The Cosmopolitan 1901-01: Vol 30 Iss 3
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THE COSMOPOLITAN. From every man according to his ability; to every one according to his needs. VoL. XXX JANUARY, 1go1. Yj £7 Sy Yep <a » ey il Py | i : ; Z ‘ FA RICHEST OCCHES | (CLI CUM GHG IMAM LU JOCHES LION S| arlin ia
A GREAT merit of New Amsterdam was that, in the days of its importance, there was no New York. New Amsterdam was not big nor eee! handsome, nor especially enterprising, nor partic- A ee ularly rich. It wasasettlement of sturdy Dutch- men—sleepy Dutchmen, if we believe Diedrich Knickerbocker—on the end of Manhattan Island, who smoked tobacco in long pipes, ate porridge, drank gin and rum, traded with Indians, bowled on their green and enjoyed a fair degree of repose and satisfaction in life. The bigger and hand- somer and richer New York grows, the higher its tall buildings rise, and the swifter the vehicles run which hurry its folks from point to point, the greater by contrast is the charm of the Dutch settlement, where, somehow, there was enough to eat and drink and smoke, where children were born, trees grew and bore fruit and a grateful soil returned cabbages and corn to its tillers. There was wood to burn for the trouble of cutting it, and great brick fireplaces to burn it in, and when it was not the season for hugging firesides, the burgher could sit in his dooryard of a summer evening and watch one or two little ships beating up the great bay, or at anchor close to the shore for the furs the Indians had swapped for the seductive wares of Holland. To be sure, New Amsterdam had its tribula- tions. It had to keep alive, and to keep alive is something of a battle, even when there is little
Copyright, 1900. by COSMOPOLITAN MAGAZINE COMPANY
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220 KNICKERBOCKER DAYS. competition. It had also its jealousies, its politics, and its rivals in New England, New Sweden and Albany. We know that no settlement ever kept its footing ina new land without pains and struggle and short commons and _ sacrifice of ease, and we take it for granted that the early Dutch- men paid due price for their domicile on Manhattan. And yet, we associate them with tranquillity and repose, and think of them as, on the whole, easy-going, phleg- matic folks, somewhat indifferent to the And then, they were very lucky, for they settled on the likeliest spot in the whole Western hemisphere. Whether they were the right men may possibly be dis- puted, but there is no doubt at all that they were in the right place. Their choice of a landing-place is really what has immor- talized them. The beginnings of a mighty power are always fascinating to look back to. Every school-boy knows how Rom- ulus built a wall, and Remus leaped over it. Van Twiller and Stuyvesant may —_ 4 Drawn by Maxfield Parrish AS THEY TOOK LIFE attractions of the strenuous life, tenacious of their own, but not aggressive, and re- markably tolerant, considering their gener- ation, of the reasonable inclination of all men to think their own thoughts and hold, and even speak, their own opinions. To do the Dutchmen justice they had in them the best instincts about human liberty that the world of their time had developed, and if they lived comparatively tranquil it was partly because they had little stomach for bootless tyrannies. IN NEW AMSTERDAM. never be names as stunning in their renown as Romulus and Numa, but they, too, are immortal. They will not be forgotten while civilization clings to New York. But as has been said, a great merit of New Amsterdam as a place to live in was that in its day there was no New York. It was not a way-station, but a terminus. It was in its day just as good, if not bet- ter, than any other American settlement. It was independent, and it held its own. If it gave, it also took. There was no i omer
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KNICKERBOCKER wll CEA Criccieth ‘ M, Pp. Drawn by Maxfield Parrisi great lodestone then on American soil to draw away from it its surplus wealth and vigor. When you got to New Amsterdam you had arrived somewhere, and need not necessarily feel that, under the current THE PATRON SAINT OF NEW YORK rules that regulated progress, you were merely on the way to Philadelphia or Boston. There are nice villages to-day, in good places, which are probably in most material respects a good deal better to live
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(NICKERBOCKER DAYS. mokfict®” PF eeFs he tba es Drawn oy Maxfield Parrish. THE COMFORTS OF LIFE ARE INTRODUCED AMONG THE INDIANS. a brain, and though the members may contentment of vigorous minds. Am- flourish they are only members after all. bitious spirits want to be at the center of The condition of living next to the rose things. Success is ever migrating to the is not one which makes for the repose and great towns where the rewards of success
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224 KNICKERBOCKER DAYS. Drawn by Maxfield Parrish WOUTER VAN TWILLER WAS FAMOUS FOR HIS SOLOMON-LIKE HANDLING OF DISPUTES AMONG THE BURGHERS. seem greater because they are more striking and conspicuous. Failure, too, is con- stantly drifting to places where oppor- tunities more abound and obscurity seems less irksome than at home. Where~er Americans live nowadays, in San Fran- cisco, in Chicago, even in Boston itself, there are among them uneasy spirits who constantly entertain the suggestion that, some day, the summons will come to them to move to New York and either make their fortunes or spend the incomes of them. There is the same feeling in other countries about London, Paris, Vienna, and all the great commercial capitals. It is a part of the restlessness of modern life, and undoubtedly it has its inspirations as well as its inconveniences. But it fatigues, and we grow weary of it. It is an element in the subtle charm that our imagination | 9p ORNS om
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KNICKERBOCKER DAYS. - eR RE > Drawn by Maxfield Parrish. i WILLIAM KIEFT, ‘‘ THE TESTY,’’ MADE GREAT DISCONTENT IN THE PROVINCE EVERY MAN BECAME A DISPUTANT AND A POLITICAL TINKER, associates with the Knickerbocker Dutch- There is no serious fault to be found with men that they never dreamed of moving to the Dutch except that there are not more of New York. them. They are not decadent. They are
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226 KNICKERBOCKER DAYS. Drawn by Maxfiecd Parrish THE CHARGE ON FORT CHRISTINA—AFTER DIEDRICH KNICKERBOCKER'S DESCRIPTION. what they have been for centuries—admir- able, persevering, exemplary folks, who do very well most things that they undertake. A handful of them in Europe have managed to maintain an independent government and stand off all their greedy neighbors, and none of the great governmental trusts of our day seems likely to absorb them. They are suc- cessful colonizers, successful traders and eminent financiers. They are pious, prudent, and persistently brave. What seems sur- prising, as we think of them and of their history, is that when so good a sample of human being as the Dutchman had been evolved, the great factory of folks, which turns the raw materials of humanity into finished products, did not make up more of the available material into Dutchmen. There are enough of other nationalties. but somehow the supply of Dutchmen has mae
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KNICKERBOCKER DAYS. y pe AR ft : THE END OF DUTCH RULE. PETER STUYVESANT WATCHING THE ARRIVAL OF THE HOSTILE BRITISH FRIGATES Drawn by Maxfield Parrish. not been adequate to the improvement of three centuries ago, too many were killed. the opportunities which the earth offered Consequently there have not been enough to Dutch character. Not enough were Dutchmen to goaround. In regions of the born, and of those that were born two or earth which they ought to have inherited
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228 KNICKERBOCKER DAYS. : f i : Drawn by Maxfield Parrish. THE DUTCH FATHERS BELIEVED THAT ST. NICHOLAS RAISED THE NEW ENGLAND WITCHES FOR THE PURPOSE OF AVERTING A THREATENED INVASION OF NEW AMSTERDAM. and peopled, it has been their destiny, un- New York instead of repining that we are fortunately, to be the leaven rather than not more exclusively Dutch, ought to be the whole loaf. thankful for the Dutch leaven that we It can’t be helped, and doubtless we of did acquire and still retain.
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HOW TO by E. A ( UR interest in things about us invari- ably increases in direct ratio with our knowledge of them; be it yacht, dog, or anything else, and it is true beyond a doubt that the of knowledge before the public in an attractive way adds to their importance in its eyes, and stimu- lates an interest which often spreads like contagion. People will then be found searching right and left for information concerning the uppermost topic until they have gained sufficient knowledge to enable them with degree of intelligence. The commercial importance of the horse, the horse shows in various parts of the bringing such to discuss it some country, as well as a wholesome love of out-door sports and healthy recreation are one and all helping to advance the interest JUDGE A HORSE. A. GRANGE and popularity of the animal, so let us study, briefly, the salient points which go to make up a good horse. It matters little where we begin, but, as custom dictates, let us first consider the head, remembering that it is the feature above all others which imparts physiog- nomy or expression to the creature. The Ear should taper from its base to a rather sharp point at the tip, and be made up of a mere shell of gristle enveloped in a layer of thin skin and fine hair. Its movements should be energetic, but not of a quick, jerky which indicates defects of various kinds. When erect, the ears should incline forward, and they are most admired they approach each other at the tips. The Poll, at the top of the head, the part order, when
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230 HOW TO JUDGE A HORSE. over which the head-stall passes, should be rounded off. Flat polls give a coarse appearance to the back or top of the head and are objectionable, especially in saddle horses. The Forehead is most. approved when broad and flat; if so formed there will be ample room for the development of the brain beneath its surface. The Face is a region the outline of which should be straight or nearly so, doing away with the Roman nose, a feature saying, ‘‘A horse should be able to drink out of a wine-glass.”’ The Mouth is most attractive when of moderate size, not large enough to remind one of the mouth of an alligator, nor yet so small that it resembles that of a sheep. The Cheek, although often lost sight of in judging horses, should be composed, largely, of well-developed muscles, stand- ing boldly out upon its surface. Well- developed muscles in the cheek insure proper motion of the lower jaw in grinding that is considered coarse and unsightly in the horse. A slight dish in the side of the nasal bones is an addition to the head as an object of beauty. The Nostrils will perform their function better if they are well developed and easily dilated. If they are small and not easily dilated, the horse will more than likely be defective when it comes to severe exertion. The Muzzle, somewhat indefinitely de- fined as the end of the nose, is most admired when it tapers. There is an old or masticating the food; imperfectly mas- ticated food is often the starting point of indigestion and all its evil consequences. The Eye is regarded defective from an artistic point of view when it is small and concealed like the eye of a pig, or when it is very large, round and prominent, like that of the ox. It should be well de- veloped, round and preferably of a brown color. Acuteness of vision may be deter- mined by making passes in front of the animal, in proximity to the organ, examin- _REUERINUIEEREN
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i ing one eye, then the other, taking care that too much force is not exerted, as currents of air may be produced, causing the animal to blink, and this blinking mis- taken for actual vision when the horse is totally blind. The Lower Jaw should be formed so as to give the head an expression of quality, and the space between the bones deep enough to make its presence perceptible. The Head should be attached to the neck in a manner that a line drawn through the center of it will form a right angle with a line drawn along the center of the neck when the animal is standing in its natural position. A head which is not set well upon the neck decreases the value of a high-class horse, although this may not interfere with its merits. The Neck extends from the poll to the Withers on top, and from jowl to breast at bottom. There are several varieties, but the one most sought is the clean-cut neck in which the muscles stand boldly out and are surmounted by a whip-cordy crest. The lower border has the windpipe stand- ing out, leaving a perceptible groove, the jugular gutter, between it and the neck HOW 70 JUDGE A HORSE. above. That part of the lower border which joins the head should be nicely incurvated at the throat and thus do away with the appearance of the head and neck being plastered together. Properly formed necks are frequently accompanied with good points in other respects. Running our eye along the upper part of the body, starting from the Withers, the highest part of the back between the shoulder-blades, we find this portion vary- ing much in shape; so before pronouncing upon the withers as being properly or im- properly formed, we must consider the use for which the animal is intended. For saddle purposes they should be well de- fined, high as it were, in order that the saddle may sit comfortably upon the back and not roll or become otherwise misplaced when the horse is in action. Low or im- perfectly defined withers are, however, admissible in various kinds of harness horses. The Back extends from the withers to the highest point of the croup. In select- ing a horse we must determine the kind of Long-backed horses may be perfectly suited for coach or work for which we need it.
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HOW TO JUDGE A HORSE. 9 Ge w other harness work, but are out of place under the sad- die. That portion of the back toward the tail, the Loins, should be broad from side to side, as it gives strength to the animal. toach-backed horses are not pleasant to ride, while the opposite, the hollow back, sometimes become un- sightly. The Croup begins where the back leaves off. Preference is given to the long croup, which should be nearly horizontal, only sloping a trifle. The tail will then come out of the body in a manner that admits of its more graceful and ele- gant carriage, giving a finish to the contour of the whole animal that is in striking con- trast with the indifferently carried tail of the drooping or sloping croup. The Thorax, or Chest, is im- portant from whatever stand- point the horse is judged, and often bears a close re- lation to the kind of work nature has intended the ani- mal to perform. For a familiar example of this we have only to look at the thorax of the fleet-footed greyhound, to see what striking contrast it pre- sents to his more surly neigh- bor, the bull-dog; or to observe the deep chest of the race- horse as compared with that of the proportionately shallow chest of the draft-horse. The admirer of the race-horse tells us that he likes it deep through the girth, while the connoisseur in the draft class prefers animals with a broad breast, full bosom and fore legs well apart. In shape, the entire chest bears resemblance to a trun- cated cone with the apex be- tween the front legs, the truncated or cutaway part following in line with the lower ends of the floating ribs.
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HOW 70 JUDGE A HORSE. The Ribs number eighteen pairs; eight pairs stationary and ten pairs floating, situ- ated behind the stationary ; horses have nineteen pnirs of ribs. considerably in shape and length and form a large portion of the walls of the chest. The well arranged when the distance between the last one and the point of the hip is little more than the breadth of a hand. Animals thus propor- tioned are said to be well ‘tribbed up; but when there is considerable space the horse some The ribs vary ribs are considered is spoken of as being ‘‘loosely coupled,” which is frequently associated with narrow loins, the two together producing a style that is seldom fit for a hard day’s work, while the horse which is well ‘‘ribbed up,’’ other things being of conformation equal, is much the better animal; probably the secret is that in the latter the chest is well formed and spacious, giving the heart and lungs plenty of room in which to per- form their functions. Phe Abdomen varies perhaps more in shape than any other region, often much influ- enced by the nature of the food, though some animals always appear large in this part owing to the actual size of the organs contained therein. On the other hand, we occasionally meet with horses that will not fill and always appear tucked up in the flank; such animals are invariably poor feeders and cannot do a hard day's work. The fore leg extends from the withers to the foot. should be oblique for saddle purposes and light draft purposes the answers The upper part, or Shoulder, harness road work; but for straight shovlder
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better. The incline of the shoulder de- pends upon the slope of the blade bone. The space between the shoulder and elbow-joint is the Arm, which should be well clad with strong muscles. Between the elbow-joint and the knee is the Forearm, often called the arm This is a region to be carefully studied in judging horses. It should be composed of firm muscles standing boldly out. It may not be apparent why it is so essential for a good horse to have a strong forearm, but when we examine an_ instantaneous photograph of a horse in action it will be seen that at certain stages of progression the entire weight of the body is upon one fore leg, and that the muscles of the fore- 5° 234 HOW 70 JUDGE A HORSE. tendons standing well out behind until they reach the fetlock-joint. | Then comes the Pastern which should be oblique if we desire elastic and graceful movement in an animal. The pasterns of the front are usually more upright and shorter than those of the hind legs. We now come to the Foot, a region which has been given much consideration in all ages by writers upon equine topics. It is the part embraced by and including the hoof: a full study of it is, however, beyond the limits of this article. Suftice it to say that it should be strong, circular in outline, and free from grooves or fissures upon the external surface of the wall. The hind feet are invariably smaller than arm have to carry it over a center, as it were, something in the same way as the athlete progresses with a leaping pole— the body must be landed on the other side of the center in a firm, steady manner, in order that the next stride may be per- formed with agility. It is generally con- ceded that horses with lone forearms are well adapted for fast work, a point to be noted in judging the trotter. Passing down the leg we come to the Knee. It should be nearly straight; when bent backward, calf knee is produced—a style of conformation that is objectionable. Neither should it bend forward, as the attitude is indicative of knee sprung. Below the knee we have the Canon, or Shin, a part of which should have strong the front, owing, no doubt, to the fact that they carry less weight. A horse weighing one thousand pounds has been found by measurement to bear one hundred and fifty pounds more weight on its front feet than it does on the ones behind. In the hind leg. the Hauneh, or Upper Thigh,is a region somewhat difficult to de- fine as far as its exact limits are concerned, as it blends imperceptibly with the croup at one extremity, and with the gaskin, or lower thigh, at the other, so we have to draw upon our imagination to give its position. In a general way, then, it is above the stifle (joint near the belly, corresponding to the knee) and below the croup. It isa point of excellence in horses when the muscles forming the
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haunch are well devel- oped, and when they stand boldly out with marked depressions — be- tween them. The Gaskin, or Lower Thigh, is the part below the haunch and above the hock (corresponding to ankle). It is important that the front and outer part of it be well muscled. because, like the forearm of the front leg, it is concerned in carrying the entire weight of the body over a center. The Hock is a joint, or to be more accurate, a series of joints, that is of great consequence as it is frequently the seat of lameness in the hind leg. It should be broad from before backward and _ also from side to side. The Shank between the hock and fetlock corresponds with the canon of the fore leg, but is a little longer, flatter and measures more in circumference. In shape, it should be broad from the front to the back, with its skin lying close to the bone Hard, flat legs are the ones that are best able to stand the test of a hard day’s work. The parts below the and tendon. shank are similar in a general way to the HOW 70 JUDGE A HORSE. parts below the fetlock of the front leg. The Skin of a horse in good condition should be supple and loose, having an abundance of little glands, the presence and healthy condition of which are mani- fest in the glossy appearance of a well- groomed coat. Color. While the shade of a horse may not have anything to do with its merits, except from the standpoint of beauty, yet such strong prejudices exist regarding color that the subject deserves a little con- sideration. It is often said that color has much significance as an index to the horse’s tempera- ment, but investiga- tion has not’ war- ranted the truth of this theory. It is true that many chest- nuts are high spirit- ed, but the same may be said of any other color. If we want an an- imal for park work, solid colors take well, though the dictates of fashion must not be ignored, as some- times roans will bring a higher price,
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3 other things being equal, than some other shade. Action and Gait embrace those move- ments performed by the extremities during progression, and may be considered under three primary heads—the walsh, trot, and gallop—with their various modifications: the running walk; the amble, or pace; and the canter. These are regarded as natural gaits since horses possess them through natural predisposition or instinct. The artificial gaits or ornamental movements are those which are taught in the high school of horseman- ship, and perhaps may be regarded as belonging more to the circus-ring or tan-bark of the riding- school, than to the ordi- nary commer- cial horse- world. They consist prin- cipally of the passage, a species of trot in which the horse gathers itself in a rather showy atti- tude and pro- gresses in a somewhat elastic man- ner; the Spanish walk, a most majestic movement in which the animal moves in .a remarkably precise manner, especially as far as its front legs are concerned; the Spanish trot bears a strong resemblance to the walk, the precise majestic movements being very perceptible. There are other high-school movements. Although the gaits have been divided into two groups, natural and _ artificial, it is to be remembered that a natural gait in one horse may be entirely artificial in an- other; indeed, we can hardly take up a live- stock paper without reading of some con- 236 HOW 70 JUDGE A HORSE. verted pacer or trotter, as the case may be, while some horses will do the Spanish walk or trot without an hour’s training. Many horses cannot walk, in the ordinary sense of the term, nor can others gallop; but so many are born possessing the first- named gaits that we are justified in calling them natural, while the high-school move- ments are obtained through training in nearly every instance. By way of impressing the reader with the importance of proper action in the make-up of a horse, let me quote from a letter received some time ago from Mr. F. Mm. Ware, manager of the American Horse Ex- change of New York. ‘*A paragon of conforma- tion and all the requisite virtues will bring $175 to $300 here without ac- tion; one not half his equal in any partic- ular, but with extra action, will bring $700 to $5,- 000. I have seen poor in- dividuals bring the latter price more than once.’’ In pronouncing upon the action of a horse as being good or bad, we must again bear in mind the kind of work for which it is intended. Take a saddle-horse, for in- stance; it is hard for the writer to con- ceive a more agreeable way of covering the ground than upon the back of a_ horse that has a long, easy swing in the trot, going rather close to the ground, but with sufficient knee action to carry the toe well clear of all irregularities’ in the road- bed. This, with energy and moderate speed, goes a long way toward the make- er aroma
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| HOW 70 JUDGE A HORSE. 237 up of a good saddle-horse; but the same style in a coach horse would hardly pass muster if intended for fashionable city driving. In addition to this (for the saddle) the horse must canter with an easy stride, free from that short, bucking action so often noticed in badly trained or in- ferior animals; the walk should be ener- getic, fast and smooth, with plenty of elasticity to modify concussion. In some localities, and with some persons, the run- ning walk, fox-trot, et cetera, are inclis- pensable in a first-class saddle-horse. The harness horse should be a good walker, a free, bold trotter with knee as well as hock action; the former must not only be high, but it must be far-reaching so as to carry the foot through a telling space at every stride, and thus do away with that short, choppy action, sometimes described by the old saying ‘*that such and such a nag will trot all day in a bushel basket, ”’ while the latter must bend the joint thor- oughly, bringing the foot and curved pastern up from the ground in a sharp, decisive manner, carry them well forward and lower them with energy and_ precision that reminds one of the movements of a clock. All jerky action, which indicates string-halt, should be carefully avoided? For slow draft work upon the farm, road, or in the city, the walking gait is even of more importance than the others, so much so that some agricultural societies award prizes at their horse shows for the best walker, an innovation to be highly commended,
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MME. JANE HADING L’ATHENEE. By VANCE — is only skin deep,’’ says the proverb; and then that other one, ‘‘Handsome is as handsome does*’— they must have been made, these and all kindred proverbs, by very plain-looking philosophers. Had they been handsome fellows, they would never have dreamed of saying anything of the sort. .Esop, who made one of them, was a little hunchback, with a bald head and that looked askew; writing the fable and forging the proverb he was merely justify himself in the eyes of posterity. I do not know made the cther proverb, nor eyes in trying to who BEAUTY ON THE PARIS STAGE. THOMPSON. traits. Asa matter of fact, one might go much further in his analysis of the utility of being beautiful. Even a brave act im- presses us more when it has been performed by a handsome fellow. yellow curls counted for a great deal. And I am quite persuaded that had Kriiger been a dashing Adonis of five and twenty, there would have been a different story to tell of South Africa. I admit, of course, that the world has got wisdom from conspicuously ill-fav- Socra- Custer’s its ored tes, with his knobby, hairless skull, and Ar- istotle, swart and dys- people peptic—were of this you; but both of us are quite certain that kind; but it has al- he did not walk the ways been the poet's world in a handsome duty to be beautiful. skin. No; they are As for the actor, it is only half true, these not only his duty to old saws: beauty is be comely—it is his always lovable and MADEMOISELLE ROBINSON, OF THE GYMNASE. stock in trade. True desirable; the beautiful woman, like the of the actor, this is ten times true of the beautiful horse and the beautiful tree, is actress. Let us not deceive ourselves. always worth taking one’s hat off to. And then it is difficult not to that the soul grows straightest body. the believe in a straight Inner beauty coefficient of external is comeliness. The poets love best have all we been fine-looking men. From Goethe to De Musset, from Hugo to the latest rhymster, it is the same thing. It is be- cause Carolus Duran has the air of a beau sabreur that him to paint our por- we get OF What we admire in actresses is the illusion they being beautiful. Stage illusion, of Never for one moment do you believe that Ellen Terry, for instance, is Lady Macbeth; that Madame Sarah Bernhardt is the fragile young King of Rome. You could as easily persuade yourself that the painted canvas is really a stone castle, and that the flickering lime-light is a theft from the moon. Doctor Johnson, with his ususal good sense, says somewhere that the actor who could be- lieve, even for an hour, that he was really Macbeth and really perpetrated the mur- ders, would deserve to be hanged; and you and I, with our equally good sense, per- ceive that the playgoer who could share in the ‘‘illusion,’’ should be hanged as acces- sory after the fact. Of course, this merely a blunt paraphrase of the paradox give us of course, does not exist. is
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stated of old by Diderot. What we really see on the stage is a succession of views, with moving and speaking figures, and we like them, little or much, in the proportion in which they approach our notions of reality. But, exactly as when we look in a mirror, we always see ourselves more beautiful than we are, so we demand from the stage—this mirror held up to nature— a beauty that flatters us, flatters life, flatters every-day humanity. Therefore the actress who seems to us real—real as the girl we loved in youth and love still in our must be excep- tionally beauti- ful. Be she Ju- liet or Alkestis, she must ap proach our ideal of the lovable woman. A simple theory, is it not?) You will find it all in the old nur- sery jingle of the lad who, on Pippen Hill met the pretty miss that dropped him a curtsy, and up- on whom he called the bless- ings of heaven, in default of the half-a- crown a day dreams — BEAUTY ON THE PARIS STAGE. 239 in the cryptic eyes and impossible hair of Leslie Carter—it is a matter of taste, a matter of temperament and, a little, a matter of one’s first sweetheart. But the beautiful actresses of Paris—— They whose beauty is a kind of genius In than any country, the drama has been a frame for pretty Our English drama not of aristocratic descent. us from the people; it was born in a booth of the place, and bred in Through ages of obloquy it has fought its way to ar- tistic recog- nition. Only of late has it been able to take the air, frankly and boldly, like the other arts. On the other hand, the French drama _ is dis- tinctly of court- ly descent. It was born in the purple. Always it has been the amusement of France, more in other pictures. is It came up to market- the tavern. princes and— when princes went to the cuillotine—of gilded and per- that he did not fumed demo- hve to spend crats. And so upon her. the French I t was be MLLE. LUCIE GERARD, OF THE ODEON. st age has al- cause she was a pretty miss that he ways preserved some of the vices and wanted to give her his mythical half- virtues of its courtly descent. It has crown; and this is still our touchstone of had a penchant for beautiful women, dramatic talent. Disraeli thought that youth was genius; for the actress. at all events, youth, mated with beauty, is better as Mary Anderson Fortunately, beauty No two of us ever than genius, proved abundantly years ago. is not all of one kind. agree. In Duse’s sad and face you may see more beauty than I find world-worn it has forgiven many sins—even the crime of lacking dramatic talent. Were to compare the French stage with that of the United States—at least far as the ac- tresses are concerned—there would be little advantage on one side or the other. Per- haps the chief thing the casual observer and to the actresses who were beautiful one so
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BEAUTY ON 1H1L PARIS STAGE. WANDA DE BONCZA, OF THE COMEDIE FRANCAISE. MLLE would notice is that beauty is a more im- portant requisite for a stage career in Paris. But you shall judge for yourself. Somewhere back on the stage the tra- ditional three knocks have been given; the footlights are lowered; slowly the curtain goes up—this is the Comédie Francaise and the dark little woman draped in white, who comes weeping toward the center of the stage is the most talked-of beauty in Paris—Wanda Marie Emilie Rutkowska, known as Mademoiselle de Boneza. She has big eyes, sad and visionary. Behind them are all the tragic thoughts of all the tragic poets of the world. And this is her beauty. You meet her at the race-track, in the greenroom of the Théitre Frangais, at some supper table where aristocratic for- eigners expose their titles and the laughter is keyed high, and always she looks at you enigmatic Is there any meaning in those eyes? You do not know, but all night you wonder what she with sad, eyes. and—far more important—what the parts I re- thought she thought you thought. In she plays it is just the same thing. member début. It was six years ago at the Odéon. She created the in a play, called, if I am not She her role of a gir! ‘*Barynia.”’ strange mistaken, achieved a great success. Why? Ah, that I do not know. Certainly she was beautiful in her dark, slim little fashion, and then she had an impertinent, provoking way with her, as one who should say: I had a little talent No bigger thau my thumb, I put it in a pint-pot Aud there I bade it drum.” brave little reason for And how it did drum, that But that not the her success. No one could read what was behind her eyes—so everybody talked of talked She talent! was her, and, in Paris, to be about, is not only fame, but fortune. had the art of being mysterious, or at least of sug- gesting the mystery that Virgil discovered in the souls of young girls. She was given the leading Francois “pour. La Her sparkled brighter than ever. This person had become a_ personality. role in Coppée’s success little And then came the sensational episode in her Couronne.’ career. Every one who was some one in the Paris of those days began to receive anonymous letters. Journalists and society folk, theatrical managers found their letter-boxes stuffed with letters of course—libeling in atro- and statesmen, —unsigned, cious terms Mademoiselle de Boneza of the Odéon Théitre. Where did they come from? Who wrote them? It is a mystery which will have to go down in _ history, side by side with that of the man in the iron mask. What did Doctor Johnson do with his orange peels? Who libeled Wanda de Ah, these are never will But the Was extraordi- nary. There was a public outburst of in- dignation and = sym- pathy that swept the little woman the Comédie Francaise, this Mecea of the player. The other day created Alkestis in a new version Boncza? riddles that be answered. result into stage- she there of the Greek tragedy. Was she the heroine of Euripides that you and I dreamed ef in our MADEMOISELLE COMEDIE FRANCAISE LECONTE,
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BEAUTY ON THE PARIS STAGE. 241 school-boy days, a tragic woman, stately and blonde come up out of the antique world?) Not at all; Wanda de Boneza, little and dark, Parisian and per- verse, she whose eyes are enigmas: but, her own odd she was because she was beautiful in way, we all acclaimed her, just as the lad in the nursery rhyme acclaimed the pretty miss of Pippen Hill. When you write your famous book on the **Philosophy of Beauty’’ you might use this anecdote to il- lustrate your theory that the who is beauti- ful has all the genius neces- sary. Made- moiselle Wan- da de Boneza born in actress was Paris, March 8, 1872; she is twenty- nine of age since she is a member of the Comédie Francaise, im- mortal. Mademoi- selle Marguer- ite Moréno is a years and, woman of genius—a un- quiet and modern, but essentially real. A slight, tall woman, she would re- mind you of a young Bernhardt. the same flexile, racial talent. essence of modernity. No one tray, as she does, the strange, complicated characters that the modern poetical drama of France. To have seen her in ‘‘The Veil,** that dreamy little play by Georges Rodenbach, liberal education. A very modern I have said, vibrant, intellectual, genius She has She is the ean por- distinguish is a actress, MADEMOISELLE Add, too, that Mademoi- a good bit of arebel. <A played for the first accomplished. selle Moréno is few months ago she time, the title role in ‘*Andromaque.’’ In order to parallel the sensation she created, to the rebel- The Back in one would have to go back audience the lious triumphs of Rachel. stormed applause at her. greenroom the old actors cried anathema. ‘*Racine fin-de-siécle, ’” all grimly said one of them, the } h rase over- ran Paris. In a word, Mademoiselle Moréno had broken the tradition, had discarded all the lated with the years have the had accumu- artifice which overlaid poet, presented a human, path- etic woman in place of the stage efigy of Ra- cine’s hero- ine. The old, artificial elo- the artificial quence, old, stage business are still cher- by the of the and ished actors Comédie tolerated by MonsieurClar etie. It quires more re- WALLERY., than a little courage to present on that stage But when it has been done, the public—and after all, a figure essentially real. once in matters of acting your publie is an ad- mirable judge—is never quite content to accept the simulacrum instead of the real- ity. Having once seen ‘*Andromaque,”’ having once heard Racine’s verses spoken, instead of readily go it will not g heck to the traditional puppet play. sung,
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242 ‘*She plays Racine instead of saying him,’’ said an old actor, disgustedly. His reproach was an culogy. I believe that Mademoiselle revolt will go far. Indeed, she is bring ing back the true tradition. It is not pos- sible to conceive that in Racine’s day his ventrilo- Moréno’s lieroines were merely strutting, quistic puppets. A state the- ater like the Comédie Fran- caise, while it preserves much that is good, in- curs the danger of preserving more that is bad. Year by year the ten- dency is to get farther away from life—to substitute con- vention for thought. And this is a matter that the advo- cates of an Am- erican Comédie might well con- sider. You will say that when the dead weight of convention and tradition becomes too op- pressive, there is always found some one to lead That some- times, not al- Ways, not often. Usually the gen- iuses—your Bernhardts and Coquelins—de- sert to another camp. It or twice in a century that find a Rachel who has the intelligence and the devotion to fight it out—there where the honor is least and the danger greatest. Of late years a great deal of new blood has been injected into the Comédie. Ju a revolt. is true LA CAVALIERI is only once you BEAUTY ON THE PATIS STAGE. the same scenes with the great stars, whose beauty is undimmed, you will find many bright young girls, whose beauty has not yet borne them on to fame. Of these are Mademoiselle Silvain, charming in antique roles, and that slim and graceful ingénue, Mademoiselle Leconte. Madame Ségond- Weber belongs to the generation that is in full flower to- day. It was fif- teen years ago that she en- tered the Odé- on. Since then she has spent her time desert- alternately the Odéon and the Comédie Francaise. There is a little of the strolling player in her. Perhaps this is the reason her success has not been so great as her merits. Nature has given her every- thing—a sweet and tragic voice, the profile of Diana and the soul of the ing heroines of Corneille; but. -ca- price leads her here and there while time is ever passing. But and I will always re- member that she made an ideal Jeanne d‘Are. While writing this article I have felt as though I were walking in an avenue of farthingales; a perfumed road, but rather heady. Beautiful photographs are un- canny things to have piled up on one’s It is uncanny, too, to send you writing-tabie.
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BEAU1Y ON THE PARIS STAGE. memory through one b Ss back years of play-go- How the rise— ing. ghosts ghosts of tragic women, ghosts of laughing mum- mers, ghosts of faded and ten plays. every one who has forgot- For known Paris in his A vouth, the Odéon in reminis- This sec- of is rich cences. ~ond theater MADEMOISELLE MEDAL OF THE GYMNASE. France is in the heart of the Latin Quarter. He is a poor Parisian indeed, who has not loitered away some of his youth browsing over the book- stalls in its arcades, or watching, from that Al- the dim top-gallery, the far-away stage. Ways the poetry, Odéon is to-day almost the last refuge of the rhymed play. This was what tempted Mademoiselle Sorel; she went to the Odéon in order that she might be able to speak hoped home of dramatic verse-—and because, perhaps, she that for her, as for so many actresses, the Odéon might be the vestibule of the Comé- die Francaise. Mademoiselle the great actresses in France who did not pass Sorel is one of few through the academic mill of the Conserv- atory. Indeed, she had no ‘‘schooling,*’ except the few given De- She lessons her by launay. learned to act, in the best way possible, by acting. (The method of true teaching a boy or a puppy to swim is to toss him deep water.) Trained in this manner, it is quite natu- ral that Made- into MLLE. SUZANNE AVRIL, OF THE GYMNASE, moiselle Sorel should show all the fire and fougue of the born actress, but, curiously the accom- was has as. well that it only in enough, she plished — technique thought could be gained the With a few exceptions—Bernhardt, of course, Moréno, Bartet—no one speaks dra- matic verse quite so well. She must have been born in a rhythmic hour. And yet, for the first few years of her dramatic life to prose—and often the Variétés; she created roles schools. was condemned prose. She the Vaudeville; the she to bad then at in ‘*Flipote,’ was at and **Drames Sacrés;"" MLLE. CECILE SOREL, OF THE ODEON. then in ‘‘Madame Sans-Géne** she created the —of the Queen of she was created for it Naples. I have role—or rather seen many queens in my time, and with the ex- ception of Margherita, that Pearl of Savoy and Queen-dowager of Italy, I have never seen one who did not make royalty ridicu- On the stage they would all be as- lous. signed to comic parts—heavy old women, duennas or cooks. In fact, they lack dis- tinction. (Except, of course, that flower- like little Queen of Holland, who would ingénue, a charming make a delicious
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BEAUTY ON THE PARIS STAGE. dairymaid, on any stage. She is gracious as a field of whiten- ime “ricie..) Mademoiselle Cécile Sorel, born in Paris under a lucky star, but un- =| der no partic- ular escutch- Jeon, is the MADEMOISELLE CASSIVE, OF THE NOUVEAUTES. a donkey cart; born for a throne. perial beauty, this dark-eyed girl. she }queentliest woman I have everseen. You could not im- agine her in seems to have been An imperious and im- In her former existences (for we have not quite lost that old superstition) she must have been Cleopatra or Semiramis. played co- quettes of the world and the half- world for a number of years. There used to be a legend that Madame Réjane did not like to have pretty women in her company. It was a libel of course, and Ré- jane killed it definitely when she engaged Mademoiselle Sorel for the Vaudeville Thé- atre. But the Odéon, where the poets are making their last stand, is the true home for this rhyth- mic and regal girl, and there she has found MADAME As I said, she SEGOND-WEBER, OF THE COMEDIE FRAN(AISE. her true glory. An account of the beauties of the Odéon would be too deficient with- out a reference to Mademoiselle Regnier, whose rate, deti- cate beauty was haif the victory in ‘‘La Geurre en Den- telles.”’ ‘*She is like a lace scarf,’’ said the old playgoer, ‘‘fragile and And then Mademoiselle has genius—an admirable has no talent, substitute. MADEMOISELLE DE VRIES. perfumed. ’’ Regnier, who Leaving these state theaters, let us con- tinue our beauty hunt through the other notable stock companies. Lucie Gérard was born in Sorel’s year, 1872, at Lyons, and came up to Paris when she was sixteen years of age. She had talent, ambition; and she knew Ca- tulle Mendés. That was quite enough. Mon- sieur Mendés has created more beautiful actresses than any man in Paris, and Made- moiselle Gérard is not the least of his stars. She appeared in his “Tse line. * That was in 1888. Then she entered the Con- servatory as a
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BEAUTY ON THE PARIS STAGE. pupil of Monsieur Got. Two years later. de serting verse for prose, she made her début at the Ambigu in ‘*Gigolette,’* that crude and vulgar melodrama which failed in New York, and should have failed in Paris. After that she created, quite successfully, a rdle in ‘“*T’Homme a | Oreille Cassée*’ at the Am- bigu. I remember that night very well. She came on the stage with smart little airs Indeed, she hair was a and dainty graces. was very pretty, with her abundant and big eyes. The mouth, perhaps, little too fuli, but when she opened it—ihere came out of it a little voice, so cold and sweet and sharp that it reminded one of a lemon-ice. The nose, too, is a trifle short toxelane. In fact, she plaved the heroine in Her great —a nose for should have Prévost’s ‘‘ Nez Fripon.”’ success was made in Maurice Donnay’s ‘*Pension de Famille;’’ from this you may gather she is not quite a lead- ing lady, an ingénue, or a soubrette, but merely Lucie Gérard, whose remark- able beauty has condemned her to public admiration. It is difficult to be at once shy and au- This is the distinction of Made- Yahne. It was she who played girl in Henri Lavedan’s ‘‘Les dacious. moiselle the Viveurs.’ nothing, I think, quite so good. young * She has never done anything better; The réle is neither candid nor perverse. It mixture of tenderness and roguishness that fitted her like a glove. Next year, I believe, she is to the Comédie Francaise; my congratulations are all for that institution. She will carry with her an ozonic breath of the outer world, for Yahne is decidedly of the world. She and, in the roads of France. is a strange enter venerable fences and rides to hounds, her automobile, has scoured half At her début it was first noticed that she was beautiful; after- ward it was seen that she had talent. Her talent has grown apace, but she has never forgotten that it is the chief function of the herself in the unreal glare of the footlights to be beauti- ful. Yahne’s eyes are cold, but she has the smile, half timid, half provoking, of a woman who exhibits school-girl of sixteen. And mark, in the Gymnase, the slim Mademoiselle Robinson, Mademoiselle Médal, darkly pretty, too, and Mademoiselle MLLE. MARIETTE SULLY, OF THE CHATELET, Suzanne Avril, whose very name is a poem. She should have been winsome and capri- cious as April's lady, but fate condemned Mademoiselle Avril to be ‘‘distinguished’’ —is not that the word for queenly girls? The part has ever played was that of a duchess. Weare taking a promenade (are we not?) To your right and de most insignificant she in an avenue of petticoats. and modest—she **La chez Maxime’? a thing of reticent propriety No one can play the hoyden Her life has been spent in comic opera and farce. then is Cassive, blonde merry made even Dame and charm. quite so demurely as she. stage Everywhere her plump and blonde perso- nality has radiated joy. Cordial, opulent and gay, she reminds one of May Irwin— the May Irwin of a decade ago, when we all younger, both and I—Miss and Mademoiselle Arman- Cassive. were Irwin you Louise dine
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BEAUTY ON THE PARIS STAGE. MADEMOISELLE SILVAIN, OF THE COMEDIE FRANQGAISE. is the She is A little further down the avenue mocking figure of Mariette Sully. the Ahasuerus of the eternal voyager, she who must wander. Born in Belgium in 1874, she prepared herself to Greek school at actresses, teach in a woman's Brussels and passed all her examinations. Once I remember, after a day of dreary work, I went to drink tea with her. ‘*It will be pleasant,’’ I said to myself, ‘*to spin for an bour in the frivolous con- versation of this but- terfly-woman.”’ She gave me a cup of Japanese tea, floated a slice of lemon, round in which and yellow as a little sun; and, as I sipped it and the hours went by, she talked to me of Hesiod and _ his Hours, of mythic cosmology, the absurd theory of Her- and regard to Like men I odotos in the Kronids. most simple am easily dazzled by the sorcery of eru- dition. For hours I sat speech- staring at the little lemon sun in two less, MADEMOISELLE YAHNE. and when the lecture was ‘*Come to the theater my tea-cup; over she said to me: to-night.*’ Of course I ‘* Littke Red Riding Hood’**—such a mocking, roguish little effigy of youth Was she playing a part afternoon? Perhaps on ‘*Women are kittle homely — philosopher. As for travel? This erudite butter- fly-girl has fluttered from Bucharest to Monte Carlo, from Madrid to Siberia; Paris, I hope, has netted her at last. Were I a manager I should lock her up in a glass case and went. She was playing and merriment! then, or in the both occasions. cattle,’ said the let her out one hour a day to talk Greek, and three night to sparkle in a play. She is at the Chitelet Théftre now ; but in a fortnight she may be studying Dionysiac relics in Salute hours a Vishnu land. her and pass. To the right; is Jane Hading, of course, this but you, have
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BEAUTY ON THE PARIS STAGE. 247 not her; she was Coquelin’s associate in American tour of 1893. In a way she is Mr. Joseph Jefferson's forgotten his rival, for she was born on the stage, and made her début at three years of age—in the Théitre of Marseilles. She learned craft by playing all of parts in provincial Grand her kinds theaters; but if you would know the story of her early years you have but to read Scarron’s ** Ro- man Comique.’’ At one time she sang and danced in comic opera. But the bad years pass- ed. Success Lame the Maitre Ree Rent Forges,’’ a with he des success so great that she forced the doors of the Comédie Francaise. In a year or two she re- signed, pre- ferring, like Cesar, to be first, since she could only be sec- that histrionic tome. It may interest you to know ond in that she was the original Sapho in Daudet’s dreary little play. Now she is wasting both her beauty and her talent in Marcel Prévost’s ‘‘Demi-Vierges. ”’ And to Comédie, charming comédienne, tet. She is twenty-five as I firmly believe, woman is ever more than twenty-five. The histories will tell you a different story, but MLLE. MARTHE for a the face to face with that Mademoiselle Bar- old-—if, return moment to we come years no pretty stage REGNIER, OF in a matter of this kind one may be per- mitted to believe his you insist upon a date, however, I may tell you own eyes. If that she appeared as Vivette in the first *L’ Arlésienne. *’ From been identified Her talent is at once ample and delicate, at once fine and Mademoiselle Bartet (her true name performance of that with scores of famous roéles. time to this she has firm. is Jeanne Julia Reenault) wears the aca- the Palms. You might promenade demic decoration of curi- for an up down your osit Vv many hour and this stage avenue of pretty wo- men. Here, for instance, is Jeanne Granier, whom you know as well as I do. Her name will always be associat- ed with the light operas of this gen- eration, though now she has suc- cumbed to the charm of the spok- en word. And that THE ODEON, trio of ar rogantly pretty girls, La Cavalieri, Wal léry and De Vries, who are just beginning to dawn the theatrical world of Paris. No; One cannot run forever up Pippen Hill, no upon we have journeyed far enough. matter how graciously the pretty misses curtsy, for life—as philosophers have pointed out—is not all a nursery grave rhyme.
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Drawn by E. Hering. PICTOR IGNOTUS. By BLISS CARMAN, He isa silent second self Who travels with me in the road ; 1 share his lean-to in the hills, He shares my modest town abode. Under the roof-tree of the world We keep the Gipsy calendar, As the revolving seasons rise Above the tree-tops, star by star. We watch the arctic days burn down Upon the hearthstone of the sun, And on the frozen river floors The whispering snows awake and run. Then in the still, portentous cold Of a blue twilight, deep and large, We see the northern bonfires lit Along the world’s abysmal marge. He watches, with a love untired, The whtte sea-combers race to shore Below the mossers’ purple huts, IVhen April goes Jrom door to door. Fle haunts the mountain trails that wind To sudden outlooks from gray crags, When marches up the blue ravine September with her crimson flags. The wonder of an ancient awe Takes hold upon him when he sees In the cold autumn dusk arise Orion and the Pleiades; Or when along the southern rim Of the mysterious summer night He marks, above the sleeping world, Antares with his scarlet light. The creamy shadow-fretted streets Of some small Caribbean town, Where through the soft wash of the trades The brassy tropic moon looks down; The palm-trees whispering to the blue That surfs along the coral key; The brilliant shining droves that fleet Through the bright gardens of the sea. The crimson-boled Floridian pines Glaring in sunset, where they stand Lifting their sparse, monotonous lines Out of the pink and purple sand;
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Lhe racing Fundy tides that brim The le 1 dikes : the orchards there. And the slow cattle moving through That marvelous Acadian air. The city of the flowery squar With the Potomac by her door; The monument that takes the light Ofevening by the river shore. Lhe « ily of the Gothic arch, That overlooks a wide green plain From her gray churches, and beholds Lhe silver ribbon of the Seine. The Indian in his birch canoe, The flower-seller in Cheapside—— Wherever in the wide round world The Likeness and the Word abide, He scans and loves the human book, With that reserved and tranquil eye That watched among the autumn hills The golden leisured pomp £0 by. What wonder, since with lavish hand Aind earth has given him her all Of love and beauty, he should be A smiling, thriftless prodigal! Drawn by Horace Thompson Carpenter.
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THE PATRONAGE OF HIGH BEAR. By OWEN WISTER (With illustrations by E. L. Williams.) LWAYS remember this: That an Indian, even if he be a warrior, and a grandfather, and a chief, and have slain many white men with his own red hand, never- theless remains until death as innocent as the nursery. His child-mind is extremely like yours in the days when you could be amazed by a jumping-jack. That is the moral of this story. I have put it first, because I didn’t want you to skip it. Knowledge of it may some day save you from something like the dreadful mistake made by Horace Pericles Byram, whom his friends generally called Horacles. He* thought because the head of High Bear was like the snow, and his eye like the eagle’s, and his song was of battles long ago, that therefore the old chief must be grown up. He thought such a thing. Scipio Le Moyne knew better. Now listen to the consequences. Scipio Le Moyne, with his broken leg still in plaster, sat in charge of the agency store, speaking disparagement to the Virginian about Horacles. A Bar-Circle-Zee three- year-old had done Scipio’s leg this mischief at the forks of Stinking Water; and Judge Henry always sent his cow-punchers to the nearest surgical aid, which in this case was at the hospital on the reservation. The healthy Scipio had been soon out of bed, anxious to employ his body again, but allowed to exercise only his eminently wiry mind. How athletic his brains were was easily per- ceived by the Indian agent. The convalescent would hobble over to the store after breakfast, and hail the assistant clerk at once. ‘‘Morning, Horacles,’’ he would begin. ‘‘How’s uncle?’’ Now this uncle was a United States Senator. ‘‘Oh, when are you going to give us a new joke?’’ the worried Horacles would retort. , ‘*Just as soon as you give us a new uncle, Horacles.. Or any other relation to make us feel proud we know you.’’ By dinner-time an audi- ence would be round Scipio where he sat with his leg ou a chair, and Horacles over
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THE PATRONAGE OF HIGH BEAR. 51 his ledger would be furiously mut- tering that some day they would all see. But small talk was not the whole of Scipio's brains. He advised the agent pru- dently about a sale of beeves, and he introduced a simple con- trivance for luring customers to the store—cheese and crackers every day, and deviled ham on pay- day. It was merely a free lunch counter, but it put up the daily receipts. Therefore the agent thought highly of Scipio, and said to him, one morning, ‘‘I am going to St. Paul. I shall be back before they let you and your leg run loose. I’d sooner leave you than Horacles in charge here. You understand Indians. Will you do it, and take two dollars a day?’’? ‘‘Do it for nothing,’’ answered Scipio, ‘‘ Hor- acles’Il be pay enough.’’ ‘‘No, he won’t,’’ insisted the agent. ‘* And see here; he can’t help it.’’ ‘*Enough said,’’ said Scipio; “Ill strive to pity him. None of us were con- sulted about be- ing born. And I'll keep re- membering that we were both raised at Gallipo- lice, Ohio, and that he inherited a bigger outrage for ¢ name than I did. That’s what comes from having a French ancestor. Only—’’ and Scipio’s bleached blue eye grew cold—‘‘he used to eat my lunch at school.’’ ‘‘Didn’t you whale him?’’ asked the agent. ‘‘Every time,’’ said Scipio; ‘‘till he told his uncle. Uncle was mayor of Gallipolice then. So I didn’t want to get expelled, and I locked up my lunch after that.’’ ‘‘Uncle’s pretty good to him,’’ muttered the agent. ‘*Got him this position. Well, nobody will expel you here. Look after things.’’ And he departed to St. Paul, trusting the whole conduct of his business to the com- petent Scipio. And he was about to return. now
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THE PATRONAGE OF HIGH BEAR. of utter dismay had from the stars. <A the first news which made Scipio But now a thing fallen, so to speak, horrid, ruinous thing; the agent would hear. It sick. Vainly the Virginian reasoned with him. The Virginian had come to see if he was enough recovered to be driven home to Sunk Creek ranch. In body he was; but his pride, his deep pride, had suffered a hurt beyond the reach of consolation. Sage words were of no help, unless they tell him esteem. how to retrieve himself in It was nothing that the For under could his own blame him. agent would not his long, wary nose a treachery had been done to the agency store, and by Horacles! Therefore Scipio sat mourning the evil day that had come to him, and speaking dis- paragement about the assistant clerk. ‘‘And top of all his other meanness, *’ finished Scipio, ‘‘he’s got false teeth.” The Virginian pondered. ‘‘I reckon,”’ he said, ‘‘*twould be hasty to call false teeth meanness. Maybe the day’ll come when they'll be helping you and me chew our tenderloin. ”’ ‘*That’s different. can feel compassion for age. We'll be old. Yu But Hor acles !’’ ‘Twenty-five is certainly young to com mence eatin’ by machinery, *’ asserted the Virginian. ‘**And he's Scipio. ‘* Proud, on the end of his tongue."”| ‘‘A man should be more modest,’ said whined at y'u of *em,”* Sticks ’em out proud the Virginian, very gravely. ‘‘Thinks it’s funny,’’ pursued Scipio. him do it as a wind-up to his conjur- entertain- ment at the officers’ club. The K. O23 wife said it gave her the creeps. And she don't look like a sen- 4 sitive lady."’ 4 ‘* Well,’ dis- sented the Vir ginian, ‘‘if I weighed three I'd sensitive. *’ Thus cow-punchers lis- cussed a grave matter. And all the while their keen minds were seriously busy beneath. It is a native way we have, misunderstood by many English-speaking people. Some- how I like it. ‘*No,’’ Scipio resumed; ‘*he’s mean. Horacles is plumb mean. I’ve knowed it since school. He ain't got strength. He ain't got beauty. He ain't vot riches. He ain't He's just got sense enough for parlor-conjuring tricks. But he’s an uncle in the Senate. That's where he has beat us.”’ The disconsolate Scipio had taken a pull at his cigar between each sentence. It is time for you to hear about Hor- ‘Saw ing = tee w hundred pounds, be mighty these got brains. got
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Vk PATRONAGE OF HIGH BEAR. acles and his uncle. Curious things are done upon Indian reservations. Our management of them may he likened to putting the Lord’s Prayer and the Ten Commandments into a bag and crushing them to powder. Let our states men at Washington get their hands on an Indian reservation, and not even honor among thieves - remains. As to. this one, it having been long settled by the sacredest compacts and guarantees of which our statesmen are capable, that there should be but two JAS stores upon it, and ES that the post- trader should have one and the agent the other, and that never a third competitor should lessen the trade of these two, the uncle got a notion one day, as he was meditating how to serve his country and increase his income. There was a railroad at the big end of his notion, but its entering wedge was only a little, new store down in that corner of the reservation, much needed by Indian families, for whom it was a hardship to have to travel so far for supplies as they did at present. So the uncle in Washington had. promised somebody something ; and the somebody had promised somethilig €lse to somebody; and the Indian Department was moved; and a word was mentioned at the White House; and presently there was no doubt at all but that the poor Indians needed a third store. “Can you suggest anybody to run it?’’ had been asked of the uncle by the proper person. ‘‘T have a nephew,’’ said the uncle. ‘‘I placed him at the agency some time ago. He writes me that he has learned the business.”’ All this was a secret beautifully kept, of course. When the agent had left for St. Paul, everyone believed the judicious rumor in the air that the new building down in the corner of the reservation had something to do with the Quartermaster’s Department, and they thought no more about it—everyone, that is, except the agent himself. He considered it odd that the post quartermaster had heard nothing of this sort. Then, Horacles was receiving more letters from his uncle than uncles often write. Further- more, Horac- les had taken a week’s holi- day—hunt- ing, he said. But the it agent happened to find that he had been to the railroad about freight. So when the agent spoke of going to St. Paul, he went there, it is true, and
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THE PATRONAGE OF HIGH BEAR. much farther. He went to Washington as fast as he could travel. For he had begun to suspect the uncle. Now Horacles at once perceived that this was a comfortable time for him to hurry his new store into readi- ness, and be safely established behind its rival before his old employer should return. It is much pleasanter to talk about what you are going to do after Accordingly, the com- counter you have done it. placent little Horacles had perfected his arrangements to his heart’s content, and made them known this morning to all the world. It was a bombshell to Scipio. You can understand how he felt; his rage, his sorrow, his mortification. He did not know that the absent friend who was pay- ing him two dollars a day to protect his interests,'was returning from Washington with a full knowledge of the uncle, and also with a disgusted but resigned spirit. ‘‘What canI do? What can I?”’ he de- manded of the Virginian, as he limped up and down the empty store. The new one was to open upon the morrow. Horacles was over there now; and the fickle Indians were all on his side, for they had been told that things would be much cheaper. In this respect the red man does not greatly differ from the white. ‘*Let it alone,’’ answered the Virginian, for the twentieth time. his having an uncle.’ ‘*But he put me in charge. He handed me the reins. And here’s a big smash.”’ ‘*When a stage is held up,’’ said the Virginian, ‘‘the driver ain’t responsible. ’’ But Scipio would not be comforted. ‘‘T received the business in good shape,’ said he, ‘‘and I'll give it back in bad.’’ At this point Horacles entered. He was a small person, with red eyelids and a fluffy moustache. He wore his frontier hat tilted to make him look like the daredevil that he was not. He smiled the smile of **You can’t help revenge and triumph at Scipio; and Scipio much had smiled back at him sweetly, and more dangerously. Many Indians followed Horacles into the store. ‘*Are you boys coming to see me?’’ said he, to the two cow-punchers. ‘*See you what?’’ said Scipio. ‘‘Open up to-morrow. Fine line of fresh Eastern goods, and, hee-hee! free lunch. Mr. Le Moyne, I want to thank you publicly for that idea.’’ ‘‘Thank me publicly? Well, you're welcome to it. Guess I’ll hardly be over to-morrow, though. With such a com- petitor as you, I expect I'll have to stay here and hustle.’’ Scipio was quite friendly.
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9 ‘*Well, I should smile, you'll hustle! exclaimed the complacent Horacles, hap- pily. ‘‘Big capital is back of me. And I'm going to make it pay big interest. My uncle—say, boys! do come see me to- morrow. It’s all business, this, you know. There's no hard feelings between us?’’ ‘*Oh, no,’’ cried Scipio. ‘‘Not a feel- ing.’’ And he clapped Horacles between his little round shoulders. He cocked his head and looked down along his lengthy jocular nose at Horacles for a moment. Then his eye shone like the edge of a knife upon the company, who laughed at him because he was laughing so contagiously at them. The solemnity of the Indian is amyth. He will often join your mirth without understanding it, just like a child. That is what High Bear did now in the agency store. High Bear, the ancient war- chief, showed all his white teeth at young Scipio, whom he fancied so much that he had offered him his fourteenth daughter to wed as soon as his leg should be well. But Scipio had sorrowfully explained to the father that he was already married, which, I fear, was not true. ‘*Hey!’’ said High Bear now to Scipio. ‘‘New store. Pretty good. Heap cheap.’’ ‘‘Yes, High Bear. Heap cheap. You savvy why?’’ Scipio was now impressively nodding at the white-haired Indian in his bright-green blanket and the long, fringed, yellow, soft buckskins. Behind the store- counter the happy Horacles was uncon- sciously practising conjuring tricks from sheer elation. ‘*No,’’ said High Bear. why.’ ‘*Me no savvy ‘“Heap cheap,’ peated Sci- pio, ‘‘be- cause, ’’ (and here he leaned close re- to High Bear, drop- ped to a whisper, and stretched a long, point- ing arm at Horacles), ‘* because his THE PATRONAGE OF HIGH BEAR. uncle medicine-man. He big medicine-man himself. High Bear looked at Horacles. ‘Ah, nah,’’ he grunted. ‘‘He no medicine- man. He fall off horse. He no catch him. My little girl catch him. Ah, nah!’’ and High Bear laughed profusely at what he took for ““Sippo’s’”’ joke: ‘*Sippo’’ is what the Indians called Le Moyne. Of course they had their Indian name for him, also; but I can’t tell that one here. But Sippo grew en- tirely mysterious now. ‘‘He big medicine- man,’’ he said again, bearing each word, and drilling his bleached blue eyes into the brown eye of the savage. ‘*See him now!’’ he exclaimed suddenly, pointing. Horacles was gaily treating a pack of cards in the true conjuring spirit. He fluttered it open in the air and fluttered it shut again, pulling it out and pushing it in, as you do to a concertina or a Chinese lantern or an opera-hat. Of course it was very remarkable, and High Bear watched you , heavy on it hard; but High Bear laughed. ‘‘He pretty good,’’ he declared. ‘‘AIl same tin horn monte-man. I see one Miles City.’’ ‘*Maybe monte-man medicine-man, too, *’ suggested Scipio. ‘*Ah, nah!’’ said High Bear. The younger Indians, squaws and bucks, were enjoying Horacles very much. He was explaining how cheap everything would be to-morrow forevermore; and they were laughing and joking. They admired his pack of cards, too. And they chaffed their friend Sippo. ‘‘Why you not sell cheap like him?’’ they asked. ‘‘We stay then. We buy everything you.’’ ‘‘Heap shirts,’? one would specify; and another, ‘‘Heap tobacco. Heap cartridge. You 5
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THE PATRONAGE OF HIGH BEAR. Ah!’ And children. We like not sell cheap. they laughed go. pleased Scipio, solemn as possible, explained how much he would like to sell cheap, but he was not a like Horacles. ‘*You medicine-man?*’ they asked the medicine-man assistant clerk. ‘*Yes,’’ said Horacles, pleased. medicine-man.’’ ‘“‘Ah, nah!’’ diverted. Soon they began to go scattering wide across High “Tl big said the crowd, hugely home to their the Bear tepees, sage- brush on their ponies. one the last. He had been stand- ing quite still for a long time. He had joined in the was of not general talk and laugh- ter. Horac les had gone to an inner room. The Virginian was reading a newspa- per. High Bear-looked at his friend Sippo. Sip po was bent down, deep- ly engaged with his leg. The cards lay distant. alone on the counter near the door. High Bear went quickly to them, touched them, lifted them, set them down, and looked around. Sippo was carefully pulling on his boot again. High Bear laughed a little, grunted a little, and went out where his horse was tied. As he was throwing his soft buckskin leg over the saddle, there was Scipio’s head poking out of the door, and nodding strangely at him. ‘*Good-night, High medicine-man.’’ High Bear gave a slash to his pony, galloped away into the dusk. Scipio watched him till he was nearly Bear. He big and gone, and then turned back into the store. His countenance wore a very particular look—the expression of a cat who is going to purr in a minute. ‘*What trouble are you studying?” gently drawled the Virginian. **Me?’’? whined Scipio, innocently; ‘‘why I was never knowed to harm a fly. Why Horacles,’’ said he, completely purr- ing, to the assistant clerk who now joined them, ‘tI expect you have me beat. I do for a fact.”’ The flattered Horacles could only nod and show his bright, false teeth. ‘*Y’u have a right to smile,’ tinued Scipio. ‘‘Y’u have for a fact.”” con- “Well,” J have. I guess I played it pretty slick. Of course, my uncle had something to do with is? ‘You'd to leave out,”’ the Virgin- ian. “Ob. 710: certainly. But there's everything in being on the Now been on the spot. And You saw guess | oughtn't quite him said spot. Villian I’ve lll get my reward. them just now; you see how it is; the whole reservation is going to trade with me. This store’ll not do ten cents’ worth of business in a week.”’ ‘‘Yes, Horacles, I see how it is. But supposing—just supposing—I cut our prices to meet yours?’’ ‘*Hee—hee! D’you think I didn’t an- ticipate that?’ ‘*Of course you did, Horacles. tell me, ‘cut if you want to,’ and I tell you, ‘no, for you have me beat.’ Ain't that it??? And Scipio tapped his pocket. ‘Thats <6, I’ve double, — treble, money than you. Not you, of Mr. Le Moyne. It’s not you I'm And you longer course,
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THE PATRONAGE OF HIGH BEAR. making war on. I do hope there's no hard feelings———"’ ‘‘Why no, Horacles, no! can yu. entertain awful Don't I feel happy whenever an honest man betters himself in this world?’’ And Scipio shook him by the hand and smiled like an angel at him—a fallen angel. He also looked him along his nose. ‘*Guess I'll have to change my mind, Hor- ‘*Guess I'll have to attend your opening to-morrow. Big sight to see all them Indians shoppin’ like Christmas! I*ll come. This store might just as well close to-morrow, anyway.’’ ‘‘Why, just as well!’’ exclaimed Hor- ‘*Give us acall and bring And he went away How idea? why such an down acles,’’ he continued. acles, beaming. all your friends.’’ happily to supper. Scipio gazed out of the window after him. ‘‘He ain’t got the faintest notion, ’’ said he, meditatively, ‘‘what a grease-spot he is the face of these nice, clean hills. ’’ ‘*T don’t reckon you'll cut prices on him?"’ the Virginian inquired. ‘‘Daren’t. Not on my own responsi- bility.’’ Scipio gave a sigh of sadness. This symptom revealed a mind in joy as plainly as his previous jocularity had be- tokened a mind in distress. ‘*What trouble are you studying?’’ re- peated the Virginian, grinning. Scipio touched him with a confidential ‘*You watch,’’ he said. ‘That's all you’ve to do.”’ on finger. indifferent for a while, and resorted to his Then he got an idea, and it was ‘*You're going to buy paper. too much for him. him out yourself!’’ he declared, and_ re- retted his haste immediately. ‘*I'm beyond y’u! I'm beyond y'u for beating his gr once!’’ screeched — Scipio, crutch on the floor. ‘*Oh, come to grub,’’ said the Virgin- ian. But next morning it still his mind. The delighted Scipio perceived this instantly, and mentioned it skilfully all the way as they drove across the reser- new store. ‘‘I never liked trouble, *’ remarked. was on vation to the being alone in ‘*T never did.”’ And _ presently, “lf ft. knew where to look for advice.*’ And again, ‘‘ ‘A friend in need is a friend in- deed.’ ”’ ‘Pl throw you out,*’ said the Virginian, ‘*and break your laig fresh.*” ‘Didn't I tell you at Medora, *” said Scipio, **that there was ? two of us phil he osophers in¢
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} | | i | | ' THE PATRONAGE OF HIGH BEAR. 258 did you outline your simpered Horacles. ‘‘Needs preparation, play to me that time? you know.’’ You watch.’’ And he winked at Scipio. Horacles Scipio struggled upon the counter, and stood behind stood up to finish his speech. ‘‘No jack- his counter. rabbit to-day,’’ said he. (‘‘Ah, nah!’’ His moustache laughed the Indians. ‘‘No catch um.’’) was combed, ‘‘Yes. Catch um any time. Catch any- his broad hat thing. Make anything. Make all this store’’—Scipio waved his arms eloquently about—‘‘that’s how make heap cheap. See that!’’ He stopped dramatically, and clasped his hands together. Horacles flirted a handkerchief in the air, caught it, wiggled his fingers, shut his hand, opened it; no handkerchief there. ‘‘ His hand swallow it, all same mouth!’ shouted Scipio. ‘‘Now other hand spit it out. You see. He big medicine-man.’’ But Horacles varied the trick. He opened both hands empty, clutched space, and drew two silver dollars from it. Then he \ threw them back into space, made a play- ful dive at High Bear’s eggs and brought handkerchief and dollars out of them sud- +. f ! denly. ‘‘Huh!’’ went High Bear, and ; f backed a little from the counter. He tilted rakishly askew. He smiled and looked into the crock a moment, but : after that his eyes watched Horacles and never left him again. Scipio saw that eye, and hisown narrowed spoke, and handled and displayed his abundance; the bright calicoes, the shin- ing knives, the bridles, the fishing-tackle, the gum-drops, all his plenty and its cheap- ness. Squaws and bucks, young and old, thronged his establishment. Their green and yellow blankets, and their feathers and paint, and their soft footfalls went every- to a slit. where. They whispered, and laughed, and Boe stared, and priced and liberally bought. me dicine- High Bear held a dozen fresh eggs in a man!’’ he called, beautiful crock. With the other hand the old chief was eating the free lunch. The voices were all rather subdued until Scipio’s cheery greeting. ‘‘My goodness, Horacles! You ain’t going to send *°em home with- out an entertainment? Where’s your vanishing handkerchief? Where’s your interstate commerce dollar? Get em quick, Horacles. I tell you,’’ he said to the In- dians, ‘the big medicine-man. Make come. Make go. You no see. Nobody see. Make jack- rabbit in hat—-—’’ ‘‘T couldn’t this morning,’ loudly, EL. Wi ih Args
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again, with gestures. ‘Hand all mouth. Foot all same hand.’’ Here Horacles removed a dollar from the hair of High Bear's fourteenth daughter, threw it into one boot and brought it out of the other. The Indians were packing together like jam, and Scipio, high on the counter, made ges- tures at them without ceasing. ‘‘Hand all Foot all same head. Take Take out see big medicine- same same mouth. off head, throw it out of window. teeth. see him, man!’’ shrieked Scipio. A long, red tongue came slowly, hor- ribly, from Horacles’ jaws, and upon the end of it glittered his front teeth. There was a crash on the floor, and one long, terrific yell. High Bear, with his blanket over his face, went flying through the See, door, leaving his eggs and crock a creep- The ing D> mess of atoms. tribe followed CHILDREN. 259 In two minutes gone, and in a little while the plain could be seen empty for miles. ‘*Horacles,’’ said Scipio, still on the counter, ‘‘y’u thanked me in public for the free lunch idea, and I'd figured to thank you in public for this little notion goo him like flapping birds. or so the horses were —but they didn’t give me time! When the agent returned he found busi- ness unchanged, except for Horacles. The Indians never came back to that new store. They made a mile circuit to pass it in safety. So Horacles realized what he had done, he closed the store and went away—possibly to tell his uncle about Scipio. Of course this story has another moral, which is: The American citizen is fre- quently superior to the American statesman. when CHILDREN. By VIRGINIA WOODWARD CLOUD WE are but children with a work- and playtime, A little hour for laughter and for tears, A little clinging to the waning daytime, A little wonder at the fleeting years. We are but children, filling Time’s great measure, Breaking a toy to weep when it is done; Out of morn’s meadows do we reap of pleasure, Little to bear hence at set of sun. We are but children vain in our pursuing, Building awhile beside the bar of Pain— O in life’s dusk, forget Thou all misdoing, And gather us unto Thy heart again!
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By EMIL FRIEND I. HE Paris press became viable in the Revolution. Before 1789, journalism in the French capital was incon- sequent and expressionless. In the Epic Revolt, the editor found himself free. Liberty quickly degenerated to mad license. Marat, with his ‘‘ Ami du Peuple,’’ effected an inno- vation that was stirring in spirit and courageousness, but fearful in its consequences. Following the fanatical revo- lutionists, publicists fell into a saturnalia of editorial licen- tiousness, which terminated in a bigoted frenzy that regarded temper ate criticism of the terrorists as traitorous. He who did not approve of the Mountain was Mankind’s enemy. With the advent of Napoleon, the news- papers of Paris were first subdued and then subjugated. He who did not approve of Cresar was France’s enemy. An example was made of Madame de Staél. She flouted the Emperor and discussed anti- Napoleonism until the police presented her with a pass to cross the frontier. When safe in Germany, she accused her banisher of having no respect for women. Napoleon replied with one of her own dicta—‘‘Genius is sexless,’* a retort not devoid of a strabismic sort of compli- ment. Intolerant of opposition in every form, Napoleon was susceptible to adula- tion. Feigning to detest the press, he covertly feared and admired journalists, whose support he solicited just before he was sent to Elba. The concessions he then made to journalism were abrogated by Louis XVIII. A censorship was established which held until the Man of Moscow returned, when the stringent laws against the press were again modified. The Second Restoration was attended by many pledges, none of which was fulfilled. The sullen discontent of news- paper writers continued under Charles X. Liberty of printed expression was restored in the Revolution of 1830, a right which Louis Philippe endeav- ored to restrain to a prescribed privilege. The press retaliated by a concerted and _ persistent attack on the government. It was a prolonged struggle—sincere, ardent, de- termined. After the King’s abdication, the change in the character of the Paris newspapers was marked. There were many political parties; the press be- came more or less insincerely partisan. Ideals and high principles were forsaken or forgotten. From partisan, the greater part of the daily publications became com- mercial. Journalism was not even a pro- fession—it was a trade. Aided by venal pens, Louis Napoleon captured a throne. Then Napoleon the Little rewarded the press by reviving the censorship of Na- poleon the Great. To-day the Third Republic is accused of an intention to end itself the way the Second Empire began. This accusation comes from the editors who, since the Dreyfus trial, have traduced the govern- ment incessantly; indeed, of the many newspapers in Paris the larger number are as vituperative as* were the public prints SAS ae
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in Marat’s days. The difference in vilification is one of sincerity. of to-day is not moved by patriotism. Certain that venality has incited the recent outbursts of seditious invection, M. Wal- deck-Rousseau, the Premier, with the col- laboration of honest journalists throughout France, has framed a statutory measure making for a restriction of literary liber- tinism. The proposed statute seems superfluous. In the general aspect, the press of Paris is } innocuous, politically. The days when newspapers could incite the country to sedition are no more. The journalist’s pen does not rule Paris, and—of deeper signification still—Paris no longer sways France. IT. At the moment of writing there are fifty-one papers published in Paris. The precise time and the exact number are set down designedly, for the business of jour- nalism in France predicates bewildering mutability. | Newspapers are born and die after the manner of the proverbial fleas. If a current publication is not feasible for the matter in hand, a paper is issued to advocate a cause, to exploit a scheme; is used as an instrument of reprisal, a medium “LA PATRIE.”’ FRANCOIS COPPEE THE PARTS PRESS. the The vilifier to for private promulga- tion, and it is snuffed out directly the matter for which it was brought into being is requited or propitiated. There are, to sure, news- papers and news- papers. Of the number men, tioned, one-half only are within general nition; but even these that common rency are in ma- be recog: have cur- jority opposed to the existing state of things politi- cal. Among those that are violent- ly hostile to the government ‘*L’Intransigeant.’’ Henri Lucay the incurable early insincerity. Originally a employé the City Hall, made mediocre farces for cheap halls and wrote notices of the theaters for an obscure periodical. In the same clerical sapacity with Rochefort was a curious creature, Rossignol name. Alphonse Daudet tells that politics was the cardinal hobby among the swarm of strange bees in Rossignol’s weak mentality. He spoke long, incoherently and vehemently political affairs. He was a rabid repub- lican and, of course, against the Empire. This fixed idea was supplemented by a crotchet: Cacoéthes He went Rochefort for instruction. The latter amused himself and his companions by formulating the fanatical theories of Ros- signol in excessively intemperate sentences. GYP COMTESSE DE MARTEL (° “LA PATRIE.” 1S Rochefort- of an nominal de is victim in he music by on scribendi. One day Rossignol sent an article to a newspaper violently hostile to the Empire. The odd diatribe made a sensation. The editor asked for further ‘‘copy,’’ and Rochefort presented himself as the author of the extraordinary screed. Rochefort’s vogue on the ‘‘Nain Jaune™’ (‘' Yellow Dwarf’’) was singularly apposite to the
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oR me CRT ee NET RRR mre | | | | 262 THE PARIS PRESS. style and philosphy of Rochefort’s com- positions—was such that Villemessant en- gaged him for the ‘‘Figaro.’’ Here he treated art, literature and society in the picric fashion of his political tirades. His castigation of Duc de Morny’s play—the Duke was prime minister at the time— startled Paris and won for him the Duke’s lasting friendship, for the head of Na- poleon’s Cabinet was really clever when affairs of state were not in consideration. As long as Morny lived, Rochefort was safe from persecution, but the Duke, always dramatic, died suddenly (and quite myster- not the Rochefort of ‘‘Figaro’’ and of ‘‘La Lanterne.’’ He still vilifies everybody and everything, but the vilification does not carry far and finds comparatively few ears. He isstill indiscriminately malicious, but he is toothless and pointless—his vitality is gone. Not less vicious and iconoclastic, but more tactful, more polished and more literary are the fulminations of Jules Le- maitre in ‘‘L’Echo de Paris.’’ There is, however, method in M. Lemaitre’s assaults. His purpose is beyond the destruction of the Republic. The subversion of the ex- iously) one morning. Presigny succeeded him. Presigny made no plays that could be incinerated. Ville- messant was called into the August Pres- ence and asked to choose between Rochefort and the extinction of the ‘*Figaro.*’ Ville- messant’s prompt an- swer was Rochefort’s execution. Then Rochefort called ‘‘La Lan- terne’’ into being, a pink sheet whose contents were con- cinnous with its hue. The style and senti- ments of Rossignol permeated not one column—Roche fort’s—but all of the columns. The paper was monstrously successful. The repre-- sentative of the Empire devoted much time in.attempts to imprison Rochefort and to suppress the high-hued daily. Where he failed, Thiers—after the Commune—suc- ceeded. The inveterate traducer of men and governments-was sent to an island prison. The sentence sobered ‘‘La Lan- terne,’’ which is now a conservative sup- porter of the government, but it did not reform Rochefort. Following the amnesty he founded the diurnal pillory character- istically called ‘‘L’Intransigeant.’’ But the Rochefort of ‘‘L’Intransigeant’’ is EDOUARD DRUMONT.— ] isting government is a means to a persona! end. In addition, anything he can say or do to harass the Dreyfusards satisfies an innate grudge. He never forgot nor forgave the hostile attitude of several personages of Jewish extraction, promi- nent in journalism, when he was strug- gling for recognition. The early prejudice was fanned and fostered while he was on the staff of the ‘‘Revue des Deux Mondes,’’ which is first monarchial and second Orleanistic; it blazed to a white glow when the Duchesse d’Uzéswon the Buloz coterie to the cause of the Comte de Paris, who was to reéstablish the throne with the aid of Boulanger. Lemaitre, with Coppée, Dru- mont and others, was promised prominence in the new order of things. Those promises could not be fulfilled, but the fever for political distinction has been enhanced rather than subdued by successive defeats. A student of cause and effect, as the prin- ciple pertains to French letters, may find some extenuation for Lemaitre’s antagonism, especially since the Dreyfus affair, but in the case of Francois Coppée he is embar rassed. Coppée, in company with the “LA LIBKE PAROLE," | | }
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HENRI FOU QUIER.—DRAMATIC EDITOR
Comtesse de Martel (‘‘Gyp’’) takes an offensive stand against the Republic in ‘‘La Patrie,’’ which was once the organ of the Tuileries. If not a great, at least a real poet, Coppée’s voice, in verse and prose, had ever uttered the sentiment of Dem- ocracy. When Boulanger came en scene there was an amazing change from a dem- ocratic to a martial spirit. The army completed Coppée’s horizon. The soldier —he who would restore Alsace and Lor- raine to France—was the vision that haunted the author of ‘‘La Gréve.’’ Re- his venom President voided office. cently Coppée has upon everybody Loubet is the poet’s pet aversion. Fiercer and far more mendacious are the attacks of Edouard Drumont, of ‘*La Libre Parole.’’ Drumont is notorious as the original Jew-baiter of France. Having failed of legitimate recognition, he strived unscrupulously for the notoriety which is his. With him the present shames the past. His antecedents are creditable. As an indigent student, eager and conscien- tious, he was assisted pecuniarily by a wealthy Jewish family that subsequently made for him a comfortable position where he could pursue his literary efforts. He soon rewarded the kind offices of the Jews by writing a book that germinated the prejudice against the Israelites in France, the only European country in which the ancestors of the Rothschilds had not been persecuted. Though ungrateful, acious and unprincipled, Drumont has a superior liter- ary quality. When he chooses, he is a surpassingly fine writer. He has no stan- dard of exact- itude—he never <llows facts to. em- barrass him— buts-he has xtraordin ary abitity for in- vesting things with an ele- gant drapery of hisown con- in unver-
OF "LE FIGARO.” THE PARIS PRESS. trivance. Though he does not value truth for its own sake—he appraises it only for the personal use he can make of it —his non- political articles : ‘‘La Libre paut pe cASSAGNAC.—“ L’AUTORITE.”’ are models of scholarly finish, of polished expression. In the same vein as ‘‘La Libre Parole,’ but more brutal and even more mendacious is ‘‘L’Antijuif,’’ which, as its name im- plies, is originally opposed to the Jews. Locally it is opposed to the government. ““L’Antijuif’’ is the official organ of the Grand Occident de France, an anti-Semitic order founded by Drumont. The member- ship of the association is limited to the subscription list of ‘‘L’Antijuif’’—about four thousand. Jules Guerin is the editor. Without Rochefort’s virility, and lacking Drumont’s scholarly attainments, he emu- lates the mental vices of the former and the studied mendacity of the latter. Less violent and, therefore, far more effective is the crusade of the royalist and the imperialistic journals. Fundamentally
in -arole’’ ’ they are against the government; their insidious obection to the Jews as army men is merely one of the means toward the important end. They follow every current, they seize every opportunity that gives promise of subverting the Republic. An audacious opponent of existing conditions is Paul de Cassagnac, the whilom knight errant of Empress Eugénie and the actual editor of ‘‘L’Autorité.’’ M. de Cassagnac is a better swordsman than a penman. He is much more successful as a duelist than as a publicist. He has vanquished more antagonists on the field of honor than on the dishonorable field of French politics. His paper is the organ of the Bonapart- ists, and it exploits their tenuous cause with a wild vehemence which imposes the conclusion that M. de Cassagnac has no hopes of success, that he is in politics be-
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ST ESTE 264 THE PARTS PRESS. CATULLE MENDES.—" L’ECHO DE PARIS" AND "GIL BLAS.”’ cause there is nothing else which will ex- cite the nerves of a viveur of the Empire. Arthur Meyer is more hopeful. Though not so boisterously aggressive as ‘‘L’Au- torit¢,’’ ‘‘Le Gaulois’’ is more authorita- tive. M. Meyer's journal is the organ of the Orleanists and its circulation is very large, albeit its influence is social rather than political. Imprimis, ‘*Le Gaulois”’ is representative of the Duchesse d’Uzés’ party, which means the most exclusive— and therefore the most besought—set in French society. Possibly the Jewish blood in Meyer has made him a rabid anti- Dreyfusard. The reason of his apostasy is not well defined, while his alliance with intransigent monarchists is a complete mystery to those who know the man’s basilar astuteness. He is that rarity be- come rarer with succeeding years: a very rich owner of a newspaper who writes well and who retains all of the early enthusiasm for blackening white paper with pen. The same circumstances govern Jules Méline, of ‘‘La République.’ Besides money and literary talent, M. Méline has a practical and a theoretical knowledge of political science. He has been in the Cabinet. Pending his incumbency he displayed political proclivities that were in harsh dissonance with his position. His loyalty to the government was of a doubt- ful caliber, just as the republicanism of ‘‘La République’’ is of a strange character. **La République’s’’ attitude toward repub- licanism is to combat everything republican. The paper excuses its monarchism by insisting that the present government is not republican, but socialistic. It is a continuation of ‘‘La République Fran- caise,** which was established by Léon Gambetta. The new series of the once powerful journal is proceeding in the inverse ratio of the original publication. M. Méline is striving to destroy that which Léon Gambetta assisted in creating, the French republic, and, conversely and simultaneously, the present editor is trying to reconstruct that which the past editor demolished—the throne. **La Croix,’’ as its title implies, is sec- tarian. Unlike publications of like tone and tendency, it is diurnaland well edited. It is also popular, for its circulation is enormous. The contributions are many, and where they are not altogether anonymous they are completely disguised in inscrutable pen names. Of course, ‘‘La Croix’’ is clerical to its marrow and equally of course it is a sheer dissentient from the obtaining order of things governmental. Like ‘*La Croix,’’ ‘‘L’Univers’’ is a daily that makes an especial appeal to the Roman Catholics, though it is not an avowedly religious paper. There is a correspondent HENRI ROCHEFORT,—"' L'INTRANSIGEANT.”
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Se a THE PAR at Rome who sends by telegraph every day, save Sunday, from one to two columns of causerie which has the Church for its theme. The doings of the Paris clergy are minutely covered—as the technical phrase has it—and anything of moment in the interior concerning the faith is carefully elaborated ; but politics, not religion, is the ‘“T,’Univers’’ Longchamps and_ the meat of which, moreover, does not neglect theaters, subjects barred by ‘‘La Croix.”’ “T’Univers’’ is catholic in its literary taste, using the term in a universal and not a sectarian sense, and in this it again differs from ‘*La Croix,’’ whose reviews are confined to theological works. Pierre Veuillot is the spirit of ‘‘L’Univers.’’ He is an ardent Orleanist, and persistently and consistently berates all things republican, without losing dignity or logic, from astrictly personal view-point. ‘Gil Blas’’ imitating Veuillot politically. srought to life by a band of bright bohemians twenty years ago as a weekly and — sustained loses both by some periodical, mainly by Gambetta’s purse, it was the exponent of the daring and the extreme in art. Its success Was gradual When Gambetta’s checks became super- fluous as a sustaining force, the Simonds —who own ‘‘L,’ Echo ee ere de Paris’’—purchased ‘*Gil Blas’’ and pub- lished it daily. It was an unprecedented project, that of issuing every day a paper devoted exclusively to belles-lettres. The venture, however, was justified by the brilliancy of the contributors among whom were Zola and Maupassant, Prévost and Huysmans, Mendés and Anatole France. Unfortunately for the government, and fortunately for the proprietors, politics was subsequently made a feature of ‘*Gil Blas. ** The department is in the keeping of Francois Chevassu, who counterpoises quality with quantity; he is wearisomely prolix with his three-column diffusions. Like *‘La République,’’ ‘‘La Lanterne’ has experienced a change in tone and senti LS PRESS. 265 ment. Thiers’ first official act following the subjugation of the Commune was the expatriation—in With Rochefort in a penal colony, ‘‘La Lanterne™’ chains—of its editor. lost its pernicious virility. It pined gradually, sinking to suspended ani- Six years later, René Viviani, an extreme radical and Rochefort’s admirer, was seized with the idea of reviving the belligerent unlike Rochefort’s, so mation. journal. His style was not ‘*La Lanterne’’ pros- pered until Rochefort was amnestied. Rochetort, instead of returning to his re- suscitated creation, founded ‘‘L’Intransi- geant’’ and drew ‘‘La Lanterne’s’’ clien- tele. Viviani thereupon justified his radi- calism in making a radical volte-face. From a tierce and destructive republican he be- came, overnight, a conserv- ative and constructive re- publican. ‘‘La Lanterne”’ supports the government, and it is whispered the gov- ernment supports ‘*La Lan- terne’*-—a partnership that has estranged Viviani and Rochefort, who frequently placard their disaffection. Evidently the government has not deemed ‘*La Presse’* and ‘* LePetit Caporal’’ of sufficient force to wish for the mutual arrangement with these journals that appears to exist between ‘*La Lan- terne’*’ and the Min- istry. Suchadisparagement wounded Emile —“LE GAULOIS." de Girardin, who established **La Presse’ in 1833, and made it a leading political power in France. Girardin was of the politician-—dashing, Whether he lived under a monarchy, an empire, or a republic, Gambetta type of persuasive, aggressive. he was continuously at war with the il- liberal elements. His spirit of progress was infused in every department of **La Presse."* Delphine Gay (Madame de Gir ardin, the author of the one-act classic ** La Joie Fait Peur’*) took a liberal view of society and literature while Théophile Gau tier, then the dramatic critic, was a principal among the romanticists at a time when the romantic school was excommunicated by is
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RESET Be MRS EARNERS 266 THE PARIS PRESS. the omnipotent classicists. To-day ‘‘La Presse’’ is known for what it has been. It places a M. Léon Baily en vedette, whose specialty is political abuse. He is represen- tative of the paper as a whole—mediocrity. Like ‘‘La Presse,’’ ‘‘Le Petit Caporal’’ feigns to make a fetish of the army. In the view of its editor, André Martinet, all generals who are insubordinate are patriots, and the officers who obey the orders of the War Minister are traitors. In a recent edition, the five first columns were given to a gross attack on the administration. Charles Hedelin and an individual using ‘*Alceste’’ as a nom de plume—an incon- gruous assumption—assist M. Martinet. They are virtuosi in the peculiarly Parisian profession of literary perversity. ‘‘La_ Liberté,’’ which has degenerated to the pusillanimous level of ‘‘La Presse’’ and ‘‘La Petit Caporal,’’ is one of Emile de Girardin’s late indiscretions. Having lost control of ‘‘La Presse,’’ Girardin inaugurated ‘‘La Liberté.’? The text fol- lowing the title is characteristic of the old publicist: ‘* Toutes les institutions sociales doivent avoir pour but l’amélioration du sort moral, intellec- tuel et physique de la classe la plus nombreuse *,- et la plus pauvre.’’ Girardin’s successor, Georges Berthoulat, re- tains the word but not the spirit of this senti- ment. With Maurice Spronock and Charles Laroche, Berthoulat has made ‘‘ La Liberté’’ the instrument of a cabal whose affiliations are suspiciously monarchial. And in altering the policy and morale of the journal, the director is responsible for the serious de- fection in the subscription list, a circum- stance which has placed ‘‘La Liberté,’’ in the matter of circulation, among the swarm of openly venal and obviously ephemeral sheets unworthy of specification. Supporting the government with un- flinching fidelity is ‘‘L’Aurore,’’ of which Ernest Vaughan is the editor. ‘‘L’Aurore’’ is very young, and very vigorous. Its mettle was put to the test during the court- EDOUARD HERVE.—'‘‘LE SOLEIL.” martial at Rennes, when it became mark- edly conspicuous by its intrepid exposure of the military clique. It was then that M. Vaughan’s administrative endowments countervailed his lack of talent as a writer. He has good judgment; his ideas are many and excellent. He justified his soundness of judgment by transferring his pen to Adolphe Maniére. The excellence of his ideas was shown by his engagement of Joseph Reinach and Gaston Deschanel to supply him with ‘‘copy.’’ M. Reinach signed his articles; M. Deschanel (who is President of the Chamber of Deputies) was in the familiar disguise of ‘‘Monsieur X.’’ Taken from the domain of politics, ‘‘Le Soleil’’ is not distinctive. Equally color- less when not protecting the government are ‘‘Le Rappel’’ and ‘‘Le XIX* Siécle.’’ The former’s slender claim to atten- tion rests upon the name of its editor, who in turn is distin- guished for his relationship—he is the son-in-law of Victor Hugo. ‘‘The Nineteenth Century’s”’ merit is also hierarchic—the indigent and medi- ocre daily was founded by Edmond About. With ‘‘Le Rad- ical,’’ ‘‘Le Soir,’’ and ‘‘Le Petit Bleu,’’ the limited list of the govern- ment’s advocates terminates. ‘‘Le Radical’’ is social- istic; it detests the pretorianism at the capital as exemplified by General Mercier; it leaped to the aid of the government im- mediately upon Waldeck-Rousseau’s evin- cing a desire to recognize the General Staff. Less radical but more efficient are ‘‘Le Soir’? and ‘‘Le Petit Bleu.’’ The first is unique in one respect; it appears between ten and twelve o'clock at night. In the theatrical season, when new plays are under- going the baptism of critical fire, ‘‘Le Soir’’ announces the reception of the pro- ductions in a hurriedly composed column. In ‘‘Le Petit Bleu,’’ the French author- ities have an ally that quite cancels the dangerous enmity of ‘‘Le Petit Journal.”
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The blue sheet has an immense audience and provides the same middle-class pabu- lum furnished by ‘‘Le Petit Journal,’’ which insists, with a persistent insistence that arouses incredulity, that it has a sub- scription roster of one and a half millions. More disturbing to the government than ‘Le Petit Journal’? is ‘‘Journal des Débats’’ whose number of readers does not exceed thirty-five thousand. The readers of the ‘*Journal des Débats’’ are culti- vated, and nothing cultivates the taste for higher journalism than to read this sheet. Although deeply reactionary politically, it asks the approval of cultivated people in many ways. Its literary views are schol- arly and have a sweeping aspect; they are usually anonymous. Albert Sorel signs the scientific articles. André Hallays is a flaneur d’ esprit—in the sense of long ago, when the term was applied appropriately —who deals in generalities entertainingly, without being too superficial. René Doumic does the theaters. Notwithstanding that he is doomed to the fate of his immediate predecessor, Jules Lemaitre—the company of the Forty Immortals—Doumic is broad and sympathetic, attributes that do not necessarily exclude brilliancy on the staff of the oldest newspaper in Paris, which Lamartine said was a fragment of the his- tory of France. The ‘‘ Journal des Débats’’ is in its one hundred and twelfth year. It was conceived by Louis Bertin, a man GUSTAVE DESCHANEL.—SPECIAL WRITER, “ L’AURORE.”’ THE PARIS PRESS. of letters, birth and wealth; a courageous man who dared to speak for the King in revolu- tionary days. From its first year the ‘‘ Jour- nal des Débats’’ has been con- sistently mon- archial and con- sistent in aspir- ing to make its various depart ments standards of journalistic excellence. Guizot and Thiers wrote for this paper. Heinrich Heine and Ludwig Borne were contributors; all of Jules Janin’s criticisms appeared in its columns. Ernest Reyer, the composer of ‘‘Salammbdé,’’ succeeded Hector Berlioz as the ‘‘Journal’s’’ musical critic, and Baron Jacques de Reinach made an innovation in its financial pages. The Baron der onstrated that obscurity, involu- tion, invu.vedness and ponderosity were not indispensable concomitants of a finan- cial editor. With courageous contrariety he proved that which was not clear and simple was rather double meaning arid double dealing or the dissimulation of in- competence. For the first time in the his- tory of fiscal literature he made his résumé of finance attractive. The world read Reinach and understood what it read. All the newspapers of Paris and many of London have since tried to catch Reinach’s clearness of presentation, albeit not all have emulated his stern incorruptibility. ‘*Le Figaro’’ has been eminently unsuc- cessful in the latter virtue. It is due to its past that the paper is insincere and mercenary. Its meretriciousness dates from the day of its birth. Villemessant, the originator of ‘‘Le Figaro,’’? was multi- lateral in the cardinal principles of life, but in one thing he was really sincere—an idolatrous love of a long subscription list. Whatever or whosoever would lengthen the roll of subscribers, however impolitic publicly, was a warmly desired acquisition. Adversity had made Villemessant indifferent to the intrinsic worth of objects or individ- uals. Before ‘‘Figaro’’ appeared the proprie- JULES LEMAiTRE.— “'L’ECHO DE PARIS."" | |
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tor had dealt in most everything save success. At one time, prior to the establishment of the paper, he had a half-dozen doubtful en- terprises in hand, among them three period- icals, though he was quite uneducated. He established the precedent—so fully favored by the American newspapers of to-day—of changing his staff without a moment's warning. Contracts with writers were ruthlessly violated. Talent was valueless unless it could at once lengthen the roster of readers. Not that Villemessant was un- appreciative of superior work (it is said that he had the same reverence for literary ability that a peasant has for the Latin of his priest) but foremost in every undertak- ing he was a strict utilitarian who demanded immediate results. This was forty-six years ago—before the plebeian genius of the editor of our own country was discovered. No exception was made of politics. His precept was ‘‘to deliver the ‘Figaro,’ as far as possible, from the absurd political con- troversies which never convert any one.’’ To this day the paper has had no political principles. Barring stronger inducements, it sides with the largest crowd. In the Dreyfus matter, ‘‘Figaro’’ changed posi- tion thrice. Finally something super- vened which induced M. Cornély, the poli- tical editor, who had just been brought over from ‘*Le Gaulois,’’ to believe in the innocence of the captain. M. de Rodays, the present editor-in-chief, is an admirable example of a man of the world. Like all men of the world, he becomes distressing when he takes pen in hand—his sentences are conventional and his ideas traditional. De Roday’s respect for what has been said and thought is shared by his associates generally. An exception is Henri Fouquier, the dramatic critic, and even he_ is affected by the shifty and rigidly pecuniary policy adopted by ‘‘Figaro’s’’ founder. That policy has become less popular.. Once a world-known and a world-read journal, ‘*Figaro’s’’ circulation has diminished to the average patronage of ‘*Le Matin,’’ ‘‘Le Petit Parisien’? ‘‘Le Journal’. and ‘‘La Fronde’’—papers without individuality in administrative affairs, independent in most public questions and impartial always when the subscription department imposes such a course. ‘‘Le Matin’s’’ feature is tele- graphic information. ‘‘Le Petit Parisien’’ 5 68 THE PARIS PRESS. 20% has Jean Frollo, who discourses attrac tively on all things save politics. ‘‘Le Journal’’ is obtrusive for the number of its pages and the number of back-stair ad- vertisements. ‘‘La Fronde’’ is genetically unique. Begun in 1896, by women, it is conducted, from compositor to editor, by that sex. The result is a newspaper as colorless and sexless as the ‘‘Woman’s Page’’ of the ordinary American daily. ‘‘Le Temps’’ is reserved as a colophon to this review of the Paris press. ‘‘Le Temps”’ is unqualifiedly the best newspaper in France. Its audience is that to which ‘*Figaro’’ appealed before ‘‘Figaro’’ was what it is to-day. In power and dignity and reliability it resembles its English namesake. Like the ‘‘Times,’’ of London, it upholds, in the generality of politics, whosoever or whatsoever is in force. It is a political paradox in that it is constant in its inconstancy; it changes promptly with men and conditions; it speeds the parting and welcomes the coming. The latest government, the newest cabinet, is always the most promising to ‘‘Le Temps.”’ No matter what the theme or the circum- stance, ‘‘Le Temps’’ is never regardless of its dignity, a principle imparted by the editor, Adrien Hébrard, who is a Senator. Hébrard’s articles in ‘Ie Temps’’ are as dignified as his speeches in the Senate. He is the only member of consequence on the staff who does not sign his opinions, an ex- hibition of modesty, from which Paris has not yet recovered. The omission is indem- nified by such names as Ferdinand de Wyzewa, Gaston Deschamps, Gustave Lar- roumet. M. de Wyzewa is an authority on foreign affairs—foreign literature, foreign governments. He dias many languages— including the Slavic-——on pen and tongue. A revolution in a South American country is elucidated as intelligently as a row in the Chamber of Deputies. ‘*‘Le Temps’’’ ac- counts of the Kansas City and Philadelphia conventions read as if written by an Ameri- can journalist. Foreign books are judged with the same discernment. Gaston Deschamps’ province is French literature. Gustave Larroumet succeeded Francisque Sarcey asdramatic critic. Hehas not Sarcey’s captivating manner of expatiating on theat- rical productions, but entertaining expres- sion is a matter of practice with Frenchmen. ~~
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A SAMARITAN OF THE L-BAR | wt Drawn by Dan Smich. “a HAWK”? was in great spirits. He had been bubbling with good humor for two weeks, and every day the Only ten days more, and then for ‘*the States.’’ We of the ‘*L-Bar,’’ had for two years almost, were at a loss to account for springs increased. who known him this sudden rise in Hen’s mental temper- ature, and probably showed it. Indeed, there were several of the boys who hinted that an explanation from him would be gratefully. received by his curiosity-beset co-workers; but Hen merely widened his grin, and said nothing. But just before Christmas he let the secret out. ‘*Boys,’’ said he, in a muffled caused by a knife-load of potato in his mouth, ‘‘I’m goin’ back to th’ States !"’ voice, tw *By R-L MET CTIC&MM. we. Open-eyed astonishment all around the breakfast table. ‘*That’s what, boys, I’m goin’ right after New-Year’s, tew.’’ ‘*The dooce, ye say! Must’ve lost a rich r‘lation ’r b’en doin’ a little rustlin’ on th’ side. Now I think of ’t, they was some talk ‘bout thar bein’ some inside ‘sistance t’ th’ Baldy Stites gang w’en they honored this hyar vicinity wi’ th’r ‘ten- year,’’ volunteered **Red”’ Hen, having joined liberally in the smiles that followed this remark, went on: ‘*T cast th’ insinerations back intuh th’ teeth o’ th’ red-nosed gent wi’ th’ fragrant name. No, sir! ‘Taint neither one n’r t’other. Mebbe ’fore I go I'll tell ye—an’ mebbe I won't.”’ tions last Posey.
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ee i } | { 270 A SAMARITAN OF THE “ L-BAR." And Mr. Hawkins again smiled, know- ing that the boys would suffer immeas- urably until they knew whence came the ‘‘stake’’ on which he was going home. Next day, immediately after breakfast, Hen rode off in the direction of Browns- ville, the nearest town on the west, about thirty miles away, and we saw nothing of him until Friday, when he returned, whist- ling cheerfully. The boy- were very keen to know what his errand had been, for they were sure he had not gone merely to get a few things from the grocers and har- ness-makers, but Hen did not enlighten them. That night, however, in the boss’s room, he told the story to a select audience, consisting of the boss and the scribe. ‘*T b’en kinder holdin’ off, ye see, ’cause a feller haint no ways certain ’bout savin’ ‘is milk t’ll he gets the pail out f’m under the caow; but now, bein’s I’ve got it O. K., I may’s well tell ye, on’y I don’t want th’ boys t’ knaow. ‘*Ye see, "twas this a-way. ’Bout five years ago, back in Maine I c’cluded t’ come out hyar an’ grow up wi’ th’ kentry a hull lot. ’Twasn’t ’cause I wanted t’ dew it, but ye see, I sort o’ hed tuh.”’ ‘*Ah, yes,’’ observed the boss, dryly. ‘‘T believe the late Mr. Stites began his brilliant career in somewhat the same way. Was your difficulty about a horse, too?’’ Hen’s laugh over, he proceeded, some- what blushingly. ‘‘No, *twar’nt that, hardly. But they wan’t no chance thar for a poor cuss, an’ so I pulled out. Ye see, me ’n Molly Hopkins hed *bout made up aour min’s to git spliced, an’ ev’rythin’ was goin’ jig- step, w’en in steps ol’ George Hopkins an’ takes a han’ hisself. Ol’ Hop was a high- toned stallion, an’ put on heaps 0’ airs, *cause he was the best fixed man in taown, an’ hed b’en s’lectman an’ member o’ th’ legislater, w’ile [ was only a carpenter an’ hadn’t ary red. Th’ ol’ egiot might’ve saw haow things was goin’ on—I reckon he did—but he never let on t’ll one night he come home f’m taown an’ heerd me ’n Molly talkin’ in th’ sittin’-room. ‘‘Then he jes’ plowed in brash. Gosh! how he did lay it all over me. Weut on ter give me th’ devil fer my ‘’dacity in persoomin’ t’ th’ han’ o’ his, George Hopkins’, darter. ‘Th’ idee! I want ye t’ understan’, young man,’ says he, ‘th’t I have better plans for her th’n lettin’ ‘er marry a penniless carpenter.’ °N he went on an’ tore ’round fer a while thet style; but I stood my groun’ t’ll finally he says, ‘Young man, when you can show a bank ‘count o’ ten thaousan’ dol- lars, she’s yourn, an’ not b’fore.’ Then he grins a hull lot, thinkin’ haow I’d hev t’ hustle a consid’ble speck ’fore I got that in my corral. ‘*Wa-al, me ’n Molly talked it over a lot ’n fin’lly concluded th’t I’d hev t’ go sommers else, ef ever I got forehanded; so one day we says good-by, daown in the medder lot, an’ I pulled out fer Californy. ‘*Sence then I’ve b’en knockin’ ’raound all over th’ kentry, trying one thing ’n ‘nother. Purty hard luck most o’ th’ time, tew; but just fore I come hyar, I located a claim, me ‘n ‘nother feller, over in Colorado, an’ worked it some. It didn’t pan out none, so we hed t’ try some- thin’ else, an hyar I come, leavin’ Peters t’ keep up work on the claim, him havin’ a job clus by. Wa-al, th’ other day, Peters he saold aout tew a Boston comp’ny fer twenty-five thaousand—an’ my half’s what I went to Braownsville fer. That’s all.’’ There wasn’t a man on the ranch who wasn’t torn up a little about the heart at the prospect of Hen’s going, and who wasn’t honestly glad at his good fortune. Even the misanthropic Posey evinced not a little regret as he said good-by to him, when, the morning after New-Year’s, Hen sat on his bronco all ready to start for Jersey, the railroad town to the east of us. It was a beautiful morning, almost like spring, and Hen couldn’t have wished for a better day to start on. The last good- by said, he straightened up, sniffed the cold wind, looked to see that everything was all right, and with an ‘‘ Adios, boys,’’ was off, waving his hand in acknowledg- ment of the rousing cheer we gave him as he reached the top of the hill. Jersey was only twenty-odd miles away, and Hen expected to arrive there at noon, in time to get his dinner, dispose of his bronco, and make the two o’clock train east. There was plenty of time, so he let his horse take its own gait, and gave him- self up to his thoughts. ~~
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A SAMARITAN OF THE “ L-BAR.” Drawn by Frederic Remingtcn. “IT WAS ONE OF THESE .. . . . THAT CAUSED HIM TO REIN UP HIS HORSE SO SUDDENLY.” Going home! Home! How sweet the beer so hard. He had been full of hope word sounded! Five years—only five, and vigor, and had told himself that it but they seemed twice as many. He won- was only a little while—only a little while. dered how he had ever managed to live Then when the reward for all his toil through them. The first two had not seemed to be no less distant than at first,
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4 272 A SAMARITAN it was hard. Sometimes he had thought that he would give it up and go home to confess himself beaten; then the picture of the little brown-eyed girl, who through her tears had told him to be brave and patient and all would be well, would come before him, and he would set his teeth hard and ‘‘pitch in’’ again. Maybe it had soured him a bit. He wondered if some- times he had not been rather unsociable and rather poor company for his compan- ions, and concluded he had. His thoughts turned again to Molly. How pretty and sad she had looked with the tears on her pink cheeks that day—for somehow he couldn't for the life of him’ think of her except as he saw her last, watching him as he went down the road. And just to think! Only a few days more, and—‘‘Hullo! Waz-al, I'll be tee- totally doggoned !"’ The wind had shifted around into the north; dull. gray clouds hid the blue and gold that had made the early day so fair. Two or three flakes of snow were visible now and then. It was one of these strik- ine Hen on the cheek that had caused him to rein up his horse so suddenly and make the able remark just recited. Not a living creature was in sight on all the broad plain. Hen and his horse were as much alone as if they had been on the open sea. Human habitation between the ‘‘L-Bar’’ and Jersey, there was none. Hen dismounted and laid his ear to the ground, listening intently for a few seconds. Yes—there it was—that dull, whispering, indistinct roar, which the plainsman knows and fears, the voice of the coming blizzard. The horse heard it, or felt it, and turned his head, whinnying softly. ‘*Yes, ol’ pony, it’s comin’ all right *nough,’’ said Hen, as he rose from the ground, ‘‘an’ me ’n you's got to hustle a hull lot, Mister Pokey. Let ‘er slide.*’ Only twelve miles or so, and yet Hen kuew that the blizzard might overtake him before he had traveled four. He urged his horse faster, knowing that the faithful animal could easily stand the work. It was growing rapidly colder, and the few flakes of snow were being rapidly followed by thousands. The wind was increasing in velocity and Hen, bending low over his horse’s neck, could hear the OF THE “L-BAR.” vicious *‘swish-swish*’ of the snow as it was hurled through the grass and along the ground. Very soon it was impossible to see more than a hundred yards or so ahead, but Hen knew the general direction and for safety’s sake was heading for the stage road leading into Jersey from the southwest. On and on they went, Pokey, alive to the situation, pounding along at his top traveling speed, steady as a clock. On and on came the storm, covering horse and rider with snow as fine as flour until they looked like ghosts. Hen, leaning back to vet his overcoat, lost the direction, but he knew Pokey would do better without his piloting. How cold it was. Hen’s hands and toes were like lumps of ice—worse, they had hardly any feeling in them. His ear and cheek on the side exposed to the storm were getting nipped. Well, he would soon strike the stage road, and then, if he had not miscalculated, there would be only five or six miles ‘*Great Scott!’’ For Pokey had given a sudden, high leap and stood still, panting. Almost under his feet lay a snow-covered object with a strange look about it. Hen leaned down from the saddle and turned it over. It was a dead man, holding tight, in the stiff right hand, a whip such as stage- drivers use. ‘*Stage-driver, deader’n Tom Jefferson. Drunk, likely, an’ fell off, poor cuss!’’ But there was no time to stop and investi- gate. In another second Pokey was turned to the left and pounding along the road. A dark object loomed up suddenly as they shot past, and a sudden thrill sent the sluggish blood coursing through Hen’s veins. He halted and turned Pokey’s un- willing head on the back course. Sure enough, it was the stage; but there were no horses attached. Hen felt around and reached the door-handle. A ery—a child’s cry—came from within. Hen tied Pokey firmly to a wheel, found the door again and entered. ‘*Thank God!’’ It was a woman's voice. “Oh, sir, have you come to take us away? The driver fell off, I think, and the horses broke loose somehow, and we're almost frozen.’’ Hen could see her oo ow
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now. It was a young, good-looking woman, and she clasped tight to her breast a child about three years old. Neither was clad for such awful weather. Hen’s heart stood still for a moment. If that woman and child remained here it was almost certain death. It might be days before help could reach them, and even if aid could come to them to-morrow, they would have frozen meanwhile. On the other hand—— **Can you ride, missis?*” ‘*Yes, indeed.’’ ‘*Wa-al, come then, quick.*’ In another minute—— ‘Ride straddle, so. Naow, hold th’ kid. an* let th’ hoss take ‘is own road.*’ ey “ S. ny tun by Frederic Rem A SAMARITAN OF THE LEANED DOWN FROM tHE SADIPLE AND TURNED Il OVER “L-BAR.”’ ‘*But what are you going to—— Hen was fastening the driver's robe about her. ‘‘T’'m all right. Naow hang on an’ keep holt o’ th kid. Go on, Pokey. Good-by, missis.*’ He was alone on the prairie in a deserted stage-coach, with the storm howling about him and his thoughts were of other things for a lone time before he remembered that his money was in his saddle-bags. **Wa-al, chances is purty nigh agin my ever needin’ it,’’ he muttered, in his quaint way. ‘' ’Taint like I had a stove an’ a hull lot o’ grub. She'll save it for me likely, anyhaow.”’ It was two days later that the stage, coming down from Jersey with several Samaritans aboard found him. It was two weeks and more before he came to himself in the hotel, where he had had every pos- sible attention. He was, as he himself remarked, ‘‘Dern glad t’ be alive, an’ find I hedn’t los’ no han’s n’r feet.*’ But the woman and child had gone— they left Jersey the very day that Hen’s half-dead form had been brought in by the relief party—and with them went Ifen’s money; for the saddle-bags had been taken to the woman’s room by the hostler, and no one else had had posses- sion of them, besides which, much to the landlord’s surprise, she had paid her bill with a one-hundred dollar vreenback when she left. Hen’s money had been mostly in bills of that denomination. The boys gave Hen all the sympathy that was com- ing to him, and through the smoke rings the boss allowed = that Hen ‘‘ought to have put that money in the safe up at Bran- nagan’s saloon. Saddle-bags were only for whiskey and_ to- bacco and grub Sra ni Cringe ay : } iG und sich like.
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“By Brander Matthew T is a reflection upon what we are wont to term a ‘‘liberal education’’ that the result of college training sometimes ap- pears to be rather a narrowing of the mental outlook than the broadening we have a right to anticipate. What a student ought to have got from his four years of labor is a conviction of the vast- ness of human knowledge and a proper humility due to his discovery that he him- self possesses only an infinitesimal fraction of the total sum. Many graduates— indeed, the most of them nowadays we may hope—-have attained to this much of wisdom that they are not puffed up by the few things they do know so much as made modest by the many things they vannot but admit themselves to be ignorant of. With the increasing specialization of the higher education, the attitude of the graduate is likely to be increasingly humble; and a college man will not be led to feel that he is expected to know every- thing about everything. Perhaps the disputatious arrogance of a few of the younger graduates of an earlier generation was due to the dogmatism of the teaching they sat under. In nothing is our later instruction more improved than in the disappearance of this authori- tative tone—due in great measure, it may be, to the unsettling of old theories by new facts. In no department of learning was the manner more dogmatic than in the \, Ke s teaching of the English language. The older rhetoricians had no doubts at all on the subject. They never hesitated as to the finality of their own judgment on all disputed points. They were sure that they knew just what the English language ought to be; and it never entered into their heads to question their own compe- tence to declare the standard of speech. Yet, as a matter of fact, they knew little of the long history of the language and they had no insight into the principles that were governing its development. At most their information was limited to the works of their immediate predecessors; and for a more remote past they had the same supreme contempt they were ever display- ing toward the actual present. Thus they were ready to lay down their rules made up out of their own heads; and their acts were as arbitrary as their attitude was intolerant. ; In his ‘‘Philosophy of Rhetoric, he tells us was planned in 1750, Dr. George Campbell quotes with approval Doctor Johnson’s assertion that the ‘‘terms of the laboring and mercantile part of the people’’ are anere ‘‘fugitive cant’’ not to be ‘‘regarded as part of the durable matter of a language.’’ Doctor Campbell himself refuses to consider it as an evidence of reputable and present use that a word or a phrase has been employed by writers of political pamphlets or by speakers in the *? which a GP
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og House of Commons. Now contrast his narrow-mindedness with the liberality dis- coverable in our more recent text-books. Prof. George R. Carpenter tells us frankly that ‘‘whenever usage seems to differ, one’s. own taste and sense must be called into play.”’ For an Englishman to object to an Americanism as such, and regardless of its possible propriety or its probable perti- nence, and for an American to object to a Briticism as such—either of these things is equivalent to a refusal to allow the English language to grow. It is to insist that it is good enough now and that it shall not expand in response to future needs. With all such efforts those who have at heart the real welfare of our tongue will have no sympathy, least of all the strong men of literature who are forever ravenous after new words and old. Victor Hugo, for example, as far back as 1829, when the modern science of linguistics was still in its swaddling-clothes, had no difficulty in declaring the truth. ‘‘The French lan- guage,’’ he wrote in the preface to ‘‘Crom- well, is not fixed and it never will be.’’ And in the ‘‘Art of French Poetry,”’ first printed in 1565, Ronsard, one of the most adroit of Victor Hugo's predecessors in the mastery of verse, proffers this signifi- cant advice to, his fellow-craftsmen. ‘*You must choose and appropriate dex- terously to your work the most significant words of the dialects of our France, espec- ially if you have not such good or suitable wordsin your own dialects. . . . And observe that the Greek language would never have been so rich in dialects or in words had it not been for the great number of repub- lics that flourished at that time . . . whence came many dialects, all held with- out distinction as good by the learned writers of those times. For a country can never be so perfect in all things that it can- not borrow sometimes from its neighbors. ’’ Here we have Ronsard declaring clearly that local varieties of speech are most useful to the common tongue. Indeed, we may regard the dialect of a district as a cache—a hidden storehouse—at which the language may replenish itself whenever its own sup- plies are exhausted. Whoever has had occasion to study any of these dialects, whether in Greek or in French or in 99 66 AMERICANISMS ONCE MORE. 275 English, must have been delighted often at the freshness and the force of words and phrases unexpectedly discovered. Edward Fitzgerald, the translator of Omar Khayyam, made an affectionate collection of Suffolk sea-phrases, and from those a dozen might be culled or a score or more, for the use of which the English language would be the gainer. Lowell’s loving and learned analysis of the speech of his fellow New Englanders is familiar to all readers of the ‘‘Biglow Papers.’’ It was Lowell also who has left us this brilliant definition: ‘*True Americanisms are self- cocking phrases or words that are wholly of our own make, and do their work shortly and sharply at a pinch.’’ Characteristically witty this definition is, no doubt, but not wholly adequate. What is an Americanism? And what is a Briticism? . Not long ago a friendly British writer rebuked his fellow-countrymen for a double failing of theirs, for their twin tricks of assuming, first, that every vul- garism unfamiliar to them is an Ameri- canism, and that, therefore, and secondly, every Americanism is a vulgarism. In the mouths of many British speakers ‘*‘Americanism’’ serves as a term of re- proach; and so does ‘‘Briticism’’ in the mouths of some American speakers. But this should not be; the words ought to be used with scientific precision and with no hectic flush of feeling. An American investigator gathered together a dozen or two queer words and phrases that he had noted in recent British books and journals, and as they were then wholly unknown to America, he branded them as Briticisms, only to evoke a prompt protest from Mr. Andrew Lang. For the stigmatized words and phrases Mr. Lang proffered no defense; but he boldly denied that it was fair to call them Briticisms. Mr. Lang maintained that when Walter Pater used so odd a term as ‘‘evanescing,’’ this use ‘‘scarcely makes it a Briticism; it was a Paterism.’ This is a plea in ‘‘confession and avoid- ance,’’ but its force is indisputable. To admit it, however, gives us a right to insist that the same justice shall be meted out to the so-called Americanisms which Mr. Lang has more than once held up to British execration. If the use of an ill- ’
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made word like ‘‘essayette’* or ‘‘leader ette’’ or ‘‘sermonette’’ by one or more British writers does not make it a Briticism until it can be proved to have come into general use in Great Britain, then, of course, the verbal aberrations of careless Americans, or even the freakish disloca- tions of the vocabulary indulged in by some of our more acrobatic humorists does not warrant a British writer in calling any chance phrase of theirs an Americanism. Mr. W. 8. Gilbert once manufactured the verb *‘to burgle,*? and Mr. Gilbert is a British writer of good repute; but **burg- ling’’ is not, therefore, a Briticism; it is a Gilbertism. Mr. Edison, an inventor of another sort, once affirmed that a certain article giving an account of his kineto phonograph had his entire ‘*endorsation.*’ According to Mr. Lang's theory **endorsa- tion’’ not being in use generally in the United States, is not an Americanism; if is an Edisonism. ; The more Mr. Lang's theory is consid- ered, the sounder it will appear. Indi- vidual word-coinages are not redeemable at the national treasury either in the United Kingdom or in the United States. Before a word or a phrase can properly be called a Briticism or an Americanism, there must be proof that it has won its way into general use on its own side of the Atlantic. ‘*Right away’? for ‘tat once’? is an Ameri- canism, beyond all dispute, for it is wide- spread throughout the United States; and so is ‘tback of’? for ‘‘behind.’’ — ‘‘Di- rectly’’ for ‘‘as soon as’* is a Briticism equally indisputable and so is ‘*different to’’ for ‘‘different from.’’ In each of these four cases there has been a_ local divergence from the traditional usage of the English language. These divergences may be advantageous, and they may even be.accepted hereafter on both sides of the Atlantic; but just now there is no doubt that two of them are fairly to be called Americanisms and two of them are prop- erly to be recorded as Briticisms. Every student of our speech knows that true Americanisms are abundant enough; but the omission of terms casually em- ployed here and there, seed that fell by the wayside springing up only to wilt away—the omission of all individualisms of this sort simplifies the list immensely, AMERICANISMS ONCE MORE. just asa like course of action in Englane euts down the number of Briticisms fairly to be catalogued as such. It must be remarked, however, that the collecting of so-called Americanisms is a pastime that has been carried on since the early years of the nineteenth century, whereas it was only in the closing decades of that century that attention was called to the existence of Briticisms, and to the necessity of a careful collection of them. The bulky tomes which pretend to be ‘‘ Dictionaries of Americanisms’? are stuffed with words and phrases having no right there. These dictionaries would be very slim if they contained oniy true Americanisms, that is to say, words and phrases in common use in the United States and not in common use in the United Kingdom. Yet they would be slimmer still if another limitation be imposed on the use of the word. Is a term fairly to be called an Americanism if it can be shown to have been formerly in ‘use in England, even though it may there have dropped out of sight in the past century or two? Now, everybody knows that dozens of so-called Americanisms are good old English, neg- lected by the British and allowed to die out over there, but cherished and kept alive over here. Such is ‘‘guess’’ (in- cline to think); such is ‘‘realize’’ (to make certain or substantial); such is **reckon’’ is ‘ta few’’ (a little); such is ‘‘nights’’ (at night); and such are dozens of other words often foolishly animadverted upon as indefensible Americanisms and all of them solidly established in honorable an- cestry. It is with an amused surprise that an American in his occasional reading keeps coming across, in the pages of British authors of one century or another, what he had supposed to be Americanisms, and even what he had taken sometimes for mere slang. The ‘‘cert’’ of the New York street-boy, apparently a contraction of ‘‘certainly,’’ is it not rather the ‘‘certes’’ of the Elizabethans? And the interroga- tive ‘‘how?’’ (what is it?)—a usage abhorred by Doctor Holmes—this can be discovered in Massinger’s plays. ‘‘To fire out’’ (expel forcibly), is in Shakes- peare’s ‘‘Sonnets’’ and in ‘‘Ralph Rois*er (consider, or deem).; such
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Ee Doister."* A theatrical manager nowadays likes to have the first performance of a new play out of town so that he can come to the metropolis with a perfected work, and he calls this, ‘*trying it on the dog;"’ the same expression almost is to be found in Pope. In ‘*Pickwick,’’? Sam Weller proposes to *‘settle the hash’’ of an oppo- nent; and in ‘*Tess of the Durbervilles’’ we find ‘‘down to the ground’’ used as a superlative and quite in our own later sense. The Southern ‘‘peart’’ is in ‘‘Lorna Doone,’’? and the Southwestern ‘*dog-gone it’’ is in ‘‘The Little Minister.’’ In Mr. Barrie’s story also do we find ‘to go back on your word;’’ just as in Mr. William Watson’s **Excursions in Criti- cism’’ we discover ‘*grit’’ (staying power, or doggedness). Very amusing indeed is the attitude of the ordinary British newspaper reviewer toward words and phrases in this category. Not being a scholar in English, he is un- aware that scholarship is a condition precedent to judgment; and he is swift to denounce as American innovations, terms firm-rooted in the earlier masters of the language, while he passes the frequent Briticisms in the pages of contemporary London writers without a hint of reproof. From a British author like Rossetti he ac- cepts ‘‘the gracile spring,’’ while he re- jects ‘‘gracile ease’’ in an American author like Mr. Howells. Behind this arrogant ignorance is to be perceived the assump- tion that the English language is in imme- diate peril of disease and death from American license if British newspapers fail to do their duty. The shriller the shriek of protest is, the slighter the protester’s competence upon the question at issue. No outery against the deterioration of English in America has come from any of the British scholars who can speak with authority about the language. What we Americans have done is to keep alive or to revive many a good old English term; and for this service to our common speech our British cousins ought to be properly grateful. We must admit that words and phrases and usages thus ‘reinstated are not true Americanisms. however much we miglit like to claim We have already seen that most of the individualisms of eccen- them for our very own. AMERICANISMS ONCE MORE. tric or careless writers are also not to be re- ceived as true Americanisms. And there is yet a third group of so-called Ameri- canisms not fairly entitled to the name. These are the terms devised in the United States to meet conditions unknown in England. Here is no divergence from the accepted usage of the language, but a de- velopment of the common tongue to satisfy a new necessity. The need for the new word or phrase was first felt in America, and here the new term had to be found to supply the immediate want. But the word itself, although frankly of American origin, is not to be styled an Americanism. It is an American contribution to the English language, but it is not an Ameri- canism—if we limit Americanism to mean a term having currency only in North America, just as Briticism means a term having currency only in the British Islands. The new thing exists now, and as it came into existence in America, we stood sponsors for it, but the name we gave it is its name once for all. Is there any one so foolish as to call ‘‘telephone’’ an Americanism? These American contributions to the English language are not a few. Some of them are brand new words, minted at the minute of sudden demand, and well-made or ill-made as chance would have it; ‘*phonograph’’ is one of these, ‘‘dime’’ is another and ‘‘typewriter’’ is a third. Some of them are old words wrenched to a new use, like ‘‘elevator’’ (storehouse for grain), and like ‘‘ticker’’ (telegraphic printing machine). Some of them are taken from foreign tongues, either trans- lated; like ‘‘statehouse,’* from the Dutch; or unchanged, like ‘‘prairie,’’ from the French; ‘‘adobe,** from the Spanish, and ‘‘stoop.’’ from the Dutch. Some of them are borrowed from the rude tongues of our predecessors on this continent, like ‘moccasin’? and *‘tomahawk’’ and ‘‘wig- wam.** To be compared with this last group are the words adopted into English from the native languages of India— ‘*punkah,’’ for example. And I make no doubt that the Australians have taken over from the aborigines round about them more than one word needed in a hurry as a name for something until then nameless in our common language because the something
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ee 278 AMERICA NISMS ONCE MORE. itself was until then unknown or unnoticed. So far the attempt has been here made to subtract from the immense and hetero- geneous mass of so-called Americanisms three classes of terms falsely so called: first, the mere individualisms, for which America, as a whole, has a right to shirk the responsibility; second, the survivals in the United States of words and usages that happen to have fallen into abeyance in Great Britain; and, third, the American contributions to the English language. . As to each of these three groups the case is clear enough; but as toa fourth group, which ought also to be deducted, one can- not speak with quite so much confidence. This group would include the peculiari- ties of speech existing sporadically in this or that special locality and contributing what are often called the ‘‘ American dia- lects,’’ the ‘‘ Yankee dialect,’’ first of all; then the dialect of the Appalachian moun- taineers, the dialect of the Western cow- boys, et cetera. Are these localisms fairly to be classed as Americanisms? The ques- tion, so far as I know, has never been raised before, for it has been taken for granted that if any such things as Americanisms existed at all, they could surely be col- lected from the mouth of Hosea Biglow. And yet, if we pause to think, we cannot but admit that the so-called Yankee dia- lect is local, that it is unknown outside of New England and that a majority of the inhabitants of the United States find it almost as strange in their ears as the broad Scotch of Burns. As for the so-called dialect of the cowboy, it is not a true dia- lect at all; it is simply carelessly colloquial English with a heavy infusion of fugitive slang; and whatever it may be in itself, it is local to the cow-country. The Appalachian dialect is perhaps a true dia- lect; but it is even less widespread than either of the others here picked out for consideration. No one of these three dia- lects is in any sense national; all three of them are narrowly local—although the New England speech has spread more or less into the middle West. Perhaps some light on this puzzle may be had by considering how they regard a similar problem in England itself. The local dialects which still abound through- out the British Isles are under investiga- tion, each by itself. No one has ever suggested the lumping of them all together as Briticisms. Indeed, the very definition of Briticism would debar this. What is a Briticism but a term frequently used throughout Great Britain and not accepted in the United States? And if this defini- tion is acceptable, we are forced to declare that an Americanism is a term frequently used throughout the United States and not accepted in Great Britain. The terms of the Yankee dialect, and the Appalachian and of the cowboy, are localisms. It is greatly to be regretted that Doctor Murray and Mr. Bradley and the other editors of the comprehensive Oxford Dic- tionary, have not been so careful as they might be in identifying the locality of American dialectic peculiarities. They have taken great pains to record and cir- cumscribe British dialectic peculiarities, but they are in the habit of appending a vague and misleading (U. 8.) to such American words and usages as they may set down. It is to be hoped that they may hereafter aim at a greater exactness in their attributions, which often suggest that a term is a true Americanism, used freely throughout the United States, when it is perhaps merely an individualism or at best a localism. Of true Americanisms, there are not so very many left, when we have ousted from their usurped places these four groups of terms having no real title to the honorable name. And true Americanisms might be subdivided again into two groups, the one containing the American terms for which there are equivalent Briticisms, thus indi- cating a divergence of usage, and the other including only the words and_ phrases which have sprung up here without cor- relative activity in England. When the attempt is made to set up parallel columns of Briticisms and Ameri- canisms, each more or less equal to the other, it is with surprise that we discover how few of these equivalencies there are. In other words, the variations of usage between Great Britain and th United States are infrequent. In England the railway was preceded by the stage-coach, and in America the railroad was preceded rather by the river steamboat; and prob- ably this accounts for the slight differen- —
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tiation observable in the vocabulary of the traveler. But this is not the reason why we in America make misuse of a French word, ‘‘dépdt,’’ while the British prefer the Latin word ‘‘terminus.’?’ In England they name him a ‘‘guard’’? whom we in America name ‘‘brakeman’’ or ‘‘train- man;’’ and it is to be noted that when Stevenson was an Amateur Emigrant he sought to use the language and so men- tions the ‘‘brakesman,’’ thus proving again the difficulty of attaining exactness in local usage. The British call that a ‘*eoods-train’? which we call a ‘‘freight- train.’? They say a ‘‘keyless watch”’ where we say a ‘‘stem-winder.’’ They say ‘‘leader’’ where we say ‘‘editorial.’’ They call that a ‘‘lift’’ which we call an ‘‘elevator.’? They have even borrowed one Americanism, ‘‘caucus,’’ and made it a Briticism by changing its meaning to signify what we are wont to describe as the ‘‘machine’’ or the ‘‘organization.’’ It is to be noted also that ‘‘corn’’ in England refers to ‘‘wheat’’ and in America to ‘‘maize,’? and that in Great Britain ‘‘calico’’ is a plain cotton cloth and in the United States a printed cotton cloth. This list of correlative Americanisms and sriticisms might be extended, of course, but however sweeping our investigations may be we cannot make it very long. Far longer is the list of American words and phrases and usages for which there is no British equivalent—far too long indeed for inclusion in this essay. All that can be done here and now is to pick up a sur- face specimen or two from the outcroppings to show the quality of the vein. For in- stance, the vocabulary of the university is largely indigenous, although we have re- cently borrowed a Briticism, speaking now of the ‘‘varsity team’’ and the ‘‘varsity crew.’’ ‘‘Campus’’ seems to be unknown to the British; and so does ‘‘sophomoric, ’’ a most useful epithet, understood at once all over the United States. The four years’ course of the old-fashioned American col- lege is unknown in England Going out from academic groves to the open air of the wider West, as so many of our college graduates do every year, we meet with a host of Americanisms, vigorous with the free life of the great river and of the grand mountains. But is ‘‘blaze’’ (to AMERICANISMS ONCE MORE. 279 mark the trail through the woods by chip- ping off bits of bark) a true American- ism? Is it not rather an American con- tribution to the English language? Surely every man in Africa or in Asia who wishes to retrace his path through a virgin forest, must needs ‘‘blaze’’ his way as he goes. But ‘‘shack’’ (a cabin of logs driven per- pendicularly into the ground) is a true Americanism, undoubtedly. And its com- pound ‘‘claim-shack’’ (a shack built to hold a claim on a preémption) is another true Americanism likely to puzzle a British reader. Another true Americanism which comes to us from the plains is ‘‘maverick”’ (an unbranded steer at large only to be- come the property of the first ranch-owner whose men may chance upon it). And ‘‘ranch,’’ while it is itself a contribution to the language has usages in which it is an Americanism merely, as in the Califor- nian ‘‘hen-ranch,’’ for example. There is a large freedom about the West- ern vernacular and a swift directness not elsewhere observable in the English lan- guage, whether in the United States or in the British Empire. These are most valu- able qualities, and they are likely to be of real service to English in helping to refresh the jaded vocabulary of more scholarly communities. The function of slang as a true feeder of language is certain to get itself more widely recognized as time goes on; and there is no better nursery for these seedlings of speech than the territory west of the Mississippi and east of the Rockies. To say this is not to say that there are not to be found east of the Mississippi many interesting locutions still inadequately established in the language. For example, there are three words applied to the same thing in different parts of the East; perhaps they ought to be styled localisms, but as they would be comprehended all over the United States, they are probably entitled to be received as true Ameri- “anisms—if, on the other hand, they are not in fact good old English words. A pass through the hills is often called a ‘‘notch’? in the White Mountains, a ‘‘clove’’ in the Catskills, and a ‘‘gdp’’ in the Blue Ridge. Yet even as I write this I have my doubts as to there being any narrow geographical delimitation of usage, since I can recall a Parker Notch in the
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280 AMERICAN/SMS ONCE MORE. ( Catskills, not far from Stony Clove and Kaaterskill Clove. One of the best known of true Ameri- (timber). When industry we anisms is ‘‘lumber’’ we speak of the **lumbering,’’ mean not only the cutting down of trees and their sawing up into planks, but also their marketing. From the apparent part- iciple ‘‘lumbering,*’ a verb has been made ‘*to lumber’’—a not common process in the history of the language, one British analogue being the making of the verb ‘*to bant,’’ from the innocent name of Banting. ‘*‘To lumber’’ is apparently now used in the sense of ‘‘to deforest,’’ if we may rely on a newspaper paragraph which informed us that a certain tract of twenty-five thou- sand acres in the Adirondacks had ‘‘been lumbered but not in such a way as to injure it for a park.’’ The verb ‘‘to launder’’ (to wash), has been revived of late in America, if indeed it has not been made anew from the noun ‘laundry ;’’ and shirt-makers in their price-lists specify whether the shirts are to be sold ‘*laun- dered or unlaundered.’’ And to the word ‘‘laundry’’ itself has been given a further extension of meaning. In New York, at least, it signifies not only the place where personal linen is washed, but the personal linen itself. When an American student of English printed a collection of Briticisms in which more than one strange wild fowl of speech had been snared on the wing in newspapers and advertisements, Mr. Andrew Lang protested against the acceptance of phrases so gathered as representative Briticisms; and it is only fair to admit that they represented colloquial or industrial rather than literary usage. Yet they were interesting in that they gave us a glimpse of the actual speech of the common people —just such a glimpse, in fact, as we get from the Roman inscriptions. This actual speech of the people, whether in Rome or in London or in New York, is the real language, of which the literary dialect is but a sublimation. Language is born in the mouth, although it dies young unless it is brought up by hand. Language is made sometimes in the library, it is true. but far more often in the kitchen and on the sidewalk; and nowadays the newspaper and the advertisement record for us the
unstilted and simple phrases of the kitchen and the sidewalk. The most of these will fade out of sight unregretted ; but a few will prove themselves possessed of sturdy vitality. The ideal of style, so it has been tersely put, is the speech of the people in the mouth of the scholar. One reason why so much of the academic writing of educated men is arid is because it is as remote as may be from the speech of the people. One reason why Mark Twain and Rudyard Kipling are now the best-beloved authors of the English language, is because they have each of them a welcome ear for the speech of the people. Mark Twain abounds in true Americanisms; on _ the other hand, Rudyard Kipling is sparing of real Briticisms, having indeed a certain hankering after Americanisms. Kipling’s case is not unlike that of ‘Eschylus, who was a native of Greece but a frequent resident in Sicily, and in whose vocabulary occasional Sicilianisms are to be found. So Plautus greedily availed himself of the vigorous fertility he discov- ered in the vocabulary of the Roman popu- lace; and when Cicero went to the works of Plautus for the words he needed, we had once more the speech of the people in the mouth of the scholar. Something of the toploftiness of the elder rhetoricians yet lingers in the tone many British writers of to-day see fit to adopt whenever they take occasion to discuss the use of the English language here in America. <A trenchant critic, like Mr. Frederic Harrison, in a lecture on the masters of style, went out of his way to warn his hearers that though they might be familiar in their writing, they were by no means to be vulgar. ‘*At any rate, be easy, colloquial if you like, but shun those vocables which come to us across the At- lantic, or from Newmarket and White- chapel.** This linking of America and Whitechapel may seem to us to be rather vulgar than familiar, and it was Goethe who said that ‘‘when self-esteem expresses itself in contempt of another, be he the meanest, it must be repellent.*’ It is only fair to say that fewer British writers than ever before sink to so low a level as this; and that a definite recogni- tion of the American joint- ownership of the English language is not now rare.
we
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By FRANCIS E. UEER things ao . China are not the stock contradictions of Western life and manners which are so often re- hearsed—like the fact that a China- man begins at the SS back of his book to read it; that A HEAD-DRESS. he reads from right to left instead of from left to right; that the carpenter pulls his plane toward him instead of pushing it from him—for these are not idiosyncrasies except from the Western standpoint. But there are other oddities which seem to have little for either from the Oriental or the Occidental very reason existence standpoint, and must be put down to the unexplained and inexplicable working of | the Eastern mind. Yet most of these oddities are the results of immemorial } custom and fashion, and perhaps can be explained as easily as the freaks of Dame Fashion in Western Longitudes. Here, for instance, are a pair of bound feet of a high-class lady ; her lillies, *’ This pair of shoes actually measures one and one-half The tea-cup by the side wo Chinese ** golden as she calls them. inches in length. of one of these **golden lillies’* is a small and the Western the side belongs to an exceptionally petite mis- , sionary lady, in whose shoes few of my The bones of the are crushed out of all sem- human foot, and in the smallest shoes only the point of the great I have heard small Chinese pain mothers compressed their tender little feet one, shoe on other could) walk. feet blance to a readers bound toe can enter. girls screaming in as their vrand- and crushed the bones to a jelly. | For hours at the torture is en- dured, until, at the foot numb and painless and almost paralyzed, and henceforth the little maiden, however a time last, becomes long she lives must totter around on her | ' | ‘ toes, leaning upon the shoulder of an at- SOME CHINESE ODDITIES. CLARK, D.D., President United Society of Christian Endeavor. tendant or carrying a stick in either hand to support her feeble footsteps. Nevertheless, the pain is voluntarily en- dured, and with such a ruthless hand does Dame China that same children, the midst of from these the many a Fashion rule in even in torture which wrings them cry of anguish, will insist on having the until their feet are hideously deformed and practically useless process continued as a means of locomotion, rather than run counter to the dictates of fashionable A STREET BEGGAR, PEKING
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A FOO-CHOW HEAD-DREss, tradition, and lose their chance for elig- ible husbands in future years. The head-dresses of the women in many parts of China are as curious as their foot-gear. The rest of their gar- ments are thoroughly sensible and might by the dress reformers well be copied for their loose throughout the world, trousers enable them to do their work in the most convenient and expeditious But over their feet and heads com- way. seems to have lost its sway, mon sense and extravagance and oddity run riot. Some women of Foo-Chow seem to carry a whole arsenal in their back hair, and though of the mildest and gentlest char- acter, the knives and dageers with which them a dan- they adorn their locks, give gerous aspect to Western eyes. The head-gear of the Manchu women in North China is peculiarly striking and picturesque. In a fearful and wonderful manner the hair is puffed and pleated and filled with bouquets of artificial flowers until every Manchu woman appears to carry on her head a very considerable flower garden. But the carriage of these Manchu women is so erect, the confidence with which they walk upon their broad, unbound feet is so refreshing after the mincing gait of the Chinese women of high caste, that one is willing to forgive any kind of extravagance in their head- SOME CHINESE ODDITIES. dresses because of the good sense with which they dress the other end of their anatomy. It is in his funeral services that the ——. Chinaman indulges his propensity TH) for extravagance and oddity to the utmost. A rich Chinaman in Tien- tsin recently expended one hundred and fifty thousand dollars on the funeral of his mother, and laid up for himself immense stores of credit on the other side of the Styx. Forty millions of dollars worth of eo ow paper cash, it is said, are burned every -ear in China at the graves of ancestors, and an incredible amount of paper cash can be bought for a cent, Yet lavish as the Chinaman is in his expenditure upon the dead, he will often leave a coffin waiting for a year or for ten years in an exposed position by the roadside until the necromancers shall tell him the propitious hour and place to bury his dead. In some places he buries the remains, or at least what 100-CHOW HEAD-DRESSES. at
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eee op mR is left of them after vears of dissolution, in earthen pots where thousands can be stowed away in a very small enclosure. One of these strange burial places is here pictured. It was encountered quite by the wayside and is evidently carefully looked after. The funeral processions in the streets of the great cities of China are often exceed- ingly inconvenient to the passing traveler. All traffic must make way for the Car of Death, and in the narrow streets of the southern cities a stranger must crowd him- self into the narrowest possible compass, squeezing into a doorway or obliterating himself as far as possible against a wall, until the mourners have passed through the street. In Pekine, where the streets are wider, the catafalque is often built in the middle of the roadway, and is left there for days and weeks, filling up the middle of the street and obliging every passing camel and donkey, and rattling, creaking cart to take some other avenue, or to crowd by on the sidewalk, under the awnings, to the discomfiture of foot passengers and the various open-air venders who do their business on the sidewalk. SOME CHINESE ODDITIES. A FUNERAL CAR. The absurdity and inconvenience of thus giving the dead the right of way never seems to strike the average Pekingese. This is all of a piece with the national love of funeral display, and heartless croco- dile tears, as they seem, at least. to Western eyes. An immense trumpet is even used sometimes which is worked like a garden pump to sob out the ‘‘boo hoo’’ of the afflicted relatives. The more unearthly and heartrending its sobs, the better they seem to be pleased. For a great funeral, all the beggars and ragamuflfins and impu- dent small boys in the vicinity are hired. They are decked out in tawdry clothes, THE EMPEROR'S SLEIGH t Tag emaesenretseenee ser erernemennenpenr errr rnatn
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284 or perhaps their rags are not even disguised in any way, but they are at least given banners to carry and are hired to wail and sob as if their hearts were breaking. The dull, indifferent, stolid faces of the men, and the roguish, mischievous smiles on the boys’ faces belie their wails, and give a very unreal air of hypocritical sorrow to the average Chinese funeral, though doubtless there is much genuine sorrow and real heartaches as in other lands. When the coftin procession, it is often covered up with all as many is borne in the funeral sorts of gro- tesque board counter- feits of the things which the departed is likely to want in his future journeys in the land be- A mock and a paste- yond, house mock horse are often thus car- ried, a paper cow to furnish milk and meat, paper fowls to lay eggs for him and paper servants to do his bidding. Oftentimes, too, a tempt- ing array of real viands are carried in the procession, a pig, a roast ducks, fruit. They are not their sweetness on the after they have remained at the grave’s mouth for a little while, and the spirits have sniffed the delicious odors, they are divided up among the sorrowing relatives and friends, who have such a feast as many of them have not enjoyed for days. Sometimes, however, there seems to be a genuine sacrifice of actual On one occasion, when journeying from roast dozen bread and rice and left to sir?” ** waste desert but provisions. A WIDOW’S ARCH. SOME CHINESE ODDITTES. Hong Kong to Shanghai, our steamer ap- proached the latitude and longitude where before a ship had Chinese eighteen years been wrecked and hundreds of pas- sengers lost. Going on deck, I found the air filled with leaves of mock money which had fire and winds. Upon the lower deck, on a raised platform, was a whole pig, roasted crisp been set on scattered to the and brown, flanked on both sides by dishes of rice and bottles of wine and baskets of oranges. A gorgeously arrayed _ priest went through with many genuflections and incantations, and then, with the assistance of his subordi- nates, carried the pig to the rail where he slid it off to the briny The rice was thrown after the pig, the wine after the and the oranges fol- lowed the wine, while all went bobbing off astern as the steamer went on her way, leaving behind her the offering for the shades of the poor, shipwrecked mariners of nearly a_ score of years before. is a characteristic of in- waters. rice, The Widow’s Arch Southern China which one sees in no other part of the world. A widow who never marries again is an object of special veneration and honor. After her death, at the request of her relatives, the Emperor will issue a special edict allowing them to erect a stone arch in her memory. These often cost thousands of dollars, and are inscribed in characters that tell of her virtues. From the arch, her family, down to the remotest generation, receives a kind virtuous of post-mortem glory.
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The of in China, though an oddity to Western means illogical or absurd. fellow is treatment prisoners eyes, is not by any The poor encased in a heavy board frame, through a hole in which his face pro- trudes like a ghastly and im- the middle of a very rough border. bruted living picture in Around his” face, below and above and on both = sides, are characters which tell the crime for which he is punished, the leneth of the sentence, and so forth. dispensed with, and guards, Thus prison bars are and all the paraphernalia of the Western jail, for the poor fellow cannot run away, ana SOME CHINESE ODDITIES. so is allowed to go at large carrying the story of his crime with him. CRIMINAL AT LARGE, PEKING. HIS CRIME AND SENTENCE The whipping- post has not ARE PLACARDED ON THE BOARD. been abandoned in China, but is still the advantage of being almost ridiculously Oftentimes the poor criminal must fall upon his hands favorite means of punishment. and knees to be spanked with a bamboo in a most humiliating and degrading fashion. A still more painful mode of punishment is to seat him in a chair, to bare his legs to the knees, and tioner to inflict a hundred strokes of the cat upon his bare shins. then allow the execu- Locomotion in China presents about as many oddities as any other feature of na- tional life. usurp the wheelbarrow in Shanghai, but it many a the rate of progress, before it is entirely sup- The jinrikisha has begun to will be century, at present planted, because wheelbarrow rides have the A WAYSIDE GRAVE. cheap. Sometimes no less than six grown people pile themselves in, while one per- spiring coolie trundles them through the busy streets. The wheelbarrow is adver- tised by its squeak for rods in advance of appearance, and, the Chinaman’s notion, the more squeak its actual according to the better barrow. In Peking, the in- sufferable Peking cart wracks the bones and destroys the temper of every one who tries to ride in it, while in the south of China, the chair, coolies, has the undisputed right of way. sedan borne by two The Peking cart deserves a whole chapter to itself. an instrument of torture by anything found outside of the prisons of the Inquisition, It is probably unsurpassed as and yet the reason for its existence is not The roads of no ordinary far to seek. Peking are so that stand the wear and horrible vehicle could tear for a single day. Holes a foot deep and more abound in Nearly half the huge stone road every thoroughfare. blocks of granite in the great that runs from Tung-Chow to Peking are missing, at least over a long section of the the conscienceless natives whenever they desired a block of stone for any purpose. Since it is against Chinese traditions, ap- road. They have been **prigged’’ by
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286 parently, to repair anything that has fallen into disrepair, the on growing worse and worse roads have gone from generation to generation, and the only thing left to do was to build an indestructible cart, spring less and solid, which could not be smashed by any kind of rough usage. Upon the Chinaman the for this problem mind of has concentrated itself, and once he has succeeded most admirably. The Peking cart is set directly upon a stout and unbreakable axletree. The wheels are huge, thick affairs studded with spikes, ae A GROUP OF often almost solid, for an ordinary spoke stand but little chance in a Peking street. The comfortable place to ride on this cart is on the shaft, and tire would most in close proximity to the mules’ switching tails and treacherous hind feet; but one is willing to risk instant death at the heels of a mule after he has ridden for an hour or two with his feet doubled up under him on the hard board floor of a Peking cart, where every hole in the pavement and depression in the roadway calls attention anew to his aches and pains. Some of the diplomats SOME CHINESE ODDITIES. of Peking have a little well in the bottom of their cart in which they can put their feet, which affords some relief from = the cramped position necessitated by the ordi- nary cart; but such aristocratic conveni- ences and comforts are not looked upon with favor by the average Pekingese. Peking has its full quota of street mendicants, even more wretched looking than the worst American tramp. — It is re- the by lated that be carried Emperor of China used to his old which was thickly infested coolies across an wooden bridge DISTINGUISHED MANDAKINS. with beggars. one occasion the Em- { On peror stopped his chair and commanded his retainers to seize all the beggars and Each was then presented The discarded rags were searched, and enough money was found to pay for the erection of what is to-day one of the finest bridges in Peking. It is built entirely of marble. Often one of these beggars makes a great show of rendering service to the passing traveler. He will dig a hole in the road- way over which the traveler must pass and strip them. with an entirely new suit of clothing.
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then wait ostentatiously, shovel in hand, until the stranger’s cart comes near. Then he a spoonful or two of dirt which he throws into the hole had previously made, an] impudently demands backsheesh for the service rendered. If you regard the artifice as altogethe: too transparent, and re- fuse to satisfy his claims, the beggar will run after the ear for a mile, shout- ing and swearing at the top of his voice. In the the mud is dried up and the affords an cuse for oflicious summer, when dust eX- the gar will stand with a little dish of water service, same beg- at the beginning of a steep ascent, and traveler sprinkle a Ilis ser- and have to for the sparse drops of water make little appreciable difference in the dust, even of the few ground which it touches. But it is a service rendered, and according to all tra- as the approaches, few square fect of the roadway. vice may be entirely ineffectual in- The clouds of adequate. traveler may ride through dust miles beyond, and may inches of A PAIR OF
SOME CHINESE ODDITIES.
THE PRACTICE OF BAMBOOING, ditions must be paid for; and again the screaming, swearing coolie curses the hands and feet and eves and ears of your grand- mother and your great - grandmother's graudmother, unless you give him the largess that he demands. Fortunately, the common coin of China is of very little value. <A dollar’s worth of cash will go a long way toward satisfying the roadside beggar, and one can even take a consider- able journey in China and meet such im- positions at every turn without becoming absolutely bankrupt.
*““GOLDEN LILLIES.”
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Ci a ee 3y O'NEILL LaTHamM. I O, is it a dream, where the white wings gleam, That the angels troubled are ? That they know not where to lay the Fair For the world is so full of war ? O, there is no bed for His little head, The nursing angels fear. There is no nest where His Heart can rest, ‘The wars they are so near. O, the church is fit and the candles lit And the bells they toll amain, But the Babe they lay in the oxen’s hay— He cannot sleep for pain. 4 QO, is ita dream, where the white wings by O Nell Lathan. gleam, That the angels trouble sore, In the cradle low the Babe weeps so For the world that bleeds with war. ne ae a a a a oe cj a a a ee) a ee -
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Drawn by O' Neill Latham. T am the Soul of Battle, The primal slaying Will. Spirit of Hatred, I. Hear mycry! I drive you forth to kill, I drive you forth to die. { taught young Cain my secret while the larks of Eden sang; I led his hand to do the thing that God cannot undo; I showed the youngling wolf how best to sink the rending fang, And now I give my rage to you, and you. 'T take you from your building, from your towns and toil and rest; I fill you with my fever till you arm and cursing go, Till you burn and rave and rend, your young are fighting in the nest ; I set you on your brother, and I bait you to and fro, I cheat you with a banner, and I fool you with aname; You shout some windy legend till the hoofs are on your face. I spread a dream before you while I bring you all to shame— Till I am full with raven and diminished is your race
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YCLING § ee bhi w TOURAINE CHENONCE AUX By ERNEST C. PEIXOTTO. (With illustrations by the author.) T is not an unknown route, this trip in Touraine, nor is it a great journey for the cyclist; but it combines, in the superla- tive degree, all the advantages beloved by wheelmen: perfect roads, historic reminis- cence set in the most beautiful landscape, and excellent hotels. It is the garden spot of France—this valley of the Loire—chosen for centuries by the French kings as their summer home. It is without question the best short trip that can be made from Paris. Ten days will suffice to do it, even without over- stepping a twenty-five-mile-a-day limit. No training is necessary, and ladies may be of the party. Of course it would be pleasant to linger in the fascinating towns and villages. Six weeks was not a day too long for us. The roads are like boulevards, wide, well shaded and so perfectly drained that they are dry an hour after a heavy summer shower. A word about tires. The surface of the roads is repaired with flint-rock, broken very small, the tiny particles of which gradually work through a thin, single- tube tire. not puncturing it, but perforating it so that it begins to leak everywhere, and repair is impossible. Therefore a very stout tire is recommended. All the Euro- pean cyclists use double-tube tires which lack the buoyancy of ours, but are better for long runs. The repairers in France do not understand the single tubes, and the cyclist should carry a good repair-kit and thoroughly understand the repairing of simple punctures. Blois, the starting point for this trip, may be reached from Paris either via Orleans or via Chartres. The latter route, though longer, is, perhaps, more interest- ing, if for no other reason than to see the glorious Chartres cathedral, second to no Gothic edifice in Europe. Blois is almost too well known to need description. Its chateau, picturesquely dominating monuments of its most royal the city, is one of the France, the scene of some of thrilling historic episodes under the Henrys and the lordly Francis. If the traveler is interested in things architectural, it will well repay him to ride out to the Chateau de Chambord, returning by way of Cheveruy and Beauregard—a ride of about thirty miles. It was a bright June day when we started to ride from Blois to Amboise. The road descends the right bank of the Loire, skirting the river almost all the way
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292 CYCLING IN TOURAINE. —a beautiful, broad, placid river dotted with wooded islands and bordered by stately trees. We crossed it on the sus- pension bridge at Chaumont. Here we stopped for luncheon at the little Hotel’ du Chateau, almost opposite the great gates of the park. It is a typical French auberge, with a not too prepossessing exterior, but with an old- fashioned air of good cheer and comfort. We left our wheels under a shed in the yard and entered through the great kitchen hung with its bright copper pots. Madame smilingly welcomed us and showed us into the large café, or billiard-room, whose walls were frescoed with the quaintest old pictures, rudely painted back in the forties by some seafaring man. Their stormy, wind-blown skies and rolling billows looked strangely out of place in this peaceful inland inn. We ordered our luncheon and sat down to wait at one of the little tables. We were warm and thirsty so Madame recom- mended a little sparkling vin de Chau- mont. Delicious it was, too, coolly sizzling in its tall glasses! As we slowly enjoyed it, we could peep through the kitchen door and see our hostess return from her garden with bunches of radishes CHATEAU AND RIVER AT AMBOISE. and salad—fresh picked—and soon we were bidden into a little room, darkened to exclude the noonday heat. Here a table with immaculate linen and green potted plants in the center, stood enti- cingly ready. Mademoiselle now made her appearance with sardines, and the radishes above mentioned, and the sweetest of swect butter. Followed an omelette, light and fluffy and properly browned; then chops and potatoes, then salad, and lastly our cheese and coffee—all arrosés with a petit vin blanc. The lunch was a luxury to the extent of six francs for the two of us. After déjeuner we visited the chateau, perched high on its bluff. We wandered through rooms where Catherine de Medicis had lived, adjoining those of her astrologer, Ruggieri, whose cabalistic signs are graven on the mantel-shelf. We lingered long under the stately elms in the garden and walked on the broad terraces overlooking the river, the hillsides and valley, wood- lands and fields with little white villages nestling among the trees. In the cool of the afternoon we were off again, this time skirting the left bank of the shimmering river, passing peasants home-returning with their heavy loads. It is but nine miles to Amboise. eo ——
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| | ‘
a ee 7 ieerineaianieeiinaitinigaint
CYCLING IN TOURAINE. THE CORDELIER'S GATE AND CHATEAU AT LOCHES. Amboise possesses another of those ex- quisite chiteaux which form the glory of Touraine. Half-palace, half-fortress, for centuries it has withstood sieges. witnessed massacres and blazed with court festivities. Like all castles, it is placed high above the roof tops of its vassal town, even as its lordly ruler raised his head above those of his retainers. The finest view of it is ob tained as we leave the town and ascend the hill to the south. The fields of vegetables and waving grain, multicolored, stretch in an amphi- theater about us. Below, nestled in the val- ley, lies the village, its blue slate roofs half hidden in the tree-tops, hugging close to the winding Loire. The chiteau, massive asa cliff, rises abruptly above it, the sky line exquisitely relieved by the delicate tracery of its dormer windows and the perforated spire of its chapel. The road to Chenonceaux now leads us through the forest—one of those French forests of small trees with many white birches. Little by-paths beckon an irre- sistible invitation to wander down to the peep of blue sky in thé distance. The woodman’s ax resounds in the silence. <A teamster’s ‘‘he’’ or ‘tho’? is wafted from afar. How cool the shade, and how deli- cious the odor of the ferns and rich, warm earth! We glide up and down a succes- sion of gently rolling slopes, until suddenly the valley of the Cher bursts upon us, stretching its richly cultivated fields to the far horizon. A long coast, then a
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294 CYCLING IN TOURAINE. turn to the left and we soon reach Che- nonceaux. Here is a chiteau unlike any other, built in the very bed of the river, its foundations constantly bathed by the sparkling waters of the Cher. It was lone the favorite home of Diane de Poitiers, who, however, was forced to give it to Catherine de Medicis in exchange for Chaumont. A ride of about eighteen miles brings us to Tours. Tours is a large and prosperous C \ * x ? $5 Mle ‘*‘ PEASANTS HOME-RETURNING WITH THEIR HEAVY LOADS.’ -city, much frequented by the English and by Americans as well, on account of the purity of its French—the best in France, they say. The climate, too, is delightful, and the environs of surpassing beauty. As we sit before a café on the quai, we see a club of cyclists from Blois out for a holiday. We are rather inclined to laugh at the French cyclist. He is not too strongly knit nor too gracefully propor- tioned, and he accents his physical defects by the strangeness of his costumes. His sweater is collarless, shrunken and usually of a lurid hue. His nether limbs are either clad in breeches of huge dimensions, hanging in bags at the knees and held in place by cuffs buttoned outside the thin black stockings; or he goes to the other extreme and wears ‘‘knicks’’ that are tight enough to disclose all the deficiencies of his meager legs, whose calves are only partially hidden by socks which reach midway between the ankle and knee. But ’ of all ‘‘get-ups’’ that of the automobilist is the most remarkable. Imagine a yacht- ing cap, a pair of goggles so huge and black as to cover the nose as well as the eyes, a football sweater, a padded rubber coat thickly covered with dust, bicycle ‘‘knicks’? and golf stockings—all the sports in one—imagine this creature crouched over the levers and wheels of a great puffing, snorting monster, streaking along in a cloud of dust, leaving behind a smell of naphtha and petroleum, and you ee TREE aC —~ i
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CYCLING IN TOURAINE. de er * CHATEAU DE CHAUMONT. have a picture of the French automobile beautiful chateaux of Langeais, Azay-le- —the bane of the cyclist—the one blot on Rideau, Villandry, Luynes, and a bit of a the peaceful landscape. run to Rochecorbon. Within a day's ride from Tours are the The route which is indicated on the er eA O PE oe eer | } ’ : : a ? - 4 ae oe t f c > ’ “THE ROADS ARE LIKE BOULEVARDS,
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296 CYCLING IN TOURAINE.
° = +o & <— ee *S4y , ie -
CHATEAU DE CHENONCEAUX. map should not be omitted: to Chinon, across to Loches and back by way of Montbazon, for which two or three days should be allowed. Chinon is very gay on Thursday, market-day, when the peas- ants make an interesting picture, hooded in their quaint coifs, vending their farm pro- duce in the open square. And visit the ruins of the old chiteau. The situation is so picturesque, the view so captivating that you will be tempted to linger all day on the great bastions. We lingered ten. Loches is quite as interesting with its strange old abbey church, its chiteau and huge donjon—cruel souvenirs of Louis XI. Before entering France it is wise to join the Touring Club de France, whose central office is 10 Place de la Bourse, Paris. Bicycle duties at the frontier are thus avoided, and the maps and _ handbooks issued by this club are of incalculable service. The latter give, among other in- formation, the names of accredited re- pairers in every town and city of France, and the best hotels at which to put up. All charges are stated, and a discount of ten to fifteen per cent. is given to members-—a large saving in an extended tour. One’s daily expense at the average French provincial hotel may be roughly stated at between a dollar and a half and two dollars per day. Those who are good riders and have the time to spare, may make this trip in Touraine the first chapter of a longer one, continuing via Saumur, Angers, Vitré to Mont St. Michel and Brittany, and back to Paris by a northern route.
PR RNR
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- . a a Ng
MISS TEMPLE’S GAME.
By FRANCIS WILLING WHARTON. \ ISS TEMPLE sat in a deep lounging- LV chair on the wide piazza. She was thoroughly content; her beautiful figure in a graceful attitude of ease, her brown hair shining like old mahogany, her fresh white dress suited to her peculiar elegance. All these were items of no small impor- tance in the make-up of Miss Temple's frame of mind. There was no one near. How restful solitude is when it plays an overture to the coming of a very welcome visitor. <A servant appeared in the doorway that led through the drawing-room to this secluded part of the piazza, followed by a young man who advanced and took the hand she held out to him. She hardly rose, and sank back in her chair as he relinquished her fingers. Armour gave himself a sort of shake be fore he took the chair opposite hers. He had a large contract on hand, and it was not to be lost through any indolent sliding into the delightful situation that lay to the left of him. He tossed his stick and hat into a neighboring chair, and leaning back, surveyed the position; in other words, looked gravely into Miss Temple's eyes. They were not beautiful, but they could speak in a curious, persistent way that made its gradual impression. eyes are said to be like windows. That being the case, Miss Temple never to leave her window, but to sit with People’s seemed her arms on the sill, looking out at you. Most people apparently spend much of their time in some other part of the house. ‘‘Isn’t it nice we should know each other at last,’* she said, with soft delibera- tion. ‘*Mr. Unwin has talked so much of you.”’ ‘‘Dear me! That's bad.’’ Armour laughed. ‘*Oh, but he thinks wonderful things of you. Didn't you know it?’’ ‘Wonderful things’ can interpretations,’’ Armour ‘**When I hear a friend of mine ‘*Does he? have — several answered,
has been unwisely talking, I wonder which side of me he has got hold of, and whether it’s one of the presentable ones.*’ Her eyelids drooped. There was a touch of the Madonna in her face when you no longer saw the eyes. ‘‘Ah, you men,’’ she said—‘‘ you are so much more interesting than we women are. We have only one self, while you——’"’ She shrugged her shoulders. ‘**Only one self’? ’’ repeated Armour, inclining his closely cropped head, with its strong, blunt features, toward _ her. ‘*Why, my dear Miss Temple, you don’t mean that !’’ ‘Don’t I?’ She had a charming way of ceasing to oppose one, which didn’t detract from the weight of her opinion. Their eyes met, stayed together for a moment, and he had a sudden, deepened impression of several things—her delicate suggestion of reserve, her poised repose, almost an implied nobility of nature. Armour pulled himself up. ‘*No, I think not,’’ he said. ‘* Women have four selves to our one; the whole thing multiplied, gets into the twenties.’ She gave aspontaneous laugh. It flattered him, he felt that, and he attacked his busi- ness in hand with more directness than he would otherwise have used; he feared that delay was dangerous. ‘*Do you know,’’ he went on, ‘‘why I came here to-day ?’’ She considered a moment, leaning her head against the high back of her chair. ‘*T thought we had a nice talk at the dance the other night,’’ she said. ‘I thought you thought so, too!”’ She smiled with some assurance, and it helped him to proceed. ‘‘Did it never occur to you,’’ he re- turned, slowly, ‘‘that as Perry had talked of me, perhaps he had talked of you?’’ ‘*No,’’ Miss Temple answered. ‘*‘No? Well, he has, and I want to speak to you of him.’’ ‘Of Mr. Unwin?’’ *“Ves..”’ ‘But that I think is not necessary,’ 21
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298 MISS TEMPLE'S GAME. she began. But Armour interrupted her. ‘*Most necessary,’’ he said. ‘*Some Therefore I take on me the onus of it. Miss Temple, Unwin is breaking his heart and ruining his life in his hopeless love for you. I say hopeless because you would have accepted the poor devil long ago if you could—I one must—who else will? know that; but since you can’t, I’ve come to ask you to drive him away, to cut him short—to finish the whole thing up.’’ If he had not had a remarkable pair of gray eyes that expressed the masterful type to which he belonged, and with which Miss Temple had had few dealings, she would have got up and left him then and there; but, intrusive as she thought him, he was an intruder worth keeping, and she sacrificed something for that purpose. She did not think of Unwin at all as she looked straight into Armour’s face, her eyes growing darker and more brilliant. ‘‘T question your understanding Mr. Unwin or—myself,’’ she said, slowly. ‘‘I question your right in breaking into his confidence or mine.’’ If he could take this fence in safety Armour felt he would be in the hunt; it was a nasty jump. ‘**Right,’’’ he repeated. ‘‘I haven’t any Perry is of age, and I am not But. the world doesn’t run legal right. his keeper. altogether on a legal basis. I am _ the oldest friend he has; I wouldn’t stand by and see him drown—why should I let him kill himself another way?’’ It was a severe thrust. ‘‘ Kill himself?’’ she murmured. ‘*Yes, kill himself—drinking,’’ an- swered Armour, bluntly. She thought him brutal. Her eyelids quivered, her pallor grew perceptible; she looked past him out over the even, green- sward below. ‘It left him free to study the charm, the dignity, of her face. He felt a strong desire to take her hands in his, and say the rest of it with that much of under- standing between them; he leaned forward. ‘‘Didn’t you know,’’ he went on, ‘‘that when Unwin leaves you, desperate, he tries to forget it for an hour? Is it so unnatural? It is an idea that occurs to any man. But with Perry it is so bad. His——’’ He hesitated. She turned her eyes to his; the pupils dilated. = ‘‘His inheritance.’ Armour colored hotly. ‘‘Didn*t you know all this?’ It was more than he had bargained for, knifing his friend behind his back, even for his friend’s own good. ‘‘TIt never occurred to me that you had not been told or guessed what Perry's shipwreck would mean. He can’t stand being unhappy,’’ he went on; ‘‘cut it short and we'll haul him out of it some- how and start him fresh. If it goes on much longer, it will be too late.’’ The girl sat quite still. She had that perfect physical quiet which is in itself a charm; a delicate color had mounted to her cheek; it gave her all she needed to attract him. Her face expressed perso- nality, capability of ‘passion. What man asks that a woman’s features be regular? He watched her with steady eyes. She was thinking. If she threw Unwin over absolutely, as he asked, what did she lose? A remembrance of the young man’s wor- shiping tenderness rose like incense in the air; she felt herself float on it like a lily on the lake. It was hard to give it up. What did she gain? Already a drop of the fiery liquid that Armour’s passion would distil seemed to touch her lip. Could she buy one with the other? Perhaps—it was worth while. She fixed her eyes on Armour. ‘*Tell’ me,’’ she said, ‘‘what is it you want me to do?’’ Armour’s answer came firmly. ‘*To forbid him your presence, ’’ he said ; ‘*to refuse to see him.’’ In another woman he might have re- sented the recognition of her own power; in her it only emphasized the reality of it. She dropped her hands’ together in her lap and looked at them.” ‘‘I will do it,’’ she went on, ‘‘but I must see him and tell him myself.’’ Armour hesitated. ‘‘T must,’’ she repeated, rising. ‘‘I could let no one else say it to him. Tell him to come here now, when you go to the hotel, and I will see him. Send him to me at once. Don’t keep me waiting long, Mr. Armour.’’ In the last words she con- veyed to him that she suffered with in- — EET we. a
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ee tensity in Unwin’s pain. That she did not speak of her feeling made Armour value it ten times more highly. II. Unwin stood a moment before the door, then with a characteristic movement, leis- urely and loose-limbed, he swung on his heel, and rounding the corner of the porch, walked the length of it, and turning again, stood before the woman he loved. You sent for me,’’ he said. He looked very young, with a sort of adolescence of outline. His eyes only showed his twenty-six years in their ex- pression. She felt a pang as she Jooked at him and saw again the poetic beauty of his face, the athletic grace of his figure She gazed up into his eyes with much to be read in her own. Since she was to lose him, she would crowd these last moments with memories for him. ‘‘Yes, I sent for you. I have been think ing about you.’’? She motioned to a seat near hers. He drew it closer and took one of her hands in his. There was something in the action that marked it as habitual. ‘You have been thinking of me,’’ he said. ‘‘That is so much to the good. Only, were they kind thoughts?’’ ‘*Kind, yes,?’ she answered. ‘‘I was thinking how much you had given me!’’ He pressed his lips to her hand. ‘‘It’s not a tithe of what I have stored here for you,’’ he said. ‘‘Unworthy I am, but I do love you.”’ ‘‘T know it,’’ she resumed, a plaintive protest in her voice. ‘‘It’s that which makes it so hard, so very hard——"’ He looked at her, puzzled. ‘‘Tam going to send you from me*’—she looked deep into his eyes—‘‘ forever, dear, forever.”’ He tightened his hold on her fingers. His face grew white. ‘*T think not,’’ he said. ‘“‘T must,’’ she went on. ‘‘I have made up my mind, Perry, that it cannot go on You must cast me out of your life; since you will not begin it, I will.’ ‘*There is another way,’’ said Unwin. ‘‘Love me. Can’t you—can’t you love me?”’ She had put him oif so often, delayed, MISS TEMPLE’S GAME. lingered, hesitated; but this time it was to be final. The necessity was hateful to her, but Armour’s imperative eyes rose before her—Unwin must go. ‘*You have been so’’—-she hesitated— ‘‘there is no word for you, but, oh, what I relinquish! I know it all, but I cannot give you what you want; I must protect you from your own generosity. You would give me all and ask nothing rather than leave me?’’ He gratified the question in her eyes. ‘* All—always.’’ ‘*Dear,’’ she pressed his hand. ‘‘But I cannot take it; it isn’t right. I have decided this. We must say good-by.”’ ‘‘Tt is impossible.’’ He released her hands and leaned back, defiant, tender, so many things she liked, and yet it would be easiest for him that she should be firm —and then if Unwin lingered in his fare- wells, Armour’s short holiday would be over. ‘*I will not indulge myself at your ex- pense,’’ she answered. ‘‘I will not take one more day of your life.’’ He put out both hands. ‘‘What do you think will become of my days?’’ he said. ‘‘Since I have known you, days spent without you have changed their com- plexion and been nights! Do you think you will make a happy man of me by de- creeing that I shall never again see the sun?’’ The thrill of his words moved her. She felt that Armour was right; he was worth sparing She put out her hand and touched his. ‘*Time,’’ she answered. ‘‘It’s bitter medicine, but it cures most things, they say. I don’t doubt your love, but some day you will thank me for this. Now go, quickly. It isn’t easy for me either, but I mean all this. Don’t try to shake my res- olution. Go.”’ She rose, and he felt the finality of her decision. Her willingness to do without him penetrated him with the numbing effect of an anesthetic. How struggle against her? He rose also, straightened his shoulders and faced her. ‘‘T am not fit to try to win you,’’ he said. ‘‘Good-by. You have been very good to suffer me so long. He turned to leave her. He was suffer-
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ing with such intensity that it dulled him; he had no phrases of farewell. She missed them—then felt the power of his mute grief. She took a step toward him—was this all? Was it really the end? Was the perfume of his love no longer to scent the air about her? How tame, how tasteless, life would be! Perhaps, after all, she might one day love him. She had often half sent him from her; this too, might be undone. ‘*Perry’’—she breathed the word low. He turned, he caught her two hands, and holding them tightly against his breast, looked down into her eyes. She looked back at him, and knew how costly that one word had been. She bent her graceful head over his hands, speechless. The half-hope died in him. He drew a deep breath, kissed her hands, let them go and left her, walking quickly, but as though he groped his way; he brushed into every- thing he met until he reached the gate outside, then swinging it open, took his way blindly down the road. IIT. The evening was very still. The scent of the roses, the heliotrope, the mignonette, seemed to rise straight from the flowers, and lie upon the air. A June night calls for flowers as a July morning does for the sea; and here in the garden they grew thick and sweet. Miss Temple moved slowly down the path, the train of her dress thrown over her bare arm; her shoulders were pro- tected by the filmy folds of a scarf, so light, so delicate, it seemed like a mist only about her white throat. Armour saw her as he left the piazza, and felt a quickened pulse as he drew nearer to her. ‘*Perry went off on the boat to-night, ’’ he said. ‘*Devereux has persuaded him to go down to his place fora while. His wife is a charming creature,’’ he added—me- chanically, for his thoughts were not fol- lowing his words—‘‘and will be good to him.”’ Miss Temple turned from him and looked across the garden to where the woodlands lay a black mass in the moonlight. She remembered to have heard of Mrs. Dever- eux’s charm and goodness; the recollec- 300 MISS TEMPLE'S GAME, “ tion gave her a_ pang. She wondered whether Unwin liked those clever women. Armour took a step nearer. ‘*You have been wonderful,’’ he said. ‘‘T did not think any one could com- mand Unwin’s obedience like that, and yet leave no bitterness behind. He has been very steady, dear old chap! I think he’ll pull through, and it’s all your doing. I'd thank you, only I know you care——”"’ She turned to him. ‘*We won't talk of it. Iam glad you are satisfied, and now—come, I will show you my garden.”’ What seemed her delicate reserve, gave him an added belief in the depths beneath. He seldom expressed his own feelings; his idea of loving a man was to do some- thing for him. They moved slowly along the path. ‘*You like heliotrope?’’ Miss Temple stooped, and picking spray after spray of it with her slender fingers, held the bunch up to him. ‘‘I love it,’’ she added. ‘*It is very sweet,’’ he hesitated. ‘ ‘But, no, I like other things better, with less weight of perfume; it loads the air.’’ ‘*T like that.’’ Miss Temple slipped the flowers into a fold of her sash. ‘‘I have some tropical instincts. I should like to be overpowered with beauty and perfume.”’ He stared at her, and wondered whether wooing as overwhelming would suit this difficult beauty. He had forgotten that he did not think her beautiful. ‘*You see,’’ she went on, *‘most of the things one meets one can, in a_ sense, master; whea something gets too strong for me, I like it—it is not a sensation I am often indulged with.’’ It seemed an answer to his thoughts. Her speech was arrogant, but he felt the counterpart of her disdain in himself; he did not think she could master him; the words made him laugh inwardly. ‘‘You like it, do you?’’ he asked. ‘‘There we differ; I don’t. I was wres- tling the other day, and when my opponent got me under, I could have murdered some one; not him—my sense of fair play turned my wrath from him—but some one.”’ She smiled. ‘‘How like a man! But IT am a woman.”’ A woman! Did she think he was obliv- ious of that? 2 ee ———_———— nes -—
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‘You would like to deal with men,’’ he said, *‘and what you generally meet with is boy, or puppy, or colt. When it is man indeed, it is so hampered by our American ideas of chivalry and the respect due to women, that it lets you trample on it. She looked at him curiously. ‘‘It’sa little like that. *’ He laughed. I am only half-American—my mother; the other half British—my father. They take what they want—then, of course, they sometimes break what they want.’’ Miss Temple smiled. ‘*That is why Englishmen like American wives; we are ‘*T see a good deal because not easily broken.”’ Armour laughed again. ‘‘Yet you can hardly be said to bend easily.”’ She took a step forward and they walked to the foot of the garden. It ended ina wall covered with a vine; a little wooden seat stood against it. Miss Temple sank down on the bench, and resting her arms along the back of it, threw her head back and looked up at him. He half leaned, half sat, on a wooden table near by and looked down at her. He had ceased to criticize her—-the night, the moon, the flowers, they can do that much for a woman; a man takes her as she is. It struck him that it would be danger- ously easy to catch her up in his arms. Instead, he put his hands in his pockets. ‘‘T have a little boat,’’ began Miss Temple, slowly, ‘‘on the river at the foot of the lawn. Will you come to-morrow and row me for a while? The river is beautiful. I think perhaps you will like it, too. What do you think?”’ Armour stood looking at her, with his eyes shining in the moonlight, and there passed through his brain this sentence uttered by Unwin’s voice not a year before: ‘‘And I rowed her in that boat, Davy, until I believed, though we covered the same stretch of marsh river day after day, that I was slowly reaching a country where I should have eternal possession of her for- ever. And a light fell on Armour. What was this he was doing? To wrench something from his friend for whatever good reason, and then pursue it for himself—it had an ugly look. He drew a deep breath. MISS TEMPLE’S GAME. 30r She was still looking at him, waiting for his answer. ‘*You are very good,”’ wanted time to think it out. hard to give it all up, and yet ‘* *Good?’ *? she repeated. ‘‘Certainly I am, but I am not accustomed to—— he began. He It seemed ‘*Wait!’’ he interposed. ‘*You don’t understand. I am going away to-morrow —it is that which will prevent me——”"’ He stopped, two conflicting sensations fighting in him, and then his heart beat suddenly faster—it is always something to have a woman grow pale for you, but such a woman as this! It was true; Miss Temple felt the blood die from her cheek. ‘*Going to-morrow !"’ and the new warmth his eyes had kindled in her veins, should she never know it after to-night? Her eyes revealed her sense of defeat; she felt it, and dropped her look upon the moonlit path at her feet. 3ut to-night,’’ Armour began—‘‘to- night is not to-morrow. May I not be We may all be dead in Surely I happy to-night? a week, you and I and Unwin. may be happy to-night?”’ She raised her eyes. ‘‘Ah!’’ she said. He stared into them. mean?’ ‘*Mean?’’ she answered, slowly. ‘‘ Why, that your subtlety is not very great, Mr. Armour. So you thought you might be unfair to Perry if you stayed longer! That is amusing! But very amusing! She leaned toward him, her hands clasped in her lap, and laughed in his face. Armour’s revulsion of feeling was as rapid as her own. To be suspected of fatuity aroused a kind of rage in him. ‘‘Unfair to Perry? no,’’ he responded, speaking with deliberation. ‘*But to hang about and pay you attentions seemed a little like dancing on Perry's grave, some- how—a piece of sentimentalism, perhaps; you evidently think so.’ He scored in the last words, and for the ‘*What do you moment she detested him. ‘*‘We use a different language,’’ she said. ‘‘I should not call you sentimental, certainly. In fact, I think you exaggerated when you called yourself half-American. You are certainly a contrast to your friend, Mr. Unwin. When I write to him, I think
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302 MISS TEMPLE'S GAME. I shall tell him how foolish I was to send him away.’’ **You won't do that?*’ Armour spoke gently. She rose from the bench. ‘You think not?) You don't quite know me then,’’—Miss Temple drew her scarf about her—*‘for that is just what I shall do.”’ The dark color flooded Armour'’s face. ‘*T wouldn’t,’’ he responded. ‘‘It might bring him back, you know.”’ She laughed. ‘‘So it might, Mr. Ar- mour.”’ ‘You won’t do that, to break his heart over again, will you???’ With an immense effort he held down his personal wrath— for he loved Unwin. ‘‘You will never care for Perry; he is not the man for you. You won't undo your generous effort, surely ?’’ His voice was beseeching; it’ vibrated through her. But she knew now how barren a sacrifice he asked of her. To be mastered, yes—but mastered and then left in solitude? What woman would think that a clever bargain? No, she would not go booty less. ‘*You are very sure I cannot learn to care for Mr. Unwin,’’ she said. ‘‘T shall tell him how unsuitable a pair you think us. But perhaps youare wrong. It is worth trying once more.”’ Armour folded his arms. ‘‘If you write to Unwin to come back,’’ he said, *‘I warn you I will in some way destroy your in- fluence with him, if I have to lie and sin too it.”’ The girl grew white. ‘‘ Very well,’’ she replied. ‘‘If you like to blacken yourself and me, do so—and please leave me now.”’ He bowed in silence and left her stand- ing among the flowers. LY. It was a beautiful morning, early July, with a fresh, light breeze that made the hot sun tolerable. Miss Temple sat under the big chestnut trees at the back of the house, a sunshade tilted behind her, no hat on her glossy brown hair. She was not alone. A young man lay stretched in content at her feet. It was Unwin, lazy, graceful, picturesque. Her eyes appreciated each one of his qualities, and yet he lacked something. This, however, was not the moment to tell him so, and she looked down on him with a soft and friendly countenance. ‘*You look happy,’’ she said. ‘*For a very good reason,’’ answered Unwin, smiling up at her, and there was another contented silence. ‘*T had a letter from Armour,’’? Unwin spoke. ‘‘He is coming down here to-day, He sent you a message.”’ Miss Temple tilted her sunshade for- ward. ‘‘Will you get me one of those big palm-leaf fans from the porch, Perry?’’ she said. ‘‘It’s so hot.”’ The young man obeyed her, making a leisurely progress across the grass, and com- ing back, dropped again at her feet, and sitting there, began to fan her. ‘‘T’ll do it myself, thank you.’’ Miss Temple took the fan from him. ‘* What sort of a message did Mr. Armour send?”’ “*T couldn’t make it out quite.’? Un- win stretched himself at full length. ‘‘But it was something about his being an egre- gious ass and that you had been right in some controversy, and that New York heat had taken the starch out of him, and he was prepared to call in all his remarks and make a new set. What were you and Davy fighting about?”’ He looked at her with lazy curiosity, and at that moment they heard a voice. **Good-morning,’’ it said. Across the grass advanced Armour with his usual aplomb of manner, and beneath it the suggestion of tense force which was equally his characteristic. Miss Temple sat quite still, a look of suspended judgment on her face very vis- ible to Armour. Unwin held out his hand in affectionate greeting. ‘*‘How are you?’’ began Armour, taking his hand and looking across him to the girl. ‘‘I, have come to prostrate myself at the feet of your hostess. We quar- reled,’? he went on explanatorily to Un- win, ‘‘badly—or rather I did it badly, and she did it well—and I have come to retract everything and beg to be forgiven, and let bygones be bygones.”’ At the last words he turned again to the girl, who sat triumphant; for the first time in her life it seemed to her tasting the fruits of a real victory. ‘‘T went back to town, as you know,’’ -
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he added, ‘‘and now my holiday begins again. May I spend it in your society, O high and mighty lady?’’ Unwin couldn’t make it out. She looked sedately into Armour’s eyes. ‘*Perhaps,’’ she said. ‘‘But you will have to be granted fresh permission daily on the record of the day before.”’ She turned to Unwin with a low laugh. ‘*He is terribly British,’’ she added, ‘**and I require American manners. You will have to set him an example.’’ They all laughed. Armour cut on Un- win’s plan was difficult to imagine. He dropped down on the grass beside them and drew his cigarette case from his pocket. ‘Ts it permitted?’’ he asked. Miss Temple nodded. Vi it had been a very hot day. felt languid, and yet a feverish gaiety pervaded the Westbrook’s river party. It was a very hot evening; Every one It was an emo- tional, magnetic sort of night. Beneath a hot moon people are easily moved to laughter and to tears, to anger and to ten- derness. It is an excellent atmosphere in which to bring twenty young men and women together, if you wish to make trouble or enjoy seeing it made. 3ut Mrs. Westbrook, who was usually philosophic in Every one knew exactly what they wanted and looked murderous if it was interfered with; gracefully, and no She such matters, became nervous. people wouldn't shift Miss gave it up and waited for developments. As they did not go back for a while yet, pulled out her golf stocking and knitted in the moonlit dark. one would row Beach home. she Miss Temple was wandering in a sort of dream ; that this to Armour, who walked her through the cleared strip of woodland. very pale; the heat had brought a glitter to her dark eyes, a” languid to movements, but there was no trace of color in her face. not was apparent beside She was grace her The corn-colored folds of the thin fabric in which she was dressed clung to her figure; a wide hat tipped over her eves deprived her of the aloofness her white brow usually gave her. Decidedly she looked easy to be reached and responsive. MISS TEMPLE’S GAME. Armour bit hard on his cigar as he noticed it. ‘*‘What a night for a he said, as they emerged from the trees by the riverside—‘‘to get in it, stay in it, be of it! But it isn’t a time for mortals; one feels troubled by one’s shell.*’ ‘*T know.’’ She looked up at him. ‘‘It water creature, ’’ would be heaven to float in the stream. 3oats seem so unnecessary. ”’ ‘Will you swim back with me?’’ Ar- mour laughed. ‘*Do we land at your lawn? I am sure one could float forever to-night and the current would take us down.”* ‘*Tt sounds delicious !’’ Miss Temple smiled, and Armour felt head be not so cool as he could have wished. ‘*Well,’’ he said, ‘tI am to row you, at any rate, and what are we waiting for?’’ Miss Temple stood before him, her hands ‘*But I don’t with his to go lightly clasped. you, your know,’’ she said. ‘‘Don’t go with me?’’ repeated Armour. ‘Of course you go with me—you must.”’ She felt a thrill of incredible joy. ‘*But I can’t,’’ went promised Mr. Unwin days ago. I can’t—at least——’’ She hesitated. Armour stared past her at the moon. ‘*It is too bad,’’ he said. 8 | You see she on. ‘*‘T have been counting on this all the evening. I thought you understood. Go home with any one else! That I won’t do. It’s too bad.’’ ever, I suppose you must do as you like; and he He paused, then added, ‘‘How- you have the right to choose,”’ turned to walk back to the others. ‘‘Have I??? Miss Temple moved a step toward him. ‘*Do you think I Then I will. JI don’t often want do thines—I do want this. I will tell Mr. he will row some one else. Come, have? to Unwin; we will find him.’’ Armour looked at her with a curious ex- pression. ‘*But you ‘*And I am you. Are you promised him,*’ he said. going to throw him over for glad?’’ ‘*Yes,’’ he answered, ‘‘I am glad ;*’ Her voice shook. and in silence they walked toward the others. ‘*T see him,”*’ ‘*T will go and tell him,’’ and approached Unwin, and stopped before him. ‘‘T want to speak to you,’’ she ‘‘walk a little way with me,’’ and they said the girl. leaving Armour, she said ;
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304 MISS TEMPLE’S GAME. moved through the trees to the bank. ‘*Perry,’’ she began, ‘‘whom will you row? Iam going with Mr. Armour. You don’t care, do you? I said Unwin stopped, and catching her para- sol, stopped her too. ‘*You talk very wildly,’’ he interrupted, lightly. ‘‘I have your promise of days’ standing. Armour can shift for himself. Have you not spent time enough with him? Give you up? Not a bit of it.”’ She looked up at him. ‘‘But he will be here only for a day or two longer,’’ she began, persuasively, ‘*and——’’ ‘*T have to go very soon, too.”’ His emphatic voice brought a flush of anger to her cheek. She wanted to go with Armour, as she had never wanted any- thing before in her life. She had no time to combat her feeling; she drifted with it. **But ** she began again. # ‘‘There are no buts,’’ interrupted Un- win. ‘‘I have looked forward to this night for days; it is to be one of my hours in heaven.’’ ‘*Don’t be sure of that.’’ Her voice cut him. ‘‘You don’t always find my com- pany heaven, and I—I want to go with Mr. Armour.’’ ‘*You want to go with Armour?’’ re- peated Unwin. ‘‘But I don’t understand. Does that mean you really don’t want to » with me?”’ She was silent. ‘* Dearest, ’’ continued Unwin, ‘‘ does that mean you don’t want to go with me?’’ og s¢ Again she was silent. ‘*You can’t mean that, surely,’” went on the young man. ‘‘You wouldn’t have called me back if you hadn’t meant to be good to me—not to take me altogether, darling,’’? he added quickly, in answer to a movement on her part, ‘‘but to make me happy; wasn’t that it? To let me be happy for a while at least? This wouldn't be making me happy—did you think it? Why, I should have an evening in the galleys! To give you up, to have another man rowing you for an hour in the moon- light in my place!’’ ‘*You make too much of it,’’ interrupted Miss Temple. ‘‘Don’t be absurd, Perry.’’ A wave of weariness swept over her. Was she to hear his many-times repeated suit again, in exchange for the mystery, the magic, of exploring another man’s heart, and that other man one to whom she felt she might surrender anything? She felt again a rush of bated anger; it was too much for her control. ‘‘T want to go with David Armour; I think that ought to settle it.’’ She looked straight into his eyes. ‘*But you promised me.’’? Unwin stared down into those glittering wells. ‘*And when I tell you it will mean misery for me —surely, dearest, you didn’t bring me back to break my heart?”’ So he would keep her to it! She felt a savage instinct; the night had darkened. She shrugged her shoulders. ‘‘T brought you back,’’ she said, ‘‘be- cause I was angry with Mr. Armour. That was why I brought you back.”’ The young man looked like a thing of marble in the moonlight, possessed of beauty but no life. His lips moved. ‘‘After our parting, you wrote to me to come to you because you had quarreled with another man?”’ Miss Temple turned from him. ‘‘I had much better have left you where you were, ’’ she said. Unwin dropped his arms at his sides with a gesture difficult to read. ‘*T will send him to you,’’ he said, and Miss Temple stood alone. She sat down on the edge of a boat, and waited. Unwin crossed the strip of sandy grass, and amid the crowd of talking people who had gathered, found Armour standing apart, smoking. He went up to him. ‘*Miss Temple wants you to row her,’’ he said; ‘‘she is at the boats,’’ and he turned away. Armour caught his arm. 3ut you,’’ he said; ‘‘where do you come in on this?"’ ‘*Come in? I go out.’’ Unwin’s face expressed nothing. ‘‘Unwin,’’ Armour responded, ‘‘I’d let every woman in the world go to the devil before I'd have them come between you and me. You know that.’ His voice carried conviction of the truth of what he said. Unwin laid his hands on the other man’s arms. ‘‘Go ahead,’’ he said; ‘‘you are all right. But as for me, I'm done for.”’ Armour’s eyes filled with an expression Pil
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—— of affection few people ever saw. ‘‘Not while I am alive,’’ he answered; and added: ‘*Go home, Perry, and to-morrow I will leave this place with you. We will work it out all right. You won’t—won't ——'’ He hesitated. ‘‘T won't jump into the river.’’ The moonlight fell full on Unwin’s face; the scorn in his voice matched what Armour saw there. ‘*‘Not for a woman who breaks and mends me, to use as a puppet in her comedy with another man.”’ Armour’s eyes blazed. ‘*Yes, my dear fellow,’’ Unwin went on, ‘‘I came back the other day to be played against you—to anger you, I think she said.*’ IIe laughed; people laugh at strange times. ‘*She told you that?”’ ‘*She did.”’ Armour turned from him, and knocked the ashes out of his pipe against a tree. His hand shook. ‘‘T’ll row Miss Temple home,’’ he said, quietly, ‘‘and you wait for me when you get to the hotel. I'll come as soon as I can. Their place is farther than the other landing, but I won't be far behind you,’’ and he walked off to the boats. Unwin lounged up to Mrs. Westbrook. ‘*May I row Miss Beach?’’ he said. Ilis hostess stared at him. ‘I'd like to. She will let me enjoy the moon; she doesn’t talk.”’ He laughed. ‘‘Where is she?’’ Mrs. West- brook drew a breath of satisfaction. ‘‘Over there,’’? she answered, pointing to a disconsolate figure, and the party was made up. The river was glassily smooth; not a ripple of wind stirred the surface. Armour had started before the others; he rowed with an even, steady stroke that carried them swiftly along, the light dip of the oars keeping a rhythm. Miss Temple leaned back on the cushions in the stern. ‘*Isn’t it marvelous what a night can do to one?’’ said Armour. ‘‘I feel quite mad to-night—unbalanced, irresponsible. One never does feel sane in moonlight, do you think?”’ Miss Temple laughed. ‘*Quite sane, thank you,’’ she = an- swered, ‘‘only rather—well—lifted up, not MISS TEMPLE'S GAME. 395 quite er—well, it’s difficult to describe.’’ ‘*That’s it exactly,’’ responded Armour, coolly—*‘just mad !’’ And they both laughed. ‘*The truth is,’’ he began again, ‘‘life is a pretty flat business most of the time. One keeps along in a rut; one works all day, one sleeps all night, and when you find yourself for a change living vividly at odd hours, it does something to you; then add moonlight, and you are done—at least I am.’’ ‘* ‘Done’ is not the word, *’ remarked Miss Temple, arching her delicate brows, and they laughed again; it was so easy to laugh. They were silent. He felt. her expec- tancy, and though he despised her in every revelation of her relation to Unwin, her charm triumphed, and he felt how easy it would be to make love to her, how almost impossible it seemed not to do so. His sense of fair play told him that while he was fighting Unwin’s battle, he might use any means to win; but that once the scales had fallen from Unwin’s eyes, he owed her what he owed any other woman; and what woman would not be insulted by love- making from a man who in his _ heart scorned her. He steadied himself and began to talk of a race he had rowed years before. She was very much interested, buf how hard it was to keep at it! He glanced over his shoulder—how long would it take him to get her home? He began about his college life. He was very amusing; they laughed. How sweet her laugh sounded! He spun out his tale, then changed to accounts of boating in England. It was all apropos, sounded very natural, very easy. Armour felt as though his eloquence had the power of a locomotive—all very well while he kept it on the right track; if it broke loose, what a smash-up there would be! But time went on. Miss Temple listened, laughed, put in a word, a smile, a look. She leaned forward and trailed her fingers in the water, and felt—‘* Will he never stop! —will he never begin!’’ And suddenly there was something black in the water near them; they had reached the little wharf at the foot of her lawn—the row was over. ‘*Our row is done,** she said, and for
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306 MISS TEMPLE'S GAME. the life of her could not keep out of her voice a ring that reached him. Armour shipped his oars, and stepping out, held out his hand. ‘*T may see you to the house, however, *’ he added lightly, and they crossed the lawn together. ‘‘Thank you so much for bringing me home,”*’ the girl began, as they reached the steps; her voice shook, and turning to him, she held out her hand. A thousand things rose on her lips and died unspoken. The misery that had fallen on her seemed like some _ terrible disease, and clogged her tongue. ‘It was good of me, wasn't it?’’ said Armour, ‘‘to sit within a yard of you and chatter that stuff?—and when you hear that this is good-by, you will see that I am something of a soldier, by the gods!"’ ‘*T don’t understand.’* She was looking at him with wide eyes. ‘‘T go to-morrow,’’ went on Armour, ‘*and will say good-by now.”’ He had taken her hand; he now relin- quished it. Miss Temple held it out again. ‘*You won’t go like that,’’ she said. ‘‘T feel as though something had hap- pened. Have we quarieled? I thought we were—good friends.*’ Armour folded his arms. 5 ‘*Good friends!’ he répeated. ‘‘We are enemies! Have we ever been anything else? I came back to show Unwin that we were all of us so many counters in your game, he among the rest; that you would throw him down to take me up, as you would stake me to win some other later. He sees it now, and God _ be thanked! You have played him once too often—the game is done.’ There was a long silence. ‘‘T see.’’ The words were breathed softly from the girl's lips; he took a step nearer to catch them. ‘‘And you and I have had our game too, haven’t we? And you have won; it isn’t easy to lose when you play with marked cards.”’ Armour looked down at her. ‘*That’s fair,’’ he answered through his teeth. ‘‘I did lie. I told you I should. I'd stack cards and keep a knife in my belt if I found my friend in the hands of unscrupulous men.”’ A wave of crimson flooded her face; tears started to her eyes. He stood very near her. ‘*T have won,’’ he said; ‘‘the fight is to me, but’’—he hesitated—‘'‘if it wasn’t for Unwin, I am mad enough to forget that you are a heartless woman and _ stay here like a fool at your feet.” There was a moment’s pause; his eyes were fixed on her downcast lids. ‘‘So you see,’ he added, slowly, ‘‘I am not such a victor after all.’’ There was another instant of silence, then Armour turned slowly on his heel— the girl raised her head, and taking the one step needful, laid her fingers on his arm. ‘*Are you going?’’ she whispered. He turned, her touch still upon his sleeve. ‘*Don'’t go,’’ she went on. ‘‘Don‘t go ss —without He caught her hand and pressed it pain- fully. ‘*Without paying you down every ounce of your tribute,’’ he answered, savagely ; ‘without telling you how my arms have ached to clasp you in them? Is that what you want? It is yours. You are a woman who must know how deep the gashes are. Be assured both Unwin and I will bleed. But we shall get well of it, we shall be whole and sound again, light-hearted as we were.’ Miss Temple pressed the hand he released against her side. ‘‘T see,’’? she said; ‘‘and I—I don’t come into it, do I? I am made of wood or stone or——’’ ‘*Not a bit,’’ cried the young man; ‘*flesh and blood of the most lovely, only they didn’t give you a heart, that’s all. Good-night.’’ He turned to go, and added over his shoulder, ‘‘I wish they had. Good-night.”’ And Miss Temple stood motionless while he crossed the grass and opened the gate: then slipping across the lawn, she parted the thicket of the hedge and watched him disappear down the road with a long, quick step. She turned then, and running lightly back to the house, slid in the door, reached her room and, locking the door, threw herself in her long, trailing muslin upon the bed. Miss Temple had a white night. ene: neem reeset emanates lie lieereneneentitarientarenstemees — -
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rr are ——— Se By RICHARD T. HE subject of reform in taxation is one upon which much has been writ- ten, and one which could not be exhausted in a volume of ordinary size. It is con- sequently possible in a single article to make only a few suggestions concerning lines along which reforms must move. Naturally, reform must have a close rela- tion to the faults which have been pointed out. One obstacle in the way of reform is the real or feigned pessimism concerning its possibility. This couplet is frequently quoted : ‘“ Whoever hopes a faultless tax to see, Hopes what ne’er was, is not, and ne'er shall be.” It is not true that we have made no progress, even in the United States, where the movement in the direction of improved taxation has been less marked than in some other great civilized countries. The financiering of the recent Spanish war, however, is most encouraging when con- trasted with the financiering of our civil war, and shows that nations do learn lessons from experience. When we turn to England and Germany, we find, with all the faults which still exist, a very sub- stantial improvement in taxation during the past generation, and also a hopeful feeling concerning the possibility of further improvement, as so much has already been achieved. Doubtless, perfection here, as elsewhere in human affairs, is not some- thing which human nature can compass, but continuous progress is possible if we only choose to pay the price for it, namely, conscientious effort. When we turn to the national govern- ment, we find three great needs. We need flexibility, making it possible to raise and lower public revenues in accordance with the exigencies of the situation. We need, in the second place, what is closely con- nected with the foregoing, although not quite identical, machinery which will en- able us in all circumstances to avail our- selves of our national resources. We need, in the third place, a tax system which shall compel wealth to bear its due share of the public burdens. QUESTIONS OF THE DAY: REFORMS IN TAXATION. Ezy, Ps.D., LI,.D. Perhaps it will be well to say a few words first about the second requirement, namely, reforms to render available the national resources. During our history our one great dependence for national rev- enue has been the taxation of imported commodities. It has, however, frequently happened that this taxation has yielded the largest revenues when the smallest sums were needed, and has fallen off most dis- astrously in time of war when the demand for revenues was largest aud most press- ing. The result during our civil war was a needlessly large debt and the issue of paper money, which soon became depre- ciated and thereby added vastly to all war expendituies, subsequently to be paid in appreciated money. The financiering of our civil war, even if it was the best possi- ble under the circumstances, was extremely bad, tending to the promotion of gross inequalities in wealth distribution. If the financiering was really the best possible under the circumstances, it is a warning against these circumstances. We have now, in our internal revenue taxation, additional machinery for rendering available our na- tional resources; but as has been frequently pointed out, the internal revenue taxes, like the customs duties, are for the most part regressive in character, and do not reach the wealth of the country in anything like its capacity to bear public burdens. It is wise to provide some machinery whereby we can in time of need avail ourselves of existing resources, that we may avoid the disaster of public debt, and also that disas- ter which has increased so enormously our public debt but which in itself has pro- duced and is producing still more dire con- sequences, namely, a depreciated currency. The income tax suggests itself as one means for rounding out our national system of taxation, inasmuch as this tax would provide the needed flexible ele- ment, would render available to a greater extent our national resources, and would secure taxation more nearly in_ propor- tion to capacity; but it seems that this tax is incompatible with our Constitution and it is difficult to see what can take its place, although the ends of the income tax
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308 are to some extent attained by inheritance taxation, which has been sustained as constitutional by the Supreme Court of the United States. One suggestion, how- ever, may be thrown out, and that is the taxation of interstate commerce in its vari- ous forms. At the present time a consid- erable amount of property escapes taxation because it is engaged in interstate com- merce. This is the case, for example, with the sleeping-car companies, which pay rel- atively small taxes. The amount of prop- erty engaged in interstate commerce is enormous. Supplementing the state tax on similar property, it could not escape by alleging now that it is engaged in inter- state commerce, now that it is_ state property. Toa limited extent this taxa- tion might furnish a flexible element. It could certainly increase the availability of our resources, and the bulk of such property being owned by persons of means, such taxation would be a movement in the direc- tion of justice. When we turn to state and local taxa- tion, one of the first requisites of reform is the separation of the sources of state rev- enues from those of local revenues. There are certain sources of revenue which are peculiarly adapted for local use, while there are others which are better adapted for utilization by the central state govern- ments. -Real estate is peculiarly well fitted to serve as a source of local revenue, whereas inequality, injustice and friction result from an attempt to tax it for state purposes. If the state taxes real estate, it must rely te a large extent upon local valuations, and then each locality invari- ably attempts to place upon it a low valua- tion, in order that it may not bear any heavier general taxation than is necessary. The result is that in some parts of a state in which real estate is taxed for general purposes it will be assessed at twice as high a valuation as in other parts, and no method has ever been devised to obviate this injustice. If, however, real estate is taxed only for iocal purposes, it is possible to organize a board of assessors who shall act together, and cover, if need be, even an entire county. Uniformity can thus be secured, and even if property is assessed at a low valuation the tax rate must simply be correspondingly higher. The writer REFORMS IN TAXATION. has in his ‘‘Taxation in American States and Cities’’ elaborated a plan for local assessments, and a plan similar to the one outlined appears to have been adopted in the city of Toronto, and to produce on the whole very satisfactory results. On the other hand, corporations doing a large business throughout the state are too powerful to be handled by local political units. They may well be handed over to the state for assessment and taxation, even if it should be necessary for the state to turn back a portion of the revenue derived from these corporations to the local polit- ical units. A board of assessors could be appointed to assess such property through- out the entire state. Various methods have been proposed for the taxation of railways, express companies and similar businesses by the state. Possibly the method which has been adopted in Connecticut is the best available. According to that method the property is assessed at its full value, which, of course, can be determined by adding together the full value of all stocks and all bonds, and then taking that pro- portion of the value of the entire railway, telegraph line, et cetera, which is repre- sented by its length of line within the state. If one-third of the length of the line lies in Indiana, of course one-third of the value belongs there. Naturally a dis- tinction must be made between main lines and local branches, et cetera, but methods have been devised for ascertaining approxi- mately what portion of the entire value of the railway belongs to each state. Wis- consin secures not altogether unsatisfactory results by the taxation of gross revenues, but there are difficulties in the way of the general adoption of this system, and under existing circumstances the Connecticut sys- tem seems to be better. In the case of some corporations, if property values cannot be ascertained, taxation in proportion to rev- enue may be necessary. So far as local municipal monopolies are concerned, the problem is to take from them, as nearly as may be, that portion of their revenues which exceeds a fair return to capital and labor. If vested interests already firmly established make this im- possible, the problem is to approximate as nearly this end as possible. The ideal method is that of public ownership and
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operation, which at once turns the entire surplus into the public treasury, although then the question has to be raised whether it is better to operate such an enterprise at cost, or so that it may yield a revenue to be used for public purposes. If the rights of special taxation do not exist, then it would seem that there is nothing left ex- cept to tax these monopolies at their full value, to be obtained, as in the case of the steam railways, by adding together the market value of all stocks and all bonds. The city of Baltimore has a method which, although not ideal, brings in considerable revenue for municipal purposes. It charges nine per cent of gross revenues for the privilege of operating street-car lines, and in addition taxes the property, the nine per cent being regarded not as a tax, but as a pay- ment for the privilege of using the streets. The income tax, although it has been frequently tried, has never worked very well in any one of our commonwealths, and it appears with us to be better adapted for national purposes than for use by the state. It possible, however, that should rational ideas concerning the true nature of taxation come to prevail, a plan for income tax could be worked out which would be helpful in the elabo- ration of a state system. That, however, is too large a subject for discussion at the present time and place. So far as the taxation of personal prop- erty is concerned, it seems to the present is a state writer that there is a middle ground between those extremists who would ad- here to the present system and those who would abolish all such taxation. tax all visible, tangible property and all corporations upon their full value as deter- mined by stocks and bonds, we have al- ready reached a great proportion of the personal property. If we tax real estate at its full value, why should we tax the mortgage separately, since it does not rep- resent a distinct value? The writer has given this subject of mortgage taxation consideration for years and has attempted to place a just value upon the experience of various states, and he has reached the con- clusion that an exemption of mortgages from taxation is beneficial to the borrower and probably does not confer a very large disproportion of advantage on the lender, REFORMS [IN TAXATION. If we. there appearing to be a strong tend- ency to increase the rate of interest in pro- portion to the tax upon mortgages wherever mortgages are really and not merely nom- inally taxed. Similarly, when railways are fully taxed according to their true value, the taxation of stocks and bonds in addition would mean simply a taxation of the same property twice. It is true that there must still remain cer- tain miscellaneous forms of personal prop- erty untaxed, but in lieu of taxation of these a small taxation upon the rental value of buildings might be suggested, to- gether with a one per cent tax upon the in- heritance of personal estates, using the word inheritance, of course, in its broadest sense. It may be suggested that a broad line should be drawn corporations which have special privileges and are able to realize surplus value above normal re- turns, and those which have no special privileges and are exposed to the full force of competition. The latter is the case with manufacturing and mercantile corporations, and the taxation upon these and upon com- petitive businesses generally must be care- fully measured in order not to place a dis- proportionate burden upon competitive businesses in one state as compared with the burdens which they bear elsewhere. This is a suggestion which is important, as there is frequently a tendency to treat a corporation simply as a corporation, and to overlook the essential differences between corporations. The mere fact that a busi- ness is organized as a corporation does not of necessity confer upon it any special capacity to bear taxes. Finally, attention may be called to the growing use throughout the civilized world of taxes upon inheritances and successions. If a proper minimum is exempted from taxation, a minimum sufficient to yield a livelihood in case of succession within the family, say, twelve thousand dollars, and a much smaller minimum for collateral in- heritances—and if the tax is slightly pro- gressive in two directions, namely, as the relationship of those succeeding to the property becomes more distant, and as the in size, such taxation between property increases accords with the generally recognized prin- ciples of justice, and is capable of yielding large revenues. 309
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rartestimeeartegeeaies A ay He Pa are ne FIRST ME =the =MOON- By HG Wells ~ Drawn by E. Hering. X. LOST MEN IN THE MOON. HENI saw him. He was laughing and gesticulating to attract my attention. He was on a bare patch of rock twenty or thirty yards away. I could not hear his voice, but ‘‘Jump!’’ said his gestures. I hesitated; the distance seemed enormous. Yet I reflected that surely I must be able to clear a greater distance than Cavor. I made a step back, gathered myself together, and leaped with all my might. I seemed to shoot right up in the air as though I should never come down. It was horrible, and delightful, and as wild as a nightmare, to go flying off in this fashion. I realized that my leap had been altogether too violent. I flew clean over Cavor’s head, and beheld a spiky confusion in a gully spreading to meet my fall. I put out my hands and straightened my legs. I hit a huge fungoid bulk that burst all about me, scattering a mass of orange spores in every direction, and covering me with orange powder. I rolled over, splut- tering, and came to rest aaiieiash with breathless laughter. I became aware of Cavor's little round face peering over a bristling hedge. He shouted some faded inquiry. ‘‘Eh?’’ | tried to shout but could not do so for want of breath. He made his way toward me, coming gingerly among the bushes. ‘We've got to be careful,’’ he said. ‘‘This moon has no discipline. She'll let us smash ourselves.’ He helped me to my feet. ‘‘You ex- erted yourself too much,’’ he said, dabbing at the yellow stuff with his hand to remove it from my garments. I stood passive and panting, allowing him to beat off the jelly from my knees and elbows and lecture me upon my mis fortunes. ‘‘We don’t quite allow for the gravitation. Our muscles are scarcely edu- cated yet. We must practise a little— when you have got your breath.’ I pulled two or three little thorns out of my hand and sat for a time on a boulder of rock. My muscles were quivering, and I had that feeling of personal disillusion- ment that comes at the first fall to the learner of cycling on earth. It suddenly occurred to Cavor that the cold air in the gully, after the brightness of the sun, might give me a fever, So we
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h EE 7HE FIRS1T MEN IN THE MOON. clambered back into the sunlight. We found that, beyond a few abrasions, I had received no injuries from my tumble, and at Cavor’s suggestion we were presently looking round for some safe and easy land- ing-place for my next leap. We chose a rocky slab some ten yards off, separated from us by a little thicket of olive-green spikes ‘‘Imagine it there!’’ was assuming the airs of a trainer, and he pointed to a spot about four feet from my toes. This leap I managed without diffi- culty, and I must confess I found a certain satisfaction in Cavor’s falling short by a foot or so and tasting the spikes of the scrub. ‘‘One has to be careful, you see, he said, pulling out his thorns, and with that he ceased to be my mentor and became said Cavor, who my fellow-learner in the art of lunar loco motion We chose a still easier jump and did it without difficulty, and then leaped back again and to and fro several times, accus- toming our muscles to the new standard. I could never have believed, had I not experienced it, how rapid that adaptation would be. In a very little time indeed, certainly after fewer than thirty leaps, we could judge the effort necessary for a dis- tance with almost terrestrial assurance. And all this time the lunar plants were growing around us, higher and denser and more entangled, every moment thicker and taller—spiked plants, green cactus masses, fungi, fleshy and lichenous things, strangest radiate and sinuous shapes. But we were so intent upon our Jeaping that for a time we gave no heed to their unfaltering ex- pansion. An extraordinary elation had taken pos- Partly I think it was our sense of release from the confinement of the sphere; mainly, however, the thin sweet- ness of the air, which I am certain con- session of us. tained a much larger proportion of oxygen than our terrestrial atmosphere. In spite of the strange quality of all about us, I felt as adventurous and experimental as a cockney would, placed for the first time among mountains; and I do not think it occurred to either of us, face to face though we were with the Unknown, to be very greatly afraid. We were bitten by a spirit of enterprise. We selected a lichenous kopje perhaps some fifteen yards away, and landed neatly on its summit one after the other. ‘*Good!’’ we cried to each other, ‘‘good !’’ and Cavor made three steps and went off to a tempting slope of snow some twenty yards and more beyond. I stood for a mo- ment struck by the grotesque effect of his soaring figure—his dirty cricket-cap and spiky hair, his little round body, his arms and his knickerbockered legs tucked up tightly—against the weird spaciousness of the lunar scene. A gust of laughter seized me and then I stepped off to follow. Plump! I dropped beside him. We made a few Gargantuan strides, leaped three or four times more, and sat down at last in a lichenous hollow. Our lungs were painful. We sat holding our sides and recovering our breath, looking appreciation at one another. Cavor panted something about ‘‘amazing sensations.”’ And then came a thought into my head. For the moment it did not seem a_ partic- ularly appalling thought, simply a natural question arising out of the situation. ‘*By the way,’’ I said, ‘‘where exactly is the sphere?’’ Cavor looked at me. ‘‘Eh?”’ The full meaning of what we were say- ing struck me sharply. ‘*Cavor!’* I cried, laying a hand on his arm, ‘‘where is the sphere?’’ His face caught something of my dismay. He stood up and stared about him at the scrub that fenced us in and rose about us, straining upward in a passion of growth. He put a dubious hand to his lips. He spoke with a sudden lack of assurance. ‘‘T think,’’ he said slowly, ‘‘we left it somewhere about there.’’ He pointed a hesitating finger that wavered in an are. ‘‘I’m not sure.’’ His look of consterna- tion deepened. ‘*Anyhow,”’ he said, with his eyes on me, ‘‘it can’t be far.”’ We had both stood up. We made broken, unmeaning ejaculations; our eyes sought in the twining, thickening jungle round about us. All about us on the sunlit slopes frothed and swayed the darting, spiky shrubs, the swelling cactus, the creeping lichens, and wherever the shade remained, the shrinking snow-drifts lingered. North, south, east and west spread an identical monotony of
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| | | tate ere tener ' ft ‘ ii | we tN unfamiliar forms. And somewhere buried already among this tangled confusion was our sphere, our home, our only provision, our only hope of escape from this fantastic wilderness of ephemeral growths into which we had come. ‘*‘T think, after all,’’ he said, pointing suddenly, ‘‘it might be over there.’ ‘‘No,’’? I said. ‘‘We have turned ina curve. See! here is the mark of my heels. It’s clear the thing must be more to the eastward, much more. No—the sphere must be over there.”’ ‘*T think,’’ said Cavor, ‘‘I kept the sun upon my right all the time.’’ ‘‘Every leap it seems to me,*’ I said, ‘‘my shadow flew before me.”’ We stared into one another's eyes. The area of the crater had become enormously vast, the growing thickets already impen- etrably dense. ‘‘Good heavens! What fools we have been!’ ‘It’s evident that we must find it again,’’ said Cavor, ‘‘and that soon. The sun grows stronger. We should be faint- ing with the heat already if it wasn’t so dry. And I’m hungry.”’ I stared at him. I had not suspected this aspect of the matter before. But it came to me at once—a positive craving. ‘*Yes,’’ I said, with emphasis. ‘‘I am hungry, too.’’ He stood up with a look of active reso- lution. ‘*Certainly we must find the sphere.’ As calmly as possible we surveyed the interminable reefs and thickets that formed the floor of the crater, each of us weighing in silence the chances of our finding the sphere before we were overtaken by heat and hunger. ‘*Tt can’t be fifty yards from here,’’ said Cavor, with indecisive gestures. ‘‘The only thing is to beat round about until we come upon it.’’ ‘*That is all we can do,’’ I said, without any alacrity to begin our hunt. ‘‘I wish this confounded spike bush did not grow so fast !”’ ‘‘That’s just it,’’ said Cavor. ‘‘But it was lying on a bank of snow.”’ I stared about me in the vain hope of recognizing some knoll or shrub that had been near the sphere. But everywhere THE FIRST MEN IN THE MOON. was a confused sameness, everywhere the aspiring bushes, the distending fungi, the dwindling snow-banks, steadily and_ in- evitably changed. The sun scorched and stung, the faintness of an unaccountable hunger mingled with our infinite per- plexity. And even as we stood there, confused and lost amidst unprecedented things, we became aware for the first time of a sound upon the moon other than the stir of the growing plants, the faint sigh- ing of the wind, or those that we ourselves had made. Boom! Boom! Boom! It came from beneath our feet, a sound in the earth. We seemed to hear it with our feet as much as with our ears. Its dull resonance was muffled by distance, thick with the quality of intervening sub- stance. No sound that I can imagine could have astonished us more or have changed more completely the quality of things about us. For this sound, rich, slow and deliberate, seemed to us as though it could be nothing but the striking of some gi- gantic buried clock. Boom! Boom! Boom! Sound suggestive of still cloisters, of sleepless nights in crowded cities, of vigils and the awaited hour, of all that is orderly and methodical in life, booming out preg- nant and mysterious in this fantastic desert ! To the eye everything was unchanged; the desolation of bushes and cacti waving silently in the wind, stretched unbroken to the distant cliffs; the still, dark sky was empty overhead, and the hot sun hung and burned. And over it all, a warning, a threat, throbbed this enigma of sound. Boom! Boom! Boom! We questioned one another in faint and faded voices. ‘‘A clock?”’ ‘*Like a clock !”’ ‘*What is it?’’ ‘*What can it be?”’ ‘*Count,’’ was Cavor’s belated sugges- tion, and at that word the striking ceased. The silence, the rhythmic disappointment of the silence, came as a fresh shock. For a moment one could doubt whether one had ever heard a sound. Or whether it might not still be going on? Had I indeed heard a sound? I felt the pressure of Cavor'’s hand upon my arm. He spoke in an undertone, as a
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THE FIRS1 MEN IN THE MOON. ““T BECAME AWARE OF CAVOR'S LITTLE ROUND FACE PEERING OVER A BRISTLING HEDGE.” 22
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314 though he feared to wake some sleeping thing. ‘‘Let us keep together,’’ he whis- pered, ‘‘and look for the sphere. We must get back to the sphere. This is beyond our understanding. ”’ ‘*Which way shall we go?’’ He hesitated. An intense persuasion of presences, of unseen things about us and near us, dominated our minds. What could they be? Where could they be? Was this arid desolation, alternately frozen and scorched, only the outer rind and mask of some subterranean world? And if so, what sort of world? What sort of inhabi- tants might it not presently disgorge upon us? And then stabbing the aching stillness, as vivid and sudden as an unexpected thunderclap, came a clang and rattle as though great gates of metal had suddenly been flung apart. It arrested our steps. We stood gaping helplessly. Then Cavor stole toward me. ‘*T do not understand !’’ he whispered, close to my face. He waved his hand vaguely skyward, the suggestion of still vaguer thoughts. ‘‘A hiding place! —’’ J looked about us. vague If anything came I nodded my head in assent to him. We started off, moving stealthily with the most exaggerated precautions against noise. We went toward a thicket of scrub. A clangor like hammers flung about a boiler, hastened ‘*We must crawl,’’ whispered Cavor. The lower leaves of the bayonet plants, already overshadowed by the newer ones above, were beginning to wilt and shrivel so that we could thrust our way in among the thickening stems without any serious injury. A stab in the face or arm we did not heed. At the heart of the thicket I stopped and stared panting, into Cavor’s face. ‘*Subterranean, ’’ 9 our steps. he whispered ; ‘‘be- low. ‘‘They may come out.”’ ‘‘We must find the sphere.’ ‘*Yes,’’ I said, ‘‘but how?”’ ‘*Craw!] till we come to it.”’ ’ ‘*But if we don’t?’’ ° ‘Keep hidden. See what they are like.”’ ‘‘We will keep together,’’ said I. THE FIRST MEN IN THE MOON. He thought. ‘*‘Which go?’’ ‘*We must take our chance.’ We peered this way and that. Then, very circumspectly, we began to crawl through the lower jungle, making, so far as we could judge, a circuit, halting now at ,every waving fungus, at every sound, intent only on the sphere from which we had so foolishly emerged. Ever and again from out of the earth beneath us came concussions; beatings; strange, inexplic- able, mechanical sounds, and once and then again we thought we heard some- thing, a faint rattle and tumuit, borne to us through the air. But fearful as we were we dared essay no vantage point to survey the crater. For long we saw noth- ing of the beings whose sounds were so abundant and insistent. But for the faint- ness of our hunger and the drying of our throats, that crawling would have had the quality of a very vivid dream. It was so absolutely unreal. The only element with any touch reality was these sounds. Figure it to yourself! About us the dream-like jungle with the silent bayonet leaves darting overhead, and the silent, vivid, sun-splashed lichens under our hands and knees, waving with the vigor of their growth as a carpet waves when the wind gets beneath it. Ever and again one of the bladder fungi, bulging and distending under the sun, loomed upon us. Ever and again some novel shape in vivid color obtruded. The very cells that built up these plants were as large as my thumb, like beads of colored glass. And all these things were saturated in the unmitigated glare of the sun, were seen against a sky that was bluish black and spangled still, in spite of the sunlight, with a few sur- viving stars. Strange! The very forms and texture of the stones were strange. It was all strange; the feeling of one’s body was unprecedented; every other movement ended in a_ surprise. The breath sucked thin in one’s throat, the blood flowed through one’s ears in a throb- bing tide. And ever and again came gusts of tur- moil, hammering, the clanging and throb of machinery and presently the bellowing of great beasts ! way shall we , of
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= Ss Ss = ty S g = S Ww @ & ky = “1 STOOD FOR A MOMENT STRUCK BY THE GROTESQUE EFFECT OF HIS SOARING FIGURE.
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316 THE FIRST MEN IN THE MOON. XI. THE MOONCALF PASTURES. So we two, poor, terrestrial casta- ways, lost in that wild-growing moon jungle, crawled in terror before the sounds that had come upon us. We crawled, as it seemed, a long time before we saw either Selenite or mooncalf, though we heard the bellowing and gruntulous noises of these latter continually drawing nearer to us. We crawled through stony ravines, over snow slopes, amid fungi that ripped like thin bladders at our thrust emitting a watery humor, over a perfect pavement of things like puffballs and beneath intermin- able thickets of scrub. And ever- more hopelessly our eyes sought for our aban- doned sphere. The noise of the mooncalves would at times be a vast, flat, calf-like sound, at times it rose to an amazed and wrathy bellowing and again it would be- come a clogged bestial sound as though these unseen creatures had sought to eat and bellow at the same time. Our first view was but an inadequate, transitory glimpse, yet none the less dis turbing because it was incomplete. Cavor was crawling in front at the time and he first was aware of their proximity. He stopped dead, arresting me with a single gesture. A crackling and smashing of the scrub appeared to be advancing directly upon us, and then, as we squatted close and endeav- ored to judge of the nearness and direction of this noise, there came a terrific bellow behind us, so close and vehement that the tops of the bayonet scrub bent before it and one felt the breath of it hot and warm. And turning about we saw -indistinctly through a crowd of swaying stems the _mooncalf’s shining sides, and the long line of its back loomed out against the sky. Of course it is hard for me now to say how much I saw at that time, because my impressions were corrected by subsequent observation. First of all impresssions was its enormous size, the girth of its body was some four score feet, its length perhaps two hundred. Its sides rose and fell with iis labored breathing. I perceived that its gigantic, flabby body lay along the ground, and that its skin was of a corrugated white, dappling into blackness along the back bone. But of its feet we saw nothing. | think also that we saw then the profile, at least, of the almost brainless head, with its fat-encumbered neck, its slobbering, omnivorous mouth, its little nostrils and tight-shut eyes. (For the mooncalf invari- ably shuts its eyes in the presence of the sun.) We had a glimpse of a vast red pit as it opened. its mouth to bleat and bellow again; we had a breath from the pit, and then the monster heeled over like a ship, dragged forward along the ground, creas- ing all its leathery skin, rolled again and so wallowed past us, smashing a path amid the scrub, and was speedily hidden from our eyes by the dense interlacings beyond. Another appeared more distantly, and then another, and then, as though he was guid- ing these animated lumps of provender to their pasture, a Selenite came momentarily into ken. became convulsive at the sight of him, and we remained motionless and peering long after he had passed out of our range. By contrast with the mooncalves he seemed a trivial being, a mere ant, scarcely tive feet high. He was wearing garments of some leathery substance, so that no por- tion of his actual body appeared, but of this, of course, we were entirely ignorant. He presented himself therefore as a com pact, bristling creature, having much of the quality of a complicated insect, with whip- like tentacles and a clanging arm project- ing from his shining, cylindrical body case. The form of his head was hidden by his enormous, many-spiked helmet—we discov- ered afterward that he used the spikes for prodding refractory mooncalves—and a pair of goggles of darkened glass set very much at the side gave a bud-like quality to the metallic apparatus that covered his face. His arms did not project beyond his body case, and he carried himself upon short legs that, wrapped though they were in warm coverings, seemed to our terrestrial eyes inordinately flimsy. They had very short thighs and very long shanks and little feet. In spite of his heavy-looking clothing he was progressing with what would be, from the terrestrial point of view, very consider able strides, and his clanging arm was busy. The quality of his motion during the instant cf his passing suggested haste My grip upon Cavor's foot oy ST TT SRS SA OTR Saar tt
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Snes: pC Ta am a 7 and a certain anger, and soon after we had lost sight of him we heard the bellow of a mooncalf change abruptly into a short, sharp squeal, followed by the scuffle of its acceleration. And gradually that bellow ing receded and then came abruptly to an end—as if the pastures sought had been attained. We listened. For a space the moon world was still. But it was some time be- fore we resumed our crawling search for the vanished sphere. When next we saw mooncalves they were some little distance away from us in a place of tumbled rocks. The less verti cal surfaces of the rocks were thick with a speckled green plant growing in dense. mossy clumps, upon which these creatures were browsing. We stopped at the edge of the reeds amid which we were crawling at the sight of them, peering out at them and looking round for a second glimpse of a Selenite. They lay against their food like stupendous slugs, huge, greasy hulls, eating greedily and noisily, with a sort of sobbing avidity. They seemed monsters of mere fatness, clumsy and overwhelmed to a degree that would make a Smithfield ox seem a model of agility. Their busy, writhing, chewing mouths, and eyes closed together, with the appetizing sound of their munching, made up an effect of ani- mal enjoyment that was singularly stimu- lating to our empty frames. ‘*Hogs!’’ said Cavor, with unusual pas- sion; ‘‘disgusting hogs!’’ and after one glare of angry envy crawled off through the bushes to our right. I stayed long enough to see that the speckled plant was quite hopeless for human nourishment, then crawled after him, nibbling a quill of it between my teeth. Presently we were arrested again by the proximity of a Selenite, and this time we were able to observe him more exactly. Now we could see that the Selenite cover- ing was indeed clothing and not a sort of crustacean integument. He was quite sim- ilar in his costume to the former one we had glimpsed, except that ends of a sort of wadding were protruding from his neck, and he stood on a promontory of rock and moved his head this way and that as though he was surveying the crater. We lay quite still, fearing to attract his THE FIRST MEN IN THE MOON. attention if we moved, and after a time he turned about and disappeared. We came upon another drove of moon- calves bellowing up a ravine, and then we passed over a place of sounds, sounds of beating machinery, as if some huge hall of industry came near the surface there. And while these sounds were still about us we came to the edge of a great, open space, perhaps two hundred yards in diameter and perfectly level. Save for a few lichens that advanced from its margin this space was bare, and presented a powdery surface of a dusty yellow color. We were afraid to strike out across this space, but as it presented less obstruction to our crawling than the serub, we went down upon it and began very circumspectly to skirt its edge. For a little while the noises from below ceased and everything, save for the faint stir of the growing vegetation, was very still. Then abruptly there began an up roar, louder, more vehement, and nearer than any we had so far heard. Of a certainty it came from below. Instinctively we crouched as flat as we could, ready for a prompt plunge into the thicket beside us. Each knock and throb seemed to vibrate through our bodies. Louder grew this throbbing and beating, and that irregular vibration increased until the whole moon world seemed to be jerking and pulsing. ‘*Cover,’’ whispered Cavor, and I turned toward the bushes. At that instant came the thud like the thud of a gun, and then a thing happened —it still haunts me in my dreams. I had turned my head to look at Cavor’s face and thrust out my hand in front of me as I did so, and my hand met nothing! Plunged suddenly into a bottomless hole! My chest hit something hard, and I found myself with my chin on the edge of an unfathomable abyss that had suddenly opened beneath me, my hand extended stify into the void. The whole of that flat, circular area was no more than a gi- gantic lid that was now sliding sideways from off the pit it had covered into a slot prepared for it. Had it not been for Cavor I think I should have remained rigid, hanging over this margin and staring into the enormous gult below until at last the edges of the slof |
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w ~ Oo scraped me off and hurled me into its depths. But Cavor had not received the shock that had paralyzed me. -He had been a little distance from the edge when the lid had first opened, and perceiving the peril that held me helpless, gripped my legs and pulled me backward. I came into a sitting position, crawled away from the edge for a space on all fours, then staggered up and ran after him across the thundering, quivering sheet of metal. It seemed to be swinging open with a steadily accelerated velocity and the bushes in front of me shifted sideways as I ran. I was none too soon. Cavor’s back vanished amid the bristling thicket, and as I scrambled up after him the monstrous valve came into its position with a clang. For a long time we lay panting, not daring to approach the pit. But at last very cautiously, and bit by bit, we crept into a position from which we could peer down. The bushes about us creaked and waved with the force of a breeze that was blowing down the shaft. We could see nothing at first except smooth, vertical walls descending at last into an impenetrable black. And then very grad- ually we became aware of a number of very faint and little lights going to and fro. For a time that stupendous gulf of mys- tery held us so that we forgot even our sphere. In time, as we grew more accus- tomed to the darkness, we could make out very small, dim, illusive shapes moving about among those needle-point illumina- tions. We peered, amazed and incredulous, understanding so little that we could find no words to say. We could distinguish nothing that would give us a clue to the meaning of the faint shapes we saw. ‘*What can it be?’’ I asked. ‘‘What can it be?’’ ‘‘The engineering! They must live in these caverns during the night and come out during the day.’’ ‘*Cavor!’’ I said. —it was something like—men?’’ ‘* That was not a man.”’ ‘We dare risk nothing !"’ ‘‘We dare do nothing until we find the ‘*Can they be—that sphere !”’ ‘‘We can do nothing until we find the He assented with a groan and He stared about sphere.”’ stirred himself to move. THE FIRST MEN IN THE MOON. him for a space, sighed, and indicated a We struck out through the jungle. For a time we crawled resolutely, then with diminishing vigor. Presently among great shapes of flabby purple there came a noise of trampling and cries about us. We lay close and for a long time the sounds went to and fro and very near. But this time we saw nothing. I tried to whisper to Cavor that I could hardly go without food much longer, but my mouth had become too dry for whispering. ‘*Cavor,’’ I said, ‘‘I must have food.’’ He turned a face full of dismay toward me. ‘‘It’s a case for holding out,’’ he said. ‘*But I must,’’ I said, ‘‘and look at my lips!’’ ‘*I’ve been thirsty some time.’ ‘Tf only some of that snow had re- mained !”” ‘*Tt’s clean gone! We're driving from arctic to tropical at the rate of a degree a minute.’’ I gnawed my hand. ‘‘The sphere!’’? he said. ‘‘There is nothing for it but the sphere.’’ We roused ourselves to another spurt of crawl- ing. My mind ran entirely on edible things, on the hissing profundity of sum- mer drinks, more particularly I craved for beer. I was haunted by the memory of a sixteen-gallon cask that had swaggered in my Lympne cellar. I thought of the adjacent larder, and especially of steak and kidney pie—tender steak and plenty of kidney and rich, thick gravy between. Ever and again I was seized with fits of hungry - yawning. We came to flat places overgrown with fleshy red things, monstrous coralline growths; as we pushed .against them they snapped and broke. I noted the quality of the broken surfaces. The confounded stuff certainly looked of a bitable texture. Then it seemed to me that it smelt rather well. I picked up a fragment and sniffed at it. ‘*Cavor,’’ I said, in a hoarse undertone. He glanced at me with his face screwed up. ‘‘Don’t,’’ he said. I put down the fragment, and we crawled on through this tempting fleshiness for a space. ‘*Cavor,’’ I asked, ‘‘why not? *’ ‘*Poison,*’ I heard him say, but he did not look round. direction. ’ LE ARI eer 9 CTE th rn Es wae
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THE FIRST MEN IN THE MOON. we - zx “= e 0 z & o s z > 2 = % zx S > Z s w oO > x 0 & rf ™ “= < S 5 & -
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320 THE FIRST MEN IN THE MOON. * We crawled some way before I decided. ‘*T’ll chance it,’’ said I. He made a belated gesture to. prevent me. I stuffed my mouth full. He crouched, watching my face, his own twisted into the oddest expression. ‘‘It’s good,’’ I said. ‘*Oh, Lord !’" he cried. He watched me munch, his face wrinkled between desire and disapproval, then sud- denly succumbed to appetite and began to tear off huge mouthfuls. For a time we did nothing but eat. The stuff was not unlike a terrestrial mushroom, only it was much laxer in tex- ture, and as one swallowed it it warmed the throat. At first we experienced a mere mechanical satisfaction in eating. Then our blood began to run warmer and we tingled at the lips and fingers, and then new and slightly irrelevant ideas came bubbling up in our minds. ‘It’s good,** said I. ‘‘Infernally good! What a home for our surplus population! Our poor, surplus population !** and I broke off another large portion. It tilled me with a curiously benevolent satisfaction that there was such good food in the moon. The depression of my hunger gave way to an irrational exhilaration. The dread and discomfort in which I had been living vanished entirely. I perceived the moon no longer as a planet from which I most earnestly desired a means of escape, but asa possible refuge for human desti- tution. I think I forgot the Selenites, the mooncalves, the lid and the noises com- pletely as soon as I had eaten that fungus. Cavor,replied to the third repetition of my ‘surplus population’’ remark with similar words of approval. I felt that my head swam, but I put this down to the stimulat- ing effect of food after a long fast. ‘*‘Ess- ‘lent discov’ry, yours, Cavor,*’ said I. ‘‘Se’nd on’y to the ‘tato. ‘*Whajer mean?’’ asked Cavor. ‘‘Scov- ery of the moon se’nd on’y to the ‘tato.”’ I looked at him, shocked at his suddenly hoarse voice and by the badness of his articulation. It occurred to me in a flash that he was intoxicated, possibly by the fungus. It also occurred to me that he erred in imagining that he had discovered the moon; he had not discovered it—he had only reached it. I tried to lay my hand on his arm and explain this to him, but the issue was too subtle for his brain. It was also unexpectedly difficult to express. After a momentary attempt to understand me—I remember wondering if the fungus had made my eyes as fishy as his—he set off upon some observations on his own account. **We are,*’ he announced, with a solemn hiccup, ‘‘the creashurs 0’ what we eat and drink.*’ He repeated this, and as I was now in one of my subtle moods I determined to dispute it. Possibly I wandered a little from the point. But Cavor certainly did not attend, at all properly. He stood up as well as he could, putting a hand on my head to steady himself, and’ stood staring about him, quite devoid now of any fear of the moon beings. I tried to point out that this was dan- gerous, for some reason that was not per- fectly clear to me, but the word danger- ous had somehow got mixed with indis- creet, and after an attempt to disentangle them [ resumed my argument, addressing myself principally to the unfamiliar but attentive coralline growths on either side. I felt that it was necessary to clear up this confusion between the moon and a potato at onee. I wandered into a long paren- thesis on the importance of precision of definition in argument. I did my best to ignore the fact that my bodily sensations were no longer agreeable. In some way that I have now forgotten my mind was led back to projects of colo nization. ‘*We must annex this moon,”’ I said. ‘*There: must be no shilly-shally. This is part of the White Man’s Burden Cavor—we are—Aic—satap—mean - sat- raps! Nempire Cesar never dreamt. B’in all the newspapers. Cavorecia. Bedfor- decia. Bedfordecia Limited.”’ Certainly I was intoxicated. I announced my intention of hoisting the Union Jack forthwith, and fell to deploring that we had not one with us. It occurred to me that the Union Jack was frequently incor- rectly rendered without any quartering of the oblique stripes and also that there was a popular delusion that it was the English and not the Imperial flag.. I tried to ex- plain these points in a compact manner to Cavor. MPA MNT OE
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“I PERCEIVED HIM STANDING ‘*S’matter of fact,’’ I said, ‘‘ English flag, only proper English flag—red cross on white. Union Schack mush larger idea. No English, no Scotch, no Trish, no col- onies—everybody.** I found I had _for- gotten the line of argument I had intended to pursue and continued to repeat all this to fill up time. From that point my of the action of that abominable fungus becomes I remember vaguely that memory confused, we declared our intention of standing no non- sense from any confounded insects, that we decided it ill became men to hide shame- fully upon a mere satellite, that equipped ourselves with huge armfuls of the fungus—whether for missile purposes or not I do not know—and heedless of the stabs of the bayonet shrub we started forth we into the sunshine. Almost immediately we must have come the Selenites. There were six of them and they were marching in single file over a rocky place, making the most re- upon THE FIRST MEN IN THE MOON. FACING US BOTH IN THE FULL LIGHT. markable piping and whining sounds. They all seemed to become aware of us at once; all instantly became silent and motionless, with their faces turned toward us. For a moment I was sobered. ‘*Insects,’’ murmured Cavor, And they think I’m going to crawl about on stomach—on my _ vertebrated stomach! Stomach,’’ he repeated, slowly, as though he chewed the indignity. Then suddenly with a shout of fury he made three vast strides and leaped toward them. He leaped badly; he made a series of somersaults in the air, whirled right over them and vanished with an enormous splash amidst the cactus bladders. What the Selenites made of this amazing and to my mind undignified irruption from another planet, I have no means of guessing. I seem to remember the sight of their backs as they ran in all directions, but I am not sure, All these last incidents before oblivion came are vague and faint in I know I made a step to follow ‘*insects! mv my mind.
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322 THE FIRST MEN IN THE MOON. Cavor and tripped and fell headlong among the rocks. I was, I am certain, suddenly and vehemently ill. I seem to remember a violent struggle, and being gripped by metallic clasps. My next clear recollection is that we were prisoners at we knew not what depth beneath the moon's surface; we were in darkness amid strange distracting noises, our bodies were covered with scratches and bruises and our heads racked with pain. XII. THE SELENITE’S FACE. I found myself sitting crouched together in a tumultuous darkness. For a long time I could not understand where I was nor how I had come to this perplexity. I thought of the cupboard into which I had been thrust at times when I was a child, and then of a very dark and noisy bed- room in which I had slept during an ill- ness. But these sounds about me were not the noises I had known, and there was a thin flavor in the air like the wind of a stable. Then I supposed we must still be at work upon the sphere and that somehow I had got into the cellar of Cavor’s house. I remembered we had finished the sphere and fancied I must still be in it and travel- ing through space. ‘*Cavor,’’ I said, ‘‘cannot we have some light?”? There came no answer. ‘*Cavor!’’ I insisted. I was answered by a groan. ‘‘My head !’* I heard him say, ‘‘My head !"’ I attempted to press my hands to my brow, which ached, and discovered they were tied together. This startled me very much. I brought them up to my mouth and felt the cold smoothness of metal. They were chained together. I tried to separate my legs and made out they were similarly fastened, and also that I was fastened to the ground by a much thicker chain about the middle of my body. I was more frightened than I had yet been by anything in all our strange experi- ences. Fora time I tugged silently at my bonds. ‘‘Cavor!’’ I cried out sharply. ‘*Why am I tied? Why have you tied me hand and foot?’’ ‘‘T haven't tied you,’’ he answered. ‘*Tt’s the Seienites.”’ The Selenites!] My mind hung on that for a space. Then my memories came back to me, the snowy desolation, the thawing of the air, the growth of the plants, our strange hopping and crawling among the rocks and vegetation of the crater. All the distress of our frantic search for the sphere returned to me. Finally the opening of the great lid that covered the pit! Then as I strained to trace our later movements down to our present plight, the pain in my head became intolerable. I came to an insurmountable barrier, an ob- stinate blank. ‘*Cavor!’’ vaaag. ‘*Where are we?’ ‘*How should I know?”’ ‘*Are we dead?”’ ‘*What nonsense!’ ‘*They’ve got us then!’ He made no answer but a grunt. The lingering trace of the poison seemed to make him oddly irritable. ‘*What do you mean to do?”’ ‘*How should I know what to do?”’ ‘*Oh, very well,’’ said I, and became silent. Presently I roused myself. **Oh, Lord!’ Teried, ‘*I wish you’d stop that buzzing !”’ We lapsed into silence again, listening to the dull confusion of noises, like the muffled sounds of a street or factory, that filled our ears. I could make nothing of it, my mind pursued first one rhythm and then another, and questioned it in vain. But after a long time I became aware of a new and sharper element, not mingling with the rest, but standing out, as it were, against that cloudy background of sound. It was a series of relatively very little, definite sounds, tappings and rubbings like a loose spray of ivy against a window or a bird moving about upon a box. We listened and peered about us, but the dark- ness was a velvet pall. There followed a noise like the subtle movement of the wards of a well-oiled lock. And then there ap- peared, hanging, as it seemed, in an im- mensity of black, a thin bright line. ‘*Look !’’ whispered Cavor, very softly. We stared. The thin bright line be- ’ ’ SE ee
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a came a band and broader and paler. It took upon itself the quality of a bluish light falling upon a whitewashed wall. It ceased to be parallel sided; it developed a deep indentation on one side. I turned to remark this to Cavor and was amazed to see his ear in a brilliant illumination— all the rest of him in shadow. I twisted my head round as well as my bonds would permit. ‘‘Cavor,’’ I said, ‘‘it’s behind !”’ Suddenly the crack that had been ad- mitting the light broadened out and re- vealed itself as the space of an opening door. Beyond was a sapphire vista, and in the doorway stood a grotesque outline sil- houetted against the glare. My first impression was of some clumsy quadruped with lowered head. Then I perceived it was the slender, pinched body and short and extremely attenuated bandy-legs of a Selenite, with his head depressed between his shoulders. He was without the helmet and body covering they wear upon the exterior. He was a blank, black figure to us, but instinctively our imaginations supplied features to his very human outline. [ at least took it instantly that he was some- what hunchbacked with a high forehead and long features. He came forward three steps and paused foratime. His movements seemed abso- lutely noiseless. Then he came forward again. He walked like a bird, his feet fell one in front of the other. He stepped out of the ray of light that came through the doorway, and it seemed as though he vanished altogether in the shadow. For a moment my eyes sought him in the wrong place, and then I perceived him standing facing us both in the full light. Only the human features I had attributed to him were not there at all. Of course I ought to have expected that, only I didn’t. It came to me as an abso- lute, for a moment an overwhelming shock. It seemed as though it wasn’t a face; as though it must needs be a mark, a horror, a deformity that would presently be dis- avowed or explained. It was rather like a visored helmet. But I can’t explain the thing. Have you ever seen the face of some insect greatly mag- nified? There was no nose, no expression ; it was all shiny and hard and invariable, THE FIRST MEN IN THE MOON. (To be continued.) with bulging eyes—at the side—in the silhouette I had supposed they were ears. There were no ears. I have tried to draw one of these heads but I cannot. The point one cannot get is the horrible want of ex- pression, or rather the horrible want of change of expression. Every head and face a man meets with on earth in the usual way resorts to expression. This was like being stared at suddenly by an engine. There the thing was, looking at us. 3ut when I say there was a want of change of expression I do not mean that there was not a sort of set expression on the face, just as there is a sort of set ex- pression about a coal-scuttle or a chimney- cowl or the ventilator of a steamship. There was a mouth, downwardly curved, like a human mouth in a face that stares ferociously. The neck on which the head was poised was jointed in three places, almost like the short joints in the leg of a crab. The jointing of the limbs I could not see be- cause of the puttee-like straps in which they were swathed, and which formed the only clothing these beings wore. We did at least know what had brought about this meeting of incompatible crea- tures. But conceive how it would seem to decent Londoners, for example, to come upon a couple of living things as big as men and absolutely unlike any other earthly animals, careering about among the sheep in Hyde Park. Suddenly acute and vivid would come that question: Whence? That question which underlies all things, but which is latent and forgotten. Figure us! We were bound hand and foot, fagged and filthy; our beards two inches long, our faces scratched and bloody. Our jackets were unbuttoned and our shoes had been taken off and lay at our feet. And we were sitting with our backs to this queer light, peering at such a monster as Durer might have invented. Cavor broke the silence, started to speak, went hoarse and cleared his throat. Out- side began a terrific bellowing as if a moon- calf was in trouble. It ended in a shriek, and everything was still again. Presently the Selenite turned about, flickered into the shadow, stood for a mo- ment retrospective at the door, and then closed it on us.
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= =e HIE Golden Fleece is =| just like the Garter. It has none of the confounded non- sense of merit about it. Medieval and magnificent, it was originated by Philip of Burgundy. Why he originated it no one knows. A German tried to find out. He devoted the whole of his wretched life to the subject. On his death-bed he chattered ‘*Eureka.*’ It had driven him insane. Students less pertinacious, and possibly better equipped, have assumed that the motive was wholly gallant. Philip, to his eternal recorded, paid what we think we have seen described as addresses to twenty-four young women at once. Then came the twenty-fifth. The latter was Ysabel of Portugal. Meanwhile, from each of the others he had obtained coils of hair. These he had his coiffeur braid together into a sort of conglomerate Through it there straggled an glory be it souvenir. ea ry Ac = oY ( c BY Edgar Saltvs amber curl; it had come from the bright blonde locks of Marie of Rumbrugge. The sheen of it delighted him. From it, from that girl's empty head, the idea of the Golden Fleece emerged. On the occasion of his marriage to Ysabel, thirty knights were chosen. Whether he re- quired that, like himself, they should be sans pudeur et avec reproches, we may sur- mise yet never know. What we do know is that knights of a different order with the same name have been parading about ever since. In philosophic circles their order is gener- ally, if figuratively, regarded as_ the insignia of the carpet highwaymen and other adventurers with whom the great capitals of this little globe abound. High on the list of them is Lauzun. Insolent, indigent and illiterate, the son of a nonentity at that, he yet managed to make himself Marshal of France and the husband of the Grande Mademoiselle. And not merely her husband, but her master. ordering that princess, who was self-chosen
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the cousin of one king and the grand- daughter of another, to pull off his boots, and beating her when she refused. The story of his career would read as a romance were it not that from it the probable is absent. Men don’t dream any more as that man lived. Emerging obscurely from an obscure hamlet, the highroad led him to Versailles, and chance, into the pres- ence of the King. There he made himself so entertaining that the fourteenth Louis raised the adven- turer from one grade to another, and so monumentally, that one day, angered at the withdrawal of a promised promotion, he whipped out his sword, broke it across his knee and tossing it with a fine clatter at the feet of the King, bawled loudly that it was disgraceful to serve a monarch who could not keep his word. Women admire the brave, but they prefer the audacious. Some women at least, and Mademoiselle de Montpensier was one of them. The melodrama of the proceeding delighted her. Archroyal and superrich, possessed in her own right of twenty million and four duchies, she was then thirty and passibly disillusioned. By reason of her birth and wealth she had expected to be Queen. She had had her eye on the Dauphin, another on the King of Spain, both on the Emperor Ferdinand III. Yet none whatever for Charles II., who, in his exile, had asked and who, because of that exile, had been refused. Heights appeal to women, so do ex- tremes. Failing a throne, the Grande Mademoiselle resolved to accept a foot- stool. Lauzun appealed to her as even the closed crown of state had not. The adventurer understood it thoroughly. But at every step she made toward him, he retreated two. He could have asked and it would have been given. He preferred to be asked and to accord. Finally he did. So also did Louis. At the formal request of the lady, he consented to the més- alliance, and there was this nobody almost lifted into royalty—almost, yet not quite. For reasons which we won't bother over, the King withdrew his consent. Lauzun was thrown into prison, whence he issued years later and then only because of the supplications of the princess whom he had bewitched then his wife, who became
THE KNIGATS OF THE GOLDEN FLEECE. 325 whom he ordered to pull off his boots, and who, annoyed perhaps at the beatings which she got, gathered her millions and her duchies and left him to twirl his thumbs. There you have a true picture of the untrue knight. An instance more modern and rather more modest is that of Baron Harden- Hickey. Born in San Francisco, the son of eminently respectable yet perfectly plain people, he evolved, entirely to their astonishment, and perhaps a little to his own, a dream of monarchy. His title astonished also. Where he got it no one knew and, except Inspector Byrnes, no one, to our knowledge, ever asked. It may be that the Comte de Chambord, whose henchman he had been, gave it to him, or, as is more likely, it may be that it was self-bestowed. After all, why not? In any evert, a4 dozen years ago he acquired in addition to the title the formidable reputation of being one of the wittiest men in Paris and the crack duelist of France. <A poet at his hours and always a scholar, he was doubly dangerous. His pen stung as promptly as did his sword. As a consequence he was well supplied with enemies. He had more than he knew by sight. But their quality was superior. A stranger to them, he was a stranger to his friends, a stranger to him- self, yet most conspicuously a stranger to his epoch. He was at odds with it. In an age less complex he would have been a pirate, and a very good pirate too. He was a survival, as lost on the boulevards as a corsair would be. He had beliefs in an epoch which has dissipated them and faiths in a land from which they have gone. Therewith he was antithesis made man. He edited a comic paper and wrote a book on metaphysics. He looked like a musketeer, acted like a débutante, talked like Aristophanes and lived like a sage. That was a long time ago. Presently from Catholic he turned Buddhist. At Andilly, a Parisian suburb, where he had a country house which he called a castle, he built a temple. decorated it with the lotus, installed the wheel of prayers and entertained Colonel Olcott. After Buddha he took to Voltaire. panther, haunted by the past, pursued by he Restless as a visions of Chambord, needed a cause
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320 or a flag. It was the inability to find either which brought to him the dream of founding a monarchy for himself. ‘*There is nothing worth living for,’’ he once con- fided to the ‘‘and, what is worse, nothing worth dying for, either.’’ deponent, But that, too, isa long time ago. It was on a journey to this country that he the young heiress who subsequently But it was after country that he met meeting, paren- met wife. this Inspector Byrnes—a thetically, in which the Inspector met his Then, out of idleness, or perhaps his bride, he a tract on suicide. Hardly had it issued from the press before the idea of a monarchy was hatched. He establish a kingdom at Trinidad—a of an island off the coast of Brazil—and_pro- posed also to establish himself there as king. Entirely opera bouffe, he entered into the scheme with a seriousness which impressed even himself. He had a chan- cellerie in New York, another in London. Then the Powers he said they did, and he turned an eye on Hawaii. But at this juncture annexation occurred; there was not a possible throne in sight, and, like a true Knight of the Fleece, he shot himself. But he shot himself too soon. It is one of the disadvantages of death that it pre- vents the departed from participating in the possibilities of life. Had he waited he might have been king. There throne then vacant, a throne ramshackle, became his he reached match. to amuse wrote proposed to speck intervened, or was a remote and ridiculous, yet none the less a throne, one that had been founded by just such another, by an adventurer who began by being French, ended by being German and who managed to make himself an American monarch in between—a South American monarch indeed, yet still a monarch, monarch of Araucania, a land which he ruled under the style and title of Aurelius I. Who he was, how he got there, above all why he wanted to and in what fashion he succeeded in becoming, king, are matters that have been and now always will be problematic. It is known that his name was De Tonniens, but other data are however, that in be, scarce. It is rumored, the early sixties he set sail from Havre for THE KNIGHTS OF THE GOLDEN FLEECE. Peru. With brellas. As it never rains in Peru, what he did with the umbrellas is conjectural in him went a cargo of um- the extreme. Perhaps he took them to Chili. In any event, ultimately he reached Araucania. That is the one stretch of territory on this hemisphere which neither Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch nor English have ever been able to subdue. A _ portion of it Chili has gobbled, but the larger part is indepen- dent still. Whether the umbrellas ap- pealed to the fantasy of the Araucos and whether because of them they allowed De Tonniens to constitute himself king, is immaterial. But that king he became is history. It is history, too, that as a meaus of livelihood he instituted a series of titles and decorations which he took to Europe and peddled about. The supply of these things being greater than the demand, poverty overtook him and he died. Mean- while he had not neglected to establish a court. According to a recent explorer— M. Henri le Baux—the Court of Araucania still exists. What is more, the throne, though vacant, exists as well. There would be a chance for Harden-Hickey. There yet is a chance for any other knight. Examples such as the foregoing are useful if for no other reason than because they show the relativeness of things. To be born, as Lauzun was, a nobody and to marry a princess, predicates charm. To be Harden-Hickey was, a_ plain American dream of being king, predicates romance. To be born as De Tonniens was, a bourgeois, and to develop into a monarch, predicates enterprise. 3ut to be born a slave and to become an emperor shows originality. Solouque did that. He began life with a dust-pan and ended it with a scepter. At the age of fifty he was a valet, very fat, very black, ignorant as a carp, unable to read, unable to write. 3ut though un- able to write he could make his mark— and did. Caught the crest of a I[aytian revolution, he flung himself from it into power. On his return after some sable Marengo, the president of the local Senate capped him with a crown of paste- board and saluted him Faustin I. Solouque sent to Paris for a real crown, sent for two—the second for the drab who born as and to on
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was his consort; and while he was about for thrones, for robes of ermine— Therewith he it sent all the tra-la-la of state. instituted a civil list, a series of decora tions, and created Knights of the Ebon Fleece. The Court Chamberlain was the Duc de Bonbon; the Lords-in- Waiting, three in number, were gratified respectively with the titles of Prince of Watermelon, Marquis of Lemonade and Viscount of Ice Cream. Their share in the budget was placed at a hundred gourds per annum. When they asked for it, this Philip of Hayti had them shot. If open-handed he was close-fisted. One day he held a re- view of his grenadiers. Georges d’Alaux, a writer who was there at the time and who has left a book this Offenbach monarchy, states that the helmets of the guard glittered with plaques on which was inscribed, ‘‘Sardines a l’huile, Barton et Cie, Marseilles.’’ Like the Emperor, the grenadiers were unable to read. Presently it was discovered that they were unable to on fight. Projected against neighbors by whom they were demolished, Solouque said it was good riddance. Thereat, to while away the time, he created more decorations, more nobility, parodied the coronation of Napoleon, ordered a general massacre, abdicated, fled away and died, full of years and dishonors, grotesque to the end. Of an order quite as grotesque, yet a trifle more recent, was De Rougemont, a Frenchman who English with a German accent, and who, after an alleged thirty-year residence on the Sea of Timor, turned up not long ago in the columns of a magazine. According to his own ac- count he must have been born with an honest imagination and a love of misad- venture, for, according to that same ac- count, fate conducted him to a coral reef and left him there with but a dog and a New Testament. The former he appears to have preferred to any human being he ever met, while the theological difficulties which he encountered in the 1atter seem to have fully occupied his leisure. For spoke amusement he rode turtles, steering them with kicks in the eye, built a house of pearl-shells, made a hammock of sharks’ hide and played pirate with pelicans whom he robbed of their fish. For visitors he THE KNIGHTS OF THE GOLDEN FLEECE. And so savages had parrots, for almanacs, stones. the fell by. Ultimately appeared, who, on beholding him, fancied that they were dead and that he was the If that is not an example of years Great Spirit. honest imagination, one may wonder what is. Conducted by the aborigines to the mainland, he there became king of the tribe, rescued white girls from black men, discovered gullies of gold and ditches of trant cannibals by throwing handsprings Yet here is more. diamonds, conciliated recalci- and somersaults, found a newspaper, read in it that the deputies of Alsace had re- fused to vote in the -arliament, marveled thereat, for he knew nothing of the war of 1870 and, as much perplexed German by political enigmas as he had been by theological difficulties, left dia- monds, gold and girls behind, made for Melbourne, shipped for London before the mast and turned up safe and sound in the office of an English magazine. Everything being possible, it was con- jectured that the story might all be true. The northwestern of Australia, where, as king, he had resided, is a region still unexplored. Moreover, was not 3ruce disbelieved and Du Chaillu flouted? The eccentricity of the story consisted in the fact that Melbourne with such first-class copy in his scepter, corner a gentleman who reached head should have been compelled to work to London. Mais n'est The of R. de Rougemont-Munchausen was at least enter- his nul prophéte. way story Crusoe taining enough to find favor in the eyes of the British Association, and his handspring device for charming the enemy may, with still to for future the commended at entire deference, be Lord Roberts front. Meanwhile, it is pleasant to note that in a subsequent issue of the periodical in which Mr. Alice de Rougemont first told of his adventures in wonderland there ap- peared a caveat to the effect that the edi- tors no longer vouched for his veracity. It were difficult to be more circumspect and less rude. Elsewhere he was labeled Psalmanazar. But the label, though meant to be fierce, was merely stupid. De Rougemont gulled the British Associa- tion. Psalmanazar gulled Great Britain. By the press at large De Rougemont was use
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328 with cheerful incredulity. The reviews swallowed Psalmanazar whole. De Rougemont produced a new edition of the Australian Nights, Psal- manazar produced a new language, a litera- ture and a religion. To this day nobody knows what Psalmanazar’s real name was. What is De Rougemont’s real name nobody received learned cares. Psalmanazar represented himself as Japanese from Formosa. He published book which contained an alphabet of his own manufacture, portraits of false gods, pictures of fictitious people, and with them engravings of imaginary shrines.- It was accepted as gospel. In his memoirs Psal- ‘T was but twenty and I deceived all England.’’ The Bishop of London became his patron. He lectured at Oxford, took orders and everything else he could get. But then, a century and a half ago, in the good old days when he lived and lied, knowledge was limited and the earth was not. Had De Rougemont come then, his success might have been pro- portionate, and yet again it might not. Suc- cess is an uncertain quantity. One never knows whom it will visit and whom avoid. point. A moralist but The advice intention of manazar Says: case in recommended — that should be said of the dead. is excellent. We disregarding it. An ex-waiter, who, with nothing more complicated half- dozen neologisms and as many concealed tubes, -could extract tive million out of the fellow citizens something better than abuse. Keely is a nothing’ good have no than a pockets of his deserves He deserves VHE KNIGHTS OF THE GOLDEN FLEECE. enrolment Knights of Fleece. the space to give him, a full biographical page. In days when speech was more ab- struse he would have been called a thau- maturge. Thaumaturgy is at once simple and complex. It consists in stranger feel at home and then in taking that home away. There are a number of books about it. Of the best among the the He deserves even, what we lack making a these bear They are signed by Albertus big names. Magnus, by Nostradamus They are not uninteresting either. and by Para- celsus. They tell of the great secret which is the philosopher’s stone and how, with it, metals cannot be transmuted but how pocketbooks More or less, and generally more than every Knight of the Fleece knows charms. Apollonius of Tyana knew them thoroughly. He knew things as well. He knew all including that of Silence, for silence is a was in the latter that Keely conversed. So subtle was his use of it that nobody understood. He eluded There was his secret. It may. less, its other languages language too. It comprehension. is the great secret of all. It is the secret of not having any, and yet in appearing to, which constitutes the philosopher's stone. With it Keely charmed experts. But who are so foolish men? Had Keely come a few centuries earlier, by the wise men of the day he would have been deified. Such is luck, or rather such is destiny. For the Gates of Life are double. On the Too Late. On the Between them chaps as wise stands written other Too Soon. like these get strangled. one
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GREAT EVENTS: HUMOR AND SATIRE. BY THE WORLD’sS Most FAMOvuS CARTOONISTS. AR POSE SS ME Pe Eis ENTITLED TO THE BELT. JOHN BuLL: “Conqueror. . . . At last!” From Wasp, of San Francisco. Caran D'Ache in Le Rive, of Paris, ‘“KEEP THE GOOD WORK UP, GENTLEMEN.” From The Brooklyn Daily Eagle, of New York.
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GREAT EVENTS: HUMOR AND SATIRE. COMPOSITE PICTURE OF RECENT WAR SPIRITS. CONSUMATUM EST. From The Denver Times. From Borsszem Janké, of Buda-FPesth. PRESIDENT KRUGER’S ARRIVAL IN EUROPE. JOHN BULL (to the Powers): “Right Dress!” From De Amsterdammer, of Amsterdam.
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GREAT EVENTS: HUMOR AND SATIRE. tei ZA CECIL RHODES: ‘What do I care; it’s the blood of others.”’ Caran D’ Ache in Le Rive, of Parts. HE HAS EXPANDED. Quacee Sam.—‘‘This is a dandy little umbrella for this fair weather; but if there should be a dig foreign storm it would never protect me.”’ Copyright, 1900, by Judge Company of New York. From Judge, of New York. KRUGER IN EUROPE. ‘He that is ready to slip with his feet is as a lamp de- spised in the thought of him that is at ease.” (Book of Job.) From Le Rire, of Parts.
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GREAT EVENTS: HUMOR AND SATIRE. WAR VERSUS FAMINE. JouHN BuLL: ‘Heavy? Ofcourse its heavy. But think of HIND: ‘I wish I had that bigger bag for me, sir.”’ the glory.” JOHN BULL: ‘‘ Well, my dear, you know that ‘Charity From the Minneapolis Tribune. begins at home,’ and my children always before yours.” HinpD: ‘‘Ah! sir, I wish I had thought of that good old adage before. Such a good add-age it would have brought to my store.”’ (While the Mansion House Transvaal War Fund has gone up more than a million sterling, the Indian Famine Fund stops at a third of the amount.) From Hindi Punch, Oees SAX y | OF AMEREE fouicae PRacerTvone® ConyaTaTiom FREE. aut, o~ BROTHER JONATHAN: ‘“Tarnation glad I don’t hev to THEIR TURN NEXT. , 2 t feed up these pesky Zoo critters through the cold spell.” Lit HunG CHANG (to Oom Paul): “ They’re going a last. Perhaps we'll get a hearing now.” From the Minneapolis_Times. : 3 2 From the Chicago Datly News.
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GREAT EVENTS: HUMOR AND SATIRE. oo <= || Aaratize ta3K
NO LONGER A WORLD POWER,
UNCLE SAM: “I would command him to desist, and he ‘cee , oe would obey me, if I were out of that infernal trap." VICE MUST GO. From The National Watchman, of Washington. From The World, of New York.
ed GIVING THE CHILDREN THE BONES. From the New York Herald.
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GREAT EVENTS: HUMOR AND SATIRE. BARBARISM AND CIVILIZATION. From Le Cri de Paris, of Paris. Ii HUNG CHANG: ‘“ You may have as many heads as you wish ; ¢hey cost us nothing.”’ From Novoe Vremya, of St. Petersburg. LTP: < THE VALOROUS CROKER GOES OUT TO SLAY THE DRAGON. From The Chicago Record. Qe? LET PATRIOTISM, LIKE CHARITY, BEGIN AT HOME! = From the New York Journal. McKiInLeEy: ‘‘ Who will haul down the flag on yonder distant islands?” UNCLE Sam: ‘‘Let’s first find out who will haul down these scoundrels at home.”