girls my whole dreadful story, only snatches of which they had had while we were dressing to go out the night before, and they had agreed with me that the wrong must be wiped out, if it took the whole of Uncle Mason's money to do it. ‘It will,’’ said the solicitor, with the gravest face you can imagine, when he came again after a week, with all the esti- mates in hand. ‘‘ Toclose the saloons and other places, to tear down the rookeries, to replace them with sanitary buildings, will absorb the entire value s ‘*Beacon Street house and all?’’ said Nina. ** And all.”’ “Oh j* ‘* The wholeoutlay will then bring you in not quite one-half of one per cent. on the principal sum; a third of that you would need for the payment of the person who took care of the property, his righteous commission. By the way® why not your friend Ailie’s husband ?’’ ‘“‘Oh, Ailie!’’ cried Nina, in one of her rapid transitions from sorrow to delight. ‘*He isn’t her husband yet, but then it's all the same. And somebody ’ll have some- thing !”’ ‘‘ And there will be left to you,’’ he went on, ‘‘an income that will just about meet the cost of repairs and insurance.”’ ‘* Very well,”’ I said ; ‘‘we never expected this money. We have not begun to enjoy it.

Page 79

We shall miss nothing in losing it. We are all of one mind. And we shall have more pleasure than all the unused wealth could give us any other way, in doing so great a work and expiating the sins of the Masons, as far as that will do it.’’ ‘‘T must say I wish they had expiated their ownsins,’’ said Nina. ‘‘ The idea, with the world just in your grasp to have the whole thing go glimmering. No balls, no yachts, and I did think of a dress for you, Juliet, white satin, half covered with old point, and all the pattern of the point out- lined with sapphire and emerald and ruby sparks in real peacock lusters.”’ ‘‘ Forcible contrast with the nun’s veiling which must take its place,’’ said Virginia. I really felt troubled. Although this was all so trivial, yet I was not quite sureI had the right, for the sake of others, to make them forego all their young pleasures and ambitions. —And yet—— ‘‘T won’t insist or urge,’’ I cried, clasping my hands. ‘‘ You can all do as you like with your own; only I will take my portion in these buildings and lots. Yet, if you had but seen——”’ ‘“We don’t want to see,’’ they cried. ‘You've seen too much!’’ ‘But if you think we’re going to let sin and sinners flourish an hour longer than we can help,’’ added Nina, ‘‘ you don’t know what stuff we brought from Connemara! And yet I suppose they loved their poteen in that Connemara cabin,” she said slyly. ‘‘I am afraid the cold Mason blood has drowned out the usquebaugh. It only shows that we are Mason women, not Irishwomen. It’sa great joke! Our grandfather, with his illicit still, very likely, and we all the same as guagers. Aren’t you glad we’re not men and tempted by votes? We could be governors and presidents, every one of us !”’ ‘‘ For heaven’s sake be still, Nina!’’ cried Virgina. For some weeks to come I had time for lit- tle else—although I did my share, be sure, in nursing Ailie through the nervous fever that had put off her wedding-day again—except attending to the plans and papers that the solicitor brought, or going out with him and seeing to their execution. I could not help feeling that he carried out our wishes with extraordinary goodness ; and while he went about with me, the other girls were busy THE PRETTY SPENDTHRIFTS. 251 gathering various of the myriad little wretched children into classes and hospitals, and reading to them, and singing to them, and feeding them. Sometimes, when we had done all we could for that day, hesuggested a breath of fresh air—it was getting toward the spring —and drove me out into the country —I never thinking of a chaperon with him ; and when we were out on the country roads and along the riversides, we put our work behind us, and somehow came to understand a great deal of each other’s inner life. And I couldn’t help seeing that in all his thoughts and ways he was superior to any- body I had known ; but I found it far from easy to speak of him to the girls; and I couldn’t imagine why it was that I felt so drawn toward Ailie in thosedays. Of one thing I was sure, that he only looked on us as associates in carrying out a philanthropic scheme, not at all as women with attractions; in his eyes I was just the head of a sort of Dorcas society, and I tried to meet him usu- ally on that impersonal ground. Yet, of course, life and manners could not but be pleasant where he was. It was astonishing how swiftly our work sped, how the old rookeriesand their rubbish disappeared, and the new buildings went up like exhalations ; and as we lingered about them sometimes our dreams and plans would seem just as appallingly visionary and evan- escent. ‘“They have gone up, all these buildings, like Aladdin’s palace,’’ I said. ‘‘ And oh, I hope they are not so unreal !”’ ‘You willsee,’’ he said. ‘‘ We are saving a whole generation,’’ he added with a grave enthusiasm. It delighted me that he put it so, as if he were doing as much as the rest of us, for oh, how little of it could I have done without him ! Nina, of course, was not so happy as the rest of us; and one could hear her at almost any time complaining of the crooked spite that had brought her into the world to set it right. ‘* Anybody might know how it is all go- ing to end,’’ she was saying to the others once, not knowing that I had come in. ‘‘I’ve done my very best to hinder it. I saw it from the beginning. I knew just what it would come to. fainily loathsome in his eyes. frighten him away. I tried to make the whole I wanted to I was a million times

Page 80

252 worse than Fate and Nature made me, just as a beacon light to warn him off such danger- ous shores. I said and did everything I thought would make cold chills run down his aristocratic back at the thought of being connected with such creatures. And it’s no use. He’s going to break up all our pleas- ant life. He’s an ice-house ; he’s a tomb ; he will bury her alive in the wet blanket of his affection! I thought it was Uncle Ma- son’s money; but you see there isn’t any Uncle Mason’s money now ; and Cathy——’’ And then I knew what she was talking about, and hid my head in the sofa-pillows so as to hear no more, all the blood in my body rushing through my brain as I lay there and seemed to be burning up alive with shame. But it was only the next day when I was in Doll & Richards’s looking at some love- ly water-colors that he joined me and made every one twice as lovely with his clear knowledge and criticism. ‘‘T shall have to set a vase of blue glass on a bracket beside this Venice,’’ he said. ‘‘Do you see, when you look away, how your memory carries the blue transparency of the cup over to sky and water? I must have the vase, too, I think.’’ I looked up in a little surprise. ‘*Oh,”’ said he, lightly. ‘‘ You wonder at my extravagance? Do you think I have nothing left, because you are spending all you have?”’ And then I laughed, but stopped, frozen to stone in a moment by the words of a group of ladies behind me who suddenly spoke his name. ‘*Oh, we never see him now,”’’ one of them said. ‘‘ No one ever sees him now. He used to be at our house, or Jack at his, from one day to another; but now he is lost to the world in the mazes of the Mason money. I should never have believed it of him, and he with that bank account of his own! What! Haven’t you heard? Didn’t you know about dear old Mr. Mason’s dying without a will and all his wealth going to some Irish girls of the name—unformed young giantesses? Well, he was Mr. Ma- son’s solicitor; and he is theirs; and he’s bound to have that moriey, even if he has to marry one of them for it. He’ll not come to the top again till he brings his .treasure with him.’’ THE COSMOPOLITAN. ‘*Oh, how very much too bad——’’ And just then he lifted his head from the catalogue he had been looking at as it lay on the table and turned, and, bowing, said: ‘‘Good-morning, Miss Bowdoin—Miss Hancock—Miss Boylston. I am astonished at the correctness of your information. Let me present you to Miss Mason. She is one of the young ladies of whom you speak so pleasantly, and who do, indeed, tower so far above all the other women I have known, in nobility, in culture, in every feminine charm, as to suggest the mame you give them. They have, perhaps, one fault: they are spendthrifts ; as in the six months since his death, they have succeeded in spending the whole of their Uncle Mason’s money ; that is to say, they have used six million dollars in rescuing certain of the poor of Boston from deadly want and crime. As for the rest, you are quite right again, for I am proud to have laid my life and my de- votion at the feet of the sweetest, loveliest woman I have ever met !”’ I looked straight at them. I couldn’t have moved an eyelid. I saw myself in a mirror, as white as marble, and my eyes blazing. He put my arm in his, and I felt as he wheeled me away, as though I were one of Mrs. Jarley’s wax-works ; and, all dazed and dizzy, I found myself in a coach, he opposite, and Nina, who, for once in her life, had came upon the scene like the Prov- idence of God, beside me. ‘* What has happened to you ?”’ cried Nina. ‘‘Has anything happened to you? You look like aSybil, ora Norn ; youare upright asa graven image. Have you been looking behind you, you pillar of salt? Is it any- thing important? Have you found that there is a dollar left of Uncle Mason’s money that you didn’t know about or that you can’t spend, charm you never so wisely ?”’ ‘‘Oh, Nina, Nina! hush! hush !’’ I cried. ‘*Oh, now, Cathy, you’re not ashamed of me this time! You look much more as if it were yourself you were ashamed of——"’ “Oh, Iam! Iam!” I cried, throwing myself back in the carriage and closing my eyes, and in the clatter of hoofs and roar of wheels hearing nothing more. I would have sprung up stairs at once on en- tering the house, but his hand detained me, and I went intothe drawing-room with him, Nina following, and I fell upon a seat in the

Page 81

THE BOYHOOD OF JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL. group where Ailie and Virginia and Juliet sat winding some bright skeins of silk. They made room for him too; I saw them and saw him, with that air half like a prince and half like a prize-fighter, with the great wave of brown hair that was parted in the mid- dle, with the something strong and tender in his way, but all without being aware of a conscious thought. ‘‘T have asked Cathy to be my wife,’’ he said, ‘‘and she will not look at me."’ ‘‘Oh ! no, no,’’ I cried. ‘‘He never meant it! He was forced into it by those women ! He had to speak so——”’ ‘* Cathy,’’ he said, leaning forward and tak- ing my two hands, ‘‘ do you believe that ?’’ ‘*IT don’t know! I don’t know! ”’ I cried. ‘‘T only know I can not—I shall not.’’ 253 ‘*Cathy Mason!’’ cried Ailie. ‘‘I will never marry John till the day you marry this man. And you’ll have to have some pity on John, if you haven’t any on him !”’ ‘‘T am quite sure he was attracted to me in the beginning,’’ whispered Nina over my shoulder. ‘‘ But there! And think—-to be sister-in-law of the Panjandrum.”’ He laughed, although he was so pale and trembling. And then he drew me to- ward him, while a flame seemed to surge over me, and right before them all he kissed me. ‘“Uncle Mason didn’t know what he was doing when he died,’’ said Nina. ‘‘ And isn’t it strange that, of all his blood rela- tives, Ailie Boyle and her John are the only ones to have any of Uncle Mason’s money ?”’ THE BOYHOOD OF JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL. By WILLIAM H. a winter’s evening when the reader “7 of this is in a mood to beguile himself with a pleasant book of essays, I would advise him to take down from the shelf the ‘‘ Fireside Travels ’’ of James Russell Lowell, in which he will find among other good things a picturesque account of Cambridge as it was in the poet's boyhood. ‘‘Cambridge Thirty Years Ago”’ he calls it, but the time he describes has crept back twenty years more since it was written, and to us it is a picture not of thirty years but of half a century ago. Cambridge was not the noisy and popu- lous place then that it is now: it was not linked to Boston by the endless chain of horse-cars, which are running to and fro night and day. It was a quiet country vil- lage, resembling the country villages of Eng- land, and resting in the shade of wide- branched, thick-leaved elms, lindens and horse-chestnuts. The Revolution was as fresh in the public mind as the civil war is to-day, and the recent presence of the British soldiers could be traced in the hooks from which they had hung their hammocks and in the dents made by their muskets in the floor of the minister’s library in the old gambrel-roofed house in which the picture of a lady was shown with a slit in the can- vas where a redcoat had thrust his rapier through it. 24 RIDEING. People were still living who remained loyal to King George, and women still washed clothes in the town spring. One coach carried all the passengers there were between the village and Boston. A youth named Oliver Wendell Holmes, who had just gone forth from the gambrel-roofed house to study medicine in the schools of Paris, was spoken of as a sprightly versifier who might make his mark in literature if he chose. The poetical accomplishments of another young man named Longfellow had been heard of in the community, though he had not yet been invited to take a professorship in the college as he was a few years later. Ralph Waldo Emerson was preaching in Boston, and John Greenleaf Whittier, a young Quaker of Haverhill, was filling an editor’s chair and sending out verses that thrilled with the promise of genuine lyric feeling. Though he was destined to become their intimate in after years, Lowell knew none of these at this time : they had all begun the battle of life, while he was still a school-boy with his hands in his pockets and his eyes open to all the sights of the little world around him. ‘‘Everybody knew everybody, and all about everybody,’’ he says in ‘‘ Fireside Travels ;"" ‘and village wit, whose high

Page 82

254 ‘change was around the little market-house in the town square, had labeled every more marked individuality with nicknames that clung like burs.’’ There was the village whitewasher, all of whose belongings em- blemized his trade : he whitewashed his trees and grew the whitest of china-asters in his garden : he wore a white neckcloth and kept white fowls, white ducks and white geese. There was an old Scotch gardener, who told romantic stories and showed an imaginary French bullet, sometimes in one leg, sometimes in the other, and sometimes toward nightfall, in both. One of the two grocers was a deacon, upon whom the boys were fond of playing a familiar joke. One of them would enter the shop and ask, ‘* Have you any sour apples, deacon ?”’ ‘‘ Well, no, I haven’t any just now that are exactly sour; but there’s the bell-flower apple, and folks that like a sour apple gen- erally like that.’’ Another boy would then come in and say, ‘‘Have you any sweet apples, deacon ?’’ ‘* Well, no,’’ the deacon would reply; ‘I haven’t any just now that are exactly sweet ; but there’s the bell-flower apple, and folks that like a sweet apple generally like that.’’ Thus it was that the deacon’s apples were suited to the customer’s taste, whether he wanted them sour or sweet. The barber’s shop was a sort of museum, and no boy ever went there to have his hair cut that he was not accompanied by troops of friends, who thus inspected the curiosities gratis. ‘*What a charming place it was! how full of wonder and delight !’’ says Lowell, in the essay already quoted. ‘‘ The sunny little room, fronting southwest upon the common, rang with canaries and Java sparrows, nor were the familiar notes of robin, thrush and bobolink wanting; a large white cockatoo harangued vaguely, at intervals, in what we believed on R.’s (the barber’s) authority to be the Hottentot language. The walls were covered with curious old Dutch prints, beaks of albatross and penguin, and whales’ teeth fantastically engraved. There was Frederick the Great with head drooped plottingly, and keen sidelong glance from under the three-cornered hat. There hung Bonaparte, too, the long-haired, haggard general of Italy, his eyes somber with pre- figured destiny; and there was his silent THE COSMOPOLITAN. grave, the dream and the fulfillment. Good store of sea fights there was also ; above all Paul Jones in the ‘ Bonhomme Richard,’ the smoke rolling courteously to leeward that we might see him dealing thunderous work to the two hostile vessels, each twice as large as his own, and the reality of the scene cor- roborated by streaks of red paint leaping from the mouth of every gun. Suspended over the fire-place, with the curling tongs, were an Indian bow and arrows, and in the corners of the room stood New Zealand pad- dies and war clubs, quaintly carved. The model of a ship in glass we variously estima- ted to be worth from a hundred to a thousand dollars—the barber rather favoring the high- er valuation, though never distinctly com- mitting himself. Among these wonders, the only suspicious one was an Indian tomahawk which had too much the peaceful look of a shingling-hatchet. Did any rarity enter the town, it gravitated naturally to these walls, to the very nailthat waited to receive it, and where, the day after its accession, it seemed to have hung a lifetime.’’ Lowell’s home was at Elmwood, about a mile away from Harvard Square, and it was in this roomy mansion that he was born on February 22, 1819. His father was a Uni- tarian clergyman, and he was descended from a long line of prosperous people who had originally come to America from Bristol, England. The city of Lowell was named after one of them, and another was the founder of the Lowell Institute in Boston, an educational establishment to which he left two hundred and fifty thousand dollars by a will written while he was on the sum- mit of the Great Pyramid. The house is still screened from the high- way by the giant trees around it, though the jingle of the horse-cars and the rumble of passing carriages and carts now jar upon its quiet; but when the poet was a boy it was in a solitude, and the only noises were the cries of the birds which thronged the garden. He was fond of birds, as the reader can well believe who knows an essay of his called ‘“My Garden Acquaintance,’’ and the feath- ered visitors who came to Elmwood and gossiped in its cavernous shade were al- ways treated as welcome guests. There were robins, catbirds, bluejays, orioles, bobolinks, blackbirds and herons. What could be bet- ter than Lowell’s description of the robins?

Page 83

THE BOYHOOD OF JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL. ‘* They are feathered Pecksniffs, to be sure, but then how brightly their breasts, that look rather shabby in the sunlight, shine on a rainy day against the dark green of the fringe-tree! After they have pinched and shaken all the life out of an earth worm, as Italian cooks pound all the spirit out of a steak, and then gulped him, they stand up in honest self-confidence, expand their red waistcoats with the virtuous air of a lobby- member, and outface you with an eye that calmly challenges inquiry. ‘Do / look like a bird that knows the flavor of raw vermin? I throw myself upon a jury of my peers. Ask any robin if he ever ate anything less ascetic than the frugal berry of the juni- per, and he will answer that his vow forbids him!’ Can such an open bosom cover such depravity? Alas! yes. I have no doubt his breast was redder at that very moment with the blood of my raspberries. On the whole he is a doubtful friend in the garden. He makes his dessert of all kinds of ber- ries, and is not averse from early pears. But when we remember how omnivorous he is, eating his own weight in an incredibly short time, and that nature seems exhaustless in her inventions of her new insects hostile to vegetation, perhaps we may reckon that he does more good than harm. For my own part, I would rather have his cheerfulness and kind neighborhood than many berries.’’ The birds returned the friendship of the inmates of the house with unwonted confi- dence, and would sometimes fly through the hall or the library. But, though the boy had so much interest in them, he never ‘‘oologized ’’ them, and if they would not come near enough for him to observe them, he brought them closer with an opera-glass— a much better weapon, as he says, than a guh. No school can ever do as much for a sensitive boy as the influence and example of parents of scholarly tastes, with whom the habit of reading is as regular as eating or sleeping. Lowell’s father was a scholar, and his mother, as well, was a person of lib- eral culture and literary capacity, who, as soon as her children could read, opened to them the treasures of English literature, —* The old melodious lays Which softly melt the ages through, The songs of Spenser's golden days, Arcadian Sidney’s silvery phrase.”’ Chaucer, Shakespeare and Milton were fa- 255 miliar to them at an age when most children are still reciting nursery rhymes; and in James Russell Lowell, who was the young- est of them, the influence of these masters struck with deeper root than in the others, bringing forth in good time a fruit of its own. Elmwood was full of books, and they were not allowed to lie dusty and unused on the shelves. Access to them under the di- rection of as discriminating a student as Mrs. Lowell, was in itself an education ; but it was not deemed to be enough, and the young poet was sent to a classical school in the neighborhood, where he was prepared for Harvard College. What sort of a boy was he at this time? A letter from one of his classmates, the Hon. G. B. Loring, lies open before the writer of these lines: ‘‘He was a rapid reader and had a keen appreciation of all noble thoughts and a deep sympathy with all noble char- acters. He learned his lessons with great ease, but was not fond of mathematics, though he comprehended readily philosophi- cal theories. He loved poetry, and his own faculty of versification was notable even then. He had decided political views, and was a Whig in those days of Whiggery and De- mocracy, because he thought the latter a pre- tense, and not the embodiment of doctrines accordant with the name. He was by nature devout and conservative in his religious views, and he was an advocate of temperance obligations as a safeguard against tempta- tion. Perhaps he did not set an example of intense application, but he acquired knowl- edge more easily than many of his fellows. His wit flashed about in a way which some- times startled the dull and always whetted the edge of the bright; but he was a boy without malice and with strong attachments, a dutiful son and a devoted friend. His tastes were simple and free from all desire for display. Although at times subject to those moods which fall upon boys as well as men who have sensitive natures, he struggled alone through his cloudy hours, and gave only his sunshine to his friends.”’ He was a brilliant letter-writer, and his private correspondence was sprinkled with verses, many of which have never been pub- lished. Mr. Loring has a bundle of such letters from him, in which prose is often dropped for a cantering rhyme. In one, de-

Page 84

256 scribing an early trip to the White Moun- tains, he writes : ‘I suppose you remember when Time was young ; Say !—What made him so crabbed and cross? Did he speculate largely in Eastern lands, Which the deluge made all a dead loss? Did he lose his affianced (poor soul!) in the flood? Or write a small poem or two, And turn misanthropic on reading a squib In some acid pre-Adam Review ?”’ Again, answering his friend, a student of medicine who had tried his hand at a verse or two, as a tribute to his genius he wrote: ‘Dear friend and true, I take your hand— A hand I love to clasp— And welcome you to Muse’s Jand With warm and hearty grasp Not that you needa welcome there, For what you wrote to me Would justly claim a right to wear The wreath of poesy. But I dare trust that smile of mine Will never come amiss, Although it scarce may hope to shine Through bog-verse such as this. You have more legal right than I To build the lofty rhyme, (Though when my shingle shines on high I may enjoy more time) For Esculapius was the son Of golden-haired Apollo, And if you win the heart of one The other’s sure to follow."’ ly well entered Harvard in his sixteenth year, and he has said of himself that he read everything except the text-books prescribed by the Faculty. He was graduated in the Class of 1838, and then entered the Law School, intending, like Oliver Wendell Holmes, to become a lawyer. He even went so far as to open a law office in Boston, but it is more than suspected that one of his early attempts at fiction, bearing the title of THE COSMOPOLITAN. ‘My First Client,’’ referred to an entirely imaginary person. ‘‘The old melodious lays’’ were still more fascinating to him than the legal law bound upin yellow sheep- skin, and his circumstances were so easy that he was not forced to continue work that was distasteful to him. He published a little book of verse, and when he was twenty-four he started a maga- zine ; but, though neither the book nor the magazine met with success, he soon af- terward proved that, by the closing of the little office, and Blackstone’s ‘‘Commenta- ries,’’ literature had gained more than law had lost. Elmwood is still the home of Mr. Lowell when he is in the United States, and though many of the birds have disappeared, the herons linger in its shade and were made the subject of one of Longfellow’s last poems: ‘* Warm and still is the summer night, As here by the river’s brink I wander, White overhead the stars, and white The glimmering lamps on the hillside yonder. “ Silent are all the sounds of day ; Nothing I hear but the chirp of crickets, And the cry of the herons winging their way O’er the poet’s house in the Elmwood thickets ‘“* Call to him, herons, as slowly you pass To your roosts in the haunts of the exiled thrushes Sing him the song of the green morass, And the tides that water the reeds and rushes. ‘* Sing to him, say to him, here at his gate, Where the boughs of the stately elms are meeting. Some one hath lingered to meditate, And send him unseen this friendly greeting : “ That many another hath done the same, ¢ Though not by a sound was the silence broken : The surest pledge of a deathless name Is the silent homage of thoughts unspoken.”’

Page 85

Page 86

MME. DE LONGUEVILLE, (A Politician and a Saint. P. 305.)