The Cosmopolitan 1890-06: Vol 9 Iss 2

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(UM THE COSMOPOLITAN. VoL. IX. JUNE, 18go. No. 2. FARM LIFE AND IRRIGATING IN PERSIA. By S. G. W. BENJAMIN, LATE MINISTER TO PERSIA. B bee well-meaning but ill-advised individuals who would have all people alike should be thankful that it will be several ages yet before their wish can be gratified. The writer, for one, finds that one of the greatest charms of life consists in the wide diversity exist- ing, not only between different individu- als, but also between different nations. fall men had but one language, but one set of customs or of prejudices, but one race type, but one climate or scenery, what a monotonous world it would be! Even they who do not care to travel or to cultivate their minds by exercising a rational curiosity in comparing the traits of different people, would yet miss one of the attractions of life if they could not hug to their hearts the sweetly-soothing thought that theirs is a nation excelling all others. The Persian coming to America may learn something in studying our rural population, or return home happy in the thought that our farmers, struggling with winter snows and northern bliz- zards or tornadoes, or with sharp com- petition and conditions requiring con- stant re-adaptation of farming imple- iments, are less happy than the peasantry of his own slow-changing country. If I find that I cannot quite agree with him in his opinion, on the other hand I must be prejudiced indeed if I failed to be en- tertained by the village life of Persia, the simple, old-time customs which enable an ancient peasantry to pass through existence with quite as much content as our own people, or by the study of the local causes of which those customs are the natural result. Persian villages are generally appan- ages of the crown, or estates belonging to men of rank and wealth. In the latter case they are transferable by purchase, with all the rights that accrue with them. Sometimes several villages, or even an entire district, are held by one individual. Villages are often bestowed by the Shah on his wives and children as sources of income ; they are granted also to favored subjects, who are expected to turn a share of the revenue derived therefrom into the royal treasury. A large share of the Shah’s revenue comes in this way; he expects a certain quota from each village ; that being faithfully rendered, the pro- prietor of the village is left to his own devices, and may squeeze all he can out of the villagers. In good years this sys- tem does not work badly, for most pro- prietors are shrewd enough to see that it is for their interest that the peasants who cultivate their lands be reasonably con- tented. But there is undoubted hardship in bad years. Husbandmen are every- where subject, however, to such alterna- tions of fortune. By the laws of Persia, the peasantry actually go with the village where they are born, forming part of its proprietary rights, being quasi serfs. But in prac- tice this law is now of little weight ; the tendency is rapidly gaining to exercise little or no control over the movements of the villagers, who go and come as they please. In point of fact, most of them prefer to remain in the same place, being bound by family ties, habit, contentment, and the growing possibility of buying houses and farms of their own when thrifty enough to lay up a little money. In other cases, they hire their lands and houses from the proprietor, paying rent and taxes in kind. Of course the lands belonging to each village are far in excess of the area actually covered by the village itself. The excessively small population of Persia in proportion to the extent of the Copyright, 1890, by THE COSMOPOLITAN PUBLISHING COMPANY.

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132 FARM LIFE AND I[RRIGATING country, and the danger of living in houses distant from neighbors, especially in former times when the Turkomans raided the eastern provinces, created the custom of having all the houses of a village built near together, often in a dense huddle, including the folds of sheep and cattle. In the mountain valleys one may often find lovely villages ranged around the sides of a romantic ravine, embowered in foliage and musical with the perpetual murmur of mountain streams and the merry clatter of mill wheels. But it is quite otherwise on the plains or along thegreat highways. There the villages are often built in a square, threaded by a number of dark, narrow, dirty streets, and surrounded by high battlemented walls, which entirely con- ceal the houses within. At each corner of the enclosure is a round tower, and the appearance is exactly that of a medizval fortress. Ateventide the flocks and herds wend thither, and the great gate is tightly closed ; at break of day it is opened and the laborers of both sexes, together with the bleating flocks, go forth again to the fields until even. Hamlets of this descrip- tion carry one back to past ages and seem like an anachronism in the nineteenth century. ¢ 4 4 * : 4 P| VILLAGE MOSQUE WITH IN PERSTA. Far more agreeable, and at present more characteristic, are the unwalled villages straggling in the ravines or on the moun- tain slopes. Sometimes the flat-roofed houses are crowded on a slope so steep that the dogs and the children walk from the street onto a roof and dispute posses- sion of that airy spot with the fowls scratching in the earth of which the roof is composed. ‘These houses, by the way, are constructed in a manner that would only be possible in a climate that is dry the greater part of the year. They are built of adobe, those of the better class having a surface coating of plain mortar or of plaster of Paris. Whether they are of one or two stories, cheap or expensive, the roof is invariably made by laying un- dressed timbers, generally poplar, across the walls and near together. Brush is spread on the timbers, and on the brush a thick layer of mud mixed with straw, called cargél. Every summer a fresh lay- er of cargél is spread over the old, and care- fully rolled. The process is repeated until sometimes this dense mass of earth reaches a thickness of fifteen to eighteen inches, baked by the heat into a solid cake. The roof slopes very slightly toward the side of the entrance, and rude gargoyles carry off the winter rain. Such roofs require MINARET

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.UM FARM LIFE AND [RRIGATING IN PERSTA. 133 A WAYSIDE INN AND GARDEN. constant attention, for the slightest crack allowing the water to soak in is liable to cause the walls to give way under such a prodigious weight. It is by no means uncommon during theshort winter season for people and cattle to be killed by such accidents. These simple structures are, however, wonderfully picturesque under the shade of some vast overarching chenar, blending admirably with the tints of the landscape. Strange to say, considerable attempt at decoration is often bestowed on them. ‘This appears sometimes in a facing of burnt bricks at the angles, but especially in the design of the windows ; however rudely constructed, they invari- ably suggest a fine artistic feeling in the forms of the casement ; it is sometimes quite elaborately carved, and nowand then one may see a casement peeping through the foliage picked out with patterns in ver- milion, yellow, and blue, orcontaining bits of stained glass arranged in geometric patterns. It is rare also that when these village houses are built around a central court, or patio, that they failto have a tank in the centre faced with stones and fringed with flower-pots. Perhaps the tank also has a small jet which tosses the spray aloft with musical murmuring at the hours when the water runs through the garden. I donot think it is only by contrast with the climate that the plash of water heard in so many Persian gardens in summer seems to make country life there so much more agreeable than elsewhere, although it doubtless adds greatly to rural life in that parched land. But the sound of water is always agreeable, one of the most poetic of nature’s voices, whether heard in the sublime rush of the surges at sea in a storm, or the silvery tinkle of a fountain blending by moonlight with the trill of the nightingale in a garden of Persia. We do not sufficiently realize the deco- rative value of water in the landscape gardening of America. Perhaps, not- withstanding the abundance of water in our country, it would not be more cheap than in Persia to have fountains and tanks in our gardens, because in that country

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FARM LIFE AND I[RRIGATING IN PERSIA. VIEW VILLAGE SAVONNE, OF OF it is the re- sult of the = |. vast system ~ | of irrigation, | which is the absolute condition on which vegetation and agriculture in the greater part of that otherwise desert country depend. Along the narrow strip on the northern side of the Elborz range, skirting the southern shore of the Caspian sea, streams and rain are abundant, as the lofty mountain sides condense the moisture from that sea. But south of those mountains we find a vast tableland having an average height of 4500 feet above the sea. It extends some six hundred miles in each direction, intersected here and there by lofty ranges. The highest peak of the Elborz is 21,000 feet; the Zardah Kuh rises 16,000 feet; the range of Kerman nearly 18,000 feet. There are other spurs and lesser ranges which add wonderfully to the beauty of the landscape. I know of nothing in nature more impressive than those vast elevated plains reaching away like the sea till merging in the pale opalescent tints of the horizon. The sealike illusion is in- creased by the mirage hovering in every direction. Far away a dark line of vege- tation, indicating a village, looks like the purple spot where a flaw strikes the ocean, and the gleam of a white wall flashes like the distant crest of a billow. Above and beyond all hovers the pale snow-capped outline of one of Persia’s mighty mountain chains, like an island looming above the sea, or rather like an enchanted region in dream- land. Many and many atime have I gazed entranced on such a scene, lingering long as if under a spell, and after I had turned away from it turn- ing again for one last look. as one looks again and again on loved faces that the ship is bearing away from him. They who find no beauty, no poetry, no soul-lifting charms in the land of Iran, have not yet learned how to see. But one may look at these mountains of Persia from yet an- other point of view. They have their practical as well as their poetic side. The economist sees in them the causes of the develop- ment and the salvation of Persia. They are the source of her wealth, nay, of the very life of her people. Wher- ever there is water in that country, vege- tation is not only abundant but is raised with very little labor. But there are very few streams; a number actually lose themselves in the desert. Those lovely features of nature, running brooks, which abound in our own forest land, are scarce- ly known in Persia south of the Elborz. Nearly the whole of that country would thus be a desert, as indeed it is wherever there is no water, but forirrigation. Now, the water for irrigation comes from the mountains of which I have spoken, and but for those mountains Persia would be another Sahara. The vast tableland is completely hon- eycombed with irrigating canals, af- ter a system established far back in the dawn of history. It is well known that the Caspian is partly fed by subterranean streams entering it below the surface. Similar rivers also run under the table- land of Persia, which are doubtless the cause of the very dangerous quicksands that the traveller sometimes encounters in the wide wastes of that country. Bahram Goor, one of the most celebrated kings of Persia, lost his life when hunting, by disappearing in one of those treacher- ous spots. The writer has heard of other

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UM FARM LIFE AND I[RRIGATING IN PERSTA. 135 cases, and himself once had a narrow escape, his horse being dragged out with difficulty by attendants, while the rider pulled himself out of the saddle by the branches of adjacent bushes. These streams take their sources in the mountains, from whose summits, covered with everlasting snows, the moisture gradually percolates downwards. Ap- prehending this fact in some unrecorded and probably accidental way—for orientals are anything but scientific in their obser- vations of nature—the Persians stumbled on the idea of tapping the springs at the mountain base, and thus obtaining wa- ter for domestic and agricultural needs. After striking a source by digging a well until water is found on the foothill, a shaft is dug from one to two hundred yards farther down the slope, which is really a gentle descent of the tableland from the mountain. A canal or subter- ranean aqueduct is then excavated be- tween the two points. Ata similar dis- tance another shaft is opened, and the canal, or, as it is called in Persia, the connaught, is carried to the second shaft. In this manner the canal is led from shaft to shaft under ground for many miles. It is likely this method was adopted, because, in the absence of the scientific knowledge of modern engineering, no other way was known for guiding a sub- terranean channel undeviatingly in a de- sired direction. The excavated earth is dragged up in baskets and thrown in high mounds around the mouth of the shaft, and thus a Persian plain looks as if it were covered with immense mole-hills. Often the rain and the violent winds of the south remove much of this earth, and it is then not un- Ay “Ss INTERIOR COURT OF COUNTRY VILLA, WITH POOL.

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136 FARM LIFE AND [RRIGATING IN PERSTA. common for wayfarers, especially when travelling at night, to fall into one of these shafts, sometimes with fatal result. They form an undoubted source of danger in Persia. Even in the streets of a city the entrance to a shaft is sometimes left uncovered ! When the connaught reaches the re- gions of cultivated land, the bed of the channel is brought nearer the surface and is finally seen as a brook coursing through gardens or by the roadside, bordered with trees and in every respect resembling a mountain brook. It is then in a position for use and may be tapped by every house and garden by which it passes on its chattering race for the lower levels. The water thus captured and made subservient to the good of man is used for drinking and bathing and for the supreme purpose of irriga- tion. In roaring cascades it leaps down the sharp turns in a ravine, or the terraces of some gentleman’s grounds; or it flows gently among the beds where succulent vegetables are growing, or around the roots of well-favored orchards, or tosses a cooling spray before the pillared piazzas where maidens are whiling away the drowsy hours of midsummer; or it over- flows the marble tanks of the steaming baths where the faithful perform their DERVISH ON PERSIAN HUMPBACK COW. frequent ablutions. Wherever one be- holds it, whatever be the mission which it is performing, the water one sees in Persia comes from the mountains in con- naughts excavated with vast expenditure of labor and time during the long ages of the past. The city of Teheran alone is sup- plied with upwards of twenty connaughts, of which one is intended exclusively for the palace of the Shah. Private gentle- men of large wealth also dig connaughts for their villages and country places— places which in extent resemble the parks spoken of by Xenophon and called by him paradises. It follows from these facts that there is no question in Persia that causes more quarrels and petty litigation than the question of irrigation. Every freehold has by law a right to a specified number of hours for the use of the water passing by it. It sometimes happens that a gar- den may enjoy such privileges from more than one connaught. When a place is sold or leased, the water privileges are distinctly stated in the articles. Every village or town has its water supervisors, whose business it is to collect the water rates each month, to see that every occu- pant enjoys his full privileges, and that the connaughts are kept in running order. Disputes arising from this source, how- ever, and they are many, are carried before the kethodah, or mayor of a village, who serves as civil judge as well, and is known only as such in the towns which have a separate functionary as gover- nor. The kethodah, after sit- ting as judge, calls for a fresh pipe; if it is noontime, he says his prayers and takesa light lunch of salads, fruit, and bread. After this my lord enjoys his siesta, and in the cool of the afternoon strolls through the village, makes a call or two, takes a general look at matters in his domin- ion, and, with as much sense of the dignity of his office as Sancho Panza on his island, retires with a good conscience to the seclusion of his ante- room, where, in the society of his favorite wife, he partakes XUM

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, UM FARM LIFE AND IRRIGATING IN PERSTA. 137 CHARACTERISTIC MOUNTAIN VILLAGE, of a comfortable dinner, listens to the zither a drowsy hour, and then to bed until the muezzin summons him to prayer at dawn. Such is the life of the village justice in a Persian village; by no means a bad man according to his lights, and often a very shrewd dispenser of law in his rural neighborhood. Does he ever take gifts or bribes? Not always; cela dé- pend, as the French say. In the main, his decisions are considered just. It is his business to preserve order. Except in ex- treme cases, such as deliberate murder, it is his policy to steer a middle course, and if he does not always give complete satisfaction, he does not propose to cre- ate deep enmities by his decisions. He is generally greatly respected ; law is re- garded with reverence by all Persians. Before we leave the question of irriga- tion, it is apropos to state that numer- ous customs have grown out of the im- portance of water in that arid land, some of which doubtless have been handed down from a period prior to the Mahom- etan conquest. My attention was un- expectedly called to one of them on the occasion of my paying a visit to a prom- inent gentleman at his summer residence in the village of Jeferabad. He had just completed the place, including the elab- orate network of stone-lined channels for irrigating his elegant grounds. Of course, in a garden of that sort there were numerous jets d’eaux, intended to play on holidays or when receiving visits of ceremony. The water was let on that afternoon for the first time. Everything went well; the stream coursed merrily through the garden and spouted from a hundred jets ; it was a very pretty sight. But suddenly I observed that the water was changing its color, and gradually turning to crimson. My host gracefully apologized for this peculiar circum- stance, stating that, forgetful of the presence of a foreign visitor, his gar- dener, according to a usage customary whenever water is first admitted into a new garden, had slain a lamb over the water-course and allowed the blood to flow through the garden in order to bring a blessing on the soil and promise of abundant crops of tilth and fruitage. Scarcely less important than the ke- thodah in the simple community of our Persian village is the mollah, or priest. He is at once a religious and civil func- tionary, owing to the fact that the Per- sian government is theocratic—that is, it draws its authority from its acceptance of Mahomet as the prophet of God, and the institutes of Persian law are based on the Koran as the foundation of the nation. The civil or secular law of precedents, called the Urf, which has gradually grown up inthe course of ages through necessity, must still act in harmony withthe Shahr, or religious law. Hence, while the ke-

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138 FARM LIFE AND I[RRIGATING IN PERSTA. thodah, or civil judge, of our village dis- penses the civil law, he must always be careful not to contravene the religious law. Moreover, there are many matters which never come under his jurisdiction, but are referred to the mollah, or priest. The mollah not only acts in the public services at the mosque, at marriages, cir- cumcisions, funerals, and the like; but Thus we see what an important posi- tion our village mollah occupies. Only next to the mollah and the kethodah in importance, and doubtless in his own opinion the biggest man in the village, is the barber. Well does he know his value as the fulcrum around which everything turns in his little world. Consider fora moment that an ordinance of Mqhome- PERSIAN FARM-HAND. he also draws up contracts and legal papers, attends to questions of real and personal property, and acts in a general way as notary. He must also give de- cisions in important cases of criminal law that may be referred or appealed to him from the lower or civil court presided over by the kethodah. In very extreme cases the people have the right to carry an appeal to the Head Mollah or Patriarch of Islamism at the capital and even to the Shah himself. tanism commands all Mussulimans of the male sex to shave their heads, beginning the practice in boyhood. A man may be able to shave his face, but the crown of the head can only be razored by abarber. A Persian village, therefore, can no more exist without its barber than without its mollah or kethodah. While it is true that in the chief cities a few of the prom- inent dignitaries are now venturing to leave the hair on their heads like Euro- peans, yet this innovation has not yet XUM

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KUM FARM LIFE AND IRRIGATING IN PERSTA. 139 reached the lower classes nor the people in the rural districts, who are invariably the last to break away from the strict ob- servance of religious ordinances. Every male in our village above eight years of age must therefore come under the hands of the barber several times a month. He knows them all, their foibles, their weaknesses, their peculiarities, the secrets of their lives, which, with his insinuating palaver, he well understands how to draw from them. Add to these facts the fact that our barber also acts as venesector, and that not only in sickness are bleeding and leeching practised in Persia, but it is also the custom, as a sup- posed preventive of ill-health in a warm climate, for every one to be bled at least once a month; the horses are also lanced dur- ing the warm season every four or five weeks. While the indi- vidual fees are small, yet this steady demand keeps the barber and his chagird, or apprentice, busy a good part of the time and makes him one of the most substantial members of our village. But this estimable worthy has still another string to his bow ; besides bleed- ing and setting dislocated limbs, he is the village dentist. He uses no anzs- thetics, his weapons of torture are of the simplest description ; but if there are any aching teeth in the village, he is theman to extract them, and he does it vi et armis ! It is evident that the Persian village barber is a personage of the first rural magnitude, and his shop, whether in a wayside booth or under a spreading chenar in the heart of the village, natu- rally becomes a sort of resort or club where idlers meet and the gossip of the neighborhood is discussed with all the gravity of which your village bumpkin is capable. To a gathering of that sort the big affairs of state, the questions that agitate the universe at large, are no- thing. It is what is going on under their noses that is of consequence ; the great wheels of destiny revolve for them alone. The world is pretty small after all, for that is the way most people think and live in every country ! But even the village barber may have his nose put out of joint ; this happens when an itmerant doctor arrives in the place. If he happens to be a European, the local sensation produced is simply immense. I happen to know something about it because, without having taken out a medical diploma, I have been re- peatedly besieged for prescriptions in an oriental village,and have examined a * OLD VILLAGE MOSQUE AND PLANE-TREE. tongues, felt pulses, and prescribed cas- tor oil, leeches, and quinine with all the importance of Sangrado. The itinerant physician of Persia is a character of dis- tinction. He does not need to know much, and generally does not; for one thing, he requires little knowledge of surgery, for under no circumstances would he practise amputation, which is forbidden except as a penalty in criminal law; and if a Mahometan should die from a surgi- cal operation the surgeon incurs a fair chance of losing his own head. But the country physician often obviates the re- sults of his ignorance by a good degree of shrewdness, and at least knows more of human nature than his patients. As soon as his arrival is announced in the village, throngs flock to him, and he is busy from morning until night. He is especially sought by the women, who may raise their mantle enough to show him the tongue and hold out their wrists that he may feel. the pulse. His doses are heroic, for anything acting mildly and slowly would not be considered as effective ; the people of that country like- wise have strong stomachs. For two or three days the physician is the chief

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140 FARM LIFE AND IRRIGATING IN PERSIA. man of the place. By that time he has gath- ered all the loose change of tlre village and dosed halfits population. He then packs his saddle-bags, mounts his donkey and prudently hies to another village. The resignation to the decrees of fate prac- tised by Mahometans often protects these country doctors from receiving the deserts they sometimes richly merit. It is, by the way, a wholesome precaution GROUP OF PEASANTS LISTENING of the Persian physician, not to prepare the medicines he prescribes to people of wealth or position, who are more likely than the poor to cause his punishment on the score of poisoning in case the patient dies. But he always insists on merely prescribing. The drugs must then be purchased in the bazaars and compounded by the servants of the patient, who can- not then allege that he did not know what he was taking. Again we have the ceremonial law as the raison d’étre of another of the mag- nates of our village. This is the keeper of the public bath. The houses of the great generally have a private steam-bath attached to them, but the middle and lower classes must depend on the public bath for the frequent ablutions prescribed by climate and religion. Every village has a bath to which none but Mahome- tans may be admitted. In general prin- TO A SACRED READING—RHOZEH. ciples it resembles the Russian and the Turkish baths, the chief features being steam, and hot and cold plunge baths. The water for these institutions is, of course, drawn from the connaughts. Part of the day the bath is reserved for men ex- clusively; the remaining hours, usually in the afternoon, the women meet there and when the bathing is over sit and gossip, having their needlework with them and smoking the kalién at intervals. For the women of our village the public bath XUM

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KUM FARM LIFE AND I[RRIGATING IN PERSTA. 14! is an indispensable institution, for it serves as a sort of sorosis where they may enjoy no end of gossip and scandal, and sometimes gain influence to aid in the transaction of their husbands’ affairs. The bath is always ready about the hour of morning prayer, in the early dawn. The hour is announced by the blowing of a horn, which is hence a characteristic sound in a Persian village and one of the few sounds which in- terrupt the stillness of an almost noise- less country, a country undisturbed by heavy wheels rumbling over rugged pave- ments, or steam-whistles, or hand organs, or church bells, or other jarring noises which destroy the quietude of Christen- dom. 3esides the bath, the barber's shop, and the cloisters of the mosque, another con- genial resortof our village is the teahouse. In Turkey one speaks of a coffee-shop ; in America he alludes affectionately to the but in Persia the special resort for refreshment is the teahouse, for, strange as it may seem, Persians drink more tea than coffee; perhaps the heat of the climate suggests a beverage less heavy for the stomach. At the tea- house our peasant also obtains the use of a kalian or water-pipe. This luxury is graduated to his moderate means. A half-hour’s smoke costs him but two or three cents. At the teahouse one also meets the wandering minstrels and pro- fessional story-tellers and reciters of po- etry, to which the Persian of all degrees listens with passionate delight. The songs are rendered to an accompaniment on some quaint old zither or guitar ex- quisitely decorated with inlaid work and often touched with expression and skill. Another source of entertainment in our village is the rhozéh. This consists of a reading of extracts from the sacred writers, given on Fridays, and especial- ly during the great annual fast, called Ramazan, when people neither eat, drink, nor smoke from sunrise until sunset. The rhozéh is held in a public hall es- pecially built for the purpose and called a rhozéh khanéh. The recitations are often given by young neophytes, who read in grandly melodious tones, and are listened to with devout rapture. To the women of the village in particular the thozéh has that mystic charm which so beer-saloon ; many of our women find in attending the fervid exercises of camp-meeting. Marriage festivities seem, perhaps, to a foreigner to cause more bustle and gen- eral interest than any other local enter- tainment in Persia. This may be in part because such an occasion lasts several days, and is attended with much feasting, blowing of horns, and beating of tom- toms. When the bride is conducted to her new home the entire village turns out and the narrow lanes are densely throng- ed, while shrill music fills the air and, if it be at night, numerous lanterns are seen bobbing in the dark like fireflies in summer. The chief period for marriages occurs before the month of Moharrem, when the entire nation goes into mourn- ing for the death of the holy martyrs Hossein and Hossén. In anticipation of that period of abstinence from gay- ety, weddings are crowded into the pre- PEASANT WOMAN IN STREET COSTUME,

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142 FARM LIFE AND IRRIGATING IN PERSIA vious month. Marriages are far more common in Persia than with us, notwithstand ing the great expense that always attends them. This is partly due to the fact that people there marry early and often. There is scarce a peasant youth to be found unmarried after he is seven- teen, while the girls marry any time after they areeleven or twelve, and such an acci- dent as a woman remaining unmarried is not to be thought of. Old maids are absolutely unknown in that country, and bachelors are very nearly as scarce. Add to this that divorce and re- marriage are easy and com- mon, and that many men have two or more wives, whatever be their condition, and we see at a glance that the most popular entertain- ment in our little Persian A Bee PSPS es SESTSOUP DRUG STORE, village is matrimony. If I have indicated a kind of so- cial existence in our village that implies considerable at- tention to the business of enjoying life as it passes in- stead of making it all an existence of hard and serious work, it has been with a pur- pose. Undoubtedly these Persian villagers work hard ; they are thrifty, have a keen appreciation of the value of money as a means to an end, and have their share of the seamy side of life. They rise up early and work late, and turn out capital crops of rice, wheat, opium, tobacco, and fruits, while those who work at home produce rugs, felts, embroideries, leather goods, and metal ware whose quality and beauty are known far be- yond the limits of Persia. But the climate and the re- ligion have much to do with regulating the hours of labor and offering opportunities for «Sakae: Sau Geel relaxation. The heat during

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FARM LIFFR IND IRRIGATING IN PERSIA NOMAD PEASANT WOMEN. the greater part of the year is such in the middle of the day that the laborer must retire from the sultry fields to a shady spot under the plane trees or to thecool market-place of the village. Even there severe exertion is abandoned be- tween ten and three. Thus there is much leisure for apparent idleness which is devoted to entertainment or repose. It is then the barber, the baker, who turns out thin palatable sheets of unleavened bread called sandjiak, and toothsome but inexpensive ragouts and dishes of rice, and the suave teahouse-keeper are most engaged; the blacksmith lays by his anvil; the horse he is shoeing stands hitched to the stall in the adobe wall under the mulberry-tree and quietly munches his straw; the voice of the story- teller and the thrum of the guitar are heard, or the clang of the stork on the roof; and the women are in the public bath forgetting the heat of the day in the vaporous twilight under the vaulted roof. Iam not one of those who disapprove of such hours or days of leisure. In Persia, at least, they do not appear to have evil results. Why should this life be one wholly of anxious labor, of struggle, of perplexity, anxiety, and perpetual exer- tion? The difference between Persians and Americans is not so much in the matter of work, for both toil hard when they toil; but in the way they improve their hours of leisure. When an oriental rests, he rests indeed; there is no half- heartedness about it, nor is it of such a nature that he merely exchanges one form of activity for another, as we do. Entertainment is, with the oriental, at- tended by repose, and hence it is rest- ful. The Persians may learn some things from us; but I am confidently of the opin- ion that there are many ideas and prac- tices in oriental life which we in turn can borrow to our advantage. The Persian village school is perhaps an institution that we can study with more entertain- ment than profit. And yet when I think of the many acute minds which have begun their career in the odd district school, which is called a medresséh, I am not prepared to say that it has not been well adapted to the conditions amid which it has flourished. There is no doubt that to learn how to read the Arabic character used by the Persians, with its scant number of vowels, and to ac-

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144 quire the art of writing in the exquisite style affected by Persians, is an education in itself. To master those two branches demands careful observation, accuracy and patience. The lad who lacks those qualities will have made a long stride towards acquiring them by the time he has learned how to read and write Persian. There is much more picturesqueness and poetry, I at once admit, in the ap- pearance of the village school of Persia than is ever seen in even our best ap- pointedschools. Thechubby, black-eyed urchins are seated in rows on their knees and heels on mats or rugs on the earthen floor. They repeat the lesson together after the master, who is generally a tur- baned graybeard, whose keen hawk-eyes are armed with formidable goggles. He also sits on the floor, and is judiciously provided with a long rod that descends on any youth who does not apply him- self or is caught gazing wistfully through the open window, which extends across the entire side of the apartment. There are no schools for the girls of our village. They are taught needle- work and cookery at home, or they assist their parents to gather in the vintage and the quince and apple harvest, or FARM LIFE AND I[RRIGATING IN PERSIA. they play with their brothers in the lanes, red-cheeked, bright-eyed and lovely as the maidens of Andaluz. But the day comes when the little village damsel must stay within the anderoon and never be seen abroad unless closely muffled in a mantle; then she marries and her few days of playful, innocent childhood and youth are ended. Other characters there are in our vil- lage of whom we might speak, such as the holy tramp, or mendicant dervish, who never bathes ; like the lily, he toils not, neither does he spin, but unlike the lily he is neither pure nor handsome. He draws a living from the votive offerings of ignorant piety. Or we might speak of a distinct class of nomadic peasantry whose women never conceal the face like other Mahometans of their sex, a class of peasants half pastoral, half agricultural, who desert their villages on the table- lands in summer and pasture their flocks on the mountains, returning to their homes in October, and cultivating cere- als in the rainy season. But it suffices to add that our subject is far from ex- hausted, and he who cares to visit the fas- cinating plains of Persia will yet find much that is novel in the village life of that ancient country and people. =. onli CAygennd Cranes ”*

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SOFT CRABS, CANVASBACKS, AND TERRAPIN. By ALLAN FORMAN. HERE are three delicacies beloved by the American gourmet of which his European brother is in profound ignorance. Soft crabs, canvasback ducks, and diamond-back terra- pin are but names to the trans-Atlantic mind. The Englishman may boast of his sole and his mutton; he may taunt us with the melancholy fact that, de- spite the international -) importance of the Ameri- can hog, we have no ba- con; he may even have the bad taste to prefer his ‘“‘natives’’ to our blue points and saddle rocks. The Frenchman may “ Y point proudly to his wines Soll his forty soups, and all Europe join in a chorus in praise of continental chéfs ;—but the loyal American still remains secure upon the pinnacle of epicurean eminence, calm in the possession of the three dainties, the mere mention of which causes the palates of good livers all along the Atlantic seaboard to tingle. Yet, to be honest, how few among American lovers of good things really know the flavor of these delicacies in their best condition! The wily restaurateur serves the crabs when they are thin and papery ; a scantily cooked mallard, accompanied by the little diamond-shaped bit of fried hominy, masquerades as canvasback ; and as for terrapin, unless you actually see the shell and ‘personally conduct”’ the culinary operations, the chances are largely in favor of your getting nothing more toothsome than the plebeian snapper. It is an age of humbug and sham, and the man who seeks delicacies in even the best restaurants must be thoroughly well informed, or he must be prepared with a credulity as strong as his appetite. As a matter of fact it is almost impossible to get the soft crab in its best con- dition in the markets. It is, notwithstanding its great vitality, a delicate crea- ture, and bears transportation badly. It is passing through the most critical period of the crab’s existence, and while it has a most tenacious hold upon life, its weight, flavor, and tenderness is rapidly lost by handling. There are hundreds of well-informed people who believe that the soft crab is a distinct variety of the species ; that it is born soft, and remains in that condition until it comes to its ultimate destination—the frying-pan. That the soft period is a peculiar stage in the crab’s process of growth, that the creature should be hard one day and soft the next, and scampering around in hard-shelled viciousness the third, is so strange as to be hardly believable by those who have not witnessed this most curious transformation. A crab’s shell never grows. From time to time the crab ‘‘sheds,’’ casting off the outgrown shell and expanding to such an extent that one can hardly realize that it could have once occupied the old shell which lies beside it. For a day or two before the crab sheds, it has a most voracious appetite ; it eats all the time, storing fat upon which to live during the hours of its helplessness, for while soft a crab

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146 is unable to eat anything. Not only are the large claws, which are used to seize and rend its prey, limp and useless, but the smaller set of claws in the mouth are soft as well, and the crab is practically unable to do anything except breathe and, after a little time, swim slowly with the aid of its flippers. There is nothing more grotesque than a crab eating a clam or possibly another crab. It holds the shell in one large claw like a saucer, close under its mouth, while the small mouth claws are busily engaged in pulling the flesh from the shell. The other large claw is held in readiness to ward off any attack, and the eyes are constantly turned in every direc- tion on the lookout for a possible enemy. After a two-days course of feeding, the crab seeks a quiet spot under a bunch of seaweed or close to the edge of the bank and prepares to shed. Instinct tells it that the shedding must be accomplished in shallow water, for the crab knows that farther from shore roam the great- mouthed toad-fish and the hungry eel, both of which show a marked good taste in their preference for soft crab as a steady diet. Soon after it has settled in a suitable place, the shell begins to split in the seam at the back, and small tri- angular cracks appear at the base of each large claw; the crab slowly swells, gently swaying itselfto and fro the while; and waving its legs with a motion which is surprisingly graceful for a crab, little by little it backs out of the shell, pulling out its claws and legs until finally it rests behind the old shell, completely free from it, but a third larger in every way. So complete is its shedding of the old shell that even the horny eyecases and the hard brown coverings of the lungs remain in the old shell, leaving it a perfect skeleton of the crab. Then is the moment to catch the soft crab. Lift it gently in the net and place it carefully in a bit of damp fresh seaweed. It is in its perfect condition. The skin is as smooth as satin and as soft as a baby’s cheek; there is not-even a suspicion of toughness in its whole anatomy. Take it home gently, remove the lungs, or dead man’s fin- gers, as they are called, cut out the mouth with a sharp knife, and drop it into a hot frying-pan with a bit of good butter, and you will taste soft crab as it SOFT CRABS, CANVASBACKS, AND TERRAPIN. should be eaten. The skin, even on the smaller legs, is as tender as the skin of an apple, the flesh is firm and white, and the fat is hard and a pale greenish yellow in color. Caught in this con- dition, carefully packed in damp sea- weed, and sent immediately to market, the soft crab will not perceptibly deterio- rate in the course of five or six hours, and will remain alive for forty-eight hours if carefully handled, but it is actually unfit to eat after having been out of the water for that length of time. While the shell does not harden to any great extent, the crab loses in weight, the flesh becomes soft and watery, and the fat assumes a dirty greenish-yellow tinge. The deli- cate plumpness is lost, the flavor is gone, and people who have only eaten soft-shell crabs in this condition wonder what there is about them to excite the enthusi- asm of the epicure ; and this is, unfortu- nately, the condition of the soft-shell crabs most frequently served in the res- taurants and sold in the markets. The restaurateur and the marketman are naturally anxious to dispose of the stock which is least likely to keep, and not one customer in a hundred knows enough about crabs to tell the difference with any degree of certainty. Left in the water, the change is still more rapid. In about three hours the skin becomes rough and papery, and in four or five hours it is what is known among crab-catchers as a ‘‘ leather back.”’ All the fat of the crab has gone to harden- ing the shell, and it is about as tender and edible as a pine chip. A very curious feature of the shedding process is that at this time the crab re- news the claws, or legs, which it may have lost in its hard-shelled warfare. About a week before shedding-time, a little knob appears on the stump of the lost claw. This grows rapidly until it assumes the shape, but not the size, of the lost member. This claw is closely doubled up against the body, and is cov- ered with a thick, translucent skin. When the shell is shed, this skin goes with it, and the new claw takes its proper posi- tion—straight and strong, but not quite so large as its companion. There is only one way to catch soft crabs, and that is with a long-handled scoop-net. Hard crabs are speared,

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SOFT CRABS, CANVASBACKS, AND TERRAPIN. ‘7 : Wj, ML he Le caught with a drop line baited with a bit of meat, or — trapped in “pots” like lobsters. But to catch the soft “S crab you must stand in your flat-bottomed skiff and push it along gently a few feet from the shore, turning up every bit of seaweed that could possibly afford a hiding-place for his crabship. A bucket of salt water must be provided in the boat for shedders, and a box of damp seaweed in which to place the soft crabs. It sounds simple enough ; no skill is required to slip the scoop-net under the help- less crab and transfer it to your box of weed, but I have seen novices pole along a mile or more of shore without securing a single crab, while an expert, coming immedi- ately after, caught a couple of dozen. It is not in the catching but in seeing the soft crabs that the novice fails. They hide themselves so cunningly and lie so still that one unaccustomed to their haunts and habits would pass them by without noticing their whereabouts. Curiously enough, it is only within a comparatively few years that soft crabs have become a popular dainty. Less than thirty years ago the Long Island farmers were in the habit of feeding them to their chickens and pigs, which grew hearty on such delicate fare. The habitat of the soft crab is in the bays and creeks along the Atlantic coast, and extends from Maine to Florida. Unlike the canvasback duck avd the terrapin, Chesapeake bay crabs are no better than those from other localities, though, owing to the conformation of the marshes, and the great number of small creeks, crabs are very plentiful there, and on account of its abundant supply of soft crabs, canvasbacks, and terrapin, Baltimore has been called the gastronomic capital of America. While soft crabs attain an equal degree of excellence all along the 5 coast, it is only in the waters of the Chesapeake bay that the terrapin and the canvasback duck acquire their perfection of flavor. This is owing to the abundance of water-cel- ery, or vallisueria, which grows on the muddy flats and in the shallow bays of the great Chesapeake, and from which the duck takes its scien- tific name, fuligula vallisueria. ‘‘He am not as pooty a bird as de canvasback, but his flabor am de- liciouser,’’ said an old darkey who was engaged in prodding terrapin on

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148 the Chesapeake flats; and there is no doubt that, of the two, the terrapin is the most popular. “To have a canvasback really taste good, you must shoot him yourself,’’ was the doctrine of a sports- man and epicure, and there is consider- able truth in the remark. Many people do not relish the canvasback duck prop- erly cooked, so that the blood follows the knife when it is cut. A very few, except gourmets of the first rank, can distinguish between the red-head and canvasback after both fowls have fed for a time on the water-celery. Yet up- wards of a million dollars are invested in duck-shooting on the shores of Chesa- peake bay, and it has been estimated that the sportsmen pay, on an average, a hundred dollars for every duck they } kill. Points of marsh-land are sold at high prices, and clubs are formed, clubhouses built, fitted up, and main- tained, solely for the ducking season. As may be inferred, duck-shooting | is carried to a greater perfection on the Chesapeake than anywhere sad else along our coast; and while not one in ten of the ducks killed are canvasbacks, it is canvas- backs the sportsman is supposed to be after. The methods most prac- tised in duck-shoot- ing are the “sink box” and the ‘blind.’’ The sink box is a huge oc- tagonalcontrivance, a boat which is bal- lasted to float most- ly under water, with a square in the mid- die which will hold two or more gunners. The blind is a little bush hut among the reeds of a point or bar. In either case a number of wooden decoy ducks are anchored at a suitable dis- tance, and the sportsmen are accompa- nied by a Chesapeake bay dog, a peculiar breed of water spaniel which is especially trained to swim after disabled or dead ducks. The ducks come from the far north of British America, where they nest and raise their young, and begin to jour- ney southward about the first of Sep- SOFT CRABS, CANVASBACKS, AND TERRAPIN. tember. Hundreds of them are shot along the Long Island and Jersey coast, where their flavor is no better than that of other ducks. They fly best when the weather is cold, and if a sleet and ugly wind is blowing, so much the bet- ter. A true duck-shooter is never so happy as when his face is cut with frozen rain and the angry wavelets are dashing over the edge of his coffin-like sink box. _ ad Then he | knows that there is a reasonable certainty of game, But the cold wind and the sleet are forgotten when the birds begin to fly; and after a day on the marshes or ina sink box, the nerves tingling with excitement and the fingers and ears ach- ing with cold, the sportsman, sitting in the luxurious dining-room of the club- house and enjoying his hard-earned dinner, prepared by the most skilful of chéfs, is quite ready to believe that no dish known to gastronomic science pos- sesses quite so delicious a flavor as can- vasback duck; though in his restaur-

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SOFT CRABS, CANVASBACKS, AND TERRAPIN. ant he may be willing to admit that a part of its charm lies in the fact that he shot the bird him- self. Now, nobody would think of catching his own terrapin, any more than he would think of dredging for his own oysters. The terrapin is not prey for the sportsman. It lies buried in the mud until an experienced colored brother comes along and prods it out with a forked stick. It is one of the least attractive-look- ing creatures used for food. A small snakelike head, vicious yellow eyes, an ungainly body —like all of the turtle tribe—and a most abominable temper combine to Scone make the terrapin a ae we anything but an =" § ’ % od DUCK-SHOOTING. ornament to society. Its appearance is decidedly against it. From its lowly home in the mud to the very curves of its unwieldy legs, it is hopelessly plebeian ; and we remember, in the old slavery days, that the negroes used to rebel because they were fed too often on terrapin and not frequently enough upon salt pork. But proper manipulation at the hands of a skilful cook speedily shows how easily the plebeian is transformed into the aristocrat in this age. Maryland epi- cures claim that terrapin unadorned is adorned the most, and they have an un- pleasant practice of placing a terrapin alive and squirming in a hot oven and roasting it until its under shell is easily detached; then, removing the gall, and adding a little butter, salt, and pepper

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SOFT CRABS, CANVASBACKS, AND TERRAPIN. and a dash of madeira, they enjoy the toothsome reptile in its most per- fect condition. It is not a pretty way of serving the creature, but it cer- tainly gives the diner the satisfaction of knowing that heis eating terrapin and not ‘torups,’’ or common river turtles, which are too often palmed off upon the unsophisticated by the wily restaurateur. é The genuine diamond-back terrapin % must be at least seven inches in length on the under shell, should weigh about four pounds, and range in price from thirty to seventy-five dollars per dozen. They rarely exceed ten inches in length or eight pounds in weight, though the common river turtles frequently attain a much larger size and can be purchased at from eight to twelve dollars per dozen. Having feasted royally upon the water-celery all summer, about the first of September the terrapin prepares for his winter’s nap and forthwith buries himself in the mud, from which cosy bed he is ruth- lessly snatched by the alert colored prod- der. After being caught, a terrapin will live comfortably in a dark cellar through the winter months until the last of April, without food or drink. Some people store terrapins in this fashion and force the reptiles to eat oatmeal or bran mush. Attempts to establish terrapin-farms have likewise been attended with ill-suc- cess, though, as the water-celery grows readily, there seems to be no reason why genuine ‘‘diamond-backs”’ could not be produced in other parts of the country. Terrapin, unlike soft crabs and canvas- back duck, bears transportation well, and as a consequence, the European epicure has a remote chance of tasting the seduc- Hs tive dainty. It is also prepared with more or less honesty in Maryland, and sent across the ocean in small barrels, but Marylanders who have eaten it on the other side of the Atlantic claim that it does not approach in flavor the article served in private houses of Baltimore. Canvasbacks are also sent to Europe, and have been much injured in reputa- tion thereby. Soft-shelled crabs, as men- tioned before, should not be cooked later than two hours after they have been caught. If the trans-Atlantic gourmet wishes to taste our three American bon bouchées he must come to the United States, and preferably go to Baltimore, where all can be prepared by an experienced colored cook. Then, to do justice to the subject, he must remain here an entire year, for soft crabs are a summer dainty canvasback comes in the fall, and terrapin should be eaten during Lent; and if he be a worthy follower of Epicurus, he will count his year well spent.

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REPORTERS. bs By GEORGE J. MANSOoy. EW of the millions of people who daily read the newspapers of a great city like New York, whose every pulsa- tion in the twenty-four hours of the day develops something of a startling char- acter, devote a second’s thought to the authors of what they are reading—the beings, commonly called reporters, whose work is to inform-one half of the world what the other half is doing. Reporters, or newspaper writers as they prefer to be called, represent a curious branch of the civilized and educated human animal. Of social life and social influences, they have but little. When the average person is working, the news- paper writer is sleeping; and when the one takes his recreation the other is scur- rying about the city in quest of that elusive phantom termed news. Years of constant association with the notable men and women of the day, together with the eruptive excitements of a great news- paper office, unfit a news-writer for the tedium of ordinary society. Consequently the public is substantially in ignorance of the individual character of the re- porter, who is pictured erroneously by popular opinion as a vulgar conglomera- tion of a reckless tough, scheming detec- tive, conscienceless home-wrecker and educated blackleg. The reporter natu- rally becomes cynical ; ninety per cent. of his working hours are spent investi- gating and fathoming the fruits of the ~ worst passions of humanity, developing the habit of looking for evil motive. It is curious how the reporter is re- garded and welcomed. On the east side, in the filth-incrusted tenement, the poor see in him a savior from the grinding landlord, the heartless employer, or the slights of city officials. They know that one exposure in a newspaper will cure the evil. Along Fifth avenueand the adjacent streets it is entirely different. There the reporter is regarded as an impertinent intruder, this feeling on the part of the involuntary host or hostess’ being disguised usually as much as possible. Among politicians, and public men generally, the reporter is a little king. In him is recognized a moulder of public opinion and a possible road to desired ends. The newspaper man also knows this and is an awkward tool for public men to handle. Actors, actresses, and advertisement-seeking business men are, as a matter of course, extremely cordial to the reporter. Between ten and twelve hours are de- voted every day to work; frequently he has to work sixteen or eighteen hours ; and if the matter in hand is of urgent im- portance he may be without sleep for two and three days. Ordinarily he reports for duty at one o’clock in the afternoon, working until midnight or possibly un- til two or three o'clock in the morn- ing. Such is the average reporter’s life.

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152 Viewed at a distance it is dull and tedi- ous ; scrutinized closely it is found full of most interesting experiences, with the curious phases of city life, some odd and interesting, others disgusting, many pathetic and sad, and a few humorous. Associated as he is with every class of humanity—the rich, the famous, the talented, the fashionable, the political, the money-making men, as well as with murderers, thieves, common blackguards, gamblers, insane, and paupers—he ac- quires a versatile knowledge of human nature. Altogether, the life of an active news- paper writer is as strange as anything in this practical, prosaic age can be. But odd as the vocation is, the men who have adopted it as a profession are equally extraordinary. The majority of them have histories of a more interesting char- acter than could be found in a week about town. Men of intellect and inge- nuity, who have begun their careers with a determination to achieve success, and who fail after years of labor, turn to the newspaper business. In this sense, reportorial work has been described with considerable truth as a harbor for wrecked ambitions ; and it is not surprising, therefore, to find on the staff of a paper, as was the case with one to which the present writer was at- tached, an anarchist who had been driven out of Europe and who had been shad- owed by the police of this city for several months after his arrival here ; a famous dynamiter the supposed No. One in the Cavendish-Burke tragedy of eight years ago ; an Irishman whose patriotism cost him several years in English prisons ; a scapegrace Russian baron who has since drifted into the theatrical business ; and a first cousin of the present Duke of New- castle, who enjoyed the distinction of writing the poorest copy of any man in the office. There were also on this staff at one time a disappointed pugilist who had had the misfortune to battle with John L,. Sullivan, and a cowboy who had earned the reputation of being the most expert lasso-thrower in Wyoming. They were good fellows in the Bohemian sense of the word, perfectly willing to do any favor for a brother reporter but in- variably incapacitated from so doing by reason of financial inability. REPORTERS. This special lack of business thrift is a predominant trait in the personnel of the newspaper man. Although he earns twice as much as the average clerk or bookkeeper, his leading characteristic, as he will frankly tell you, is to be continu- ally upon the verge of financial disso- lution. Gifted with at least ordinary shrewdness, which is made acute by hourly contact with every form of world- liness, it is but consistent to expect that he should take sufficient precaution for his own well-being. Money, however, passes through his hands like water and seldom does he have a dollar to his name twenty-four hours after receiving his pay. The average New York reporter on the morning papers earns between thirty and thirty-five dollars a week. An ex- perienced man, with the ability to handle any subject with a fajr degree of intelli- gence, and one who has a thorough knowledge of city affairs as well as na- tional topics, can earn between fifty and sixty dollars a week, and frequently much more. oot AT A FIRE. But few of the morning papers pay their men salaries. The space system, at so much a column, prevails, and is more satisfactory to the employer and em-

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REPORTERS. ployee. While thesalary system guaran- tees the worker a certain amount each week, few reporters will work on that basis if an opportunity is given them to work on space. It is invariably the case that in a newspaper office where the salary system has been adopted the re- porters are’ forced to work up six and seven assignments a day and work twelve to fourteen hours out of every twenty- four. The natural result of this is that the news-hunter becomes careless both in his investigations of an assignment and in writing after the sought for informa- tion has been obtained. Inaword, he is not eager to get a beat, which is the vernacular for exclusive news. The salary system in a newspaper office usually is adopted for economic reasons ; and while it saves a few hundred dollars every week in the expenses of the local staff, it limits the news-gather- ing to the prescribed regions covered by what are called the departments, such as the different courts, the municipal offices, police headquarters, sporting, shipping news, etc. Theaverage weekly salary paid does not amount to more than twenty-five dollars, which, in itself, is sufficient to discourage a thorough and capable newspaper man. Within the past two years several of the papers have compromised economy and enterprise by paying salaries to one-half of the staff and by space to the other. The salaried men are usually the younger, fresh from college or from some foreign business or profession, and whose acquaintance with the intricacies of the newspaper calling is slight. They are given the unimport- ant work to do until they have developed a keen news scent, together with the ability to do versatile writing. The space- writers are experienced men who have a personal acquaintance with almost every prominent man in thecity and who have, stored in their brains, facts and in- cidents of every big news event which has occurred within the past ten years. Experience of this character opens up a dozen avenues to news which are barred against the uninitiated. Such a man is never in want of a position on a daily paper, and if he will work six days in the week there is no obstacle in the way of his earning forty-five or fifty dollars. The more liberal papers in the city pay 153 at the rate of eight dollars a column of from 1600 to 2000 words. These same papers pay their men fifty cents an hour CASTLE GARDEN IMMIGRANT, if the time devoted to a piece of work amounts to more than the space taken up by the story on its publication. Three morning papers pay at this rate, and the others pay sums varying between five dollars and seven dollars per column and between thirty and forty cents an hour for time. Notwithstanding the difference in rates there is comparatively little dif- ference in the earnings, because work for such papers is so much sought by com- petent reporters that the supply of work- ers exceeds the demand. This reduces the number of daily assignments to a minimum, and while the reporter on the eight-dollar paper is waiting his turn for an assignment, his colaborer on the five- dollar paper has more to do than he can accomplish. The subterfuges resorted to by space- writers to manufacture news are unique. In numberless instances the published statement has no warrant except the im- aginativeness of the writer. This feature of daily journalism merits nothing but disapprobation, though it seldom does any great harm. It is only

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154 the skilful news-writer who attempts to indulge in this variety of manuscript ; his work is so circumspect, so artfully accomplished in every particular, that detection is almost an impossibility. He is careful not to make libellous or offen- sive statements, and he shields any dis- crepancies in the continuity of the story by his nicely selected phraseology. The great Rahway, N. J., murder mys- tery of three years ago supplied a-‘rich and abundant field for the employment of the romancing pen of the reporter. All ofthe large New York dailies had men upon the scene of the murder for weeks, who, in ad- dition to earning considerable money by the many remarkable developments of the case, enjoyed what was practically a luxurious vacation in the country, living, as reporters invariably do when at work upon an out-of-town story, in the best possible manner in the circumstances. Daily carriage rides in quest of clews and pleasant little dinners in the sur- rounding villages relieved the dreadful- ness of the work itself. All worked together in what reporters call a combi- nation, so that any information obtained When the in- by one was given to all. terest of the tragedy had become exhaust- ed by constant siftings, the necessity arose for an immediate return to New York. At this stage of affairs the ro- mancer’s pen began to work. To revive public interest and emphasize the import- ance of keeping men upon the scene, an imaginary clew was evolved. It took sev- eral days of driving and dining to dis- pose of this supposed clew, but its un- qualified success from the reportorial point of view forthwith gave birth to clews innumerable, until finally the ‘‘fake’’ ceased to be a ‘‘snap.”’ Another fruitful field for the purveyor of bogus news, and perhaps the one best adapted for his purposes, lies in Castle Garden, the open Sesame to liberty for two or three thousand emigrants each day of the year. Strange stories of doings, say- ings, happenings and oddities of these un- suspecting beings are of almost daily ap- pearance in the large morning papers. A great many of these stories are true and have existence in fact, but there is also a large percentage of them which are attributable solely to the inventive facul- ties of the energetic space-writer. Young REPORTERS. women with rosy cheeks, laughing blue eyes, wavy yellow hair, and a form that rivals the proportions of a sculptured Venus are the stock in trade of these ex- ponents of the reportorial art. To avoid the possibility of any unfor- tunate discoveries on the part of the city editor the reporter usually despatches the tearful maiden on an afternoon train for some obscure destination in the north- west, where she is to be cared for by an imaginary distant relative. In this way all traces of the origin of the supposed story are demolished and the reporter is safe. As in other ventures of this kind, the reporters work together ; and as virtually the same facts appear in all the papers, noone questions the truthful- ness of the occurrences as described. In regard to these combinations of re- porters it may not be inappropriate to say a few words. Their power in fram- ing the opinions and ideas of the world at large upon the uppermost questions of the day is indisputable. With this power at his disposal it is a rare occurrence for a reporter willingly to abuse it. In all the combinations of New York reporters there is only one notable instance of injury done to the public as a result of their concerted action. This was accomplished by the reporters who composed what is called the labor combi- nation. It was the mission of these men to watch and obtain all the details of the THE LEADING L&2DY IN HER DRESSING-ROOM.

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REPORTERS. 155 frequent labor strikes of two and three of anormal business condition, the con- years ago. When the troubles began to stituents of the labor combination saw subside and give place to the tranquillity their occupation gone. To avoid this calamity artfully constructed paragraphs portraying supposed abuses and imposi- tions suffered by the employees of certain cigar-factories or breweries were inserted in each of the morning papers. Gener- ally it did not take more than two or three insertions to stir up the socialistic blood of some hot-headed Russian or Hun who was thirsting for an opportunity to create dissensions and revolt among his more conservative fellow-workmen. But while news-manufacturing does ex- ist in every newspaper office, it is upon such a minimized scale that it is almost obliterated by the quantity of honest, conscientious endeavor represented in the columns of the daily papers. Reporters, in the main, are true to the trust imposed upon them as the moulders of public opinion; and against one unfounded statement that is published will be a hundred that are reliable and trustwor- RACING. thy accounts of actualities. THE OLD ACTOR. By EDGAR FAWCETT. HE plays the parts we watched him play of old With supple and vibrant voice, with healthful frame ; But ail his glory of skill has now grown cold And tame. The people are kind ; their strenuous welcome cheers, Yet rings as if ’twere echoing, loud or low, The hardier plaudits that were given him years Ago. His art of yore, both real and regnant then, Courts now mere vacant mummery; and at whiles Mirth wages fight with melancholy . . . as where He smiles. Or yet so tired he seems, by claims that task Those powers of portraiture once firm and high. Pathos but half screens humor, like a mask Worn wry. Ah, piteous trend of time, that thus may bring Genius from grand achievement to grotesque— Turn Falstaff tragic, and round Hamlet fling Burlesque !

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LA FANDANGO. By LORAINE DORSEY. ? : b (Written in imitation of the halting Mexican music.) ~ we The door of the house swings lazily in, Halts—opens still further—half closes ; And, seen thro’ the casement, the flickering lights Like fire-flies dance in the roses. The twang of a mandolin stirs on the air ; Soft laughter across it is ringing, With a rhythm of feet, a tambourine’s thump, And now and then snatches of singing. Pepita’s arched foot has been first in the dance, Her castanets clicking and snapping. But now—see! she’s pale !—and why is her heart ’Gainst her bodice so stormily rapping? Ah! there, in the gap of the half-open door, Stands José—José, the ranchero : No figure so gallant on festival days, So graceful in ring and bolero.

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No shoulders so broad, no back half so straight, No eyes just as burning and tender ; No voice so persuasive when singing of love, No ankle so shapely and slender. Her step falters—breaks. Her castanets’ click Is faint as the ‘‘death-watch.’’* She’s stopping ! Whose mandolin thrills, whose rich note strikes in, And what are the honey-words dropping ? Zo me she’s the stars, the soft moon, and the sun. She's my darling, my love—Angelita ! Fler frown is my death; her smile, all my life. Do you know her? They call her Pepita. And then the gay chorus breaks lustily forth: Come, dance the fandango, Bonita ; For Love ts too short, and Age comes too soon ; And Pleasure has wings, Queridita ! Then how they all dance! But out in the night Two lovers are telling the story In heaven begun—eternal, supreme, Sole remnant of paradise-glory. A soft wind wakes up; a bird dreams a song. And the door halts—and halts ; then it closes. The dancers are gone—the lights are burnt out ; But a wedding-ring gleams in the roses. * A small wood-insect that makes a ticking sound, believed by the superstitious to portend death. It is common to all southern countries.

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“AVG-OL dO OVUdC GNVH-NI-unod Vv *ydvsZ0j0y49 D u0Ay

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EXPOSED TO THE PELTING BLAST. THE COACHING ERA.* By HoBART CHATFIELD TAYLOR. COACH horn is heard sounding «Clear the way.’’ Every one in the crowded thoroughfare unconsciously turns to see the coach pass. A smart drag, well-horsed and well-appointed, dashes by, bearing a merry party to the races or the park. A vision of sleek horses, gay dresses, neat liveries, shining brass, and brightly colored panels meets the eye, and the drag passes on and is lost in the crowds of vehicles which throng the road. This is the sight which during the coaching season is daily witnessed by the multitudes frequenting Piccadilly, London; the Champs Elysées, Paris ; Fifth Avenue, New York; or Michigan Boulevard, Chicago. In New York or Chicago the uninitiated will murmur, ‘‘There goes a Tally-ho,’’ ignorant of the fact that the noble vehicle which has just passed down the road is not properly called by that name. It would take a great expenditure of printer’s ink to con- vince the average American that a coach or drag is not a tally-ho. But such is the case. It is interesting to trace how this word became a part of the American *Ilustrations from Coaching Days and Coaching Ways, by W. Outram Tristram, MacMillan & Co. A vernacular. A number of years ago, I forget just how many, Delancey Kane put the first coach on the road in this country. It was horsed and tooled in the most approved style, and, being a road coach, it naturally bore a name, as did all coaches in the grand old times. Mr. Kane, remembering that three of the smartest coaches in England had for- merly been called Tally-ho, i. e., Birming- ham Tally-ho, Independent Tally-ho, and Chaplin’s Tally-ho, painted upon the hind boot of his coach ‘ Tally-ho, New York and Pelham Bridge.’’ The American pub- lic being unaccustomed to coaching, and seeing Mr. Kane’s coach daily pass through the streets of New York, on the first stage of its run naturally imagined that the name on the rear boot was the name of the vehicle, and consequently the word Tally-ho became incorporated in the American language as the peculiar term by which to designate the four- horse coach. It is not the purpose of this article, however, to treat of the coaching revival of the present day, but to go back to the old times just before the commencement of Queen Victoria’s reign, when there were

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160 few drags, and the gentlemen coachmen were but amateurs who merely drove by sufferance of the professional whips then tooling the mails and coaches out of London town. In those days coaching was not the pastime of the wealthy few, but the only means of transit afforded those whose purses would not admit of posting. Coaching was then a business involving an immense capital invested in stables, inns, coaches, horses, and equip- ments. It was also a business in which His Majesty’s government was interested, as the mail coach was the means em- ployed by the postoffice for the trans- mission of mails, and the guard who accompanied it was an employee of the government, responsible for the mail bags and the time made by the coach. The mails, however, were not the only coaches which went down the road; for just as at the present day we have mail, express, and accommodation trains, so in the old days there were mail and stage coaches, the former carrying only a few passengers and the latter being for the especial accommodation of passengers and parcels. Every important city in the United Kingdom had one or more lines of coaches connecting it with other places, but London, of course, was the great coaching centre, hundreds of coaches leaving there daily for different parts of the country. The London mails all left the general postoffice for their various destinations at 8 o’clock in the evening. They were twenty-seven in number, licensed to carry four inside and three outside passengers, and were timed to make an average of a little over nine niles an hour. They were all painted alike and bore on the front boot the initials of the reigning sovereign, on the hind boot a number, and on the doors the names of the places between which they travelled. They were owned, as were also the stage coaches, by the coach- builders, who leased them to the proprie- tors at two-pence or three-pence a mile. The proprietors horsed the coach, and it was they who ran all the risk and made what profit there was in the business. The mails were run under government contract, while the stage coaches were mere business ventures for the accom- modation of the travelling public. Owing to the difficulty of superintending the THE COACHING ERA. stock, few proprietors cared to horse more than about thirty continuous miles of road on any one run, so a coach running say a hundred and fifty miles would be leased to several proprietors, each of whom horsed part of the line. The pro- prietors at each end of the route made all the collections for fares and settled all the general expenses. Every four weeks the remaining receipts were shared alike, each man providing for the care of his own horses and paying his own stable- men. Coach proprietors were usually inn- keepers, and it was this fact that induced them to horse coaches, as the passenger traffic increased the profits of the inns even when the coaching business was un- profitable. The London proprietors were usually well to do, but the poor middle ground men were often barely able to pay expenses. The prince of the London proprietors was William Chaplin. He had risen from the box seat to the ex- alted position of M. P. for Salisbury ; he horsed fourteen out of the twenty-seven mails leaving London ; he was a proprie- tor in sixty-eight coaching lines operat- ing 200 coaches, and in 1835 his ‘‘cattle’’ numbered about 1200. His principal establishment was The Swan with Two Necks, in Lad Lane, but for convenience he kept the Spread Eagle, in Grace Church Street, from which many well- known coaches started. Next in the list of proprietors was Edward Sherman, whose coaches all had yellow panels and under-carriages. His establishment was The Bull and Mouth, and he originated the famous long-distance day coaches, such as the Wonder, to Shrewsbury, 158 miles; Telegraph, to Exeter, and the Manchester Telegraph, which covered a distance of 186 miles in one day. It is impossible in a short article to enumerate half the London proprietors, together with their respective inns and the coaches they horsed. I cannot leave this sub- ject, however, without mentioning Horne, whose coaches, The Bedford Times and The Liverpool Umpire, were so well known, to say nothing of Robert Nelson, Cooper, Robert Gray, Joseph Hearn, and Robert Tagg. As it would be ungallant not to give place aux dames, two other proprietors must receive special mention. They were Mrs. Sarah Ann Mountain, of

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THE COACHING ERA. the Saracen’s Head, Snow Hill, who was not only a proprietor but a builder, and who horsed the famous Birmingham Tally-ho; and Ann Nelson, of the Bull Inn, Aldgate, whose well-known Defiance night coach was driven by her son George. It was a busy period from 1784, when the first mail was put on to Bristol, to 1844, when the last mail ceased running out of London. This was the Augustan age of coaching, and, though the iron horse has driven the coach horse to the wall, no one can think of those days without regretting that the tootle of the guard’s horn is heard no more and the merry man in red is gone forever. The days are over when famous coachmen mounted the bench and worked the mails in wind or rain, hail or sunshine, but GIVING THEM THE START. their spirits still hover about the old Brighton, Dover and Holyhead roads, even though they have long since passed away and the clatter of hoofs and the rattle of bars are heard nomore. They were brave fellows, those down-the-road coachmen, and perfect masters of their art, too. They were called upon to meet all manner of difficulties, and though often put to their wits end over the mid- dle ground, where many a ‘‘ wicious screw was put in nigh wheeler,’ they never grumbled. Some clever workmen still wagon smart coaches out of London ; but they mostly go down the road in the sum- mer time, and know none of the terrors and triumphs of washouts and snow- banks. Some coaches, it is true, now

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THE COACHING ERA. A PERFORMANCE ON THE HORN. But they do not carry the mails, and the luggage is not piled sky- high on the roof. In the old days there were many coach- run in winter. men whose fame was national. Such as the four Stacy brothers—Bill, Dick, Jack, and Harry; William Mills, of the Mon- arch ; Jack White; William Clements, of Chaplin’s Tally-ho; Charles and Henry Ward ; Little Harry Simpson ; Jem Hen- nessy ; Bob Magic; Toby Philpotts, and scores of others. There were the guards, too, or shooters, as they were sometimes called, with their smart red coats and keyed bugles. They had many friends among the regular outside passengers and depended for their living on tips, as they were only paid ten shillings a week by the postoffice. Their lot was none too easy, as they were responsible for the mails and time and had to assist the coachmen and horsekeepers at each change in order that the coach might not be delayed. Keeping time was no easy work, as the coaches were timed to the utmost practicable speed, and all delays had to be accounted for at the gen- eral postoffice. Many of our friends in red were well known on the road, and among them may be mentioned: Jack Tew, of the Gloucester; Tom Preedy, of the Exeter ; Jack Thetford, of the Edinboro ; and Killingsley, of the Exeter Subscription, who went through from London to Plymouth, a distance of 220 miles, without rest. These mail guards were artists on the horn, and whether it be from the yard of tin, the keyed bugle, or the regulation length of copper, there is no music so sweet as that of the coach-horn sounding sharp and clear on the night air, to warn the horse- . keeper that the mail is coming. No one who has not sat behind a * smart team well up to their work, and experienced the glorious sensation of bowling over a well-kept road to the time of ten miles an hour, can appre- ciate the pleasures of down-the-road life in the grand old times. One must be a horseman to fully enjoy the glories of the road and the many sen- sations which fall to the lot of the coaching man. We of the present day know little about the pleasures of the past ; but if we can leave for a while the dust and noise of the railroad and spare time sufficient to travel at so slow a pace as ‘‘ten miles an hour, includ- ing stops,’’ we can perhaps enjoy in fancy a coaching trip in the olden way. We know the best proprietors, we know the coachmen, and we know the guards. As ours is a pleasure trip, it is useless to travel by a long distance-coach. A short run is what we want, so the famous Wonder or Defiance or any of the sprack day coaches, timed over 160 or more miles of road at eleven miles an hour, will not suit our purpose. We do not wish to travel by a mail, as that involves night work and we cannot see the country through which we pass. Ihaveit. Let us go down to Sittingbourne on Chaplin’s Tally-ho. It is only forty miles on the Dover road, and William Clements is as handy a coachman as ever held a holly stick. It seems fitting that Americans should travel by the Tally-ho, as it starts from the Spread Eagle Inn and it seems to be the only coach they have ever heard of. There is a famous Tally-ho to Birming-

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THE COACHING ERA. ham, but that isarun of eleven hours, so there seems nothing left but to go down by Chaplin’s well-known coach. As the Spread Eagle, Grace Church Street, is some distance away, we had better go to the general booking-office at the White Horse Cellar, Piccadilly, and book our places. We will probably find a placard on the wall reading somewhat as follows : A HALT ON THE TALLY-HO. New and fast coach to Sittingbourne and return. Every morning (Sundays included) at eight. From the Spread Eagle, Grace Church Street, etc. The clerk informs us that the box seat is not yet booked, so, securing our places, we return home and leave an order for an early morning call, so that we may 163 not be late for the coach. When we arrive at the Spread Eagle, after a drive across London in a hackney coach, we find that the inn is already astir ; porters are bringing down luggage for the Tally- ho and, as several early coaches lave been leaving, the bar and coffee room have already done a thriving business. Shortly after our arrival Clements brings THE ROAD. our coach up from the stables in a work- manlike manner.. A sprack team they are too—a gray, a piebald, and two bays, all well cared for and full of spirit, for Chaplin’s out-of-London teams are sure to be smart. While the guard stows the parcels away in his boot we mount to the seat beside Clements, who nods to us

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164 good-humoredly. Wearescarcely settled before the guard shouts: ‘All up, Bill.” “Tet ’em go, Jerry.”’ ‘‘Come on, my beauties,’’ calls Clements. The horse- keeper springs from the leaders’ heads, the wheelers jump into their collars and the lead bars rattle in the pole hook as the Tally-ho rolls away from the Spread Eagle on its way down the Dover road. As Clements straightens out his team and settles them down to his work we have time to think of the drive before us. The Dover road might be called the Highway of English History. From the days of the Romans to the Conquest, from PUTTING TO THE CHANGE. the Conquest to Chaucer’s time, from Chaucer to Victoria’s jubilee, this road has been travelled by kings, princes, queens, cardinals, bishops, lords, rebels, robbers, and all the various charac- ters whose actions make history. The great writers of fiction have also lent addi- tional interest to the seventy miles be- tween the Surrey side of the London Bridge and Dover. Chaucer's pilgrims traversed this highway on their way to Canterbury. Blount and Raleigh here appear at Sayes Court in Scott’s Kenil- worth, and the pages of Pickwick, David Copperfield, and The Tale of Two Cities teem with incidents connected with the THE COACHING ERA. Dover road, not to mention that Dickens himself spent the last years of his life at Rochester. Enough of such reflections—Clenrents has tooled his beauties through the wak- ing city to New Cross, wherethere is aturn- pike gate. A call from our friend-in-red’s horn arouses the gatekeeper. We dash through the open gate and on past Deptford to Blackheath, seven miles from London Bridge. Here is the first change out. The fresh team is ready and the horsekeepers quickly take out the tired ones and put to the change. We have just time, however, to run = POs) in to the neat little inn bar and snatch a bite of a bun and a glass of rum and milk, exchanging a word meanwhile with the trim little maid who tends the bar. Mounting the box again we leave Blackheath, with its cosy inn and thatched stables, and bowl towards the far-famed Shooters’ Hill. It is one of the steepest in this part of England, and from its name a coach guard is frequently termed the shooter, as he is always com- pelled to descend here and shoot the skid under the hind wheel. Lovers of Dickens will remember the

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THE COACHING ERA. ascent of Shooters’ Hill described in the second chapter of the Tale of Two Cities, which reflects so thoroughly the atmos- phere of the road in King George's time. Were it in the eighteenth century and night we would see the guard take his old blunderbus out of its case and carefully examine the firelock, and per- haps a dark figure mounted on a sleek thoroughbred would appear suddenly in the road and call to the coachman to stop. «‘ Your money or your lives’’ would be — a ge —Li-. 165 other that no driving rain or snow mars our enjoyment, and that there are no old women with dripping umbrellas to drench the backs of ournecks. Itis a day coach, too, and we can sce the country, but to my mind there is no pleasure like driv- ing at night. The darkness broken only by the flickering coach lamps lends the charm of uncertainty, and the clatter of the hoofs and rattle of the lead bars are sweet music to the ear of the coaching man. Every nerve, too, is strained, and the element of possible danger makes night travel far surpass day roading. Clements is a wizard, and the jovial lad fetches his team on to Dartford at a rat- oe =. e3 SPRINGING ‘EM. shouted to the frightened passengers from behind a levelled pistol. Up would go our hands and Claude Duval or his pal would proceed to relieve us of our super- fluous valuables. But this danger is past, and being down the hill the skid is taken off and away we go overthe hard macadam to the tune of ten miles an hour. Clem- ents shakes out his lash, fans the lead- ers, and springs the team into a gallop. The outsides are chatting together now, as the silence which always exists between strangers is broken. Coaching yarns are exchanged. We congratulate each Here we pull up before the Bull Inn and jump down for a moment while the horsekeeper puts to the change. The inn is one of the finest in the country and its galleried courtyard and low arch- way with a kitchen on one side and a bar on the other are truly typical of the olden tling pace. time. A hurried glass of beer to wash the dust out of our throats and we mount to our places and are rattling over the Dartford stones on the eight-mile stage to Gravesend. We are on middle ground now, and they have given Clements a rum lot to

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166 work. A puller on the near side wheel and a would-be kicker on the off lead keep his hands pretty full, but no horse can conquer William Clements, so the teani are soon brought up to their work, not, however, without considerable use of the whip, which consists in towelling the wheelers with the double thong and fanning the leaders with the lash sent dexterously under the lead bars. Clem- ents has hands for any sort, and it isa pleasure to see him sit his bench. His form is perfect, and the way he handles his holly stick isa marvel. Few coach- men ever learn to catch a thong proper- ly, but with a quick upward motion of the wrist Clements sends it spinning about the stick quite to the queen’s taste. On through Gravesend we roll to Ro- chester, where we pull up before the Bull and Victoria, so familiar to the readers of Pickwick. Another glass of rum and milk at the bar and we are off, being un- able to linger near the home of Dickens and enjoy the good beds of this famous COURTYARD OF THE INN. THE COACHING ERA. inn so noted for tarts ‘‘ wherein the rasp- berry jam coyly withdraws itself, as such a precious creature should, behind the latticework of pastry.’’ Why is, our time so short and our pace so fast? We have scarcely noticed Gad’s Hill of Fal- staff fame, and we are already rattling past the docks of Chatham, and through the rolling country which lies between that place and Sittingbourne. We have left the Medway and its ships behind us, and, as Clements points his leaders around the last turn, the merry yard of tin announces that our run down the road is ended. When we pull up in front of the Red Lion after our forty miles’ ride we feel al- most tempted to take the next coach on to Canterbury and Dover, but the Tally- ho’s run has been covered; the steam- ing horses look weary, and as the savory smell which comes from the coffee-room entices us thither we decide to join the traveller's board and bid farewell to Will- iam Clements and Chaplin’s famous coach. Those glorious days are over. The coaching revival still keeps alive the customs of the road, but the spirit is not the same. Those of us who enjoy the pleasures of coaching can in some measure appreciate the tales of the road ; we can enjoy the yarns which aretold of broken traces, balking leaders, blind ’uns in the wheel, closed turnpike gates, and the procession of the mails on the king’s birthday. But the Wonder with its yellow wheels no longer runs to Shrewsbury, and the Holyhead mail is off the road. The old race of coachmen is gone, and those of the present day are after all but imitations; yet coach- ing will always be upheld by all lovers of honest sport. “And though the coachmen of old are dead, Though the guards are turned to clay, There are those who remember the Yard of Tin And the mail of the olden day.”

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A STUDY OF HALF-BREED RACES IN THE WEST INDIES. By LAFCADIO HEARN. HE history of the half-breed races of the West Indies,—especially of the French West Indies,—although one of the most poignant and interesting in the great general history of American colon- ization, has never been separately writ- ten—and is to be divined, rather than studied, from the works of colonial writ- ers. It is, in brief, the story of a strange struggle to be- come white. The _ greatest error of slavery was that which resulted in the creation of the mixed races— the illegiti- mate union be- tween the white master and the Afri- can woman, whose off- spring remain- ed slaves by law. One might imagine that under any normal condi- tion the off- spring of union between a sav- age and acivil- ized race—even supposing both to be at w ar—would prove an ele- ment of reconciliation. But nothing more strongly reveals the abnormal character of slavery as a social institu- tion in the West Indies, under the Code Noir, than the fact that everywhere the half-breed race sprang up as an all- powerful element, of discord, and finally appeared in the réle of an enemy of whites and blacks alike—forcing the parent races apart forever. Hated or dreaded in re- turn on both sides, it devised means to utilize the morally feebler kindred so as to outwit and finally dominate the mor- HALF BREED, COOLIE—CAPRE. ally stronger. By its superior intelli- gence and cunning, it was able to illumi- nate the simple minds of the blacks as to the injustice of their condition, and sep- arate them morally from their owners by destroying that credulous idea of duty and that artificial sentiment of filial affection which the old patriarchal system had cultivated with some success. Later on, by its own power of mu- tinous obstin- acy and occa- sional surpris- ing displays of ag gressive- ness, it could compel the master class to compromise with it. The proud white life in its veins —fierce with resentment, sullen, dis- trustful, and daring—be- trayed a_per- sistence of purpose that nothing could break down. Then followed a long, slow, wicked game of political chess play. Treachery and resolve, duplicity and courage, were forces often brought into play by the weaker side. Perhaps the charges of cruelty, perfidy, and ingratitude made against the men of color may have been well based ; but the race was only what the morals of its fathers and the pressure of circumstances had made it; and its ag- gressive vice represented only the con- sequence of crime avenging the crime in Nature’s way—the way that is never clearly foreseen by the criminal. Never were the men of color frankly despised

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168 A STUDY OF HALF-BREED RACES IN THE WEST INDIES. by the whites—they were feared ; the very epithet, «‘infame mulatre”’ is a cry of hate. Long before the great insurrec- tion of Santo Domingo, far-seeing writers had predicted the ruin of the colony by the vengeance of its half-breeds. Old West Indian histories and_ narratives of travel teem with prophecies against them, and warnings of their future ad- vent to power as a calamity. Forit was early perceived by clear minds that the men of color would become the lead- ers or advisers of the blacks so soon as it could serve their ends,—certainly not because the African loved the man of color, whom he already jibed or satirized in a host of cruel proverbs,* but because he understood his mental superiority and secret hate of the white, and so could trust him for vengeance. But the black never seemed inclined to trust him fur- ther: he might combine with him for a common aim ; that aim secured, the bond was quickly broken. After the Haytian uprising, the negro hastened to rid him- self of his dangerous ally by exterminat- ing the race. The African mind was keen enough to perceive that through the colored element two evils might return upon him—either a second caste- demination, or restoration of foreign power by treachery. The hommes-de- couleur had never hesitated to sacrifice the African for their own interest ; to be- come socially white appeared to them an end justifying any means, and the negroes knew it! Perhaps the condition of Hayti might have become far superior to what it now is, but for the frightful massacres made by Dessalines; yet the instinct that inspired those massacres was not at fault as the instinct of a race which had no reason to love civilization—knowing only that sort of civilization which had once sentenced to death every human being above six years of age in the island !—and desired only to resume its original habits and African mode of life. What saved Martinique from a parallel *Ex.: “ Mulattoes are dogs: once they have a woollen suit of clothes, they deny their mothers were negresses (Martinique). ... ‘ Milatt ka batt, ca- britt ka md,”—when the mulattoes fight, the goats t killed,—seems only ludicrous until we know that in a Martinique mouth the word cabritt also means a young woman. In Trinidad they say: “Give a mulatto an old horse, he will tell you his mother was not a negress. Similar proverbs exist in the patois of Guadeloupe, Louisiana, Hayti, Cayenne, and Mau- ritius period of horror, massacre, and race ex- termination was the capture of the island by the English on the 27th March, 1794. They held and governed it well for eight years, restoring slavery, but also restor- ing order and inculcating humanity, and leaving after them a few words adopted into the patois, and a gentle, grateful legendary memory in the popular mind of mild, firm justice, much gold, and su- perb scarlet uniforms. Guadeloupe was similarly disciplined in spite of a more successful resistance, and no doubt sim- ilarly saved. There was an attempt to save Santo Domingo, but the English forces were inadequate. It was in these French islands that, as a freedman, prior to his acquisition of full political rights, the man of color ap- peared at his worst under that grinding social pressure which always made his way more difficult the higher he could climb. Some of his strange attitudes may have been due to the necessity of duping the growing suspicion of the still omnip- otent aristocracy. We read of his display- ing extraordinary zeal in the cause of op- pression, much mercilessness as a slave- owner, unquestioned valor as a soldier fighting against liberty and the revolu- tion, reckless energy as a volunteer in the quelling of revolt or the capture of runaway negroes: he even figures in some brutal episode of endeavor to si- lence the advocacy of emancipation by measures of blood! Yet all the while, in spite of outward appearances, the slave and the half-breed freedman secretly un- derstand each other. At last, under Lou- is Philippe, full political rights are ac- corded to all freedmen. Almost at once the attitude of the class begins to change. The man of color extends hands to the slave, begins to flatter him—even pre- sumes to scowl upon the master. Soon he becomes unmistakably aggressive ; but he has consolidated his power to an extent that makes him dangerous to med- dle with. Finally he gives open support to the advocates of emancipation, and schemes with all his power, both abroad and at home, to hasten the day of liberty and universal suffrage—the hour of his triumph and revenge. And he succeeds! He declares himself champion and savior of his black kindred, and turns to that kindred with the command: ‘You shall

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A STUDY OF HALF-BREED RACES IN THE WEST INDIES. act and vote as I bid you: sharpen your cutlasses.’’ Then facing the white cre- ole, he declares: ‘‘You shall now give me every privilege of absolute social equality, or I will crush you. I offer you my aid.’’ The offer is worth consider- ing, for the white is at last checkmated : without that proffered aid he knows him- self powerless to control the black. The 169 theory that to the people of color the abolition of the right of property in hu- man flesh was primarily due, not because they worked for such abolition volun- tarily as individuals striving fora visible aim, but because they worked for it un- knowingly and_ sacrificially, through In the first place, great living race-instinct only. they formed as a body the aristocrats of Guade- loupe wise- ly compro- mise; those of Martin- ique refuse. As a con- sequence, after des- perate but vain strug- gles, they find them- selves po- litically paralyzed and social- ly crushed. No white vote has any value in any elec- tion: no white can rise to of- fice; and the once all-power- ful class of planters begin- ning to learn that, are testimony to slavery’s worst sin; and that testimony, it seems to me, more than any other, brought about, in the courts of human conscience, and then in the courts of govern- ments, the conviction and con- demnation of the sin itself. Their very exist- ence tend- ed above all else to kin- dle the world’s shame of slavery as a vice; while the force, beau- through the working of a cunningly devised scheme of taxation, their enemies can slowly and surely exhaust their financial resources, can ultimately even oust them from all their birthrights. EA. The influence of the colored race in bringing about emancipation has been vehemently denied, and might, perhaps, be plausibly contested by a certain pre- sentation of facts. Yet I venture the OCTOROON OF MARTINIQUE.—MODERN DRESS. ty, and in- telligence of the race conquered the syin- pathy of humanity. There are many evidences in the pages of anti-slavery literature to show that the writer was thinking of the man of color while plead- ing for the negro, whose nature he never clearly understood. In the next place, the history of the race in its own habitat affords singular confirmation of the theory advanced. Everywhere the grace and charm of its women won the love of the masters and, through love, wealth and freedom from

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170 actual servitude. Everywhere, by its women, it not only multiplied with sur- prising rapidity, even while the death- rateamong the blacks constantly exceeded the birth-rate, and secured liberty with- out race equality, but ultimately recog- nition as a separate caste which had to be counted with in all political affairs. Then, through its men, by alternate menace and diplomacy, it wrested every remaining right, even the right to become white politically, though not socially ac- cording to creole notions. This local denial of race-equality, forcing the men of color into political antagonism, in- volved the combination of blacks and freedmen in the triumphant battle against slavery. Finally, the old argument of the advo- cates of slavery—that the negro, even in his own country, was born into slavery; that in those countries which furnished blacks to the colonies bondage had been a natural condition of great masses of population from time immemorial—de- serves fresh consideration in this regard. For it has also been often averred that the negroes would have always remained WHITE CREOLE OF FRENCH DESCENT, manageable but for the influence of the men of color. Was it not, then, wholly through these that the African slaves LA, A STUDY OF HALF-BREED RACES IN THE WEST INDIES. learned the injustice of their bondage and found the moral power to rebel? Certainly, from whatever direction stud- ied, the story of West-Indian slavery yields evidence that the twofold part— unconscious as well as deliberate—taken by the colored race in aid of the great movement of emancipation has never yet been fully recognized. III. The declaration of liberty in Martin- ique was received scarcely in time to avert a general massacre of whites. Al- ready the chief city was in the hands of the mountain negroes, who had burned some thirty whites alive, almost under the eyes of the French soldiery (com- pelled to remain inactive by the orders of an infamous governor, himself a mere puppet in the hands of the men of color). Blood was already flowing elsewhere, and fires bickering high from the ruins of de- vastated plantations. Calm was restored; but universal suffrage followed the do- nation of freedom, and the situation of the small white population became more and more difficult with each passing sea- son. Hundreds of creoles abandoned the country forever ; for those who remained there was no hope but in cheerful accept- ance of the new conditions; all who could not bend to them were broken by them or forced to emigrate. The second empire brought some alleviation; but with the fall of Napoleon III. the war of caste hate reopened, and the whites a second time found themselves crushed ; crushed so hopelessly as to voluntarily abandon all part in politics. Asa rule, the white creole of the city, the creole of the new generation, has no thought above commercialism and no object in life be- yond the will to live. He lives according to the fashion of his fathers, inheriting their faults but not their fiery energy and pride; he usually complains of the domi- nation of the colored race, but neverthe- less has colored children. Public opin- ion permits a certain form of concubin- age. Itis not regarded as a social offence to enter into such a relation with the col- ored race, provided one does not take that relation too seriously. Perhaps many frailties are overlooked which would be overlooked nowhere outside of

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A STUDY OF HALF-BREED RACES IN THE WEST INDIES. the colonies. There is only one line no white creole can cross without leaving his race behind him—the marriage line. QUADROON OF FORT DE FRANCE, MARTINIQUE. Foreigners, however, marry without scru- ple into the ranks of the sangs-mélés, and, so far as I could learn, seldom find any reason to regret it. Meanwhile, to those who refuse to adapt themselves to the new conditions, the race of color repays scorn for scorn, accusation by diatribe, and vituperation by an argument of equal value but greater efficacy—brute force ! Woe to the white who strikes a mulatto! His life, in the streets of Saint-Pierre at least, is in- stantly at the mercy of a mob. For pride of caste, the men of color devised an ex- quisite humiliation. They boldly called into question that boasted race-integrity which had been at once the source of haughtiness and the irrefragible obstacle to conciliation. In the Paris journals they found place for declaration that there were no real whites in Martinique, except foreigners,—that all families re- puted white had been, at some time or other, crossed with African blood. Many further vexations had to be borne ; for several years each public holiday was made the occasion of hostile demonstra- tions against the whites of the city ; and 171 their refusal to decorate or illuminate their houses in honor of the republic was taken ample advantage of. It is not so now, but there were formerly holidays during which certain whites were regu- lariy persecuted. On the Féte de la Re- publique, while a colored mayor ad- dressed an enthusiastic people, and the national flag ran up above the mairie to the crash of the Marseillaise by a mili- tary band, and the doors of the great building were opened to admit. all citi- zens to look at the portrait of Schcelcher within—Scheelcher the French abolition- ist, Papa Schcelcher who has become a sort of fetich-god with the black Martini- quais,—on that day the white creoles were almost held prisoners in their houses. The ceremony continues, but the whites are no longer annoyed in honor of the destruction of the Bastile. In Guadeloupe, when the whites cheer- fully accepted the republic (they had no such memories of 1848 to make them hate it, as the Martiniquais certainly have), the men of color and the whites can stand together in the cause of law and order. Curiously enough, it is not so in Martin- ique. Not many years ago Saint-Pierre was menaced with a repetition of the ter- ror of 1848; and there was some effort toward a rapprochement of castes in view of the impending peril. The city was already almost at the mercy of a mob; and at any instant the mountain negroes might make a descent Butin the most trying moment the whites found them- selves practically deserted. The mob had clamored that the point at issue was a race question ; and the men of color with- drew as a body, leaving the white vol- unteers and a few gend’armes to face the uprising alone. Yet in spite of the memories of the past and the resentments of the present, the colored race would honestly welcome any definite movement toward conciliation on the part of the creole white; for the struggle to become white is not yet over. Still it is difficult to surmise how such a movement could now be attempted ; for the original caste question has become complicated with the political question, with the educational question, with the church question, with a dozen other prob- lems, to a degree that would require many pages merely to outline. Never-

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OO 172 A STUDY OF HALF-BREED RACES IN THE WEST INDIES. theless, the white creoles will eventually be forced either into some sort of rap- proachement or out of the colony. No change of government, no change of masters for the island, no possible change in colonial policy, can now ever effect the re-establishment of any social distinc- tions solely based on blood origin: the day of such distinctions has passed for all the West-Indian colonies. Further- more there are at least five men of color to one white ; and in less than a generation, supposing present conditions to remain otherwise unchanged, the higher class of colored men will be better educated, better cultivated, better fitted in every way to take their chances in life than their white competitors. There is no hope for the white caste. Already its conservatism seems really to have no more significance than that of race instinct struggling against absorption. So long as it can continue to form a compact social body, it will oppose reconciliation as endanger- ing race integrity ; yet it is not likely to be able to maintain such organization very long. And here weare brought face to face with one particularly powerful in- fluence against social fusion, the influence of woman. The white creole woman, forced into cruel rivalry with the woman of color, after a manner repulsive to her every sen- timent and instinct, must naturally ex- ert her influence to the utmost against any measure which could tend, however indirectly, to conditions further endan- gering race purity. In woman the in- stinct of race conservatism is infinitely subtle and more far-seeing than any pride or prejudice of man. The colored woman gladly seeks union with the white, for the sake of the result to her progeny, and the white woman recoils from the least approach toward social re- lationship of any sort with the mixed race as tending to future possibilities of race degradation. The more the white element is threatened with absorption or disintegration by its environment, the stronger her manifestations of aversion and the positivism of her opposition. Yet she must feel her race doomed to pass away. She cannot hope for its reinstate- ment as an aristocracy, nor can she im- agine it now capable of holding its own in the colonies ; but she holds justly, ac- cording to her instincts, that its absorp- tion is something infinitely more to be dreaded than its annihilation. THE ULTIMATE. By RICHARD E. BURTON. WHEN, of old, a chief died in the North, Then they wrapt him close in fighting-dress, Laid his faithful weapons him beside, And, with stern and silent tenderness, In a boat wide-bosomed on the tide Placed his death-cold body, pushed him forth Thence to drift at will of wind and fate Till at last he found the Ultimate. Amply weaponed so, with courage grim, Prone along my death-boat like to him I would day-long rock and roam and wait For a subtle turn o’ tide and sea, For a gust o’ wind to break and blow Love and land and life away from me; Favoring, until I glide and go Past each bourn and billow boundary To the waters lying round my fate, To the windless, unoared Ultimate.

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SHINO-BAZU [POND] UYENO.—TOKIO, A FLYING TRIP AROUND THE WORLD. ELIZABETH BISLAND. THE THIRD STAGE. AND it came to pass that on the morn- 4 i ing of the eighth day of December we rose up and perceived that we had come into Fan-land. . .to the Islands of Porcelain . .to Shikishima—the country of chrysanthemums. The place across whose sky the storks always fly by day and the ravens by night—where cherry-branches, with pink and white blossoms, grow out of nothing at all to decorate the foreground, and where ladies wear their eyes looped up in the corners, and gowns in which it is so impossible that any two-legged female should walk, that they pass their lives smiling and motionless upon screens and jars. . Sailing so long due West we had at last reached the East. The real East, not east of anywhere, but the East,. . . the birthplace of man, and of his religions . of poetry and porcelains, of tradition . and of architecture. And I who had come to it from the land of common-sense, of steam-ploughs and newspaper enter- prise, bowed my head reverently in the portal of this great temple of the world, and fell upon my knees—awed by its mysterious age and vastness. . My heart within me was stirred—and I was led to great recklessness in the use of capital letters. There lies here, by the gates of the East, a land, as we discovered, stranger and more wonderful even than we had dream- ed. Captain Kempson had steered us in sixteen days from the coast of America to where a mountain of pink pearl rose out of the sea; and when the gray clouds about its base resolved themselves into land, we found they were the green hills of fairyland!. . . It is revealed to those who live long enough and go up and down the earth, and to and fro upon the face of it, that man has never conceived an ideal that is not somewhere a reality. There are women living as beautiful as any of the marble Venuses, there are even men as pure and high-minded as Galahad— there are Edens in existence—perchance, somewhere, there is something nearly re- sembling Paradise ; and certainly the en- chanting fairy dreams of our childhood— ravished from us by the cruel misrepre- sentation of our elders—have an actual existence, yet more fantastic and deli- cious than our baby minds could ever have imagined, in these islands lying hard by the coast of China... . Let no

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174 one scoffingly set this down as a figure of speech. All who have ever set foot on these shores bear the same testimony to the elfin witchery of Nippon—the land of the rising sun. There may be something suggestive, in this name, of that eternal tie between youth and the dawn, because certainly here the people are still chil- dren, and possess all a child’s sweetness, simplicity, and imaginativeness. . . .I spent, alas! less than two days in these fairy islands; but all ballad literature declares with great positiveness (see Thomas the Rhymer, the ballad of May- Janet, Mary of Caldon-Low, and other PILGRIM., A FLYING TRIP AROUND THE WORLD. notorious examples) that having spent even the briefest moment in the Land o1 the Fays engenders an unquenchable yearning that must, some day, some hour, bring one back again—and with this I comfort my heart. .. . We double a headland, pass a slim white pharos,and we make our way up the long bay to Yokohama. The town has been in existence only since 1859, when Japan opened a few ports to foreign trade, but already it is a place of size and importance ; for what the Japanese did, they did thoroughly. They jettied the harbor, built ample wharves and go- downs, and bid their own people confine themselves to the inner town across the canal and not encroach upon the Euro- peans. The queerest craft come to meet us in the bay—light-winged junks with gray and russet sails, so carelessly and cra- zily built that were the sea to but give them a playful slap she would crush them in an instant to kindling-wood. Their feebleness insures her gentleness, it would seem, for they spread their great butterfly wings and skim along without fear, going far afield for the fishing. Many large ships lie at anchor in the harbor—Ameri- can men-of-war, English, French, and German merchant vessels, and a few neat Japanese coasters. I am told the Japan- ese were childishly impatient of the foreign tutelage necessary to acquire knowledge of steam navigation, and in haste to try the experiment of running a boat themselves. Starting off with a na- tive crew for the first time all went well until it was necessary to stop, and this they suddenly discovered they had for- gotten how to do. Great was the panic, and she was driving fast on shore, when one bethought him to put the rudder hard down, and then they steamed round and round in a circle tor hours until steam was exhausted and the boat stopped of her own volition. . After which they went to school again for a bit and learned steam nav- igation in all its branches. A cloud of sampans descend upon us as we anchor—craft as crazy as the junks—made of three unpainted boards lightly fastened together, with a sharp prow and wide, high stern, across which the standing

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176 boatman lays a long oar, and waggles it carelessly in the water, attaining there- by an astonishing speed. Like a certain famous epitaph, it is “‘simple but suffi- cient.’ . . . These boatmen are the vanguard of elves from Elfland—small, lithe creatures with good-looking yellow countenances, bearing no resemblance to the flat-faced Chinese, and with thick, shining black locks, through which is twisted a blue fillet. ‘Their dress is of dark blue cotton ; sometimes the gown-shape called a kimo- no, and worn by both sexes; but for the most part a costume much like the one worn in England in the time of Henry 11. —cloth hose to the waist, a short jerkin, and a loose sleeveless coat that reaches to the hips. These blue coats have on the back a great white circle surrounding decorative Japanese characters which set forth the owner's occupation, so that he who runs may read. The intention is business-like, but utilitarianism in Japan is inseparable from the picturesque, and these port- able adver- tisements only add a A FLYING TRIP AROUND THE WORLD. new charm to their delightful queerness. There are boys of ten or twelve in some of the boats with the men—quaint little brats with varying patterns shaved on the tops of their heads ; and they enter into the contest to secure part of the carry- ing trade with the stern and enthusiastic vigor known only to the small boy of all countries. I attach myself for the time being to a party of agreeable Americans. One of them, a pretty brown-eyed girl named Madge, finds everything as dear and astonishing a delight as doI; but the lady—the other lady—and the lay-broth- er, have been here before, and, knowing the greater joys still in store for us, are impatient and superior. The gentleman from Germany—always pleased in the pleasure of others—is indulgently sym- pathetic. We—Madge and I—secretly desire to be ferried over to the pier by one of these elfish ferrymen, but the others are so lofty we meekly submit to let a common-place steam-launch set us on shore, and make the journey with the missionaries, who have much exaltation and baggage... . .I move in a joyous dream. Can this beI?.. .I, to whom Japan had seemed as fair and vague as heaven—a place to which the excessively virtuous and fortunate went? . And, lo! I, in all the fulness of

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A FLYING TRIP AROUND THE WORLD. TEMPLE, GATE SHIBA.—TOKIO. earthly imperfection, am permitted to eee itt... s More medizval folk in blue stand about on the stone pier and welcome us with friendly smiles, and we charter their jinrikishas to take us to the hotel. Now the jinrikisha is exactly the vehicle in which one would expect to ride in this land of fairy children—large perambula- tors that hold one person comfortably ; but instead of being trundled from be- hind by a white-capped nursemaid, one of the Henry 1. gentlemen, who wears also straw sandals and an enor- mous blue mushroom hat on his head, en- scones himself between the little shafts in front and prances noiselessly away with it. He has legs as light and muscu- lar as a thoroughbred horse, and can spin along with the ’rikisha at the rate of five miles an hour. He can, with few intervals for rest, keep this up all day ; he will charge you seventy-five cents for the whole ; he will not be winded at all, and will be in a gay and charming temper when the day is deve... . Our way lies along the Bund, a broad, handsome street on the waterfront, with a fringe of slim pine-trees with the strange outlines one is familiar with upon fans. Other jinrikishas are scamper- ing about ; tonsured doll-babies in flow- ered gowns, such as one buys at home in the Oriental shops, are walking about here alive, and flying queer- shaped kites, with a sort of calm unconscious elfishness befitting dwellers in fairyland. Two little Japanese ladies with pink cheeks, and black hair clasped with jade pins, toddle by on wooden pattens that clack pleasantly on the pavement. Their kimonos are’ of gay crape, and their

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178 sashes tied behind like bright-tinted wings. tle gen d’arme who stands outside of his sentry-box like a toy soldier—gives us back smile for smile. The Grand Hotel is at the upper end Every one—even the funny lit-- A FLYING TRIP AROUND THE WORLD. fall into the hands of Lieutenant Mc- Donald. He is a paymaster in the American Navy, and has been here two years. He knows the place well, and offers to be our guide to-night through the native town. In the flowery hotel- VIEW OF FUJIYAMA. of the Bund, and here another specimen of the Moyen-age in his stocking feet shows us into beautiful rooms facing the water--rooms with steam-heat and electric bells!. . . The darkness closes. down swiftly, but charming things are still to be seen from our veranda. The air is crisp and keen; gay cries and clinking pattens tinkle in melodious confusion from the street below. The ’rikishas have swinging from their shafts now crimped pink and white paper lanterns, and flit by in the dark like fireflies. A broad yellow moon rises up from the other side of the water and turns the bay to wrinkled gold, against which the ships and junks show delicately black. as if drawn with a pen ; and a few clear black lines of cloud are etched across the moon’s path. . After dinner we are lucky enough to court we find our ’rikishas standing in a row in the moonlight, each with one of the pretty larterns swinging ; and we too flit away behind otr sandalled steeds. Only the whir of our wheels and our calls and laughter sound through the city’s quiet, moon-washed ways. Here in the European town the houses of two stories of stone stand flush with the narrow asphalt-paved street. A tiny foot-path runs under the shadow of their tiled caves, but as these are paved with little cob- ble-stones, and the roadway is smooth and clean asa table, no one by any chance ever walks in the foot-paths. Occasion- ally we meet a figure enveloped in dark, shapeless drapery, or a grave, bland Chinese merchant goes by on his sound- less cork soles, but this is the business quarter, and people have gone to their homes on the Bund, or upon the Bluff,

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A FLYING TRIP AROUND THE WORLD. where all the consuls and foreigners of importance reside. We skim around corners with a shrill ki-yi ! of warning—debouch into a great square upon which churches and pub- lic buildings face—cross a broad canal where acres of sampans are huddled for the night ; and find on the other side Shi- chiu, the native town. Hancho-dori lies before us, the wide main thoroughfare from which spring hundreds of narrow branches, all swarming with a frolicsome, chattering crowd tinkling about in pat- tens, their multitudinous tapping mak- ing a vibrant musical undertone to the sound of the many voices. .. . The houses, delicate little matchboxes of thin, unpainted wood, fifteen or twen- ty feet high, and divided into two stories, crowd close together, and give upon the street. The fronts of these houses, in- deed the greater part of the walls ali around, are sashes of many tiny panes glazed with white, semi-transparent pa- per, through which the inner light shines as from a lantern; and the shop fronts are mere curtains of bamboo, rolled up during business hours, and let down when the shop is closed for the night. . . Business is not nearly over yet... . The Japanese are as little inclined to early bed as the Chinese, it seems, and the tide of trade runs strong. . . . From all the eaves swing soft bubbles of tinted light—lanterns of many shapes and sizes. The shops are lit and busy, and contain every need Japanese flesh is heir to, from crabs to curios. Here and there cluster flocks of light, portable booths, each also with a swaying lantern, where steaming tea is sold in thimble-cups ; where saki may be drunk hot and hot, poured from long-necked porcelain bottles, or trays of queer, toothsome-looking sweetmeats are to be had for coins of infinitesimal value. Along the street lie heaps of fresh vege- tables, making pretty bouquets of color, all clean and ready for the pot—or fruits of many sorts massed with skill and beauty;. . . little red oranges in bamboo nets, set about with their own green leaves; plums, pomaloes, and fruits whose names we do not know. Everything, everywhere is radiantly clean, dainty, and inviting. All the folk, too, are gay and voluble. The children play about un- chidden, and one might imagine it, if 179 not corrected, some festival of lanterns, the place is so joyous, bright-tinted, and fantastic under the smiling, benignant moon... . We are on our way to the theatre—one of the humbler sort, where acrobats do their feats for a few cents, where stage and auditorium are on a level, and both merely platforms. A little gallery to one side is reserved for the moon-eyed babies, with whimsically shaved heads, but they come down occasionally and rollick about as they wish, quite unreproved. They are never harsh with children in this fairy country, and in return the children display a courteous tolerance of the foi- bles of their elders that is extremely soothing. A group of tumblers on the stage are going through some supple con- tortions to the sound of a shrill little pipe and a blattering wooden drum, playing out of time with one another. The whole front of the theatre, a curtain of matting, is rolled up at intervals and, when the feat in progress is at its most thrilling climax, is let fall. This artful proceeding stimulates the interest of the passersby to such poignancy that they succumb in platoons to the pangs of curiosity, and so crowd the little platform that we de- part hastily.. . More moon and lanterns, more laugh- ter and flutter, more clacking of sandals, and then a Japanese Eden Musée, with pleasing little horrors in wax at the en- trance as earnest of more of the same cheerful entertainment within. Here is better music, that, during a naive panto- mime of Japanese ghosts, plays what ne- groes call a ‘‘ lonesome tune,’’ in a soft minor key. This does not hold us long, for farther up the street is a large and fashionable playhouse, where we may see the best talent of Nippon. At the boxoffice are piles of flat sticks, six inches long and two wide, painted with num- bers in the native character which in- quiry reveals are shoe checks for the many sandals hanging on rows of pegs by the door ; for here, as in every other house in Japan, one enters in stocking- feet. In consideration of our being be- nighted foreigners, we are allowed to re- tain our shoes... . The interior is large and lofty. The common folk occupy the level floor of the pit, marked into squares, where fam-

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2 Rie CR SR ee aA ENE CE ra ates Age 180 A FLYING TRIP AROUND THE WORLD. ily parties sit on small wadded rugs, and are quite at home, bringing their little charcoal braziers to warm their fingers, furnish lights for their tiny pipes, and keep the teapot steaming. The galleries on two sides are divided into matting- lined boxes, one of which they furnish with chairs, seeing that we display small skill in sitting on our heels. We enter during an entre-act ; and before the stage, which is not deep but lofty, sways lightly in the draught a gay crape curtain. The men in the pit are smoking or curled up on their rugs snatching a nap, while the women drink tea and gossip, and the children romp all over the house. High up on either side of the stage comes from a latticed box the sound of the samsien and other stringed instruments that make a soft, plaintive, and pleasing music. The play has been going on for three weeks and is to end to-night. A gong sounds, the children are recalled, the men wake, and the curtain being pulled aside shows the front of a Japanese house. Two maids appear from a side door and wait respect- fully on their hands and knees for the entrance of their mistress, a man very skilfully painted and gorgeously ar- rayed, but somewhat too masculine to sat- isfactorily represent the babyish round- ness of the real thing. This lady has affairs of great pith and moment to con- vey to the maids, who make timidly respectful suggestions, which evidently carry small comfort, for the lady retires depressedly. Her lord, followed by his attendants, next appears—an extremely well-bred and «ristocratic-looking per- son in the daimio dress with the two swords ; and one judges by his manner that he can add nothing to the cheerful- ness of the situation. While matters are at this stage of melancholy, a great clash of music startles the audience, the curtain is drawn aside from a little room on the opposite side of the house, and a mag- nificent personage appears, who paces with an awe-inspiring strut along the littie raised pathway that leads from this room to the stage. The daimio hastens with his attendants to meet him. It is the great shogun himself, stern of mien, and with fierce, orgulous brows; a very impressive figure, despite that he wears black velvet trousers a yard and a half too long for him, and is accompa- nied by a train-bearer who skips about and disposes this superfluous length in graceful folds whenever his master comes to a standstill... . He is the embodi- ment of the sterner side of the Japa- nese character—the aristocratic spirit that kept alive a haughty feudalism long after Europe had forgotten it; the haughty pride and courage that bid a gentleman expiate his offences only by his own hand; the spirit that has allowed no conqueror to ever set foot on Japanese soil, and still makes these people the bravest and freest race in Asia... . This tremendous personage makes short work of the handsome’ daimio, and stalks away after pronouncing some de- cree to which the noble bows his head in calm acquiescence. . . . Madame and the maids are still more unhappy.. . . The shogun appears to have suggested the advisability of the ‘happy despatch,’’ and the lady fails to appreciate this little at- tention on the part of her sovereign. An aged and garrulous mendicant next en- ters, and one guesses at once that this is the element of comedy which is to relieve the gloom of the situation, and probably the humble deus ex machina who will arrest the tragedy. His acting is ex- tremely clever, and for myself I should like to see how it all turns out; but the smile of the gentleman from Germany is _ growing wan, and the lay-brother, who has no chair, is becoming distinctly cross, and so we go home. The shops are shut by this time, and we see some curious little domestic epi- sodes shadowed on the paper window sashes, when householders thoughtlessly passed between them and the lamp. The European town is flooded with a high tide of moonlight, and we are, it seems, the only ones who wake sweeping in a long, swift line through the streets in our silent fairy carriages with the rosy lantern swinging... . A nipping and an eager air blows among the rose-trees in the court next morning when Madge and I start out for early shopping. Lieutenant McDonald, magnificent in brown cords and laced Russia leather riding-boots, offers us his pony carriage, but we scoff at anything less foreign than a jinrikisha, and set off together for Benton-dori, the fashionable shopping-street of Shichiu. In spite of

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A FLYING TRIP AROUND THE WORLD. the fall in the thermometer, the spirits of the public in general appear in no way chilled. The bare feet in straw sandals look red and uncomfortable, but the own- ers of them merely acquire great plump- ness of appearance by adding three or four more cotton-wadded kimonos to their costume, tuck their chilly fingers. away in their ample sleeves, and laugh at the passing discomfort. Everything looks ridiculously tiny by day, and de- liciously absurd. One has a feeling that 181 fully low that we give them joyfully, and without haggling. We wander from shop to shop, received with an air of af- fectionate friendliness everywhere; we warm our fingers at many different bra- ziers and might drink little thimble- cups of tea at every hospitable place of business were we so minded. The really valuable bric-a-brac is costly here as else- where; but many charming things in common use among the people, pretty proofs of their universal love of beau- GARDEN + it is all a game that one is playing to amuse the children. We sit on the edge of the little platform that forms the floor of the shop, and, in the baby talk that is called pigeon English, bargain with the amiable shopkeeper seated on his own heels and within easy reach of all his Just so one used to play ‘“ keep store’’ in the nursery when one sold one’s toys for astonishing sums to wealthy playmates whose purses were bursting with scraps of torn envelopes—fiat mo- ney of arbitrary value. We have been in- structed not to pay more than half that is asked, but the prices are so delight- goods. OF COUNTRY VILLA. ty, are to be picked up for a mere tri- fle. In the silk-shops we find the very poetry of fabrics: . . . crapes like milky opals, with the pale iris hues of rain- bows ; and crapes with the faint purples and pearl of clear sunset skies, embroi- dered wheeling flights of white storks. Out of a sweet-smelling box comes a mass of shining stuff that the low-voiced fourteenth-century-looking shopkeeper calls by three musical syllables, which, translated, signify the garments of the dawn. Its threads shimmer like the crys- tals of dry snow, and amid its folds the whiteness blushes to rose, deepens to

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A FLYING TRIP AROUND THE WORLD. TRAVELLING-CHAIR (KAGO). gold, or pales to blue, while through it here and there runs a sort of impalpable cloudiness like a morning mist. He shows us mooncloths, duskily azure with silver gleams;. . .crapes, pearl-white and rich with needlework in patterns of delicate bamboo fronds or loose-pe- talled chrysanthemum-blossoms, . . . fairy garments all, woven of rainbows and moonbeams ! . We are in the train going to To- kio. We have lingered too long in the enchanted wardrobes, Madge and I, and are in disgrace with the others for our tardiness, which has nearly lost them the train, . . . but the world is too much to our liking to-day for even this to depress us, and we feel that the gentleman from Germany is secretly on our side. Itisa funny train, as absurdly toylike and doll-housey as is everything else in this country; and our destinies are committed to-day into the hands of a sweet-man- nered gentleman in a gray kimono and an American hat, who is to guide us amid the beauties of his country’s cap- ital. Delicious little pictures run past our car windows, astonishing us with the sudden revelation of what non- sense the Occident has talked about the conventionality of Japanese art, when, in truth, it is the most exquisite fidelity to the nature the artist has seen about him. The world the Japanese artist has painted has been the world just as it ex- ists in his own country, and, moreover, he has in his art caught and expressed with perfect and subtle veracity its at- mosphere of gay grotesquerie,—of deli- cate fantasticality,—its crisp and fragile fairy likeness—the soul of things about him that has so far escaped the brush of every foreign artist endeavoring to portray the outward forms of things Japanese. . The charm of all we see from our car— the Tokaido (the great imperial highway that intersects the whole empire), the queer little farmhouses and railway sta- tions, and even the water-soaked paddy- fields, reaped of their rice—lies in the ex- quisite, faultless cleanliness and propri-

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A FLYING TRIP AROUND THE WORLD. ety of it all. Nothing is out of place; nothing requires allowance and forgive- ness;. . .all is beautifully posed and arranged as if sitting to have itself in- stantaneously photographed; and the other lady, recognizing this attitude of expectancy, the click of her camera is heard in the land. . Arrived at Tokio we go to the residence of the American minister, who is very agreeably housed, and where we find—as in all private dwellings throughout the East—a most astonishing profusion of flowery plants blooming and bourgeoning in every corner of the mansion. We tell the American girl with the camera and small feet good-bye, for she is remaining here as a guest, and see the minister's carriage drive up, accompanied with two out-runners in gorgeous native liveries of orange and blue. These out-runners accompany all folk of importance in Ja- pan, and keep pace with the horses with- out fatigue. A fine picturesque bit of medizval swagger they make. . . We take our tiffin in a little latticed glovebox of a Japanese teahouse, the pol- ished daintiness of whose interior will not permit of our wearing our shoes ; and an odd-looking spectacle they make— these American shoes, standing in a row just inside the entrance while we tiptoe awkwardly and shamefacedly in our stocking-feet up the stairs. A mild-dif- fused light through the paper panes il- luminates our tiny upper chamber, whose only furnishings are sweet-smelling mat- tings, a kakamono hanging on the wall, and atalljar full of red-berried branches in the corner. We are served by a moon- faced little maid in a flowered gown, who bows at each entry and draws in her breath to signify what a privilege it is to breathe the same air with us, . . . a custom of national courtesy so thorough and far- reaching that even the domestic animals are civilly addressed as Mr. Cat and Mr. Dog. . . . She brings us braziers to warm our fingers and wadded rugs to sit upon—tailorwise—and serves us deli- cious tea, sugarless and straw-colored, in tiny cups without handles, small porce- lain bottles of steaming~saki, and bowls of rice across which are laid crisp, freshly broiled eels—a delightful dish that we eat with polished black chopsticks. . The ’rickishas race away with us 183 quite to the other side of town—past great forts and fosses, past the mikado’s palaces and gardens, to the famous tem- ples at Shiba. The road is smooth and broad and overshadowed by pines. A superb gilded and lacquered gateway admits us to the temple grounds, and here the guide goes in search ofa shaven- headed priest who will show us his treas- ures. Immediately before us stands a lovely red temple, rich with gold and carvings and lacquered figures, and a marble-paved veranda polished as onyx, but we cannot wait to examineit. We go to the left and climb the hill by stone steps strewn with crimson petals of the camellia blossoms... . At theend of an avenue of tall gray stone lanterns—where lights shine during the great religious festivals—stands the tomb of Ieymitsu, the son of Ieyasn, the great shogun who usurped supreme authority and reduced the mikado to the position of a primate. But the little finger of Ieymitsu was thicker than his father’s loins. He con- solidated the feudal system, and chivalry under his rule achieved its noblest de- velopment; Japanese arms were feared and respected abroad and at home; and under the sun of his kingly favor Japanese art blossomed into its supreme, consummate flower. To-day the curios of his period are worth their weight in gold, and all the knightly traditions of the land clus- ter about his name and reign. Laying down a life of power, he yearned for an immortality of beauty, and to be splendid and impressive even in death, and choosing this spot he spent millions in glorifying his last resting-place. He had a nice taste in tombs, had this splendid old Japanese. The hill is clothed in pines through which the light winds go softly sighing. The westering sun shines slantingly along the green arcades and makes golden shadows across the path we have come. The mild moving air has stolen red blossoms from the glossy-leaved camellia-trees and shred them upon the hoary gray lanterns and mossy stairs.. . . Never monarch slept among sweeter verdure, space, and calm. . The tomb, as have all these shrines and temples, has walls of a deep rich red, whose clear color three centuries has not dimmed. . . Above is a broad frieze of gorgeous carving—dragons, birds, lotus,

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184 and chrysanthemums tangled in fantas- tic intricacies, and all lacquered and gilded with such honest pains that Time’s teeth cannot gnaw through the color or his breath tarnish the gold. Above the frieze leans the green and gray tiled roof, with its fretted ridges and airy, upturned gables, of a fine lightness and unmatched grace of outline.. . . The interior is oc- tagon-sided and mosaic-paved, and up from the centre, where the great sho- gun lies, curls the cup of a giant stone lotus, whose calyx is the jewelled shrine, A FLYING TRIP AROUND THE WORLD. . . . Et ego in Arcadia—I too have been in Fairyland !’’ I cry to the lay- brother as we stroll away in the mild sunshine and down the flower-strewn stairway. He had warned me of the ex- ceeding great loveliness of the place, and, having seen it, I am fain to declare that I forgive fate in- advance for any future trick, because of this one day of unmarred delight. . We race across the city again in our ’rikishas to the great park of Uyeno, to see the sun go down behind Fuji-yama GARDEN GATE. springing to the roof which rests on a ring of polished columns, and each of these in turn on a base of lotus-leaves. Everywhere, from pavement, shrine and wall, shines the shogun's golden crest of three lotus-leaves meeting at the stems. . Space does not avail to tell of the splendors of this tomb,. . . the plating of goldand silver bronze; the myriad-tint- ed lacquers hard and polished as gems ; the untarnished gilding, the inlaying of precious stones, and, most wonderful of all, the grace and gorgeousness of the myraid delicate fantasies wrought by out art to soothe the king’slast sleep. . to look out across the city’s vast hive with its million or more of folk whose myriad lights begin to twinkle in the violet dusk.. . . We worship a moment before a gigantic, calm-lidded stone Buddha set on a little hill, amid a thicket of roses. Then the railroad again, . . .a broad yellow moon shining on the ever-present Fuji-yama,. . . regretful farewells to the charming Americans and Lieutenant Mc- Donald, and then the visit to fairyland is over. . . .I must pass on in my swift course, and be ready for new sights and friends

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STREET VENDERS OF THE PERIOD. THE ROMANCE OF VERSAILLES. PartT I. By Epwarp KING. N the splendid sketch of Louis x1. which Victor Hugo has given us in his drama called Le Roi s’ Amuse, we find Methat that monarch was passionately fond of fal- conry, his delicate con- stitution not permitting him often to indulge in the wilder sport of hunt- ing the stag and the boar, nor allowing him that rough rid- ing for which so many of his royal pre- decessors had been famous. His special delight was to fly the falcon, and to watch the capricious swoop of the trained birds after their prey through the windy sky. Had Louis xm. not been a good falconer and a devoted one, the world would probably never have had the pal- ace and the majestic park of Versailles. There was nothing particular in the site of the little village of which old Hu- go Versaillis was lord and master about the beginning of the eleventh century to recommend it to a court so fond of roman- tic amusements as that of France. Louis x11. himself loved as residences the vast palaces of the Louvre and the Tuileries, of St. Germain and Fontainebleau, bet- ter than Versailles, even after he had established his luxurious shooting-box there. Saint Simon tells us that it was during one of the stag hunts in which the king so rarely indulged that his attention was first called to the idea of an establish- ment in the wood of Versailles. Worn out with hunting, the sovereign found himself obliged to take refuge at the close of the day in a windmill, where he was most uncomfortable, and soon afterwards he caused to be erected what the courtiers of his time sometimes called his chateau des cartes. It was simply a small royal pavilion into which a great variety of fine furniture and beautiful paintings, mar- bles, and other works of art was conveyed from St. Germain and other palaces, and it did not even take high rank among the neighboring castles. In those days the greater part of the land belonged to various noble families, to the bishopric of Paris, to the ancient and famous H6- tel Dieu, and to certain.Parisian abbeys. The seigneurie, as it was called, of Ver- sailles was composed of an old feudal castle at the angle of what is now known as the Rue de la Chancellerie and the Rue de la Bibliothéque. Nestling beside the castle was a little village, and along the fields were scattered a few isolated STREET VENDERS OF THE PERIOD,

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186 farms. Not far off was a church dedi- cated to a certain St. Julien, who suffered martyrdom in the second century, and who may possibly have given his name to the wine which at this late epoch of the Christian era is more famous than the saint himself. On the high-road between Versailles and Montreuil, in which latter place are grown the noble peaches which give sev- THE ROMANCE OF VERSAILLES. he gave orders himself to his maitre d’hétel that the birds should be taken to Versailles, and there he personally con- ducted the hunt. Seventeen years after- wards, when he was king, he built the first royal chateau. Saint Simon has written an elaborate comparison of the little Ver- sailles of Louis x11. with the gigantic Versailles of the great monarch; and it is certain that Louis the falconer never Ded ie as ‘ ™ 29>’? fe THE BARBAROUS PUNISHMENTS BY TORTURE IN THE TIME OF LOUIS XIII. eral millions of francs yearly to their for- tunate owners, stood a desolate-looking range of buildings called the Leprosy Hospital, and this was still in existence as lately as two centuries ago. But through the forest ran what was called the old road to Normandy and the Che- min des Boeufs—an inferior route along which travelled all the cattle brought up to Paris for the consumption of the court and the town. In Louis x11.’s. time there were no paved roadways, and it was not until the sovereign found it ne- cessary to have quick communication between Versailles and St. Cyr—which latter place was the abode of Mme. de Maintenon—that paving-stones were laid down. When Louis x!II. was six years of age dreamed of bringing the court into the woods, which in his day were wild, and not even safe for the king, without good escort, to traverse. Louis XIII. was so afraid of his assembly of notables, as they were called, that he took their advice as to whether he should continue the erec- tion of his palace while the finances of the state were in such a bad condition. But an orator of the time carried the ap- propriation, as we should say in these modern days, triumphantly, by pointing to the simple character of the castle and saying: ‘Shall we prevent the king from building even as simply as the most modest gentleman of his court?’’ The old chroniclers tell us that Louis x11. drew the plan of his house ; and judging from the representations which have

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THE ROMANCE OF VERSAILLES. come down to us, he did himself no great honor on that occasion. In 1626 the house was finished, and on that day Louis x1II. gave a great feast to the queens Maria de Medicis and Anne 187 wont to be governed according to those rules which to-day govern nearly all courts. From time to time the king bought the lands adjacent to his establishment, PORTRAIT OF LOUIS XIII. of Austria. He even waited at table, ac- cording to the custom of the time, serv- ing the first dish to his royal guests ; after which he sat at the feet of the queen. rhis was the “hanging of the crane,’’ and Héroard speaks of it as remarkable for the decency and good order which pre- vailed—an indication that royal festivi- ties in the seventeenth century were not and thus laid the foundations of the park where Louis xiv. afterwards created a garden of enchantment and delight. It appears from the old records that the king was pretty roundly swindled in va- rious ways by the great landlords of the neighborhood. The sixteen different pur- chases which he made cost him certainly sixteen times as much as the lands were

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188 THE ROMANCE worth. By and by the old feudal castle was absorbed into the royal manor, and the king—who had : never liked the neighborhood of |; a monument to feudalism, which recalled times when royal power was not entirely absolute—allow- ed it to fall into complete decay. We need not weary the modern reader with an elaborate descrip- tion of Louis xu11.’s castle in the wood. It had one quaint court of marbles, handsomely ornamented with seven arcades filled with gilt ironwork. It possessed bal- conies in which were ranges of marble busts representing the Roman emperors, and the roofs and chimneys were decorated with vases and other ornaments colored blue, thus with the white stone and the red bricks reproducing the colors of the house of Bourbon. The roofs were all gilded, and on account of their splendor may possibly have suggested to Na- poleon 1. his famous notion of gilding the dome of the Invalides. All the staircases and balustrades were of marble. The gardens were as elaborate, as artificial, and yet none of them were so splendid, as those of some of the aris- tocratic neighbors of the king. When Le Ndétre began his work under Louis xIv.’s direction, many of the plans of Louis x1. were changed and some of them were spoiled. The old Sieur de la Baroderie, who occupied the proud post of intendant-general of the gardens and royal residences of the king, spent his declining years in embellishing the gar- dens of Versailles; and to his skilful hand is also due much of the beauty of the Luxembourg Gardens in Paris. It was this good and simple-minded man who wrote the celebrated treatise on garden- ing, printed most luxuriously by order of Louis xu1., and filled with great numbers of maps and designs representing every known and some unknown varieties of terraces, bosquets, groves, plantations, and fountains. Some of the features of Louis x11I.’s home were afterwards em- bodied in Louis xtv.’s plan ; among them being the celebrated Orangerie and the Parc aux Cerfs. When Louis x11. was at Versailles his OF VERSAILLES. CARDINAL MAZARIN. life was, according to the ideas of a monarch’s existence in those days, suf- ficiently simple. He rose at dawn and went to prayers in his oratory; after which he breakfasted and repaired at once to the bird cabinet, where sat ranged upon their perches all kinds of birds of prey. There was a master of the birds, as other royal personages had their master of the hounds; and the task of this gentleman was by no means a sinecure, for an accident to a favorite falcon would render Louis x11. more violent in manner and in language than the revelation of a conspiracy. There was a grand falconer of France, and a contemporary writer says that this grand falconer told him that in one year he had charge of 120 dif- ferent birds, for which he had paid no less than 50,000 écus. Each bird had royal signet rings attached to the straps which decorated its claws and by which it was held in hand. Any one finding gne of these birds took especial pains to carry it to the grand falconer; otherwise he would have been subjected to severe pun- ishment. The Sieur de Luynes and his brother were charged with the care of the kites, and they had ten well-paid men under their orders. The master of the

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THE ROMANCE OF VERSAILLES. BALLET COSTUMES. herons was a noble gentleman of the period. He had a troop of hounds and fifteen men. The master of the hooded crows had a score of men. For the vol des champs there were dozens of men and spaniels employed. Such noblemen as the Comte de la Rochefoucauld and the Marquis de Rambouillet were charged with certain departments of the sport, and each one had sixteen men and eighteen birds to look after. The king’s favorite days for the sport which he loved so well were Mondays, Wednesdays, and Satur- days. A chronicler of the time adds quaintly enough: «The king went out also on the other days if there was no- The Sunday thing more important todo. he employed in serving God, in order to be the eldest son of the Church in fact as in name ; and even on hunting-days he never went out in winter before he heard mass early in the morning.’”’ After the hunt he dined, and towards ten o’clock took carriage and went over to the wood of Vincennes or St. Cloud or towards St. Denis, these being the routes out of Paris best suited to falconry. A great number of the gentlemen of the court usu- ally accompanied him, and behind rode his light-horse escort. M. de Luynes, who superintended the kite-flying, in which the king took a particular in- terest, was always near his majesty ; and the way to gain favor in the king’s eyes was to place a pleasing compliment for some one of the birds that did well in his particular line. The Greeks, the Dutch, the Maltese, the Spaniards, the Orientals, sent birds to the young king; and many an ambassador was surprised if not amused when he saw the sovereign fol- lowed by 120 falconers, each one bearing a bird upon his wrist and each one dressed in liveries laden with gold and silver. Even when the falconers were beating up the birds the king would, in his excitement, jump from his carriage, mount a horse, and ride frantically about the field and through the villages. In the wood of Versailles birds of all kinds were plentiful and the king was never happier than when there. When he was not engaged in falconry, he was fond of fruit-gardening, and offered to the queen, to the Princess of Condé, and to numerous other court ladies on the 25th April, 1643, only a few days before his death, a collation composed of his own preserves. This simple and gentle- minded man, according to Victor Hugo, COMEDIANS.

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190 suffered terribly when he was compelled to attend executions of noted state crimi- nals on the Place de Gréve, and for days afterwards he would seek forgetfulness of the savage cruelties of his time in the sports of wood and field. There was but one really imposing his- torical event at Versailles in Louis x11I.’s time, and that has been made familiar tous all in Bulwer’s play of Richelieu. The Day of the Dupes, as it is known in French history, began at Paris and finished at the castle of Versailles on the 10th of November, 1630. Then it was that the cabal which had taken form against the king was unmasked and that the old cardinal achieved his finest tri- umph over his enemies. In those days Richelieu lived at Versailles in a modest suite of rooms directly beneath those of the king, and he gained access to the king’s apartment by a spiral stairway, which was inclosed in the wall, and the existence of which was not generally known to thecourt. Itis said this stair- way still exists but is never shown. Under Louis Philippe its upper entrance was closed—a fact which many a tourist who would have enjoyed climbing up the steps worn by the feet of Richelieu will regret. In 1634 King Louis came very often to Versailles, which he was begin- ning to prefer to St. Germain, and there he received the foreign visitors. Heeven gave a great wolf hunt in honor of the English embassador in the same year. In 1637 Queen Anne of Austria came to visit the new castle. Richelieu had built a kind of Hampton court at Rueil, and here he plotted and planned in the midst of noble parks and gardens, surrounded by fountains, cascades, grottos, orange- ries, and triumphal arches. He went sometimes to work with the king at Ver- sailles, but the king came quite as often to Rueil to work with the cardinal. Versailles during the time of Louis x1lI. was far more healthy, morally and in every other sense, than in the disso- lute reign of the young king’s successor. Louis xu. loved not merely hunting; he was a good musician, liked to play upon the violoncello; and even composed songs and motets which were brought out with care by his chapel choir. The De Profundis, which he had written, and which was performed at the court on THE ROMANCE OF VERSA/LLES. Ash-Wednesday, was chanted beside his bed after his death. Louis x11. some- times wrote in the journals of the time, and especially liked to write for the Gazette de France. Now and then he touched the pencil, and drew some very decent portraits of his friends. Saint Simon, Cinq-Mars, Mme. de Hautefort, and Mlle. ‘de Lafayette were his princi- pal favorites. The journal of old Héroard tells us that the court of Louis x111.’s father was the most indecent and abominable one that can well be imagined ; and it is no little to the credit of the child that he developed into a reasonably decent mon- arch with elevated tastes after the atro- cious apprenticeship which he had served in his earliest youth. In the memoirs of Mlle. de Montpensier we read that the court was most agreeable under Louis xu. ‘The affection of the young king for Mlle. de Hautefort contributed much,’’ says this sprightly chronicler, ‘‘to render the court gay, for the king racked his brain for means of amusing the lady. When we went hunting we were all dressed in gay colors and mounted on fine hackneys richly capar- isoned ; and each one, to protect himself or herself from the sun, wore a broad hat garnished with innumerous plumes. The hunt was always directed toward the neighborhood of some fine mansion, where, toward the close of the day, a collation was spread, and the king would go home in my carriage with Mlle. de Hautefort and myself. When he was in good humor he was a most charming talker.’’ Regularly three times a week there was a concert at the court, and sometimes the king would busy himself a whole afternoon with writing out words for some air to be sung in the evening. The king did not love the queen, and he was, says Madame de Motteville, made a martyr of by Mlle. de Hautefort, whom he loved in spite of himself, and who treated him with a kind of sad disdain which only served to inflame his passion. It was this Marie de Hautefort who, in the desperate struggle of Richelieu against Anne of Austria and the parti- sans of the Spanish policy, took part for queen against cardinal, and had the courage to declare her partisanship. This made a sworn enemy of Richelieu,

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THE ROMANCE OF VERSA/LLES. who never failed to misrepresent Marie de Hautefort when he had the king’s ear. Another of Louis x111.’s favorites at Ver- sailles was Mlle. de Lafayette, who had been one of the maids of honor to Anne of Austria, and who was one of the love- liest women of her time, although, says a chronicler, she was a brunette in an age when the fashion allowed -only blondes. Mile. de Lafayette was at first flattered by the king’s attentions, but, when she found that they were becoming too seri- ous, and that he asked her to take up her permanent abode at Versailles, she was frightened, and to avoid an approaching scandal retired into a convent. Louis XIII. mourned her for a short time, but once more fell at the feet of Mlle. de Hautefort. The last visit of Louis x1. to Versailles was made early in the spring of 1643, when he gave a grand dinner in honor of Cardinal Mazarin and other notables of the time. In February of this year he returned to St. Germain, discouraged and broken down with the anemia which he had hoped to get rid of in the pure air of Versailles, and in the following year he died, worn out, at forty-two. The castle in the wood was abandoned after the king’s death by the court of Anne of Austria for several years. Louis xIv. came there for the first time in 1651, on a hunting-party, where a splendid re- past was given to the king and his suite by the superintendent of finances of the castles of Versailles and St. Germain. From 1651 to 1662 Louis xiv. frequently went to Versailles to give himself up, as the chroniclers have it, to the divertisse- ment de la chasse, usually accompanied by his brother, by Cardinal Mazarin, and by other personages of the court; but after 1662 the Roi Soleil began to take a serious interest in Versailles, and he seems to have been encouraged in this by his queen, Marie Theresa. From 1662 until the king's death, existence at Ver- sailles was pleasantly interspersed by great fétes, balls, and repasts, the details of which are found in the gazettes of the time and the Muse Historique of Loret, which furnishes a microscopic view of the revels of the king and his courtiers. At first the court came to stay at Ver- sailles a few days at a time, and at each successive visit gold and marble, bronz- es and inlaid furniture, were brought in great quantities. The plants—and espe- cially the orange-trees of the garden— were wonderfully multiplied. At the me- nagerie, animals from every part of the world abounded, and Europe rang with the story of the debaucheries and splen- dors of Versailles. The period from 1663 to 1682, after which latter year Versailles became the seat of the government, and in most re- spects the centre of Europe, is worth passing in review. In the great mon- arch’s train came Moliére and his come- dians ; and at the very first féte given in honor of the queens and the dauphin, Moliére’s troupe played a most important part. It was on this occasion that was represented the sprightly and _ bril- liant Impromptu de Versailles, written, learned, rehearsed, and played within the short period of eight days. Moliére, in this little comedy, which had been composed by order of the king, took occa- sion to reply to the attacks of the numer- ous critics who were always at his heels, among them the comedians of the old Hétel de Bourgoyne, who were the un- compromising rivals of all newcomers. Louis xiv. took such an interest in Moliére that, when he found a storm had been raised by the Impromptu de Ver- sailles, he not only ordered it to be played before him again in 1664 and 1665, but his brother and other gentlemen of the court thought it well to have it played at their entertainments. It was in 1664, during the residence of about six hundred persons of the court for a fortnight at Versailles, that Mme. de la Valliére made her first appearance in that place. She was one of the maids of honor of the Duchess of Orleans, and was but seventeen when, in 1661, Louis xIv. fancied that he bestowed an honor upon her by giving her his affection. The Abbé de Choisy has drawn her por- trait for us with consummate skill : «« She was not,’’ he says, ‘‘one of those perfect beauties that one often admires without being able to love. She had what La Fontaine has so well put in his famous line, «Grace more beautiful still than beauty.’ ‘‘Her complexion was fine, her hair was blond, her smile agreeable, her eyes blue, and her character at once so tender

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192 THE ROMANCE and so modest that it won one’s heart and esteem at the same moment. As toesprit she had but little, but read continually in the hope of improving her mind. She had no ambition, no opinions ; was en- tirely absorbed in herself and in her pas- sion, which was the only one of her life. She never appeared to forget that she was doing wrong, and always seemed to hope that she would one day return into the narrow way.”’ Louis xIv. was anxious to _ give a grand festival in honor of this lady of twenty, but he felt constrained to an- nounce the festival as for the two queens. He had less courage than in 1662, when he gave a carrousel for La Valliére in the courtyard of Tuileries ; but although he could not avow the honor which he meant to pay Mlle. de la Valliére, he made the féte one of the most splendid ever given in Europe. Moliére and his troupe of comedians took charge of the comedy. Lulli composed the music, and had the colossal score executed by hundreds of voices and instruments. In those days the Italians were supreme in the art of stage management in France ; and Viga- rani, the chief of these wonder-workers, was charged with the decorations, the il- luminations, and the fireworks. Imagine a festival which lasted three days in the merry month of May, when all the fields and woods of Versailles were in their most perfect bloom, and an audience made up of the titled and privileged class at the very height of their power and splendor, each one striving to outdo the other in magnificence of demeanor and toilette, but all servile before the king and the favorites whom he chose to designate, although sometimes willing to criticise on the back stairs. Ariosto furnished the subject for the grand masquerade, which represented the sojourn of Roger in the island and palace of the enchantress Alcissa. The réle of Roger was held by the king ; the others by the principal gentlemen of the court. In a great ring something like that of a modern circus and pierced by four gateways, the processions and illu- minations took place. First entered the king representing Roger ; then his broth- er and the dukes, counts, princes, and marquises representing the paladins—all OF VERSAILLES. superbly dressed in costumes covered with gold and silver embroidery, with dia- monds and with precious stones, preceded by trumpeters and drummers, and all mounted upon gayly caparisoned horses. Behind the paladins was drawn a gigan- ticchariot, eighteen feet high, twenty-four feet long, and fifteen wide, all sculptured in the fantastic manner of the period and sparkling with gold and silver. It was a reproduction of the fabled chariot of Apollo, in honor of which were some- times represented the Pythian games. Apollo was seated in the highest point of the chariot, having at his feet the four ages. The age of gold was represented by Mme. Moliére, and the ages of sil- ver, bronze, and iron by various courtiers. Time, who drove the chariot of Apollo, was Nfillet, the famous coachman of Louis xIv., who managed his string of horses with great skill. He was escorted by the twelve hours, the twelve signs of the zodiac, and an infinite number of young and pretty pages. After the masquerade entertainment there was a course de bagues, rather a puerile amusement for a great monarch and his train, but one that we see indulged in with much gusto by the children on the merry-go-rounds in the leafy avenues of the Tuileries gardens and the Champs Elysées in these modern

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SIDE GLANCES AT AMERICAN BEAUTY. By ELEANOR WADDLE. NA] ATIVE beauty as developed in i America is the outgrowth of such heterogeneous elements, such a con- glomeration of nationalities, the inter- fusion of so many races and types, that any attempt to classify or even account for it, save as American, is futile. It is undeniable that climatic influences, freedom from old-world measures of re- straint, and the diversity of our scenery MISS GAINES, OF TYLER, TEXAS. are forces which have contrived, uncon- sciously but effectively, to produce in- digenous types. Max O’Rell has said of us in one of his humorous criticisms: ‘‘ You are not all beautiful in America, but you are intelli- gent. A person who looks intelligent cannot look plain.’’ This is flattering to a degree, for it is wholesome and true ; and therein lies the gist of the matter. American women are not dolls in doll- houses ; and extreme beauty with us is usually a union of external perfection with talent and brains. The ancients, we are told, esteemed whiteness as beauty’s dominating char- acteristic, and regulated their opinions accordingly. Our modern ideas are for- tunately irrespective of the complexion’s exact tint; for beauty ranges with us at random, from the fairest of Saxon blonde to almost Oriental brunette. Some have assured us that «the skin of the native Indians is not only smooth- er, but more delicately furrowed, than that of Europeans’’; thus proving a cli- matic advantage, witnessed in a soften- ing of the national complexion, and pro- ducing in the ultra-Caucasian face an indescribably dazzling effect. American beauty of to-day flourishes apparently alike in all localities. It crops out, like certain geological formations, in most unexpected places—on the sage- bush plain, in the open prairie, in the atmosphere of smoky cities, or by the cruel sea—with equal but distinctive vigor. Its intrinsic merit alone recom- mends it, since there are no inequalities of rank to enhance its value, and the dis- parities of society frequently give place to its claim. Into this merit, however, enters largely tle element of the pictur- esque, which obtains with a prevalence altogether sui generis. This is evidenced in the arts of dress and decorative effect, and in the selection of appropriate acces- sories. The typical New-England girl, with demure eyes and charming Priscilla smile, understands her style too well to figure in a rollicking Gainsboro’ hat. The southern girl, taught to dance as soon as her ankles are firm, and to early cultivate conversation as a polite art, supplements her beauty inimitably by picturesque poses; and the northern woman, more conservative by tradition, less apt and ready in speech, appears by comparison oftentimes gawky and self- conscious. The connoisseur seeking for a thor- oughly representative type of American beauty would perhaps be led to strike the continent midway to obtain a suit- able subject. No one more fitting could be selected than Miss Hope Hutchins, of St. Louis. She is the daughter of Cap- tain Thomas A. Hutchins, formerly of Baltimore, and now an old and well- known resident of St. Louis; her mother, whose maiden name was Sargee, being

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SIDE GLANCES AT AMERICAN BEAUTY. MRS. SIDNEY SCHIFF, OF LOUISVILLE. the descendant of one of the first French settlers. Miss Hutchins is a most per- fect specimen of our American Titian blonde, and is greatly admired both for her beauty and lovely character. She is of medium height, possessed of a fine figure and regular features, dark hazel- eyes shaded by heavy dark lashes, and a fair, pearly complexion ; but her crown- ing charm is a wealth of red-gold hair, which, as the poets say, catches and holds the sunbeams. Mr. Charles Dudley Warner, who judges authoritatively of things and faces Amer- ican, has apotheosized the Blue-Grass girl as a peculiarly isolated variety, re- sulting from the limestone soil of Ken- tucky. Mrs. Sidney Schiff, formerly Miss Marion Canine, was born at Louis- ville, the outer edge of that charmed circle, and is truly representative ; even as a child she was celebrated for her un- usually winsome personality. She is the only daughter of Dr. J. Fulton Canine, of Louisville, a descendant of Robert Fulton of steamboat fame, who was English, as is well known. Her mother, Mrs. Canine, belongs to the noted French family of Aydelotte, the first of whom came to America as a naval officer with Marquis de Lafay- ette to assist in the struggle with the British. Miss Can- ine’s recent marriage with Mr. Sidney Schiff, an English- man, and her removal to London as her fu- , ture home, has the | romantic aspect of a ' recompense of his- } tory. Mrs. Aydelotte, the grandmother of this lovely Louisvill- ian, was the last ofa line of famous beau- ties, the mother re- sembling her English father, and to this descendant bequeath- ed her personal charms. Mrs. Schiff is a trifle over me- dium height, and rather slender. She has raven-hair, hazel-eyes, a clear, olive- skin with brilliant color. She has trav- elled extensively, and has been féted everywhere. In the person of Miss Mary Whoon, of Memphis, nature has been most prod- igal of her bounties. Beauty of face and symmetry of form are united to nobility of heart and intellect. Miss Whoon is beloved by her closer circle for her loy- alty, amiability, and fine mental poise; but society recognizes her beauty, and delights in her wonderfully sympathetic voice. Miss Whoon is a worthy repre- sentative of a long line of honorable an- cestry, who might contemplate with pride and peace this fair descendant, so full of promise and womanly comeliness. Miss Annie Grace Lippincott (the daugh- ter of that famous American woman Grace Greenwood) has that rare sort of beauty which, like Charity, ‘‘ vaunteth not itself,’’ together with a voice of deli- cious timbre that has been highly culti- vated in Europe; as does also that tri- umphant artiste Miss Lilian Norton, known to the world as Nordica. One might multiply American instances in the world of art, but as the Lady in

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SIDE GLANCES AT AMERICAN BEAUTY. Comus so fittingly remarks, ‘‘To what end?”’ Daily readers are familiar enough with Joseph Jefferson's reply to the Nashville reporter's insistent questions, ‘‘ Where in America are to be found most intelli- gence, culture, and refinement?’’ and ‘‘Where are to be found the prettiest women in the world?’’ The famous comedian, when he designated Boston as his first answer, certainly did not in- tend to ignore beauty in favor of super- abundant brains in that locality, as there are many glorious contradictions to such a statement ; but Mrs. Emily Selinger and Mrs. Alice Kent Robertson merit com- ment as possessors of original beauty, accompanying remarkable mental vigor. These notable women occupy front rank in the artistic, literary, social, set of the Massachusetts capital ; Mrs. Selinger as an artist and writer of genuine ability, and Mrs. Robertson as the president of the Saturday Morning Club, the gifted interpreter of Browning, and, latterly, Sophocles,—as King Creon in the Greek play Antigone,—in which part she achieved a decided success. Mrs. Sel- inger is a decided blonde with tawny hair, MRS. DAHLGREN, OF NASHVILLE. 195 violet eyes, and a warm color; while Mrs. Robertson is rich in coloring, with, dark hair and eyes, and of tall stature. Mr. Jefferson’s response to the second NEW ORLEANS. MRS. DA PONTE, OF question varied the objective point some- what in longitude as well as latitude. Turning to his son, who was standing near the reporter, he repeated the ques- tion to him. ‘*My son, where are the prettiest women in the United States ?”’ ‘‘In Nashville, Tennessee,’ came the prompt rejoinder. ‘That is my answer, also,’’ asseverated the only Bob Acres, turning to his interlocutor; and unde- niably he was very near the truth. The plateau of middle Tennessee is so favor- able to the development of personal beauty that the bloom and elegance of their women is national in reputation. No lovelier type of that region could possibly be selected than Mrs. Adolf Dahlgren, née de Moville. As her maiden name would indicate, she is, on the pa- ternal side, of French extraction. Her beauty is of the typical patrician style, pale as an evening in autumn, with lovely golden hair, large gray eyes, and an uplifted expression of countenance that suggests spirituality of thought and feeling. Tall, slight, and graceful in figure, her gentle, winning manners elicit universal admiration. New Orleans, however, despite Mr. Jefferson, would never lightly yield the

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196 palm for supremacy to any sister southern city: and as proof of her claims may be mentioned Mrs. da Ponte, whose husband, Mr. Durant da Ponte, is one of their wealthiest and most influ- ential men. She is the repre- sentative of a distinguished family, and considered by many the most beautiful wo- man in the state. Catharine Cole, aclever southern writer, in a brief sketch, describes her as ‘‘a brunette, tall, very graceful, with black, lumin- ouseyesand arich chataigne complexion; her beauty be- ing of that rare if character- istic sort that seems to attain its most perfect loveliness in such southern cities as New Orleans, and the more fascin- ating because so infrequently found without flaw or blem- ish. Mrs. da Ponte has a distinguished presence and a manner full of ease, grace, and dignity very charming in so young a ch§atelaine, which entitles her to be known as a social queen ; for in the art of entertaining she is unrivalled—her house, her gowns, her dinners, teas, and germans, being quoted everywhere, as is her beauty. A superb home on St. Charles avenue is in all of its appointments the expression of refined and artistic taste possessed equally by herself and her husband, and is filled with treasures of art, the result of long and idle wan- derings in foreign lands. Mrs. da Ponte was born and raised in New Orleans, but everywhere—at Richfield Springs, at far-off Monterey, and abroad—in- numerable admirers of both sexes are attracted by her beauty and true wo- manliness ; for to these favors of for- tune are added the graces and charms of rare accomplishments, a cultured mind, and a noble heart. Her charities, es- pecially to those whom we are wont to designate as reduced gentlewomen, are generous and most unostentatious. She has also unmistakable talent as an ac- tress, and is very fond of private theatri- SIDE GLANCES AT AMERICAN BEAUTY. MISS HILDA CLARK, OF LEAVENWORTH. cals. The entertainments she gives in a superb private theatre built upon her own grounds, before delighted audiences of friends, are a feature of social life in New Orleans.”’ Another charming instance of a blond southerner is Miss Leila Gaines, the daughter of Judge Gaines, of Texas, and one who wins a troop of admirers wher- ever she appears. At West Point last summer gold buttons, sword buckles, and other cadet offerings were showered upon her, and invitations to patrol flirta- tion were more numerous than any one young woman could possibly accept and still do dancing duty. All that wealth and critical taste can offer have availed to make her one of the loveciest girls to be met with throughout the length of Fifth avenue, where she is still at school. Her eyes are blue, her skin like tinted satin, and her hair distinctly blond. A good physique and graceful bearing

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SIDE GLANCES AT AMERICAN BEAUTY. complete a most striking individuality. Miss Celeste Stauffer, the inheritor of Samuel J. Tilden’s bequest; and Miss Cora Townsend, also are lovely women of New Orleans. It would be impossible to find in one’s researches throughout the land a more exquisitely charming specimen of true American womanhood than Mrs. Ed- mond K. Stallo, of Cincinnati, the only child of Mr. Alexander MacDonald, of Standard oil fame, and daughter-in-law of our former minister to Italy. Mrs. Stallo’s beauty is characterized by an abundance of soft golden hair, an ala- baster complexion, expressive eyes, a re- gal bearing, a manner both 197 unique beauty. Other acknowledged Cin- cinnati beauties are Mrs. Telford Groes- beck, Miss Pendleton, Miss Bertha Sher- lock ; the last two being blondes like Mrs. Stallo, while Mrs. Groesbeck is an unrivalled brunette, like a Jacqueminot rose in full bloom. Another fair exponent of western beau- ty is Miss Hilda Clark, one of.the three beautiful daughters of Mr. M. E. Clark, an early settler in Kansas, and for many years a prominent banker in Leaven- worth, but now retired. Her education has been completed in Boston and by travel abroad. She is a radiant blonde, having large blue, appealing eyes, a fair gracious and _ winning, while her pure, unselfish soul illumines her features unmistakably. She was born in Clifton, and, after completing her education, travelled with every advant- age of wealth and cultivated taste throughout this coun- try and Europe. Her mind is wonderfully well stored for one so young, not hav- ing passed her twentieth year. Ohioans recall the magnificence of her wed- ding, about a year ago, and contemplate with pride the MacDonald family mansion, Dalray, which crowns a charming knoll in Clifton, as an evidence of artistic taste, supplemented with superb landscape and archi- tectural advantages. In her marriage-robes of heavy brocade, such as is seldom seen save in sacerdotal gar- ments, draped with a bridal veil of priceless point d’Al- encon, in the glory and shimmer of a radiant sun- burst of diamonds, she pre- sented a picture not to be speedily forgotten. As her maiden name indicates, Mrs. Stallo is of Scotch ancestry; and it is worthy of remark that the Scotch-American combination is almost in- variably typical of lofty and MRS. EDMOND K. STALLO, OF CINCINNATI,

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SIDE GLANCES AT MISS SCEARCE, OF CINCINNATI, peach-blow complexion, and a beautiful mouth disclosing pearly teeth; she is also rather above medium height. Like the soft noonday light which plays in shifting cloud-shadows upon the prairies and undulating hillsides of her native region, is the ever- changing glow of her expression. Now melancholy, now gay, now piquante, now inquisitive—but always charming in every phase. A close observer cannot but per- ceive that there are changes tak- ing place in our established stand- ards. For instance, the southern type of lovely woman was for- merly a creature of languorous movements, dusky hair, passion- ate dark eyes; to-day she is fre- quently aclassic blonde, devoid of high color, like a Cherokee rose, perfect in outline, and energetic in movement, as are the tradition- al northerners. Those American AMERICAN BEAUTY. women, however, who are the most ad- mired abroad are a conjunction of these two leading types—golden hair united to brown or hazel eyes, soft, smooth skin with faint olive shading, little color in the cheeks, features sharply defined (al- though relieved by a slight facial ful- ness), and the figure healthily rounded. Perhaps, after all, the truest test of beauty is a relative one. Miss Burney, like Horace Walpole, said many ill- natured things of men, women, and so- ciety; but she deigned to praise the famous Mrs. Crewe in a most expressive and unforgotten phrase when she said, ‘«« She uglifies every one near her.’’ This power to uglify others, and, like the sun, draw all things in subjection to it- self, is the positive attribute of supreme loveliness. The question of local empire for woman- ly beauty in America absorbs much idle argument. One hears a great deal said about Baltimore, Richmond, Louisville, and Pittsburg in this respect; where, in- deed, splendid proof of an entire suprem- acy over rival cities appears, individually, to abound. It is equally true, however, that the avenues of all our large cities are alive with beautiful faces every bright afternoon ; and a saunterer would prob- ably meet about the same number on the promenades of each, leaving out of question such cosmopolitan cities as Washington and New York, where, al- MISS EMILIA KEARNEY JONES, OF NEW YORK

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SIDE GLANCES AT AMERICAN BEAUTY. though the best the United States affords drifts to these centres in a ceaseless ebb and flow, the foreign unnaturalized ele- ment contributes a semi-American aspect to the population, and destroys the abso- lute unity necessary for comparison. Max O’Rell, again, has said of us, ‘«“Wo- ppt Sy ae ¢ MISS GALLOWAY, OF MEMPHIS. men in America are allowed almost every liberty, and they take the others.’’ Mon- sieur Blouet may make a note on it, that the pretty American girl (and not necessarily a Daisy Miller either) who knows a little bit of everything, chatters most of the languages, and dabbles in all of the arts, will never be caught napping about what is going on in the world. Her arch audacity usually wins forgive- ness; and after all, she makes no more 199 mistakes than the rest of womankind— probably less, all things considered. It is related of Madame Roland that, while driving one night through the streets of Paris in a cab, during the in- surrection, she was stopped by a guard who expressed astonishment at finding a woman alone so late at night. «* Alone!’’ replied she, ‘I am accompanied by in- nocence and truth—what more would you have?’’ Analogously the American girl of paramount beauty walks un- harmed past a thousand pitfalls, pro- tected only by her guilelessness and serene unconsciousness of danger. One may meet in Chicago, Minneapolis, Kan- sas City, Denver, or Los Angeles superbly handsome girls of genuine refinement, who think nothing of intrusting them- selves to the chivalric attentions of ad- mirers, and who hoot at the foreign idea of chaperones and eventually become the most exemplary wives—thereby re- futing the necessity of surveillance. In that remarkable epic which Carlyle has designated the Iliad of the eighteenth century, commemorative of the antics of that great and good anomaly, Samuel Johnson, occur the following sentiments: ‘“«Sir, it is a very foolish resolution to re- solve not to marry a pretty woman. Beauty is, of itself, very estimable. No, sir, I would prefer a pretty woman unless there are objections to her. A pretty woman may be foolish; a pretty woman may be wicked; a pretty woman may not like me. But there isnosuch danger in marrying a pretty woman as is appre- hended. She will not be persecuted if she does not invite persecution.’”’ Such sentiments are excellent, certainly, but somewhat humorous between the lines when one recalls that Johnson’s wife, Tetty (although always beautiful in his eyes), was double his age, and, according to Garrick, a ridiculous, fat old crea- ture, with highly painted cheeks, full of affectations, fantastic in dress, and, like Queen Anne, addicted to brandy. The ancient Greeks, in their code of beauty, took but little heed of any occult charms, and believed only in externals— sensuous curves, severe simplicity of out- line, absence of accessories. We mod- erns, in our ideas, conjoin, to the perfec- tion of physical outline, the fire of sensi- bility which animates the eyes and varies

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200 with every shade of emotion ; the capti- vating smile which flits and passes like a golden oriole’s wing sweeping a pallid lily; the swaying grace that springs from harmonious adjustment of the framework ; or the dainty blush which wavers as the pulse beats, rivalling the rosy twilight shadows on Katahdin’s snowy peak. One is very apt to encounter in the United States many modifications of the purely Spanish variety of beauty. An instance of this may be adduced. in the person of Miss Lizzie Wyeth Scearce, whose beauty re- sembles some tawny flower of Spain, of the va- riety peculiar to southern Anda- lusia. In speak- ing of her, Browning’s ex- | pression ‘Too ; small for the life § and gladness | that o’erflows | her’’ would be so vote apposite, petite and fairy- like does she ap- pear. Exquisite- ly proportioned, with tiny hands and feet which betray her Ken- tuckyextraction, the prince need not have sought further for the ownership of Cinderella’s slipper. Charming features, a trifle pensive, warm brown eyes accentuated by darker brows and lashes, her crowning glory (as we are told every woman's should be) is her hair —a shining mist, on whose brown silk- en lengths the sun seems ever to linger. Miss Scearce’s family are of French ex- traction, but her parents were born in Kentucky. She is a collateral connec- tion of Henry Clay, and first saw the light at St. Joseph, Missouri, although now residing in southern Ohio. She has travelled widely in two continents, and her unusual beauty created such contin- ual comment in Europe as to be almost embarrassing. A more distinctly typical Spanish beau- ty is Miss Emilia Kearney Jones, who MISS TRACY, SIDE GLANCES AT AMERICAN BEAUTY. only needs a rose behind her ear, a man- tilla draped high on her head, and a gui- tar in her hand, to play the complete sefiorita. She isthe daughter of Mr. John W. Jones, of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, and granddaughter of Isaac C. Van Wyck, of New York, and was born at the Van Wyck homestead, Fishkill-on-the-Hudson, al- though now living with her parents at Riverdale, near the metropolis. She is prominent in New York society and em- phatically beautiful; somewhat above average height, she possesses a graceful, well-rounded figure, a wealth of dark brown hair, with brilliant and ex- pressive brown eyes. Her rich, soft coloring, lost in the en- graving enhan- ces the ensemble of her attractive » features. Ex- faceptionally bright and witty in conversation, she possesses likewise a sweet, highly cultivated mezzo-soprano voice, of which her friends have urged her to give the world the *e benefit, but thus OF MEMPHIS. rw chee has ve. mained deaf to all entreaties. A worthy representative of the genuine southern beauty may be accepted in Miss Emma _ Galloway’s personality. The daughter of Mr. C. B. Galloway, of Mem- phis, she has been, ever since her début, recognized as a reigning belle. She was educated at Vassar, where her naturally bright mind acquired all of the polish obtainable at that institution, and subse- quently spent considerable time in Eu- rope. Her eyes are lustrous soft brown, her hair also of a reddish brown, the color which reflects «‘ now the sunshine, now theshade.’’ Her features are regular in repose and she smiles enchantingly. A little above medium height, she carries herself with the lissome grace of the true high-bred southern girl. Somewhat similar in general character-

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SIDE GLANCES AT AMERICAN BEAUTY. istics, but with a northern phase to her beauty, is Miss Imogene Snowden Tracy, who was born in New York, the daughter of William D. Tracy, and great-grand- daughter of the late General Robert Bogardus. Circumstances effected her removal south several years ago, and she has been ed- 201 through the lower jaw, and the pointed chin is seldom seen in the third genera- tion after transplantation to this side of the water, but becomes gradually elimi- nated. Moreover, in the faces of Indian squaws, irrespective of tribe, it is never seen at all. This fact is not only suffi- ciently puz- ucated at the [= celebrated St. Mary’s school, Mem- phis,thus pre- senting a dual development which is unique and altogether charming. In person she is tall and svelte with calm, de- liberate move- ments which tend usually towards some definite pose. pur- Quiet and reposeful with strang- ers, she is warm and dramatic in her devotion to sympathet- ic friends, thus display- ing southern fervor united to northern caution. Her coloring is very lovely. zling, but it alters our standard per- ceptibly. So import- ant is it that the elements constituting beauty of per- son should be shielded in their growth by a tempera- ture which neither freez- es up the liv- ing juices nor withers the animal struc- ture by undue heat, that the temperate zone becomes par excel- lence the true home for such development. Is it Utopi- an, therefore, to prefigure upon this soil a glorious ev- olution which shall combine the luxuri- She has a clear, smooth complexion, fairer than olive, usually pale, flossy dark brown hair, rich dark sparkling eyes, with full rosy lips. Her face is the truthful index of an evenly balanced character. It is an eminently noteworthy fact that the beauties whom Sir Joshua Reynolds, Gainsborough, and Sir Peter Lely immor- talized in the preceding century possessed almost invariably the pyriform face, the true oval so rarely met with here. Most American women reveal a slight fulness MISS WILBUR, OF SAN FRANCISCO. ous, vital,and intellectual systems in one, while borrowing from every race and clime the necessary com- ponents of the perfect woman? In Cal- ifornia to-day, with less than half a century’s history, are encountered match- less native specimens of woman, tall and ruddy like the snow-flowers that pierce through the fallen pine-needles of their own Yosemite, or swaying with the slender grace of a mariposa. What, indeed, may another generation produce in that wonderful section

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202 where ‘‘the rain, it raineth not every day,’’ but where the cherries are worm- less, the fruits drop with lusciousness, and the wanton bees rifle ruthlessly a thousand flowers to distil one drop of their peerless honey ? A lovely picture of the thorough Cali- fornian, born in that glorious climate, is Miss Elida B. Wilbur, of San Francisco. No fairer face nor finer mind than hers could be found anywhere on the Pacific coast. She attracts the attention of all who pass her by. She is the daughter of Mrs. J. C. Logan, her mother having married a secondtime. They lead rather a quiet life in gay San Francisco; but whenever Miss Wilbur mingles in society there, she commands universal admira- tion. She is a blonde, with soft, light hair, and her eyes are deep blue. Her SIDE GLANCES AT AMERICAN BEAUTY. expression is unusually artless and en- gaging, and she seems to be charmingly unconscious of the very flattering notice her beauty calls forth. Let us picture, therefore, an ideal American creation which shall in future combine the frame of the Venus de Milo, Saxon tresses of the classic tint, eyes of the odalisque, flesh tints after Bougereau (but never yet beheld upon earth), Ionian arms, Roman shoulders, Boeotian feet ; a marvellous being animated with French savoir faire, Irish wit, English common- sense, German imagination, Russian adaptability, Hindoo grace, Japanese tal- ent, and Indian fortitude—in fact, one ‘so perfect and so peerless’’ that she shall be ‘‘created of every creature’s best.’’ Is the fancy Frankensteinic and impossible ? TWO SELVES. By MAUDE ANNETTE ANDREWS. Unto myself I have grown strangely great And wise and good. Crowned with rare beauty, lo! I sit in state. Of womanhood, The lofty queen; so wondrous fair am I That angels come, To peep out from their windows in the sky And then grow dumb With envy of my perfect loveliness; While all the world Lives but to do me homage and to bless My days. Unfurled Life’s greatest honors wave, my eyes to greet. How strange it seems, All these high praises—ah ! so strange and sweet As if in dreams I walked; yet unto one, these dreams I know All seem as trtie As truth itself, because you love me so. Dear heart, to you I am all that Iam not and would be. Thy love hath made Me stand before my true self tremblingly Shy and afraid. I look up to my new self with this trust: That I may climb On thy love's ladder from my human dust, And win in time The stars you now see in my lowly brow. Thy love alone Hath power to lift me to that self which now You deem my own.

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SOME CURIOUS PROPHECIES. By W. NE of the strongest instincts im- planted in the human breast is the desire to penetrate the dark curtain that stretches across the future. The wish has been parent to the thought that it was possible, and has fostered credulity in prophets and prophecies. From the savage who reads in a thunderstorm or an eclipse the anger of an offended de- ity, or the more systematic reasoner who argues sapiens dominabitur astris, to the most elaborate organization of wizards that peep and mutter, all are dominated by a common feeling of awful curiosity and a common desire to gratify it. Saul, himself, who had been so zealous in de- stroying witches, bowed down in the cave of Endor. Nero, who had banished as- trologers from Rome, was a secret be- liever in astrology. All primitive races have their augurs, their soothsayers, their oracles, their prophets, their astrol- ogers, or their medicine men, and have retained them even after they have reached a high degree of culture. The superstition, indeed, is not yet extinct. Gypsies tell fortunes in the country pla- ces, clairvoyants find dupes in the cities, palmists exact a semi-credence and spir- it-wrappers an unhesitating belief from thousands of the educated classes. If we are to believe the Positivists, science itself proposes to establish by natural methods that prescience for which so many rival claimants to preternatural power have competed and failed. Prophets have sometimes had an im- plicit belief in their own powers; some- times, and indeed more often, they have conscious or semi-conscious im- The first sort were always in danger of forfeiting such honor as they enjoyed in their own countries by proph- ecies that were too explicit, and whose fulfilment was placed too early in the future. Yet, even in these cases the world always stood ready to give them the benefit of every doubt—to remember the occasions when accident befriended them; to forget the occasions when the circumstances belied them. Indeed, a prophecy often brought about its own ful- filment by purely natural means. Thus been postors. Ss. WALSH, it has often happened that a person whose death was prophetically set at a certain date would in fact die at that time from the nervous worry of anticipa- tion. Not every one was as wise as Ya- hya, the vizier of the good Haroun Al Raschid. A Jew astrologer had foretold that the caliph would die within a year, and the latter refused to be comforted. Yahya undertook to quiet the royal mind. Sending for the Jew, he inquired, ‘Does thy art tell thee how long thou wilt live?’’ «Yes,”’ said the Jew, «I will reach a ripe old age.’’ Thereupon Yahya asked the caliph to order him to immediate execution. ‘‘Certainly,’’ said the commander of the faithful; and the wretched man’s head was struck off then and there. ‘‘ Your majesty now sees the value of the fellow’s predictions,”’ said Yahya. The astrologer Trasulus only escaped a similar fate by great presence of mind. He had been invited to the retreat of The latter young Tiberias, in Rhodes. was anxious to discover what truth re- sided in astrology. After Trasulus had cast his horoscope and revealed to the fa- vorite of Augustus that he should rise to be emperor, Tiberius turned sharply to him and asked if he could foretell his own fate. Now, he had secretly made ar- rangements to have the astrologer killed in case his answer was not satisfactory ; but Trasulus apparently divined his ob- ject, and as he cast his own horoscope paled and trembled and at last cried that the stars threatened that the last mo- ment of his life had arrived. Tiberius threw his arms around the soothsayer in astonished admiration, reassured him of his safety, and ever after held his predic- tions in the highest esteem. An astrologer under Louis XI. was even cleverer. The king was angry with the astrologer for rightly predicting the death of one of the royal mistresses. He summoned the man to his chamber with the intention of pitching him out of the window. ‘*You who are so learned,’’ cried the monarch, ‘‘can you tell me what your fate will be?’’ From the words and the manner of his master the wily

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204 knave guessed some impending danger. ‘« Sire,’’ he responded, ‘‘I foresee that I shall die just three days before your majesty.’”’ The prince took the predic- tion in good faith, and did not dare to put his intentions into practice. Still another astrologer in the middle ages had warned his prince to put his affairs in order, as he had discovered in the stars that the prince would die with- in three days. The prince, in his turn, asked the astrologer, ‘‘Do you know in what manner you will die?’’ ‘From a burning fever,’’ answered the astrolo- ger, promptly. ‘Well,’’ answered the prince, ‘‘to show you the vanity of your pretended science, you shall at once be hanged.’”’ As the poor wretch was seized by the executioners he gave all the signs of overwhelming fear. A lucky thought struck him. “ See,’’ he cried, extending his hand to the prince, ‘‘if I did not tell the truth; feel my pulse and ascertain for yourself that I have a burning fever.”’ The jest saved his life, but the prince continued to laugh at him long after the appointed period of three days. Of far different metal was the famous Cardau. He had predicted the day and hour of his own death. When the time came and found him in good health, he committed suicide to save his reputation as a prophet. The oracles of ancient Greece and Rome, and the ancient and medizval astrologers, were rarely so explicit in their predictions. They exercised a wise caution as to dates, or shrouded them- selves in double-entendre. Their sayings had an Orphic mystery which readily lent themselves to explanations after the fact. Nor did this arise, in the infancy of nations at least, from any conscious imposture. In the vague and the mys- terious, men are naturally inclined to look for the voice and the finger of God. But the vagueness and the mystery were undoubtedly of value in continuing the delusion, in preventing its exploitation. When Xerxes invaded Greece, the ora- cle at Delhi proclaimed that Attica should be doomed to ruin, but that a wooden wall should yet shelter her citizens, and it wound up by asserting that ‘‘in seed- time or in harvest, thou, divine Salamis, shalt make women childless.’”” The prophecy was variously interpreted, but SOME CURIOUS PROPHECIES. Themistocles insisted that it meant the Athenians should betake themselves to their ships and encounter the enemy at Salamis. Themistocles carried his point ; the enemy was defeated, and great glory resulted both to the commander and to the oracle. Popular literature and tradition are re- plete with stories of predictions, which, like the oracles concerning Persius and CGEdipus, have been fulfilled by the very precautions taken to fly in the face of destiny. The Arabian Nights and the fairy tales of all nations are full of such instances. Another sort of story which always found greedy acceptance was that in which the prediction was eventually realized through some unexpected para- nomasia, or play upon words. A good example is that of the Duke of Savoy, who, having learned on astrological au- thority that there would shortly be no king in France, prepared an expedition against that country. The prediction was speedily verified, for the king at once left France at the head of an army and administered a sound drubbing to his recreant vassal. In the same way Monk Gerbert, who wore the tiara as Sylvester 11., had been warned by an oracle of his own construc- tion—a brazen head which anticipated that of Roger Bacon—that he would not die until he had performed mass in Jeru- salem. He wisely determined to live for- ever by avoiding the holy city. But one day, performing mass in Rome, Sylvester was seized with sudden illness, and upon inquiring the name of the church in which he had officiated, learned to his dismay that it was popularly known as Jerusalem. Then he knew that his end was at hand, and in fact soon after ex- pired. That history repeats itself is a com- monplace. It is not strange, therefore, that this story has been told of other potentates. Nearly five hundred years after the death of Sylvester, Robert Fa- bian, who must not be suspected of in- venting history, seeing, as sheriff and alderman, he was wont to pillory public liars, wrote of Henry rv.: ‘‘ After the feast of Christmas, while he was making his prayers at St. Edward’s shrine, he be- came so sick that such as were about him feared that he would have died right

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SOME CURIOUS PROPHECIES. there ; wherefore they, for his comfort, bare him into the abbot’s place, and lodged him in a chamber; and there, upon a pallet, laid hith before the fire, where he lay in great agony a certain time. At length, when he was come to himself, not knowing where he was, he freyned [asked] of such as were there about him what place that was; the which shewed to him that it belonged unto the Abbot of Westminster ; and for he felt himself so sick, he commanded to ask if that chamber had any special name. Whereunto it was answered that it was named Jerusalem. Then said the king, ‘ Laud be to the Father of Heaven, for now I know I shall die in this cham- ber, according to the prophecy of me be- foresaid, that I should die in Jerusalem’; and so after, he made himself ready, and died shortly after, upon the day of St. Cuthbert, on the 20th day of March, 1413.” Not many augurs could count so cer- tainly upon the credulity of their audi- ence as a miracle-monger whom Mr. Lawrence Oliphant recently met in Ara- bia. He had accumulated a large fortune by professing to assure that the expected child should be ason. On being applied to, he invariably prophesied the wished- for result. But in some obscure corner of the house he would write a prediction that the newcomer would prove a daugh- ter. If it turned out a son, he said no- thing of the written prediction, and passed for a great seer. If, on the other hand, a daughter arrived, he explained that he was well aware such would be the case, but not wishing to hurt the feelings of the parents by an unneces- sarily premature disappointment, he had contented himself with writing it secret- ly, and now triumphantly revealed the written prophecy. Prophecy was rampant in the early and medizeval ages of Christianity, and was in some respects a measure of the course of popular feeling and belief. Some- times the prophecies seem to be a kind of spontaneous product of the soil or of the temper of the age, the expression of the common hopes or fears of the people ; sometimes to be deliberately framed, with a view to promoting their own fulfilment; and sometimes to be due to the prescient glance of genius, inferring the future 205 from the past. Often they cannot be re- ferred to any known author; and then they are credited to some mythical per- sonage, such as Merlin the British Or- pheus, who comes to be accepted as a historical reality; or to some real per- son, like Virgil, who, in the folk-lore of European nations, has been numbered among prophets and necromancers on account of his supposed Messianic pre- dictions. Some of the most copious and interest- ing of ecclesiastical prophecies are those relating to the city of Rome. The early Christians, like St. Jerome, believed in its speedy destruction as the harlot clothed in scarlet of the apocalypse, the heathen designation of Eternal City appearing to them the name of blasphemy which St. John read upon her brow. In the sixth century St. Benedict of Nursia foretold that Rome would be destroyed by tem- pest and earthquake. In Bellarmine, in Suarez, in Cornelius a Lapide, are proph- ecies that Rome was given over to de- struction, and that the seat of the papacy would be moved elsewhere. Nor, indeed, were there wanting prophecies that the papacy itself was in danger. St. Hilde- garde, of Bingen-on-the-Rhine,—who was consulted by three popes, two emperors, and innumerable bishops and abbots, and whose prophecies were examined and solemnly approved at a large council assembled under Eugenius 111.,—predict- ed that princes and peoples would strip the papacy of its power because of its faithlessness to its trust, that some coun- tries would reject it altogether, and that the popes would have only Rome and its environs left under their rule. A striking series of prophecies were known as the Joachimite, from the abbot Joachim, who founded a monas- tery in Calabria in the twelfth century. Some of them were in truth his own, others were manufactured after his death ; but the genuine and the spurious have become inextricably interlaced. Like St. Hildegarde, he was much honored in his lifetime. Three popes exhorted him not to keep back what God had revealed to him, and this in spite of the fact that he fearlessly arraigned against prelatical greed and ambition. Richard 1. of Eng- land, and many French and English prel- ates, sought his advice. After his death,

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206 Honorius 11. affirmed his orthodoxy. He was worshipped as a saint in Calabria, and miracles were ascribed to him. The cardinal principle of the Joachim- istic prophecies was the division of his- tory into three periods—that of the father, before Christianity, the Petrine period; that of the son, up to A. D. 1250, the Pauline period; and that of the holy ghost, after 1250. In the latter period, the papacy was to be overthrown by the Saracens and the German empire. There would come the conversion of the heathen and the Jews, and the purification of the church, through the influence of a Papa Angelicanus, and of a new order of Ere- mites. Thespirituals, as they were called, of the Franciscan order, were the cus- todians of these prophecies, and among the most ardent believers in their verity were Petrarch and Rienzi. The tone of prophecy from the four- teenth century. to the reformation is not very different from that of the abbot Joachim. St. Bridget and St. Catherine of Siena were the great visionaries of the period. St. Bridget prophesied the ap- proaching ruin of the church and a rent in its walls, and foresaw that Rome itself would be wasted by fire and sword. St. Catherine predicted a vast crusade of the whole of Europe, and a thorough reforma- tion of the church. An English monk of the fourteenth century predicted that the fall of Rome would coincide with a general separation from the Roman church, on account of its gross corrup- tions. In 1519 an English prophecy was brought to Venice that Charles v., then just elected emperor, would vanquish all nations, and reduce the Mahometans to subjection, but would first burn Rome and Florence; a prophecy fulfilled in spirit, though not in letter, eight years later when Rome and Florence were taken by his armies. But the most remarkable prophecy in regard to Rome and the papacy, remark- able in itself, in its antiquity and persist- ence, and in its eventual fulfilment, was the common ecclesiastical tradition that no pope should ever exceed the years of Peter—which were reckoned to have been twenty-four—without perilling the tem- poral sovereignty. Pius 1x. was the first pope who ever surpassed the limit. He became pope in 1846. In 1870 he had SOME CURIOUS PROPHECIES. reigned twenty-four years. That same year the temporal sovereignty was wrest- ed from the church forever. Pius lived seven years and:a half longer as spirit- ual head of catholic Christendom, but not as king. Now, it is a singular coincidence that the Muslim astrologers, according to Al- biruni’s Chronology of Ancient Nations, had a similar theory that none of the caliphs of Islam and the other kings of the Muslims reigns longer than twenty- four years. ‘“‘As to the reign of Almuti’, that ex- tended to nearly thirty years, they ac- count for it in this way, saying that al- ready at the end of the reign of Almut- taki, and at the beginning of that of Al- mustak1i, the empire and rule had been transferred from the hands of the family of ’Abbas into those of the family of Bu- waihi, and that the authority which re- mained with the Bani-’ Abbas was only a juridical and religious, not a political and secular, affair. . . Therefore the *Abbaside prince, who at present occu- pies the throne of the Khilafa, is held by the astrologers to be only the spiritual head of Islam, but not a king.”’ A favorite subject of prediction has al- ways been, the end of the world. Even the ancients dabbled in this sort of va- ticination. Aristarchus held that the world would endure only two thousand four hundred and four ‘years; Daretes Dirrachinus, five thousand five hundred and fifty-two; Herodotus and Linus, ten thousand years; Dionysius, thir- teen thousand nine hundred and eighty- four; and Cassandra was credited with giving it one million eight hundred thousand years of life. For many ages the chief subject of Christian prediction was the reign of antichrist and the ap- proaching end of the world. Usually these were coupled together, as it was gathered from the apocalypse that the world would not be destroyed until anti- christ, who was expected to be a Jew, had appeared and tyrarnized for three years and a half over the afflicted church. St. Vincent Ferrer announced that anti- christ was already nine years old, and would appear shortly after his death, thus sparing himself the shame of witnessing his own discomfiture. The abbot Joachim also informed Rich-

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SOME CURIOUS PROPHECIES. ard 1. of England that antichrist was already born, and would hereafter sit on the papal throne. A Spaniard named Arnauld held that antichrist would cer- tainly appear in 1345, and made many share his opinion. Mahomet, Frederick Barbarossa, and in more recent times the Grand Turk, Napoleon 1., and Napoleon ur., have all been identified with anti- christ, and hence have been looked upon as forerunners of the earth’s destruction. One school of philosophers held that as God created the world in six days and rested on the seventh, the world would last for seven thousand years ; another that the number of verses in the Psalms of David indicated the number of years that the world would survive the birth of Christ. Readers of Gibbon and of Voltaire do not need to be reminded of the epidemic terror of the Christian world at the ap- proach of what was considered the fatal year 1000, when the pilgrims thronged to the Holy Land, ‘‘ singing psalms as they went, and looking with fearful eyes upon the sky, which they expected each moment to open, to let the Son of God descend in his glory.’’ Again in 1186, and still again during the great plague of 1345-50, the world escaped the de- struction threatened by medizval astrol- ogers. This did not prevent Stoffler from predicting a universal deluge for February, 1524. Far and wide on con- tinental Europe people prepared them- selves for the dreadful event. President Auriel, at Toulouse, even built him- selfa Noah’s ark. In England, wherethe prophecy had assumed the modified form that a high tide would destroy 10,000 houses in London, more than 20,000 citizens fled into Kent and Essex to es- cape the visitation. Bolton, prior of St. Bartholomew’s, a pious man, and pru- dent withal, built a high tower on an eminence at Harrow-on-the-Hill, which he stocked with two months’ provisions. On the 24th of January he removed thi- ther with all the inmates of his priory, the further precaution being taken of fill- ing the fortress with boats manned by ex- pert oarsmen, so that, if the waters pre- vailed on the top of the hill, the com- munity might seek an Ararat on Skid- daw or the Peak of Devonshire. But it turned out that the year 1524 was distin- 207 guished for drought, and during the whole month of February hardly a cloud was seen in the sky. Then Stoffler dis- covered an error in his calculations: the date should have been February, 1624, instead of February, 1524. On October, 1736, Whiston sent crowds out to Islington aud other suburbs to witness the destruction of London, a pre- lude to the destruction of the world. In 1761, after two shocks of earthquake, Feb- ruary 8 and March 8, all London went wild over the prediction of a lifeguards- man named Bell, who went about the streets declaring that the city would be overwhelmed in a third shock on the 5th of April. Thousands deserted the city, and as many thousands poured into the vicinity to witness the catastrophe. Bell went openly mad after the failure of his prediction. In 1806 some wags, by inscribing a hen’s egg with the words Christ is com- ing, precipitated a religious panic in Leeds. Every great comet has been re- garded as the prophet of evil and latterly as the agent of destruction. In Europe in 1832—and especially in Germany—the danger to the globe was solemnly dis- cussed, and business suffered severely from the general apprehension. So late as March, 1872, we had our own little com- et scare in America. The Millerite excitements in the Unit- ed States have not passed out of the pub- lic memory. Nor need we speak of the predictions of Irving and Cumming and of all their sect down to Colonel W. A. Baker, of the Royal Engineers, who fig- ured out the resurrection of the just for December 6, 1874; the translation of the saints for January 25, 1875, at the incon- venient hour of 1 A.m., and the descent of Christ on Mount Olivet at sunset of September 20, 1878. But it may be of interest to recall the famous prophecy attributed to Mother Shipton, which some years prior to 1881 caused very considerable uneasiness to many minds. It went the round of the papers of Great Britain and America, and ran as follows: Carriages without horses shall go And accidents fill the world with woe. Around the world thoughts shall fly In the twinkling of an eye. Water shall yet more wonders do, Now strange, yet shall be true.

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SOME CURIOUS PROPHECIES. The world upside down shall be, And gold be found at root of tree. Through hills man shall ride, Aud no horse or ass shall be at his side. Under water men shall walk, Shall ride, shall sleep, shall talk. In the air men shall be seen In white, in black, in green. Iron in the water shall float As easy as a wooden boat. Gold shall be found, and found In a land that's not yet known. Fire and water shall wonders do: England at last shall admit a Jew. The world to an end shall come In eighteeen hundred and eighty-one. Now, Mother Shipton was a veritable person, whose prophecies were at various times collected and published. But these lines appeared for the first time in the edition of Mother Shipton published by Charles Hindley, of Brighton, England, in 1862. The book claimed to be an ex- act reprint of a chapbook version issued in 1641, but really as old as 1448. It did not take long to expose the fraud. The earliest edition to be found in the British Museum proved to be of 1641; and nei- ther that nor any of the later ones con- tained a line of any importance, but only a vague jumble of local predictions. Not long afterwards Hindley confessed to the forgery. Nevertheless the prediction (which agreed with the great gallery of the Pyramid, as interpreted by Piazzi Smith, in declaring that the world should come to an end in 1881) retained astonish- ing tenacity of life, and many timid souls breathed freer with the advent of 1882. Possibly there were more of these timid souls in America than in England. For Mother Shipton as a prophet had already lost much honor in her own country, by two predictions which, whether genuine or not, had at least been attributed to her before the event. She had asserted that when the dragon of Bow Church and the grasshopper of the Royal Exchange should meet, London streets would be del- uged with blood. But in 1820 these two famous weathercocks did meet in the yard of a stone-mason on Old Street without any resulting catastrophe. And another of her prophecies had declared that at noon of Good Friday, 1879, Ham Hill, a prominent point near Yeovil, should be destroyed by an earthquake, and Yeovil itself be swallowed up bya flood. Many people left the locality ; others, whose faith was less robust, deemed it prudent at least to remove theirdishes, clocks, and window-sashes so as to avoid breakage by the shock. Onthe morning of Good Fri- day large crowds of Mid-Somersetshire folks flocked to the spot, or as near to the spot as they dared, to await, half incred- ulous and half in terror, the stroke of twelve and the fulfilment of the prophecy. It is needless to remark that Ham Hill still stands where it stood, and Yeovil was not drowned out. The most famous of all astrologers and secular prophets was Michael Nostrada- mus. He became famous almost by acci- dent. Hewas the first to publish almanacs containing meteorological predictions. To the latter he adde dprophecies foretell- ing the rise of epidemics; the births, mar- riages, and deathsin prominent families ; the actions of the government ; the bat- tles, wars, and treatiesof Europe. Some lucky guesses made a great noise, and he was universally saluted as a prophet. In 1555 he commenced the publication of a series of rhymed prophecies called Cen- turies, which when completed contained in 946 quatrains all the remarkable events that were to occur between the years 1559 and 1999. In the latter year the world would come to an end. ‘These se- cured him the notice of Catharine de Medici, and later of Henry tv. The seeming fulfilment of some of the qua- trains greatly increased his influence. Af- ter his death his disciple Chavigny pub- lished acommentary on the Centuries, in which he showed that they had been marvellously borne out by the succeeding history of France. Since that time Nos- tradamus has not wanted for commenta- tors of a similar sort. In 1781 the Cen- turies were deemed worthy of condemna- tion by Rome, as they were supposed to contain a prediction of the fall of the papacy. The latest commentator on Nostra- damus was the abbé Thorné-Clavigny, who in 1858 published a work on the Centuries, showing that Napoleon m1. would strike his flag and fly to London, and that McMahon would rule the re- public. So great was his faith that he refused to believe the rumor of the Mar- shal’s death in 1870. He immediately wrote: ‘‘If dead and buried he will rise again, for he is the English chief, the

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SOME CURIOUS PROPHECIES. English prince spoken of by the prophet, who is to sojourn too long and to have under his orders the princes of the blood and the marshals of France.’”’ In the same year the abbé, always by the light of these prophecies, was enabled to an- nounce the death of Victor Emanuel, who would be followed to the grave by Pius rx.; that Leo. x11. would succeed him, and that Muscovy would diminish Turkey, and attempt to throw her back upon Asia. Encouraged by so much success, the abbé published another com- mentary in 1879. There is considerable ingenuity in the manner in which the good abbé reconciles these prophecies with the past. Thus, he claims that Nostradamus foretold the arrest of Louis xvi. at Varennes in this quatrain : Le part solus mary sera mitré : Retour, conflict passera sur la thuille Par cing cens; un trahyr eera tiltre, Narbon et Saulce par quarteaux avons d’huile. The first line means that the king alone shall wear the red cap. The second line and half the third foretell the attack on the Tuileries of the roth of August by five hundred Marseillais; and the remain- ing lines the betrayal of the king by the Comte de Narbonne and by Sauce, the grocer of Varennes, who received twenty thousand frances from the -convention. Prophesying the fate of Marat, Nostra- damus alludes to the angel of assasina- tion as La Corneille. Now, Charlotte Corday was the grand-niece of Corneille. He writes of the blood-stained statue, the tyrant murdered, and the people praying. And no sooner was Marat slain than statues were erected to his memory, and people invoked the blessed heart of Marat. The advent of Napoleon 1. is thus fore- told : Un empereur naistra pres d'Italie, Qui a l’empire sera vendu bien chér Dirons avec quels gens il se ralie Qu’on trouvera moins prince que boucher. Which is in fact so plain as to need no commentary. The advent and fall of Napoleon m1. are thus described : Par le décide de deux choses bastards, Nepveu du Sang occupéra le régre, 209 Dedano Lectoyre seront les coups de dards Nepveu par peur pliera l’anseign. The two bastard things which are to die are explained as the monarchy and the republic of 1848. As to the last line, ‘« The nephew shall strike his flag in fear within Lectroye,’’ it will be remembered how Napoleon 11., without consult- ing the commander-in-chief, General de Wimpffen, ordered the army to surrender. Lectoyre is an anagram of Le Torey, a faubourg of Sedan. And so on and so on. But, alas for Nostradamus and his commentators ! Flushed with success the abbé undertook to carry his predictions beyond 1879. The republic was to end in 1881, Paris was to be destroyed, Avignon would become the capital of France, Henry v. would conquer Napoleon tv., would then direct his victorious arms against England and eventually give the law to all Europe ! Recently a Belgian paper professed to have unearthed a curious book of proph- ecies. It was published in 1585; the author was Jacques Molan, doctor of laws and advocate to the parliament of Macon, the publisher Jean Stratius of Lyons. The prophecies were written much in the style of the more celebrated ones of Nostradamus, and among them was the following : Tu dois vivre et mourir, O Gaule, sous trois Bo. Deux siécles sous Bo 1. tu haulseros, 4 Gaule. Tu corseras Bo 11., ains te fera tombeau. Puis sous mitron Bo 111,, Bis Clem clord ton role. The meaning of these lines seems some- what as follows: ‘Thou must live and die, O Gaul, under three Bo’s. For two centuries under Bo 1. thou shalt rise, O Gaul. Thou shalt raise up(?) Bo mu. and thus shalt rend thyself into pieces. Then under Bo 111., the baker, Bis Clem will end thy rule.’’ The explanation is not far to seek. Bot. is the Bourbon dynas- ty, which ruled France for two centuries, from 1589 to 1789, from Henry rv. to the outbreak of the revolution. Bo I. is ev- idently Napoleon Bonaparte, and the corseras seems to be a play upon his Cor- sican origin. Bo u., the baker, is, of course, Boulanger ; while the Bis Clem who is to bring France’s destiny to an ignominious end can only be Bismarck and Clemenceau.

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A DARK PAGE OF RUSSIAN HISTORY. By AGNES ISTORY, says the satirist, is a nar- rative of crime ; and the further we penetrate into the obscure corridors of the past, the less groundwork we find for that favorite modern axiom on the radi- cal goodness of mankind. A stifling at- mosphere of violence and oppression hangs like a pall over the early years of every nation, cramping its vigorous young growth, undermining its moral strength, and staining its brightest an- nals with indelible marks of infamy and shame. The voice of the ages is broken with weeping ; and in every land, from prisons, from exile, from the scaffold, a countless multitude of victims have borne sad testimony to the relentless cruelty of man. In 1740 Anna Ivanovna, niece of Peter the Great, and Empress of Russia, was gathered to rest with her fathers. The nation who had groaned under her hated yoke breathed a great sigh of relief at their deliverance, and looked forward anxiously to her successor, the little Ivan vi., then a baby of three months, whose mother, Anna Leopoldovna, was appointed regent during his long minor- ity. It was a reversal of the old fable, King Stork in this case being followed by King Log, and with no more desirable result. The regent, a gentle, weak wo- man, proved eminently unfitted for her task. Her husband, Ulric, Duke of Brunswick-Bevern, was without influ- ence at court; and in a country where revolutions were looked upon in the light of periodical upheavals quite in the nat- ural order of events, the end was easily foreseen. When Ulric suggested to his wife that Elizabeth Petrovna, daughter of Peter the Great, was a dangerous rival to the throne, Anna was quite sure there was no cause for apprehension. Had not her young cousin declared with tears her exceeding innocence of all ambition ? and why should such effusive loyalty be re- ceived with harshness and mistrust? A few weeks later the crown was placed upon Elizabeth’s fair head, and the in- fant czar, with his mother and father, were consigned to the safe seclusion of Schliisselburg, a fortress built on an REPPLIER. island in the Neva, and the abode of many political prisoners. It is said that the soldiers sent to ar- rest the dethroned baby waited respect- fully by his cradle until he had awak- ened, and then carried him to the czar- itsa, who embraced him tenderly, and stood holding him in her arms while the crowd shouted her name outside the palace gates. Pleased with the noise, the child, now nearly two years old, struggled and laughed. ‘Poor little one!’ said Elizabeth, bitterly; «‘ those are the sounds that hurl thee from thy throne.’’ Then, conscious that she had gone too far for pity, she handed him back to the guards, and resolutely dis- missed him to a captivity that was to last for his life. For some months the boy was kept a close prisoner at Schliisselburg, and then taken secretly to Riga, so that the very place of his confinement might be un- known to the nation. Afterwards, for still greater security, he was carried first to Dunamaunde and then to Ora- nienburg, in the wild and scantily civil- ized province of Vorentz. Here, being only four years old, he was separated forever from his parents, and condemned to a life of utter solitude, without occu- pation, instruction, or amusement to brighten the weary hours. But wher- ever the poor child lay hidden, rumor was busy with his name. The secret of his prison cell was discovered by a Rus- sian monk, who conceived the daring project of stealing him from the fortress and either raising the banner of revolt under his name or carrying him to Ger- many and placing him under the protec- tion of Frederick the Great. The plot, desperate though it seemed, came actual- ly very near success. Ivan was smug- gled away in the night, and taken as far as Smolensko, a distance of several hun- dred miles. Here the fugitives were ar- rested; the little czar was hastily con- veyed to a convent on Lake Valdai, and of the monk’s fate nothing is known. It is not probable he survived to tell the tale; for although Elizabeth had nomin- ally abolished capital punishment, the

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A DARK PAGE OF RUSSIAN HISTORY. penalties she resubstituted were often quite as final in their character. A South African chief is reported to have told a startled English missionary that under his laws, death was the lightest discipline inflicted ; and of the eighty thousand un- fortunates condemned to the knout or to Siberia during Elizabeth’s reign, many would doubtless have promptly con- curred in the African’s mode of reckon- ing. But Ivan, hidden from the world by the heavy convent walls, lived on un- heeded and gradually forgotten—spring- ing into boyhood without a single boyish pleasure or ambition, and confined in a rigorous solitude which could have but one inevitable result—the weakening of his mental powers, so that he should be unfit for reigning. That this end was not more quickly reached is the most surprising thing about all his wretched history. The unhappy dauphin, Louis Xvul., was a child of unusual promise; yet a few years of close imprison- ment and consistent brutality wrecked the budding intelligence and reduced him to the verge of idiocy. That Ivan, kept in a state of blank ignorance and stupefaction since babyhood, did not easily succumb either in mind or body proves that the vigorous stock from which he sprang had found in him no unworthy representative. When in his sixteenth year, Elizabeth conceived a de- sire to see him, and, with this view, had him brought back to his old quarters at Schliisselburg, he was tall, well-grown, and handsome, with a singularly sweet voice, but so pitifully illiterate and child- ish that the czaritsa could not forbear shedding an abundance of tears over the work her hands had done. Nevertheless, from motives of state she resolved to con- tinue his captivity, giving orders, how- ever, that he should be richly dressed as became his rank, and that his table should be served with heavy silver plate. To this mockery of respect, Ivan soon grew accustomed, and took great delight in his fine clothes; a taste which arose naturally enough from his _ limited range of pleasures, and which has been rather unfairly urged against him as a proof of imbecility. As Eliza- beth—whose mental soundness no one questions—left at her death 15,000 costly 2I!I gowns, none of which had been worn twice, besides several thousand pairs of shoes and slippers, and two great chests of silk stockings, it is clear that a fond- ness for dress can hardly be accepted as a conclusive test of insanity. Elizabeth’s reign had been on the whole a beneficial one for the country, which was making rapid strides in civil- ization and material prosperity. Her successor, Peter I., was a grandson of Peter the Great, whose descendants, one and all, enjoyed a brief possession of their imperial ancestor’s throne. It is supposed that Peter seriously entertained the thought of taking Ivan out of prison and of making him his heir; and it is certain that he went once or twice to see the unhappy captive at Schliisselburg, who, recognizing intuitively the rank of his mysterious visitor, begged patheti- cally—not for freedom—but that he might be sometimes permitted to leave his nar- row cell, and to walk in the great court of the fortress. Peter, like Elizabeth, was extremely affected by the interview, spoke kindly to the boy, and asked him how much he remembered of his parents and his childhood. Beyond a vague re- collection of his mother’s tears when he was torn from her arms, Ivan’s. reminis- cences were all drearily alike—a quick succession of prison after prison and cell after cell, and an unending round of brutal guards and officers who had made his life darker than need be by their wanton cruelty and neglect. ‘Were none of them ever kind to you ?’’ asked the czar, and Ivan slowly answered : ‘«There was one, only one, and I have never forgotten him; it was the Baron Korz.’’ ‘See, gentlemen,’’ said Peter, greatly moved, and turning to his suite, ‘«see how a good action is never thrown away.”’ Ivan’s cell in the fortress of Schliissel- burg was a vaulted room twenty-four feet square, with stone walls and a brick floor. The scanty furniture was of the rudest kind, and the single window filled in with opaque glass so that he might not look through. At the time of Peter’s visit he was plainly, even coarsely, at- tired, but scrupulously clean and of a fine appearance. Amid his general ig- norance he had unhappily learned the one thing that was dangerous for him to

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212 know. A guard had rashly revealed to him the secret ot his birth; and in his poor, dim mind he cherished wild hopes of retalliation against those who had so cruelly wronged him. Of Elizabeth’s death he knew nothing; and when, a few months later, Peter was murdered by the Orloffs, Ivan’s last chance of freedom was forever lost. The severity of his impris- onment had been somewhat mitigated by the czar; but when Catherine 11. ascend- ed the throne of Russia, she fully re- solved that his very existence should be forgotten. There was little to fear from one so closely confined and so weakened in intellect ; but there was everything to apprehend from others working in his name. ‘It is my opinion,’’ wrote Cath- erine, respecting this troublesome pris- oner, ‘‘that he should be guarded from escape, so as to place him beyond the power of doing harm. It would be best to tonsure him, and to transfer him to some monastery, neither too near nor too far off; it will suffice if it does not be- come a shrine.”’ The soundness of the czaritsa’s policy was soon to be proven. The frequency and success of the oft-repeated revolu- tions encouraged every hot-headed ad- venturer to try his hand at so easy and profitable a game. With this idea, Vas- sili Mirovitch, a young officer whose es- tates had been confiscated through the disloyalty of his family, determined to make a bold stroke for fame and fortune by releasing Ivan and placing him upon the throne. The plan he proposed was so utterly audacious that its very daring seemed to promise it success. With a handful of conspirators as insignificant as himself, he actually contrived to dis- cover the number of Ivan’s cell at Schliis- selburg. He then waited until it was his appointed week to guard the fortress, and on the night of July the fourth, 1764, he aroused about forty of the soldiers under his command, telling them briefly that he had received secret orders from Catherine concerning the imprisoned ezar. Never doubting their lieutenant’s word, the men followed him towards Ivan’s dungeon. On their way they en- countered the governor, Berednikof, who, awakened by the tumult, opposed them bravely with drawn sword. He was easily disarmed, and Mirovitch, produc- A DARK PAGE OF RUSSIAN HISTORY. ing a forged document authorizing him to remove the prisoner, demanded admis- sion to his cell in the czaritsa’s name. But the massive gates which guarded the corridor remained barred; and the conspirators, receiving no answer from the sentinels within, determined to force an entrance. A small cannon was hasti- ly dragged into place, and the astonished soldiers given orders to fire, when sud- denly, amid an ominous silence, the doors were swung apart, and Mirovitch rushed to Ivan’s room. That too was open, and on the floor lay the dead body of the czar, covered with gaping wounds. The two officers, Oulousieff and Tsche- kin, who guarded the cell day and night, and had orders never to let their captive escape alive, stood motionless by the door. ‘Behold your emperor!’’ they said, and sheathed their bloody swords. Thus the conspiracy was foiled and Catherine secured upon her throne. Many have believed that it was she who beguiled Mirovitch into the plot, in or- der to rid herself of one whose life was a continual menace to her power; but there is no evidence on which to base the accusation. The numerous wounds on Ivan’s body proved how dearly he had sold his life. Aroused from sleep by the unwonted noise, he sprang out of bed, only to find himself face to face with his murderers ; and, dazed and unarmed, he yet fought with such despairing cour- age that he had actually succeeded in wresting the weapon from one of his as- sailants, when the other stabbed him fa- tally in the back. Mirovitch, seeing that all was over, never even attempted to es- cape. He gazed for a few moments in silent horror at the disfigured corpse, and then, with astonishing composure, re- turned to Berednikof, released him, and delivered up to him his own sword. ‘I am now your prisoner,”’ he said, ‘and only regret the fate of my unfortunate companions.’’ He was tried, condemned to death, and beheaded at St. Petersburg the following September, meeting his sentence with the same apparent uncon- cern with which he had beheld the down- fall of his hopes. If he had any reason to expect imperial clemency, he certain- ly received none. Catherine permitted him to pay the full penalty of his trea- son, and the vast crowds who flocked to

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FRAGMENTS OF THE STARS. see him die were so deeply moved by the spectacle—the first of the kind they had witnessed in twenty years—that with a cry of horror they pressed madly over the Neva, so that the bridge was in dan- ger of giving way beneath their weight, and the heavy balustrades were broken. The lesser conspirators, who had been se- duced by Mirovitch with dazzling prom- ises of wealth and favor, all escaped with their lives, but were punished in various ways and with such shocking severity that they had every reason to envy their leader the tender mercies of his scaffold. Ivan’s body dressed in the coarse 213 clothes of a common sailor was exposed fora dayin the great court of Schiliissel- burg, thata curious public might satisfy itself he was really dead. His comeliness, his cruel wounds, his hard life, and his untimely end awoke such mingled pity and indignation among the thousands who thronged to the fortress that the authorities, fearing a riot, wrapped the murdered czar in a sheepskin, and bur- ied him privately and with scant cer- emony within the prison chapel. He was twenty-four years old, and had spent nearly twenty-three years in a dungeon, expiating his sole crime—the inheritance of a mighty throne. FRAGMENTS OF THE STARS. (METEORITES.) By JOHN HEARD, JR. \ HILE assorting some old notes recently, I discovered a sketch crossed by a line so energetically drawn that both halves of the paper barely hang together by a shred. It was made, I re- member, in my office on the summit of a mountain in Mexico, the energy being supplied by a thunderclap: of such ap- palling violence that T-square, board, and pencil literally shot from my hands onto the floor. Outside the sky was blue and serene; beyond a small, dark-looking spot apparently as large as a man’s hand, not a cloud was visible. The rainy season was passed and for many months to come no storm need be ex- pected. Yet the violence of this report was such that miners at work 300 feet below ground at once came to the sur- face thinking that the powder-magazine had exploded. As we could discover neither cause nor damage, the men eventually returned to their work. On the morrow the matter was entirely forgotten, and, with many other inexplicable phenomena, credited simply to—Mexico. A few days later I happened to be din- ing in a neighboring town, and as the claims of the siesta weighed heavily upon the spirit of our conversation, it occurred to me to ask for an explanation of my cloudless thunderclap. The military chief of the district was present, and as he considered it part of his duty in life—a duty which, by the way, consisted largely of what we call swagger—to shock the religious super- stitions of the ladies, he spoke up at once: ‘‘Why, you know, don Juan,’’ he said, ‘‘that the original quarrel between God and the devil, or, if you prefer, be- tween good and evil, has never been fought out to a final issue. Thus, I ven- ture to affirm that what you heard was the bursting of some newly invented shell shot forth from the other world with such violence as to pass out of their - atmosphere into ours.”’ ‘«Chihuahua! don José!’’ I exclaimed, as the truth flashed suddenly across my mind, ‘‘you are right! That was a shot from another world, and I thank you for the suggestion.”’ But as I knew that the company would neither understand nor accept a scientific explanation of this apparently supernat- ural phenomenon, I kept my disappoint- ment to myself. For although it is esti- mated that at least 600 meteors annually burst within our atmosphere and scatter their fragments over the surface of our

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214 globe, yet few men have seen more than one such explosion, and I had plainly missed my opportunity. 8 The earliest record of stones falling from heaven is in Joshua x, 10, when upon the Amorites fleeing towards Beth- Horon, ‘the Lord cast down great stones from heaven.’’ Whether these stones were of poetic, meteoric, or merely atmos- pheric origin we have no means of deter- mining. But among the ancients there are many records of the falling of true meteorites. Thus, in 644 B. C., the six- teenth year of the reign of Hy-Kong, five such stones fell in the Song province ; in 467 B. C. (the 78th Olympiad), a stone of the size of a chariot fell in Thrace, near the Aigos Potamos. Pindar, Plu- tarch, Livy, Pliny, Valerius, and many others mention the violent advent of such stones from thesky. The Phrygian stone which Arnobius mentions, and the very presence of which would suffice to deliver Italy from the Cathaginians, was transported to Rome in 204, received by Scipio Nasica, the most honest man in the republic, and borne from Ostia to the capital by Roman ladies eager to share the honor of bearing so divine a talis- man. It was richly mounted in silver, and one of its distinctive signs was a cavity, shaped like a mouth, the origin of which we shall have occasion to refer to later. History, indeed, is full of such stories, which, interesting as they may be, we have not space to mention here. Before recent investigations had proved the extra-terrestrial origin of these bodies, the ancients alone guessed, rather than understood, that they came to us froni other worlds. According to Pliny, Anax- agoras believed them to be fragments of the sun—a singularly bold and, the ideas of his age considered, profound sugges- tion. Until nearly twenty centuries later —for we must pass over the credulous superstitions of the middle ages—scienti- fic men held it to be their duty to scoff at such far-fetched explanations, the more especially as the very occurrence of the phenomena was questioned. It is true that in 1793 an Italian philosopher named Chladni had published a theory of the origin of meteoric stones, which, although based on singularly correct FRAGMENTS OF THE STARS. principles, was essentially wrong in its deductions; but this, notwithstanding the French Academy of Sciences, then the highest scientific authority in Chris- tendom, merely laughed at such physical impossibilities, and continued to treat the accounts of every new fall of stones, no matter how accurately described, how thoroughly documented, nor by whom attested, as silly stories proving merely to what deplorable extent popular credu- lity could be taxed. This summary verdict did not, how- ever, seem to affect the meteorites, for they continued to fall upon this globe much as they had become accustomed to do before. The famous stone-storm at Benares, In- dia, December 19, 1798, had the privilege of investing such phenomena with a show of possible authenticity. English scientists and the great Swiss physicist Pictet became convinced that the much doubted and derided phenomenon was genuine, and at once began toanalyze and investigate. Their results were, never- theless, received with contempt by their French colleagues. Nor was it until, at Howard’s suggestion, Vauquelin him- self analyzed some of the star fragments, and read his report before the assembled academy, that its members became will- ing to listen to reason. Their scepticism was, however, so deeply rooted that they were about to reject even this report and its logical conclusions, when suddenly the great Laplace cried: ‘‘Hold! Gen- tlemen, these stones may come from the volcanoes of the moon. Let us beware of dismissing a question which may re- quire the most thorough investigation !”’ The effect of this caution was such that the next eruption was anxiously expect- ed. It came in April, 1803, accompanied by great noise, unusual local disturb- ances, and an abundant supply of ma- terial. A member of the academy, M. Biot, was at once despatched to the spot, and the report of his exhaustive exami- nation, substantiated by a numerous col- lection of meteoric stones, dispelled the last vestige of incredulity. Thenceforward meteorites were lowed a scientific rating. II. al- Speaking in a general way, these cos-

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FRAGMENTS OF THE STARS. mic fragments become noticeable in the high regions of our atmosphere as more or less spheroidal, intensely luminous ob- jects. Their light is often somewhat col- ored, as in the case of falling stars, now reddish, now yellowish, now greenish white, and so intense as to be distinctly visible in the strongest sunlight ; or, if at night, to eclipse the light of the full moon. In one case on record, the lu- minous phenomenon was observed over a horizontal radius of more than fifty miles. Emerging from the darkness of interplanetary space, these meteors grow luminous at an average height of approx- imately forty miles above the surface of the earth ; in exceptional cases, however, this figure may be largely increased. The inclination of their trajectory on the horizon is so slight that they sometimes seem to move along a level line; and as far as can be ascertained, they come as frequently from one point of the compass as from another. Ourstatistics are by no means sufficient to show whether there is a greater tendency to burst in the zone of our equator or not. The majority of meteorites fallin the sea ; and as we have neither reliable nor numerous witnesses in the arctic or antarctic regions, the small number of fully observed falls would naturally predominate in equa- torial or temperate regions. These meteors usually leave a lumin- ous, roughly triangular tail behind them, which seems often to last for several minutes before disappearing ; the color, shape, and size of these cometary tails are most variable, and the number of ob- servations on record is insufficient to al- low of any generalizations. The size of these meteors is largely a matter of conjecture, for, appearing, as they do, high up in the heavens, we have no object for comparison, excepting the moon. We may safely assume that the true size of a meteorite is much smaller than the apparent diameter of the luminous meteor; a fact borne out by the relatively small aggregate dimensions of the frag- ments discovered after the explosion. The speed of meteors is beyond our terrestrial standards of comparison; we can express it in figures, but these no longer convey any meaning to our mind. For whereas swallows and our fastest lo- 215 comotives travel a hundred feet or so a second, and cannon balls from 1000 to 1500, these planetary exiles rush through space at the inconceivable rate of be- tween twenty and sixty miles in the sec- ond—a speed equal to that of falling stars, which we may consider as gaseous meteorites that merely touch the outer limits of our atmosphere. The so-called Rochester meteor travelled within our sight a distance of more than 1000 miles during a lapse of time estimated by vari- ous observers at from fifteen seconds to three minutes. A portion ofthis traveller fell to earth, but the greater part of it passed from our atmosphere out into space again. All the phenomena connected with the appearance of a meteor within our realm of observation are on a scale of such magni- tude that they not only astonish but ter- rify and appal those who witness them. The explosion of a meteorite is as extra- ordinary in the realm of sound as is its luminosity or as isitsspeed. Bursting in a region where the highly rarefied air offers the most imperfect conductivity to sound, the sound of the explosion is nevertheless far greater than any we can conceive of being produced upon earth even by our strongest explosives. Forty miles, or thereabouts, above us, the dis- ruption takes place, not always simul- taneously or, as is often supposed, by one explosion, but by a succession of ex- plosions. The Rochester meteor to which we have already referred, and which is one of the most interesting ever observed, passed over Leavenworth, Kansas, at a height of sixty miles, crossing the Mis- sissippi at Keokuk; the first explosion recorded was over the state of Missouri, but the fragmentation was continued throughout its journey over the states of Illinois, Indiana, and Ohio. In central Illinois two startling reports were ob- served ; and as far as 120miles away from the line of travel, the noise of these ex- plosions was still noticeable as a thun- dering rumble. In other words, the noise of that particular phase of disrup- tion was as loud as ordinary thunder at a direct distance of 150 miles from the point of disintegration. Such figures are interesting, as figures; but what idea do they convey to our minds of the magni- tude of the phenomenon? Our senses

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216 have long before reached their limit of infinity, and to infinity we are merely adding units. The violence with which the disruption takes place is equally extraordinary. The meteoric fragments in our posses- sion are in all cases distinctly frag- ments of a speroidal body, with slightly rounded edges, and proving by their shape that the disruptive force was such that the value of the most important properties of the shattered metals—ten- acity, malleability, ductility, etc.—were absolutely as nil, when compared to the force to which they were exposed. At the time of the falling of the Owinis meteorite, the question of temperature was subjected to calculation. This me- teorite passed over Rome at a height of 115 miles, travelling at the rate of thirty- eight miles per second. Upon reaching a point in our atmosphere at which the barometric pressure would be twelve mil- limetres, as against 760 at the surface, the increase of heat due to the destruc- tion of the meteorite’s energy would at- tain the stupendous figure of 3,486,469 degrees Fahrenheit. It would seem as though such intense heat should not only fuse but volatilize any matter subjected to it; and although we have no proof of such action, it seems reasonable to suppose that a certain por- tion of the meteoric matter really is vol- atilized. This, indeed, would afford a rational explanation of the luminous tail which accompanies some meteors; yet, as we shall see later, this hypothesis can be held to be true only within certain limits. We must remember that the length of time during which the outer surface of the meteorite is subjected to such heat is very short ; that in the ma- jority of cases the material would prove a poor conductor; and that, moreover, the cosmic fragment comes into our at- mosphere from interplanetary space, the cold of which is inexpressibvle in intelli- gible terms. The incandescence of me- teorites is therefore purely superficial, as is proved by the surprising thinness of the fused black crust which envelops all heaven-stones, and for which the comparison to a varnish gives an erro- neously large measurement. The start- ling combination of intense heat with intense cold will be more readily illus- FRAGMENTS OF THE STARS. trated by the following anecdote. A number of stones having been seen to fall at Dhurmsalla, India, the spectators rushed forward and with eager impa- tience broke open several of the frag- ments, which were so hot on the outside and so cold on the inside as to burn their fingers, and thus justify Agassiz’s pictur- esque description of them as fried ice. The edges of meteoric stones are al- ways rounded, more so at the front than at the back; and their surface pitted with impressions resembling finger-marks— all evidences, as it was for a long time be- lieved, that the black outer coating was the result of a fusion. The patient, in- telligent, and remarkable investigations of those eminent authorities MM. Stanis- las Meunier and A. Daubrée disprove this apparently plausible theory, and es- tablish beyond a doubt that the round- ing of the edges is really caused by the mechanical erosion of the air, independ- ently of heat, and that the pit-marks on the surface of meteorites are produced by rapidly whirling and highly compressed air acting like a pneumatic drill. Indeed the velocity with which motion is trans- mitted by gases is so insignificant when measured with the enormous velocity of the travelling meteorite, that we can com- pare the latter to a projectile passing through a solid tube exactly as a shell passes through a gun-tube. And this simile is so appropriate that, following it up in actual practice, we find it confirmed by the exact reproduction of meteoric pit-marks and rounded edges in the coarse grains of powder that often fall from the gun-mouth and become extin- guished onstriking theair. In the same way the touch-hole canal of large guns often shows pittings and borings due to the escape of rapidly whirling, highly compressed gases, exactly similar to those we findin meteoric iron. In the lat- ter case, however, the entire surface is covered with these marks; for, as the me- teorite has a rotary as well as a forward motion, every part of it is successively exposed to the resisting spirals of air in front of it. To sum up, then, the black crust which is a characteristic mark of meteorites more nearly ‘resembles a polish than a varnish, and is due more to friction than to heat; the marks and ridges are to be

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FRAGMENTS OF THE STARS. ascribed to erosion rather than to fusion, and the heat generated by the travelling meteorite is caused less by friction than compression. The dust resuiting from this erosion, being, by reason of its ex- ternal position, more highly heated than the solid meteorite, becomes luminous and forms the bright tail of meteors. The velocity of the falling meteorite after the explosion is entirely out of pro- portion with the superb velocity of the meteor, yet sufficient to cause the stones to penetrate the ground toa certain depth varying from several feet to a few inches only, and to carry the fragments over large areas. In some cases the major axis of the ellipse over which the fragments were scattered measured more than ten miles when the fragmentation was com- plete. When the fragmentation is in- complete, the area covered is not to be measured. May and June seem to be the most pro- lific months; and the hours of the day, or say from six to six, show more than twice as many falls of meteorites as the hours of the night. In view of the limited statistics at our command such results are, however, quite devoid of value. The reported damage done by these heaven-stones is small. In 616 a stone fell in China with sufficient force to shat- ter a cart and kill ten men. About the close of the seventeenth century, Captain Willmann reported that two sailors were killed atsea by a nine-pound stone falling upon his decks from the heavens. Not long after this a monk was killed near Milan by a small stone that came from above. Oneof the New Concord meteor- ites (1860) broke a railroad tie in two, Gs ks The number of fragments seems un- limited. Sometimes, indeed often, none are found ; at others—as, for instance, at Pultusk, Poland—it is estimated that more than 100,000 fell, and of these more than 2000 are to be seen in the same col- lection. It is a curious fact that the ma- jority of meteorites that have fallen in the United States are composed of me- teoric iron, whereas in other countries me- teorie stones (rocks) largely predominate. Mineral, metallic, meteoric dusts (not to be confounded with the same varieties of voleanic dusts), muddy or dirty rains, 217 black snows, etc., are merely pulverized meteorites combined with the aqueous vehicle. Ill. But interesting and picturesque as are these phenomena connected with the out- side of meteorites, their meaning is of small importance compared with what the inside of these heaven-stones reveals to us of the worlds beyond our atmos- phere—of worlds even beyond the limits of the vast field which our instruments have made familiar ground. Let us briefly review—for to discuss them would require rolls of printing-paper—the re- sults of both chemical and mineralogical investigation in this one chapter of our history, and see what general deductions seem to be justified by fact. It is well known that the different com- pounds which constitute this earth have been resolved into sixty-six elements ; that is, substances essentially different from oneanother, and which cannot be fur- ther subdivided by any means within our power at present. Of thesesixty-six ele- ments, thirty-four have been recognized among the substances brought toour earth by meteorites. Not one new substance, unknown to us before, has been detected ; nor, excepting in a single doubtful case, has the spectral analysis of the heavenly bodies revealed the possibility of an un- known element. Even in the case of this one exception the burden of probability is against rather than for the existence of this unknown element. Moreover, these elements come to us from the infinity of interplanetary space, combined in minerals often identical with, always similar to, analogous com- binations of like elements on our earth. From the nature of these minerals, and by the light of compared geology, we are enabled, within certain limits, to approx- imately describe the stage of evolution reached by the cosmic body a small frag- ment of which, wandering through space, has brought us its testimony. And though at first its language may not have been intelligible, we know to-day that it has told us the truth and nothing but the truth ; and from this basis of fact we have deduced the rest. One of the main stumbling-blocks es- tablishing the analogy of development

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218 of this earth with that of the cosmic bodies of which we possess samples, was the presence of metallic iron asso- ciated with nickel in many meteorites. In some one of its many combined forms, iron is one of the commonest substances on earth; but native iron of terrestrial origin was unknown until recently, when the Danish scientist Steenstrup, following in the footsteps of Nordens- kj6ld, discovered it in large quantities imbedded in the great basaltic mass that overlies Greenland, from the sixty-ninth degree north to the seventy-sixth, where it disappeared under the covering of per- petual ice. Chemical and microscopical investigation liave today proved that these masses of iron were carried up in an unfused condition by the irrupting basalt from the metalliferous zones of the earth’s interior; and today we are able to assign a definite position to the laboratory where rocks similar to the me- teoric stones are made. The fragments brought to us from space distinctly prove that the star—if we may so name the incomplete body of whose disruption they bear witness—never THE ECCENTRICITIES OF FASHION. reached many stages of development through which we have successfully passed. They have brought us no evi- dence of organic life—no substances of sedimentary origin, nor even such as be- long to the antepenultimate strata of our earth’s crust. Whence they come, we know not. Somewhere in infinite space a world that was to be, suddenly ceased to exist; and its fragments, scattered through the vast domain of innumer- able solar systems, proclaim the pass- ing away of a still-born planet. In oth- er worlds, beings like ourselves may at this very moment be examining, as we are doing, their small share of stones from heaven, and formulating the same theories that we have so patiently built up. But whether from above or whether from below, the proof of the grand unity of the universal laws, of the identity of composition of all creation, daily receives fresh confirmation. Nor is it the least of human glories that man can stand before God, holding a fragment of a star in his hand and say, ‘‘ Lord, we understand thy laws !”’ THE ECCENTRICITIES OF FASHION. By J. H. BRIDGEs. wy ass excellent taste! is a com- / ment sometimes made by women on each other’s dress; and the implied notion that there is a fixed standard by which the taste embodied in a garment may be gauged is further shown in thecrit- icism more frequently heard, What bad taste! Newspaper writers and art-critics are ever passing judgment on paintings, operas, and plays, on singing, acting, and dressing, quite oblivious to the fact that fashions are constantly chang- ing, and that the esthetic ideal of yes- terday is reckoned bad form to-day. To be convinced of the mutability of taste in dress it is needful only to glance through any book of fashions a season or two old. Now we find the prevailing taste show- ing itself in farthingales and wide-spread- ing skirts; and now, going to the other extreme with startling suddenness, tight clinging robes become the rage. From peg-top trousers with their ample folds, to tight-fitting pants ever liable to split, the transition is made without any new eesthetic principle being discovered, and without any one attempting to show that the tastefulnes of the superseding garment is greater than that of the superseded. Absolute taste in dress does not exist. Caprice set the fash- ion, and for the time being good taste is that which conforms to her dictates; and in a less degree the same holds of zesthetic products at large—pictures and furniture, mannerisms of action and speech. Habits of thought, like habili- ments of body, are now banished with ignominy to the limbo of obsoleteness, and now recalled and reinstated with honor. That fashions, when once originated, become general is mainly due to the imi- tativeness which men largely share with

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THE ECCENTRICITIES OF FASHION. the rest of the animal world. Birds learn their songs by imitation; and what ani- mals do not know by instinct they learn by copying their elders. And man—from the time when, as a babe, he makes his first vocal combination, repeating mam- mam after his mother, to the time when, in the blush and dignity of manhood, he poses as a devotee to fashion—a dude—is prompted mainly by his instinct of imi- tation. Mr. Wallace, the naturalist, con- tends, indeed, that it is to imitation, and not to reason, that much of the intelli- gent work done by man is due. How much more influential, then, will be the imitative faculty in works that cannot be strictly called intelligent? Another cause co-operating to making fashions general is the fear which all have, in greater or less degree, of being conspicu- ous by too great divergence from the common habit; and this, operating on love of variety natural to man, helps the change to take place along set lines— lines that may have been decided upon in the workshop of some tailor-king or milliner-queen. Intimes past, yet another cause has co-operated; namely, the wish to propitiate the great; and onthe princi- ple that imitation is the sincerest flat- tery, courtiers have ever followed the ex- amples of kings and high personages, while the ladies of courts have affected the styles of their queens and superiors in office. . Buckle contends that the smallest mat- ters, even to the mode of fastening one’s cravat or knotting one’s shoe-lace, are governed by fixed laws. Aninquiry into the laws governing fashion,though doubt- less of a great interest, is not intended here; but in glancing at.a few of the eccentricities of fashion in past times, it may not be unprofitable to observe under what laws, if any, these strange customs come. What principle of utility or beau- ty, for example, could have directed the taste of man who in France in the four- teenth century was the first to ‘clothe one leg in one colour—white, yellow, or green—and the other in another—black, blue, or red’’? (Quicherat, 235). And Re- nan tells us that about this time «‘ the mania for grotesque costumes became general’’; the common style of dress, male and female, doubtless, being in keeping with the variegated pantaloons. And 219 what law of esthetics first directed men to shave theireyebrows? That men, and women too, did in this wise propitiate the goddess of fashion we have proof in the explicit declarations of historians, and in sundry drawings that have de- scended to us. Considerations of com- fort and utility seem not to influence the adoption or rejection of fashion; for those who imitated Brissot, the first Frenchman who, copying the English round-heads, had his hair cut and went without powder, were hooted by the peo- ple ; and the fashion became general only after the round-head had been declared the patriotichead. And so was itin England when the umbrella was first introduced ; not only. the chairmen, who saw their business threatened by the innovation, byt the populace of London, decried the new-fangled notion from abroad. Con- trariwise, uncomfortable and even hurtful fashions frequently long persist spite of ridicule and opposition ; as, witness the long continuance of high-heeled boots and tight-lacing among ourselves. And at the beginning of last century a lady's coiffure was such an elaborate affair that it took many hours to complete ; and lest the elevation so laboriously raised should be too quickly destroyed, the poor suffer- er had to sleep upright in a chair. One summer’s day in 1775, as De Thou relates, Marie Antoinette appeared before Lewis XVI. in a sarcenet robe of a brown color. ‘It is the color of fleas,’’ said the king. The word made the fortune of it: all the court wore flea-color ; and Paris and the provinces imitated the court. Among the shades which dyers gave it were old flea, and young flea, flea's belly, flea’s back, and flea’s thigh. Here we have a curious illustration of the way in which fashions in past times often originated ; the king was flattered by the approval of his little joke, while the queen was complimented by general adoption of her fancy. And the extent to which the satellites that gyrate about royalty gravitate in their manners and opinions is amusingly shown by Qui- cherat: Louis xiv. ‘‘had only to say, or let it be seen, that a thing displeased him, for great and small at once to put asidethe object of his aversion. . . . Per- fumes were naturally disagreeable to him; this made the use of scents to be

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220 given up. ... Women even pretend- ed to faint when they smelled a rose at a distance !’’ Many similar examples can be given. When Francis 1., wounded in the head, ‘‘ was obliged to cut his hair, he let his beard grow, so as not to be like amonk. Then the fashion became com- mon;... and the bishops themselves were not slow to adopt it.’’ Under Henry Iv. beards were common in France ; but on the accession of a boy king, Louis x1., they were at once disused. When afterward the boy king became a bald man and took to wearing a peruke, he was at once imitated by his courtiers. And in like manner, Antoinette, having adopted a low coiffure by reason of loss of hair, was universally imitated ; as was also the case when she adopted the dress of a shepherdess or a milkmaid. The figures of black plaster which were worn by ladies on the face a hundred years ago, had their origin in a royal pimple. When, as Buckle relates, it was often, in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries a matter of dispute among the nobles at court as to who among them should have the honor of holding the king’s handker- chief, or his serviette, it is not to be wondered at that courtly servility should have descended so low. As the courtiers copied royalty, so were they in turn copied. Montaigne writes: ‘‘Whatever is done at court passes for a rule throughout France,”’ in dress, fashions, and forms of intercourse. ‘Let the courtiers but fall out with them, and they will see them all presently van- ish’d and cry’d down.’’ And at an earlier period in England it was ‘the custom to send young ladies of family to the houses of the great to learn man- ners’’ (Wright, 433). On the other hand, the adoption of some fashion by an unpopular person or a despised class is sometimes the signal for its general banishment. Yellow was the fashion- able tint in James I.’s reign; but yellow starched ruffs ceased to be fashionable after the execution of Mrs. Anne Turner, who ‘‘ appeared at the gallows in a ruff of the approved colour’ (Fairholt, 295). And among ourselves at the present day the extension of a style of garment to general use is often a reason why others leave it off. Many curious fashions are survivals THE ECCENTRICITIES OF FASHION. of ruder ages. The wedding custom which prevailed in the last century in Scotland, Wales, and Ireland, of acting a mock fight and capture of the bride by the groom and his friends, was of this character, descending to us from the times when in Britain—as in ancient Greece and Rome, and as at present among numerous savages—capturing wo- men from other tribes was a usual method of gaining wives. And a like survival was the old custom of the groomsmen stripping off the bride’s gar- ters to wear as tokens in their hats; being in all likelihood a remnant of the very ancient custom of loosening the virgin’s zone. Until quite late times it was customary for the bridegroom to place a small sum of money in the pray- er book during the marriage ceremony ; an evident survival from the times when wives were bought with hard cash at fixed prices. And the expression in the Anglican service ‘‘ to have and to hold’’ clearly implies property in the wife, as it does in land and cattle. On the continent of Europe it is still the fashion for men to mingle kisses with their greetings and adieux to each other. Upto the age of Elizabeth, the like fashion prevailed in England. Mister and esquire passed through various stages ere they became so general that everybody is Mr. and most are Esq. In Elizabeth’s time only a great magnifico or royal merchant was worthy to prefix Master or Mr. to his name; ... but the additions of Gentle- man or Esquire would have thrown the whole court into an uproar (Pict. Hist. iii, 634). A century later we find Steele complaining that England had now be- come populus armigerorum—a nation of esquires. Many eccentricities of fashion have been the products of legislation. In Russia, under Peter the Great, private parties were regulated by law, the kinds and quantity of wine provided being specified ; while fashions in dress, car- riages, and harness were strictly set forth by statute. Le Grand Monarque had a kind of minister of fashion who was despotic (Quicherat); and Mr. Froude tells us that in an earlier period in Eng- land dress was ‘ prescribed by statute to the various orders of society as strictly as the regimental uniform to officers and

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THE ECCENTRICITIES OF FASHION. privates ; diet also was prescribed with equal strictness’’ (i, 15). In France the legislature thought the wearing of garters a matter weighty enough for its con- sideration; and prohibited their use, as it prohibited pockets when first intro- duced. The shape of the beard has been the subject of multitudinous sumptuary laws, from the time of Moses to the last order from the war-office respecting the hirsute appendages of soldiers. Queen Bess thought it needful to decree that men should uncover their heads at certain parts of the service in church; and the frequent exhortation let us pray was doubtless originally necessitated by the disorderly habits of the congregation. The lack of respect for sacred edifices in James I.’s reign is shown by the fact that in London «the chief place of common resort was the middle aisle of St. Paul’s. . Here lords, merchants, and men of all professions . . . were wont to meet and mingle; and he who had no companion might amuse or edify himself with the numerous placards and intimations sus- pended from the pillars. But the chief of the ‘ Paul’s walkers’ were the political quidnunes”’ (Pict. Hist. iii, 657). fhe romance of chivalry produced many extravagances in love-making. Says Lavallée, of the sixteenth century: ‘‘Love took frenzied and ferocious forms: men wrote to their mistresses only with their blood; a passion had nocharms if it was not seasoned with dagger-thrusts ; to please these feverish sanguinary wo- men it was necessary to do superhuman and extravagant things—plunge into a river without knowing how to swim, pierce seven lines of the enemy in battle, or open a vein in the arm.’’ And one exacting mistress, requiring her lover to keep silent during her pleasure, the in- fatuated youth was dumb for a year. During this period it was the fashion for lovers to wear in their hats tokens of their mistress—gloves, tresses of hair, kerchiefs, and even garters. But it was from quite other motives that ‘‘at the close of the fifteenth century men wore petti- coats ’’ (Fairholt, 580) and that in Henry vil.’s reign the stomacher ‘‘ was worn by men as well as women”? (ibid. 609). These facts lose some of their interest when we remember that even now some men wear corsets, while many women affect a male 221 attire. The faculty of imitation occasional- ly exists in such excess as to be a disease. Napoleon told Dr: O'Meara at St. Helena that, a soldier having committed suicide in a certain sentry-box, several other sol- diers, placed on duty in the same box, like- wise committed suicide, and the sentry- box had to be destroyed. And Dr. Carpen- ter (Mental Physiology, pp. 314, 315) re- lates that a nun in a very large convent in France began to mew like a cat; shortly afterwards other nuns also mewed. At last all the nuns began to mew together every day at a certain time, and continued mewing for several hours together. This daily cat-concert continued until the nuns were informed that a company of soldiers would whip them with rods un- til they promised not to mew any more. And a like epidemic broke out in a Ger- man convent ; but in this case, the nuns bit each other. Resistance to change is also occasion- ally carried to an excess bordering on in- sanity. When, acouple of centuries ago, the Chinese emperor K’ang Hsi endea- vored to put down the cruel and sense- less fashion of cramping the feet of fe- male infants, the opposition raised was such that the order had to be withdrawn; and no successor has since ventured to at- tempt the reform. The Dyaks of Borneo, though admitting the superiority of the European method of tree-felling, yet for- bade its adoption among themselves under penalty of fine. Curiously enough, when there is no danger of detection, the Dyaks invariably practise the new method. But the inconveniences resulting from resistance to change are nothing com- pared with the evils of ill-considered forms; and it is largely owing to this natural conservatism that the evils of hasty changes are not greater than they are. Fashions, then, however unusual and queer, are subject to laws and are gener- ally capable of some classification. Tran- sient in nature and varying from year to year with apparent capriciousness, a per- manent zesthetic ideal is impossible; and all judgments on taste are relative to the prevailing habit. Originating various- ly, they become general by reason of man’s imitativeness, often unconsciously exercised, aided by individual love of change ; and dislike of conspicuity leads to further agreement and uniformity.

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LEADING WRITERS OF MODERN SPAIN. By ROLLO OGDEN. HERE can be no doubt that we are witnessing in our day a literary re- naissance. So wrote, in 1885, a com- petent Spanish critic, Don Pedro Mufioz Pefia. If his wish were partly father to the thought, he could not be greatly blamed. Spain's fall from political power was not more complete and disastrous than her loss of pre-eminence in letters. A Spaniard of to-day, looking back to the time when his countrymen were lead- nee "3 * iste, eae 250 ” re * ys . ‘ \ : Bess | i 4 E ~ ; * Mig. Ys EMILIO CASTELAR. ing all Europe along toward modern lit- erature, would be strangely made up if he did not watch, for restorers of the an- cient glory, with all the anxious intent- ness of an Israelite of old. But there is evidence enough ofa great- ly quickened literary activity, in contem- porary Spain, to free the writer just cit- ed from the suspicion of patriotic par- tiality. While it would be rash to affirm that any stars of the first magnitude are rising above the horizon to take their places beside the fixed glories of Spain’s golden age of literature, there is yet ex- istent a body—and an increasing body—of writers of unusual merit in their respec- tive departments, whose fame has already grown to be coextensive with the Span- ish language, and is beginning to leap over the barriers of foreign tongues. This literary revival is due to two causes, or, rather, is accompanied by two sets of phe- nomena. One is the growing emanci- pation of Spain from the tyrannous pre- dominance of French literature. Spain’s subjugation by Napoleon was not more complete than by French literary mod- els. In their original and in translations, French books overran the whole penin- sula. The few native writers who tried to keep their heads above the invading flood were forced, or thought they were, to conform to the foreign and popular standards ; and so the era of imitations of the French came in to accentuate more sharply the degradation of native lit- erature. But all this has been greatly changed in the past generation, although French literary influence is still wonder- fully strong in Spain. All the more credit to those Spanish writers who, in spite of it and in the face of it, have made for themselves a place and commanded a hearing. Hand in hand with this shifting fashion has gone the spread of enlightenment and ANTONIO CANOVAS DEL CASTILLO. literary taste in Spain, at once stimulat- ing the indigenous literary talent and furnishing a wider public for it to appeal to. Spanish-America too, always the best market for Spanish publishers, has felt the new movement in education, and is yearly furnishing more readers to the writers whose literary edicts are watched for, as political ones were anciently, from the seat of empire over the colonies.

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LEADING WRITERS Though the lot of a literary man in Spain is still far from being a luxurious one, there is no longer such a bitter truth as there used to be in the saying of the poet Larra: ‘Literature in Spain is a way of living by which no one can live."’ The leaders of contemporary Spanish literature, whose personalities are to engage our attention, will fall into four groups, the first of which consists of men whose principal fame has been won in political life, yet who are writers of con- spicuous worth and commanding posi- tion; men who would have made their mark in literature had they never been — FRANCISCO PI Y MARGALL, heard of in politics. First of allin this group comes, of course, that man who is more widely known than any other liv- ing Spaniard, Emilio Castelar. In spite of his great fame, it is doubtful if the amount and merit of his literary produc- tion are generally known. The distinc- tion of the writer has been lost in the brilliance of his career as an ardent and daring republican leader, and in the im- mense resonance of his repute as an or- ator. Yet his writings alone would give him a memorable place in the history of his generation. Born in 1832, his mental attainments were of such an order that he was appointed to the chair of critical and philosophical history in the Univer- sity of Madrid, when only twenty-four years old. From his studies and lectures in that position came his volumes on the History of Civilization in the First OF MODERN SPAIN. 223 ~ Five Certturies of the Christian Era— works in which profound knowledge is made to minister to a rich style and a glowing imagination. The dramatist Echegaray, in acknowledging indebted- ness to those historical writings of Cas- telar, says in the preface to his Gladiator of Ravenna: ‘In those incomparable pictures there are the germs of so many and such wonderful tragedies!’’ Of the same class is his Historical Studies in the Middle Ages. With his Republican movement in Europe, American readers have good reason to be acquainted, since it was published in Harper’s Magazine, beginning in 1872. His orations and speeches fill several volumes. A very successful book of travels and description was his Old Rome and New Italy, pub- lished in 1873, and afterwards translated into English. In the same line is his later volume, Reminiscences of Italy. Besides these books, he has written two novels, a life of Lord Byron, and innu- merable articles of a literary, political, and philosophical cast. With typical JOSE DE CASTRO Y SERRANO. Spanish energy and fecundity, he is still keeping the printers busy with his tire- less pen. At the opposite pole, politically, stands the leading Spanish statesman of his day, Antonio C4novas del Castillo. The leader of the monarchical and conserva- tive parties, he has been prime minister a large part of the time for the last twenty years. Like Castelar, he is a splendid

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224 LEADING WRITERS orator, and like him he is a man of the finest literary taste and scholarly attain- ments. A fellow-student of Castelar’s in the university, he became chief editor of the conservative organ La Patria at the age of twenty-one, was first elected a deputy in 1854, and has been continu- ously in the public service ever since. His literary work has been almost exclu- sively historical. He has long been a member of the Royal Academy of His- tory. He has published several instal- ments of what is to be a comprehensive history of the house of Austria—or prac- tically a history of Spain during the six- teenth, seventeenth, and eighteenth cen- ARMANDO PALACIO VALDES. turies. Within a year he has issued a large volume of Studies on the Reign of Philip rv. Last in this group we place the veteran republican, Francisco Pi y Margall. A lawyer by profession, he early became an adherent of the Comtist philosophy, and translated several volumes of Proudhon. A republican from his earliest years, he took a leading part in the troublous his- tory of his country up to the establish- ment of the republic in 1873. Minister of the interior for a time, he held the presidential office for a while after the resignation of Figuras, but was in turn soon compelled to give way for Salmer6én. Since the coming of Alfonso x11. to the throne, he has been in political retire- ment. In 1874 he published a book on The Republic of 1873—a work which nat- OF MODERN SPAIN. urally excited the fiercest controversy. In 1877 appeared another work of his, Nationalities, which was translated into French. In his old age he still wields the pen occasionally, and series of arti- cles by him on Art and Industry and on Winter Afternoons appeared not long ago in one of the leading Spanish periodicals. The contemporary novel of Spain is the feature of modern Spanish literature best known to the outside world. Its develop- ment from the ignoble conditions preva- lent at the beginning of the century has recently been traced by the hand of an intelligent Spanish critic. Two distinct tendencies were visible at the close of the PETRO ANTONIO DE ALARCON, Napoleonic period. The first was the fashion of writing historical novels after the manner of Scott, in which bad history vied with worse dramatic movement for the most part. Fernandez y Gonzalez is the leading exponent of that tendency. Then came the era of modelling after the French, when Perez Escrich and TAérrago Mateos were producing works whose style and morals are well enough indicated in the specimen title, The Cancer of Life. The change toward better things begins in Fernan Caballero, or Cecilia Francisca Josefa Boehl de Faber Arrom de Ayala, to give her real name instead of her pseudonyme. She struck out ina path in which she has had many followers— homely tales of common life, stories of the people, found afloat in current speech and given a literary dress, a sort of popu-

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LEADING WRITERS larized folk-lore. A worker in the same line who won even greater fame than she was Antonio de Trueba, whose death last year removed one of the best known and most agreeable of the literary figures of modern Spain. José de Castro y Serrano has also done much, by his Homely His- tories, to develop a taste for the details of the lives of peasants and artisans, and, so, distinctly to deepen the realistic trend of the novel of to-day. In the best contemporary Spanish fic- tion three principles of construction are to be observed—a close and psychological study of character; an ideal conception or moral problem as a spring and motive ; JOSE ZORRILLA. and a predominant dramatic tendency. The names of Galdés, Valera, Pereda, Valdés, and Baz4n come at once to mind as the writers who have done the most to make the Spanish novel known for these qualities, and who have conquered a recognition beyond the bounds of their owncountry. Galdés undoubtedly stands at the head of them all. He, says a Spanish writer, has succeeded in securing letters of naturalization in his country for the psychologico-social novel. Valera is an aristocrat in art, whose great deli- cacy of taste makes him a writer for the select few. Valdés is younger than the others, and seems to have the best future before him. Pereda is unrivalled for de- scriptions of nature and for accurately hitting off popular customs and eccentric characters. OF MODERN SPAIN. 225 All these writers aro so well known in translation and in the frequent biograph- ical sketches of which they have been the subjects that we pass them by for the present, tospeak of one who is entirely worthy to be named with them, though far less known outside of his own country than they—Pedro Antonio de Alarcén. Of a more original and inventive genius than perhaps any of them, and with an intellect more flexible, he is less accurate- ly observing and less profound. Born in Guadix, Granada, March 10, 1833, he was a graduate of the University of Granada at fourteen, and the founder of a weekly literary journal at twenty. Soon a ; JOSE ECHEGARAY. he went to Madrid to plunge into that great receptacle of necessitous Spanish writers, journalism. Asacritic, he lashed the productions of others so sternly that, when he came to publish a drama of his own in 1857, The Prodigal Son, so many revengful criticisms fell upon it that, though a work of solid worth, it had to be withdrawn from the theatre. He wrote a Diary of the War in Africa as a fruit of serving in the Spanish army at the time. A temporary residence in Italy gave him occasion for a volume of travels from Madrid to Naples, as well as articles on Italian art and literature. He has published three volumes of short stories, eititled Love Stories, National Histories, and Strange Stories. His most popular novel is the Cocked Hat, while the one over which the fiercest controver-

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226 LEADING WRITERS sies have raged is Scandal. The latter is a social study, layed out rather markedly on Zolaesque lines. His other published novels are The Child of the Ball, Captain Veneno, and The Prodigal Daughter. MANUEL TAMAYO Y BAUS. Drama is the form of literature for which the Spanish genius has the great- est predilection, as it is the drama which constitutes the most illustrious chapters of the history of Spanish literature. The present century has seen no falling off in the amount of dramatic writing done in Spain, though it may well be doubted if theclaims of some critics, that works have been produced worthy to be placed beside the masterpieces of the classic Spanish drama, are not exaggerated. The Don Juan Tenorio of Zorrilla has enjoyed such popularity and received the commenda- tion of such impartial critics that it may be confidently expected to live ; as much may possibly be said of Echegarasy’ El Gran Galeoto, though this famous play is so purely Spanish in its main social presuppositions that it can hardly win much recognition off its native stage. The name of the dramatist just men- tioned is the one that is unquestionably at the head of the contemporary dramatic writers of Spain. Ever since 1874 José Echegaray has been pouring forth plays, from his apparently inexhaustible resour- ces, at the rate of three or four a year ; and ever since 1881, the year of the ap- pearance of El Gran Galeoto, his superi- ority to all his rivals has not been seri- OF MODERN SPAIN. ously contested. In fertility of plot, in grasp of situation and character, in jn- tensity of expression, and, latterly, in the profoundly moral drift of his dramas, he is a master. His early productions EUGENIO SELLE#S, were too much in the line of the spectacu- lar and the melodramatic ; but in his later work he has given himself more to the study of character, the unfolding of the subtler, moral, and social influences, and the solution, in dramatic form, of some of the greatest questions that press upon the individual and Society. The list of his most famous dramas would include, among his earlier, The Wife of the Aven- ger, and Saint or Madman ; and of his later writings, El Gran Galeoto, Bad Blood, Two Fanatics, and The Sublime in the Common. Next to Echegaray, in point of real merit, though probably not on the score of popularity, is Manuel Tamayo y Baus. Born in Madrid in 1829, he got his dra- matic bent honestly, as both his father and mother were actors, and he was a near relative of the famous dramatist Gil y ZArate. His genius was precocious, and at eight years of age he had adapted a piece from a foreign drama. His first original work was produced by a company includ- ing his own parents, in 1848, The Fifth of August. Though much applauded at the time, it was too juvenile to have a lasting success. Several plays followed until, in 1853, came Virginia, a drama on the Greek model. This was a hint of

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LEADING WRITERS Tamayo’s studious habit of mind as well as Of his refined taste ; and his subsequent work gave plainer evidence of both, while, for that very reason, his popularity with actors and public grew less. His Engage- ments of Honor, produced in 1863, is much thought of, and the most famous of all his plays is The New Drama, pub- lished in 1867. While in high favor with critics of refined taste, his writings have not been successful with the public, and it is many years since he has published anything new. Ofa modest and retiring nature, he is well content to leave to others the glories to be won from the sensational drama, and to enjoy the duties attached to his office of perpetual secre- tary of the Spanish Academy. Eugenio Sellés, journalist and poet, has also written several very popular and meritorious dramas. For a time it was thought that he would prove to be a for- midable rival of Echegaray, and his The Gordian Knot, and Sculptures of Flesh, gave him a great vogue. But he was un- able to hold the pace in the sort of race for popular favor that sprang up between him and his great competitor, and he has RAMON DE CAMPOAMOR. since practically abandoned the contest. \nother dramatist whose name deserves mention is Leopoldo Cano y Masas. An officer in the army, he has also _ pro- nounced poetical gifts, as may be in- ferred from the fact that he won the prize for lyric poetry in the poetical competi- tion instituted by the Madrid city govern- OF MODERN SPAIN. 227 ment in 1878. He has written two or three plays of much repute, of which the most famous is The Laurels of a Poet, produced in 1878. Turning to contemporary poetry of Spanish origin, the great trouble is to know what names to select out of the many that present themselves. Poetical composition is as natural as breathing to a Spaniard ; and the amount of verse that gets printed in Spain in the course of every year is something appalling. Yet there are some recognized leaders even in this branch of literature. No mistake can be made in naming José Zorrilla as one of the leading poets of his age and country, as his crowning in the summer of 1889, at Granada, as national poet of Spain, is evidence enough of his merit and of his standing. This public tribute to the poet, like the prolonged and finally successful effort of Castelar to secure him a government pension, bespoke a general appreciation which must have a substan- tial foundation. Yet Zorrilla can hardly be said to be a contemporary poet; he belongs to the past generation. The work on which his fame will rest is all LEOPOLDO CANO Y MASAS. done; indeed, it is years since he has published anything of importance. Three other poets are the ones who will be remembered as the most prominent in the new poetical movement of Spain— xustavo Adolfo Becquer, Ramon de Cam- poamor, and Gaspar Nufiez de Arce. The first was cut off while still young and

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228 LEADING WRITERS full of the finest promise, leaving behind him a meagre body of verse which never- theless justifies, by its spirit of exquisite sensibility,the title of the Heine of Spain, that has been applied to him. Campoa- mor is an old man, but one of the old- young kind whose freshness of mind and sensitiveness of heart keep him open and responsive to the great influences of the new time. Born in 1820 of a noble fam- ily of Asturias, he completed his studies in Madrid, graduating in medicine but devoting himself thereafter to literature and politics. He has been a deputy in the Cortes several times and is a distin- guished orator. His writings have been OF MODERN SPAIN. spectable plays. Political life soon won him, as it has so many other of the liter- ary men of Spain, and he has been a deputy from Castellon de la Palma almost constantly since 1865. Government office has also come to him, he having been under-secretary of state, twice a coun- cillor of state, and once minister for the colonies. Yet it is as a lyric poet that his chief fame has been won, and the few volumes of verse which he has published in these years of active political service are the things by which he is best known in Spain. His principal poems are: The Vision of Fray Martin, An Idyl, Hernan the Wolf, The Last Lament both poetical and philosophical. Of the latter class are his Philosophy of Law, Personality, and The Absolute. His more noted vol- umes of poems are entitled Sighs of the Soul, Moral and Political Fables (a very popular book ; a ninth edition ap- peared in 1868), Sor- rows, and Colum- bus. The philo- sophical bent of his mind appears in his poetry, much of i aia es 2 Ce aes of Lord Byron, and Cries of Combat. The last-named book is perhaps the finest of all in point both of literary ex- cellence and faith- ful voicing of the deepest thought of the age. A complete ac- count of the best literary work being done in the Spain of to-day would have to make men- tion of the fine body of criticism which has been which is penetrated with a spirit of pro- found reflection and high argument. It is in Nufiez de Arce, however, that the moral restlessness of this generation, and its intellectual uncertainties, under the stress of limitless inquiry and floods of new knowledge, are best voiced in the poetry of modern Spain. Not a prolific writer, his work is marked by a finish and concise beauty which make it stand out amid all the mass of contemporary verse. He was born at Malladolid, August 4, 1834. His first writing was done in the inevitable journaiistic field. Then he tried drama, producing some very re- GASPAR NUNEZ DE ARCE. built up by the la- bors of Juan Valera, Menendez y Pelayo, and that vigorous writer Leopoldo Alas, who under the pseudonyme of Clarin is forever stirring the dry bones of conventional opinion with the fresh breath of his radical opinions. Many scholars and scient- ists who must go unmentioned here would also require notice. But we must be content with having singled out the leaders in the departments of fiction, the drama, and poetry, and with hoping thus to have drawn some attention to a modern literature that deserves and will repay serious study.

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A GHOST AT HIS FIRESIDE. By Louise CHANDLER MOULTON. For maiden or moon shall a live man yearn ? Shall a breathing man love a ghost without breath ? Shine moon and chill us—you cannot burn; Go back, girl ghost, to your kingdom of death, a small place | small events be- al come great; and “y the whole neigh- borhood of Dene- field was in a state of excitement about the new oc- cupants of the Ruthven House, as, from time im- memorial, ever y- body had called the largest house in the parish. eas = Denefield was characterized by a pleas- antly rural flavor. Though only seven hours by rail from London, the large interests of the outside world seemed vague and unimportant, to most of its inhabitants, in comparison with a dinner at the vicarage or the engagement of the doctor’s daughter. Ruthven House had been the home of the Ruthven family for centuries; but one after another they had died, and the direct family had grown smaller and smaller, until finally the last Ruthven— unmarried, a quasiinvalid and a pas- sionate book-lover—had shut up his an- cestral abode, and announced that it was for sale, removing himself to the tempt- ing neighborhood of the British Museum. It really seemed singular that Ruthven House should have remained vacant after that for five years, frowning unsociably with its closed windows on its humbler neighbors. Denefield was sweetly se- questered. It had on one side the sea, with a stretch of lovely undulating shore. On the other side were rich meadow lands where cows of distinguished pedi- gree made themselves at home in the long grass, and walks softly shaded by those dear English trees whose boughs are so in love with their native earth that they almost touch it. Any one who wished to escape from the stress and tu- mult of life into a modern Garden of Eden could not have done better than take up his abode at Denefield ; and to this conclusion Mr. Robert Sheldon speedily arrived, when, having seen a land agent’s advertisement of Ruthven House, he came down from London to look at the old place. He bought it forth- with, and horses and carriages, many of them, arrived by rail, and pictures that ought to have been the portraits of his ancestors but were not, and glorious glass and china, and fine furniture, ga- lore. ‘Rich as mud!’ was the doctor’s comment ; and, «‘ Yes, just about,’’ was the lawyer’s satirical answer. At last came the family—a family of three, father, mother, and the one sole daughter of their house and heart ; and then life began afresh in the old Ruthven House, where so many past generations had lived and died. When the Sheldons were really established, there had been a brief discussion at the vicarage as to when and whether they should be called on. ‘You know Mr. Sheldon made his money in trade,’’ Mrs. Girton remarked in the true English spirit. Mrs. Girton was the daughter of a baronet, whose acres remained to him, but whose reve- nues were scanty ; and she professed to think much of the dukes and little of ducats. ‘«Yes,’’ answered the vicar, ‘‘ but the important fact is that he has made the money, and there is need enough of some of it in the parish. I think you and Bella would better go over this after- noon.”’ ‘‘Yes, do,’’ cried Philip Girton, the son of the house ; ‘‘go, and serve up our new neighbors hot for dinner.’’ His father looked at him with mild dis- approval; but Philip was privileged. He had taken a double first at Oxford. One or two of his verselets had been ’ ’

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230 published in the Academy, and there were hopes of his doing something to distinguish himself in literature some day. The original plan had been for him to go in for the Church ; but, alas! he came out of Oxford with liberal convic- tions, and the only thing that seemed open to him was to turn an honest penny as a tutor, with the hope of some time getting enrolled in the noble army of scribes. That night, when the family met at dinner, Philip was impatient for the sketch of his new neighbors; but Mr. Girton frowned down all personalities until dessert was on the table and the servants had gone away. It was a pleas- ant hour. The fragrance of the June roses came in through the open windows. The good vicar looked portly and benign, as he poured himself out a glass of port, and held it up to the light. His wife, large, easy-going, and fair, matched him well at the other end of the table. Their daughter, Bella, looked just what might be expected from the union of these placid personalities. At her mother’s age she would be her mother over again, so that the type would not be lost to the world. But Philip suggested old superstitions and made one fancy that the fairies must have changed him in his cradle. There was no trace of relationship to the other three about him. They were all large, blond, and contented-looking. Philip was dark, slight, gracefully moulded, with brown eyes usually dreamy but capable of intense expression, with sen- sitive lips and nostrils, and the slender hands with long fingers that belong to the artistic temperament. He was un- commonly handsome, in a _ high-bred way that must have been his inheritance from some of his far-off ancestors. ‘What were they like?’’ he asked rather eagerly, when at last the family were alone. ‘‘Why, you know,”’ Mrs. Girton an- swered, ‘you really can’t tell much about people in one call. Mrs. Sheldon seems nice and motherly. I can’t quite make out the daughter—Rose, they call her; I think she’s a little odd. Mr. Sheldon seems to be laughing in his sleeve at everything and everybody.” ‘They must be awfully rich,’’ put in A GHOST AT HIS FIRESIDE. Bella, ‘I never saw such beautiful furni- ture in my life.”’ Philip turned to his sister : ‘« What did you think of the girl?’’ he asked. ‘* Did she seem odd to you? Does she go in for philanthropy, or suf- frage, or books ? ”’ ‘«Oh, books, by all means. There were books everywhere; and Mrs. Sheldon apologized for the way they were lying about on chairs and tables. ‘I can’t make Rose tidy with her books,’ she complained ; but Mr. Sheldon laughed, and said he did not think they were much in the way. I looked at the titles of some ofthem, and thought I would rather she read them than I.”’ ‘‘What were they?’’ Philip asked, growing interested. ‘«Oh, there were books of George Mére- dith’s, and of Browning's, and there were actually some volumes about evolution and political economy.” ‘Pretty, was she ?”’ «Yes, perhaps you would think so; but she was too restless.”’ ‘«« Yes,’’ added Mrs. Girton, «‘she played with her bracelets and twisted her watch chain, and really seemed as if she couldn't keep still.”’ ‘‘Ah, how you must have bored her, dear mother and sister mine,’’ thought Philip ; but he dropped the subject, and waited his opportunity. It came soon. When the Sheldons re- turned the visit of his women-kind he was out ; but a feast for the new neigh- bors was speedily arranged, and natu- rally Philip was to take Miss Sheldon in to dinner. He had many visions of Rose Sheldon after that first one ; but he will never for- get, until he forgets everything in death, how she looked as she came up the gar- den walk that June evening a little before sunset. She wore a long, softly falling white frock, cut simply, but displaying her beautiful white throat and delicate arms—a thought too thin perhaps, but lovely in shape. Some red June roses were on her girlish bosom, and one was fastened in the dark coils of her hair. She had large eyes—he could not quite tell whether they were dark, gray, or hazel, for it seemed to him they changed their color as he looked at them. He contrasted her spirited face with the serene inanity to

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A GHOST AT HIS FIRESIDE. which he was accustomed in his own family ; and he said to himself: «+ Pretty, indeed! She is the most beautiful wo- man of her time.’’ He was absurdly mistaken ; Rose Shel- don was a lovely girl, with plenty of peers, however, and not a few superiors ; but from that moment she was Philip Girton’s standard of comparison, before which all others fell short. Never was dinner like that dinner to him. He ate ambrosia, he drank nectar. In point of fact, he hardly knew what or whether he ate or drank. For the first time in his life he was under a spell which made him oblivious of everything in the world but one face and one voice. Thanks to Bella, he understood what would interest this beautiful neighbor, and never had ceremonious dinner seemed so short to either of them. When the ladies went away, he pulled himself together a little; but while he bore his part in the talk that went on around him, and sipped with the others his father’s best burgundy, he yet felt a gentle thrill, as if she were still by his side. Suddenly, in the midst of the talk and the wine, came the sound of a rich con- tralto voice, singing the sad, beautiful old air, set long ago to the words written by Mary Hamilton the day before her death : “To day the Queen has four Maries, To-morrow she'll have but three : There’s Mary Beatoun, and Mary Seatoun, And Mary Carmichael and me.” Philip knew only too drearily well the voices of those ladies who had been wont to sing the after-dinner songs of Denefield, but this one was of another quality. “That is not a Denefield voice,’’ he said, turning to Mr. Sheldon. “It’s a voice I know rather uncom- monly well,’’ Mr. Sheldon answered, with his broad smile of good-fellowship. ‘I have heard it a few times before this ;”’ and he laughed, as his wont was, as if he thought he had said something very amusing. Presently they joined the ladies, and after tea had been served they all strolled out into the garden. A late nightingale was singing still, as if the passion of his song must some time find his far-off mate; and when the song ceased, Philip quoted from the loveliest of odes— 231 “ Fade far away, dissolve and quite forget What thou among the leaves hast never known.” ‘“You love Keats, then?’’ she asked, and turned toward him her pure face, on which the summer moon was shining. His heart was beating so madly as he met her eyes that he could hardly speak. He managed to answer her quietly, and she capped his quotation with another ; and then suddenly it seemed to him as if he had known her forever—as if there never could have been for him any past into which she had not entered—any future of which she would not be part. ‘‘I have never had a friend,’’ he said, after a moment of silence. ‘‘ Do you know what I mean ?”’ «Yes, I think I know. There have been people you saw every day, and liked well enough ; but they did not under- stand you—they did not speak your language. I know, for that has been my own life, too.’’ Again he was silent a moment, gather- ing courage for what he wanted to say ; and then he plunged into it boldly. ‘‘T think we could be friends—you and I. We should understand each other. Shall we try, or are you and your books sufficient to your own life?”’ ‘« No, not sufficient,’’ she answered in a very low tone; and he fancied she sighed faintly, but it may have been the breeze which was just waking up among the trees. «Would you, could you, let me be your friend—with all that friendship means of mutual confidence and frequent meet- ings and shared pursuits?’’ He knew that his voice was trembling with eager- ness—try his best he couldn’t help that. Her hand was on his arm, and he closed his own over it lightly. She was silent for a moment, and then she said very gently : ‘If you do not tire of it, yes. It seems too good to be true; for no one has ever shared my interests yet—no one at all.”’ Just then Mr. Sheldon came up to them, with his air of a little too jovial good-nature. ««Come, Rose,’’ he said, ‘‘the moon- light is very romantic, but the dew is heavy, and I don’t want my song-bird with a cold in her head. Romance will do a good deal, but even romance

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232 A GHOST AT couldn’t idealize red eyes and a swollen nose,”’ And so he drew his daughter’s hand through his arm, and led her to her mother, and the family from Ruthven House departed. This was the first time Philip Girton had even fancied himself in love—but in- deed this was no fancy. I wonder some- times if a great passion is not always born in a moment—if that cool, well-con- sidered feeling which comes of propin- quity and reason ever ought to be called love at all. At any rate, Philip Girton had taken the fatal malady at a breath. There was no sleep for him that night. At five in the morning he dressed him- self and went out into the virgin light of the June day, and almost before he knew it he was standing in front of the entrance to Ruthven House. Dear to a man is the shawl that has folded the lithe loveliness he adores ; the glove that is so intimate with her hand ; the rose that has died on her bosom. In the same way, dear is the house which is her temple—whose air is sweet with the breath of her divinity. Philip Girton lingered for a space in front of this dwell- ing which had become for him a shrine. The very birds in the garden seemed going mad with joy—and small wonder ! At last he turned away resolutely and went down to the shore of the sea, where the waves were agiow with the sunrise. Ah, first days of love—why should it be the fashion to scoff at them ? . You of the brindled hair, scoffing becomes you ill. Were you not young once—even you? The summer and the sea spoke a new language that morning to Philip Girton. The summer meant something more than fine weather; and the sea something other than a great sheet of water on which ships might float, in which men might swim. He had no doubt at all as to whether life was worth living—life, which meant the hope of seeing again his queen Rose of the rose- bud garden. He was shy of domestic comment al- ready ; and he went home in good time for breakfast, and was careful to keep up his end of the talk, saying as little, how- ever, about the Sheldons as_ possible. Then he went to his room, where he was accustomed to give the morning hours to HIS FIRESIDE. study, since for the present his one hope of self-maintenance was in tutoring. But it was a new language that he found up- on his lips, and all its roots were Rose- roots. He threw away his books at last, since their lore was vain, and lost him- self in a shifting, splendid dream of her. And then a voice broke into the midst of his dream—a clear, rapid, yet musical voice—her voice. She, her very self, was underneath his window, and saying to Bella, who was busy with her flowers : ‘Will you forgive such an early call ? But I left my music, and I thought I would step over and get it. Your garden is bewitched by moonlight, but it is al- most lovelier still in this frank sun- shine.’’ She had spoken as blithely as the lark sings ; and Mrs. Girton, who sat with her sewing under a neighboring oak, heard her, and came forward and joined Bella in a warm invitation to stay for luncheon. They had not quite made up their minds whether or not they liked Rose Sheldon ; but they were always hospitably inclined, and then the Ruthven House people were fast becoming the lions of Denefield. Miss Sheldon assured them there was nothing she should like so much; but she must go home first and see if papa could spare her—he would be going to London in a few days, and she could not make arrangements while he was here without consulting him. This need to consult and content papa was the key to much that came afterwards, and even then it struck on the ear of the unseen listener with a note of surprise. Bella— who had had her own way ever since she was put into short clothes—was more amazed still. She suggested that one of the servants might go; but no, Rose was firm. She must go, herself, and see if papa wanted anything ; and off she went. Rose was wise in her generation, and she knew well how entirely the comfort of her life depended on not crossing the will of her father. Easy-going and jocose as Mr. Sheldon seemed to the careless ob- server, he held the traditional rod of iron over his own household. No weak man could have started from the ranks of la- bor and come up to be the owner of Ruth- ven House. Tothe hundreds of men and women in his employ, he never repeated a command. He expressed his wishes ott

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A GHOST AT HIS FIRESIDE. | iii Mh || VN) i! p< “WILL YOU FORGIVE SUCH AN EARLY CALL?” mildly enough, but they were final. Let the least item of them be forgotten, let any of his subordinates be careless of them by the shadow of a shade, and the offender found himself out of business without a moment’s warning. Rose had had one contention with him, as long ago as she could remember any- thing. It was in behalf of the life of her favorite cat, who had incurred his dis- pleasure. She never forgot how he look- ed at her when she ventured to remon- strate and entreat, after he had ordered that the creature should be killed, or how he held her hand firmly in his and made her watch the poor beast in its death ag- onies. Did Rose ever love her father for one moment in her life after this scene? Honestly I do not think she ever did ; but to her, from that moment, the will of papa meant more than the will of God. She might hope to move, by her entrea- ties, the powers of Heaven, but no plea of hers would move the stern will which she had never known to waver. As for Mrs. Sheldon, I think she really did love her lord, for she was a born serf by nature, and there had never been one single conflict between her and the master of her home and heart; and certainly when Robert Sheldon had all things his own way he was easy-going enough. He was most lavish of his money, most indul- gent to all wishes that did not conflict with his own, and he had a gay flow of animal spirits which captivated his slow- er-witted wife, delighted his acquaint- ances, and was by no means without its own charm for Rose. He was very com- plaisant when she ran home with her re- quest. This family, the mother of whom was a baronet’s daughter, was a shade higher in the social scale than any one with whom the Sheldons had familiarly associated hitherto, and just at present it suited papa’s whim that his Rose should see as much of them as possible, and learn their ways; while it was a sweet and subtle flattery to him to see that his child—his—infinitely surpassed the bar- onet’s granddaughter in beauty and in charm. When Rose got back to the vicarage she found that Philip had joined his mother and sister, and her eyes offered a shy and tender salutation to him who had pledged himself the evening before to be her friend. How madly swift were the hours of that bright June day! The visit seem- ed hardly to have begun when five o’clock tea was brought out on the lawn, and then Rose said resolutely that she must go home. Of course Philip persuaded her to go the longest way round, and just take a look at the sea; and then he made a plan that they should all come some night, when the moon was high, to see its path of light across the waters.

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234 He left her at her own door, and went away to wander to and fro, his restless heart more on fire with love than ever. Two days after this, Mr. Sheldon went away, to London and business, for quite a prolonged absence. Of course he made a farewell call at the vicarage ; and in- dicating, by a comprehensive wave of the hand, his wife and daughter, who had ac- companied him, he said, with marked yet suave emphasis, to the vicar : ‘‘IT leave them in your care, my dear sir, quite in yourcare. I have the utmost confidence in your wisdom. I am sure you will guard them both from any follies, and that when I return it will not be to a blighted home or a dishonored hearth.”’ He uttered the last sentence in a semi- tragic manner, and laughed at it so heartily himself that he persuaded every one else of its wit. Ah, that was a brave month which fol- lowed—the happiest that Philip Girton and Rose Sheldon had ever known or ever would know. They met constantly in public, and not less constantly in private. How soon they discovered that they liked the same walks, and also that, since Mrs. Sheldon always slept late, the early morning was a rarely good time for walking. Beside the sea their love grew and flourished. He had known it was love from the first ; and soon Rose dis- covered that certainly she had never liked any young man so much before ; and again a little while, and in her secret heart she knew that from the shoulders of Friendship wings had sprung, and now his name was Love. For what seemed to them an eternity, they were both too shy to speak—but surely never such June suns shone, and never did the sea break with such sobs of joy upon the beach. The world was as young for them, as un- tarnished and untried, as if not one of the numberless millions who have lived and loved and died had ever breathed the same divine air. And, of course, the supreme day came at last. By accident, as usual, they had met upon the shore. In front of them the great sun-lit sea stretched, and back of them, in the green fields, the larks were singing like mad, and playing, as they soared and carolled, that they owned the day. There seemed to be no wind, yet the waves came A GHOST AT HIS FIRESIDE. in with that long roll which usually means a wind blowing steadfastly. Up and up the larks soared, until they were out of sight and no echo lingered of their song. Then a soft mist seemed to veil the sun, and the day grew grave and sweet—a day like a sanctuary, in which soul must speak to soul, and no disguise was possible. Half an hour before, Philip would have said that the time had not yet come to tell his love; half an hour after, he might wonder at his own au- dacity : but just then and there, in the grave, sweet day, his heart sprang to his lips, and then he said, almost as if against his own will: ‘‘Rose, do you know just how I love you? It seems to me I never lived till I knew you; and sometimes I am fright- ened to think what might have been if you had not come here. I might have been dead forever, and not even known that there was any life in the world.”’ ‘Don’t you think you would have found another—friend—in my place?”’ she asked shyly. ‘‘Found such another friend?’’ he cried impetuously. ‘‘No, a thousand times no. There was no other friend in the world but you.”’ ‘‘It was good for me too,’’ she said gently ; «‘ for, you know, I never had any real sympathy before.”’ Then he drew closer to her, and all his soul looked out of his eager dark eyes. ‘‘Why do we go on playing at friend- ship?’’ he asked. “‘“Why? Don’t you know that I love you with all that I am —heart, soul, mind? Why, you are my life—it doesn’t seem to me that I have any life beside you. My darling, is there no hope for me? no place for me in your heart ?”’ She looked up into his face, and the light in his eyes seemed to blind her. Then she looked down again, and the hands he had seized trembled. ‘‘Speak,’’ he cried passionately— ‘« speak !”’ “I think it is love. Yes, I do think so,’’ she said; and her voice was so low he could hardly hear it. ‘ But, you know, you must ask my father. He is coming home to-morrow, and it is he who must answer you, after all.’’ But he scarcely heard her last words. She had said that she loved him. He

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A GHOST AT HIS FIRESIDE. silenced her protests, with his lips close on hers. ‘‘ Mine, mine, mine!’’ he cried exult- antly; and the sun burst forth again through the mist, and the larks came down and sang as though mad with joy, and it seemed to him as if the whole world were glad with him ; but, when he said so, she clung to his hands with a piteous, frightened gesture. «Oh, don't, don’t,’’ she cried. «Don’t be so happy. You frighten me. Fate never forgives those who triumph too soon.”’ ‘« But you love me, Rose of the world ? You said so.”’ “Yes, I said so. It is not that.’’ The next day Mr. Sheldon returned, and Philip Girton presented himself in the evening at Ruthven House ina some- what chastened mood. Under the best of circumstances, it is rather less exhilarat- ing to speak to the father of the object of your affections than to the fair one herself ; and jovial as Robert Sheldon was, in seeming, he was not the easiest man in the world of whom to demand a daughter’s hand. «I should be unworthy of her if I turned coward,’’ Girton said to himself as he knocked at the door of his sweet- heart’s house. All the same, he felt scarcely so courageous as he would have wished when he asked for Mr. Sheldon, and was shown into the well-appointed smoking-room,where that gentleman was enjoying a mild glass of whiskey and water and a post-prandial cigar. Mr. Sheldon was effusively good-humored. ‘‘Halloo, Girton,”’ he cried. ‘‘ Glad to see you. I thought you confined your attentions to the ladies. You smoke? That’s all right. I never can get on with a man who doesn’t smoke. I think you'll say these are good cigars.” Girton took a cigar and bit it, and, moreover, accepted some weak whiskey and water, and then he became acutely sensible of the extreme awkwardness of his position. He had not come after vhiskey and water, or yet a cigar—and the thing he had come for seemed farther away from him than ever. Mr. Sheldon was, as usual, sociable, and talked in his semi-jovial way about politics and the weather and the unfailing Irish ques- tion. And all the time Girton was 235 dreading what was to come as one dreads a plunge into a cold bath of a winter morning. He was trying to reason him- self into courage, while Mr. Sheldon smoked and sipped and chatted. He could not be regarded as a good catch— he knew that—but he was of good family —a baronet’s grandson, an Oxford man, a gentleman. As to money, of course he was poor enough ; but Mr. Sheldon was rich. He thought he had never before noticed how cold and critical Mr. Shel- don’s eye was—Sheldon had two of them, by the way, both cold and both critical. Ugh! He took a header. ‘« Mr. Sheldon, I came to-night to speak of something very important to myself. I have to make a confession.”’ ‘All right. Goon, myson. I’m flat- tered, I’m sure, that you take me fora confidant.”’ ‘«T can’t choose, sir,’’ Philip replied a little grimly, ‘‘ since my errand isto tell you that I love your daughter. When you said ‘my son,’ you touched the heart of it. That is what I want to be. I love Rose, with all my heart; and I think she loves me a little, and will love me more if once she can feel that you approve.”’ It was all out now—he had made his plunge in earnest ; but he felt the ice crackle round him. Mr. Sheldon sipped a swallow of whiskey and water, and then he flicked the ashes from his cigar, and leaned back in his chair with a some- what enigmatical smile on his lips. ‘‘On my daughter’s account and my own, I must first of all thank you, Mr. Girton, for the honor you have done us. We are both, I am sure, most deeply gratified.”’ «You consent, then?’’ cried Girton, with glad eagerness. «« Ah, now, you are getting on too fast, my dear fellow, quite too fast. Rose and I are honored, as I said; but Iam com- pelled to appear in the disagreeable light of a terrible dragon guarding the matri- monial apple. There are a few questions which, of course, I am compelled to ask. What, for instance, is the amount of your fortune ?”’ ‘‘T have no fortune as yet,’’ Girton an- swered frankly, ‘‘only the wealth of an infinite love.”’ ‘Quite so, quite so!’’ And there was

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236 something suspiciously like a sneer in Mr. Sheldon’s tone. ‘Ah, if there were but a bank which would honor drafts on an infinitelove ! I’m afraid, though, when your wife wants a new gown she might as well be hated as loved, for all the sat- isfaction love would give the shopkeeper. I made my own money in trade, you know ; and trade doesn’t take much stock in sentiment.”’ ‘But you have money ; and if Rose's happiness is dear to you——”’ ‘‘Oh, ah, I begin to understand now. You thought I was a very rich man, who could afford to add a son-in-law to his family? Alas, no! I am still as hard- working a tradesman as my baker or my grocer ; and ifI take in rather more ready cash than they do, it is because my shop is bigger. It’s part of my business to live handsomely. It advertises my success ; but I have no ready money to spare. Rose has been brought up to expect lux- uries. She is a hot-house flower, I’m afraid. All wrong, my system may have been ; but she’s grown up on it, and she could hardly rough it now. When she marries, it must be with some one who can make her at least as comfortable as I have done. No doubt you'll think me worldly and heartless; but, much as I esteem you, love in a cottage doesn’t suit my views for my daughter. So thank you over again, and we’ll let the subject drop, please.”’ Philip Girton’s face had been growing whiter and whiter during this rather long speech of Sheldon’s, and the heart in him felt heavy as lead ; but he must make one more struggle. ‘‘T took a double first at Oxford,’’ he said, ‘‘and I mean to make a name in literature by and by; and meantime I can make £300 a year by coaching.’’ Mr. Sheldon could not forbear a little good-humored laughter. ‘Three hundred pounds a_year,’’ he said. ‘That is just what I give Rose now for gowns and other fol-de-rols of that sort; and you think you and she could live on it? Ah, my dear fellow, Rose has been badly brought up for a poor man’s wife. It’s all my own fault, certainly ; but I could not have her suffer the consequences of my folly. No—no, let us say no more about it. I don’t like to seem inhospitable ; but, if you really A GHOST AT HIS FIRESIDE. think Rose is inclined to love you, per- haps it will be best you should not come here any more fora while. Your wound may ache for a bit, but it will heal—it will heal—and you must marry some nice rich girl who can afford to wait for you to make your fortune out of litera- ture. After you get overthis, you'll find us all in the same place and glad to see you. Best regards to the vicar. Good night.”’ ‘Good night,’’ answered Philip, for really there was nothing else to say ; but when he heard the door close behind him he felt as if it had closed on every hope of his life. As he came out into thé night it seemed to him that he was alone in a silent world. The village was profoundly still. Its early-to-bed people had put out all their lights. He stood for a moment half dazed by the utter stillness, till through it broke the low murmur of the waves. It seemed to him that the sea was calling him. The sea was his life- long friend—his friend in the old days before he had seen Rose and found out what it was really to live. He knew this great, strong neighbor in every mood. Sometimes he had seen her convulsed with storm, when the high waves came in thundering and towering and the whole wild, wide waste of waters seemed given up to the powers of evil, and great ships, and the men who sailed in them, were hunted down for sport. To-night how different it all was! The late moon was almost at the full, and it seemed to bea gala night for all bright spirits. The tide was not quite in, and the moonlight seemed to overflow the waves; and where the sand was wet, the moonlight struck and made strange shin- ing places which suggested bright foot- steps of invisible feet—some gay treop from the under-sea who had been holding their revels for a moon-lighted space up- on the shore. Girton had a feeling, as he stood there in the warm, spacious night, as if he were in the midst of rites which his eyes were holden from discern- ing. He caught murmurs of silvery voices, and a sound of flying laughter. With his own heart aching dumbly, he felt himself in the midst of a wonder- world of gladness and glory. Yet, some- how, the very beauty eased his pain. Things could not be at their worst while

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A GHOST AT HIS FIRESIDE. there was so thuch joy astir. He wan- dered along the shore, wondering what his fate would be. To-morrow he and Rose had arranged to meet in one of their old haunts, and then he should know all. He wasted his sleepless night in conjec- tures, and did not go home , till the moon had set and al- ready it was to- morrow. At half-past ten he found himself at the place where he was to meet Rose. He was a little in advance of the appointed time, but before long he saw her white dress in the distance, and she came to- ward him, not, indeed, with that swift, buoyant grace of movement so dear to him and so especially her own; but slowly and withy bent head, as if every footstep cost her an effort. Had she soft- ened her father’s iron will by her persua- sions? or would she, being already of BY ACCIDENT—AS USUAL.—(See page 234.) 237 age, take the matter into her own hands? Philip's impatient wonder was torture. He caught her hands as she came near him. ‘‘Well?”’ he cried eagerly. «‘Well,’”’ she answered wearily, as if the one word cost an effort, and she lifted to his face eyes heavy with hopeless weeping. “IT want to know my fate,’’ he said, holding her poor, trembling hands firmly in his own. ‘«But you do know,”’ she answered; “and there was a depth of unfathomed hopelessness in her tone in which it seemed to him her very heart was drowning. ‘‘My father told me all he said to you, and there is no help, none. We must part, and it would be best, I think, that we should never see each other again.”’ ‘‘Oh, I thought you loved me,”’ he cried out bitterly. «I was mistaken ; that is all. No wonder you can take it quietly.”’ ‘«‘But I don’t,’’ she answered. “Do you think I don’t suffer enough? Is it well to add your injustice to the rest?’’ ‘‘Oh, I suppose I thought you stronger and less worldly than you are. I had a hope that you were * less dependent on mere worldly luxury than your father im- plied. I could have made enough, somehow, to give you comforts. Of course our life would have been a humble, quiet one, and I— yes, good God, I see it now, I have been a selfish wretch throughout. But I was mis- taken in you.”’ She put out her hands as if she would ward offa blow. “‘O Philip, don’t, don’t,’ she cried. ‘‘T don’t care for worldly things. I could be happy with you anywhere, anyhow— but I cannot go against my father. I am strong enough for anything but that —but you don’t know papa. It sounds like a play to say he would curse me; but I know he would, and I should die of it; and I don’t feel sure that he wouldn’t kill you, himself.’’ She shuddered. She had memories going further back than Philip knew; ”

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238 and she understood her father’s nature ds he never could. His tone was almost scornful when he said: «What! You have so little courage as that?” ‘* Yes, I have so little courage as that. My father has always ruled my life, and I suppose he always will. At least, you have the comfort of despising me. Your heart will heal the sooner.”’ ‘‘No—it will not heal. I shall love you, Rose, and no one but you, to my life’s end. I don’t despise you—I am sorry that you could not do what I think would be the only right thing; but strong or weak, you are Rose, and there will be no other love for me till my soul is dead.” She looked at him as if she would read the very depths of his soul. «‘ Love turns to hate, sometimes,”’ said sadly. «« Not mine,’’ he answered. ‘‘I see the future. You will marry some man whom your father approves ; and you will not expect me to be glad of that. But I'll pray God that your husband may love you and be good to you, as I would have done. And-this I swear: that if ever you need or want me, from now till the day of your death, I will come to you, and so help me God !”’ One moment they looked into each other’s eyes as those who look on death ; and then he turned away and left her standing in the opulent sunshine, the saddest creature, so she said to herself, in God’s whole wide world. She waited a few minutes, standing quietly where they had stood together, and saying over his words to herself as if she feared she might forget one of them by some evil chance, and then she went home. Philip spent the day in a long tramp through the country, and dropping, oft- ener than was well, into the little way- side inns, with some mistaken idea that, since he could not eat, he had better drink. He went on sober as a judge, however, for no draught so much as quickened his pulses—on through thirsty- looking meadows, or along dusty roads blistered by the July sunlight. Some- times larks flew toward heaven with their songs—up, it seemed, into the very innermost heart of the blue ; and country inns with sanded floors and crabbed land- lords, parched meadows, and singing she A GHOST AT HIS FIRESIDE. larks—all were associated for him, from henceforth, with that bitterest day of his life, and that sickening sense of despair which made the prospect of living on seem almost unendurable. Girton had never spoken of his love for Rose to his parents or to Bella; but they all had guessed his secret, and been interested spectators. Bella was an adoring sister, and her heart had warmly espoused her brother’s cause. It chanced that on this very day she went to see Rose ; and Rose, having no one else to whom she could speak, had told her all the story ; and though she told her tale with tears that would not be restrained, yet Bella's wrath blazed against her hotly. ‘‘If you hadn’t loved him,”’’ she cried, ‘‘T would not say a word ; but to love the best and noblest fellow in the whole world, and send him off just because your papa did not approve—ugh! No, my dear; you are a coward, and I don’t like cowards.”’ And with that speech Miss Bella de- parted, and Rose—poor comfortless Rose —sought a woman's one refuge. She shut herself into her room, and cried and cried and cried till the sun went down upon her sorrow and the moon looked inquisitively into her window. When Girton reached home the moon had gone behind a cloud, and scarcely a star winked through the mist. The owls, those lovers of the dark, called to each other through the night. Otherwise the place was still; but for Philip it was haunted. Here, in this garden, he had seen Rose first. He seemed to see her once more, coming up the walk, her white gown falling about her softly, and the passionate red roses on her bosom. Would she never come there again ? He went wearily into the house and made straight for his room, though the whole family sat up waiting for the re- turn of him who was their idol. But when a man’s heart is breaking about his sweetheart he does not mind much who waits for him. ‘« Thank God,”’ Mrs. Girton said when she heard him steal by, ‘it is really he. I had begun to get frightened.” ‘It’s clear,’”’ said the vicar, when he heard Philip’s door close, ‘‘ that he does not want our society; and as it’s hard

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A GHOST AT HIS FIRESIDE. upon midnight, I vote that we go to bed.”’ «« He never did want to see any one, you know, when anything troubled him,”’ commented Bella, in a tone of apology, ‘not even when he was a boy.”’ But, mother-like, Mrs. Girton could not go to bed without some word from her darling ; and finally it was decided that Bella should go in and speak to him. She found him leaning back ina great chair, smoking absent-mindedly and with a far-away look in his eyes. ‘“Philip,’’ she said, going up to him and putting her hand on his shoulder, ‘‘where have you been all day? It has been so lonely without you !”’ He looked at her as if he meant to speak, but no words came ; and then she lost her self-control, and knelt down beside him, sobbing and crying through her tears: ‘‘ Don’t mind her—don’t. She isn’t worth it, the little coward.”’ The next day Philip started on a walk- ing tour. There was nowhere he wanted to go—nothing he wanted to do. He only felt vaguely that he must get away from the familiar places which they two had known together ; and, above all, he must put himself beyond the danger of seeing Rose. So he walked on, at the wind’s will, as it seemed. He managed 239 to walk himself foot-sore; but he came no nearer to contentment for all his wan- derings. It was August when he returned ; and the Sheldons had closed Ruthven House and gone away to the seaside. Then one strong purpose took posses- sion of Philip. He would get himself quite away before they returned. He had a friend—his chum at Oxford—who was the son of one of the proprietors of the Daily Bulletin, and had gone straight from the university into newspaper life. Through this man he might possibly get something to do. He went up to Lon- don. Young Lewis welcomed him gladly, and wished to make things gay for him; but he soon perceived that gayety was not in the order of exercises. The two chums dined alone, and after dinner Girton said : ‘I’ve had a knockdown blow, and I want to get out of England. Isthereany- thing you cando forme? If your paper wants.a correspondent anywhere between the Cape of Good Hope and the North Pole, I'll go, for barely enough to keep alive on, and do my best.’’ “T’ll think about it, old fellow, and we'll see to-morrow. Meantime there's no headache in this extra dry. Let us drink to your brighter fortunes.”’ “I TOOK A DOUBLE FIRST AT OXFORD, AND MEAN TO MAKE A NAME.”—(See page 236.)

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A GHOST AT HIS FIRESIDE. Perhaps the li- bation appeased the gods. At any rate, it turn- ed out that a cor- 1 respondent was wanted to write up some things in New York; and Philip Girton went home for a box of books, the best-beloved among his dogs, and a good-by word; and was o on the Cunarder for New York. The Sheldons were back again at Ruth- ven House before Christmas ; and with them various guests, among whom was one Halltree Standish, the eldest son of a Lincolnshire baronet, who was evident- ly at Miss Sheldon’s feet. A certain coolness had sprung up between the Sheldons and the Girtons ; still it was not an absolute break, and Bella was at Ruthven House often enough to see how things were going. She described Halltree Standish very minutely in her letters to her brother. He was a hand- some, easy-going young man, witha languid air; but he had a hot temper of his own, as his dogs and his horses knew well. He would be Sir Halltree some day ; and in the mean time his allowance was liberal, and Halltree Hall, an estate which had come to him through his ff WHERE THEY HAD STOOD TOGETHER. (See page 238.) mother, was awaiting his occupancy, He was a suitor after Robert Sheldon’s own heart, and Sheldon fostered the wooing with anxious care. Bella chanced to be alone with Rose one day, and said to her, almost sternly : «Are you going to marry that fellow, Rose ?”’ ‘‘ Yes, Isuppose so. My father wishes it; and what does it matter—what does anything matter, now?’’ ‘‘Nothing does matter much to you. I began to think that a long time ago. God grant it may not matter any more to Philip by the time he gets my letter.” “It will not matter to him either, if he thinks of me as hardly as you do. I would have married him if I could. I couldn’t, and now it seems to me nothing matters any more but to please papa. Will you tell Philip that I said I had forgotten no- thing ?”’ ‘No, I won’t,’’ Bella cried hotly; but she did, all the same. Philip was getting on well in New York. He carried good letters; and while he was making a success of his letters to the Bulletin, he was always getting work to do on one or two New York dailies. As he often said to himself, he could make his way yet if there were any- thing worth striving for. It gave him a bad day when he got Bella’s letter. Still, it was no more than he had expect- ed, and he too said to himself, as Rose had said, that nothing mattered any more. It was February before he heard of the marriage, and heard also that the new- ly wedded pair were off for Italy. «« Ah, yes,’’ he thought, “Italy is one of the things I couldn’t have done for her. After all, 1. couldn’t have done most of the things she ought to have.”’ Then he whistled to his dog—the one creature in the new world where he found himself who belonged to the old—and off he started for a long day’s tramp out from the busy town where his work waited undone. He came back at night,

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A GHOST AT HIS FIRESIDE. tired and pale, but with a strange peace on his face. His first impulse had been to work no more, struggle no more; to consider his life practically at end. But before the day was over, a new purpose had been born in him. Hecould not live a happy life. Well, at least, he could live a manly one. He could perhaps do something in the world yet, of which Rose might hear, and feel a little thrill of pride in the man she had once loved. At any rate, Rose or no Rose, there was work in the world to be done, and he would do his share of it; and it is an eternal law that no man can be wholly defeated unless he defeat himself. The months went on after that less painfully than Philip would have believed possible. He was a distinct success in journalism. His letters to the London Bulletin were continued ; but they were the smallest part of his work. He began with reviewing, for which his university training—his knowledge of the _ best things that have been said and done in the world—served him well. Then he wrote editorials ; and, before two years had. passed, he was second in command on a leading morning paper. He took rooms in an up-town apartment-house, and began to collect a library and really to enjoy his work and his life, despite the deep inner solitude, into which no one save Rose had ever entered. There had been changes in his English home. The good vicar had died suddenly, and his widow and Bella had gone to live in quite another part of England; so that Philip heard no more through them of Ruthven House and its inmates. As for Rose, she had accepted Halltree Standish in a mood of desperation. She must either marry him, she thought, or live on under the roof of the father she had learned almost to hate. At least, to marry him would be a change from the thraldom that was growing intolerable. She had yet to learn that there can be a thraldom more intolerable still than that in which the sternest father can hold his daughter. When Halltree Standish asked her to marry him, they had been dancing to- gether, and had gone afterwards into the conservatory, for a breath of its cooler air. Standing beside the fountain, with the palms for a background, she listened 241 to the words of her new wooer. She was looking down at a bunch of tuberoses she held in her hand, and she idly picked them to pieces while he spoke. The air seemed full of their stifling odor. How she will hate it till her death day! He made his speech prettily enough ; and when he had finished it she looked up at him, and there was not one trace of emo- tion in her face. ‘‘T do not love you the least bit in the world,”’ she said quietly. He caught her meaning. «« Well,’’ he answered, “ will you marry me all the same? ”’ ‘‘Would you take me without an atom of love?’’ she asked, still very quietly. He looked down into her eyes a mo- ment. ‘“‘Yes, by Heaven, I would. You are safe to love me some day; and if you don’t——”” “IfI don’t ?"’ she inquired. «If you don’t—well, then, I will love you enough for two—that’s all.’’ ‘‘It seems to me rather a dangerous experiment,’’ she suggested. ‘« Dangerous experiments do not fright- en me—I have tried too many of them,"’ he answered ; and then he reached out his hands and took hers. ‘ You are en- gaged to me, mind,’’ he said, witha curi- ous smile; and suddenly a kiss like a flame burned the lips she had meant no one save Philip Girton should ever touch; and then she felt that the past was already slain—the new life already begun. She really wondered that she did not suffer more; but she went on, from that night to her wedding day, as one in a dream. Mr. Sheldon was more unctuous and more jovial than ever. The world was going well with him in those days. He would have a son-in-law after his own heart—a man both of family and of for- tune. Of course, Rose would be happy. To do him justice, he never doubted that. His own nature was so different from hers that he could no more understand her than the barn-door fowl could share the heavenward quest of the sky-seeking lark. He based his expectations for her on his knowledge of himself. When she found herself the mistress of Halltree Hall, with the county families asking her to dinner, she would be glad enough

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242 that he had sent the vicar’s penniless son about his business. He was lavish in his preparations for the wedding. If Rose had been an earl’s daughter, she would have needed no more beautiful or complete trousseau. He gave her away, himself, on her wed- ding morning, with unmitigated pride and pleasure ; and he was really angry because his weak-minded and weak- nerved wife—to whom this parting with her only child was a poignant sorrow— disfigured the fair occasion with her tears. Rose herself did not weep. She shone, in her white raiment, pale and cold as a far-off moon. A fever burned in Halltree Standish’s veins as he looked at her. A stealthy, tiger-like cruelty underlaid the seeming good-nature of his temperament. He gloated over the beauty of this girl whom he had won. ‘If she did not love him now, why she should—or else’’— and he looked at her as the sultan might look at his last and loveliest Circassian girl—*‘ so much the worse for her !”’ When they started on their journey to Italy, he was all gentleness. He would Every wish of the try soft means first. fair bride’s was anticipated—every step guarded from fatigue or discomfort. And then he waited for his reward, and his reward never came. She was cold, com- pliant, obliging, graceful, submissive— everything, in short, but loving. She had loved in the old, winged days, when she stood with Philip Girton beside the sea. I believe that some women love twice or more in their lives. They are, so to say, in the habit of loving. That was not the nature of Rose. She had loved once and for all—even though that love did not give her the courage to fly in the face of her father’s will, which to her meant so much more than flying in the face of Providence. At last Standish began to weary of the aloofness of his ice-maiden. He swore an oath, not loud but deep, at her ac- cursed pride, and determined to have the thing out with her. In his eyes was the look which his dogs and his horses knew. There were red spots in them, like glints of fire. But he began to speak to his wife quietly enough. They were in Rome, and they had driven to the Pinci- an Hill, The breath of the lovely Roman A GHOST AT HIS FIRESIDE. spring was in the air. All the almond- trees were pink with blossoms. They had been driving in the midst of the pro- cession of carriages ; but Standish spoke a word to his coachman, and soon they were alone in a tree-bordered path. Then he put out his hand and took his wife’s into it. ‘‘Do you love Rome, my dear?’’ he asked with a curious gentleness. ‘I suppose you had some idea of it before you came. Is it all you fancied it would be?”’ She was glad of the safe impersonality of the question. ‘«Yes,’’ she answered. ‘‘I have longed all my life to see Rome, and I have dreamed what it would be ; but I think it is lovelier than any of the pictures my fancy had made of it.’’ «* You know I knew it well long ago,”’ he went on. ‘I came here now only for you ; so when you are tired of it we will move on. Wecould go to Sicily or Con- stantinople or Egypt—anywhere you please. Fancy that you have wings, and decide where you will fly with them. You can go whither you will.” A sudden color burned for an instant on her cheek, and a swift gleam of long- ing shot from her eyes, ‘and her husband noted it curiously. ‘“You were about to say?’’ he sug- gested. «‘ Nothing,’’ she answered. ‘*Then you do not want to fly away? You are content in Rome? It is the spring, when a young man’s fancy lightly turns to thoughts of love. The laureate says so, and he knows. If a young man’s fancy turns to love, why not a young woman’s? Do you love me, Rose?”’ ‘No! I told you that before.’ «« But, you see, I kept on hoping. I had a free heart—so I thought—to deal with, and everything in my favor. Was it a free heart, Rose?”’ His hands held hers more tightly than ever ; and his eyes sought her eyes, and held them also. She did not speak. ‘‘You will answer me, please.”’ It seemed to Rose that his voice had never been so soft, and yet that she could no more resist its command than she could the summons of death. «Is there—has there ever been any other man whom you loved, as you do not love me?”’’

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A GHOST AT HIS FIRESIDE. “Yes.” «Ah! you did not tell me that.”’ ‘« No, because you did not ask me; and I could not bear to speak of it. It was so brief a thing, too. One day he told me that he loved me, and the next day he ‘told my father, and—that, was all of it. He went away to America. Would you not have married me if you had known ?”’ He looked at her for a silent moment, and then he said : ‘‘Yes, I should have married you all the same. Do not let that trouble you.”’ And then he bent forward and spoke to the Italian coachman, who had not understood one word of all that had gone on behind his back ; and in another in- stant they were back again among the ever-moving procession. I think that from that moment Hall- tree Standish hated his wife with a bitter and an undying hatred. But it took the strange shape of the most ardent devo- tion. He could not caress her enough. His kisses burned on her lips like fire. At first Rose did not understand. She thought this ardor meant the struggle of a desperate love that was trying to snatch her by storm from the usurp- ing past. But soon she knew what it meant ; and then she gave him hate for hate, as she never could have given him love for love. In May they came home to England. There had been some talk at first of their taking a house in Lon- don for the season ; but Standish said— and how thered lights glowed in his eyes as he said it—that he could not share his wife with the world. He must keep her quite to himself at Halltree Hall. And there the summer went by them; and the winter came and went, and then yet another summer and winter, and Rose wondered that the spring found them both alive. Never once did Stand- ish give her anything to complain of. He scarcely left her for a moment, of night or day. He was killing her by inches with his odious fondness ; with his unwelcome presence, that had grown to seem a horror to shudder at. At last—they had been married then for more than two years—there came, one day, a request from Rose’s father that she would come to London. Some busi- ness arrangements—some transfer of 243 property in which her interests were concerned—were to be made, and her presence was required. To Mr. Sheldon’s eyes—which were holden by the very force of his nature from seeing the truth —the marriage of Rose appeared to have turned out all that he could have hoped. Rich, honored, adored—that was the aspect her life wore to him. He meant to add to her prosperity by a-generous gift. Rose read the letter which her maid had brought her, and a cry of some- thing like joy sprang to her lips. “Did Madame speak?’’ the maid asked. ‘“ Yes, we are going to London by the next train. We shall stay over two nights. Pack what is needful.’ It chanced that, for the first time in months, Standish was absent. He had gone to attend to some business connect- ed with another estate which had recently fallen to him ; and he would not be back until the evening of the next day. This London plan would extend his wife’s re- spite from his presence for twenty-four hours longer, and she caught at the chance eagerly. She left her father’s letter inclosed for him, and she took the next train for London. She reached there barely in time for dinner. Her mother welcomed her with a tear- ful joy ; for there was something in her too white face and strangely self-contain- ed manner at which the mother-heart took alarm; though the father saw no- thing in it buta natural accession of dignity. ‘*You should have waited for Hall- tree,’’ he said, when she had explained how it was that she had come alone. ‘« There was no such immediate haste.’’ But Rose was silent. The next day all the business matters were adjusted. In the afternoon Rose drove in the park, with her mother. She began to understand, what she had hardly known of old, that she and her mother had loved each other—and that a mother’s love for her child, whether congeniality exists between them or not, is a real factor in life. As they drove toward home, in the May twilight, she put out her hand and touched her mother’s : ‘‘Mother,’’ she said in a low, half- stifled voice, ‘Mother, I hate that man.”’

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244 «« What man, darling ?’’ and her moth- er's tone was frightened. ‘* Halltree Standish—the man to whom my father married me.”’ ‘‘O Rose! How dreadful !’’ «Yes, it is dreadful—quite the most dreadful thing in the world. But it is true, allthe same. I will bear life with him just as long as ever I can. If the time comes when I can’t bear it a day longer, I shall come to you; and you must help me and hide me.” ‘«O Rose, your father would kill me.”’ «Yes, if he knew it, very likely he would kill both of us. But he must not know. Mother, I am your only child; and I’ve no one in the whole wide world to turn to but you. I will bear my life at Halltree Hall just as long asI can. But if a time ever comes when I can not bear it any longer, you must promise to help me.”’ The mother looked into her child’s face in the waning light. Some slow courage was born of that lingering look. ‘ Yes,”’ she said faintly, «‘ I promise—I do—I do.”’ That very night, when this promise had been given and received, Standish came home to Halltree Hall, and found his wife’s letter, inclosing her father’s. His smile when he read it was not good to see. ‘« So you took advantage of my absence to get up to London? Wait until I have you back again, fair lady. I will watch you more lovingly than ever.’’ The next day Mrs. Standish started on her return journey. She and her maid had a compartment to themselves, and the day wore on slowly till it was mid- afternoon. Then, suddenly, came a hid- eous crash—an instantaneous sense of awful horror—and then they knew no- thing more. It was late afternoon when Rose Standish opened her eyes. She was lying on a low bed in a humble room ; and not far off, on a sort of couch, was her maid, dead—her poor face bruised and battered out of all recognition. Even her mistress knew her only by her clothes. They were some which she her- self had given her—a black gown and some partly worn wraps of her own. Life came slowly back to Mrs. Stand- ish; but she welcomed life reluctantly. It meant going to the home she hated— the man she loathed. She fancied just A GHOST AT HIS FIRESIDE. how he would kiss her—just the soft tones in which he would congratulate himself that she was restored to his hate. Heavens! How she envied the dead girl lying there! Suddenly athought came to her. Why should she not be that girl? She raised herself on her elbow and con- templated the possibilities. An awful temptation assailed her. What harm would it do any one if she put her own wraps on the dead, and took those which the girl had worn, and slipped away in them ? It would mean to lose herself—her name—her place in the world; but it would free her from that man. How she hated him! and, oh, what bitter reason she had to hate him! She had money enough with her to last her for some time. She could put her own outside clothes, and various trifles of her own, on the dead maid ; and the girl would be buried as Mrs. Standish—and she herself—she would go free. Free! She almost shouted the word before she thought. Then she remembered that she must be both swift and silent. The people whohad brought them into that cottage had, no doubt, be- lieved them both dead, and so gone away from them to the aid of other sufferers ; but they might return at any moment. Now was her time. She slipped from the bed. She felt strangely weak and dizzy ; but her strong will sustained her. She put her card-case, with her name and ad- dress, into the dead girl’s pocket—her watch in the girl’s belt. She slipped under the maid’s shoulders her own wrap, and tied on the poor, battered head her own bonnet. Last of all, she took off her own wedding-ring, and its diamond guard, and put them both on the dead maid’s finger, thanking Heaven that the girl’s hands were almost as well kept as her own. ‘« He will never know the difference,”’ she said to herself. «I know what a des- perate horror he has of dead people. He will never come near enough to know.”’ Then she put on herself the long cloak which the dead girl had worn, and tied on her own head the hat which had fallen back from the bruised, lifeless face ; and, this done, she slipped noiselessly out of the back door. Four weeks after that a letter was handed to Mrs. Sheldon, who was then

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A GHOST AT HIS FIRESIDE. at Ruthven House, from whence her hus- band had gone up to London a few days before. ‘¢ Be quiet, mother dear,’’ so the letter began, ‘‘do not scream or even speak. It is I—your living child—whoam writing to you. I know by the papers that my father is in London, and I write to tell you all.’’ Then came the story of her escape. She had got out of the house unseen, and then it seemed as if some good spirit had guided her. She had been led on and on until she came to a quiet farmhouse, and there she had taken shelter, telling the simple, incurious people of the house only that she had escaped from the acci- dent, as by a miracle.’ Next morning she had rewarded them for the shelter they had given her, and gone away. She had hidden herself in the first large town she came to, and she had read in the daily papers the accounts of her own death, the disappearance of her maid, who was probably—so said the papers—aniong the unrecognizable dead. Later on she read of her own imposing funeral, and of her burial in the family vault of Halltree Church ; and then she had waited until she knew that her mother was alone at Ruthven House before writing to her. «‘T cannot come to you,’’ she said in conclusion. ‘I must be dead to you and dead to the world. I will never go back to that man alive. I shall make my way to Paris, and when you can you will send money to Miss Agnes Irwin, care of Truro & Co., 11 Rue Rivoli, Paris. Burn this letter when you have read it. Do not let an atom of it escape the fire. Think how bitter my life must have been when I was willing to escape it in this manner, and remember your promise. If you fail me or betray me, I am lost in- deed. But you will not—you are my mother.”’ The news came to Philip Girton, in far-off New York, that the girl he had loved was dead. His sister sent him the papers, with their account of the railway disaster, in which dozens had been killed, and among them Mrs. Halltree Standish, of Halltree Hall. Later on came other papers with the accounts of the funeral. It was strange how differ- ently all this affected Philip from what he would have supposed possible before- 245 hand. He thought of Rose with the tenderest pity. He remembered her bright young loveliness, and how much more alive she seemed than other girls. And now she was dead. This eager young life was cold in the cold grave. It was piteous beyond all words, and yet it was not sorrow that he felt. She seemed infinitely nearer to him than she had ever seemed since she part- Re ih \h \\ RATHER A DANGEROUS EXPERIMENT.—(See page 241.) ed with him that summer day, nearly three years ago now. She had been another man’s wife for more than two years ; now, again, she was his only, as, he told himself, her soul had been always. He tried to mourn for her, but his heart defied him. He began to fancy that she was near him, that she knew all he did, and then again she eluded him, and he was not sure of her even in the grave. Had she gone on, beyond the reach of his longings, where his heart could never overtake her ? A curious strength came to him from the thought that she was no longer in

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246 that other man’s house. Dear eyes— bright lips—soft hair—oh, it was better that the grave held them ! He went on working hard for the next two years, but in his scanty leisure he made some congenial acquaintances, and some of them were women. One was a real friend, to whom he went with all his interests, all his ambitions. He began to feel a certain need of her. No work quite satisfied him until he had her ver- dict upon it. Sometimes he thought she was to him what Rose might have been, with the passionate love he felt for Rose left out. And then, as time went on and on, he began to think that life might be brighter for him if he could install Miss Van Courtlandt at his own fireside. ‘‘It would have to be a different fire- side, though, from this,’’ he said, pulling himself together with a laugh, and look- ing round on his simply furnished li- brary, rich only in books. Miss Van Courtlandt was an heiress, and used to life’s luxuries. He went to see her more afternoons than not, in the leisure hour or two before dinner ; and she grew to look out for his coming with so real an interest that she would let many a pleas- ant thing go, rather than be absent at the hour when he was most likely to call. Did she love him? No—I do not think so. She was twenty-six, and she had seen a good deal of the world, and was not likely to give her love unasked. But, I think, had Philip Girton sought her it would not have been in vain. She was one of the four hundred, and she knew how to dance and make mer- ry ; but a talk over the fire, about her favorite books or his own editorials, with Philip Girton, had grown to seem to her quite the pleasantest way of amusing herself; and this had gone on for more than a year.’ Philip had scarcely known her before the news of Rose’s death came to him ; but since then his life had been enlarging its boundaries. It was October, and he was reck- oning up the years that he had been in New York. He had come in the summer. It was a little more than five years ago | now ; and those five years had made him more American than English. His interests were here. He meant to live and die A GHOST AT HIS FIRESIDE. here—and he was seriously contemplat- ing the desirableness of an American wife. ‘¢T shall not love her,’’ he said to him- self, as he walked up and down; “at least, I shall not love her as 1 loved Rose. That is over with me for life ; but itisa solitary business to live alone, and I’m tremendously attached to Miss Van Courtlandt.’’ (The lady’s name was Edith ; but he alw ays called her Miss Van Courtlandt, even in his thoughts.) «I think it would be good to go home at night and find her—I’ll go and see what she thinks about it herself.” He smiled an undoubting sort of a smile just there. The best of men have their little vanities. He stepped intoa florist’s and bought some roses such as he knew she loved, and then on he went to the house on Murray Hill, where he was an almost daily visitor. He found Miss Van Courtlandt at her best. The sitting-room, which was her own especial haunt, seemed full of herown charm. It was a rich, luxurious place—in as perfect taste, however, as was Edith Van Court- landt’s own dress, of which one never thought about the cost, but only of the beauty and the fitness. She was a handsome woman, too—not in Rose’s style, but a regal creature, as he thought to himself, who would have de- fied a hundred fathers. He gave her the roses he had brought, and she pinned one of them on her bosom and put the others into a vase—a miracleof royal Worcester— that stood beside her. Philip looked at her —so regal, so gracious, so wise and good —this woman whom he had come there on purpose to ask to be his wife. And then “if! 0 AG aepreertaah 1 {Wd my! A SOLITARY BUSINESS.

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A GHOST AT HIS FIRESIDE. suddenly he became conscious that Rose had entered with him into the room. He had not known it before, and even now his eyes were holden that he could not see her; but, all the same, he was aware of her presence, and he knew that she was waiting to hear what he would say. Her presence embarrassed him cruelly. The words he had said to her beside the summer sea came back to him —above all, the solemn oath he had sworn, to go to her, at whatever cost, if she ever needed him. ‘But I said any time until the day of her death,’’ he argued with himself, «‘and she has been dead more than two years now.’’ Yet this excuse. did not satisfy him. The presence stayed close beside him—close— as intimate as his own heart, he felt it. He could not ask Edith Van Courtlandt to marry him, with the presence waiting so shrewdly by. He began to talk with her of books, and they got into an old argument about Stevenson and Sir Walter Scott. Manlike, Philip refused to even them. ‘To his mind Sir Walter was head and shoulders the bigger man ; but Edith fought stoughtly for her Stevenson. Scott was the bigger perhaps ; but, if you please, who was the subtler? above all, who had the finer style? who knew the better what to do with the point of his pen? And so they chatted on until Girton’s time was up, and he took his leave and walked on homeward. And still the presence walked with him. If Rose had been in this world, he would have said that some curious telepathy was uniting them—but can the dead, he wondered, thus link themselves to the living? On and on he walked until he reached the house where was his home. He opened the door with his key and went in. His man had lighted the fire on his hearth, and, but for the firelight, the room was vague with the soft twilight gloom. And already it seemed that the presence had come in before him, and sat there in the low easy-chair, in the fire-glow. He went across the floor. It seemed to him that something drew him on. And he stood there, with the firelight on his face, looking down at—Rose. She reached up her timid little hands, and he took them in his own, thinking still that it was her ghost. 247 “And did you love me enough, then, to come to me out of the grave—you who had not the courage to dare a little pov- erty for my sake?”’ ‘“‘It was not that,’’ she cried, ‘oh, it was never that.”’ ‘“With what a human voice a ghost can speak !’’ he thought. ‘‘I never minded the poverty,’’ she went on. ‘It was only that I feared my father. I almost fear him still; but, oh, thank God, I am dead to him now.” «And not dead to me?” Philip asked curiously, thinking still it was the ghost with whom he held discourse. ‘‘No, not to you. And I was bold enough to come across the sea to find you. He is dead—that man whom I mar- ried ; and when I knew that he was dead I came.’’ ‘« And you—you are not dead? You were not buried in Halltree Churchyard ?’’ ‘‘No, I am not dead—I was not buried. Sit down here, and hear it all.’’ And so, with the firelight glowing on her fair young face, she told him all that had happened since they had parted, sparing herself in nothing. Her mother had always contrived to send her more than money enough to live on, and she had stayed on in France. When, at last, Halltree Standish died—thrown by a wild horse he had tried, as his habit was, to conquer—Mrs. Sheldon had begged her to come home; but the old fear of her father had withheld her. She must be dead to him still. ‘And then,’’ she said, ‘‘I wanted, above all things, to see you, and I came. You know it was easy enough to find you after I got here. You are not un- known in New York.’’ The dear eyes looked up at him, with proud exultation in their timid depths. «Of course I know I onght not to have come. And, - if you are married, your wife will not like it. Are you?” ‘‘I think I should have been engaged to be married,’’ he answered gravely, ‘if you had kept away from me between five and six this afternoon.”’ ‘« But I did,’’ she cried earnestly. «It was after six when you camein. I came here at four, I think it was, and I per- suaded your man to let me come in and wait for you. I told him you would be glad to see me, for I was an old, old

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248 friend of yours, from your native place in England.”’ ‘‘And then, while you sat here, what did you think of?”’ “Why, you—you, of course. I was wishing so that you would come—wish- ing—wishing—and the time seemed so endlessly long.’’ ‘Just as I thought. I suppose that is what they call telepathy. You made a call with me, and I could not get away from you. I went at five to see a lady whom I intended to marry; and you went in with me—it was very strange of you—and you made me come away, with my question unasked.”’ ‘You can ask it to-morrow.”’ ‘‘No—I shall ask something else of Miss Van Courtlandt now—I shall ask her to be your friend.”’ ‘But I know you can’t care for me again. You said I was a coward—and your sister said so too—and you cannot love a coward.”’ “Yes, Ithought in that old time that you were a coward ; but you were nota coward when you took that dead girl’s right to freedom, and left her to be buried in your stead ; and you were no coward when you came alone across the sea to find me, and sat down here to wait for me—a gentle ghost at my own fireside.’’ ‘And you don’t disapprove of me a little ?”’ ‘Not the least little bit.’’ Then sud- A GHOST AT HIS FIRESIDE. denly his soul spoke. ‘Rose, I love you, I never loved any other woman—never for one instant—I never could. Where souls are made, they made yours and mine to grow together to all eternity. Fate could not separate us, for it was God who had joined.” And-drawing her toward him he kissed her with a lover’s passion, a husband’s reverence, and the immortal love of an immortal soul. Philip kept his word. He asked Miss Van Courtlandt to be the friend of his re- found Rose. He told her only so much of the story as was necessary, but he made her understand what this return from the dead meant to his life—a life which only Rose could make whole. She was not a Van Courtlandt for nothing. If any pain or disappointment were in her heart she did not own it, even to her- self. She was present at the marriage ceremony which gave Philip his Rose of the world to wear on his heart forever ; and better friend than Edith Van Court- landt no married pair ever had. In only one respect Rose was obstinate. Philip would fain have persuaded her to let him take her to England in triumph ; but she always said: ‘‘No, my father would never forgive poor mamma if he knew. If she is ever a widow she shall come to us; but as far as all the rest of England is concerned, I am dead.’’ And she had her way. HELLENIC DAYS. By INIGO DEANE. THE storm-swept mountains by the Euxine sea That hold divine Prometheus and his woe, And Helicon and Hzemus long ago, Were mine to wander in. There oft with me Mad Bassarides disported wantonly And deer-eyed Oreads; while far below In the green vale sunlit rose now loud, now low, Now piercing-sweet Pan’s woodland minstrelsy. Then darting down the mountain to the Vale, We quired and chanted till the West was red; But still there mingled with the laugh of maids And music of the gods a far-off wail Of bounden peoples. So I fled those glades Heart-sick, and in my path lay Codrus dead.

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REVIEW OF CURRENT EVENTS. ‘ By MURAT A. CYCLONE—a tremendous whirling i bubble of the air, with tornadoes in attendance like the comets and moons around a planet—appeared late in March among the mountains of Utah, and swept across the continent, disappearing in the Atlantic ocean, in storms that vexed the coast from the Carolinas to Labrador. It rent forests and farmhouses, villages and cities, destroying life and property, a thing of terror and a destroyer awful in energy, hideous of aspect, portentous as a phenomenon. Enormous as was the scope of its influence, the destructiveness of its sweep was confined to the Missis- sippi valley. Making its first appearance in the Rockies it lost force in the Alle- ghenies, inflicted material losses and caused dismay and death through a vast and populous region, adding a terror to the conditions of life upon this continent. Several tempests of the same character, less energetic and yet terrifying, desolat- ing and deadly, occurred since, striking here and there from Texas to Dakota, and from the peninsula of Florida to that of Michigan. Such phenomena are fright- ful as they are wonderful. At long in- tervals we hear of winds of exceptional violence in other countries ; but only in North America does it seem to be the habit of the atmosphere to engender them. The cyclonic disturbances, as a rule, move eastward and northward, and originate in the head waters of the streams that flow from the far west to join the great river. We are enabled to suggest rather than declare their limitations, but the boundaries of the area in which these tempests gather and exhaust their amaz- ing forces are vague as the spaces are vast. They come like the lightning, and ter- rorize millions. In a dozen states the inhabitants anxiously regard the skies, apprehensive that out of the gloom and glitter of each thunder-shower, may ad- vance the dreaded funnel-shaped cloud whose path is desolation and whose voice would seem to be that of wrath upon a fallen world. The memory of fallen timber in the wil- derness of the West when the pioneers opened the campaign of civiligation, as HALSTEAD. well as the records of later days, tell the story of the tornado, and that when all was forest this side of the arid region made treeless and almost a desert by fires, the footprints of the storm were manifest. Perhaps the widespread service of the telegraph and the prompt enter- prise of the press in giving the particu- lars, that lose nothing of the picturesque or the alarming and pitiful in the tell- ing, may seem to multiply the catas- trophes by whirlwinds and by floods; but there is no doubt that in all times such formidable disturbances have oc- curred. We cannot, therefore, hold that the wasting away of the woods is pun- ished by this form of calamity, but one may say that as nearly as the home of the cyclone can be defined, it is in that country ages ago scorched by wild-fire and parched by the sun, and upon which the snowy mountains, with fountains in their bosoms to irrigate the burning soil and make it blossom, look; and that in the contrasts between the lofty and icy ranges and the broad and heated plains unobstructed for a thousand miles as the sea, are formed the rapid variations of temperature, the sudden changes and contact of prodigious currents of chilled and of heated air, that are the con- ditions of tempestuous evolution. The next question arises, whether, if forests could be cultivated, they would not in themselves prove barriers, checking the march of storms. They would be over- thrown as of old, and in our own experi- ence; but each one that is broken has ex- hausted a part of the sinister power whose perfect freedom to roam and wreak ruin, man is reluctant to acknowledge. It is a question of deep import whether there is any help for the dreadful calamity that comes with mighty rushing winds. We may depend upon it, this is a world of strife ; and the beauty and fertility of the earth are associated with the portentous agitations that we behold with awe, and in whose majestic sweep is the thrill of the omnipotence that sent the suns and their encircling stars spinning and shining. But man is not, in the midst of the forces that levy tribute of the constellations for

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250 his sake, helpless and doomed in a sinis- ter universe. The thunderbolt will fall and the tornado rage and the floods rise; but there is the capacity of self-preserva- tion in the human race, with the industri- ous application of the intelligence of ex- perience. There should be no dwelling- house or barn or stable in the wide plains of the west that are being redeemed from the long tyranny of the fires that once swept them and made them shelterless deserts, without the protection of trees— the more the better, and the taller and stronger they grow, the greater the reduc- tion of the terrors of the air. The people of Kansas and Nebraska, Missouri and Colorado, are giving attention to trees, and in the more open states the shelter of woods is eagerly sought; and the pi- oneers are as solicitous to plant them as the foremost settlers in the older states were to hew them down. This is a pop- ular passion on the subject that is most promising, and should be encouraged by all who can aid in the formation of pub- lic opinion, and promoted by govern- ment with bounties to stimulate and laws to protect. As the trees multiply by thousands and tens of thousands and millions, they will become fortresses to stand against all the winds that blow. In all this there is an element of uncer- tainty. The remedy is not absolute. To what extent it may prevent the catastro- phes that are so common and discourag- ing we can only conjecture—for the ele- ments of calculation are denied. There is a certainty, however, that intelligent people know; it is that we must build stronger. Human habitations, especial- ly in the prairie counties, are very largely flimsy ; they are slight, and shattered by a gale that in France or Germany would not blow a tile from a stone house. Rapid- ity of construction must cease to be the fashion and the boast, and solidity in building the popular demand, the pride of the architect, and the assurance of the safety of homes. Let the founda- tions be deep, the walls solid, the roofs proof against fire and firmly anchored. Each tornado that smites a village, es- pecially the hurricane that shatters a city, is an object-lesson to teach that flim- sy structures are unworthy the abund- ance and excellence of our building- materials, the advanced intelligence of REVIEW OF CURRENT EVENTS. the people and the marvellous magni- tude of our resources. We do not hold that our architects and artificers must in- sist that everything should be built for all ages ; but that the work they are ap- pointed to do shall be wrought with sin- cerity and be as wise as they know. The familiar poetry that the sincerity may be sad and the building wiser than know- ledge, need not be translated into the prose of everlasting walls, but the educa- tion of the people and honest work will rear structures like rocks to ‘‘ resist the billows and the sky.”’ * * * THERE are two stories circulated of the discovery of gold in quantities surpass- ing all that has been known. One of the new mines of fabulous riches is in Colorado, and the other in China. Of each there are fascinating particulars. It is a common and inveterate, and yet unwarranted and hasty, generalization, that in the nature of things there are not yet to be developments of gold like those of California and Australia. There is a cool and selfish conservatism that is father to the thought in this. If the comparative scarcity of gold may be per- petually depended upon, the purchasing power of money under the gold standard must increase—and that is to say, the value of securities, the weight of debts, will be augmented, and the price of labor must rise or the fortunes of the laborer decline. The likelihood is, however, that, taking together the exhaustive explorations of the surface of the globe now incomparable in thoroughness, the readiness with which machinery pene- trates the earth to immense depths and bores the rocks, revealing their inmost secrets, and the astonishing evolutions of chemistry, the skill and certainty in which larger proportions of the precious metals are extracted from the mixed products of the mines, we shall, before many years or months or days, find gold in abundance unexampled. It is not necessary that a mountain of the yellow metal shall be revealed. A few gorges where it crops out will be sufficient ; they may, as is indeed already reported, yield golden bonanzas in the Rocky Mountains, or China, Africa, Alaska, or

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REVIEW OF CURRENT EVENTS. some of the far-off islands. Then gold will be poured upon the world in tor- rents, as silver has been. That would work a beneficent revolution, and, one good thing, end the silver question in its present form, and, by easing the burdens of mankind, increase the prosperity of the nations and promote the happiness of the people who do the toiling. * * * HENRY M. STANLEy’s return to Europe, after the most hazardous and arduous of his enterprising adventures, has been attended with enough hostility to dis- play his international importance. He did what he was sent to do—rescued Emin Pasha; and the fact that he had to use a little gentle coercion to save Emin enhances rather than detracts from his merits, and gives him the unmistakable stamp of success. He stated the case fairly when he said that, if he had not saved Emin from the rebels and taken him to the coast, the philosophical German governor would have been a slave at Khartoum now. Emin is ambi- tious—for what special reason is not stated—to head an expedition to return to his old ptovince; but if it is ever to be rescued from the Arabs, there will be required a leader of sterner stuff than Gordon’s amiable but tenacious lieuten- ant—Stanley himself! There ought to be a combination of powers to place in the hands of Stanley a force to carry the conquest of civilization through dark- est Africa, gain the eastern coast and the Nile through the dismal wilderness, where is found the world’s reservoir of rubber-trees, and the murderous naked dwarfish cannibals, down the Aruwimi to the Congo, with a chain of posts holding the vast equatorial regions of the most undiscovered of the continents for the uses of men, and placing two of the noblest rivers of the world—the Nile and the Congo—at the service of com- merce. Each year the increased greedi- ness of England, France, Germany, and Italy for African possessions is evidence of the comprehensive and timely work that Stanley has done; and the dis- plays of jealousy by the French because he slighted De Brazzy on the west coast, and of sensibility because he escorted 251 Emin to the east coast in spite of himself, are but proclamations that recognize the true hero and the chief of African ex- ploration. In the midst of the extraor- dinary honors heaped on the modern Stanley Africanus, and the universal celebration of his hardihood and his heroism, it should be remembered that he is something more than a man of the highest courage and the boldest ability— that he is of missionary spirit, and has a solemn sense of the sacred gravity of his mission. He uses the elephant- gun on the savages who howl for his blood on the borders of the strange rivers of the dark land, and he orders criminals to execution with the command ‘Take him to God’’; but he has faith that he has been afforded divine protection in opening the most benighted land on earth, the darkest of the dark continent, to the white morning light of Chris- tianity. * * x THREE men of heroic history, repre- sentative and distinguished, remarkable for their energies in usefulness, gifted in manliness, rich in experience, poor in purse, and of far-reaching reputation for iron will and large ambition, have re- cently passed from life, and we name them in the order of their departure— General George Crook, General Robert C. Schenck, the Hon. Samuel J. Randall. General Crook was an ideal soldier. He was born in the green valley in Ohio that was the birthplace of General Schenck, who appointed him to the Academy of West Point. He was from his boyhood in the army—wounded in combat with the Indians in early youth, again in the great warfare with the Southern Confederacy, and five times promoted for gallant and meritorious conduct in the field; and even after the big war, when there seemed no chance for further fame, he won such celebrity for his intelligence and daring as an Indian fighter that his more bril- liant services in the mighty army that wrought the conquest of the Confederacy were obscured. In all his wars, under whatever degree of responsibility, he was full of resources. His qualities were commanding, and his cool bravery never failed in battle, nor was his sagacity lack- ing in strategy when indulging his favor- ite recreation—hunting the monstrous

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252 grizzlies of the Rocky Mountains. In his life was illustrated Bayard Taylor’s beautiful lines, «‘ The bravest are the ten- derest, the loving are the daring.’’ Bold to hardihood, he was gentle as a woman. He rode and fought with Sheridan in the fiery campaign of the Shenandoah, and made a romantic and happy marriage with a Southern woman, the sister of the Vir- ginian guerilla who surprised and captur- ed him in the midst of his troops and stole away with him in the night. After a life of unexampled activity he was called away suddenly, leaving only his war pa- pers and a glorious name. General Schenck was one of the most striking examples of a strong man. He had two periods of service in Congress, in the forties and the sixties, and two careers as a representative of his country at a foreign court, in Brazil and in England ; and in the army he served first with the zeal of a born fighter and commander at the front, and then he administered the difficult department of. Maryland. The force of his character, the charm of his personality, the breadth and keenness of his ability, were constantly manifest at home and abroad—Columbus and Wash- ington, Ohio and Maryland, South Amer- ica and Europe—in war and in peace. He was aman rugged and yet pleasing, fierce in his sincerity and arrogant in his con- victions ; but with music in his voice, warmth in his hand, kindliness in his manner, and the sparkle of good-fellow- ship in his eye. It was said of him by Mr. Blaine, whose Twenty Years in Con- gress is a work full of admirable char- acterizations, that he was the master of the rare art of making effective five- minute speeches, and exceeded all co- temporaries in the short, sharp ex- changes of actual debate touching public business upon the floor of the House. There is no higher test of original capac- ity and accuracy and fulness of infor- mation, and the ready command of re- sources. One who was as strenuous and potential in stormy times as Schenck could not fail to make enemies, and he was careless in some matters that profit- ed others and gave rise to misapprehen- sions of himself, but he outlived the sharp- ness of animosity, gave as he received gen- erous consideration, and was among the last of the survivors of the second gen- REVIEW OF CURRENT EVENTS. eration of public men with whom he was conspicuously associated. With the same inflexible resolution that he met many emergencies, he commanded him- self when desperately threatened with in- curable disease, and was restored to health by his self-command in living for years upon a single article of the simplest food, that Nature might be her own re- storer. He gave an example of that which may be accomplished when one conquers himself and, for the sake of re- generation, scorns all indulgence. There never was a clearer case, than the last ten years of his life, of the supremacy of mind over matter; and by virtue of his own will and fortitude he lived long to enjoy the regard of his countrymen and the devotion of a multitude of loving friends. Samuel J. Randall will have a high place in the list of public men who so ordered their lives that there was a cer- tainty of their integrity; and there is no shadow or blemish upon his splendid re- putation. He was an executive man rather than an orator. The force of his speeches was in. the matter behind them, and not in manner or grace of construc- tion of phrases. His sentences were charged with weighty meaning. His el- oquence was that of forceful expression, and he discarded and disregarded the glitter of ornamentation. He was one of the few men to whom the rules of the house were completely familiar, and who knew continually what was going on. So unusual is this gift of clear and steady knowledge, that its possession is indeed power. There were other objec- tors more constant than Randall in ne- gations. He was discriminating in his hostility to measures. He did not form a habit of obstruction, but observed a principle ofexamination. No one would do more than he to pass or to kill a bill, and he was always guided by what he be- lieved the general welfare demanded and honorable devotion to the ever present cause of the people at large permitted. The lobby knew him as the most deadly foe of contrivances to turn public money into private gain, and he was feared and re- spected accordingly. In the trying last hours of a congress, knowing all that was before it and the merits and demer- its of measures, he was alert, sleepless,

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REVIEW OF CURRENT EVENTS. and remorseless. ‘‘ Who takes the re- sponsibility of fighting and killing this essential bill ?’? was asked by one who believed that which he was advocating was of vital consequence, and it was at the fateful moment stricken by an objec- tion. ‘I do,” said Randall, calmly, but with a jaw like iron and a steady light in his eye. That was the end of it. There was an irreconcilable disagreement, and it was too late for debate. In Randall’s position he could have harvested gold and yet not have seemed, save to the experts, to lower the dignity of his life ; but he maintained his lofty and haughty independence—his own high standard of public honor; and he has gone to his grave with a name that is better than riches, a reputation that gleams with an inner light, and beside which the pur- chased blotches of the tinsel of corrupt and vainglorious official station, are stains of dirt it would be a charity to sponge away and forget. * * * THE accident to the City of Paris, the fastest ship ever built to navigate the ocean, has been an object-lesson of im- mense interest, and all the details made known have been closely studied. From the engine-room to the screw runs a shaft of steel more than 100 feet long. This was turned at the rate of ninety revolutions in a minute, and something happened that it was jerked from its place and disturbed the compartments above its tunnel. Then it broke but fell into its place, and the engine ran away and was wrecked. The governors that prevent this from happening every time the screw in the plunging of a ship is lifted partially out of the water, are mar- vels of ingenuity, and they failed, so that the whole force this engine was built to utilize was spent in smashing the machinery ; and the adjoining com- partment, though separated from the wrecked engine by a steel wall, was pen- 253 etrated, and filled rapidly. Such a chap- ter of accidents would have sent any steamer not of the very latest construction to the bottom in an hour, and the boats might have landed some of her passen- gersin Ireland. If there had been a gale, all would have been lost. That which is to be learned is, first, that the speed of the ship had nothing to do with her disaster. The engines did not have more work in proportion to their capacity than others. The solid compartment walls crossing the ship, fifteen in number, and rising eighteen feet above the water line when there is a full load, prevented total loss. No ship of the first class will hereafter be constructed without safe- guards, the requirement for which was indicated by this experience. The parti- tion between the engine-rooms will be by double walls. Dynamos will be placed in an elevated position. In imita- tion of auxiliary engines, there will be an upper-story furnace and boiler, that power may be raised for pumps and light and various mechanical uses, even if both engine-rooms are flooded. Speedy pro- visions will be made for discharging the water from the boilers and sealing them so as to have the full advantage of their buoyancy. There should be at least two new levers within reach of the captain’s bridge, one to stop the water of the in- duction pipes that carry the cold stream through the condensers, and the other to shut off the steam in the engine-rooms when it is, as it happily was not in the case of the City of Paris, impossible for the engineers to do it. The effect of the accident has been rather to assure than alarm the travelling public, and to confirm instead of discredit the twin- screw principle of construction. It is justly held that the most interesting fact about the misfortune that befel the most remarkable of the record-breakers is not that she was imperilled by an unprece- dented disaster, but that all her passen- gers were safely landed and she is not at the bottom of the Atlantic. > 7

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by + Social Problems Edward Everett Hale. EMIGRATION AND IMMIGRATION. HAT people call the race question for want of a better name admits of but one panacea. This is a large and con- stant administration of the golden rule. Until the people down South are willing to do unto others as they would like to have others do unto them the race ques- tion and many other questions will exist in their midst. As an important part of the practical administration of the golden rule let us suggest organized emigration. The organized emigration which under Hengist and Horsa made the England of to-day, which under Winthrop, Baltimore, and Penn made the America of to-day, is the divine method, one may say, by which weak states become strong, savage states become civilized, and, in general, by which better life comes in anywhere. This organized emigration may be neces- sary for taking people away from a region where there is congestion. It may be ne- cessary, on the other hand, for bringing people into a place which needs their service. * * * By a curious exception to the history of mankind, the American settler who planted Kentucky, a part of Ohio, and many of the States west of Ohio went without any organization. He went, per- haps, with no machinery but the axe on his shoulder. Here often he went with his wife, and to the pioneer women of this country the country is even more in- debted than it is to the pioneer men. The country is therefore not much used to or- ganized emigration in its recent history, and it is relying quite too much on spor- adic or separate emigration for its welfare. But, at the present moment, the needs of the Carolinas and the gulf states are such that organized emigration will meet their purposes better than sporadic or separate emigration. If in the next month 5000 negroes could go west together from the state of North Carolina, to Kansas or Oklahoma or Texas, the state of North Carolina would be benefited vastly. For the first time the governors of that state would understand what is the worth of the laboring class which exists there, and they would adapt its legislation to the needs of that class. What is more, every- body would begin to conciliate the peo- ple of color there, and they would find that their ways were much smoother than they have been for some years past. Now, it is absurd to suppose that any one black man is going to take his bundle on the end of a stick and go west, after the fashion of his grandfather running away from slavery in the advertisement of a newspaper ef forty years ago. Somebody must arrange for at least twenty families to go together, to sympathize with each other, to take care of each other in sick- ness, and to carry something of the old home life, so that no one need die of

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SOCIAL PROBLEMS. homesickness in the new paradise. The truth is, though it is not the fashion to say so, that of certain classes of labor there is a superabundance in the Carolinas and the gulf states. Now, the word free- dom does not mean that people are not to work; it only means that they have a right to select their place of labor and their employer. We pretend to have given the colored people freedom ; we have not given them freedom uutil they have made such arrangements that they may select their place of work and their employer. All those schemes for renting farms to them and letting them pay by a proportion of the crop savor still of vil- lenage or sefdom. They will not be free men until they are the possessors of real estate chosen where their own hard work shall be necessary to translate carbons and phosphates into food and clothing. The simplest way to bring this about is to arrange organized emigration so that a few of them may relieve the conges- tion, and may establish themselves on soil yet unbroken. x * * On the other hand, all these states need immigration as well as emigration. It would be an immense advantage to the state of Georgia to receive into the south- western counties—perhaps to receive into any part of the state—organized colonies of the very people who will die in the next ten years in Nova Scotia, in New Hampshire, in Massachusetts, in north- ern New York, or’ in other states of Se- vere climate, if they do not go south within the next five years. But any one who supposes that that well-to-do farmer who lives where Evangeline used to live in Acadia, and has a little hacking cough every spring, is going to pull up his household gods and take his wife and his babies down into a county of Georgia of which he knows nothing, is in error, particularly if such a person supposes that that man and woman are going there with no company but that of the babies. It will not be until somebody with the aptness of Miltiades or Themistocles or- ganizes a colony of such people to go there, that the sort of immigration will come into Georgia which Georgia needs and is glad to welcome. I know very well that gentlemen who have lands to sell in Georgia will tell 255 me that they welcome any immigrant from England or New England. I know equally well that the wife of such an im- migrant would be distracted by the neighbors and by the limitations to which she would be exposed in the some- what exasperated conditions of southern society. But I know also, and here I speak from the experience of one who saw the settlement of Kansas, and know how that was carried on,—that if thirty or forty families from northern states agree together to take up, say, four or five thou- sand acres of land in some part of Georgia quite desolate now, they would live there happily and they would found a home for their children for which their children would always be grateful. Our friends in Georgia, who see what an open paradise there is there without any Adams and Eves, would do well to direct their energies, not to the winning of one set- tler here and one there, but to the organ- ization of colonies. * ~ * WHEN such suggestions as these are made, the first difficulty comes from the selfishness of mankind. A man or a syndicate owning five thousand acres of land is delighted with the plan, and ex- pects to make all the profit from it. The railroad company which runs through the tract is also delighted with the plan, and also expects to make all the profit. Meanwhile the forty or fifty families of emigrants who are to bell the cat and take every privation involved do not see why others should make all the profit ; and when they have been brought to the stream, they will not drink, and so the whole plan breaks down. This is a stage of such procedure which I have often witnessed, and I shall probably live long enough to witness it many times more. In the great emigration to Kansas of the year 1854-5, which made Kansas a free state and led the way for the meas- ures which made the United States free from slavery, the course adopted was such as conciliated all parties. First of all, the Emigrant Aid Company, which set that emigration on foot, never sent a man or a woman to Kansas who had not money to pay their fares there. People who have not money enough to go toanew plaee are worth nothing when they get there, and had much better stay at home.

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256 What the Emigrant Aid Company did, under the wise suggestion of Mr. Eli Thayer, was this: they established an office in Boston to which all people might repair who wanted to learn about Kan- sas. They had maps, they had reports, public and private, which opened before people all which could be known in New England of the country just then thrown open to settlers. Then the company an- nounced that at such a day of such a month they would send a party, the first, second, or third party, as the case might be. They contracted with railroad companies who would give them the most reasonable rates, and they were able to play off the companies one against another. The first consequence was that the emigrant knew he got his ticket as cheaply as it could be bought. The company appointed an agent to go with these travellers and see that the passage was made as easy as might be. It was thus possible for a man to go forward with one party, and leave his wife and children to go forward with another party. Before people started they had some idea, probably, of where they would like to go; but they were in no sort com- mitted—they could see when they came what there was, and could enter their claims or not, as they chose. * * * In this way are secured competent emigrants, co-operation of the railway lines, and when the emigrant arrives on the spof he is a free man. Between half a dozen landowners who want to sell him land there is a competition. He has not pledged himself to any one of them all. But, on the other hand, he is by this time well acquainted with a consid- erable body of people who have gone with him. It is very likely that they have ar- SOCIAL PROBLEMS. ranged at home that they will stay to- gether. The carpenter will encourage the blacksmith, the blacksmith will en- courage the shoemaker, and the shoe- maker will encourage the schoolmaster. So when the different landowners of the region where they have arrived make their proposals for a site here or a site there, it is not with one individual that they are dealing, but with the inhabitants of a future town. And when these peo- ple establish themselves, they will estab- lish themselves with the social order, with the comfort of co-operation, instead of being obliged to submit to the loneli- ness of whatI have called sporadic emigra- tion of the log-cabin settlers of the west. x * * Ir does not seem to be remembered enough that the gulf states are very thin- ly peopled. It was shown in the war that, if all the population of the states in rebellion would repair together into the state of Georgia, it would not be so densely settled as Massachusetts, and the other nine states would be left empty —so much white paper for the providence of God to writeupon. The population of the south has increased rapidly since then ; but still there is room for a great many more people than are there now. There are people at the north dying who would live long lives there, and many of them are just the sort of people whom the gulf states need. On the other hand, the gulf states have a superabundance of unintelligent labor, which they do not seem to know how to handle. And if somebody will draw off from the hogs- head a part of this element of its con- tents, and introduce into the top of the hogshead a stream from another source, the result will be a decided freshening of the whole contents.

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