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+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 10921 ***
+
+THE WORLD'S
+GREATEST
+BOOKS
+
+JOINT EDITORS
+
+ARTHUR MEE
+Editor and Founder of the Book of Knowledge
+
+J. A. HAMMERTON
+Editor of Harmsworth's Universal Encyclopaedia
+
+VOL. IV
+FICTION
+
+
+
+Table of Contents
+
+EBERS, GEORG
+  An Egyptian Princess
+
+EDGEWORTH, MARIE
+  Belinda
+  Castle Rackrent
+
+ELIOT, GEORGE
+  Adam Bede
+  Felix Holt
+  Romola
+  Silas Marner
+  The Mill on the Floss
+
+ERCKMANN-CHATRIAN
+  Waterloo
+
+FEUILLET, OCTAVE
+  Romance of a Poor Young Man
+
+FIELDING, HENRY
+  Amelia
+  Jonathan Wild
+  Joseph Andrews
+  Tom Jones
+
+FLAMMARION, CAMILLE
+  Urania
+
+FOUQUÉ, DE LA MOTTE
+  Undine
+
+GABORIAU, EMILE
+  File No. 113
+
+GALT, JOHN
+  Annals of the Parish
+
+GASKELL, MRS.
+  Cranford
+  Mary Barton
+
+GODWIN, WILLIAM
+  Caleb Williams
+
+GOETHE
+  Sorrows of Young Werther
+  Wilhelm Meister
+
+GOLDSMITH, OLIVER
+  Vicar of Wakefield
+
+GONCOURT, EDMOND AND JULES DE
+  Renée Mauperin
+
+GRANT, JAMES
+  Bothwell
+
+
+A Complete Index of THE WORLD'S GREATEST BOOKS will be found at the end
+of Volume XX.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+GEORG EBERS
+
+
+An Egyptian Princess
+
+
+     Georg Moritz Ebers, a great Orientalist and Egyptologist, was
+     born in Berlin on March 1, 1837, received his first
+     instruction at Keilhau in Thuringen, then attended a college
+     at Quedlinburg, and finally took up the study of law at
+     Göttingen University. In 1858, when his feet became lame, he
+     abandoned this study, and took up philology and archæology.
+     After 1859 he devoted himself almost exclusively to
+     Egyptology. Having recovered from his long illness, he visited
+     the most important European museums, and in 1869 he travelled
+     to Egypt, Nubia, and Arabia. On his return he took the chair
+     of Egyptology at Leipzig University. He went back to Egypt in
+     1872, and discovered, besides many other important
+     inscriptions, the famous papyrus which bears his name. "An
+     Egyptian Princess" is his first important novel, written
+     during his illness, and published in 1864. It has gone through
+     numerous editions, and has been translated into most European
+     languages. It was followed by several other similar works of
+     fiction, of which "Serapis" achieved wide popularity. Ebers
+     died on August 7, 1898.
+
+
+_I.--The Royal Bride_
+
+
+A cavalcade of dazzling splendour was moving along the high road towards
+Babylon. The embassy sent by Cambyses, the mighty King of the East, had
+accomplished its mission, and now Nitetis, the daughter of Amasis, King
+of Egypt, was on the way to meet her future spouse. At the head of the
+sumptuous escort were Bartja, Cambyses' handsome golden-haired younger
+brother; his kinsman Darius; Croesus, the dethroned King of Lydia, and
+his son Gyges; Prexaspes, the king's ambassador, and Zopyrus, the son of
+Megabyzus, a Persian noble.
+
+A few miles before the gates of Babylon they perceived a troop of
+horsemen galloping towards them. Cambyses himself came to honour his
+bride. His pale face, framed by an immense black beard, expressed great
+power and unbounded pride. Deep pallor and bright colour flitted by
+turns across the face of Nitetis, as his fiery eyes fixed her with a
+piercing gaze. Then he waved a welcome, sprang from his horse, shook
+Croesus by the hand, and asked him to act as interpreter. "She is
+beautiful and pleases me well," said the king. And Nitetis, who had
+begun to learn the language of her new home on the long journey, blushed
+deeply and began softly in broken Persian, "Blessed be the gods, who
+have caused me to find favour in thine eyes."
+
+Cambyses was delighted with her desire to win his approbation and with
+her industry and intellect, so different from the indolence and idleness
+of the Persian women in his harem. His wonder and satisfaction increased
+when, after recommending her to obey the orders of Boges, the eunuch,
+who was head over the house of women, she reminded him that she was a
+king's daughter, bound to obey the commands of her lord, but unable to
+bow to a venal servant.
+
+Her pride found an echo in his own haughty disposition. "You have spoken
+well. A separate dwelling shall be appointed you. I, and no one else,
+will prescribe your rules of life and conduct. Tell me now, how my
+messengers pleased you and your countrymen?"
+
+"Who could know the noble Croesus without loving him? Who could fail to
+admire the beauty of the young heroes, your friends, and especially of
+your handsome brother Bartja? The Egyptians have no love for strangers,
+but he won all hearts."
+
+At these words the king's brows darkened, he struck his horse so that
+the creature reared, and then, turning it quickly round, he galloped
+towards Babylon. He decided in his mind to give Bartja the command of an
+expedition against the Tapuri, and to make him marry Rosana, the
+daughter of a Persian noble. He also determined to make Nitetis his real
+queen and adviser. She was to be to him what his mother Kassandane had
+been to Cyrus, his great father. Not even Phædime, his favourite wife,
+had occupied such a position. And as for Bartja, "he had better take
+care," he murmured, "or he shall know the fate that awaits the man who
+dares to cross my path."
+
+
+_II.--The Plot_
+
+
+According to Persian custom a year had to pass before Nitetis could
+become Cambyses' lawful wife, but, conscious of his despotic power, he
+had decided to reduce this term to a few months. Meanwhile, he only saw
+the fair Egyptian in the presence of his blind mother or of his sister
+Atossa, both of whom became Nitetis' devoted friends. Meanwhile, Boges,
+the eunuch, sank in public estimation, since it was known that Cambyses
+had ceased to visit the harem, and he began to conspire with Phædime as
+to the best way of ruining Nitetis, who had come to love Cambyses with
+ever growing passion.
+
+The Egyptian princess's happiness was seriously disturbed by the arrival
+of a letter from her mother, which brought her naught but sad news. Her
+father, Amasis, had been struck with blindness on the very day she had
+reached Babylon; and her frail twin-sister Tachot, after falling into a
+violent fever, was wasting away for love of Bartja, whose beauty had
+captured her heart at the time of his mission in Sais. His name had been
+even on her lips in her delirium, and the only hope for her was to see
+him again.
+
+Nitetis' whole happiness was destroyed in one moment. She wept and
+sighed, until she fell asleep from sheer exhaustion. When her maid
+Mandane came to put a last touch to her dress for the banquet, she found
+her sleeping, and as there was ample time she went out into the garden,
+where she met the eunuch Boges. He was the bearer of good news. Mandane
+had been brought up with the children of a Magian, one of whom was now
+the high-priest Oropastes. Love had sprung up between her and his
+handsome brother Gaumata; and Oropastes, who had ambitious schemes, had
+sent his brother to Rhagæ and procured her a situation at court, so that
+they might forget one another. And now Gaumata had come and begged her
+to meet him next evening in the hanging gardens. Mandane consented after
+a hard struggle.
+
+Boges hurried away with malicious pleasure in the near success of his
+scheme. He met one of the gardeners, whom he promised to bring some of
+the nobles to inspect a special kind of blue lily, in which the gardener
+took great pride. He then hurried to the harem, to make sure that the
+king's wives should look their best, and insisted upon Phædime painting
+her face white, and putting on a simple, dark dress without ornament,
+except the chain given her by Cambyses on her marriage, to arouse the
+pity of the Achæmenidæ, to which family she herself belonged.
+
+The eunuch's cunning scheme succeeded but too well. At the end of the
+great banquet Bartja, to whom Cambyses had promised to grant a favour on
+his victorious return from the war, confessed to him his love for
+Sappho, a charming and cultured Greek maiden of noble descent, whom he
+wished to make his wife. Cambyses was delighted at this proof of the
+injustice of his jealous suspicions, and announced aloud that Bartja
+would in a few days depart to bring home a bride. At these words
+Nitetis, thinking of her poor sister's misery, fainted.
+
+Cambyses sprang up pale as death; his lips trembled and his fist was
+clenched. Nitetis looked at him imploringly, but he commanded Boges to
+take the women back to their apartments. "Sleep well, Egyptian, and pray
+to the gods to give you the power of dissembling your feelings. Here,
+give me wine; but taste it well, for to-day, for the first time, I fear
+poison. Do you hear, Egyptian? Yes, all the poison, as well as the
+medicine, comes from Egypt."
+
+Boges gave strict orders that nobody--not even the queen-mother or
+Croesus--was to have access to the hanging gardens, whither he had
+conducted Nitetis. Cambyses, meanwhile, continued the drinking bout,
+thinking the while of punishment for the false woman. Bartja could have
+had no share in her perfidy, or he would have killed him on the spot;
+but he would send him away. And Nitetis should be handed to Boges, to be
+made the servant of his concubines and thus to atone for her crimes.
+
+When the king left the hall, Boges, who had slipped out before him,
+intercepted one of the gardener's boys with a letter for Prince Bartja.
+The boy refused to hand it over, as Nitetis had instructed him to hand
+it only to the prince; and on Cambyses' approach the boy fell on his
+knees, touching the ground with his forehead. Cambyses snatched the
+papyrus roll from his hand, and stamped furiously on the ground at
+seeing that the letter was written in Greek, which he could not read. He
+went to his own apartments, followed by Boges, whom he instructed to
+keep a strict watch over the Egyptian and the hanging gardens. "If a
+single human being or a message reach her without my knowledge, your
+life will be the forfeit."
+
+Boges, pleading a burning fever, begged that Kandaules, the Lydian
+captain of eunuchs, who was true as gold and inflexibly severe, should
+relieve him on the morrow. On the king's consent, he begged furthermore
+that Oropastes, Croesus, and three other nobles should be allowed to
+witness the opening of the blue lily in the hanging gardens. Kandaules
+would see that they enter into no communication with the Egyptian.
+
+"Kandaules must keep his eyes open, if he values his own life--go!"
+
+
+_III.--Conflicting Evidence_
+
+
+The hunt was over, and Bartja, who had invited his bosom friends,
+Darius, Gyges, Zopyrus, and Croesus, to drink a parting-cup with him,
+sat with the first three in the bower of the royal gardens. They talked
+long of love, of their ambitions, of the influence of stars on human
+destinies, when Croesus rapidly approached the arbour. When he beheld
+Bartja, he stood transfixed, then whispered to him, "Unhappy boy, you
+are still here? Fly for your life! The whip-bearers are close on my
+heels."
+
+"What do you mean?"
+
+"Fly, I tell you, even if your visit to the hanging gardens was
+innocently meant. You know Cambyses' violent temper. You know his
+jealousy of you; and your visit to the Egyptian to-night...."
+
+"My visit? I have never left this garden!"
+
+"Don't add a lie to your offense. Save yourself, quickly."
+
+"I speak the truth, and I shall remain."
+
+"You are infatuated. We saw you in the hanging-gardens not an hour ago."
+
+Bartja appealed to his friends, who confirmed on oath the truth of his
+assertion; and before Croesus could arrive at a solution of the mystery,
+the soldiers had arrived, led by an officer who had served under Bartja.
+He had orders to arrest everybody found in the suspect's company, but at
+the risk of his life urged Bartja to escape the king's fury. His men
+would blindly follow his command. But Bartja steadfastly refused. He was
+innocent, and knew that Cambyses, though hasty, was not unjust.
+
+Two hours later Bartja and his friends stood before the king who had
+just recovered from an epileptic fit. A few hours earlier he would have
+killed Bartja with his own hands. Now he was ready to lend an ear to
+both sides. Boges first related that he was with the Achæmenidæ, looking
+at the blue lily, and called Kandaules to inquire if everything was in
+order. On being told that Nitetis had not tasted food or drink all day,
+he sent Kandaules to fetch a physician. It was then that he saw Bartja
+by the princess's window. She herself came out of the sleep-room.
+Croesus called to Bartja, and the two figures disappeared behind a
+cypress. He went to search the house and found Nitetis lying unconscious
+on a couch. Hystaspes and the other nobles confirmed the eunuch's words,
+and even Croesus had to admit their substantial truth, but added that
+they must have been deceived by some remarkable likeness--at which Boges
+grew pale.
+
+Bartja's friends were equally definite in their evidence for the
+accused. Cambyses looked first on the one, then on the other party of
+these strange witnesses. Then Bartja begged permission to speak.
+
+"A son of Cyrus," he said, "would rather die than lie. I confess no
+judge was ever placed in so perplexing a position. But were the entire
+Persian nation to rise up against you, and swear that Cambyses had
+committed an evil deed, and you were to say, 'I did not commit it,' I,
+Bartja, would give all Persia the lie and exclaim, 'Ye are all false
+witnesses! A son of Cyrus cannot allow his mouth to deal in lies.' I
+swear to you that I am innocent. I have not once set foot in the hanging
+gardens since my return."
+
+Cambyses' looks grew milder on hearing these words, and when Oropastes
+suggested that an evil spirit must have taken Bartja's form to ruin him,
+he nodded assent and stretched out his hand towards Bartja. At this
+moment a staff-bearer came in and gave the king a dagger found by a
+eunuch under Nitetis' window. Cambyses examined it, dashed the dagger
+violently to the ground, and shrieked, "This is your dagger! At last you
+are convicted, you liar! Ah, you are feeling in your girdle! You may
+well turn pale, your dagger is gone! Seize him, put on his fetters! He
+shall be strangled to-morrow! Away with you, you perjured villains! They
+shall all die to-morrow! And the Egyptian--at noon she shall be flogged
+through the streets. Then I'll----"
+
+But here he was stopped by another fit of epilepsy, and sank down in
+convulsions.
+
+The fate of the unfortunates was sealed when, afterwards, Cambyses made
+Croesus read to him Nitetis' Greek letter to Bartja.
+
+"Nitetis, daughter of Amasis of Egypt, to Bartja, son of the great
+Cyrus.
+
+"I have something important to tell you; I can tell it to no one but
+yourself. To-morrow I hope to meet you in your mother's rooms. It lies
+in your power to comfort a sad and loving heart, and to give it one
+happy moment before death. I repeat that I must see you soon."
+
+Croesus, who tried to intercede on behalf of the condemned, was
+sentenced to share their fate. In his heart even he was now convinced of
+Bartja's guilt, and of the perjury of his own son and of Darius.
+
+
+_IV.--The Unexpected Witness_
+
+
+Nitetis had passed many a wretched hour since the great banquet. All day
+long she was kept in strict seclusion, and in the twilight Boges came to
+her to tell her jeeringly that her letter had fallen into the king's
+hand, and that its bearer had been executed. The princess swooned away,
+and Boges carried her to her sleeping-room, the door of which he barred
+carefully. When, later, Mandane left her lover Gaumata, the maid hurried
+into her mistress's room, found her in a faint, and used every remedy to
+restore her to consciousness.
+
+Then Boges came with two eunuchs, loaded the princess's arms with
+fetters, and gave vent to his long-nourished spite, telling her of the
+awful fate that was in store for her. Nitetis resolved to swallow a
+poisonous ointment for the complexion directly the executioner should
+draw near her. Then, in spite of her fetters, she managed to write to
+Cambyses, to assure him once more of her love and to explain her
+innocence. "I commit this crime against myself, Cambyses, to save you
+from doing a disgraceful deed."
+
+Meanwhile, Boges, after exciting Phædime's curiosity by many vague
+hints, divulged to her the nature of his infamous scheme. When Gaumata
+had come to Babylon for the New Year's festival, Boges had discovered
+his remarkable likeness to Bartja. He knew of his love for Mandane,
+gained his confidence, and arranged the nocturnal meeting under Nitetis'
+bedroom window. In return he exacted the promise of the lover's
+immediate departure after the meeting. He helped him to escape through a
+trap-door. To get Bartja out of the way, he had induced a Greek merchant
+to dispatch a letter to the prince, asking him, in the name of her he
+loved best, to come alone in the evening to the first station outside
+the Euphrates gate. Unfortunately, the messenger managed the matter
+clumsily, and apparently gave the letter to Gaumata. But to counteract
+Bartja's proof of innocence, Boges had managed to get hold of his
+dagger, which was conclusive evidence. And now Nitetis was sentenced to
+be set astride upon an ass and led through the streets of Babylon. As
+for Gaumata, three men were lying in wait for him to throw him into the
+Euphrates before he could get back to Rhagae. Phædime joined in Boges'
+laughter, and hung a heavy jewel-studded chain round his neck.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+A few hours only were wanted for the time fixed for Nitetis' disgrace,
+and the streets of Babylon were thronged with a dense crowd of
+sightseers, when a small caravan approached the Bel gate. In the first
+carriage was a fine, handsome man of about fifty, of commanding aspect,
+and dressed as a Persian courtier. With difficulty the driver cleared a
+passage through the crowd. "Make way for us! The royal post has no time
+to lose, and I am driving some one who will make you repent every
+minute's delay." They arrived at the palace, and the stranger's
+insistence succeeded in gaining admission to the king. The Greek--for
+such the stranger had declared himself--affirmed that he could prove the
+condemned men's innocence.
+
+"Call him in!" exclaimed Cambyses. "But if he wants to deceive me, let
+him remember that where the head of a son of Cyrus is about to fall, a
+Greek head has but very little chance." The Greek's calm and noble
+manner impressed Cambyses favourably, and his hostility was entirely
+overcome when the stranger revealed to him that he was Phanes, the
+famous commander of the Greek mercenaries in Egypt, and that he had come
+to offer his service to Cambyses.
+
+Phanes now related how, on approaching Babylon by the royal post, just
+before midnight, they heard some cries of distress, and found three
+fierce-looking fellows dragging a youth towards the river; how with his
+Greek war-cry he had rushed on the murderers, slain one of them, and put
+the others to flight; and how he discovered--so he thought--the youth to
+be none other but Bartja, whom he had met at the Egyptian court.
+
+They took him to the nearest station, bled him, and bound up his wounds.
+When he regained consciousness, he told them his name was Gaumata. Then
+he was seized by fever, during which he constantly spoke of the hanging
+gardens and of his Mandane.
+
+"Set the prisoners free, my king. I will answer for it with my own head,
+that Bartja was not in the hanging gardens."
+
+The king was surprised at this speech, but not angry. Phanes then
+advised him to send for Oropastes and Mandane, whose examination
+elicited the full truth. Boges, who was also sent for, had disappeared.
+Cambyses had all the prisoners set free, gave Phanes his hand to kiss--a
+rare honour--and, greater honour still, invited him to eat at the king's
+table. Then he went to the rooms of his mother, who had sent for him.
+
+Nitetis had been carried insensible to the queen-mother's apartments.
+When she opened her eyes, her head was resting on the blind queen's lap,
+she felt Atossa's warm kisses on her forehead, and Cambyses was standing
+by her side. She gazed around, and smiled as she recognised them one by
+one. She raised herself with difficulty. "How could you believe such a
+thing of me, my king?" she asked. There was no reproach in her tone, but
+deep sadness; Cambyses replied, "Forgive me."
+
+Nitetis then gave them the letter she had received from her mother,
+which would explain all, and begged them not to scorn her poor sister.
+"When an Egyptian girl once loves, she cannot forget. But I feel so
+frightened. The end must be near. That horrible man, Boges, read me the
+fearful sentence, and it was that which forced the poison into my hand."
+
+The physician rushed forward. "I thought so! She has taken a poison
+which results in certain death. She is lost!"
+
+On hearing this, the king exclaimed in anguish, "She _shall_ live; it is
+my will! Summon all the physicians in Babylon. Assemble the priests. She
+is not to die! She must live! I am the king, and I command it!"
+
+Nitetis opened her eyes as if endeavouring to obey her lord. She looked
+upon her lover, who was pressing his burning lips to her right hand. She
+murmured, with a smile, "Oh, this great happiness!" Then she closed her
+eyes and was seized with fever.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+All efforts to save Nitetis' life were fruitless. Cambyses fell into the
+deepest gloom, and wanted action, war, to dispel his sad thoughts.
+Phanes gave him the pretext. As commander of the Greek mercenaries in
+Egypt, he had enjoyed Amasis' confidence. He alone, with the
+high-priest, shared Amasis' secret about the birth of Nitetus, who was
+not the daughter of Amasis, but of Hophra, his predecessor, whose throne
+Amasis had usurped. When, owing to the intrigues of Psamtik, Amasis'
+son, Phanes fell into disgrace and had to fly for his life, his little
+son was seized and cruelly murdered by his persecutors. Phanes had sworn
+revenge. He now persuaded Cambyses to wage war upon Egypt, and to claim
+Amasis' throne as the husband of Hophra's daughter.
+
+The rest is known to all students of history--how Cambyses, with the
+help of Phanes, defeated Psamtik's host at Pelusium and took possession
+of the whole Egyptian Empire; how, given more and more to drink and
+fearful excesses, he set up a rule of untold terror, had his brother
+Bartja murdered in another fit of jealousy, and finally suffered defeat
+at the hands of the Ethiopians. They will also know how, on his death,
+Gaumata, the "pseudo-Smerdis" of the Greeks, was urged by his ambitious
+brother, Oropastes, to seize the throne by impersonating the dead
+Bartja; how, finally, the pretender was defeated and had to pay for his
+attempt with his life; and how Persia rose again to unity and greatness
+under the rule of the noble Darius, Bartja's faithful kinsman and
+friend.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+MARIA EDGEWORTH
+
+
+Belinda
+
+
+     Maria Edgeworth was born at Black Bourton, Oxfordshire,
+     England, Jan. 1, 1767, and eleven years later her father
+     removed to Ireland and settled on his own estate at
+     Edgeworthstown. "Belinda," published in 1801, is Maria
+     Edgeworth's one early example of a novel not placed in Irish
+     surroundings, but dealing with fashionable life. Issued just a
+     year after the appearance of her first Irish tale, "Castle
+     Rackrent," it betrays entirely the influence of the novelist's
+     autocratic and eccentric father, Richard Lovell Edgeworth,
+     with whom the daughter had been previously collaborating. No
+     one could be less suited than he to advise about fiction, yet
+     to his daughter his advice was almost the equivalent of a
+     command. The story is interesting as an example of literary
+     workmanship outside of the scenes in which special success had
+     been achieved. Miss Edgeworth died at Edgeworthstown on May
+     22, 1849.
+
+
+_I.--A Match-Maker's Handicap_
+
+
+Mrs. Stanhope, a well-bred woman, accomplished in the art of rising in
+the world, had, with but a small fortune, contrived to live in the
+highest company. She prided herself upon having established half a dozen
+nieces most happily--that is to say, upon having married them to men of
+fortunes far superior to their own. One niece still remained unmarried,
+Belinda Portman, of whom she determined to get rid with all convenient
+expedition; but finding that, owing to declining health, she could not
+go out with her as much as she wished, she succeeded in fastening her
+upon the fashionable Lady Delacour for a winter in London.
+
+"Nothing, to my mind, can be more miserable than the situation of a poor
+girl who fails in her matrimonial expectations (as many do merely from
+not beginning to speculate in time)," she wrote from Bath. "She finds
+herself at five or six-and-thirty a burden to her friends, destitute of
+the means of rendering herself independent--for the girls I speak of
+never think of _learning_ to play cards--_de trop_ in society, yet
+obliged to hang upon all her acquaintances, who wish her in heaven,
+because she is unqualified to make the _expected_ return for civilities,
+having no home--I mean no establishment, no house, etc.--fit for the
+reception of company of certain rank. My dearest Belinda, may this never
+be your case. I have sent your bracelet to you by Mr. Clarence Hervey,
+an acquaintance of Lady Delacour, an uncommonly pleasant young man,
+highly connected, a wit and a gallant, and having a fine independent
+fortune; so, my dear Belinda, I make it a point--look well when he is
+introduced to you, and remember that nobody _can_ look well without
+taking some pains to please."
+
+Belinda had been charmed by Lady Delacour, who was the most agreeable,
+the most fascinating person she had ever beheld; and to be a visitor at
+her house was a delightful privilege. But, a short time after her
+arrival, she began to see through the thin veil with which politeness
+covers domestic misery. Abroad, Lady Delacour appeared all spirit, life,
+and good humour; at home, listless, fretful, and melancholy, a prey to
+thoughts, seemingly, of the most painful nature.
+
+The first time Belinda saw his lordship he was dead drunk in the arms of
+two footmen; his lady, who had just returned from Ranelagh, passed him
+on the stairs with the utmost contempt.
+
+"Don't look so shocked and amazed, Belinda. Don't look so _new_, child.
+This funeral of my lord's intellects is to me a nightly ceremony; or,"
+said her ladyship, looking at her watch and yawning, "I believe I should
+say a daily ceremony--six o'clock, I protest!"
+
+The next morning Clarence Hervey called, and Belinda found him a most
+uncommonly pleasant young man. Lord Delacour was jealous of him; but
+although he would have started with horror at the idea of disturbing the
+peace of a family, in that family, he said, there was no peace to
+disturb. Consequently, he visited her ladyship every day, and every day
+viewed Belinda with increasing admiration, and with increasing dread of
+being taken in to marry a niece of that "catch-matchmaker," as Mrs.
+Stanhope was known amongst the men of his acquaintance.
+
+Under the guise of a tragic muse--in which character Lady Delacour had
+pretended she was going to a masquerade--Belinda heard his true
+sentiments with regard to her.
+
+"You don't believe I go to Lady Delacour's to look for a wife? Do you
+think I'm an idiot? Do you think I could be taken in by one of the
+Stanhope school?" he said to the facetious friends who rallied him on
+his attachment. "Do you think I don't see as plainly as any of you that
+Belinda Portman is a composition of art and affectation?"
+
+"Melpomene, hast thou forgot thyself to warble?" asked Lady Delacour,
+tripping towards them as the comic muse.
+
+"I am not very well," whispered Miss Portman. "Could we get away?"
+
+"Do see if you can find any of my people!" cried Lady Delacour to
+Clarence Hervey, who had followed them downstairs.
+
+"Lady Delacour, the comic muse!" exclaimed he. "I had thought----"
+
+"No matter what you thought!" interrupted her ladyship. "Let my carriage
+draw up, and put this lady into it!" And he obeyed without uttering a
+syllable.
+
+"Dry up your tears, _keep on your mask_, and elbow your way through the
+crowd," she said, when she had heard Belinda's story. "If you stop to be
+civil and 'hope I don't hurt ye,' you will be trod underfoot."
+
+She insisted on driving to the Panthéon instead of going home, but to
+Belinda the night seemed long and dull. The masquerade had no charm to
+keep her thoughts from the conversation that had given her so much pain.
+
+
+_II.--Fashion and Fortitude_
+
+
+"How happy you are, Lady Delacour!" she said, when they got into the
+carriage to go home. "How happy to have such an amazing flow of
+spirits!"
+
+And then she learnt the reason of her ladyship's strange unevenness of
+temper. She was dying of an incurable complaint, which she kept hidden
+from all the world except her maid, Marriott, who attended on her in a
+mysterious cabinet full of medicines and linen rags, the door of which
+she had hitherto kept locked.
+
+"You are shocked, Belinda," said she, "but as yet you have seen nothing.
+Look here!" And baring one half of her bosom, she revealed a hideous
+spectacle.
+
+"Am I humbled? Am I wretched enough?" she asked. "No matter. I will die
+as I have lived, the envy and admiration of the world. Promise--swear to
+me that you will never reveal what you have seen to-night!" And Belinda
+promised not only that, but to remain with her as long as ever she
+wished.
+
+Belinda's quiet avoidance of Clarence Hervey made him begin to believe
+that she might not be "a compound of art and affectation," and he was
+mortified to find that, though she joined with ease and dignity in the
+general conversation with the others, her manner to him was grave and
+reserved. To divert her, he declared he was convinced he was as well
+able to manage a hoop as any woman in England, except Lady Delacour;
+accordingly he was dressed by Marriott, and made his _entree_ with very
+composed assurance and grace, being introduced as the Countess de
+Pomenars to the purblind dowager, Lady Boucher, who had come to call. He
+managed his part well, speaking French and broken English, until Lady
+Delacour dexterously let down Belinda's beautiful tresses, and, calling
+the French lady to admire _la belle chevelure,_ artfully let fall her
+comb.
+
+Totally forgetting his hoop and his character, he stooped to pick it up,
+and lost his wager by knocking over a music-stand. He would have liked a
+lock of her hair, but she refused with a modest, graceful dignity; she
+was glad she had done so later when a tress of hair dropped from his
+pocket-book, and his confusion showed her he was extremely interested
+about the person to whom it belonged.
+
+During her absence from the room Clarence entreated Lady Delacour to
+make his peace with her. She consented on condition that he found her a
+pair of horses from Tattersall's, on which Belinda, she said, had
+secretly set her heart. He was vexed to find Belinda had so little
+delicacy, and relapsed into his former opinion of Mrs. Stanhope's niece,
+addressing her with the air of a man of gallantry, who thought his peace
+had been cheaply made.
+
+The horses ran away with Lady Delacour, injuring her ankle, and on her
+being brought home by Clarence, Lord Delacour wished to enter the locked
+cabinet for _arque-busade._ On being denied entrance, he seized the key,
+believing a lover of hers was concealed there, until Belinda sprang
+forward and took it from him, leaving them to believe what they would.
+
+This circumstance was afterwards explained by Dr. X----, a mutual
+friend, and Hervey was so much charmed with Belinda that he would have
+gone to her at once--only that he had undertaken the reformation of Lady
+Delacour.
+
+
+_III.--An Unexpected Suitor_
+
+
+In the meantime, after spending a morning in tasting wines, and thinking
+that, although he had never learned to swim, some recollection he had of
+an essay on swimming would ensure his safety, he betted his friends a
+hundred guineas that he would swim to a certain point, and flinging
+himself into the Serpentine, would have drowned before their eyes but
+for the help of Mr. Percival. The breach caused by this affair induced
+Sir Philip Baddely, a gentleman who always supplied "each vacuity of
+sense" with an oath, to endeavour to cut him out by proposing to
+Belinda.
+
+"Damme, you're ten times handsomer than the finest woman I ever saw,
+for, damme, I didn't know what it was to be in love then," he said,
+heaving an audible sigh. "I'll trouble you for Mrs. Stanhope's
+direction, Miss Portman; I believe, to do the thing in style, I ought to
+write to her before I speak to you."
+
+Belinda looked at him in astonishment, and then, finding he was in
+earnest, assured him it was not in her power to encourage his addresses,
+although she was fully sensible of the honour he had done her.
+
+"Confusion seize me!" cried he, starting up, "if it isn't the most
+extraordinary thing I ever heard! Is it to Sir Philip Baddely's
+fortune--£15,000 a year--you object, or to his family, or to his person?
+Oh, curse it!" said he, changing his tone, "you're only quizzing me to
+see how I should look--you do it too well, you little coquette!"
+
+Belinda again assured him she was entirely in earnest, and that she was
+incapable of the sort of coquetry which he ascribed to her. To punish
+her for this rejection he spread the report of Hervey's entanglement
+with a beautiful girl named Virginia, whose picture he had sent to an
+exhibition. He also roused Lady Delacour's jealousy into the belief that
+Belinda meant to marry her husband, the viscount, after her death.
+
+In her efforts to bring husband and wife together, Belinda had forgotten
+that jealousy could exist without love, and a letter from Mrs. Stanhope,
+exaggerating the scandalous reports in the hope of forcing her niece to
+marry Sir Philip Baddely, shocked her so much that when Lady Delacour
+quarrelled with her, she accepted an invitation from Lady Anne Percival,
+and went there at once.
+
+There she became acquainted with Mr. Percival's ward, Augustus Vincent,
+a Creole, about two-and-twenty, tall and remarkably handsome, with
+striking manners and an engaging person, who fixed his favourable
+attention on her. The Percivals would have wished her to marry him, but
+she still thought too much of Clarence Hervey to consent, although she
+believed he had some engagement with the lovely Virginia.
+
+
+_IV.--Explanation and Reconciliation_
+
+
+Quite unexpectedly a summons came from Lady Delacour, and Belinda
+returned to her at once, to find her so seriously ill that she persuaded
+her at last to consent to an operation, and inform her husband of the
+dangerous disease from which she was suffering. He believed from her
+preamble that she was about to confess her love for another man; he
+tried to stop her with an emotion and energy he had never shown until
+now.
+
+"I am not sufficiently master of myself. I once loved you too well to
+hear such a stroke. Say no more--trust me with no such secret! you have
+said enough--too much. I forgive you, that is all I can do; but we must
+part, Lady Delacour!" said he, breaking from her with agony expressed in
+his countenance.
+
+"The man has a heart, a soul, I protest! You knew him better that I did,
+Miss Portman. Nay, you are not gone yet, my lord! You really love me, I
+find."
+
+"No, no, no!" cried he vehemently. "Weak as you take me to be, Lady
+Delacour, I am incapable of loving a woman who has disgraced me,
+disgraced herself, her--" His utterance failed.
+
+"Oh, Lady Delacour," cried Belinda, "how can you trifle in this manner?"
+
+"I meant not," said her ladyship, "to trifle; I am satisfied. My lord, I
+can give you the most irrefragable proof that whatever may have been the
+apparent levity of my conduct, you have had no serious cause for
+jealousy. But the proof will shock, disgust you. Have you courage to
+know more? Then follow me."
+
+He followed her. Belinda heard the boudoir door unlocked. In a few
+minutes they returned. Grief and horror and pity were painted on Lord
+Delacour's countenance as he passed hastily out of the room.
+
+"My dearest friend, I have taken your advice; would to heaven I had
+taken it sooner!" said Lady Delacour. "I have revealed to Lord Delacour
+my real situation. Poor man, he was shocked beyond expression. The
+moment his foolish jealousy was extinguished, his love for me revived in
+full."
+
+Lady Delacour awaited the operation with the utmost fortitude; but, to
+everyone's joy, it was found there was no necessity for it; she had been
+deceived by a villainous quack, who knew too well how to make a wound
+hideous and painful, and had continued her delusion for his own
+advantage.
+
+Meanwhile, Belinda having permitted Mr. Vincent to address her, he was
+being given a fair trial whether he could win her love. They had heard
+reports of Clarence Hervey's speedy marriage with an heiress, Miss
+Hartley, and found them confirmed by a letter Lady Delacour received
+from him. Some years ago he had formed the romantic idea of educating a
+wife for himself, and having found a beautiful, artless girl in the New
+Forest, he had taken her under his care on the death of her grandmother.
+
+She felt herself bound in honour and gratitude to him when her fortune
+changed, and she was acknowledged by her father, Mr. Hartley, who had
+long been searching for her, and who had traced her at last by the
+picture Clarence Hervey had caused to be exhibited.
+
+With the utmost magnanimity, Hervey, although he saw a successful rival
+for Belinda's hand in Augustus Vincent, rescued him from ruin at the
+gaming-table, and induced him to promise never to gamble again.
+
+"I was determined Belinda's husband should be my friend. I have
+succeeded beyond my hopes," he said.
+
+But Vincent's love of play had decided Belinda at last. She refused him
+finally in a letter which she confessed she found difficult to write,
+but which she sent because she had promised she would not hold him in
+suspense once she had made her decision.
+
+After this Virginia Hartley confessed to her attachment for one Captain
+Sunderland, and Clarence was free to avow his passion for Belinda.
+
+"And what is Miss Portman to believe," cried one of Belinda's friends,
+"when she has seen you on the very eve of marriage with another lady?"
+
+"The strongest merit I can plead with such a woman as Miss Portman," he
+replied, "is that I was ready to sacrifice my own happiness to a sense
+of duty."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+Castle Rackrent
+
+
+     "Castle Rackrent" was published anonymously in 1800. It was
+     not only the first of Miss Edgeworth's novels,--it is in many
+     respects her best work. Later came "The Absentee," "Belinda,"
+     "Helen," the "Tales of Fashionable Life," and the "Moral
+     Tales." Sir Walter Scott wrote that reading these stories of
+     Irish peasant life made him feel "that something might be
+     tempted for my own country of the same kind as that which Miss
+     Edgeworth so fortunately achieved for Ireland," something that
+     would procure for his own countrymen "sympathy for their
+     virtues and indulgence for their foibles." As a study of Irish
+     fidelity in the person of Old Thady, the steward who tells the
+     story of "Castle Rackrent," the book is a masterpiece.
+
+
+_I.--Sir Patrick and Sir Murtagh_
+
+
+Having, out of friendship for the family, undertaken to publish the
+memoirs of the Rackrent family, I think it my duty to say a few words
+concerning myself first. My real name is Thady Quirk, though in the
+family I've always been known as "Honest Thady"; afterwards, I remember
+to hear them calling me "Old Thady," and now I've come to "Poor Thady."
+To look at me you would hardly think poor Thady was the father of
+Attorney Quirk; he is a high gentleman, and having better than fifteen
+hundred a year, landed estate, looks down upon honest Thady. But I wash
+my hands of his doings, and as I lived so will I die, true and loyal to
+the family.
+
+I ought to bless that day when Sir Tallyhoo Rackrent lost a fine hunter
+and his life, all in one day's hunt, for the estate came straight into
+_the_ family, upon one condition, that Sir Patrick O'Shaughlin (whose
+driver my grandfather was) should, by Act of Parliament, take the
+surname and arms of Rackrent.
+
+Now it was the world could see what was in Sir Patrick. He gave the
+finest entertainments ever was heard of in the country; not a man could
+stand after supper but Sir Patrick himself. He had his house, from one
+year's end to another, as full of company as it would hold; and this
+went on, I can't tell you how long.
+
+But one year, on his birthday, just as the company rose to drink his
+health, he fell down in a sort of fit, and in the morning it was all
+over with poor Sir Patrick.
+
+Never did any gentleman die more beloved by rich and poor. All the
+gentlemen in the three counties came to his funeral; and happy the man
+who could get but a sight of the hearse!
+
+Just as they were passing through his own town the body was seized for
+debt! Little gain had the creditors!
+
+First and foremost, they had the curses of the country, and Sir Murtagh,
+the new heir, refused to pay a shilling on account of the insult to his
+father's body; in which he was countenanced by all the gentlemen of
+property of his acquaintance. He did not take at all after the old
+gentleman. The cellars were never filled, and no open house; even the
+tenants were sent away without their whiskey. I was ashamed myself, but
+put it all down to my lady; she was of the family of the Skinflints. I
+must say, she made the best of wives, being a notable, stirring woman,
+and looking close to everything. 'Tis surprising how cheap my lady got
+things done! What with fear of driving for rent, and Sir Murtagh's
+lawsuits, the tenants were kept in such good order they never came near
+Castle Rackrent without a present of something or other--nothing too
+much or too little for my lady. And Sir Murtagh taught 'em all, as he
+said, the law of landlord and tenant. No man ever loved the law as he
+did.
+
+Out of the forty-nine suits he had, he never lost one, but seventeen.
+
+Though he and my lady were much of a mind in most things, there was a
+deal of sparring and jarring between them. In a dispute about an
+abatement one day, my lady would have the last word, and Sir Murtagh
+grew mad. I was within hearing--he spoke so loud, all the kitchen was
+out on the stairs. All on a sudden he stopped, and my lady, too. Sir
+Murtagh, in his passion, had broken a blood-vessel. My lady sent for
+five physicians; but Sir Murtagh died. She had a fine jointure settled
+upon her, and took herself away, to the great joy of the tenantry.
+
+
+_II.--Sir Kit and his Wife_
+
+
+Then the house was all hurry-scurry, preparing for my new master, Sir
+Murtagh's younger brother, a dashing young officer. He came before I
+knew where I was, with another spark with him, and horses and dogs, and
+servants, and harum-scarum called for everything, as if he were in a
+public-house. I walk slow, and hate a bustle, and if it had not been for
+my pipe and tobacco, should, I verily believe, have broke my heart for
+poor Sir Murtagh.
+
+But one morning my new master caught sight of me. "And is that Old
+Thady?" says he. I loved him from that day to this, his voice was so
+like the family, and I never saw a finer figure of a man.
+
+A fine life we should have led had he stayed among us, God bless him!
+But, the sporting season over, he grew tired of the place, and was off
+in a whirlwind to town. A circular letter came next post from the new
+agent to say he must remit £500 to the master at Bath within a
+fortnight--bad news for the poor tenants. Sir Kit Rackrent, my new
+master, left it all to the agent, and now not a week without a call for
+money. Rents must be paid to the day, and afore--old tenants turned out,
+anything for the ready penny.
+
+The agent was always very civil to me, and took a deal of notice of my
+son Jason, who, though he be my son, was a good scholar from his birth,
+and a very cute lad. Seeing he was a good clerk, the agent gave him the
+rent accounts to copy, which he did for nothing at first, being always
+proud to serve the family.
+
+By-and-by, a good farm fell vacant, and my son put in a proposal for it.
+Why not? The master, knowing no more of the land than a child unborn,
+wrote over, leaving it to the agent, and he must send over £200 by
+return post. So my son's proposal was just the thing, and he a good
+tenant, and he got a promise of abatement after the first year for
+advancing the half-year's rent to make up the £200, and my master was
+satisfied. The agent told us then, as a great secret, that Sir Kit was a
+little too fond of play.
+
+At last, at Christmas, the agent wrote he could raise no more money,
+anyhow, and desired to resign the agency. My son, Jason, who had
+corresponded privately with Sir Kit, was requested to take over the
+accounts forthwith. His honour also condescended to tell us he was going
+to be married in a fortnight to the grandest heiress in England, and had
+immediate occasion for £200 for travelling expenses home to Castle
+Rackrent, where he intended to be early next month. We soon saw his
+marriage in the paper, and news came of him and his bride being in
+Dublin on their way home. We had bonfires all over the country,
+expecting them all day, and were just thinking of giving them up for the
+night, when the carriage came thundering up. I got the first sight of
+the bride, and greatly shocked I was, for she was little better than a
+blackamoor. "You're kindly welcome, my lady," I says; but neither spoke
+a word, nor did he so much as hand her up the steps.
+
+I concluded she could not speak English, and was from foreign parts, so
+I left her to herself, and went down to the servants' hall to learn
+something about her. Sir Kit's own man told us, at last, that she might
+well be a great fortune, for she was a Jewess, by all accounts. I had
+never seen any of that tribe before, and could only gather that she
+could not abide pork nor sausages, and went neither to church nor mass.
+"Mercy upon his honour's poor soul," thought I. But when, after this,
+strange gentleman's servants came and began to talk about the bride, I
+took care to put the best foot foremost, and passed her for a nabob.
+
+I saw plain enough, next morning, how things were between Sir Kit and
+his lady, though they went arm-in-arm to look at the building.
+
+"Old Thady, how do you do?" says my master, just as he used to do, but I
+could see he was not well pleased, and my heart was in my mouth as I
+walked after them.
+
+There were no balls, no dinners, no doings. Sir Kit's gentleman told me
+it was all my lady's fault, because she was so obstinate about the
+cross.
+
+"What cross?" says I. "Is it about her being a heretic?"
+
+"Oh, no such matter," says he. "My master does not mind about her
+heresies, but her diamond cross. She's thousands of English pounds
+concealed in her diamonds, which she as good as promised to give to my
+master before they married; but now she won't part with any of them, and
+must take the consequences."
+
+One morning, his honour says to me, "Thady, buy me a pig," and that was
+the first breaking out of my lady's troubles when the sausages were
+ordered. My lady went down to the kitchen herself, and desired never
+more to see them on her table. The cook took her part, but the master
+made it a principle to have the sausages; so, for fear of her place, she
+gave in, and from that day forward, always sausages or pig-meat in one
+form or other went up to table; upon which my lady shut herself up in
+her own room, and my master turned the key in the door, and kept it ever
+after in his pocket. We none of us saw her, or heard her speak for seven
+years after; he carried her dinner in himself.
+
+Then his honour had a deal of company, and was as gay and gallant as
+before he was married. The country, to be sure, talked and wondered, but
+nobody cared to ask impertinent questions, my master being a famous
+shot. His character was so well known that he lived in peace and quiet
+ever after, and was a great favourite with the ladies; so that, when he
+gave out that my lady was now skin and bone, and could not live through
+the winter, there were no less than three ladies at daggers drawn, as
+his gentleman swore, at the balls, for Sir Kit for their partner. I
+could not but think them bewitched, but it was not known how my lady's
+fortune was settled, nor how the estate was all mortgaged, and bonds out
+against him, for he was never cured of his gaming tricks; but that was
+the only fault he had, God bless him!
+
+Then it was given out, by mistake, that my lady was dead, and the three
+ladies showed their brothers Sir Kit's letters, and claimed his
+promises. His honour said he was willing to meet any man who questioned
+his conduct, and the ladies must settle among themselves who was to be
+his second, while his first was alive, to his mortification and theirs.
+He met the first lady's brother, and shot him; next day called out the
+second, whose wooden leg stuck fast in the ploughed land, so Sir Kit,
+with great candour, fired over his head, whereupon they shook hands
+cordially, and went home together to dinner.
+
+To establish his sister's reputation this gentleman went out as Sir
+Kit's second next day, when he met the last of his adversaries. He had
+just hit the toothpick out of his enemy's hand, when he received a ball
+in a vital part, and was brought home speechless in a hand-barrow. We
+got the key out of his pocket at once, and my son Jason ran to release
+her ladyship. She would not believe but that it was some new trick till
+she saw the men bringing Sir Kit up the avenue. There was no life in
+him, and he was "waked" the same night.
+
+The country was all in an uproar about him, and his murderer would have
+been hanged surely, but he prudently withdrew to the Continent.
+
+My lady got surprisingly well, and no sooner was it known that Sir Kit
+was dead than all the country came round in a body, as it were, to set
+her free. But she had taken an unaccountable prejudice against the
+country, and was not easy, but when she was packing up to leave us, I
+considered her quite as a foreigner, and no longer part of the family.
+Her diamond cross was at the bottom of it all; and it was a shame for
+her, being his wife, not to have given it up to him when he condescended
+to ask for it so often, especially when he made it no secret he had
+married her for her money.
+
+
+_III.--Sir Condy_
+
+
+The new heir, Sir Conolly, commonly called Sir Condy, was the most
+universally beloved man I ever saw or heard of. He was ever my white-
+headed boy, when he used to live in a small but slated house at the end
+of the avenue, before he went to college. He had little fortune of his
+own, and a deal of money was spent on his education. Many of the tenants
+secretly advanced him cash upon his promising bargains of leases, and
+lawful interest should he ever come into the estate. So that when he did
+succeed, he could not command a penny of his first year's income. My son
+Jason, who was now agent, explained matters to Sir Condy, who, not
+willing to take his affairs in his own hands, or even to look them in
+the face, gave my son a bargain of some acres at a reasonable rent to
+pay him for his many years' service in the family gratis.
+
+There was a hunting-lodge convenient to my son's land that he had his
+eye upon, but Sir Condy talked of letting it to his friend Captain
+Moneygawl, with whom he had become very friendly, and whose sister, Miss
+Isabella, fell over head and ears in love with my master the first time
+he went there to dinner.
+
+But Sir Condy was at a terrible nonplus, for he had no liking for Miss
+Isabella. To his mind, little Judy McQuirk, daughter to a sister's son
+of mine, was worth twenty of her. But her father had locked her in her
+room and forbidden her to think of him, which raised his spirit; and I
+could see him growing more and more in the mind to carry Miss Isabella
+off to Scotland, as she desired. And I had wished her joy, a week after,
+on her return with my poor master. Lucky for her she had a few thousands
+of her own, for her father would not give her a farthing. My master and
+my lady set out in great style, and it was reported that her father had
+undertaken to pay all Sir Condy's debts; and, of course, all the
+tradesmen gave him fresh credit, and everything went on smack smooth. I
+was proud to see Castle Rackrent again in all its glory. She went on as
+if she had a mint of money; and all Sir Condy asked--God bless him!--was
+to live in peace and quiet, and have his whiskey punch at night. But my
+lady's few thousands could not last for ever. Things in a twelve-month
+or so came to such a pass that there was no going on any longer.
+
+Well, my son Jason put in a word about the lodge, and Sir Condy was fain
+to take the purchase-money to settle matters, for there were two writs
+come down against him to the sheriff, who was no friend of his. Then
+there came a general election, and Sir Condy was called upon by all his
+friends to stand candidate; they would do all the business, and it
+should not cost him a penny.
+
+There was open house then at Castle Rackrent, and grand dinners, and all
+the gentlemen drinking success to Sir Condy till they were carried off.
+The election day came, and a glorious day it was. I thought I should
+have died with joy in the street when I saw my poor master chaired, and
+the crowd following him up and down. But a stranger man in the crowd
+gets me to introduce him to my son Jason, and little did I guess his
+meaning. He gets a list of my master's debts from him, and goes round
+and buys them up, and so got to be sole creditor over all, and must
+needs have an execution against the master's goods and furniture.
+
+After the election shoals of people came from all parts, claiming to
+have obliged him with votes, and to remind him of promises he never
+made. Worst of all, the gentlemen who had managed everything and
+subscribed by hundreds very genteelly forgot to pay, and it was all left
+at my master's door. All he could do to content 'em was to take himself
+off to Dublin, where my lady had taken a house fitting for a member of
+parliament.
+
+Soon my son Jason said, "Sir Condy must look out for another agent. If
+my lady had the Bank of Ireland to spend, it would all go in one
+winter."
+
+I could scarcely believe my own old eyes when I saw my son's name joined
+in the _custodian_, that the villain who got the list of debts brought
+down in the spring; but he said it would make it easier for Sir Condy.
+
+
+_IV.--The Last of the Rackrents_
+
+
+When Sir Condy and his lady came down in June, he was pleased to take me
+aside to complain of my son and other matters; not one unkind word of my
+lady, but he wondered that her relations would do nothing for them in
+their great distress. He did not take anything long to heart; let it be
+as it might this night, it was all out of his head before he went to
+bed. Next morning my lady had a letter from her relations, and asked to
+be allowed to go back to them. He fell back as if he was shot, but after
+a minute said she had his full consent, for what could she do at Castle
+Rackrent with an execution coming down? Next morning she set off for
+Mount Juliet.
+
+Then everything was seized by the gripers, my son Jason, to his shame be
+it spoken, among them. On the evening Sir Condy had appointed to settle
+all, when he sees the sight of bills and loads of papers on the table,
+he says to Jason, "Can't you now just sit down here and give me a clear
+view of the balance, you know, which is all I need be talking about?
+Thady, do just step out, and see they are bringing the things for the
+punch." When I came back Jason was pointing to the balance, a terrible
+sight for my poor master.
+
+"A--h! Hold your hand!" cries my master. "Where in the wide world am I
+to find hundreds, let alone thousands?"
+
+"There's but one way," says Jason. "Sure, can't you sell, though at a
+loss? Sure, you can sell, and I've a purchaser ready for you."
+
+"Have you so?" says Sir Condy. Then, colouring up a good deal, he tells
+Jason of £500 a year he had settled upon my lady, at which Jason was
+indeed mad; but, with much ado, agreed to a compromise. "And how much am
+I going to sell? The lands of O'Shaughlin's town, and the lands
+of"--just reading to himself--"oh, murder, Jason! Surely you won't put
+this in--castle, stables, and appurtenances of Castle Rackrent?"
+
+"Oh, murder!" says I. "This is too bad, Jason."
+
+"Why so?" says Jason. "When it's all mine, and a great deal more, all
+lawfully mine, was I to push for it?"
+
+But I took no heed, for I was grieved and sick at heart for my poor
+master, and couldn't but speak.
+
+"Here's the punch," says Jason, for the door opened.
+
+So my master starts up in his chair, and Jason uncorks the whiskey.
+Well, I was in great hopes when I saw him making the punch, and my
+master taking a glass; but Jason put it back when he saw him going to
+fill again, saying, "No, Sir Condy; let us settle all before we go
+deeper into the punch-bowl. You've only to sign," says Jason, putting
+the pen to him.
+
+"Take all, and be content," said my master. So he signed, and the man
+who brought the punch witnessed, for I was crying like a child.
+
+So I went out to the street door, and the neighbours' children left
+their play to come to see what ailed me; and I told them all. When they
+heard Sir Condy was going to leave Castle Rackrent for good and all,
+they set up such a whillaluh as brought all their parents round the
+doors in great anger against Jason. I was frightened, and went back to
+warn my son. He grew quite pale and asked Sir Condy what he'd best do.
+
+"I'll tell you," says Sir Condy, laughing to see his fright. "Finish
+your glass first, then let's go to the window, and I'll tell them--or
+you shall, if you please--that I'm going to the lodge for change of air
+for my health, and by my own desire, for the rest of my days."
+
+"Do so," says Jason, who never meant it to be so, but could not refuse
+at such a time.
+
+So the very next day he sets off to the lodge, and I along with him.
+There was great bemoaning all through the town, which I stayed to
+witness. He was in his bed, and very low, when I got there, and
+complained of a great pain about his heart; but I, knowing the nature of
+him from a boy, took my pipe and began telling him how he was beloved
+and regretted in the country. And it did him a great deal of good to
+hear it.
+
+There was a great horn at the lodge that used to belong to the
+celebrated Sir Patrick, who was reported to have drunk the full of it
+without stopping to draw breath, which no other man, afore or since,
+could do.
+
+One night Sir Condy was drinking with the excise-man and the gauger, and
+wagered that he could do it. Says he, "Your hand is steadier than mine,
+Old Thady; fill you the horn for me." And so, wishing his honour
+success, I did. He swallowed it down and dropped like one shot. We put
+him to bed, and for five days the fever came and went, and came and
+went. On the sixth he says, knowing me very well, "I'm in a burning pain
+all withinside of me, Thady." I could not speak. "Brought to this by
+drink," says he. "Where are all the friends? Gone, hey? Ay, Sir Condy
+has been a fool all his days," said he, and died. He had but a very poor
+funeral, after all.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+GEORGE ELIOT
+
+
+Adam Bede
+
+
+     Mary Ann Evans ("George Eliot") was born Nov. 22, 1819, at
+     South Farm, Arbury, Warwickshire, England, where her father
+     was agent on the Newdigate estate. In her youth, she was adept
+     at butter-making and similar rural work, but she found time to
+     master Italian and German. Her first important literary work
+     was the translation of Strauss's "Life of Jesus" in 1844, and
+     shortly after her father's death in 1849 she was writing in
+     the "Westminster Review." It was not until 1856 that George
+     Eliot settled down to the writing of novels. "Scenes from
+     Clerical Life" first appeared serially in "Blackwood's
+     Magazine" during 1857 and 1858; "Adam Bede," the first and
+     most popular of her long stories, in 1859. In May, 1880,
+     eighteen months after the death of her friend George Henry
+     Lewes (see PHILOSOPHY, Vol. XIV), George Eliot married Mr. J.
+     W. Cross. She died on December 22 in the same year. With all
+     her sense of humour there is a note of sadness in George
+     Eliot's novels. She deals with ordinary, everyday people, and
+     describes their joys and sorrows. In "Adam Bede," as in most
+     of her work, the novelist drew from the ample stores of her
+     early life in the Midlands, while the plot is unfolded with
+     singular simplicity, purity, and power.
+
+
+_I.--The Two Brothers_
+
+
+In the roomy workshop of Mr. Jonathan Burge, carpenter and builder, in
+the village of Hayslope, on the eighteenth of June, 1799, five workmen
+were busy upon doors and window-frames.
+
+The tallest of the five was a large-boned, muscular man, nearly six feet
+high. The sleeve rolled up above the elbow showed an arm that was likely
+to win the prize for feats of strength; yet the long, supple hand, with
+its broad finger tips, looked ready for works of skill. In his tall
+stalwartness Adam Bede was a Saxon, and justified his name. The face was
+large and roughly hewn, and when in repose had no other beauty than such
+as belongs to an expression of good-humoured, honest intelligence.
+
+It is clear at a glance that the next workman is Adam's brother. He is
+nearly as tall; he has the same type of features. But Seth's broad
+shoulders have a slight stoop, and his glance, instead of being keen, is
+confiding and benignant.
+
+The idle tramps always felt sure they could get a copper from Seth; they
+scarcely ever spoke to Adam.
+
+At six o'clock the men stopped working, and went out. Seth lingered, and
+looked wistfully at Adam, as if he expected him to say something.
+
+"Shalt go home before thee go'st to the preaching?" Adam asked.
+
+"Nay, I shan't be home before going for ten. I'll happen see Dinah
+Morris safe home, if she's willing. There's nobody comes with her from
+Poyser's, thee know'st."
+
+Adam set off home, and at a quarter to seven Seth was on the village
+green where the Methodists were preaching. The people drew nearer when
+Dinah Morris mounted the cart which served as a pulpit. There was a
+total absence of self-consciousness in her demeanour; she walked to the
+cart as simply as if she were going to market. There was no keenness in
+the eyes; they seemed rather to be shedding love than making
+observations. When Dinah spoke it was with a clear but not loud voice,
+and her sincere, unpremeditated eloquence held the attention of her
+audience without interruption.
+
+When the service was over, Seth Bede walked by Dinah's side along the
+hedgerow path that skirted the pastures and corn-fields which lay
+between the village and the Hall Farm.
+
+Seth could see an expression of unconscious placid gravity on her
+face--an expression that is most discouraging to a lover. He was timidly
+revolving something he wanted to say, and it was only when they were
+close to the yard-gates of the Hall Farm he had the courage to speak.
+
+"It may happen you'll think me overbold to speak to you again after what
+you told me o' your thoughts. But it seems to me there's more texts for
+your marrying than ever you can find against it. St. Paul says, 'Two are
+better than one,' and that holds good with marriage as well as with
+other things. For we should be o' one heart and o' one mind, Dinah. I'd
+never be the husband to make a claim on you as could interfere with your
+doing the work God has fitted you for. I'd make a shift, and fend indoor
+and out, to give you more liberty--more than you can have now; for
+you've got to get your own living now, and I'm strong enough to work for
+us both."
+
+When Seth had once begun to urge his suit, he went on earnestly and
+almost hurriedly. His voice trembled at the last sentence.
+
+They had reached one of those narrow passes between two tall stones,
+which performed the office of a stile in Loamshire. And Dinah paused,
+and said, in her tender but calm notes, "Seth Bede, I thank you for your
+love towards me, and if I could think of any man as more than a
+Christian brother, I think it would be you. But my heart is not free to
+marry, or to think of making a home for myself in this world. God has
+called me to speak His word, and He has greatly owned my work."
+
+They said farewell at the yard-gate, for Seth wouldn't enter the
+farmhouse, choosing rather to turn back along the fields through which
+he and Dinah had already passed. It was ten o'clock when he reached
+home, and he heard the sound of tools as he lifted the latch.
+
+"Why, mother," said Seth, "how is it as father's working so late?"
+
+"It's none o' thy feyther as is a-workin'; it's thy brother as does
+iverything, for there's niver nobody else i' th' way to do nothin'."
+
+Lisbeth Bede was going on, for she was not at all afraid of Seth--who
+had never in his life spoken a harsh word to his mother--and usually
+poured into his ears all the querulousness which was repressed by the
+awe which mingled itself with her idolatrous love of Adam.
+
+But Seth, with an anxious look, had passed into the workshop, and said,
+"Addy, how's this? What! Father's forgot the coffin?"
+
+"Ay, lad, th' old tale; but I shall get it done," said Adam, looking up.
+"Why, what's the matter with thee--thee'st in trouble?"
+
+Seth's eyes were red, and there was a look of deep depression on his
+mild face.
+
+"Yes, Addy, but it's what must be borne, and can't be helped. Let me
+take my turn now, and do thee go to bed."
+
+"No, lad; I'd rather go on, now I'm in harness. The coffin's promised to
+be ready at Brox'on by seven o'clock to-morrow morning. I'll call thee
+up at sunrise, to help me to carry it when it's done. Go and eat thy
+supper and shut the door, so as I mayn't hear mother's talk."
+
+Adam worked throughout the night, thinking of his childhood and its
+happy days, and then of the days of sadness that came later when his
+father began to loiter at public-houses, and Lisbeth began to cry at
+home. He remembered well the night of shame and anguish when he first
+saw his father quite wild and foolish.
+
+The two brothers set off in the early sunlight, carrying the long coffin
+on their shoulders. By six o'clock they had reached Broxton, and were on
+their way home.
+
+When they were coming across the valley, and had entered the pasture
+through which the brook ran, Seth said suddenly, beginning to walk
+faster, "Why, what's that sticking against the willow?"
+
+They both ran forward, and dragged the tall, heavy body out of the
+water; and then looked with mute awe at the glazed eyes--forgetting
+everything but that their father lay dead before them.
+
+Adam's mind rushed back over the past in a flood of relenting and pity.
+Only a few hours ago, and the gray-haired father, of whom he had been
+thinking with a sort of hardness as certain to live to be a thorn in his
+side, was perhaps even then struggling with that watery death!
+
+
+_II.--The Hall Farm_
+
+
+It is a very fine old place of red brick, the Hall Farm--once the
+residence of a country squire, and the Hall.
+
+Plenty of life there, though this is the drowsiest time of the year,
+just before hay-harvest; and it is the drowsiest time of the day, too,
+for it is half-past three by Mrs. Poyser's handsome eight-day clock.
+
+Mrs. Poyser, a good-looking woman, not more than eight-and-thirty, of
+fair complexion and sandy hair, well shaped, light-footed, had just
+taken up her knitting, and was seated with her niece, Dinah Morris.
+Another motherless niece, Hetty Sorrel, a distractingly pretty girl of
+seventeen, was busy in the adjoining dairy.
+
+"You look the image o' your aunt Judith, Dinah, when you sit a-sewing,"
+said Mrs. Poyser. "I allays said that o' Judith, as she'd bear a pound
+weight any day to save anybody else carrying a ounce. And it made no
+difference in her, as I could see, when she took to the Methodists; only
+she talked a bit different, and wore a different sort o' cap. If you'd
+only come and live i' this country you might get married to some decent
+man, and there'd be plenty ready to have you, if you'd only leave off
+that preaching, as is ten times worse than anything your Aunt Judith
+ever did. And even if you'd marry Seth Bede, as is a poor,
+wool-gathering Methodist, and's never like to have a penny beforehand, I
+know your uncle 'ud help you with a pig, and very like a cow, for he's
+allays been good-natur'd to my kin, for all they're poor, and made 'em
+welcome to the house; and 'ud do for you, I'll be bound, as much as ever
+he'd do for Hetty, though she's his own niece."
+
+The arrival of Mr. Irwine, the rector of Hayslope, and Captain
+Donnithorne, Squire Donnithorne's grandson and heir, interrupted Mrs.
+Poyser's flow of talk.
+
+"I'll lay my life they're come to speak about your preaching on the
+Green, Dinah. It's you must answer 'em, for I'm dumb. I've said enough
+a'ready about your bringing such disgrace upo' your uncle's family. I
+wouldn't ha' minded if you'd been Mr. Poyser's own niece. Folks must put
+up wi' their own kin as they put up wi' their own noses; it's their own
+flesh and blood."
+
+Mr. Irwine, however, was the last man to feel any annoyance at the
+Methodist preaching, and young Arthur Donnithorne's visit was merely an
+excuse for exchanging a few words with Hetty Sorrel.
+
+The rector mentioned before he left that Thias Bede had been found
+drowned in the Willow Brook; and Dinah Morris at once decided that she
+might be of some comfort to the widow, and set out for the village.
+
+As for Hetty Sorrel, she was thinking more of the looks Captain
+Donnithorne had cast at her than of Adam and his troubles. Bright,
+admiring glances from a handsome young gentleman--those were the warm
+rays that set poor Hetty's heart vibrating.
+
+Hetty was quite used to the thought that people liked to look at her.
+She was aware that Mr. Craig, the gardener at Squire Donnithorne's, was
+over head-and-ears in love with her. She knew still better that Adam
+Bede--tall, upright, clever, brave Adam Bede--who carried such authority
+with all the people round about, and whom her uncle was always delighted
+to see of an evening, saying that "Adam knew a fine sight more o' the
+natur o' things than those as thought themselves his betters"--she knew
+that this Adam, who was often rather stern to other people, and not much
+given to run after the lassies, could be made to turn pale or red any
+day by a word or a look from her. Hetty's sphere of comparison was not
+large, but she couldn't help perceiving that Adam was "something like" a
+man; always knew what to say about things; knew, with only looking at
+it, the value of a chestnut-tree that was blown down, and why the damp
+came in the walls, and what they must do to stop the rats; and wrote a
+beautiful hand that you could read, and could do figures in his head--a
+degree of accomplishment totally unknown among the richest farmers of
+that country-side.
+
+Hetty was quite certain her uncle wanted her to encourage Adam, and
+would be pleased for her to marry him. For the last three years--ever
+since he had superintended the building of the new barn--Adam had always
+been made welcome at the Hall Farm, and for the last two years at least
+Hetty had been in the habit of hearing her uncle say, "Adam Bede may be
+working for a wage now, but he'll be a master-man some day, as sure as I
+sit in this chair. Master Burge is in the right on't to want him to go
+partners and marry his daughter, if it's true what they say. The woman
+as marries him 'ull have a good take, be't Lady Day or Michaelmas," a
+remark which Mrs. Poyser always followed up with her cordial assent.
+
+"Ah," she would say, "it's all very fine having a ready-made rich man,
+but may happen he'll be a ready-made fool; and it's no use filling your
+pocket full of money if you've got a hole in the corner. It'll do you no
+good to sit in a spring-cart o' your own if you've got a soft to drive
+you; he'll soon turn you over into the ditch."
+
+But Hetty had never given Adam any steady encouragement. She liked to
+feel that this strong, keen-eyed man was in her power; but as to
+marrying Adam, that was a very different affair.
+
+Hetty's dreams were all of luxuries. She thought if Adam had been rich,
+and could have given the things of her dreams--large, beautiful earrings
+and Nottingham lace and a carpeted parlour--she loved him well enough to
+marry him.
+
+The last few weeks a new influence had come over Hetty; she had become
+aware that Mr. Arthur Donnithorne would take a good deal of trouble for
+the chance of seeing her. And Dinah Morris was away, preaching and
+working in a manufacturing town.
+
+
+_III.--Adam's First Love_
+
+
+Adam Bede, like many other men, thought the signs of love for another
+were signs of love towards himself. The time had come to him that
+summer, as he helped Hetty pick currants in the orchard of the Hall
+Farm, that a man can least forget in after-life--the time when he
+believes that the first woman he has ever loved is, at least, beginning
+to love him in return.
+
+He was not wrong in thinking that a change had come over Hetty; the
+anxieties and fears of a first passion with which she was trembling had
+become stronger than vanity, and while Adam drew near to her she was
+absorbed in thinking and wondering about Arthur Donnithorne's possible
+return.
+
+For the first time Hetty felt that there was something soothing to her
+in Adam's timid yet manly tenderness; she wanted to be treated lovingly.
+And Arthur was away from home; and, oh, it was very hard to bear the
+blank of absence. She was not afraid that Adam would tease her with
+love-making and flattering speeches; he had always been so reserved to
+her. She could enjoy without any fear the sense that this strong, brave
+man loved her and was near her. It never entered into her mind that Adam
+was pitiable, too, that Adam, too, must suffer one day.
+
+It was from Adam that she found out that Captain Donnithorne would be
+back in a day or two, and this knowledge made her the more kindly
+disposed towards him. But for all the world Adam would not have spoken
+of his love to Hetty yet, till this commencing kindness towards him
+should have grown into unmistakable love. He did no more than pluck a
+rose for her, and walk back to the farm with her arm in his.
+
+When Adam, after stopping a while to chat with the Poysers, had said
+good-night, Mr. Poyser remarked, "If you can catch Adam for a husband,
+Hetty, you'll ride i' your own spring-cart some day, I'll be your
+warrant."
+
+Her uncle did not see the little toss of the head with which Hetty
+answered him. To ride in a spring-cart seemed a very miserable lot
+indeed to her now.
+
+It was on August 18, when Adam, going home from some work he had been
+doing at one of the farms, passed through a grove of beeches, and saw,
+at the end of the avenue, about twenty yards before him, two figures.
+They were standing opposite to each other with clasped hands, and they
+separated with a start at a sharp bark from Adam Bede's dog. One hurried
+away through a gate out of the grove; the other, Arthur Donnithorne,
+looking flushed and excited, sauntered towards Adam. The young squire
+had been home for some weeks celebrating his twenty-first birthday, and
+he was leaving on the morrow to rejoin his regiment.
+
+Hitherto there had been a cordial and sincere liking and a mutual esteem
+between the two young men; but now Adam stood as if petrified, and his
+amazement turned quickly to fierceness.
+
+Arthur tried to pass the matter off lightly, as if it had been a chance
+meeting with Hetty; but Adam, who felt that he had been robbed
+treacherously by the man in whom he had trusted, would not so easily let
+him off. It came to blows, and Arthur sank under a well-planted blow of
+Adam's, as a steel rod is broken by an iron bar.
+
+Before they separated, Arthur promised that he would write and tell
+Hetty there could be no further communication between them. And this
+promise he kept. Adam rested content with the assurance that nothing but
+an innocent flirtation had been stopped. As the days went by he found
+that the calm patience with which he had waited for Hetty's love had
+forsaken him since that night in the beech-grove. The agitations of
+jealousy had given a new restlessness to his passion.
+
+Hetty, for her part, after the first misery caused by Arthur's letter,
+had turned into a mood of dull despair, and sought only for change. Why
+should she not marry Adam? She did not care what she did so that it made
+some change in her life.
+
+So, in November, when Mr. Burge offered Adam a share in his business,
+Adam not only accepted it, but decided that the time had come to ask
+Hetty to marry him.
+
+Hetty did not speak when Adam got out the question, but his face was
+very close to hers, and she put up her round cheek against his, like a
+kitten. She wanted to be caressed--she wanted to feel as if Arthur were
+with her again.
+
+Adam only said after that, "I may tell your uncle and aunt, mayn't I,
+Hetty?" And she said "Yes."
+
+The red firelight on the hearth at the Hall Farm shone on joyful faces
+that evening when Adam took the opportunity of telling Mr. and Mrs.
+Poyser that he saw his way to maintaining a wife now, and that Hetty had
+consented to have him.
+
+There was a great deal of discussion before Adam went away about the
+possibility of his finding a house that would do for him to settle in.
+
+"Well, well," said Mr. Poyser at last, "we needna fix everything
+to-night. You canna think o' getting married afore Easter. I'm not for
+long courtships, but there must be a bit o' time to make things
+comfortable."
+
+This was in November.
+
+Then in February came the full tragedy of Hetty Sorrel's life. She left
+home, and in a strange village, a child--Arthur Donnithorne's child--was
+born. Hetty left the baby in a wood, and returned to find it dead.
+Arrest and trial followed, and only at the last moment was the capital
+sentence commuted to transportation.
+
+She died a few years later on her way home.
+
+
+_IV.--The Wife of Adam Bede_
+
+
+It was the autumn of 1801, and Dinah Morris was once more at the Hall
+Farm, only to leave it again for her work in the town. Mrs. Poyser
+noticed that Dinah, who never used to change colour, flushed when Adam
+said, "Why, I hoped Dinah was settled among us for life. I thought she'd
+given up the notion o' going back to her old country."
+
+"Thought! Yes," said Mrs. Poyser; "and so would anybody else ha' thought
+as had got their right ends up'ards. But I suppose you must be a
+Methodist to know what a Methodist 'ull do. It's all guessing what the
+bats are flying after."
+
+"Why, what have we done to you, Dinah, as you must go away from us?"
+said Mr. Poyser. "It's like breaking your word; for your aunt never had
+no thought but you'd make this your home."
+
+"Nay, uncle," said Dinah, trying to be quite calm. "When I first came I
+said it was only for a time, as long as I could be of any comfort to my
+aunt."
+
+"Well, an' who said you'd ever left off being a comfort to me?" said
+Mrs. Poyser. "If you didna mean to stay wi' me, you'd better never ha'
+come. Them as ha' never had a cushion don't miss it."
+
+Dinah set off with Adam, for Lisbeth was ailing and wanted Dinah to sit
+with her a bit. On the way he reverted to her leaving the Hall Farm.
+"You know best, Dinah, but if it had been ordered so that you could ha'
+been my sister, and lived wi' us all our lives, I should ha' counted it
+the greatest blessing as could happen to us now."
+
+Dinah made no answer, and they walked on in silence, until presently,
+crossing the stone stile, Adam saw her face, flushed, and with a look of
+suppressed agitation.
+
+It struck him with surprise, and then he said, "I hope I've not hurt or
+displeased you by what I've said, Dinah; perhaps I was making too free.
+I've no wish different from what you see to be best; and I'm satisfied
+for you to live thirty miles off if you think it right."
+
+Poor Adam! Thus do men blunder.
+
+Lisbeth opened his eyes on the Sunday morning when Adam sat at home and
+read from his large pictured Bible.
+
+For a long time his mother talked on about Dinah, and about how they
+were losing her when they might keep her, and Adam at last told her she
+must make up her mind that she would have to do without Dinah.
+
+"Nay, but I canna ma' up my mind, when she's just cut out for thee; an'
+nought shall ma' me believe as God didna make her and send her here o'
+purpose for thee. What's it sinnify about her being a Methody? It 'ud
+happen wear out on her wi' marryin'."
+
+Adam threw himself back in his chair and looked at his mother. He
+understood now what her talk had been aiming at, and tried to chase away
+the notion from her mind.
+
+He was amazed at the way in which this new thought of Dinah's love had
+taken possession of him with an overmastering power that made all other
+feelings give way before the impetuous desire to know that the thought
+was true. He spoke to Seth, who said quite simply that he had long given
+up all thoughts of Dinah ever being his wife, and would rejoice in his
+brother's joy. But he could not tell whether Dinah was for marrying.
+
+"Thee might'st ask her," Seth said presently. "She took no offence at
+_me_ for asking, and thee'st more right than I had."
+
+When Adam did ask, Dinah answered that her heart was strongly drawn
+towards him, but that she must wait for divine guidance. So she left the
+Hall Farm and went back to the town, and Adam waited,--and then went
+after her to get his answer.
+
+"Adam," she said when they had met and walked some distance together,
+"it is the divine will. My soul is so knit to yours that it is but a
+divided life I live without you. And this moment, now you are with me,
+and I feel that our hearts are filled with the same love, I have a
+fullness of strength to bear and do our Heavenly Father's will that I
+had lost before."
+
+Adam paused and looked into her sincere eyes.
+
+"Then we'll never part any more, Dinah, till death parts us."
+
+And they kissed each other with deep joy.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+Felix Holt, the Radical
+
+
+     "Felix Holt, the Radical," was published in 1866. It has never
+     been one of George Eliot's very popular books. There is less
+     in it of her own life and experience than in most of her
+     novels, less of the homely wit of agricultural England. The
+     real value of the book is the picture it gives of the social
+     and political life, and for this reason, it will always be
+     read by those who want to know what English political methods
+     and customs were like at the time of the passing of the Reform
+     Bill of 1832. The character of Mr. Rufus Lyon, the independent
+     minister, is an admirable study of the non-conformist of that
+     period. Esther's renunciation of a brilliant fortune for a
+     humbler lot with the man she loved and admired, was quite in
+     accord with the teaching George Eliot inculcated all her life.
+     The scene of the story is laid in the Midlands, and the
+     action, covering about nine months, begins in 1832.
+
+
+_I.--The Minister's Daughter_
+
+
+The Rev. Rufus Lyon, Minister of the Independent Chapel, in the
+old-fashioned market town of Treby Magna, in the County of Loumshire,
+lived in a small house, adjoining the entry which led to the Chapel
+Yard.
+
+He sat this morning, as usual, in a low upstairs room, called his study,
+which served also as a sleeping-room, and from time to time got up to
+walk about between the piles of old books which lay around him on the
+floor. His face looked old and worn, yet the curtain of hair that fell
+from his bald crown and hung about his neck retained much of its
+original auburn tint, and his large, brown short-sighted eyes were still
+clear and bright. At the first glance, everyone thought him a very
+odd-looking, rusty old man, and the free-school boys often hooted after
+him, and called him "Revelations." But he was too short-sighted and too
+absent from the world of small facts and petty impulses to notice those
+who tittered at him.
+
+He was meditating on the text for his Sunday morning sermon, when old
+Lyddy, the minister's servant, opened the door to tell him that Mrs.
+Holt was wanting to see him. "She says she comes out of season, but
+she's in trouble."
+
+The minister bade her send Mistress Holt up, and a tall elderly woman
+dressed in black entered.
+
+Mrs. Holt, Mr. Lyon said to himself, is a woman who darkens counsel by
+words without knowledge, and angers the reason of the natural man; and
+he prayed for patience while his visitor rambled on concerning her late
+husband and her son Felix.
+
+The minister made out that Felix objected to the sale of his father's
+quack medicines, Holt's Elixir and Cancer Cure, and wanted Mr. Lyon to
+talk to him.
+
+"For after we'd been to chapel, he spoke better of you than he does of
+most: he said you was a fine old fellow, and an old-fashioned Puritan--
+he uses dreadful language, Mr. Lyon; but I saw he didn't mean you ill,
+for all that; he calls most folks' religion rottenness."
+
+Mrs. Holt departed, and in the evening, when Mr. Lyon was in the
+sitting-room, Felix Holt knocked at the door.
+
+The minister, accustomed to the respectable air of provincial townsmen,
+felt a slight shock, when his spectacles made clear to him the shaggy-
+headed, large-eyed, strong-limbed person of this questionable young man,
+without waistcoat or cravat.
+
+Felix spoke loudly and brusquely when the minister mentioned the subject
+of Mrs. Holt's visit.
+
+"As to those absurd medicines and gulling advertisements that my mother
+has been talking of to you, I've no more doubt about _them_ than I have
+about pocket-picking. If I allowed the sale of those medicines to go on,
+and my mother to live out of the proceeds when I can keep her by the
+honest labour of hands, I've not the least doubt that I should be a
+rascal."
+
+"I would fain inquire more particularly into your objection to these
+medicines," said Mr. Lyon gravely.
+
+"My father was ignorant," said Felix, bluntly. "I know something about
+these things. I was 'prentice for five miserable years to a stupid brute
+of a country apothecary--my poor father left money for that--he thought
+nothing could be finer for me. No matter: I know that the Cathartic
+Pills may be as bad as poison to half the people who swallow them, and
+that the cancer cure might as well be bottled ditch-water. I can keep my
+mother, as well, nay, better, than she keeps herself. With my watch and
+clock cleaning, and teaching one or two little chaps that I've got to
+come to me, I can earn enough."
+
+Mr. Lyon's suggestion that some situation might be obtained as clerk or
+assistant was brushed aside.
+
+"Why should I want to get into the middle class because I have some
+learning? The most of the middle class are as ignorant as the working
+people about everything that doesn't belong to their own Brummagem
+life."
+
+The entrance of Lyddy with the tea tray disturbed the conversation, but
+the minister, interested in his visitor, asked Felix to stay for a dish
+of tea, and Felix accepted.
+
+"My daughter, who has been detained in giving a lesson in the French
+tongue, has doubtless returned now," said the minister. On the entrance
+of the young lady, Felix was conscious she was not the sort of person he
+had expected the minister's daughter to be, and the incongruity repelled
+him. There were things about her, her walk, the long neck and high crown
+of shining brown hair, that suggested a fine lady to him. A fine lady
+was always a sort of spun glass affair; but a fine lady as the daughter
+of this rusty old Puritan was especially offensive.
+
+The discovery that Miss Lyon read Byron set Felix off on a tirade
+against the poet, and his works, and throughout the meal no agreement on
+any topic seemed possible between Esther and the guest.
+
+Felix noted that Mr. Lyon was devoted to his daughter and stood in some
+fear of her.
+
+"That is a singular young man, Esther," said the minister, when Felix
+had gone. "I discern in him a love for whatever things are honest and
+true, and I feel a great enlargement in his presence."
+
+"I think he is very coarse and rude," said Esther, with a touch of
+temper. "But he speaks better English than most of our visitors. What is
+his occupation?"
+
+"Watch and clock making, my dear."
+
+Esther was disappointed, she thought he was something higher than that.
+
+Felix on his side wondered how the queer old minister had a daughter so
+little in his own likeness. He decided that nothing should make him
+marry.
+
+
+_II.--The Election Riot_
+
+
+The return of Mr. Harold Transome, to Transome Court, after fifteen
+years' absence, and his adoption as Radical Candidate for the county
+created no little stir and excitement in Treby. It also assisted the
+growing intimacy between Mr. Lyon and Felix Holt, for though neither
+possessed votes in that memorable year 1832, they shared the same
+liberal sympathies. Perhaps the most delightful friendships are those in
+which there is much agreement, much disputation, and yet more personal
+liking; and the advent of the public-spirited, contradictory, yet
+affectionate Felix, into Treby life had made a welcome epoch to the
+minister.
+
+Esther had not seen so much of their new acquaintance as her father had.
+But she had begun to find him amusing, though he always opposed and
+criticised her, and looked at her as if he never saw a single detail
+about her person. It seemed to Esther that he thought slightly of her.
+"But, rude and queer as he is, I cannot say there is anything vulgar
+about him," she said to herself.
+
+One Sunday afternoon Felix Holt rapped at the door of Mr. Lyon's house,
+although he could hear the voice of the minister in the chapel.
+
+Esther was in the kitchen alone, reading a French romance, and she
+opened the door and invited him in.
+
+He scoffed at her book, and as the talk went on, upbraided her for her
+vanity. Finally he told her that he wanted her to change. "Of course, I
+am a brute to say so," he added. "I ought to say you are perfect.
+Another man would, perhaps; I can't bear to see you going the way of the
+foolish women who spoil men's lives."
+
+Mortification and anger filled Esther's mind, and when Felix got up to
+say he was going, she returned his "good-bye" without even looking at
+him.
+
+Only, when the door closed she burst into tears. She revolted against
+his assumption of superiority.... Did he love her one little bit, and
+was that the reason why he wanted her to change? But Esther was quite
+sure she could never love anyone who was so much of a pedagogue and a
+master.
+
+Yet, a few weeks later, and Esther accepted willingly when Felix
+proposed a walk for the first time together. That same afternoon he told
+her that she was very beautiful, and that he would never be rich: he
+intended going away to some manufacturing town to lead the people to
+better things and this meant a life of poverty.
+
+Something Esther said made Felix ask suddenly, "Can you imagine yourself
+choosing hardship as the better lot?"
+
+"Yes, I can," she answered, flushing over neck and brow. They walked
+home very silently after that. Felix struggling as a firm man struggles
+with a temptation, Esther struggling as a woman struggles with the
+yearning for some expression of love.
+
+On the day of the election a mob of miners, primed with liquor by an
+unscrupulous agent of Transome's, came into the town to hoot the Tory
+voters; and as the disturbance increased, Felix knowing that Mr. Lyon
+was away preaching went round to the minister's house to reassure
+Esther.
+
+"I am so thankful to see you," she said eagerly. He mentioned that the
+magistrates and constables were coming and that the town would be
+quieter. His only fear was that drinking might inflame the mob again.
+
+Again Felix told her of his renunciation of the ordinary hopes and
+ambitions of men, and at the same time tried to prove that he thought
+very highly of her. He wanted her to know that her love was dear to him,
+and he felt that they must not marry--to do so would be to ruin each
+other's lives.
+
+When Felix went out into the streets in the afternoon, the crowd was
+larger and more mischievous. The constables were quite unable to cope
+with the mob, the polling booth was closed for the day, and the
+magistrates had sent to the neighbouring town of Duffield for the
+military.
+
+There were proofs that the predominant will of the crowd was in favour
+of Transome for several shops were attacked and they were all of them
+"Tory shops."
+
+Felix was soon hotly occupied trying to save a wretched publican named
+Spratt from the fury of the crowd. The man had been dragged out into the
+streets, and Felix had got as near him as he could when a young
+constable armed with a sabre rushed upon him. It was a choice of two
+evils, and quick as lightning Felix frustrated him, the constable fell
+undermost and Felix got his weapon. Tucker did not rise immediately, but
+Felix did not imagine that he was much hurt, and bidding the crowd
+follow him tried to lead them away from the town. He hoped that the
+soldiers would soon arrive, and felt confident that there would be no
+resistance to a military force.
+
+Suddenly a cry was raised, "Let us go to Treby Manor," the residence of
+Sir Maximus Debarry, whose son was the Tory candidate.
+
+From that moment Felix was powerless, and was carried along with the
+rush. All he could hope to do was to get to the front terrace of the
+house, and assure the inmates that the soldiers would arrive quickly.
+Just as he approached a large window he heard the horses of the
+troopers, and then came the words, "Halt! Fire!" Before he had time to
+move a bullet whizzed, and passed through Felix Holt's shoulder--the
+shoulder of the arm that bore the sabre.
+
+Felix fell. The rioters ran confusedly, like terrified sheep.
+
+It was a weary night for Felix, and the next day his wound was declared
+trivial, and he was lodged in Loumford Jail. There were three charges
+against him; that he had assaulted a constable, that he had committed
+manslaughter (Tucker was dead from spinal concussion), and that he had
+led a riotous onslaught on a dwelling house.
+
+Four other men were arrested, one for theft, and three others for riot
+and assault.
+
+
+_III.--The Trial_
+
+
+A great change took place in the fortunes of Esther in the interval
+between the riot and the opening of the assizes. It was found that she,
+and not Harold Transome, was the rightful owner of the Transome estates.
+For Esther's real name was Bycliffe and not Lyon, and she was the
+step-daughter only of the minister. Mr. Lyon had found Esther's mother,
+a French woman of great beauty, in destitution--her husband, an
+Englishman, lying in some unknown prison. This Englishman was a
+Bycliffe--and heir to the Transome property, and on the proof of his
+death Mr. Lyon, knowing nothing of Bycliffe's family, married his widow,
+who, however, died while Esther was still a tiny child. Not till the
+time of the election did Esther learn that her real father was dead.
+
+Mr. Transome's lawyer--Jermyn--was fully aware of the claim of the
+Bycliffes, but knew they were powerless without money to enforce the
+claim, and that Esther and her step-father alike were ignorant of all
+the facts. It was only when Harold Transome, on his return, quarrelled
+with Jermyn on the management of the estates, and, after the Election
+(which Transome lost) threatened him with a law-suit, that Jermyn turned
+round and told Harold the truth. At the same time, another lawyer,
+formerly in Jermyn's confidence, thought the more profitable course
+could be found in throwing Jermyn over, and wrote to Esther informing
+her of her inheritance.
+
+Harold Transome decided to act openly. With his mother, he drove to the
+minister's house and Mrs. Transome persuaded Esther to come and stay at
+Transome Court. Both mother and son found Esther to their liking, and it
+appeared to Harold that marriage with Esther would be a happy conclusion
+to the divided claim to the property. He was rich, and the Transome (or
+Bycliffe) property was heavily encumbered.
+
+The Transomes, Esther and Mr. Lyon all agreed that no law-suit over the
+property should take place.
+
+But while Esther stayed at Transome Court she never forgot her friend in
+prison. Mr. Lyon had visited Felix, and Esther herself obtained an
+interview with him just before the assizes began.
+
+She had grown conscious that Harold Transome was making love to her,
+that Mrs. Transome really desired her for a daughter-in-law, and it
+seemed to her as she waited with the minister in the cheerless prison
+room, that she stood at the first and last parting of the ways.
+
+Soon the door opened, and Felix Holt entered.
+
+"Miss Lyon--Esther!" and her hand was in his grasp. He was just the
+same--no, something inexpressibly better, because of the distance and
+separation, which made him like the return of morning.
+
+"Take no heed of me, children," said Mr. Lyon. "I have some notes to
+make." And the old man sat down at a window with his back to them,
+writing with his head bent close to the paper.
+
+Felix had heard of Esther's change of fortune and felt sure she would
+marry Harold Transome. It was only when the time for parting came that
+he could bring himself to say:
+
+"I had a horrible struggle, Esther. But you see I was right. There was a
+fitting lot in reserve for you." Esther felt too miserable for tears to
+come. She looked helplessly at Felix for a moment, then took her hands
+from his, and turning away mutely, said, "Father, I am ready--there is
+no more to say."
+
+"Esther."
+
+She heard Felix say the word, with an entreating cry, and went towards
+him swiftly. He clasped her, and they kissed each other.
+
+When the trial came on Esther went under Mrs. Transome's protection to
+the court.
+
+The case against Felix looked very black when the prosecution closed.
+Various respectable witnesses swore to the prisoner's leadership of the
+mob, to his fatal assault on Tucker, and to his attitude in front of the
+drawing-room window at the Manor.
+
+Felix then gave a concise narrative of his motives and conduct on the
+day of the riot, and explained that in throwing the constable down he
+had not foreseen the possibility of death ensuing. It was a good,
+straightforward speech, not without a touch of defiant independence,
+which did the prisoner little good with judge or jury.
+
+Mr. Lyon and Harold Transome both gave evidence in favour of Felix,
+stating that the prisoner had often expressed his hatred of rioting, and
+had protested with indignation against the treating that went on during
+the election by some of the Radical agents.
+
+One or two witnesses were called who swore that Felix had tried to lead
+the mob in the opposite direction to Treby Manor, and it was understood
+that the case for the defence was closed.
+
+Then it came to Esther that she must speak if Felix was to be saved.
+There had been no witness to tell what had been his behaviour just
+before the riot. There was time, but not too much time.
+
+Before Harold Transome was aware of Esther's intention she was on her
+way to the witness-box.
+
+A sort of gleam shot across the face of Felix Holt, and anyone close to
+the prisoner would have seen that his hand trembled, for the first time,
+at Esther's beautiful aspect. There was no blush on her face: she stood,
+divested of all personal consideration whether of vanity or shyness, and
+gave her story as if she had been making a confession of faith.
+
+She knew Felix Holt well, she said. He came to see her on the day of the
+election, and told her he feared the men might collect again after
+drinking. "It was the last thing he would have done to join in riot or
+to hurt any man, if he could have helped it. He could never have had any
+intention that was not brave and good."
+
+When she was back in her place Felix could not help looking towards her,
+and their eyes met in one solemn glance.
+
+Esther stayed in court till the end. She heard the verdict, "Guilty of
+Manslaughter," followed by the judge's sentence, "Imprisonment for four
+years." But so great was the impression made by Esther's speech that a
+petition to the Home Secretary was at once set on foot by the leading
+men of the county.
+
+
+_IV.--Felix and Esther_
+
+
+One April day, when the sun shone on the lingering raindrops, Lyddy was
+gone out, and Esther chose to sit in the kitchen. She was not reading,
+but stitching, and as her fingers moved nimbly, something played about
+her lips like a ray.
+
+A loud rap came at the door.
+
+"Mr. Lyon at home?" said Felix in his firm tones. "No, sir," said
+Esther: "but Miss Lyon is, if you'll please to walk in."
+
+"Esther!" exclaimed Felix, amazed.
+
+They held each other by both hands, and looked into each other's faces
+with delight.
+
+"You are out of prison?"
+
+"Yes, till I do something bad again. But you--how is it all? Are you
+come back to live here then?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"You are not going to be married to Harold Transome, or to be rich?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Why?" said Felix in rather a low tone, leaning his elbow on the table,
+and resting his head on his hand while he looked at her.
+
+"I did not wish to marry him, or to be rich."
+
+"You have given it all up?" said Felix, leaning forward a little and
+speaking in a still lower tone. "Could you share the life of a poor man,
+then, Esther?"
+
+"If I thought well enough of him," she said, with a smile, and a pretty
+movement of her head.
+
+"Have you considered well what it would be?--that it would be a very
+bare and simple life? and the people I shall live among, Esther? They
+have not just the same follies and vices as the rich, but they have
+their own forms of folly and vice. It is very serious, Esther."
+
+"I know it is serious," said Esther, looking up at him. "Since I have
+been at Transome Court I have seen many things very seriously. If I had
+not, I should not have left what I did leave. I made a deliberate
+choice."
+
+She could not tell him that at Transome Court, all that finally seemed
+balanced against her love for him, was the offer of a silken bondage
+that arrested all motive, and was nothing better than a well-cushioned
+despair. A vision of being restless amidst ease, of being languid among
+all appliances had quickened her resignation of the Transome estates.
+
+Esther explained, however, that she thought of retaining a little of the
+wealth.
+
+"How?" said Felix, anxiously. "What do you mean?"
+
+"I think even of two pounds a week: one needn't live up to the splendour
+of all that, you know: we might live as simply as you liked. And then I
+think of a little income for your mother, and a little income for my
+father, to save him from being dependent when he is no longer able to
+preach!"
+
+Felix put his hand on her shoulder, said, lifting up his eyes with a
+smile:
+
+"Why, I shall be able to set up a great library, and lend the books!"
+
+They laughed merrily, each holding the other's arms, like girl and boy.
+There was the ineffable sense of youth in common.
+
+Then Felix leaned forward, that their lips might meet, and after that
+his eyes roved tenderly over her face and curls.
+
+"I'm a rough, severe fellow, Esther. Shall you never repent?--never be
+inwardly reproaching me that I was not a man who could have shared your
+wealth? Are you quite sure?"
+
+The very next May, Felix and Esther were married. Everyone in those days
+was married at the parish church; but Mr. Lyon was not satisfied without
+an additional private solemnity, "so that he might have a more enlarged
+utterance of joy and supplication."
+
+It was a very simple wedding; but no wedding, even the gayest, ever
+raised so much interest and debate in Treby Magna. Even the very great
+people of the county went to the church to look at this bride, who had
+renounced wealth, and chosen to be the wife of a man who said he would
+always be poor.
+
+Some few shook their heads; could not quite believe it; and thought
+there was more behind. But the majority of honest Trebians were affected
+somewhat in the same way as Mr. Wall, the brewer of the town, who
+observed to his wife as they walked home, "I feel somehow as if I
+believed more in everything that's good."
+
+Felix and Esther did not take up their abode in Treby Magna; and after
+awhile Mr. Lyon left the town too, and joined them where they dwelt.
+
+As to the town in which Felix Holt now resides I will keep that a
+secret.
+
+I will only say that Esther has never repented. Felix, however, grumbles
+a little that she has made his life too easy.
+
+There is a young Felix, who has a great deal more science than his
+father, but not much more money.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+Romola
+
+
+     "Romola" was George Eliot's fifth book, and followed "Silas
+     Marner," which was published in 1861. It is a story of
+     Florence in the days of Savonarola, and was largely the
+     outcome of a visit the novelist paid to Italy with her
+     life-long friend, George Henry Lewes. With dim ideas for the
+     story in her mind, she made exhaustive researches in the
+     Florentine libraries, gathering historical and topographical
+     details of the city and its life as they were in the mediæval
+     period which she was setting herself to re-create. After much
+     study there and at home, and after one false start, she made a
+     serious beginning in January, 1862. She was engaged upon it
+     for eighteen months, always in doubt and sometimes in despair
+     of her ability to accomplish the task, and by June of the
+     following year she had thankfully written the last words of
+     what is regarded by some as her greatest book. Meanwhile, the
+     romance had begun to appear serially in the "Cornhill" in
+     July, 1862. The writing of "Romola" is said to have "ploughed
+     into her" more than any of her other books.
+
+
+_I.--Tito and Little Tessa_
+
+
+Under the Loggia de Cerchi, in the heart of old Florence, in the early
+morning of April 9, 1492, two men had their eyes fixed on each other.
+One was looking downward with the scrutiny of curiosity; the other,
+lying on the pavement, was looking upward with the startled gaze of a
+suddenly awakened dreamer.
+
+"Young man," said the standing figure, pointing to a ring on the finger
+of the other, "when your chin has got a stiffer crop on it you'll know
+better than to take your nap in street corners with a ring like that on
+your forefinger. By the holy 'vangels, if it had been anybody but me
+standing over you--but Bratti Ferravecchi is not the man to steal! Three
+years ago, one San Giovanni, the saint, sent a dead body in my way--a
+blind beggar, with his cap well lined with pieces. But how comes a young
+man like you, with the face of Messer San Michele, to be sleeping on a
+stone bed? Your tunic and hose match ill with that jewel, young man.
+Anybody might say the saints had sent you a dead body; but if you took
+the jewels, I hope you buried him--and you can afford a mass or two for
+him into the bargain!"
+
+Something like a painful thrill appeared to dart through the frame of
+the listener, and arrest the careless stretching of his arms. But he
+immediately recovered an air of indifference, took off the red Levantine
+cap which hung like a great purse over his left ear, and pushing back
+his long, dark brown curls, said smiling, "The fact is, I'm a stranger
+in Florence, and when I came in footsore last night, I preferred
+flinging myself in the corner of this hospitable porch to hunting for a
+chance hostelry, which might turn out to be a nest of bloodsuckers. Can
+you show me the way to a more lively quarter, where I can get a meal and
+a lodging?"
+
+"That I can," said Bratti.
+
+And, talking volubly as they went, Bratti led the way to the Mercato
+Vecchio, or the Old Market, promising to conduct him to the prettiest
+damsel in the Mercato for a cup of milk.
+
+But as soon as they emerged from the narrow streets into the Old Market,
+they found the place packed with excited groups of men and women humming
+with gossip.
+
+"Diavolo!" said Bratti. "The Mercato has gone as mad as if the Holy
+Father had excommunicated us again! I must know what this is."
+
+He pushed about among the crowd, inquiring and disputing, and was
+presently absorbed in discussing the newest development of Florentine
+politics, the death of Lorenzo de Medici, and whether or not this death
+was the beginning of the time of tribulation that Savonarola had been
+seeing in visions and foretelling in sermons.
+
+Indifferent to this general agitation, the young stranger became tired
+of waiting for Bratti's escort, and strolling on round the piazza, felt,
+on a sudden thought, in the wallet that hung at his waist.
+
+"Not an obolus, by Jupiter!" he murmured, in a language that was not
+Tuscan or even Italian. "I must get my breakfast for love, then!"
+
+In a corner, away from any group of talkers, two mules were standing.
+One carried wooden milk vessels, the other a pair of panniers filled
+with herbs and salads. Resting her elbow on the mule that carried the
+milk, there leaned a young girl, apparently not more than sixteen, with
+a red hood surrounding her face, which was all the more baby-like in its
+prettiness from the entire concealment of her hair. The poor child was
+weary, and it seemed to have gone to sleep in that half-standing,
+half-leaning posture. Nevertheless, our stranger had no compunction in
+awaking her. She opened her baby-blue eyes, and stared up with
+astonishment and confusion.
+
+"Forgive me, pretty one, for awaking you," he said. "I'm dying with
+hunger, and the scent of milk makes breakfast seem more desirable than
+ever."
+
+She bestirred herself, and in a few moments a large cup of fragrant milk
+was held out to him; and by the time he set the cup down she had brought
+bread from a bag which hung by the side of the mule, and shyly and
+mutely insisted on his taking it, even though he told her he had nothing
+to pay her with; and just as he was leaning down to kiss her he was
+harshly interrupted by Monna Ghita, Tessa's mother, who had come upon
+them unobserved.
+
+The handsome presence of the stranger and his charm of manner were of no
+avail with Monna Ghita; her noisy rating of him drew Bratti and the
+barber, Nello, to the spot, and with these he was glad to make good his
+escape, having waived a furtive adieu to the pretty Tessa.
+
+It was not until after Bratti, having business at home, had handed the
+young stranger over to Nello, and in the barber's shop he had been
+shaved and trimmed, and made to look presentable, that Tito Melema
+became more confidential, and explained that he was a Greek; that he was
+returning from adventures abroad, had suffered shipwreck, and found
+himself in Florence with nothing saved from the disaster but some few
+rare old gems for which he was anxious to obtain a purchaser.
+
+"Let us see, let us see," said Nello, walking up and down his shop.
+"What you want is a man of wealth and influence and scholarly tastes;
+and that man is Bartolommeo Scala, the Secretary of our Republic. He
+came to Florence as a poor adventurer himself, a miller's son; and that
+may be a reason why he may be the more ready to do a good turn to a
+strange scholar. I could take you to a man who, if he has a mind, can
+help you to a chance of a favourable interview with Scala--a man worth
+seeing for his own sake, too, to say nothing of his collections, or of
+his daughter Romola, who is as fair as the Florentine lily before it got
+quarrelsome and turned red."
+
+"But if the father of this beautiful Romola makes collections, why
+should he not like to buy some of my gems himself?"
+
+Nello shrugged his shoulders. "For two good reasons--want of sight to
+look at the gems and want of money to pay for them."
+
+
+_II.--"More than a Man's Ransom"_
+
+
+He was a moneyless, blind old scholar, the Bardo de Bardi, to whom Nello
+introduced Tito Melema; a man who came of a proud, energetic stock,
+whose ancestors had loved to play the signor, had been merchants and
+usurers of keen daring, and conspicuous among those who clutched the
+sword in the earliest world-famous quarrels of Florentine with
+Florentine. The family passions lived on in Bardo under altered
+conditions; he was a man with a deep-veined hand cramped by much copying
+of manuscripts, who ate sparing dinners, and wore threadbare clothes, at
+first from choice, and at last from necessity; who sat among his books
+and manuscripts, and saw them only by the light of those far-off younger
+days which still shone in his memory.
+
+And among his books and antiquities and rare marble fragments, in a
+spacious room surrounded with laden shelves, Romola was his daily
+companion and assistant. There was a time when he had hoped that his
+son, Dino, would have followed in his steps, to be the prop of his age,
+and to take up and continue his scholarly labours after he was dead. But
+Dino had failed him; Dino had given himself up to religion and entered
+the priesthood, and the passion of Bardo's resentment had flamed into
+fierce hatred towards this recreant son of his, and none dared so much
+as to name him within his hearing.
+
+Maso, the old serving-man ushered in the two visitors he had announced a
+few minutes previously, and Nello introduced Tito to Bardo and his
+daughter as a scholar of considerable learning.
+
+Romola's astonishment could hardly have been greater if the stranger had
+worn a panther-skin and carried a thyrsus, for the cunning barber had
+said nothing of the Greeks age or appearance, and among her father's
+scholarly visitors she had hardly ever seen any but gray-headed men.
+
+Nevertheless, she returned Tito's bow with the same pale, proud face as
+ever; but as he approached the snow melted, and when he ventured to look
+towards her again a pink flush overspread her face, to vanish again
+almost immediately, as if her imperious will had recalled it. Tito's
+glance, on the other hand, as he looked at this tall maiden of seventeen
+or eighteen, as she stood at the reading-desk with one hand on the back
+of her father's chair, had that gentle, beseeching admiration in it
+which is the most propitiating of appeals to a proud, shy woman, and is
+perhaps the only atonement a man can make for being too handsome.
+
+"Messere, I give you welcome," said Bardo with some condescension;
+"misfortune wedded to learning, and especially to Greek learning, is a
+letter of credit that should win the ear of every instructed
+Florentine."
+
+He proceeded to question Tito as to what part of Greece he came from,
+learned that he was a young man of unusual scholastic attainments, and
+that he had a father who was himself a scholar.
+
+"At least," said Tito, "a father by adoption. He was a Neapolitan, but,"
+he added, after another slight pause, "he is lost to me--was lost on a
+voyage he too rashly undertook to Delos."
+
+Bardo forbore to speak further on so painful a topic; he discoursed
+freely upon his own studies, his past hopes, and the one great ambition
+that remained to him--that his library and his magnificent collection of
+treasures should not be dissipated on his death, but should become the
+property of the public, and be honourably housed in Florence for all
+time, with his name over the door.
+
+In his eagerness he made passing reference to his son, of how Romola had
+been filling his place to the best of her power, and plainly hinted--and
+Tito was not slow to profit by the opportunity--that if he could have
+the young Greek scholar to work with him instead of her, he might yet
+look to fulfill some of the notable designs he had abandoned when his
+blindness came upon him.
+
+"But," he resumed, in his original tone of condescension, "we are
+departing from what I believe is your most important business. Nello
+informed me that you had certain gems which you would fain dispose of."
+
+"I have one or two intagli of much beauty," said Tito. "But they are now
+in the keeping of Messer Domenico Cennini, who has a strong and safe
+place for such things. He estimates them as worth at least five hundred
+ducats."
+
+"Ah, then, they are fine intagli!" said Bardo. "Five hundred ducats! Ah,
+more than a man's ransom!"
+
+Tito gave a slight, almost imperceptible start, and opened his long,
+dark eyes with questioning surprise at Bardo's blind face, as if his
+words--a mere phrase of common parlance at a time when men were often
+being ransomed from slavery or imprisonment--had some special meaning
+for him.
+
+But Bardo had used the words in all innocence, and went on to talk of
+superstitions that attached to certain gems, and to undertake that he
+would use his influence with the Secretary of the Republic in Tito's
+behalf. Both Romola and her father were attracted by the charm and
+freshness and apparent simplicity of the young man; but just as he was
+making ready to depart they were interrupted by the entrance of Bernardo
+del Nero, one of the chief citizens of Florence, Bardo's oldest friend,
+and Romola's godfather; and Bernardo felt an instant, instinctive
+distrust of the handsome, ingratiating stranger, and did not hesitate to
+say so after Tito had left them.
+
+"Remember, Bardo," he said at length, "thou hast a rare gem of thy own;
+take care no one gets it who is not like to pay a worthy price. That
+pretty Greek has a sleekness about him that seems marvelously fitted for
+slipping into any nest he fixes his mind on."
+
+
+_III.--The Man who was Wronged_
+
+
+It was undeniable that Tito's coming had been the dawn of a new life for
+both father and daughter, and he grew to care for Romola supremely--to
+wish to have her for his beautiful and loving wife.
+
+He took her place as Bardo's assistant, and served him with an easy
+efficiency that had been beyond her; and she, happier in her father's
+happiness, had given her love to Tito even before he ventured to offer
+her his own. He was thus sailing under the fairest breeze, and besides
+convincing fair judges that his talents squared with his good fortune,
+he wore that fortune so unpretentiously that no one seemed to be
+offended by it.
+
+And that was not the whole of Tito's good fortune, for he had sold his
+jewels, and was master of full five hundred gold florins. Yet the moment
+when he first had this sum in his possession was the crisis of the first
+serious struggle his facile, good-humoured nature had known.
+
+"A man's ransom!" Who was it that had said five hundred florins was more
+than a man's ransom? If, now, under this mid-day sun, on some hot coast
+far away, a man somewhat stricken in years--a man not without high
+thoughts, and with the most passionate heart--a man who long years ago
+had rescued a little boy from a life of beggary, filth, and cruel wrong,
+and had reared him tenderly, if that man were now, under this summer
+sun, toiling as a slave, hewing wood and drawing water? If he were
+saying to himself, "Tito will find me. He had but to carry our gems to
+Venice; he will have raised money, and will never rest till he finds me
+out?" If that were certain, could he--Tito--see the price of the gems
+lying before him, and say, "I will stay at Florence, where I am fanned
+by soft airs of love and prosperity; I will not risk myself for his
+sake?" No, surely not _if it were certain_. But the galley had been
+taken by a Turkish vessel; that was known by the report of the companion
+galley which had escaped; and there had been resistance and probable
+bloodshed, a man had been seen falling overboard.
+
+He quieted his conscience with such reasonings as these, and when
+definite tidings reached him that his father was still a prisoner, he
+contrived to keep the knowledge to himself, and still did nothing. The
+death of the exhausted, emaciated monk who had brought these tidings
+freed him of one fear; but this monk was Romola's brother, Dino, and
+obeying his summons she had been in secret to see him as he lay dying.
+
+"Romola," her brother began to speak, "in the deep night, as I lay
+awake, I saw my father's room, and I saw you ... And at the _leggio_
+where I used to stand stood a man whose face I could not see. I saw him
+move and take thee, Romola, by the hand, and then I saw thee take my
+father by the hand, and you all three went down the stone steps into the
+streets, the man, whose face was a blank to me, leading the way. And you
+stood at the altar of Santa Croce, and the priest who married you had
+the face of death; and the graves opened and the dead in their shrouds
+followed you like a bridal train. And it seemed to me that at last you
+came to a stony place where there was no water, and no trees or herbage;
+but instead of water I saw written parchment unrolling itself
+everywhere, and instead of trees and herbage I saw men of bronze and
+marble springing up and crowding round you. And my father was faint, and
+fell to the ground; and the man loosed thy hand and departed; and as he
+went I could see his face, and it was the face of the Great Tempter....
+Thrice have I had that vision, Romola. I believe it is a revelation
+meant for thee--to warn thee against marriage as a temptation of the
+enemy...."
+
+The words died away.
+
+"Frate," said the dying voice. "Give her----"
+
+"The crucifix," said the voice of Fra Girolamo Savonarola, who was
+standing in the shadows behind her.
+
+"Dino!" said Romola, with a low but piercing cry.
+
+"Take the crucifix, my daughter," said Fra Girolamo, after a few
+minutes. "His eyes behold it no more."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+But, heedless of the distrust and opposition of Messer Bernardo del
+Nero, and with this vision of Dino's menacing his highest hope, Tito
+went gaily on his triumphant way.
+
+Also he had renewed acquaintance with the little Tessa. He came upon her
+in the thronged streets during carnival time, and seeing her, a
+timorous, tearful little _contadin_, terrified by the burlesque threats
+of a boisterous conjurer, took her under his protection.
+
+Thereafter, he met her again at intervals, finding her naive love and
+humble adoration and obedience very pleasant; and, meeting her once at a
+peasant's fair, he jestingly yielded to the burlesque solicitations of a
+mountebank in a white mitre, paid a small fee, and went through an
+absurd ceremony of mock-marriage with her.
+
+Tessa herself believed the marriage to be real enough, and he would not
+mar her delight by undeceiving her. Later, since she was wretched at
+home with her scolding mother and a brutal step-father, and there were
+dangers in allowing her to go on waylaying him in streets when too long
+a period elapsed between his visits to her, he quietly took her away and
+established her in a small house on the outskirts of the city, with the
+deaf, discreet old Monna Lisa as her servant and companion.
+
+Neither this nor the darker secret of his treachery to his adoptive
+father cast any cloud over his habitual cheerfulness. His love for
+Romola was a higher and deeper passion than anything he felt for the
+child-like, submissive little Tessa, and when she told him frankly of
+her brother's warning vision, he set himself to convince her it was the
+mere nightmare of a diseased imagination, and the perfect love and trust
+she had for him made the task easy.
+
+For a while after their marriage she was ideally happy; she was not even
+separated from her father, for Tito came to live with them, and was to
+Bardo, in his scholastic labours, all that he had wished his own son to
+be. Then came the first cloud.
+
+On November 17, 1494, more than eighteen months after the marriage of
+Tito and Romola, the King of France marched his army into Florence on
+his way to take possession of Naples and impose peace on the warring
+little states into which Italy was divided. There were those in Florence
+who were prepared to welcome the invaders, but the majority, the common
+people in particular, resented their coming.
+
+With the soldiery came three wretched prisoners; they were led in ropes
+by their captors, and with blows from knotted cords were stimulated to
+beg. Two, as they passed, held out their hands, crying piteously, "For
+the love of God and the Holy Madonna, give us something towards our
+ransom!"
+
+But the third remained obstinately silent. He was old, white-haired,
+emaciated, with a thick-set figure that seemed to express energy in
+spite of age; yet there was something fitful in his eyes.
+
+This sight was witnessed by the Florentines with growing exasperation,
+and presently from jeering at the French soldiers and hustling them,
+they became bent upon rescuing this third prisoner from his tormentors;
+one venturesome youth suddenly dashed in, cut the old man's bonds and
+urged him to run; and the next moment he had plunged into the crowd,
+which closed behind him and hampered the pursuit.
+
+With one soldier struggling desperately on his track, the fugitive sped
+towards the Duomo, to seek refuge in that sanctuary, but in mounting the
+steps his foot slipped, he was precipitated towards a group of signori
+who stood there with their backs to him, and clutched one to save
+himself.
+
+It was Tito Melema who felt the clutch. He turned, and saw the face of
+his adoptive father, Baldassarre Calvo, close to his own. The two men
+looked at each other silent as death; Tito with cheeks and lips all
+bloodless, fascinated by terror. The next instant the grasp on his arm
+relaxed, and Baldassarre disappeared within the church.
+
+
+_IV.--Romola's Ordeal_
+
+
+With Baldassarre lurking in Florence, Tito went in hourly fear. At any
+moment the story of his baseness might be blown abroad; at any moment,
+worse still, he might be struck down by the old man, in whose wild eyes
+he had read only a fierce yearning for vengeance.
+
+As a precaution, Tito took to wearing a coat of fine chain-mail under
+his doublet, and the discovery of this alarmed Romola for his safety,
+and shocked her with a suspicion that he was something of a coward.
+
+But by now Tito was deeply involved in Florentine politics, and easily
+persuaded her that it was against secret political intriguers that he
+thus shielded himself. He went on to confess that his life was no longer
+safe in Florence, and he was resolved to leave the city for good. But to
+this she demurred; her father had died and left his library and his
+collection as a sacred trust to her and Tito, and until they had carried
+out his wish and made them over to the city authorities, she felt she
+could not go.
+
+Tito made light of her scruples. Her father's wish, he said, had been a
+mere foolish vanity; they had need of money, and he intended to sell
+both the library and collection, and when, for the first time in her
+life, she spoke bitterly, in scorn and anger of his faithlessness, he
+told her flatly it was useless to bandy words for he had sold them
+already, and they were to be removed that day.
+
+Frantic with grief and resentment, she thought of desperate ways of
+preventing the accomplishment of his heartless plans, even to borrowing
+of her godfather and buying back the treasures, so that Tito might keep
+his ill-gotten gain and her father's last wish still be fulfilled; but
+he convinced her that all interference was too late, for the things had
+been purchased by the Count di San Severino and the Seneschal de
+Beaucaire, who were already on their way with the French king to Sienna.
+
+Latterly, in many ways, Romola had been disappointed in her husband's
+character; she had found that his handsome face and gay air masked a
+cowardice, a cunning meanness, a sordid selfishness of disposition that
+were all at variance with her high ideal of him; but that final
+unspeakable treachery of the dead man who had trusted him so implicitly
+shattered her love for Tito utterly.
+
+As soon as her father's library was dismantled and his treasures taken
+away, Romola went from the house with the old man-servant, Maso, and
+would never have looked upon Tito's face again, but that Fra Girolamo
+intercepted her.
+
+"I have a command to call you back," he said. "My daughter, you must
+return to your place. You are flying from your debts; the debt of a
+Florentine woman to her fellow citizens; the debt of a wife. You are
+turning your back on the lot that has been appointed for you--you are
+going to choose another. My daughter, you are fleeing from the presence
+of God into the wilderness. My daughter, if the cross comes to you as a
+wife, you must carry it as a wife. You may say, 'I will forsake my
+husband,' but you cannot cease to be a wife."
+
+There was hunger and misery in the streets, and he urged upon her that
+if she had no other purpose in life she could stay, and help the poor of
+her own city. Her pride was broken, and she yielded.
+
+
+_V.--Baldassarre is Avenged_
+
+
+Meanwhile, Baldassarre, lurking about Florence, had armed himself with a
+knife, and was ravenous for revenge. Being homeless, he called by chance
+at Tessa's little house, and she, not knowing who he was, took pity on
+his age and misery, gave him shelter in a shed, and food and drink.
+
+Whilst he was there, Tito came, and, too frankly simple to keep anything
+from him, Tessa confessed that she had disobeyed his injunctions against
+holding converse with strangers, and was sheltering a strange, weary old
+man in the shed without. Her description of this guest left Tito in no
+doubt as to his identity, and, subduing his first perturbation, he
+conceived that he might turn the situation to his own advantage. He went
+out to the shed, and looking down upon Baldassarre in the moonlight,
+sought to propitiate him with honeyed words, specious explanations, and
+a plea for pardon. But the old man answered nothing, till his
+smouldering fury burst into a flame, then he precipitated himself upon
+the intruder and struck with all his force; but the blade of the knife
+broke off short against the hidden coat of mail.
+
+Tito insisted that he was welcome to remain there, and said what he
+could to soothe him, but Baldassarre would stay no longer when he knew
+whose roof covered him. Presently, he armed himself anew, and waited for
+another opportunity. He learned all that was to be known of Tito's
+career since his arrival in Florence; ascertained that he was married,
+and had thoughts of winning his wife's sympathy and telling her of
+Tessa. Then one night he contrived to get into the Rucellai Gardens,
+where Tito was at supper with a gathering of Florentine notabilities,
+and, seized in time and held back from assassinating him, he
+passionately denounced him before the company as a scoundrel, a liar,
+and a robber.
+
+There were those present who had been on the church steps that day when
+Baldassarre had clutched Tito by the arm, and Tito had then explained
+away his momentary panic. Questioned now by one of these, he declared
+that though when first he encountered his accuser he did not recognise
+him, he now saw that he was the servant who years ago accompanied him
+and his adoptive father to Greece, and was dismissed on account of
+misdemeanours, and that the story of his being rescued from beggary was
+the vision of a disordered brain.
+
+Baldassarre was given a chance to prove that he was not the servant, but
+the great scholar to whom Tito was indebted for his learning.
+
+"The ring I possess," said Rucellai, "is a fine sard that I myself
+purchased from Messer Tito. It is engraved with a subject from Homer.
+Will you turn to the passage in Homer from which that subject was
+taken?"
+
+But sitting to look over the book, Baldassarre realised that the
+sufferings through which he had passed had unhinged his mind and his
+memory; the words he stared at had no meaning for him, and he lifted his
+hands to his head in despair.
+
+The consequence of this fresh failure was that Baldassarre was cast into
+prison, and Tito was at liberty to pursue his political ambitions
+unhaunted by that dogging shadow that was to him as the shadow of death.
+He managed his affairs so cleverly that whichever party came uppermost
+he was secure of favour and money.
+
+But by-and-by the tide began to turn against him. Baldassarre was at
+large again, and met Romola and told her not only of his own wrongs, but
+of Tessa. She saw Tessa and her two children, and befriended them, and
+was so far from blaming that innocent little creature that she did not
+even disclose the truth to her; but she was importunate with Tito that
+he should make atonement to the man who had been a father to him. Then
+came a day when Tito's treacheries were discovered by the party he was
+supposed to serve, and he had to flee for his life through Florence.
+Scattering jewels and gold to delay his pursuers, he leaped from the
+bridge into the river, and swam in the darkness, leaving the bellowing
+mob to think he was drowned.
+
+But far down the stream there were certain eyes that saw him from the
+banks of the river, and when he landed and fell, faint and helpless,
+Baldassarre's hands closed on his throat; and next evening a passer-by
+found the two dead bodies there.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+Silas Marner
+
+
+     "Silas Marner, the Weaver of Raveloe," begun about November,
+     1860, and published early in 1861, is in many respects the
+     most admirable of all George Eliot's works. It is not a long
+     story, but it is a most carefully finished novel--"a perfect
+     gem, a pure work of art," Mr. Oscar Browning describes it. Mr.
+     Blackwood, the publisher, found it rather sombre, and George
+     Eliot replied to him, "I hope you will not find it at all a
+     sad story as a whole, since it sets--or is intended to set--in
+     a strong light the remedial influences of pure, natural, human
+     relations. I have felt all through as if the story would have
+     lent itself best to metrical rather than to prose fiction,
+     especially in all that relates to the psychology of Silas;
+     except that, under that treatment, there could not be an equal
+     play of humour." No novel of George Eliot's has received more
+     praise from men of letters than "Silas Marner."
+
+
+_I.--Why Silas Came to Raveloe_
+
+
+In the early years of the nineteenth century a linen-weaver named Silas
+Marner worked at his vocation in a stone cottage that stood among the
+nutty hedgerows near the village of Raveloe, and not far from the edge
+of a deserted stone-pit.
+
+It was fifteen years since Silas Marner had first come to Raveloe; he
+was then simply a pallid young man with prominent, short-sighted brown
+eyes. To the villagers among whom he had come to settle he seemed to
+have mysterious peculiarities, chiefly owing to his advent from an
+unknown region called "North'ard." He invited no comer to step across
+his door-sill, and he never strolled into the village to drink a pint at
+the Rainbow, or to gossip at the wheel-wrights'; he sought no man or
+woman, save for the purposes of his calling, or in order to supply
+himself with necessaries.
+
+At the end of fifteen years the Raveloe men said just the same things
+about Silas Marner as at the beginning. There was only one important
+addition which the years had brought; it was that Master Marner had laid
+by a fine sight of money somewhere, and that he could buy up "bigger men
+than himself."
+
+But while his daily habits presented scarcely any visible change,
+Marner's inward life had been a history and a metamorphosis as that of
+every fervid nature must be when it has been condemned to solitude. His
+life, before he came to Raveloe, had been filled with the close
+fellowship of a narrow religious sect, where the poorest layman had the
+chance of distinguishing himself by gifts of speech; and Marner was
+highly thought of in that little hidden world, known to itself as the
+church assembling in Lantern Yard. He was believed to be a young man of
+exemplary life and ardent faith, and a peculiar interest had been
+centred in him ever since he had fallen at a prayer-meeting into a
+trance or cataleptic fit, which lasted for an hour.
+
+Among the members of his church there was one young man, named William
+Dane, with whom he lived in close friendship; and it seemed to the
+unsuspecting Silas that the friendship suffered no chill, even after he
+had formed a closer attachment, and had become engaged to a young
+servant-woman.
+
+At this time the senior deacon was taken dangerously ill, and Silas and
+William, with others of the brethren, took turns at night-watching. On
+the night the old man died, Silas fell into one of his trances, and when
+he awoke at four o'clock in the morning death had come, and, further, a
+little bag of money had been stolen from the deacon's bureau, and
+Silas's pocket-knife was found inside the bureau. For some time Silas
+was mute with astonishment, then he said, "God will clear me; I know
+nothing about the knife being there, or the money being gone. Search me
+and my dwelling."
+
+The search was made, and it ended in William Dane finding the deacon's
+bag, empty, tucked behind the chest of drawers in Silas's chamber.
+
+According to the principles of the church in Lantern Yard prosecution
+was forbidden to Christians. But the members were bound to take other
+measures for finding out the truth, and they resolved on praying and
+drawing lots; there was nothing unusual about such proceedings a hundred
+years ago. Silas knelt with his brethren, relying on his own innocence
+being certified by immediate Divine interference. _The lots declared
+that Silas Marner was guilty_. He was solemnly suspended from church-
+membership, and called upon to render up the stolen money; only on
+confession and repentance could he be received once more within the fold
+of the church. Marner listened in silence. At last, when everyone rose
+to depart, he went towards William Dane and said, in a voice shaken by
+agitation, "The last time I remember using my knife was when I took it
+out to cut a strap for you. I don't remember putting it in my pocket
+again. _You_ stole the money, and you have woven a plot to lay the sin
+at my door. But you may prosper for all that; there is no just God, but
+a God of lies, that bears witness against the innocent!"
+
+There was a general shudder at this blasphemy. Poor Marner went out with
+that despair in his soul--that shaken trust in God and man which is
+little short of madness to a loving nature. In the bitterness of his
+wounded spirit, he said to himself, "_She_ will cast me off, too!" and
+for a whole day he sat alone, stunned by despair.
+
+The second day he took refuge from benumbing unbelief by getting into
+his loom and working away as usual, and, before many hours were past,
+the minister and one of the deacons came to him with a message from
+Sarah, the young woman to whom he had been engaged, that she held her
+engagement at an end. In little more than a month from that time Sarah
+was married to William Dane, and not long afterwards it was known to the
+brethren in Lantern Yard that Silas Marner had departed from the town.
+
+
+_II.--The Second Blow_
+
+
+When Silas Marner first came to Raveloe he seemed to weave like a
+spider, from pure impulse, without reflection. Then there were the calls
+of hunger, and Silas, in his solitude, had to provide his own breakfast,
+dinner, and supper, to fetch his own water from the well, and put his
+own kettle on the fire; and all these immediate promptings helped to
+reduce his life to the unquestioning activity of a spinning insect. He
+hated the thought of the past; there was nothing that called out his
+love and fellowship towards the strangers he had come amongst; and the
+future was all dark, for there was no Unseen Love that cared for him.
+
+It was then, when all purpose of life was gone, that Silas got into the
+habit of looking towards the money he received for his weaving, and
+grasping it with a sense of fulfilled effort. Gradually, the guineas,
+the crowns, and the half-crowns, grew to a heap, and Marner drew less
+and less for his own wants, trying to solve the problem of keeping
+himself strong enough to work sixteen hours a day on as small an outlay
+as possible. He handled his coins, he counted them, till their form and
+colour were like the satisfaction of a thirst to him; but it was only in
+the night, when his work was done, that he drew them out, to enjoy their
+companionship. He had taken up some bricks in his floor underneath his
+loom, and here he had made a hole in which he set the iron pot that
+contained his guineas and silver coins, covering the bricks with sand
+whenever he replaced them.
+
+So, year after year, Silas Marner lived in this solitude, his guineas
+rising in the iron pot, and his life narrowing and hardening itself more
+and more as it became reduced to the functions of weaving and hoarding.
+
+This is the history of Silas Marner until the fifteenth year after he
+came to Raveloe. Then, about the Christmas of that year, a second great
+change came over his life.
+
+It was a raw, foggy night, with rain, and Silas was returning from the
+village, plodding along, with a sack thrown round his shoulders, and
+with a horn lantern in his hand. His legs were weary, but his mind was
+at ease with the sense of security that springs from habit. Supper was
+his favourite meal, because it was his time of revelry, when his heart
+warmed over his gold.
+
+He reached his door in much satisfaction that his errand was done; he
+opened it, and to his short-sighted eyes everything remained as he had
+left it, except that the fire sent out a welcome increase of heat.
+
+As soon as he was warm he began to think it would be a long while to
+wait till after supper before he drew out his guineas, and it would be
+pleasant to see them on the table before him as he ate his food.
+
+He rose and placed his candle unsuspectingly on the floor near his loom,
+swept away the sand, without noticing any change, and removed the
+bricks. The sight of the empty hole made his heart leap violently, but
+the belief that his gold was gone could not come at once--only terror,
+and the eager effort to put an end to the terror. He passed his
+trembling hand all about the hole, then he held the candle and examined
+it curiously, trembling more and more. He searched in every corner, he
+turned his bed over, and shook it, and kneaded it; he looked in his
+brick oven; and when there was no other place to be searched, he felt
+once more all round the hole.
+
+He could see every object in his cottage, and his gold was not there. He
+put his trembling hands to his head, and gave a wild, ringing scream--
+the cry of desolation. Then the idea of a thief began to present itself,
+and he entertained it eagerly, because a thief might be caught and made
+to restore the gold. The robber must be laid hold of. Marner's ideas of
+legal authority were confused, but he felt that he must go and proclaim
+his loss; and the great people in the village--the clergyman, the
+constable, and Squire Cass--would make the thief deliver up the stolen
+money.
+
+It was to the village inn Silas Marner went, where the parish clerk and
+a select company were assembled, and told the story of his loss--£272
+12s. 6d. in all. The machinery of the law was set in motion, but no
+thief was ever captured, nor could grounds be found for suspicion
+against any persons.
+
+What had really happened was that Dunsey Cass, Squire Cass's second
+son--a mean, boastful rascal--on his way home on foot from hunting, saw
+the light in the weaver's cottage, and knocked, hoping to borrow a
+lantern, for the lane was unpleasantly slippery, and the night dark. But
+all was silence in the cottage, for the weaver at that moment had not
+yet reached home. For a minute Dunsey thought that old Marner might be
+dead, fallen over into the stone pits. And from that came the decision
+that he must be dead. If so, the question arose, what would become of
+the money that everybody said the old miser had put by?
+
+Dunstan Cass was in difficulties for want of money, and he had killed
+his brother's horse that day on the hunting-field. Who would know, if
+Marner was dead, that anybody had come to take his hoard of money away?
+
+There were only three hiding-places where he had heard of cottagers'
+hoards being found: the thatch, the bed, and a hole in the floor. His
+eyes travelling eagerly over the floor, noted a spot where the sand had
+been more carefully spread.
+
+Dunstan found the hole and the money, now hidden in two leathern bags.
+From their weight he judged they must be filled with guineas. Quickly he
+hastened out into the darkness with the bags, and Dunstan Cass was seen
+no more alive.
+
+At the very moment when he turned his back on the cottage Silas Marner
+was not more than a hundred yards away.
+
+
+_III.--Silas Marner's Visitor_
+
+
+It was New Year's Eve, and Squire Cass was giving a dance to the
+neighbouring gentry of Raveloe. There had been snow in the afternoon,
+but at seven o'clock it had ceased, and a freezing wind had sprung up.
+
+A woman, shabbily dressed, with a child in her arms, was making her way
+towards Raveloe, seeking the Red House, where Squire Cass lived. It was
+not the squire she wanted, but his eldest son, Godfrey, to whom she was
+secretly married. The marriage--the result of rash impulse--had been an
+unhappy one from the first, for Godfrey's wife was the slave of opium.
+The squire had long desired that his son should marry Miss Nancy
+Lammeter, and would have turned him out of house and home had he known
+of the unfortunate marriage already contracted. Cold and weariness drove
+the woman, even while she walked, to the only comfort she knew. She
+raised the black remnant to her lips, and then flung the empty phial
+away. Now she walked, always more and more drowsily, and clutched more
+and more automatically the sleeping child at her bosom. Soon she felt
+nothing but a supreme longing to lie down and sleep; and so sank down
+against a straggling furze-bush, an easy pillow enough; and the bed of
+snow, too, was soft. The cold was no longer felt, but her arms did not
+at once relax their instinctive clutch, and the little one slumbered on.
+
+The complete torpor came at last; the fingers lost their tension, the
+arms unbent; then the little head fell away from the bosom, and the blue
+eyes of the child opened wide on the cold starlight. At first there was
+a little peevish cry of "Mammy," as the child rolled downward; and then,
+suddenly, its eyes were caught by a bright gleaming light on the white
+ground, and with the ready transition of infancy it decided the light
+must be caught.
+
+In an instant the child had slipped on all fours, and, after making out
+that the cunning gleam came from a very bright place, the little one,
+rising on its legs, toddled through the snow--toddled on to the open
+door of Silas Marner's cottage, and right up to the warm hearth, where
+was a bright fire.
+
+The little one, accustomed to be left to itself for long hours without
+notice, squatted down on the old sack spread out before the fire, in
+perfect contentment. Presently the little golden head sank down, and the
+blue eyes were veiled by their delicate half-transparent lids.
+
+But where was Silas Marner while this strange visitor had come to his
+hearth? He was in the cottage, but he did not see the child. Since he
+had lost his money he had contracted the habit of opening his door, and
+looking out from time to time, as if he thought that his money might,
+somehow, be coming back to him.
+
+That morning he had been told by some of his neighbours that it was New
+Year's Eve, and that he must sit up and hear the old year rung out, and
+the new rung in, because that was good luck, and might bring his money
+back again. Perhaps this friendly Raveloe way of jesting had helped to
+throw Silas into a more than usually excited state. Certainly he opened
+his door again and again that night, and the last time, just as he put
+out his hand to close it, the invisible wand of catalepsy arrested him,
+and there he stood like a graven image, powerless to resist either the
+good or evil that might enter.
+
+When Marner's sensibility returned he was unaware of the break in his
+consciousness, and only noticed that he was chilled and faint.
+
+Turning towards the hearth it seemed to his blurred vision as if there
+was a heap of gold on the floor; but instead of hard coin his fingers
+encountered soft, warm curls. In utter amazement, Silas fell on his
+knees to examine the marvel: it was a sleeping child, a round, fair
+thing, with soft, yellow rings all over its head. Could this be the
+little sister come back to him in a dream--his little sister whom he had
+carried about in his arms for a year before she died? That was the first
+thought. _Was_ it a dream? It was very much like his little sister. How
+and when had the child come in without his knowledge?
+
+But there was a cry on the hearth; the child had awakened, and Marner
+stooped to lift it on to his knee. He had plenty to do through the next
+hour. The porridge, sweetened with some dry brown sugar, stopped the
+cries of the little one for "mammy." Then it occurred to Silas's dull
+bachelor mind that the child wanted its wet boots off, and this having
+been done, the wet boots suggested that the child had been walking on
+the snow.
+
+He made out the marks of the little feet in the snow, and, holding the
+child in his arms, followed their track to the furze-bush. Then he
+became aware that there was something more than the bush before
+him--that there was a human body, half covered with the shifting snow.
+
+With the child in his arms, Silas at once went for the doctor, who was
+spending the evening at the Red House. And Godfrey Cass recognised that
+it was his own child he saw in Marner's arms.
+
+The woman was dead--had been dead for some hours, the doctor said; and
+Godfrey, who had accompanied him to Marner's cottage, understood that he
+was free to marry Nancy Lammeter.
+
+"You'll take the child to the parish to-morrow?" Godfrey asked, speaking
+as indifferently as he could.
+
+"Who says so?" said Marner sharply. "Will they make me take her? I shall
+keep her till anybody shows they've a right to take her away from me.
+The mother's dead, and I reckon it's got no father. It's a lone thing,
+and I'm a lone thing. My money's gone--I don't know where, and this is
+come from I don't know where."
+
+Godfrey returned to the Red House with a sense of relief and gladness,
+and Silas kept the child. There had been a softening of feeling to him
+in the village since the day of his robbery, and now an active sympathy
+was aroused amongst the women. The child was christened Hephzibah, after
+Marner's mother, and was called Eppie for short.
+
+
+_IV--Eppie's Decision_
+
+
+Eppie had come to link Silas Marner once more with the whole world. The
+disposition to hoard had utterly gone, and there was no longer any
+repulsion around to him.
+
+As the child grew up, one person watched with keener, though more
+hidden, interest than any other the prosperous growth of Eppie under the
+weaver's care. The squire was dead, and Godfrey Cass was married to
+Nancy Lammeter. He had no child of his own save the one that knew him
+not. No Dunsey had ever turned up, and people had ceased to think of
+him.
+
+Sixteen years had passed, and now Aaron Winthrop, a well-behaved young
+gardener, is wanting to marry Eppie, and Eppie is willing to have him
+"some time."
+
+"'Everybody's married some time,' Aaron says," said Eppie. "But I told
+him that wasn't true, for I said look at father--he's never been
+married."
+
+"No, child," said Silas, "your father was a lone man till you was sent
+to him."
+
+"But you'll never be lone again, father," said Eppie tenderly. "That was
+what Aaron said--'I could never think o' taking you away from Master
+Marner, Eppie.' And I said, 'It 'ud be no use if you did, Aaron.' And he
+wants us all to live together, so as you needn't work a bit, father,
+only what's for your own pleasure, and he'd be as good as a son to
+you--that was what he said."
+
+The proposal to separate Eppie from her foster-father came from Godfrey
+Cass.
+
+When the old stone-pit by Marner's cottage went dry, owing to drainage
+operations, the skeleton of Dunstan Cass was found, wedged between two
+great stones. The watch and seals were recognised, and all the weaver's
+money was at the bottom of the pit. The shock of this discovery moved
+Godfrey to tell Nancy the secret of his earlier marriage.
+
+"Everything comes to light, Nancy, sooner or later," he said. "That
+woman Marner found dead in the snow--Eppie's mother--was my wife. Eppie
+is my child. I oughtn't to have left the child unowned. I oughtn't to
+have kept it from you."
+
+"It's but little wrong to me, Godfrey," Nancy answered sadly. "You've
+made it up to me--you've been good to me for fifteen years. It'll be a
+different coming to us, now she's grown up."
+
+They were childless, and it hadn't occurred to them as they approached
+Silas Marner's cottage that Godfrey's offer might be declined. At first
+Godfrey explained that he and his wife wanted to adopt Eppie in place of
+a daughter.
+
+"Eppie, my child, speak," said old Marner faintly. "I won't stand in
+your way. Thank Mr. and Mrs. Cass."
+
+"Thank you, ma'am--thank you, sir," said Eppie dropping a curtsy; "but I
+can't leave my father, nor own anybody nearer than him."
+
+Godfrey Cass was irritated at this obstacle.
+
+"But I've a claim on you, Eppie," he returned. "It's my duty, Marner, to
+own Eppie as my child, and provide for her. She's my own child. Her
+mother was my wife. I've a natural claim on her."
+
+"Then, sir, why didn't you say so sixteen years ago, and claim her
+before I'd come to love her, i'stead o' coming to take her from me now,
+when you might as well take the heart out o' my body? When a man turns a
+blessing from his door, it falls to them as take it in. But let it be as
+you will. Speak to the child. I'll hinder nothing."
+
+"Eppie, my dear," said Godfrey, looking at his daughter not without some
+embarrassment, "it'll always be our wish that you should show your love
+and gratitude to one who's been a father to you so many years; but we
+hope you'll come to love us as well, and though I haven't been what a
+father should ha' been to you all these years, I wish to do the utmost
+in my power for you now, and provide for you as my only child. And
+you'll have the best of mothers in my wife."
+
+Eppie did not come forward and curtsy as she had done before, but she
+held Silas's hand in hers and grasped it firmly.
+
+"Thank you, ma'am--thank you, sir, for your offers--they're very great
+and far above my wish. For I should have no delight in life any more if
+I was forced to go away from my father."
+
+In vain Nancy expostulated mildly.
+
+"I can't feel as I've got any father but one," said Eppie. "I've always
+thought of a little home where he'd sit i' the corner, and I should fend
+and do everything for him. I can't think o' no other home. I wasn't
+brought up to be a lady, and," she ended passionately, "I'm promised to
+marry a working man, as'll live with father and help me to take care of
+him."
+
+Godfrey Cass and his wife went out.
+
+A year later Eppie was married, and Mrs. Godfrey Cass provided the
+wedding dress, and Mr. Cass made some necessary alterations to suit
+Silas's larger family.
+
+"Oh, father," said Eppie, when the bridal party returned from the
+church, "what a pretty home ours is! I think nobody could be happier
+than we are!"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+The Mill on the Floss
+
+
+     In "The Mill on the Floss," published in 1860, George Eliot
+     went to her own early life for the chief characters in the
+     story, and in the relations of Tom and Maggie Tulliver we get
+     a picture of the youth of Mary Ann Evans and her brother
+     Isaac. Lord Lytton objected that Maggie was too passive in the
+     scene at Red Deeps, and that the tragedy of the flood was not
+     adequately prepared. To this criticism George Eliot answered,
+     "Now that the defect is suggested to me, if the book were
+     still in manuscript I should alter, or rather expand, that
+     scene at Red Deeps." She also admitted that there was "a want
+     of proportionate fulness" in the conclusion. But, with all its
+     faults, "The Mill on the Floss" deserves the reputation it has
+     won. The reception of the story at first was disappointing,
+     and we find the authoress telling her publisher that "she does
+     not want to see any newspaper articles." But the book made its
+     way, and prepared an ever-growing public for "Silas Marner."
+
+
+_I.--The Tullivers of Dorlcote Mill_
+
+
+"What I want, you know," said Mr. Tulliver, "what I want is to give Tom
+a good eddication--an eddication as'll be a bread to him. I mean to put
+him to a downright good school at midsummer. The two years at th'
+academy 'ud ha' done well enough if I'd meant to make a miller and
+farmer of him, but I should like Tom to be a bit of a scholard. It 'ud
+be a help to me wi' these lawsuits, and arbitrations, and things. I
+wouldn't make a downright lawyer o' the lad--I should be sorry for him
+to be a raskill--but a sort of engineer, or a surveyor, or an auctioneer
+and vallyer, like Riley, or one o' them smartish businesses as are all
+profits and no outlay, only for a big watch-chain and a high stool.
+They're pretty nigh all one, and they're not far off being even wi' the
+law, I believe; for Riley looks Lawyer Wakem i' the face as hard as one
+cat looks another. _He's_ none frightened at him."
+
+Mr. Tulliver was speaking to his wife, a blonde, comely woman, nearly
+forty years old.
+
+"Well, Mr. Tulliver, you know best. _I've_ no objections. But if Tom's
+to go to a new school, I should like him to go where I can wash him and
+mend him, else he might as well have calico as linen. And then, when the
+box is goin' backwards and forwards, I could send the lad a cake, or a
+pork-pie, or an apple."
+
+"Well, well, we won't send him out o' reach o' the carrier's cart, if
+other things fit in," said Mr. Tulliver. "Riley's as likely a man as any
+to know o' some school; he's had schooling himself, an' goes about to
+all sorts o' places--arbitratin' and vallyin', and that."
+
+So a day or two later Mr. Riley, the auctioneer, came to Dorlcote Mill,
+and stayed the night, the better that Mr. Tulliver, who was slow at
+coming to a point, might consult him on the all-important subject of his
+boy.
+
+"You see, I want to put him to a new school at midsummer," said Mr.
+Tulliver, when the topic had been reached. "I want to send him to a
+downright good school, where they'll make a scholard of him. I don't
+mean Tom to be a miller an' farmer. I see no fun i' that. I shall give
+Tom an eddication and put him to a business as he may make a nest for
+himself, an' not want to push me out o' mine."
+
+At the sound of her brother's name, Maggie, the second and only other
+child of the Tullivers, who was seated on a low stool close by the fire,
+with a large book open on her lap, looked up eagerly. Tom, it appeared,
+was supposed capable of turning his father out of doors. This was not to
+be borne, and Maggie jumped up from her stool, and going up between her
+father's knees, said, in a half-crying, half-indignant voice, "Father,
+Tom wouldn't be naughty to you ever; I know he wouldn't."
+
+Mr. Tulliver's heart was touched.
+
+"What! They mustn't say any harm o' Tom, eh?" he said, looking at Maggie
+with a twinkling eye. Then, in a lower voice, turning to Mr. Riley, "She
+understands what one's talking about so as never was. And you should
+hear her read--straight off, as if she knowed it all beforehand. But
+it's bad--it's bad. A woman's no business wi' being so clever; it'll
+turn to trouble, I doubt. It's a pity, but what she'd been the
+lad--she'd ha' been a match for the lawyers, she would."
+
+Mr. Riley took a pinch of snuff before he said, "But your lad's not
+stupid, is he? I saw him, when I was here last, busy making
+fishing-tackle; he seemed quite up to it."
+
+"Well, he isn't not to say stupid; he's got a notion o' things out o'
+door, an' a sort o' commonsense, as he'd lay hold o' things by the right
+handle. But he's slow with his tongue, you see, and reads but poorly,
+and can't abide the books, and spells all wrong, they tell me, an' as
+shy as can be wi' strangers. Now, what I want is to send him to a school
+where they'll make him a bit nimble with his tongue and his pen, to make
+a smart chap of him. I want my son to be even wi' these fellows as have
+got the start o' me with schooling."
+
+The talk ended in Mr. Riley recommending a country parson named Stelling
+as a suitable tutor for Tom, and Mr. Tulliver decided that his son
+should go to Mr. Stelling at King's Lorton, fifteen miles from Dorlcote
+Mill.
+
+
+_II.--School-Time_
+
+
+Tom Tulliver's sufferings during the first quarter he was at King's
+Lorton, under the distinguished care of the Rev. Walter Stelling, were
+rather severe. It had been very difficult for him to reconcile himself
+to the idea that his school-time was to be prolonged, and that he was
+not to be brought up to his father's business, which he had always
+thought extremely pleasant, for it was nothing but riding about, giving
+orders, and going to market.
+
+Mr. Stelling was not a harsh-tempered or unkind man--quite the contrary,
+but he thought Tom a stupid boy, and determined to develop his powers
+through Latin grammar and Euclid to the best of his ability.
+
+As for Tom, he had no distinct idea how there came to be such a thing as
+Latin on this earth. It would have taken a long while to make it
+conceivable to him that there ever existed a people who bought and sold
+sheep and oxen, and transacted the everyday affairs of life through the
+medium of this language, or why he should be called upon to learn it,
+when its connection with those affairs had become entirely latent. He
+was of a very firm, not to say obstinate disposition, but there was no
+brute-like rebellion or recklessness in his nature; the human
+sensibilities predominated, and he was anxious to acquire Mr. Stelling's
+approbation by showing some quickness at his lessons, if he had known
+how to accomplish it.
+
+In his secret heart Tom yearned to have Maggie with him, and, before the
+first dreary half-year was ended, Maggie actually came. Mrs. Stelling
+had given a general invitation for the little girl to come and stay with
+her brother; so when Mr. Tulliver drove over to King's Lorton late in
+October, Maggie came too, with the sense that she was taking a great
+journey, and beginning to see the world.
+
+"Well, my lad," Mr. Tulliver said, "you look rarely! School agrees with
+you!"
+
+"I don't think I _am_ well, father," said Tom; "I wish you'd ask Mr.
+Stelling not to let me do Euclid--it brings on the toothache, I think."
+
+"Euclid, my lad--why, what's that?" said Mr. Tulliver.
+
+"Oh, I don't know! It's definitions and axioms and triangles and things.
+It's a book I've got to learn in--there's no sense in it."
+
+"Go, go!" said Mr. Tulliver reprovingly. "You mustn't say so. You must
+learn what your master tells you. He knows what it's right for you to
+learn."
+
+In the second term Mr. Stelling had a second pupil--Philip, the son of
+Lawyer Wakem, Mr. Tulliver's standing enemy.
+
+Philip was a very old-looking boy, Tom thought. His spine had been
+deformed through an accident in infancy, and to Tom he was simply a
+humpback. He had a vague notion that the deformity of Wakem's son had
+some relation to the lawyer's rascality, of which he had so often heard
+his father talk with hot emphasis.
+
+There was a natural antipathy of temperament between the two boys; for
+Tom was an excellent bovine lad, and Philip was sensitive, and suffered
+acute pain when the other blurted out offensive things.
+
+Maggie, on her second visit to King's Lorton, pronounced Philip to be "a
+nice boy."
+
+"He couldn't choose his father, you know," she said to Tom. "And I've
+read of very bad men who had good sons, as well as good parents who had
+bad children."
+
+"Oh, he's a queer fellow," said Tom curtly, "and he's as sulky as can be
+with me because I told him his father was a rogue. And I'd a right to
+tell him so, for it was true--and he began it with calling me names."
+
+An accident to Tom's foot brought the two boys nearer again, and also
+threw Philip and Maggie together.
+
+"Maggie," said Philip one day, "if you had had a brother like me, do you
+think you should have loved him as well as Tom?"
+
+"Oh, yes, better," she answered immediately. "No, not better; because I
+don't think I could love you better than Tom. But I should be so
+sorry--so sorry for you."
+
+Philip coloured. He had meant to imply, would she love him as well in
+spite of his deformity, and yet when she alluded to it so plainly he
+winced under her pity. Maggie, young as she was, felt her mistake.
+
+"But you are so very clever, Philip, and you can play and sing," she
+added quickly. "I wish you were my brother. I'm very fond of you."
+
+"But you'll go away soon, and go to school, Maggie, and then you'll
+forget all about me, and not care for me any more."
+
+"Oh, no, I shan't forget you, I'm sure." And Maggie put her arm round
+his neck, and kissed him quite earnestly.
+
+
+_III.--The Downfall_
+
+
+When Tom had turned sixteen, and Maggie, three years younger, was at
+boarding school, came the downfall of the Tullivers. A long and
+expensive law-suit concerning rights of water, brought by Mr. Tulliver,
+ended in defeat. Wakem was his opponent's lawyer.
+
+Maggie broke the news to Tom. Not only would mill and lands and
+everything be lost, and nothing left, but their father had fallen off
+his horse, and knew nobody, and seemed to have lost his senses.
+
+"They say Mr. Wakem has got a mortgage or something on the land, Tom,"
+said Maggie, on their way home from King's Lorton. "It was the letter
+with that news in it that made father ill, they think."
+
+"I believe that scoundrel's been planning all along to ruin my father,"
+said Tom, leaping from the vaguest impressions to a definite conclusion.
+"I'll make him feel for it when I'm a man. Mind you never speak to
+Philip again!"
+
+For more than two months Mr. Tulliver lay ill in his room, oblivious to
+all that was taking place around him. From time to time recognition came
+to him of his wife and family, but there was no remembrance of recent
+events.
+
+The mill and land of the Tullivers were sold to Wakem the lawyer, and
+the bulk of their household goods were disposed of by public auction;
+but the Tullivers were not turned out of Dorlcote Mill. And, indeed,
+when Mr. Tulliver, known to be a man of proud honesty, was once more
+able to be up and about, it was proposed that he should remain and
+accept employment as manager of the mill for Mr. Wakem.
+
+It was with difficulty that poor Tulliver could bring himself to accept
+the situation, but he saw the possibility, by much pinching, of saving
+money out of the thirty shillings a week salary promised by Wakem, and
+paying a second dividend to his creditors. The strongest influence of
+all was the love of the old premises where he had run about when he was
+a boy, just as Tom had done after him.
+
+Tom, who had at once applied to his Uncle Deane, partner in a wealthy
+merchant's business, for work, and was now earning a pound a week, had
+protested against entertaining the proposition; he shouldn't like his
+father to be under Wakem; he thought it would look nothing but mean
+spirited.
+
+But Mr. Tulliver had come to a decision. The first evening of his new
+life downstairs, he called his family round him, and began to speak,
+looking first at his wife.
+
+"I've made up my mind, Bessy. I'll stop in the old place, and I'll serve
+under Wakem, and I'll serve him like an honest man; there's no Tulliver
+but what's honest, mind that, Tom. They'll have it to throw up against
+me as I paid a dividend--but it wasn't my fault--it was because there's
+raskills in the world. They've been too many for me, and I must give in.
+But I'll serve him as honest as if he was no raskill. I'm an honest man,
+though I shall never hold my head up no more! I'm a tree as is broke--a
+tree as is broke."
+
+He paused, and looked on the ground. Then suddenly raising his head, he
+said, in a louder yet deeper tone, "But I won't forgive him! I know what
+they say--he never meant me any harm! I shouldn't ha' gone to law they
+say. But who made it so as there was no arbitrating and no justice to be
+got? It signifies nothing to him--I know that he's one o' them fine
+gentlemen as get money by doing business for poorer folks, and when he's
+made beggars of 'em he'll give 'em charity. I won't forgive him! I wish
+he might be punished with shame till his own son 'ud like to forget him.
+And you mind this, Tom--you never forgive him, neither, if you mean to
+be my son. Now write--write it i' the Bible!"
+
+"Oh, father, what?" said Maggie. "It's wicked to curse and bear malice."
+
+"It isn't wicked, I tell you," said her father, fiercely. "It's wicked
+as the raskills should prosper--it's the devil's doing. Do as I tell
+you, Tom! Write."
+
+The big Bible was open at the beginning, where many family entries were
+put down.
+
+"What am I to write, father?" said Tom, with gloomy submission.
+
+"Write as your father, Edward Tulliver, took service under John Wakem,
+the man as had helped to ruin him, because I'd promised my wife to make
+her what amends I could, and because I wanted to die in th' old place
+where I was born, and my father was born. Put that i' the right
+words--you know how--and then write as I don't forgive Wakem for all
+that; and for all I'll serve him honest, I wish evil may befall him.
+Write that."
+
+There was a dead silence as Tom's pen moved along the paper.
+
+"Now let me hear what you've wrote," said Mr. Tulliver; and Tom read
+aloud, slowly.
+
+"Now, write--write as you'll remember what Wakem's done to your father,
+and you'll make him and his feel it, if ever the day comes. And sign
+your name--Thomas Tulliver!"
+
+"Oh, no, father, dear father!" said Maggie, trembling like a leaf. "You
+shouldn't make Tom write that!"
+
+"Be quiet, Maggie!" said Tom, impatiently, "I shall write it!"
+
+
+_IV.--In Death They Were Not Divided_
+
+
+The Red Deeps was always a favourite place to Maggie to walk in. An old
+stone quarry, so long exhausted that both mounds and hollows were now
+clothed with brambles and trees, and with here and there a stretch of
+grass which a few sheep kept close nibbled. This was the Red Deeps, and
+it was here in June that Maggie once more met Philip Wakem, five years
+after their first meeting at Mr. Stelling's. He told her that she was
+much more beautiful than he had thought she would be, and assured her,
+in answer to the difficulties she raised as to their meeting, that there
+was no enmity in his father's mind.
+
+And Maggie went home with an inward conflict already begun, and Philip
+went home to do nothing but remember and hope.
+
+In the following April they met again, after Philip had been abroad.
+
+And now he took her hand, and asked her the simple question, "_Do_ you
+love me?"
+
+"I think I could hardly love anyone better; there is nothing but what I
+love you for," Maggie answered. But she pointed out how impossible even
+their friendship was, if it were discovered.
+
+Philip, on his side, refused to give up hope, and before they parted
+that day she had kissed him.
+
+Tom intervened before the next visit to the Red Deeps. He had heard that
+Philip Wakem had been seen there with his sister, and Maggie admitted,
+on his questioning her, that she had told Philip that she loved him.
+
+"Now, then, Maggie," Tom said coldly, "there are but two courses for you
+to take. Either you vow solemnly to me, with your hand on father's
+Bible, that you will never have another meeting or speak another word in
+private to Philip Wakem, or you refuse and I tell my father everything!"
+
+In vain Maggie pleaded. Tom was obdurate, and she repeated the words of
+renunciation.
+
+But that was not enough for Tom Tulliver; he accompanied Maggie to Red
+Deeps, and in a voice of harsh scorn told Philip that he had been taking
+a mean, unmanly advantage.
+
+"It was for my father's sake, Philip," said Maggie, imploringly. "Tom
+threatens to tell my father--and he couldn't bear it. I have promised, I
+have vowed solemnly, that we will not have any intercourse without my
+brother's knowledge."
+
+"It is enough, Maggie. _I_ shall not change, but I wish you to hold
+yourself entirely free. But trust me--remember that I can never seek for
+anything but good to what belongs to you."
+
+Tom only replied with angry contempt, and led Maggie away. All his
+sister's remonstrances he answered with cold obstinacy.
+
+For his character in its strength was hard. Tom had laboured to one end
+in these years: to pay off his father's creditors, and regain Dorlcote
+Mill. By his industry, and by some successful private ventures in trade,
+the day came when the first of the objects was realised, and Mr.
+Tulliver lived to see himself free of debt.
+
+But Mr. Tulliver's satisfaction was short-lived. Excited by the dinner
+given to celebrate the payment of his creditors, he met Mr. Wakem near
+the mill. From angry words it came to blows, and Tulliver fell on the
+lawyer furiously, only ceasing from attack when Maggie and Mrs. Tulliver
+appeared. Wakem went off without serious injury, but Tulliver only lived
+through the night; the excitement had killed him.
+
+"You must take care of her, Tom," said the dying man, turning to his
+daughter. "You'll manage to pay for a brick grave, Tom, so as your
+mother and me can lie together? This world's...too many...honest man..."
+
+At last there was total stillness, and poor Tulliver's dimly lighted
+soul had ceased to be vexed with the painful riddle of this world.
+
+Tom and Maggie went downstairs together, and Maggie spoke. "Tom, forgive
+me; let us always love each other"--and they clung and wept together.
+
+But they were not to be always united.
+
+Tom lived in lodgings in the town, and was anxious to provide for his
+sister, but Maggie preferred to take up teaching in her old boarding-
+school. She met Philip Wakem again, and though Tom released her from her
+old promise, he could not regard Philip with any feelings of friendship.
+
+It was when Tom had, by years of steady work, fulfilled his father's
+wishes and become once more master of Dorlcote Mill that Maggie
+returned--to be no more separated from her brother. She was staying in
+the town near the river on the night when the flood came, and the river
+rose beyond its banks. Her first thought, as the water entered the lower
+part of the house, was of the mill, where Tom was. There was no time to
+get assistance; she must go herself, and alone. Hastily she procured a
+boat, and at last reached the mill. The water was up to the first story,
+but still the mill stood firm.
+
+"Tom, where are you? Here is Maggie!" she called out, in a loud,
+piercing voice. Tom opened the middle window, and got into the boat. Tom
+rowed with vigour, but a new danger was before them in the river.
+
+"Get out of the current!" was shouted at them, but it could not be done
+at once. Huge fragments of machinery, swept off one of the wharves,
+blocked the stream in one wide mass, and the current swept the boat
+swiftly on to its doom.
+
+"It is coming, Maggie!" Tom said, in a deep, hoarse voice, loosing the
+oars and clasping her.
+
+The next instant the boat was no longer seen upon the water, and brother
+and sister had gone down in an embrace never to be parted; living
+through again in one supreme moment the days when they had clasped their
+little hands in love.
+
+"In their death they were not divided."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+ERCKMANN-CHATRIAN
+
+
+Waterloo
+
+
+     Emile Erckmann was born at Phalsbourg, in Alsace, on May 20,
+     1822, and Alexandre Chatrian, at Soldatenthal, on December 18,
+     1826. Erckmann, the son of a bookseller, became a law student,
+     and was admitted to the Bar in 1858. But the law studies were
+     always uncongenial, and Erckmann meeting Chatrian as a fellow
+     student in the gymnasium at Phalsbourg, the two young men
+     decided to join forces in authorship. The Erckmann-Chatrian
+     partnership lasted from 1860 to 1885, and resulted in a
+     remarkable series of novels, short stories, plays, and operas.
+     "Waterloo" was published in 1865, and has enjoyed a wide
+     popularity in many languages. Like "The Conscript," its
+     predecessor, the charm of "Waterloo" consists largely in the
+     character of Joseph Bertha, the young clockmaker of
+     Phalsbourg, who tells the story. Bertha is a peaceful citizen
+     who hates war and has no taste for glory. Yet he is nothing of
+     a coward, and behaves like a man when he is forced to fight.
+     To the student of history, the light thrown on the rise and
+     fall of the Bourbon popularity in France, 1813-14, in this
+     novel, will always be of interest. Chatrian died in Paris on
+     September 4, 1890, and Erckmann at Luneville, on March 14,
+     1899.
+
+
+_I.--Napoleon Returns_
+
+
+Never was anything so joyous as the spring of 1814 Louis XVIII. was
+king, and the war was over. All except the old soldiers were content;
+and only when the nobles, who had fled at the Revolution, returned, and
+it was said that they were going to bring back all their old ideas, did
+M. Goulden express any dissatisfaction. There were great religious
+processions everywhere and expiatory services, and talk of rebuilding
+all the convents, and setting up the nobles again in their castles. But
+these things did not trouble me, because I was married to Catherine, and
+knew nothing about politics.
+
+The treatment of the old soldiers enraged me. On the day of the
+religious procession at Phalsbourg, half a dozen old veterans, restored
+prisoners, were set upon in our town by that rascal Pinacle and the
+people of Baraques, and knocked about. Pinacle did this to curry favour
+with Louis XVIII., and M. Goulden warned us that if ruffians like
+Pinacle got the upper hand it would open people's eyes.
+
+Sure enough, Pinacle received the cross of honour in the autumn when the
+Duc de Berry came to review the troops at Phalsbourg, and even Aunt
+Grédel, who was fond of abusing Napoleon and the Jacobins, and
+applauding the king and the clergy, thought this a shameful thing.
+
+It really was scandalous the way titles and honours were given to
+worthless people who shouted for the king. Worse than this was the way
+Napoleon's old officers were treated. Men who had fought and bled for
+France for twenty years were now well-nigh starving, driven out of the
+army to make room for the king's favourites.
+
+We read all this in the "Gazette," and Zébédé, who had come back alive
+and in time for my wedding, and was still in the army, would often come
+in and tell us of the growing indignation of the soldiers. The whole of
+that winter the indignation was spreading in the town at the sight of so
+many brave officers, the heroes of Marengo, Austerlitz, and Wagram,
+wandering forlornly about, starving on half-pay, and deprived of their
+posts.
+
+How well I remember one day in January, 1815, two of these officers,
+pale and gaunt, coming into the workshop to sell a watch.
+
+M. Goulden examined the watch with great care and said, "Do not be
+offended, gentlemen; I, too, served France under the Republic, and I
+know it must cut to the heart to be forced to sell something which
+recalls sacred memories."
+
+"It was given me by Prince Eugène," said one of the officers, Commandant
+Margarot, a hussar.
+
+"It is worth more than 1,000 francs," said M. Goulden, "and I cannot
+afford to buy it. But I will advance you 200 francs, and the watch shall
+remain here if you like, and shall be yours whenever you come to reclaim
+it."
+
+The old hussar broke down at this, and though his comrade, Colonel
+Falconette, tried to restrain him, he poured forth thanks and bitter
+words against the government.
+
+From that time it always seemed to me that things would end badly, and
+that the nobles had gone too far. The old commandant had said that the
+government behaved like Cossacks to the army, and this was horrible.
+
+M. Goulden read the "Gazette" aloud to us every day, and both Catherine
+and I were pleased to find there were men in Paris maintaining the very
+things we thought ourselves.
+
+All this time the clergy were going on with their processions, and
+sermons were being preached about the rebellion of 1790, the restitution
+of property to the landowners, and the re-establishment of convents, and
+the need for missionaries for the conversion of France. From such ideas
+what good could come?
+
+It is no wonder that when a report came early in March that Napoleon had
+landed at Cannes and was marching on Paris we were all very agitated at
+Phalsbourg.
+
+"It is plain," said M. Goulden, "that the emperor will reach Paris. The
+soldiers are for him; so are the peasantry, whose property is
+threatened; and so are the middle classes, provided he will make
+treaties of peace."
+
+
+_II.--"Vive l'Empereur!"_
+
+
+For some days, though all knew Napoleon had set foot in France, no one
+dared talk of it aloud. Only the looks of the half-pay officers betrayed
+their anxiety. If they had possessed horses and arms I am sure they
+would have set out to meet their emperor.
+
+On March 8, Zébédé entered our house and said abruptly, "The two first
+batallions are starting."
+
+"They are going to stop him?" said M. Goulden.
+
+"Yes, they'll stop him, that is very likely," Zébédé answered, winking.
+At the foot of the stairs he drew me aside and whispered, "Look inside
+my cap, Joseph; all the soldiers have got it, too."
+
+Sure enough it was the old tricolour cockade, which had been removed on
+the return of Louis XVIII.
+
+At last the papers had to admit that Buonaparte had escaped from Elba.
+What a scene it was in the café the night the papers arrived! M. Goulden
+and I were hardly seated before the place was filled with people, and it
+was so close the windows had to be opened.
+
+Commandant Margarot mounted on a table with other officers all around
+him, and began to read the "Gazette" aloud. It took a long time, the
+reading, and the people laughed and jeered at the passages that said the
+troops were faithful to the king, that Buonaparte was surrounded and
+would soon be taken, and that the illustrious Ney and the other marshals
+had hastened to place their swords at the service of the king. The
+commandant read on firmly in that distinct voice of his until he came to
+the order calling upon the French to seize Buonaparte and give him up
+dead or alive.
+
+Then his whole face changed and his eyes glittered. He took the
+"Gazette" up and tore it into little pieces, and, drawing himself up,
+his long arms stretched out, cried, "Vive l'Empereur!" with all his
+might. Immediately all the half-pay officers took up the cry, and "Vive
+l'Empereur!" was repeated again by the very soldiers posted outside the
+town hall when they heard the shout.
+
+The commandant was carried shoulder high round the café, and everyone
+was now calling out, "Vive l'Empereur!" I saw the tears in the eyes of
+the commandant, tears at hearing the name he loved best acclaimed once
+more.
+
+As for me, I felt as if cold water was being forced down my back. "It's
+all over," I said to myself. "It's no good talking about peace."
+
+But M. Goulden was more hopeful, and after we got home spoke cheerfully
+of the blessings of liberty and a good constitution.
+
+Aunt Grédel did not take this view. She came to see us the morning after
+the scene in the café, when all the town was discussing the great news,
+and began at once, "So it seems the villain has run away from his
+island?"
+
+Both M. Goulden and I were anxious to avoid a dispute, for Aunt Grédel
+was really angry, and she couldn't leave the subject.
+
+M. Goulden admitted that he preferred Napoleon to the Bourbons, with
+their nobles and missionary priests, because the emperor was bound to
+respect the national property, whereas the later would have destroyed
+all that the Revolution had accomplished. "Still, I am now, and always
+shall be till death, for the Republic and the rights of man," M. Goulden
+concluded.
+
+The old gentleman took his hat and went out to escape further argument,
+and Aunt Grédel turned to me and told me that M. Goulden was an old fool
+and always had been, and that I should have to go to Switzerland now,
+unless Buonaparte was taken before he reached Paris.
+
+In the evening, however, when Aunt Grédel had gone, and we three were
+together, Catherine said quietly, "M. Goulden is right; he knows more
+about these things than my mother does, and we will always listen to his
+advice."
+
+I thought to myself, "Yes, that's all very well; but it will be a
+horrible thing to have to put on one's knapsack again and be off. I
+would rather be in Switzerland than in Leipzig."
+
+Each day now brought news of Napoleon's advance, from Grenoble to Lyons,
+from Lyons to Macon and Auxerre. There was no opposition anywhere to his
+progress, and the only question that troubled M. Goulden's mind was the
+attitude of Ney to the emperor. Could Ney, an old soldier of the
+Revolution, though he had kissed the hand of Louis XVIII., betray the
+country to please the king? The uneasiness disappeared when we learnt
+that Ney had followed the example of the army, the citizens, and of all
+who did not wish to go back to the customs and laws of twenty-five years
+earlier.
+
+On March 21, just as it was getting dark, we knew that something
+decisive must have happened at Paris. The drums were calling to arms in
+the market-place, and a great crowd soon assembled.
+
+The soldiers fell into their ranks, Commandant Gémeau, who had only just
+recovered from his wounds, drew his sword, and gave the order to form
+square.
+
+M. Goulden and I got on a bench to listen; we knew that the fate of
+France depended on the message we were to hear.
+
+"Present arms!" called out the commandant in the same clear voice which
+had bidden us at Lützen and Leipzig, "Close up your ranks!"
+
+Then came the news we had been waiting for.
+
+"Soldiers, his Majesty Louis XVIII. left Paris on March 20, and the
+Emperor Napoleon entered the capital the same day."
+
+For a second there was a dead silence, and then the commandant spoke of
+the banner of France, the banner of Marengo, Austerlitz, and Jena,
+stained with our blood; and the old sergeant drew out the tattered
+tricolour flag from its case.
+
+"I know no other flag!" cried the commandant, raising his sword. "Vive
+la France! Vive l'Empereur!"
+
+What a shout there was of "Vive l'Empereur! Vive la France!" at this.
+The people and the soldiers embraced one another, and that night and for
+the next five or six days there was, if anything, even more rejoicing
+than there had been on the return of Louis XVIII. We still hoped for the
+continuance of peace, but who could say how long the peace would last?
+
+Phalsbourg was ordered to put itself into a state of defence, a large
+workshop was set up at the arsenal for the repairing of arms, and
+engineers and artillerymen came over from Metz to make earthworks in the
+fortifications. It seemed to me that a large number of men would be
+required for all the guns and forts, and that my watchmaking days would
+soon be exchanged for active service. I began to think that, after all,
+religious processions were better than being sent to fight against
+people one knew nothing about.
+
+
+_III.--On the Road to Waterloo_
+
+
+Aunt Grédel had not been to see us for a month, and it was a great
+comfort to Catherine and me when one Sunday M. Goulden proposed that we
+should all three pay her a visit at Quatre Vents. As soon as she saw us,
+Aunt Grédel rushed to kiss her daughter, and called out, "You are a good
+man, M. Goulden, better a thousand times than I am. How glad I am to see
+you! It doesn't matter about being a Jacobin or anything else; the main
+thing is to have a good heart."
+
+It was not until the afternoon that M. Goulden explained that he had
+known for some days that I should be called up to rejoin my old
+regiment, and that he had arranged with the commandant of artillery that
+I should be received at the arsenal as a workman. What relief this was
+to us, for I could not bear the thought of separation from Catherine. So
+from that day I went to work at the arsenal, and Aunt Grédel came to see
+us again as she had been accustomed to do.
+
+It can be guessed with what spirit I worked at the arsenal, and how
+pleased I was when the commandant expressed satisfaction at my work. But
+I was not allowed to stop at Phalsbourg.
+
+On May 23 the commandant told me that I must go to Metz with the 3rd
+battalion, to which I belonged. He assured me, however, that I should be
+kept at Metz in the workshops, and we all did our best to believe that I
+was fortunate in my destination. M. Goulden, however, warned me before I
+left that France was threatened by her enemies, that the allies would
+make no peace with the emperor, but were determined to set Louis XVIII.
+once more on the throne, and that now the question was not of invading
+other countries, but of defending our own.
+
+Catherine was asleep when the morning came for my departure, and I was
+glad to escape the pain of saying "good-bye." At the barracks, Zébédé,
+who was now a sergeant, led me into the soldiers' room, and I put on my
+uniform. Then the battalion defiled through the gates, the soldiers at
+the outworks presented arms, and we were on the way to Waterloo.
+
+It was useless to think of stopping in Metz. We arrived in that city of
+Jews and soldiers after five days' march, and were at once, after our
+night's rest, supplied with ammunition. I saw that my only chance of
+staying at the workshops of Metz would be after the campaign was over,
+for we were on the march the very next morning. Zébédé was not always
+with me now, and my closest comrade was Jean Buche, the son of a
+sledge-maker at Harberg, who had never eaten anything better than
+potatoes before he became a conscript. Buche turned in his feet in
+walking, but he never seemed to know the meaning of being tired, and in
+his own fashion was a wonderful pedestrian.
+
+From Metz we marched through Thionville, Châtelet, Etain, Dannevoux,
+Yong, Vivier, and Cul-de-Sard. All our troops were pouring into
+Belgium--cavalry, infantry, and artillery--and though there were no
+signs of the enemy, it was reported that we were to attack the English.
+I thought as well English as Prussians, Austrians, or Russians, since we
+were to kill each other.
+
+On the night of June 14 we bivouacked outside the village of Roly, and
+General Pécheux read a proclamation by the emperor, reminding us that
+this was the anniversary of Marengo, that the powers were in coalition
+against France, and that the hour had come for France to conquer or
+perish.
+
+It is impossible to describe the enthusiasm at this message from the
+emperor; our courage was stronger, and the conscripts were even more
+anxious than the veterans for the fighting to begin.
+
+We were up at daybreak next day and on the march, eager to get a sight
+of the Prussians, who had been repulsed from Charleroi by the emperor,
+we were told. At the village of Châtelet we halted, and heard the noise
+of firing away across the River Sambre, in the direction of Gilly. An
+old bald peasant told us that evening that the Prussians had men in the
+villages of Fleurus and Lambusart, that the English and Belgians were on
+the great Brussels road, and that the causeway through Quatre Bras and
+Ligny enabled the Prussians and English to communicate freely with each
+other. He also told us that the Prussians said insulting things of the
+French army, and were generally hated by the people. When I heard of the
+way the Prussians boasted, my blood boiled, and I said to myself, "There
+shall be no more compassion. Either they or we must be utterly
+destroyed."
+
+I can recall with what splendour the sun rose next morning above a
+cornfield--it was the morning of the battle of Ligny. Zébédé and one or
+two comrades whom I had known in 1813 came and chattered while we lit
+our fires. We could see the Prussians before us, posting themselves
+behind hedges and walls, and preparing to defend the villages, and all
+the time we were kept roasting in the corn, waiting for the signal to
+attack. The emperor arrived, and held a short conference with the
+superior officers, and I saw him at close quarters before he rode off
+again to the village of Fleurus, already vacated by the Prussians.
+
+And still we waited, though we knew the attack on St. Amand had begun.
+
+At last came our turn to advance on Ligny. "Forward! Forward!" cried the
+officers. "Vive l'Empereur!" we shouted. The Prussian bullets whizzed
+like hail upon us, and then we could see or hear nothing till we were in
+the village.
+
+No quarter was given that day; we fought in houses and gardens, in barns
+and lanes, with muskets and bayonets. Those who fell were lost. At one
+time fifteen of us were in possession of a barn, and the Prussians, for
+a time outnumbering us, drove us up a ladder. They fired up at our
+floor, and finally, when it seemed we were lost, and were all to be
+massacred we heard the shout of "Vive l'Empereur!" and the Prussians
+fled. Out of that fifteen only six were left alive, but Zébédé and Buche
+were among the survivors.
+
+The battle still raged in the village streets, dead and dying were
+everywhere. Towards nightfall it was plain we were the victors; Ligny
+and St. Amand were in our hands, and the Prussians had moved away. On
+the plateau behind Ligny, where our cavalry had been at work, the
+slaughter had been terrible.
+
+The dozen or so remaining of our company rested for a few hours that
+night in the ruins of a farmhouse, and next day came the roll-call of
+our battalion, and the sending off of the wounded. More than 360 of our
+men, including Commandant Gémeau and Captain Vidal, were disabled, and
+we were busy all day over the wounded.
+
+It was wet and muddy that evening, and we were hungry and dispirited
+when we reached Quatre Bras, about eight o'clock. We were not allowed to
+halt here, but marched on to a village called Jemappes, and at midnight
+we settled down in a furrow to wait for morning.
+
+The red coats of the English were visible before us when we awoke next
+morning; behind their lines was the village of Mont St. Jean, and they
+had also the farmhouses of La Haie-Sainte and Hougomont. At six o'clock
+I looked at their position, with Zébédé, Captain Florentin, and Buche,
+and it seemed to me it was a difficult task before us. It was Sunday,
+and I could hear the bells of villages, recalling Phalsbourg. But in a
+very little while we heard no more bells, for at half-past eight our
+battalion was on its way to the high road in front, and the battle of
+Waterloo had begun.
+
+
+_IV.--The Hour of Disaster_
+
+
+I have often heard veterans describe the order of battle given by the
+emperor. But all I remember of that terrible day is that we marched out
+with the bands playing, that we got to close quarters with the English,
+were repulsed, and were assisted by regiments of cuirassiers, that we
+carried La Haie-Sainte with terrible slaughter at Ney's command.
+Hougomont we could not carry. When we thought we were winning, the news
+was spread that Blücher, with 60,000 men, was advancing on our flank,
+and that unless Grouchy, with his 30,000, arrived in time to reinforce
+us the day might be lost.
+
+All the world knows now that Grouchy did not arrive, that we threw
+ourselves again and again upon the English squares, and that at last,
+when regiment after regiment had tried in vain to break the enemy's
+line, the Old Guard were called up by the emperor. It was the last
+chance of retrieving the day, the grand stroke--and it failed.
+
+The four battalions of the Guards, reduced from 3,000 to 1,200 men, were
+assailed by so fierce a fire that they were compelled to retire. They
+retired slowly, defending themselves with muskets and bayonets, but with
+their retirement, and the approach of night, the battle ended for us in
+the confusion of a rout. It was like a flood. We were surrounded on all
+sides when Blücher arrived. The Old Guard formed a square for the
+emperor and his officers, and the rest of us simply straggled away, back
+to France. The most awful thing of all was the beating of the drum of
+the Old Guard in that hour of disaster. It was like a fire-bell, the
+last appeal of a burning nation.
+
+Buche was by my side in the retreat. Several times the Prussians
+attacked us. We heard that the emperor had departed for Paris, and we
+struggled on, only hoping to escape with our lives. At Charleroi the
+inhabitants shut the city gates in our face, and Buche shared in the
+general rage, and proposed to destroy the town. But I thought we had had
+enough massacres, and that it was not right we should be killing our own
+countrymen, and I persuaded Buche to come on with me.
+
+In a few days we felt ourselves safe from pursuing Prussians, and at the
+village of Bouvigny I wrote a letter to Catherine, telling her I was
+safe. In this village some officers of our regiment, the 6th of the
+Line, found us, and we had to rejoin. Presently we saw all that was left
+of Grouchy's army corps in retreat, and a day or two later we heard of
+the emperor's abdication. On July 1, we reached Paris, and outside the
+city, near the village of Issy, we once more fell in with the Prussians;
+for two days we fought them with fury, and then some generals announced
+that peace had been made.
+
+We believed that this truce was to give the enemy time to leave the
+country, and that otherwise France would rise, as it rose in '92, and
+drive them out.
+
+Unhappily, we soon learnt that the Prussians and English were to occupy
+Paris, and that the remains of the French army were to be kept beyond
+the Loire. We all felt that we had been betrayed, and the old officers,
+pale with anger, wept in their misery. Paris in the hands of the
+Prussians! Besides, were we to go to the other side of the Loire at the
+command of Blücher?
+
+Desertions began that very day, and I said to Buche, "Let us return to
+Phalsbourg and Harberg, and take up our work, and live like honest men."
+About fifty of us from Alsace-Lorraine were in the battalion, and we set
+off together on the road to Strasbourg.
+
+On July 8 we heard that Louis XVIII. was to come back, and already the
+white banner of the Bourbons was being displayed in the villages.
+
+In some places there were rascals who called us Buonapartists, and
+gendarmes who took us to the town hall and made us shout "Vive le Roi!"
+Buche and some of the old soldiers hated this; but what did it matter
+who was king, and what these fools wanted us to shout?
+
+Our little company got smaller and smaller as men halted in their own
+villages, and when, on July 16, we reached Phalsbourg, Buche and I were
+alone.
+
+Buche went on to break the news of my return, but I could not wait, and
+ran after him.
+
+I heard people saying, "There's Joseph, Bertha," and in a moment I was
+in the house, and in Catherine's arms. Then I embraced M. Goulden, and
+an hour later Aunt Grédel arrived.
+
+Jean Buche would not stay and dine with us, but hurried home to Harberg.
+I have often seen him since; and Zébédé, too, who remained in the army.
+
+Many insulting things were said about us by the Pinacles, but I had
+happiness in my family circle, especially when Catherine presented me
+with a little Joseph.
+
+I am an old man now, but M. Goulden always said the principles of
+freedom and liberty would triumph, and I have lived long enough to see
+his words come true.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+OCTAVE FEUILLET
+
+
+Romance of a Poor Young Man
+
+     Octave Feuillet, born at Saint Lô, in France, on August 11,
+     1821, was the son of a Norman gentleman who regarded
+     literature as an ignoble profession. When Octave ran away to
+     Paris in order to pursue a literary career, his father refused
+     to help him, and for some years the young writer had a very
+     hard struggle. But on taking to novel-writing, Feuillet
+     quickly acquired fame and fortune. His "Romance of a Poor
+     Young Man" ("Le Roman d'un Jeune Homme Pauvre"), which
+     appeared in 1858, made him the most popular author of the day.
+     Standing midway between the novelists of the romantic school
+     and the writers of the realistic movement, he combined a sense
+     of the poetry of life with a gift for analysing the finer
+     shades of feeling. The plot of the "Romance of a Poor Young
+     Man" is certainly extraordinary; but in the present case some
+     allowance must be made for the fact that the hero is induced
+     to accept the humble position in which he finds himself by his
+     old family lawyer, who secretly designs to marry him to the
+     daughter of his new employers. A scheme of this sort would not
+     Strike a French reader as improbable, for marriage in France
+     is often more a business arrangement than a love affair.
+     Feuillet spent the latter part of his life in retirement, and
+     died on December 29, 1890.
+
+
+_I.--A Nobleman in Difficulties_
+
+
+Here I am, then, in the situation that Lawyer Laubépin obtained for me.
+I am alone at last, thank goodness, sitting in a gloomy room in this old
+Breton castle, in which the former steward to the Laroque family used to
+live. My position is certainly very strange, but as Laubépin was
+discreet, and did not tell his clients that he was sending them a new
+steward in the person of the young Marquis of Champcey, perhaps I shall
+not find my post very difficult. I was afraid that the Laroques were a
+family of the vulgarly rich sort, like the dreadful persons who have
+bought my father's lands. Laroque is a picturesque figure in his old
+age, and though his widowed daughter-in-law is rather more commonplace,
+his grand-daughter, Marguerite Laroque, is a nobly beautiful girl.
+
+If it were not for my accursed pride, I should now feel happier than I
+have ever felt since that day of disaster, misery, and shame when
+Laubépin told me that my poor dead father had lost his fortune in
+speculations, and left nothing but his title and his debts. Well, I have
+paid the debts, and if I can now only earn enough money to keep my
+little sister Hélène at school, I shall not grumble at my lot. I feel
+the loss of my friends, it is true. There is not a soul I can confide
+in, and I must find some outlet for the thoughts and feelings that
+oppress me; so I will keep this diary.
+
+It will be at least a silent confidant, and perhaps when I am older I
+shall be able to read with a certain pleasurable interest its record of
+my singular adventures. No other man in France, on May 1, 1857, can have
+been transformed so suddenly, as by the wand of a witch, from a powerful
+and wealthy young nobleman of ancient lineage into a humble and despised
+domestic servant. Perhaps a good fairy will appear and restore me to my
+proper shape; but I wish she had appeared at dinner this evening. There
+were twenty guests, and it was the first time since the change of my
+fortunes that I took part in a society affair. Nobody spoke to me,
+except the pretty little governess of the family, Mlle. Hélouin; and we
+were placed at the end of the table. The position of honour was given to
+a young and brilliant nobleman, M. de Bévallan, whose estate joined that
+of the Laroque family. I gathered from Mlle. Hélouin that it was his
+ambition to unite the two estates by marrying Mlle. Marguerite Laroque.
+I was, therefore, surprised when the lovely heiress led her grandfather
+into the room when everybody was seated, placed him in a chair by
+Bévallan, and came and sat by my side.
+
+"She can't," I thought to myself, "be much in love with her wooer," and
+I began to study her with a certain curiosity. Her fine, clear-cut
+features and large dark eyes attracted me; and by way of opening the
+conversation I spoke of the wildly beautiful scenery through which I had
+passed on my way to the castle. It was a bad beginning.
+
+"I see," she said, with a singular expression of irony, "that you are a
+poet. You must talk about the forests and moorlands with Mlle. Hélouin,
+who also adores these things. For my part I do not love them."
+
+"What is it, then, that you really love?" I said.
+
+She gave me a supercilious look and said, in a hard voice, "Nothing,
+sir."
+
+I must confess I was hurt. I could not see that I had done anything to
+lay myself open to so harsh an answer. No doubt I was only a servant.
+But why had she come and sat beside me if she did not want to talk? I
+was glad when the dinner was over and we went into the drawing-room.
+Madame Laroque, the widowed mother of Marguerite, began to ask M.
+Bévallan about the new opera in Paris; he was unable to reply, so, as I
+had seen the work in Italy before it was produced in France, I gave her
+a description of it. I am afraid I forgot myself with Madame Laroque--a
+fine-looking, cultivated woman of forty years of age. Flattered by the
+way in which she treated me entirely as her equal, I insensibly glided
+from theatrical topics to fashionable gossip, and just stopped in time
+in an anecdote about my tour in Russia. A few more words and she would
+have learnt that her humble steward, Maxime Odiot--as I am now called--
+was a man with very aristocratic connections.
+
+In order to hide my embarrassment, I moved towards the table where some
+of the guests were playing whist. This led to my committing a blunder
+which, I fear, may make my position a difficult one. Among the whist-
+players was a Mlle. de Porhoet-Gael, eighty-eight years of age and full
+of strange crotchets. The last descendant of the noblest of Breton
+families, she lived, so Madame Laroque told me, on an income of forty
+pounds a year, her fortune having been spent in vainly fighting for the
+succession to a great estate in Spain. She was talking about it to her
+partner when I came up.
+
+"The estate belongs to me," she was saying. "My father told me so a
+hundred times, and the persons who are trying to take it from me have no
+more connection with my family than this handsome young gentleman has."
+
+And she designated me with a look and a movement of her head. No doubt
+she did not mean to imply that because I was a steward I was of mean
+birth; but I was stung by her remark, and forgetting myself, I replied
+rather sharply, "You are mistaken, madam, in thinking that I am
+unrelated to your family."
+
+"You will have to prove that to me, young man."
+
+Confused and ashamed, I withdrew into the corner and tried to talk to
+Mlle. Hélouin about poetry and art, but at last, upset and distracted, I
+arose and walked out of the room. Mlle. de Porhoet followed me.
+
+"Monsieur Odiot," she said, "would you mind seeing me home? My servant
+has not arrived, and I am growing too feeble now to walk without help."
+
+Naturally, I went with her.
+
+"What did you mean," she said, as we walked on together, "by claiming to
+be a relation of mine?"
+
+"I hope," I replied very humbly, "that you will pardon a jest that--"
+
+"A jest!" she interrupted. "Is a matter touching my honour a jest? I
+see; a remark which would be an insult if addressed to a man becomes
+only a jest when it is levelled at an old, unprotected woman."
+
+After that, nothing was left to me, as a man of honour, but to entrust
+her with my secret. There had been several marriages between our
+families, and after listening with great interest to the story of my
+troubles, she became wonderfully kind in her manner to me.
+
+"You must come and see me to-morrow, cousin," she said, when we parted.
+"My law-suit is going very badly and I should like you to go through all
+my papers, and see if you can discover any new documents in support of
+my claim. Do not despair, my dear, over your own misfortunes. I think I
+shall be able to help you."
+
+
+_II.--Love and Jealousy_
+
+
+I am afraid I lack the industry necessary for keeping a diary. It is now
+two months since I wrote the last entry. If I had made every night a
+brief note of the events of the day, I should now have a better view of
+my position. Has Mlle. de Porhoet betrayed my secret? There has
+certainly been a curious change in my relations with the Laroques. I
+fancy it began on the day when Marguerite and I met at last on an equal
+footing at Mlle. de Porhoet's house. The document which I had just then
+found may not be as important as we thought, but our common joy in what
+we considered was a discovery of tremendous value brought us closer
+together.
+
+But I cannot understand Marguerite. Sometimes she still goes out of her
+way to be insulting towards me, and sometimes she treats me with a sweet
+frankness which has something sisterly in it. One day, for instance, she
+came to my window and asked me if I would go for a walk with her. "Bring
+your sketch-book, Monsieur Odiot," she called out gaily, "and I will
+take you to Merlin's Tomb in the Enchanted Valley."
+
+As a matter of fact, the woods around the castle of the Laroques were
+the remains of the famous forest of Broceliande, and I had always been
+promising myself a long ramble through this region of romance, but I had
+never found time to explore it. I was now glad I had waited, for
+Marguerite was a charming guide. Never had I seen her so light-hearted.
+When we reached a great block of stone in the depth of the wood, under
+which the wizard Merlin is said to be imprisoned by Vivien, Marguerite
+made herself a garland of oak-leaves, and standing like a lovely
+priestess clad all in white against the Druidic monument, she asked me
+to make a sketch of her. With what joy did I paint the poetic vision
+before me! I think she was pleased with the drawing, but on our way back
+to the castle a foolish word of mine brought our friendship to an end.
+We came to a picturesque little lake, at the end of which was a
+waterfall, overgrown with brambles. In order to show what a good swimmer
+her dog was, Marguerite threw something in the current and told him to
+fetch it, but he got carried over the waterfall and caught in the
+whirlpool below.
+
+"Come away! He is drowning--come away! I can't bear to see it!" cried
+Marguerite, seizing me by the arm. "No, do not attempt to save him. The
+pool is very dangerous."
+
+I am a good swimmer, however, and with a little trouble I managed to
+rescue the dog.
+
+"What madness!" she murmured. "You might have been drowned, and just for
+a dog!"
+
+"It was yours," I answered in a low voice.
+
+Her manner at once changed.
+
+"You had better run home, Monsieur Odiot," she said very coldly, "or you
+will get a chill. Do not wait for me."
+
+So I returned alone, and for some days Marguerite never spoke a word to
+me. What was still worse, M. Bévallan appeared at the castle, and she
+went for walks with him, leaving me in the company of Mlle. Hélouin. I
+am afraid that I became very friendly with the pretty governess.
+Nothing, however, that I ever said to her, or that she said to me,
+prepared me for the strange scene that happened to-night. As I was
+walking along the terrace, she came up and took my arm, and said, "Are
+you really my friend, Maxime?"
+
+"Yes," I said.
+
+"Then tell me the truth," she exclaimed. "Do you love me, or do you love
+Mademoiselle Marguerite?"
+
+"Why do you bring in her name?" I said.
+
+"Ah, you love her!" she cried fiercely; "or, rather, you love her
+fortune. But you shall never have it, Monsieur de Champcey. I know why
+you came here under a false name, and so shall she."
+
+With a movement of anger she departed. I cannot continue here under
+suspicion of being a fortune-hunter, so I have written to Laubépin to
+obtain another situation for me.
+
+
+_III.--Two on a Tower_
+
+
+It is all over. Was it because she still only half believed the slanders
+spread against me that Marguerite again asked me to go for a walk with
+her? Oh, what an unfortunate wretch I am! We rode through the forest
+together to one of the most magnificent monuments in Brittany, the
+Castle of Elven. Finding the door unlocked, we tethered our horses in
+the deserted courtyard, and climbed up the narrow, winding staircase to
+the battlements. The sea of autumnal foliage below was bathed in the
+light of the setting sun, and for a long time we sat side by side in
+silence, gazing at the infinite distances.
+
+"Come!" she said at last, in a low whisper, as the light died out of the
+sky. "It is finished!"
+
+But on descending the dark staircase we found that the door of the keep
+was locked. No doubt the shepherd boy who looked after the castle had
+come and shut up the place while we were sitting, watching the sunset.
+
+"Monsieur de Champcey," she said, in a cold, hard voice, "were there any
+scoundrels in your family before you?"
+
+"Marguerite!" I cried.
+
+"You paid that boy to lock us in," she exclaimed. "You think you will
+force me to marry you by compromising me in this manner. Do you think
+you will win my hand--and, what is more important to you still, my
+wretched wealth--by this trick? Rather than marry a scoundrel like you,
+I will shut myself up in a convent!"
+
+Carried away by my feelings, I seized her two hands, and said, "Now
+listen, Marguerite. I love you, it is true. Never did man love more
+devotedly, yes, and more disinterestedly, than I do. But I swear that if
+I get out of this place alive I will never marry you until you are as
+poor as I am, or I as rich as you are. If you love me, as I think you
+do, fall on your knees and pray, for unless a miracle happens you will
+never see me again alive."
+
+But a miracle did happen. I threw myself out of the window, and fell
+upon a branch of an oak-tree. It bent beneath my weight, and then broke;
+but it came so near the earth before breaking that if my left arm had
+not struck against the masonry I should have escaped uninjured. As it
+was, my arm was smashed, and I swooned away with the pain. When I came
+to, Marguerite was leaning out of the window, calling, "Maxime, speak to
+me! For the love of heaven, speak to me, and say you pardon me!"
+
+I arose, saying, "I am not hurt. If you will only wait another hour, I
+will go home and get some one to let you out. Believe me, I will save
+your honour as I have saved my own."
+
+Binding up my arm, I got on my horse, and galloped back to Laroque
+Castle. On the way I met Bévallan.
+
+"Have you seen Mlle. Marguerite?" he said. "We are afraid she has got
+lost."
+
+"I met her this afternoon," I replied. "She told me she was going for a
+ride to Elven Castle."
+
+He rode off in the direction from which I had come, and when I returned
+from the doctor with my broken arm set and bandaged, Marguerite and
+Bévallan entered.
+
+Hearing that I had had an accident, Madame Laroque came up late to-night
+to see me. Old Laroque has had a stroke of paralysis, she tells me, and
+she wishes to get the marriage contract between her daughter and
+Bévallan signed to-morrow. Laubépin is bringing the document.
+
+
+_IV.---A Test Case_
+
+
+I don't know why I take the trouble to go on with this diary, but having
+begun it I may as well finish it. Laubépin wanted me to go into the
+drawing-room to witness the signing of the marriage contract, but
+happily I was too ill to leave my bed; not only was my arm very painful,
+but I was suffering from the shock of the fall. What an hour of misery I
+passed before Mlle. de Porhoet-Gael appeared with the news of what had
+happened! Her sweet, kind old eyes were bright with joy.
+
+"It is all over," she said. "Bévallan has gone, and young Hélouin has
+also been turned out of the house."
+
+I started up with surprise.
+
+"Yes," she continued, with a smile, "the contract has not been signed.
+Our friend Laubépin drew it up in such a way that the husband was not
+able to touch a penny of the wife's money. M. Bévallan objected to this;
+while he and his lawyer were arguing the matter with Laubépin,
+Marguerite rose up.
+
+"'Throw the contract in the fire,' she said, 'and, mother, give this
+gentleman back the presents he sent to me.'
+
+"Laubépin threw the deed in the flames, and Marguerite and her mother
+walked out of the room.
+
+"'What is the meaning of this?' cried Bévallan.
+
+"'I will tell you,' I answered. 'A certain young lady was afraid that
+you were merely a fortune-hunter. She wanted to be certain of it, and
+now she is so.'
+
+"Thereupon I, too, left the room.
+
+"But what is the matter with you, my dear boy? You are as pale as a
+corpse."
+
+The fact was that the unexpected news aroused in me such a mixture of
+joyful and painful feelings that I fell back in a swoon. When I
+recovered, dear old Laubépin was standing by my bed.
+
+"Will you not confide in me, my boy?" he said rather sadly. "Something,
+I can see, has happened which has made you miserable on the very day on
+which you should be full of joy. What is it?"
+
+Moved by his sympathy, I gave him this diary to read, and poured out my
+very soul to him.
+
+"It is useless for me," he said at last, "to conceal from you the fact
+that I sent you here with the design to marry you to Marguerite.
+Everything at first went as well as I could wish, and Madame Laroque was
+delighted with the match. You and Marguerite were made for each other,
+and you fell in love almost at first sight. But this affair at the
+Castle of Elven is something I had not reckoned on. To leap out of the
+window at the risk of breaking your neck was, my romantic young friend,
+a sufficient demonstration of your disinterestedness. You need not have
+taken a solemn oath never to marry Marguerite until you were as rich as
+she is. What can you do now? You cannot forswear yourself, and you
+cannot suddenly make an immense fortune."
+
+"I must depart with you," I said very sorrowfully. "There is no other
+way."
+
+"No, Maxime," he replied, "you are too unwell to move. Remain here for
+one month longer; then, if you do not hear from me, return to Paris."
+
+It is now a week since he left me, and I have seen no one for the last
+seven days but the servant who waits upon me. He tells me that Laroque
+has died, and that Marguerite and her mother, who have been tending him
+night and day, have worn themselves out, and are now laid up with some
+sort of fever. Mlle. de Porhoet is also very ill, and not expected to
+live. Since I am well enough to walk over to Mlle. de Porhoet. I am told
+that she keeps asking to see me.
+
+
+_V.--Two in a Garden_
+
+
+The little maid who came to open the door was weeping, and as I came in
+I was surprised to hear the voice of Laubépin.
+
+"It is Maxime, Marguerite," he said.
+
+Had Marguerite also risen up from a bed of sickness to see Mlle. de
+Porhoet? I sprang up the stairs, and entered the room.
+
+"My poor, dear boy!" said Mlle. de Porhoet, in a strange, broken voice.
+
+She was lying in bed. Laubépin, a priest, and a doctor were standing on
+one side, and Marguerite and her mother were kneeling down in prayer on
+the other. I saw at once that she was at the point of death, and knelt
+down beside Marguerite. The poor dying woman smiled faintly, and groped
+for my hand and put it in Marguerite's, and then fell back on the
+pillow. She was dead.
+
+Laubépin led me out of the room, and put a document in my hand. It was a
+will, and the ink on it was hardly dry. Mlle. de Porhoet had made me her
+heir.
+
+"How good of her!" I said to Laubépin. "I shall treasure her testament
+as a mark of her love for me. I will settle her little estate on my
+sister. It will at least keep Hélène from having to go out into the
+world as a governess."
+
+"And it will keep you, my friend, from having to go out into the world
+as a steward," said Laubépin, with a smile. "Don't you remember that
+document about the Spanish succession which you discovered and sent to
+me? We have won the law-suit, and you are the heir to an estate in Spain
+which will make you one of the richest men in France."
+
+I went into the garden to think over my strange fortune. How long I sat
+there in the darkness I do not know. On rising up, I heard a faint sound
+beneath one of the trees, and a beloved form emerged from the foliage,
+and stood against the starry sky.
+
+"Marguerite!" I cried, running up to her with outstretched arm.
+
+She murmured my name, and as I clasped her her lips sought mine, and we
+poured our souls out in a kiss.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+I have given Hélène half of my fortune. Marguerite is my wife, and I
+close these pages for ever, having nothing more to confide to them. It
+can be said of men, as it has been said of nations, "Happy are those
+that have no story."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+HENRY FIELDING
+
+
+Amelia
+
+     Henry Fielding was born at Sharpham Park, near Glastonbury,
+     England, April 12, 1707. His father, a grandson of the Earl of
+     Desmond, and great-grandson of the first Earl of Denbigh,
+     settled in England shortly after the battle of Ramillies as a
+     country squire. In due course, Fielding was sent to Eton, and
+     afterwards to Leyden, where he remained for two years studying
+     civil law. Financial difficulties, however, put a temporary
+     end to his intention of entering the Bar, and in 1727 he
+     solved the problem of a career by beginning to write for the
+     stage. During the next nine years some eighteen of his plays
+     were produced. In 1748 he was appointed a justice of peace for
+     Westminster, and his writings on police and crime are of
+     interest to this day. "Amelia" was published in 1751, when its
+     author was a magistrate at Bow Street. In a dedicatory letter,
+     Fielding explained that the book was "sincerely designed to
+     promote the cause of virtue, and to expose some of the most
+     glaring evils, as well public as private, which at present
+     infest the country." The licentiousness of wealthy "men about
+     town," the corruption of justice, the abuses of the prison
+     system, the lack of honour concerning marriage--these are some
+     of the "glaring evils" exposed with all the great novelist's
+     power in "Amelia." In the characters of Dr. Harrison and
+     Amelia herself, the virtuous man and woman are drawn so
+     clearly that they inevitably win the reader's sympathy.
+     "Amelia" does not equal the genius of "Tom Jones," but it is
+     remarkable for being so largely devoted to the adventures of a
+     married couple, instead of ending at marriage. Fielding died
+     on October 8, 1754.
+
+
+_I.--The Inside of a Prison_
+
+
+On the first of April, in the year--, the watchmen of a certain parish
+in Westminster brought several persons, whom they had apprehended the
+preceding night, before Jonathan Thrasher, Esq., one of the justices of
+the peace for that city.
+
+Among the prisoners a young fellow, whose name was Booth, was charged
+with beating the watchman in the execution of his office, and breaking
+his lantern. The justice perceiving the criminal to be but shabbily
+dressed, was going to commit him without asking any further questions,
+but at the earnest request of the accused the worthy magistrate
+submitted to hear his defence.
+
+The young man then alleged that as he was walking home to his lodgings
+he saw two men in the street cruelly beating a third, upon which he had
+stopped and endeavoured to assist the person who was so unequally
+attacked; that the watch came up during the affray, and took them all
+four into custody; that they were immediately carried to the
+round-house, where the two original assailants found means to make up
+the matter, and were discharged by the constable, a favour which he
+himself, having no money in his pocket, was unable to obtain. He utterly
+denied having assaulted any of the watchmen, and solemnly declared that
+he was offered his liberty at the price of half a crown.
+
+Though the bare word of an offender can never be taken against the oath
+of his accuser, yet the magistrate might have employed some labour in
+cross-examining the watchman, or at least have given the defendant time
+to send for the other persons who were present at the affray; neither of
+which he did.
+
+Booth and the poor man in whose defence he had been engaged were both
+dispatched to prison under a guard of watchmen.
+
+Mr. Booth was no sooner arrived in the prison than a number of persons
+gathered around him, all demanding garnish. The master or keeper of the
+prison then acquainted him that it was the custom of the place for every
+prisoner, upon his first arrival there, to give something to the former
+prisoners to make them drink. This was what they called garnish. Mr.
+Booth answered that he would readily comply with this laudable custom,
+were it in his power; but that in reality he had not a shilling in his
+pocket, and, what was worse, he had not a shilling in the world. Upon
+which the keeper departed, and left poor Booth to the mercy of his
+companions, who, without loss of time, stripped him of his coat and hid
+it.
+
+Mr. Booth was too weak to resist and too wise to complain of his usage.
+He summoned his philosophy to his assistance, and resolved to make
+himself as easy as possible under his present circumstances.
+
+On the following day, Miss Matthews, an old acquaintance whom he had not
+seen for some years, was brought into the prison, and Booth was shortly
+afterwards invited to the room this lady had engaged. Miss Matthews,
+having told her story, requested Booth to do the same, and to this he
+acceded.
+
+
+_II.--Captain Booth Tells His Story_
+
+
+"From the first I was in love with Amelia; but my own fortune was so
+desperate, and hers was entirely dependent on her mother, a woman of
+violent passions, and very unlikely to consent to a match so highly
+contrary to the interest of her daughter, that I endeavoured to refrain
+from any proposal of love. I had nothing more than the poor provision of
+an ensign's commission to depend on, and the thought of leaving my
+Amelia to starve alone, deprived of her mother's help, was intolerable
+to me.
+
+"In spite of this I could not keep from telling Amelia the state of my
+heart, and I soon found all that return of my affection which the
+tenderest lover can require. Against the opposition of Amelia's mother,
+Mrs. Harris, to our engagement, we had the support of that good man, Dr.
+Harrison, the rector; and at last Mrs. Harris yielded to the doctor, and
+we were married. There was an agreement that I should settle all my
+Amelia's fortune on her, except a certain sum, which was to be laid out
+in my advancement in the army, and shortly afterwards I was preferred to
+the rank of a lieutenant in my regiment, and ordered to Gibraltar. I
+noticed that Amelia's sister, Miss Betty, who had said many ill-natured
+things of our marriage, now again became my friend.
+
+"At the siege of Gibraltar I was very badly wounded, and in this
+situation the image of my Amelia haunted me day and night. Two months
+and more I continued in a state of uncertainty; when one afternoon poor
+Atkinson, my servant, came running to my room. I asked him what was the
+matter, when Amelia herself rushed into the room, and ran hastily to me.
+She gently chided me for concealing my illness from her, saying, 'Oh,
+Mr. Booth! And do you think so little of your Amelia as to think I could
+or would survive you?' Amelia then informed me that she had received a
+letter from an unknown hand, acquainting her with my misfortune, and
+advising her, if she desired to see me more, to come directly to
+Gibraltar.
+
+"From the time of Amelia's arrival nothing remarkable happened till my
+perfect recovery; and then the siege being at an end, and Amelia being
+in some sort of fever, the governor gave me leave to attend my wife to
+Montpelier, the air of which was judged to be most likely to restore her
+to health.
+
+"A fellow-officer, Captain James, willingly lent me money, and, after an
+ample recovery at Montpelier, and a stay in Paris, we returned to
+England. It was in Paris we received a long letter from Dr. Harrison,
+enclosing £100, and containing the news that Mrs. Harris was dead, and
+had left her whole fortune to Miss Betty. So now it was that I was a
+married man with children, and the half-pay of a lieutenant.
+
+"Dr. Harrison, at whose rectory we were staying, came to our assistance.
+He asked me if I had any prospect of going again into the army; if not,
+what scheme of life I proposed to myself.
+
+"I told him that as I had no powerful friends, I could have but little
+expectations in a military way; that I was incapable of thinking of any
+other scheme, for I was without the necessary knowledge or experience,
+and was likewise destitute of money to set up with.
+
+"The doctor, after a little hesitation, said he had been thinking on
+this subject, and proposed to me to turn farmer. At the same time he
+offered to let me his parsonage, which was then become vacant; he said
+it was a farm which required but little stock, and that little should
+not be wanting.
+
+"I embraced this offer very eagerly, and Amelia received the news with
+the highest transports of joy. Thus, you see me degraded from my former
+rank in life; no longer Captain Booth, but Farmer Booth.
+
+"For a year all went well; love, health, and tranquillity filled our
+lives. Then a heavy blow befell us, and we were robbed of our dear
+friend the doctor, who was chosen to attend the young lord, the son of
+the patron of the living, in his travels as a tutor.
+
+"By this means I was bereft not only of the best companion in the world,
+but of the best counsellor, and in consequence of this loss I fell into
+many errors.
+
+"The first of these was in enlarging my business by adding a farm of one
+hundred a year to the parsonage, in renting which I had also as bad a
+bargain as the doctor had before given me a good one. The consequence of
+which was that whereas at the end of the first year I was £80 to the
+good, at the end of the second I was nearly £40 to the bad.
+
+"A second folly I was guilty of was in uniting families with the curate
+of the parish, who had just married. We had not, however, lived one
+month together before I plainly perceived the curate's wife had taken a
+great prejudice against my wife, though my Amelia had treated her with
+nothing but kindness, and, with the mischievous nature of envy, spread
+dislike against us.
+
+"My greatest folly, however, was the purchase of an old coach. The
+farmers and their wives considered that the setting up of a coach was
+the elevating ourselves above them, and immediately began to declare war
+against us. The neighbouring little squires, too, were uneasy to see a
+poor renter become their equal in a matter in which they placed so much
+dignity, and began to hate me likewise.
+
+"My neighbours now began to conspire against me. Whatever I bought, I
+was sure to buy dearer, and when I sold, I was obliged to sell cheaper
+than any other. In fact, they were all united; and while they every day
+committed trespasses on my lands with impunity, if any of my cattle
+escaped into their fields I was either forced to enter into a law-suit
+or to make amends for the damage sustained.
+
+"The consequence of all this could be no other than ruin. Before the end
+of four years I became involved in debt to the extent of £300. My
+landlord seized my stock for rent, and, to avoid immediate confinement
+in prison, I was forced to leave the country.
+
+"In this condition I arrived in town a week ago. I had just taken a
+lodging, and had written my dear Amelia word where she might find me;
+and that very evening, as I was returning from a coffee-house, because I
+endeavoured to assist the injured party in an affray, I was seized by
+the watch and committed here by a justice of the peace."
+
+
+_III.--Amelia in London_
+
+
+Miss Matthews, being greatly drawn to Captain Booth, procured his
+discharge by the expenditure of £20, and obtained her own release at the
+same time.
+
+Amelia arrived in London to receive her husband in her arms. "For," said
+she, "your confinement was known all over the county, my sister having
+spread the news with a malicious joy; and so, not hearing from you, I
+hastened to town with our children."
+
+Poor Booth, in spite of his release, was very cast down. Seeing tears in
+his eyes at the sight of his children, Amelia, embracing him with
+rapturous fondness, cried out, "My dear Billy, let nothing make you
+uneasy. Heaven will provide for us and these poor babes. Great fortunes
+are not necessary to happiness. Make yourself easy, my dear love, for
+you have a wife who will think herself happy with you, and endeavour to
+make you so, in any situation. Fear nothing, Billy; industry will always
+provide us a wholesome meal."
+
+Booth, who was naturally of a sanguine temper, took the cue she had
+given him, but he could not help reproaching himself as the cause of all
+her wretchedness. This it was that enervated his heart and threw him
+into agonies, which all that profusion of heroic tenderness that the
+most excellent of women intended for his comfort served only to heighten
+and aggravate: as the more she rose in his admiration, the more she
+quickened the sense of his unworthiness.
+
+His affairs did not prosper; in vain he solicited a commission in the
+army. With no great man to back him, and with his friend, Captain James
+(now a colonel, and in London), too taken up with his own affairs to
+exert any influence on behalf of Booth, it seemed as though no escape
+from misery was possible. The beautiful Amelia, always patient and
+cheerful, remained his comforter. And Atkinson, now a sergeant in the
+guards, was the devoted servant of both Amelia and her husband.
+
+Then one morning, when Amelia was out, Booth was arrested for debt and
+carried to the bailiff's house in Gray's Inn Lane.
+
+"Who has done this barbarous action?" cries Amelia, when the news is
+told her by Sergeant Atkinson.
+
+"One I am ashamed to name," cries the sergeant; "indeed, I had always a
+very different opinion of him; but Dr. Harrison is the man who has done
+the deed."
+
+"Dr. Harrison!" cries Amelia. "Well, then, there is an end of all
+goodness in the world. I will never have a good opinion of any human
+being more!"
+
+The fact was that while the doctor was abroad he had received from the
+curate, and from a gentleman of the neighbourhood, accounts of Booth's
+doings very much to his disadvantage. On his return to the parish these
+accusations were confirmed by many witnesses, and the whole
+neighbourhood rang with several gross and scandalous lies, which were
+merely the inventions of Booth's enemies. Poisoned with all this malice,
+the doctor came to London, and calling at Booth's lodgings, when both
+the captain and Amelia were out, learnt from the servant-maid that the
+children had got a gold watch and several fine trinkets. These presents,
+indeed, had come from a certain noble lord, who hoped by these means to
+win Amelia's affection; but no suspicion of his evil desire had entered
+the innocent mind of Amelia.
+
+The doctor had no doubt that these trinkets had been purchased by
+Amelia; and this account tallied so well with the ideas he had imbibed
+of Booth's extravagance in the country, that he firmly believed both the
+husband and wife to be the vainest, silliest and most unjust people
+alive.
+
+But no sooner did the doctor hear that Booth was arrested than the
+wretched condition of his wife and children began to affect his mind. In
+this temper of mind he resolved to pay Amelia a second visit, and was on
+his way thither when Sergeant Atkinson met him, and made himself known
+to him.
+
+The doctor received from Atkinson such an account of Booth and his
+family that he hastened at once to Amelia, and soon became satisfied
+concerning the trinkets which had given him so much uneasiness. Amelia
+likewise gave the doctor some satisfaction as to what he had heard of
+her husband's behaviour In the country, and assured him, upon her
+honour, that Booth could answer every complaint against his conduct, so
+that the doctor would find him an innocent, unfortunate man, the object
+of a good man's compassion, not of his anger or resentment.
+
+This worthy clergyman, who was not desirous of finding proofs to condemn
+the captain, rejoiced heartily in every piece of evidence which tended
+to clear up the character of his friend, and gave a ready ear to all
+which Amelia said.
+
+Induced, indeed, by the love he always had for that lady, whom he was
+wont to call his daughter, as well as by pity for her present condition,
+the doctor immediately endeavoured to comfort the afflicted, and then
+proceeded to accomplish the captain's release.
+
+"So, captain," says the doctor, on arrival at the bailiff's house, "when
+last we met I believe that we neither of us expected to meet in such a
+place as this."
+
+"Indeed, doctor," cries Booth, "I did not expect to have been sent
+hither by the gentleman who did me this favour."
+
+"How so, sir!" said the doctor. "You were sent hither by some person, I
+suppose, to whom you were indebted. But you ought to be more surprised
+that the gentleman who sent you thither is come to release you."
+
+
+_IV.--Fortune Smiles on Amelia_
+
+
+Booth was again arrested some months later, and lodged in the bailiff's
+house. This time his creditor was a Captain Trent, who had lent him
+money, and promised him assistance in getting returned to the army. In
+reality, Trent was only seeking to ingratiate himself with Amelia, and
+meeting with no encouragement, took his revenge accordingly.
+
+Amelia at once sought out Dr. Harrison, and told him what had occurred
+to her husband; and the doctor set forwards to the bailiff's to see what
+he could do for Booth.
+
+The doctor had not got so much money in town as Booth's debt amounted
+to, and therefore he was forced to give bail to the action.
+
+While the necessary forms were being made out, the bailiff, addressing
+himself to the doctor, said, "Sir, there is a man above in a dying
+condition that desires the favour of speaking to you. I believe he wants
+you to pray by him."
+
+Without making any further inquiry, the doctor immediately went
+upstairs.
+
+The sick man mentioned his name, and explained that he lived for many
+years in the town where the doctor resided, and that he used to write
+for the attorneys in those parts. He was anxious, he said, as he hoped
+for forgiveness, to make all the amends he could to some one he had
+injured, and to undo, if possible, the injury he had done.
+
+The doctor commended this as a sincere repentance.
+
+"You know, good doctor," the sick man resumed, "that Mrs. Harris, of our
+town, had two daughters--one now Mrs. Booth, and another. Before Mrs.
+Harris died, she made a will, and left all her fortune, except £1,000,
+to Mrs. Booth, to which will Mr. Murphy, the lawyer, myself, and another
+were witnesses. Mrs. Harris afterwards died suddenly, upon which it was
+contrived, by her other daughter and Mr. Murphy, to make a new will, in
+which Mrs. Booth had a legacy of £10, and all the rest was given to the
+other."
+
+"Good heaven, how wonderful is thy providence!" cries the doctor.
+"Murphy, say you? Why, this Murphy is still my attorney."
+
+Within a short time Murphy was arrested, and the sick man's depositions
+taken. Booth was released on the doctor's bail, and on the following
+morning Amelia learnt of the change in fortune that had befallen them.
+
+Dr. Harrison himself broke the good news by reading the following
+paragraph from the newspaper.
+
+"Yesterday, one Murphy, an eminent attorney-at-law, was committed to
+Newgate for the forgery of a will, under which an estate has been for
+many years detained from the right owner."
+
+"Now," said the doctor, "in this paragraph there is something very
+remarkable, and that is that it is true. But now let us read the
+following note upon the words 'right owner.' 'The right owner of this
+estate is a young lady of the highest merit, whose maiden name was
+Harris, and who some time since was married to an idle fellow, one
+Lieutenant Booth; and the best historians assure us that letters from
+the elder sister of this lady, which manifestly prove the forgery and
+clear up the whole affair, are in the hands of an old parson, called Dr.
+Harrison.'"
+
+"And is this really true?" cries Amelia.
+
+"Yes, really and sincerely," cries the doctor, "the whole estate--for
+your mother left it you all; and it is as surely yours as if you were
+already in possession."
+
+"Gracious heaven!" cries she, falling on her knees, "I thank you!" And
+then, starting up, she ran to her husband, and embracing him, cried, "My
+dear love, I wish you joy! It is upon yours and my children's account
+that I principally rejoice."
+
+She then desired her children to be brought to her, whom she immediately
+caught in her arms; and having profusely cried over them, soon regained
+her usual temper and complexion.
+
+Miss Harris, having received a letter from Amelia, informing her of the
+discovery and the danger in which she stood, immediately set out for
+France, carrying with her all her money, most of her clothes, and some
+few jewels.
+
+About a week afterwards, Booth and Amelia, with their children, and
+Atkinson and his wife, all set forward together for Amelia's house,
+where they arrived amidst the acclamations of all the neighbours, and
+every public demonstration of joy.
+
+Miss Harris lived for three years with a broken heart at Boulogne, where
+she received annually £50 from her sister; and then died in a most
+miserable manner.
+
+Dr. Harrison is grown old in years and in honour, beloved and respected
+by all his parishioners and neighbours.
+
+As to Booth and Amelia, fortune seems to have made them large amends for
+the tricks she played them in their youth. They have continued to enjoy
+an uninterrupted course of health and happiness. In about six weeks
+after Booth's first coming into the country, he went to London and paid
+all his debts, after which, and a stay of two days only, he returned
+into the country, and has never since been thirty miles from home.
+
+Amelia is still the finest woman in England of her age; Booth himself
+often avers she is as handsome as ever. Nothing can equal the serenity
+of their lives.
+
+Amelia declared the other day that she did not remember to have seen her
+husband out of humour these ten years!
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+Jonathan Wild
+
+
+     "Jonathan Wild," published in 1743, is in many respects
+     Fielding's most powerful piece of satire, surpassed only,
+     perhaps, by Thackeray's "Barry Lyndon." It can hardly be
+     called a novel, and still less a serious biography, though it
+     is founded on the real history of a notorious highway robber
+     and thief. The author disclaimed in his preface any attempt on
+     his part at authentic history or faithful portraiture.
+     "Roguery, and not a rogue is my subject," he wrote; adding,
+     that the ideas of goodness and greatness are too often
+     confounded together. "A man may be great without being good,
+     or good without being great." The story of "Jonathan Wild" is
+     really a bitter, satirical attack on what Fielding called "the
+     greatness which is totally devoid of goodness." He avowed it
+     his intention "to expose the character of this bombast
+     greatness," and no one can deny the success of his
+     achievement. Surely no story was ever written under more
+     desperate circumstances. The evils of poverty, which at this
+     period were at their height, were aggravated by the serious
+     illness of his wife, and his own sufferings from attacks of
+     gout. These troubles and others may well increase our
+     admiration for the genius which, in the face of all
+     difficulties, is shown in "Jonathan Wild."
+
+
+_I.--Mr. Wild's Early Exploits_
+
+
+Mr. Jonathan Wild, who was descended from a long line of great men, was
+born in 1665. His father followed the fortunes of Mr. Snap, who enjoyed
+a reputable office under the sheriff of London and Middlesex; and his
+mother was the daughter of Scragg Hollow, Esq., of Hockley-in-the-Hole.
+He was scarce settled at school before he gave marks of his lofty and
+aspiring temper, and was regarded by his schoolfellows with that
+deference which men generally pay to those superior geniuses who will
+exact it of them. If an orchard was to be robbed, Wild was consulted;
+and though he was himself seldom concerned in the execution of the
+design, yet was he always concerter of it, and treasurer of the booty,
+some little part of which he would now and then, with wonderful
+generosity, bestow on those who took it. He was generally very secret on
+these occasions; but if any offered to plunder of his own head without
+acquainting Master Wild, and making a deposit of the booty, he was sure
+to have an information against him lodged with the schoolmaster, and to
+be severely punished for his pains.
+
+At the age of seventeen his father brought the young gentleman to town,
+where he resided with him till he was of an age to travel.
+
+Men of great genius as easily discover one another as Freemasons can. It
+was therefore no wonder that the Count la Ruse--who was confined in Mr.
+Snap's house until the day when he should appear in court to answer a
+certain creditor--soon conceived an inclination to an intimacy with our
+young hero, whose vast abilities could not be concealed from one of the
+count's discernment; for though the latter was exceedingly expert at his
+cards, he was no match for Master Wild, who never failed to send him
+away from the table with less in his pocket than he brought to it. With
+so much ingenuity, indeed, could our young hero extract a purse, that
+his hands made frequent visits to the count's pocket before the latter
+had entertained any suspicion of him. But one night, when Wild imagined
+the count asleep, he made so unguarded an attack upon him that the other
+caught him in the act. However, he did not think proper to acquaint him
+with the discovery he had made, but only took care for the future to
+button his pockets and to pack the cards with double industry.
+
+In reality, this detection recommended these two prigs to each other,
+for a wise man--that is to say, a rogue--considers a trick in life as a
+gamester doth a trick at play. It sets him on his guard, but he admires
+the dexterity of him who plays it.
+
+When our two friends met the next morning, the count began to bewail the
+misfortune of his captivity, and the backwardness of friends to assist
+each other in their necessities.
+
+Wild told him that bribery was the surest means of procuring his escape,
+and advised him to apply to the maid, telling him at the same time that
+as he had no money he must make it up with promises, which he would know
+how to put off.
+
+The maid only consented to leave the door open when Wild, depositing a
+guinea in the girl's hands, declared that he himself would swear that he
+saw the count descending from the window by a pair of sheets.
+
+Thus did our young hero not only lend his rhetoric, which few people
+care to do without a fee, but his money too, to procure liberty for his
+friend. At the same time it would be highly derogatory from the great
+character of Wild should the reader not understand that this was done
+because our hero had some interested view in the count's enlargement.
+
+Intimacy and friendship subsisted between the count and Mr. Wild, and
+the latter, now dressed in good clothes, was introduced into the best
+company. They constantly frequented the assemblies, auctions, gaming-
+tables, and play-houses, and Wild passed for a gentleman of great
+fortune.
+
+It was then that an accident occurred that obliged Wild to go abroad for
+seven years to his majesty's plantations in America; and there are such
+various accounts, one of which only can be true, of this accident that
+we shall pass them all over. It is enough that Wild went abroad, and
+stayed seven years.
+
+
+_II.--An Example of Wild's Greatness_
+
+
+The count was one night very successful at the gaming-table, where Wild,
+who was just returned from his travels, was then present; as was
+likewise a young gentleman whose name was Bob Bagshot, an acquaintance
+of Mr. Wild's. Taking, therefore, Mr. Bagshot aside, he advised him to
+provide himself with a case of pistols, and to attack the count on his
+way home.
+
+This was accordingly executed, and the count obliged to surrender to
+savage force what he had in so genteel a manner taken at play. As one
+misfortune never comes alone, the count had hardly passed the
+examination of Mr. Bagshot when he fell into the hands of Mr. Snap, who
+carried him to his house.
+
+Mr. Wild and Mr. Bagshot went together to the tavern, where Mr. Bagshot
+offered to share the booty. Having divided the money into two unequal
+heaps, and added a golden snuffbox to the lesser heap, he desired Mr.
+Wild to take his choice.
+
+Mr. Wild immediately conveyed the larger share of the ready into his
+pocket, according to an excellent maxim of his--"First secure what share
+you can before you wrangle for the rest"; and then, turning to his
+companion, he asked him whether he intended to keep all that sum
+himself. "I grant you took it," Wild said; "but, pray, who proposed or
+counselled the taking of it? Can you say that you have done more than
+execute my scheme? The ploughman, the shepherd, the weaver, the builder,
+and the soldier work not for themselves, but others; they are contented
+with a poor pittance--the labourer's hire--and permit us, the great, to
+enjoy the fruits of their labours. Why, then, should the state of a prig
+differ from all others? Or why should you, who are the labourer only,
+the executor of my scheme, expect a share in the profit? Be advised,
+therefore; deliver the whole booty to me, and trust to my bounty for
+your reward."
+
+Mr. Bagshot not being minded to yield to these arguments, Wild adopted a
+fiercer tone, and the other was glad to let him borrow a part of his
+share. So that Wild got three-fourths of the whole before taking leave
+of his companion.
+
+Wild then returned to visit his friend the count, now in captivity at
+Mr. Snap's; for our hero was none of those half-bred fellows who are
+ashamed to see their friends when they have plundered and betrayed them.
+
+The count, little suspecting that Wild had been the sole contriver of
+the misfortune which had befallen him, eagerly embraced him, and Wild
+returned his embrace with equal warmth.
+
+While they were discoursing, Mr. Snap introduced Mr. Bagshot; for Mr.
+Bagshot had lost what money he had from Mr. Wild at a gaming-table, and
+was directly afterwards arrested for debt. Mr. Wild no sooner saw his
+friend than he immediately presented him to the count, who received him
+with great civility. But no sooner was Mr. Bagshot out of the room than
+the count said to Wild, "I am very well convinced that Bagshot is the
+person who robbed me, and I will apply to a justice of the peace."
+
+Wild replied with indignation that Mr. Bagshot was a man of honour, but,
+as this had no weight with the count, he went on, more vehemently, "I am
+ashamed of my own discernment when I mistook you for a great man.
+Prosecute him, and you may promise yourself to be blown up at every
+gaming-house in the town. But leave the affair to me, and if I find he
+hath played you this trick, I will engage my own honour you shall in the
+end be no loser." The count answered, "If I was sure to be no loser, Mr.
+Wild, I apprehend you have a better opinion of my understanding than to
+imagine I would prosecute a gentleman for the sake of the public."
+
+Wild having determined to make use of Bagshot as long as he could, and
+then send him to be hanged, went to Bagshot next day and told him the
+count knew all, and intended to prosecute him, and the only thing to be
+done was to refund the money.
+
+"Refund the money!" cried Bagshot. "Why, you know what small part of it
+fell to my share!"
+
+"How?" replied Wild. "Is this your gratitude to me for saving your life?
+For your own conscience must convince you of your guilt."
+
+"Marry come up!" quoth Bagshot. "I believe my life alone will not be in
+danger. Can you deny your share?"
+
+"Yes, you rascal!" answered Wild. "I do deny everything, and do you find
+a witness to prove it. I will show you the difference between committing
+a robbery and conniving at it."
+
+So alarmed was Bagshot at the threats of Wild that he drew forth all he
+found in his pockets, to the amount of twenty-one guineas, which he had
+just gained at dice.
+
+Wild now returned to the count, and informed him that he had got ten
+guineas of Bagshot, and by these means the count was once more enlarged,
+and enabled to carry out a new plan of the great Wild.
+
+
+_III.--Mr. Heartfree's Weakness_
+
+
+By accident, Wild had met with a young fellow who had formerly been his
+companion at school.
+
+Mr. Thomas Heartfree (for that was his name) was of an honest and open
+disposition. He was possessed of several great weaknesses of mind, being
+good-natured, friendly, and generous to a great excess.
+
+This young man, who was about Wild's age, had some time before set up in
+the trade of a jeweller, in the materials for which he had laid out the
+greatest part of a little fortune.
+
+He no sooner recognised Wild than he accosted him in the most friendly
+manner, and invited him home with him to breakfast, which invitation our
+hero, with no great difficulty, consented to.
+
+Wild, after vehement professions of friendship, then told him he had an
+opportunity of recommending a gentleman, on the brink of marriage, to
+his custom, "and," says he, "I will endeavour to prevail on him to
+furnish his lady with jewels at your shop."
+
+Having parted from Heartfree, Wild sought out the count, who, in order
+to procure credit from tradesmen, had taken a handsome house,
+ready-furnished, in one of the new streets. He instructed the count to
+take only one of Heartfree's jewels at the first interview, to reject
+the rest as not fine enough, and order him to provide some richer. The
+count was then to dispose of the jewel, and by means of that money, and
+his great abilities at cards and dice, to get together as large a sum as
+possible, which he was to pay down to Heartfree at the delivery of the
+set of jewels.
+
+This method was immediately put in execution; and the count, the first
+day, took only a single brilliant, worth about £300, and ordered a
+necklace and earrings, of the value of £3,000 more, to be prepared by
+that day week.
+
+This interval was employed by Wild in raising a gang, and within a few
+days he had levied several bold and resolute fellows, fit for any
+enterprise, how dangerous or great soever.
+
+The count disposed of his jewel for its full value, and by his dexterity
+raised £1,000. This sum he paid down to Heartfree at the end of the
+week, and promised him the rest within a month. Heartfree did not in the
+least scruple giving him credit, but as he had in reality procured those
+jewels of another, his own little stock not being able to furnish
+anything so valuable. The count, in addition to the £1,000 in gold, gave
+him his note for £2,800 more.
+
+As soon as Heartfree was departed, Wild came in and received the casket
+from the count, and an appointment was made to meet the next morning to
+come to a division of its contents.
+
+Two gentlemen of resolution, in the meantime, attacked Heartfree on his
+way home, according to Wild's orders, and spoiled the enemy of the whole
+sum he had received from the count. According to agreement, Wild, who
+had made haste to overtake the conquerors, took nine-tenths of the
+booty, but was himself robbed of this £900 before nightfall.
+
+As for the casket, when he opened it, the stones were but paste. For the
+sagacious count had conveyed the jewels into his own pocket, and in
+their stead had placed artificial stones. On Wild's departure the count
+hastened out of London, and was well on his way to Dover when Wild
+knocked at his door.
+
+Heartfree, wounded and robbed, had only the count's note left, and this
+was returned to him as worthless, inquiries having proved that the count
+had run away. So confused was poor Heartfree at this that his creditor
+for the jewels was frightened, and at once had him arrested for the
+debt.
+
+Heartfree applied in vain for money to numerous customers who were
+indebted to him; they all replied with various excuses, and the unhappy
+wretch was soon taken to Newgate. He had been inclined to blame Wild for
+his misfortunes, but our hero boldly attacked him for giving credit to
+the count, and this degree of impudence convinced both Heartfree and his
+wife of Wild's innocence, the more so as the latter promised to procure
+bail for his friend. In this he was unsuccessful, and it was long before
+Heartfree was released and restored to happiness.
+
+
+_IV.--The Highest Pinnacle of Greatness_
+
+
+Wild was a living instance that human greatness and happiness are not
+always inseparable. He was under a continual alarm of frights and fears
+and jealousies, and was thoroughly convinced there was not a single man
+amongst his own gang who would not, for the value of five shillings,
+bring him to the gallows.
+
+A clause in an act of parliament procured by a learned judge entrapped
+Wild. Hitherto he had always employed less gifted men to carry out his
+plans. Now, by this law it was made capital in a prig to steal with the
+hands of other people, and it was impossible for our hero to avoid the
+destruction so plainly calculated for his greatness.
+
+Wild, having received from some dutiful members of his gang a valuable
+piece of goods, did, for a consideration, re-convey it to the right
+owner, for which fact, being ungratefully informed against by the said
+owner, he was surprised in his own house, and, being overpowered by
+numbers, was hurried before a magistrate, and by him committed to
+Newgate.
+
+When the day of his trial arrived, our hero was, notwithstanding his
+utmost caution and prudence, convicted and sentenced to be hanged by the
+neck. He now suspected that the malice of his enemies would overpower
+him, and therefore betook himself to that true support of greatness in
+affliction--a bottle, by means of which he was enabled to curse, swear,
+and bully, and brave his fate. Other comfort, indeed, he had not much,
+for not a single friend ever came near him.
+
+From the time our hero gave over all hopes of life, his conduct was
+truly great and admirable. Instead of showing any marks of contrition or
+dejection, he rather infused more confidence and assurance into his
+looks. He spent most of his hours in drinking with acquaintances, and
+with the good chaplain; and being asked whether he was afraid to die, he
+answered, "It's only a dance without music. A man can die but once.
+Zounds! Who's afraid?"
+
+At length the morning came which Fortune had resolutely ordained for the
+consummation of our hero's greatness; he had himself, indeed, modestly
+declined the public honour she intended him, and had taken a quantity of
+laudanum in order to retire quietly off the stage. But it is vain to
+struggle against the decrees of fortune, and the laudanum proved
+insufficient to stop his breath.
+
+At the usual hour he was acquainted that the cart was ready, and his
+fetters having been knocked off in a solemn and ceremonious manner,
+after drinking a bumper of brandy, he ascended the cart, where he was no
+sooner seated than he received the acclamations of the multitude, who
+were highly ravished with his greatness.
+
+The cart now moved slowly on, preceded by a troop of Horse Guards,
+bearing javelins in their hands, through the streets lined with crowds
+all admiring the great behaviour of our hero, who rode on, sometimes
+sighing, sometimes swearing, sometimes singing or whistling, as his
+humour varied.
+
+When he came to the tree of glory, he was welcomed with an universal
+shout of the people; but there were not wanting some who maligned this
+completion of glory, now about to be fulfilled by our hero, and
+endeavoured to prevent it by knocking him on the head as he stood under
+the tree, while the chaplain was performing his last office.
+
+They therefore began to batter the cart with stones, brick-bats, dirt,
+and all manner of mischievous weapons, so that the ecclesiastic ended
+almost in an instant, and conveyed himself into a place of safety in a
+hackney coach.
+
+One circumstance must not be omitted. Whilst the chaplain was busy in
+his ejaculations, Wild, in the midst of the shower of stones, etc.,
+which played upon him, true to his character, applied his hands to the
+parson's pocket, and emptied it of his bottle-screw, which he carried
+out of the world in his hand.
+
+The chaplain being now descended from the cart, Wild had just
+opportunity to cast his eyes around the crowd, and to give them a hearty
+curse, when immediately the horses moved on, and, with universal
+applause, our hero swung out of this world.
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+Joseph Andrews
+
+
+     "Joseph Andrews," Fielding's first novel, was published in
+     1742, and was intended to be a satire on Richardson's "Pamela"
+     (see Vol. VII), which appeared in 1740. He described it as
+     "written in the manner of Cervantes," and in Parson Adams
+     there is the same quaint blending of the humorous and the
+     pathetic as in the Knight of La Mancha. Although such
+     characters as Lady Booby and Mrs. Slipslop are admittedly
+     ridiculous, Parson Adams remains an admirable study of a
+     simple-minded clergyman of the eighteenth century.
+
+
+_I.--The Virtues of Joseph Andrews_
+
+
+Mr. Joseph Andrews was esteemed to be the only son of Gaffer and Gammer
+Andrews, and brother to the illustrious Pamela.
+
+At ten years old (by which time his education was advanced to writing
+and reading) he was bound an apprentice to Sir Thomas Booby, an uncle of
+Mr. Booby's by the father's side. From the stable of Sir Thomas he was
+preferred to attend as foot-boy on Lady Booby, to go on her errands,
+stand behind her chair, wait at her tea-table, and carry her prayer-book
+to church; at which place he behaved so well in every respect at divine
+service that it recommended him to the notice of Mr. Abraham Adams, the
+curate, who took an opportunity one day to ask the young man several
+questions concerning religion, with his answers to which he was
+wonderfully pleased.
+
+Mr. Abraham Adams was an excellent scholar, a man of good sense and good
+nature, but at the same time entirely ignorant of the ways of the world.
+At the age of fifty he was provided with a handsome income of twenty-
+three pounds a year, which, however, he could not make any great figure
+with, because he was a little encumbered with a wife and six children.
+
+Adams had no nearer access to Sir Thomas or my lady than through Mrs.
+Slipslop, the waiting-gentlewoman, for Sir Thomas was too apt to
+estimate men merely by their dress or fortune, and my lady was a woman
+of gaiety, who never spoke of any of her country neighbours by any other
+appellation than that of the brutes.
+
+Mrs. Slipslop, being herself the daughter of a curate, preserved some
+respect for Adams; she would frequently dispute with him, and was a
+mighty affecter of hard words, which she used in such a manner that the
+parson was frequently at some loss to guess her meaning.
+
+Adams was so much impressed by the industry and application he saw in
+young Andrews that one day he mentioned the case to Mrs. Slipslop,
+desiring her to recommend him to my lady as a youth very susceptible of
+learning, and one whose instruction in Latin he would himself undertake,
+by which means he might be qualified for a higher station than that of
+footman. He therefore desired that the boy might be left behind under
+his care when Sir Thomas and my lady went to London.
+
+"La, Mr. Adams," said Mrs. Slipslop, "do you think my lady will suffer
+any preambles about any such matter? She is going to London very
+concisely, and I am confidous would not leave Joey behind on any
+account, for he is one of the genteelest young fellows you may see in a
+summer's day; and I am confidous she would as soon think of parting with
+a pair of her grey mares, for she values herself on one as much as the
+other. And why is Latin more necessitous for a footman than a gentleman?
+I am confidous my lady would be angry with me for mentioning it, and I
+shall draw myself into no such delemy."
+
+So young Andrews went to London in attendance on Lady Booby, and became
+acquainted with the brethren of his profession. They could not, however,
+teach him to game, swear, drink, nor any other genteel vice the town
+abounded with. He applied most of his leisure hours to music, in which
+he greatly improved himself, so that he led the opinion of all the other
+footmen at an opera. Though his morals remain entirely uncorrupted, he
+was at the same time smarter and genteeler than any of the beaus in town
+either in or out of livery.
+
+At this time an accident happened, and this was no other than the death
+of Sir Thomas Booby, who left his disconsolate lady closely confined to
+her house. During the first six days the poor lady admitted none but
+Mrs. Slipslop and three female friends, who made a party at cards; but
+on the seventh she ordered Joey, whom we shall hereafter call Joseph, to
+bring up her teakettle.
+
+Lady Booby's affection for her footman had for some time been a matter
+of gossip in the town, but it is certain that her innocent freedoms had
+made no impression on young Andrews.
+
+Now, however, he thought my lady had become distracted with grief at her
+husband's death, so strange was her conduct, and wrote to his sister
+Pamela on the subject.
+
+     If madam be mad, I shall not care for staying long in the
+     family, so I heartily wish you could get me a place at some
+     neighbouring gentleman's. I fancy I shall be discharged very
+     soon, and the moment I am I shall return to my old master's
+     country seat, if it be only to see Parson Adams, who is the
+     best man in the world. London is a bad place, and there is so
+     little good fellowship that the next-door neighbours don't
+     know one another. Your loving brother,
+     JOSEPH ANDREWS.
+
+The sending of this letter was quickly followed by the discharge of the
+writer. To Lady Booby's open declarations of love, Joseph replied that a
+lady having no virtue was not a reason against his having any.
+
+"I am out of patience!" cries the lady, "did ever mortal hear of a man's
+virtue? Will magistrates who punish lewdness, or parsons who preach
+against it, make any scruple of committing it? And can a boy have the
+confidence to talk of his virtue?"
+
+"Madam," says Joseph, "that boy is the brother of Pamela, and would be
+ashamed that the chastity of his family, which is preserved in her,
+should be stained in him. If there are such men as your ladyship
+mentions, I am sorry for it, and I wish they had an opportunity of
+reading my sister Pamela's letters; nor do I doubt but such an example
+would amend them."
+
+"You impudent villain!" cries the lady in a rage. "Get out of my sight,
+and leave the house this night!"
+
+Joseph having received what wages were due, and having been stripped of
+his livery, took a melancholy leave of his fellow-servants and set out
+at seven in the evening.
+
+
+_II.--Adventures on the Road_
+
+
+It may be wondered why Joseph made such extraordinary haste to get out
+of London, and why, instead of proceeding to the habitation of his
+father and mother, or to his beloved sister Pamela, he chose rather to
+set out full speed to Lady Booby's country seat, which he had left on
+his journey to town.
+
+Be it known then, that in the same parish where this seat stood there
+lived a young girl whom Joseph longed more impatiently to see than his
+parents or his sister. She was a poor girl, formerly bred up in Sir
+Thomas's house, and, discarded by Mrs. Slipslop on account of her
+extraordinary beauty, was now a servant to a farmer in the parish.
+
+Fanny was two years younger than our hero, and had been always beloved
+by him, and returned his affection. They had been acquainted from their
+infancy, and Mr. Adams had, with much ado, prevented them from marrying,
+and persuaded them to wait till a few years' service and thrift had a
+little improved their experience, and enabled them to live comfortably
+together.
+
+They followed this good man's advice, as, indeed, his word was little
+less than a law in his parish, for during twenty-five years he had shown
+that he had the good of his parishioners entirely at heart, so that they
+consulted him on every occasion, and very seldom acted contrary to his
+opinion.
+
+Honest Joseph therefore set out on his travels without delay, in order
+that he might once more look upon his Fanny, from whom he had been
+absent for twelve months.
+
+But on the road he was attacked by robbers, and, having been left
+wounded in a ditch, was mercifully taken to an inn by some later
+travellers.
+
+It was at this same inn that, to the great surprise on both sides, Mr.
+Abraham Adams found Joseph.
+
+The parson informed his young friend, who was still sick in bed, that
+the occasion of the journey he was making to London was to publish three
+volumes of sermons, being encouraged, as he said, by an advertisement
+lately set forth by the Society of Booksellers; but, though he imagined
+he should get a considerable sum of money on this occasion, which his
+family were in urgent need of, he protested he would not leave Joseph in
+his present penniless condition. Finally, he told him he had nine
+shillings and threepence-halfpenny in his pocket, which he was welcome
+to use as he pleased.
+
+This goodness of Parson Adams brought tears into Joseph's eyes; he had
+now a second reason to desire life, that he might show his gratitude to
+such a friend.
+
+Before pursuing his journey Adams made the acquaintance of another
+clergyman named Barnabas at the inn, who in his turn, hearing that Adams
+was proposing to publish sermons, introduced him to a stranger who he
+said was a bookseller.
+
+Adams, saluting the stranger, answered Barnabas that he was very much
+obliged to him; that nothing could be more convenient, for he had no
+other business to the great city, and was heartily desirous of returning
+with the young man, who was just recovered of his misfortune. To induce
+the bookseller to be as expeditious as possible, he assured them their
+meeting was extremely lucky to himself, for that he had the most
+pressing occasion for money at that time, his own being almost spent.
+"So that nothing," says he, "could be so opportune as my making an
+immediate bargain with you."
+
+"Sir, sermons are mere drugs," said the stranger. "The trade is so
+vastly stocked with them that really, unless they come out with the name
+of Whitefield or Wesley, or some other such great man, as a bishop, or
+those sort of people, I don't care to touch. However, I will, if you
+please, take the manuscript with me to town, and send you my opinion of
+it in a very short time."
+
+When, however, Adams began to describe the nature of his sermons the
+bookseller drew back, on the ground that the clergy would be certain to
+cry down such a book.
+
+An accident prevented Mr. Adams from pursuing a market for his sermons
+any further, which he would have done in spite of the advice of Barnabas
+and the bookseller. This accident was, that those sermons which the
+parson was travelling to London to publish were left behind; what he had
+mistaken for them in the saddle-bags were three shirts, which Mrs.
+Adams, who thought her husband would need shirts rather than sermons on
+his journey, had carefully provided for him.
+
+Joseph, concerned at the disappointment to his friend, begged him to
+pursue his journey all the same, and promised he would himself return
+with the books to him with the utmost expedition.
+
+"No, thank you, child," answered Adams; "it shall not be so. What would
+it avail me to tarry in the great city unless I had my discourses with
+me? No; as this accident has happened, I am resolved to return back to
+my cure, together with you; which, indeed, my inclination sufficiently
+leads me to."
+
+Mr. Adams, whose credit was good wherever he was known, having borrowed
+a guinea from a servant belonging to a coach-and-six, who had been
+formerly one of his parishioners, discharged the bill for Joseph and
+himself, and the two travellers set off.
+
+
+_III.--More Adventures_
+
+
+Adams and Joseph Andrews being for a time separated on the road, through
+the former's absent-mindedness, it fell to the lot of the parson to
+hasten to the assistance of a damsel who in a lonely place was being
+attacked by some ruffian.
+
+Adams was as strong as he was brave, and having rescued the maiden, took
+her under his protection. It was too dark for either to identify the
+other, but on Mr. Adams ejaculating the name of Joseph Andrews, for
+whose safety he was anxious, his companion recognised his voice, and the
+parson was quickly informed that it was Fanny who was by his side.
+
+The fact was the poor girl had heard of Joseph's misfortune from the
+servants of a coach which had stopped at the inn while the poor youth
+was confined to his bed; and she had that instant abandoned the cow she
+was milking, and taking with her a little bundle of clothes under her
+arm, and all the money she was worth in her own purse, immediately set
+forward in pursuit of one whom she loved with inexpressible violence,
+though with the purest and most delicate passion.
+
+Fanny was now in the nineteenth year of her age; she was tall and
+delicately shaped. Her hair was a chestnut brown; her complexion was
+fair; and, to conclude all, she had a natural gentility which surprised
+all who beheld her.
+
+Can it be wondered that on the following day, when Adams and the damsel
+overtook Andrews at a wayside ale-house, the youth imprinted numberless
+kisses on her lips, while Parson Adams danced about the room in a
+rapture of joy?
+
+It was so late when our travellers left the ale-house that they had not
+travelled many miles before night overtook them. They moved forwards
+where the nearest light presented itself; and having crossed a common
+field, they came to a meadow where they seemed to be at a very little
+distance from the light, when, to their grief, they arrived at the banks
+of a river. Adams declared he could swim, but Joseph answered, if they
+walked along its banks they might be certain of soon finding a bridge,
+especially as, by the number of lights, they might be assured a parish
+was near.
+
+"That's true, indeed," said Adams. "I did not think of that."
+
+Accordingly, Joseph's advice being taken, they passed over two meadows,
+and came to a little orchard which led them to a house. Fanny begged of
+Joseph to knock at the door, assuring him she was so weary that she
+could hardly stand on her feet; and the door being immediately opened, a
+plain kind of man appeared at it. Adams acquainted him that they had a
+young woman with them, who was so tired with her journey that he should
+be much obliged to him if he would suffer her to come in and rest
+herself.
+
+The man, who saw Fanny by the light of the candle which he held in his
+hand, perceiving her innocent and modest look, and having no
+apprehensions from the civil behaviour of Adams, presently answered that
+the young woman was very welcome to rest herself in his house, and so
+were her company. He then ushered them into a very decent room, where
+his wife was sitting at a table; she immediately rose up, and assisted
+them in setting forth chairs, and desired them to sit down.
+
+They now sat cheerfully round the fire till the master of the house,
+having surveyed his guests, and conceiving that the cassock which
+appeared under Adams's greatcoat, and the shabby livery of Joseph
+Andrews, did not well suit the familiarity between them, began to
+entertain some suspicions not much to their advantage. Addressing
+himself, therefore, to Adams, he said he perceived he was a clergyman by
+his dress, and supposed that honest man was his footman.
+
+"Sir," answered Adams, "I am a clergyman, at your service; but as to
+that young man, whom you have rightly termed honest, he is at present in
+nobody's service; he never lived in any other family than that of Lady
+Booby, from whence he was discharged; I assure you, for no crime."
+
+The modest behaviour of Joseph, with the character which Adams gave of
+him, entirely cured a jealousy which had lately been in the gentleman's
+mind that Fanny was the daughter of some person of fashion and that
+Joseph had run away with her, and Adams was concerned in the plot.
+Having had a full account from Adams of Joseph's history he became
+enamoured of his guests, drank their healths with great cheerfulness;
+and, at the parson's request, told something of his own life.
+
+"Sir," says Adams, at the conclusion of the history, "fortune has, I
+think, paid you all her debts in this sweet retirement."
+
+"Sir," replied the gentleman, whose name was Wilson, "I have the best of
+wives and three pretty children; but within three years of my arrival
+here I lost my eldest son. If he had died I could have borne the loss
+with patience; but, alas, he was stolen away from my door by some wicked
+travelling people, whom they call gypsies; nor could I ever, with the
+most diligent search, recover him. Poor child, he had the sweetest look!
+The exact picture of his mother!" Mr. Wilson went on to say that he
+should know his son amongst ten thousand, for he had a mark on his
+breast of a strawberry.
+
+
+_IV.--Joseph Finds his Father_
+
+
+Our travellers, having well refreshed themselves at Mr. Wilson's house,
+renewed their journey next morning with great alacrity, and two days
+later reached the parish they were seeking.
+
+The people flocked about Parson Adams like children round a parent; and
+the parson, on his side, shook every one by the hand. Nor did Joseph and
+Fanny want a hearty welcome from all who saw them. Adams carried his
+fellow-travellers home to his house, where he insisted on their
+partaking whatever his wife could provide, and on the very next Sunday
+he published, for the first time, the banns of marriage between Joseph
+Andrews and Fanny Goodwill.
+
+Lady Booby, who was now at her country seat again, was furious when she
+heard in church these banns called, and at once sent for Mr. Adams, and
+rated him soundly.
+
+"It is my orders that you publish these banns no more, and if you dare,
+I will recommend it to your master, the rector, to discard you from his
+service," says my lady. "The fellow Andrews is a vagabond, and shall not
+settle here and bring a nest of beggars into the parish."
+
+"Madam," answered Adams, "I know not what your ladyship means by the
+terms 'master' and 'service.' I am in the service of a Master who will
+never discard me for doing my duty; and if the rector thinks proper to
+turn me from my cure, God will provide me, I hope, another."
+
+The malice of Lady Booby did not stop at this; she endeavoured to get
+Joseph and Fanny convicted on a trumped-up charge of trespass. In this
+base wickedness she was defeated by her nephew, young Squire Booby, who
+had married the virtuous Pamela, Joseph's sister; and at once stopped
+the proceedings. More than that, he carried off Andrews to Lady Booby's,
+and on his arrival, said, "Madam, as I have married a virtuous and
+worthy woman, I am resolved to own her relations, and show them all
+respect; I shall think myself, therefore, infinitely obliged to all mine
+who will do the same. It is true her brother has been your servant, but
+he has now become my brother."
+
+Lady Booby answered that she would be pleased to entertain Joseph
+Andrews; but when the squire went on to speak of Fanny, his aunt put her
+foot down resolutely against her civility to the young woman.
+
+And now both Pamela and her husband were inclined to urge Joseph to
+break off the engagement with Fanny, but the young man would not give
+way, and in this he was supported by Mr. Adams.
+
+The arrival of a peddler in the parish, who had shown some civility to
+Adams and Andrews when they were travelling on the road, threatened the
+marriage prospect much more dangerously for a time.
+
+According to the pedaler, who was a man of some education and birth,
+Fanny had been stolen away from her home when an infant, and sold for
+three guineas to Sir Thomas Booby; the name of her family was Andrews,
+and they had a daughter of a very strange name, Pamela. This story he
+had received from a dying woman when he had been a drummer in an Irish
+regiment.
+
+The only thing now to be done was to send for old Mr. Andrews and his
+wife; and, in the meantime, the pedal was bidden to Booby Hall to tell
+the whole story again. All who heard him were well satisfied of the
+truth, except Pamela, who imagined as neither of her parents had ever
+mentioned such an incident to her, it must be false; and except Lady
+Booby, who suspected the falsehood of the story from her ardent desire
+that it should be true; and Joseph, who feared its truth, from his
+earnest wishes that it might prove false.
+
+On the following morning news came of the arrival of old Mr. Andrews and
+his wife. Mr. Andrews assured Mr. Booby that he had never lost a
+daughter by gypsies, nor ever had any other children than Joseph and
+Pamela. But old Mrs. Andrews, running to Fanny, embraced her, crying
+out, "She is--she is my child!"
+
+The company were all amazed at this disagreement, until the old woman
+explained the mystery. During her husband's absence at Gibraltar, when
+he was a sergeant in the army, a party of gypsies had stolen the little
+girl who had been born to him, and left a small male child in her place.
+So she had brought up the boy as her own.
+
+"Well," says Gaffer Andrews, "you have proved, I think, very plainly,
+that this girl does not belong to us; I hope you are certain the boy is
+ours."
+
+Then it turned out that Joseph had a strawberry mark on his left breast,
+and this made the peddler, who knew all about Mr. Wilson's loss,
+satisfied that Joseph was no other than Mr. Wilson's son.
+
+So Mr. Wilson had to be sent for, who, on his arrival, no sooner saw the
+mark than he cried out with tears of joy, "I have discovered my son!"
+
+The banns having been duly called, there was now nothing to prevent the
+wedding, which, having taken place, Joseph and his wife settled down in
+Mr. Wilson's parish, Mr. Booby having given Fanny a fortune of £2,000.
+He also presented Mr. Adams with a living of £130 a year.
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+Tom Jones
+
+
+     "The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling," described in the
+     dedication as the "labour of some years of my life," appeared
+     in six volumes, on February 28, 1749, a short time after
+     Fielding's appointment as justice of peace for Westminster.
+     Though its broad humour and coarseness of expression are
+     perhaps hard to bear in these times, it is by common consent
+     Fielding's masterpiece, and by way of being one of the
+     greatest novels in the language. For experience of life,
+     observation of character, and sheer humanity, it is certainly
+     an outstanding specimen of the English novel and manners. Like
+     others of his books, "Tom Jones" was written during a period
+     of great mental strain. Ever haunted by poverty, Fielding
+     acknowledges his debt to his old schoolfellow Lyttelton, to
+     whom he owed his "existence during the composition of the
+     book." The story was popular from the first.
+
+
+_I.--Mr. Allworthy Makes a Discovery_
+
+
+In that part of the country which is commonly called Somersetshire there
+lately lived a gentleman whose name was Allworthy, and who might well be
+called the favourite of both nature and fortune. From the former of
+these he derived an agreeable person, a sound constitution, a solid
+understanding, and a benevolent heart; by the latter he was decreed to
+the inheritance of one of the largest estates in the country.
+
+Mr. Allworthy lived, for the most part, retired in the country, with one
+sister, for whom he had a very tender affection. This lady, Miss Bridget
+Allworthy, now somewhat past the age of thirty, was of that species of
+women whom you commend rather for good qualities than beauty.
+
+Mr. Allworthy had been absent a full quarter of a year in London on some
+very particular business, and having returned to his house very late in
+the evening, retired, much fatigued, to his chamber. Here, after he had
+spent some minutes on his knees--a custom which he never broke through
+on any account--he was preparing to step into bed, when, upon opening
+the clothes, to his great surprise, he beheld an infant wrapped up in
+some coarse linen, in a sweet and profound sleep, between his sheets. He
+stood for some time lost in astonishment at this sight; but soon began
+to be touched with sentiments of compassion for the little wretch before
+him. He then rang his bell, and ordered an elderly woman-servant to rise
+immediately and come to him.
+
+The consternation of Mrs. Deborah Wilkins at the finding of the little
+infant was rather greater than her master's had been; nor could she
+refrain from crying out, with great horror, "My good sir, what's to be
+done?"
+
+Mr. Allworthy answered she must take care of the child that evening, and
+in the morning he would give orders to provide it a nurse.
+
+"Yes, sir," says she, "and I hope your worship will send out your
+warrant to take up the hussy its mother. Indeed, such wicked sluts
+cannot be too severely punished for laying their sins at honest men's
+doors; and though your worship knows your own innocence, yet the world
+is censorious, and if your worship should provide for the child it may
+make the people after to believe. If I might be so bold as to give my
+advice, I would have it put in a basket, and sent out and laid at the
+churchwarden's door. It is a good night, only a little rainy and windy,
+and if it was well wrapped up and put in a warm basket, it is two to one
+but it lives till it is found in the morning. But if it should not, we
+have discharged our duty in taking care of it; and it is, perhaps,
+better for such creatures to die in a state of innocence than to grow up
+and imitate their mothers."
+
+But Mr. Allworthy had now got one of his fingers into the infant's hand,
+which, by its gentle pressure, seeming to implore his assistance,
+certainly outpleaded the eloquence of Mrs. Deborah. Mr. Allworthy gave
+positive orders for the child to be taken away and provided with pap and
+other things against it waked. He likewise ordered that proper clothes
+should be procured for it early in the morning, and that it should be
+brought to himself as soon as he was stirring.
+
+Such was the respect Mrs. Wilkins bore her master, under whom she
+enjoyed a most excellent place, that her scruples gave way to his
+peremptory commands, and, declaring the child was a sweet little infant,
+she walked off with it to her own chamber.
+
+Allworthy betook himself to those pleasing slumbers which a heart that
+hungers after goodness is apt to enjoy when thoroughly satisfied.
+
+In the morning Mr. Allworthy told his sister he had a present for her,
+and, when Mrs. Wilkins produced the little infant, told her the whole
+story of its appearance.
+
+Miss Bridget took the good-natured side of the question, intimated some
+compassion for the helpless little creature, and commended her brother's
+charity in what he had done. The good lady subsequently gave orders for
+providing all necessaries for the child, and her orders were indeed so
+liberal that had it been a child of her own she could not have exceeded
+them.
+
+
+_II.--The Foundling Achieves Manhood_
+
+
+Miss Bridget having been asked in marriage by one Captain Blifil, a
+half-pay officer, and the nuptials duly celebrated, Mrs. Blifil was in
+course of time delivered of a fine boy.
+
+Though the birth of an heir to his beloved sister was a circumstance of
+great joy to Mr. Allworthy, yet it did not alienate his affections from
+the little foundling to whom he had been godfather, and had given his
+own name of Thomas; the surname of Jones being added because it was
+believed that was the mother's name.
+
+He told his sister, if she pleased, the newborn infant should be bred up
+together with little Tommy, to which she consented, for she had truly a
+great complaisance for her brother.
+
+The captain, however, could not so easily bring himself to bear what he
+condemned as a fault in Mr. Allworthy; for his meditations being chiefly
+employed on Mr. Allworthy's fortune, and on his hopes of succession, he
+looked on all the instances of his brother-in-law's generosity as
+diminutions of his own wealth.
+
+But one day, while the captain was exulting in the happiness which would
+accrue to him by Mr. Allworthy's death, he himself died of apoplexy.
+
+So the two boys grew up together under the care of Mr. Allworthy and
+Mrs. Blifil, and by the time he was fourteen Tom Jones--who, according
+to universal opinion, was certainly born to be hanged--had been already
+convicted of three robberies--_viz._, of robbing an orchard, of stealing
+a duck out of a farmer's yard, and of picking Master Blifil's pocket of
+a ball.
+
+The vices of this young man were, moreover, heightened by the
+disadvantageous light in which they appeared when opposed to the virtues
+of Master Blifil, his companion. He was, indeed, a lad of remarkable
+disposition--sober, discreet, and pious beyond his age; and many
+expressed their wonder that Mr. Allworthy should suffer such a lad as
+Tom Jones to be educated with his nephew lest the morals of the latter
+should be corrupted by his example.
+
+To say the truth, the whole duck, and great part of the apples, were
+converted to the use of Tom's friend, the gamekeeper, and his family;
+though, as Jones alone was discovered, the poor lad bore not only the
+whole smart, but the whole blame.
+
+Mr. Allworthy had committed the instruction of the two boys to a learned
+divine, the Reverend Mr. Thwackum, who resided in the house; but though
+Mr. Allworthy had given him frequent orders to make no difference
+between the lads, yet was Thwackum altogether as kind and gentle to
+Master Blifil as he was harsh, nay, even barbarous, to the other. In
+truth, Blifil had greatly gained his master's affections; partly by the
+profound respect he always showed his person, but much more by the
+decent reverence with which he received his doctrine, for he had got by
+heart, and frequently repeated, his phrases, and maintained all his
+master's religious principles, with a zeal which was surprising in one
+so young.
+
+Tom Jones, on the other hand, was not only deficient in outward tokens
+of respect, often forgetting to pull off his cap at his master's
+approach, but was altogether unmindful both of his master's precepts and
+example.
+
+At the, age of twenty, however, Tom, for his love of hunting, had become
+a great favourite with Mr. Allworthy's neighbour, Squire Western; and
+Sophia, Mr. Western's only child, lost her heart irretrievably to him
+before she suspected it was in danger. On his side, Tom was truly
+sensible of the great worth of Sophia. He liked her person extremely, no
+less admired her accomplishments, and tenderly loved her goodness. In
+reality, as he had never once entertained any thoughts of possessing
+her, nor had ever given the least voluntary indulgence to his
+inclinations, he had a much stronger passion for her than he himself was
+acquainted with.
+
+An accident occurred on the hunting-field in saving Sophia from her too
+mettlesome horse kept Jones a prisoner for some time in Mr. Western's
+house, and during those weeks he not only found that he loved Sophia
+with an unbounded passion, but he plainly saw the tender sentiments she
+had for him; yet could not this assurance lessen his despair of
+obtaining the consent of her father, nor the horrors which attended his
+pursuit of her by any base or treacherous method.
+
+Hence, at the approach of the young lady, he grew pale; and, if this was
+sudden, started. If his eyes accidentally met hers, the blood rushed
+into his cheeks, and his countenance became all over scarlet. If he
+touched her, his hand, nay, his whole frame, trembled.
+
+All these symptoms escaped the notice of the squire, but not so of
+Sophia. She soon perceived these agitations of mind in Jones, and was at
+no loss to discover the cause; for, indeed, she recognised it in her own
+breast. In a word, she was in love with him to distraction. It was not
+long before Jones was able to attend her to the harpsichord, where she
+would kindly condescend for hours together to charm him with the most
+delicious music.
+
+The news that Mr. Allworthy was dangerously ill (for a servant had
+brought word that he was dying) broke off Tom's stay at Mr. Western's,
+and drove all the thoughts of love out of his head. He hurried instantly
+into the chariot which was sent for him, and ordered the coachman to
+drive with all imaginable haste; nor did the idea of Sophia once occur
+to him on the way.
+
+
+_III.--Tom Jones Falls into Disgrace_
+
+
+On the night when the physician announced that Mr. Allworthy was out of
+danger Jones was thrown into such immoderate excess of rapture by the
+news that he might be truly said to be drunk with joy--an intoxication
+which greatly forwards the effects of wine; and as he was very free,
+too, with the bottle, on this occasion he became very soon literally
+drunk.
+
+Jones had naturally violent animal spirits, and Thwackum, resenting his
+speeches, only the doctor's interposition prevented wrath kindling.
+After which, Jones gave loose to mirth, sang two or three amorous songs,
+and fell into every frantic disorder which unbridled joy is apt to
+inspire; but so far was he from any disposition to quarrel that he was
+ten times better-humoured, if possible, than when he was sober.
+
+Blifil, whose mother had died during her brother's illness, was highly
+offended at a behaviour which was so inconsistent with the sober and
+prudent reserve of his own temper. The recent death of his mother, he
+declared, made such conduct very indecent.
+
+"It would become them better," he said, "to express the exultations of
+their hearts at Mr. Allworthy's recovery in thanksgiving, than in
+drunkenness and riot."
+
+Wine had not so totally overpowered Jones as to prevent him recollecting
+Blifil's loss the moment it was mentioned. He at once offered to shake
+Mr. Blifil by the hand, and begged his pardon, saying his excessive joy
+for Mr. Allworthy's recovery had driven every other thought out of his
+mind.
+
+Blifil scornfully rejected his hand, and with an insulting illusion to
+the misfortune of Jones's birth provoked the latter to blows. The
+scuffle which ensued might have produced mischief had it not been for
+the interference of Thwackum and the physician.
+
+Blifil, however, only waited for an opportunity to be revenged on Jones,
+and the occasion was soon forthcoming when Mr. Allworthy was fully
+recovered from his illness.
+
+Mr. Western had found out that his daughter was in love with Tom Jones,
+and at once decided that she should marry Blifil, to whom Sophia
+professed great abhorrence.
+
+As for Blifil, the success of Jones was much more grievous to him than
+the loss of Sophia, whose estate, indeed, was dearer to him than her
+person.
+
+Mr. Western swore that his daughter shouldn't have a ha'penny, nor the
+twentieth part of a brass farthing, if she married Jones; and Blifil,
+with many sighs, professed to his uncle that he could not bear the
+thought of Sophia being ruined by her preference for Jones.
+
+"This lady, I am sure, will be undone in every sense; for, besides the
+loss of most part of her own fortune, she will be married to a beggar.
+Nay, that is a trifle; for I know him to be one of the worst men in the
+world."
+
+"How?" said Mr. All worthy. "I command you to tell me what you mean."
+
+"You know, sir," said Blifil, "I never disobeyed you. In the very day of
+your utmost danger, when myself and all the family were in tears, he
+filled the house with riot and debauchery. He drank, and sang, and
+roared; and when I gave him a gentle hint of the indecency of his
+actions, he fell into a violent passion, swore many oaths, called me
+rascal, and struck me. I am sure I have forgiven him that long ago. I
+wish I could so easily forget his ingratitude to the best of
+benefactors."
+
+Thwackum was now sent for, and corroborated every circumstance which the
+other had deposed.
+
+Poor Jones was too full of grief at the thought that Western had
+discovered the whole affair between him and Sophia to make any adequate
+defence. He could not deny the charge of drunkenness, and out of modesty
+sunk everything that related particularly to himself.
+
+Mr. Allworthy answered that he was now resolved to banish him from his
+sight for ever. "Your audacious attempt to steal away a young lady calls
+upon me to justify my own character in punishing you. And there is no
+part of your character which I resent more than your ill-treatment of
+that good young man (meaning Blifil), who hath behaved with so much
+tenderness and honour towards you."
+
+A flood of tears now gushed from the eyes of Jones, and every faculty of
+speech and motion seemed to have deserted him. It was some time before
+he was able to obey Allworthy's peremptory commands of departing, which
+he at length did, having first kissed his hands with a passion difficult
+to be affected, and as difficult to be described.
+
+Mr. Allworthy, however, did not permit him to leave the house penniless,
+but presented him with a note for £500. He then commanded him to go
+immediately, and told Jones that his clothes, and everything else,
+should be sent to him whithersoever he should order them.
+
+Jones had hardly set out, which he did with feelings of agony and
+despair, before Sophia Western decided that only in flight could she be
+saved from marriage with the detested Blifil.
+
+Mr. Western, in spite of tremendous love for his daughter, thought her
+inclinations of as little consequence as Blifil himself conceived them
+to be; and Mr. Allworthy, who said "he would on no account be accessory
+to forcing a young lady into a marriage contrary to her own will," was
+satisfied by his nephew's disingenuous statement that the young lady's
+behaviour to him was full as forward as he wished it.
+
+Sophia, having appointed her maid to meet her at a certain place not far
+from the house, exactly at the ghostly and dreadful hour of twelve,
+began to prepare for her own departure.
+
+But first she was obliged to give a painful audience to her father, and
+he treated her in so violent and outrageous a manner that he frightened
+her into an affected compliance with his will, which so highly pleased
+the good squire that he at once changed his frowns into smiles, and his
+menaces into promises.
+
+He vowed his whole soul was wrapped in hers, that her consent had made
+him the happiest of mankind.
+
+He then gave her a large bank-bill to dispose of in any trinkets she
+pleased, and kissed and embraced her in the fondest manner.
+
+Sophia reverenced her father piously and loved him passionately, but the
+thoughts of her beloved Jones quickly destroyed all the regretful
+promptings of filial love.
+
+
+_IV.--Tom Jones's Restoration_
+
+
+After many adventures on the road Mr. Jones reached London; and as he
+had often heard Mr. Allworthy mention the gentlewoman at whose house in
+Bond Street he used to lodge when he was in town, he sought the house,
+and was soon provided with a room there on the second floor. Mrs.
+Miller, the person who let these lodgings, was the widow of a clergyman,
+and Mr. Allworthy had settled an annuity of £50 a year on her, "in
+consideration of always having her first floor when he was in town."
+
+Tom Jones's fortunes were now very soon at the lowest. Having been
+forced into a quarrel in the streets with an acquaintance named
+Fitzpatrick, and having wounded him with his sword, a number of fellows
+rushed in and carried Jones off to the civil magistrate, who, being
+informed that the wound appeared to be mortal, straightway committed the
+prisoner to the Gatehouse.
+
+Sophia Western was also in London at the house of her aunt; and soon
+afterwards Mr. Western, Mr. Allworthy, and Blifil all reached the city.
+
+It was just at this time that Mr. Allworthy, consenting to his nephew
+once more offering himself to Sophia, came with Blifil to his accustomed
+lodgings in Bond Street. Mrs. Miller, to whom Jones had showed many
+kindnesses, at once put in a good word for the unfortunate young man;
+and, on Blifil exulting over the manslaughter Jones was alleged to have
+committed, declared that the wounded man, whoever he was, was in fault.
+This, indeed, was shortly afterwards corroborated by Fitzpatrick
+himself, who acknowledged his mistake.
+
+But it was not till Mr. Allworthy discovered that Blifil had been
+arranging with a lawyer to get the men who had arrested Jones to bear
+false witness, and learnt further that Tom Jones was his sister
+Bridget's child, and that on her death-bed Mrs. Blifil's message to her
+brother confessing the fact had been suppressed by her son, that his old
+feelings of affection for Tom Jones returned. Before setting out to
+visit Jones in the prison Mr. Allworthy called on Sophia to inform her
+that he regretted Blifil had ever been encouraged to give her annoyance,
+and that Mr. Jones was his nephew and his heir.
+
+Men over-violent in their dispositions are, for the most part, as
+changeable in them. No sooner was Western informed of Mr. Allworthy's
+intention to make Jones his heir than he joined heartily with the uncle
+in every commendation of the nephew, and became as eager for his
+daughter's marriage with Jones as he had before been to couple her to
+Blifil.
+
+Fitzpatrick being recovered of his wound, and admitting the aggression,
+Jones was released from custody and returned to his lodgings to meet Mr.
+Allworthy.
+
+It is impossible to conceive a more tender or moving scene than this
+meeting between the uncle and nephew. Allworthy received Jones into his
+arms. "O my child!" he cried, "how have I been to blame! How have I
+injured you! What amends can I ever make you for those unkind
+suspicions which I have entertained, and for all the sufferings they
+have occasioned you?"
+
+"Am I not now made amends?" cried Jones. "Would not my sufferings, had
+they been ten times greater, have been now richly repaid?"
+
+Here the conversation was interrupted by the arrival of Western, who
+could no longer be kept away even by the authority of Allworthy himself.
+Western immediately went up to Jones, crying out, "My old friend Tom, I
+am glad to see thee, with all my heart. All past must be forgotten. Come
+along with me; I'll carry thee to thy mistress this moment."
+
+Here Allworthy interposed; and the squire was obliged to consent to
+delay introducing Jones to Sophia till the afternoon.
+
+Blifil, now thoroughly exposed in his treachery, was at first sullen and
+silent, balancing in his mind whether he should yet deny all; but
+finding at last the evidence too strong against him, betook himself to
+confession, and was now as remarkably mean as he had been before
+remarkably wicked. Mr. Allworthy subsequently settled £200 a year upon
+him, to which Jones hath privately added a third. Upon this income
+Blifil lives in one of the northern counties. He is also lately turned
+Methodist, in hopes of marrying a very rich widow of that sect. Sophia
+would not at first permit any promise of an immediate engagement with
+Jones because of certain stories of his inconstancy, but Mr. Western
+refused to hear of any delay.
+
+"To-morrow or next day?" says Western, bursting into the room where
+Sophia and Jones were alone.
+
+"Indeed, sir," says she, "I have no such intention."
+
+"But I can tell thee," replied he, "why hast not; only because thou dost
+love to be disobedient, and to plague and vex thy father. When I forbid
+her, then it was all nothing but sighing and whining, and languishing
+and writing; now I am for thee--(this to Jones)--she is against thee.
+All the spirit of contrary, that's all. She is above being guided and
+governed by her father, that is the whole truth on't. It is only to
+disoblige and contradict me."
+
+"What would my papa have me do?" cries Sophia.
+
+"What would I ha' thee do?" says he, "why gee un thy hand this moment."
+
+"Well, sir," said Sophia, "I will obey you. There is my hand, Mr.
+Jones."
+
+"Well, and will you consent to ha' un to-morrow morning?" says Western.
+
+"I will be obedient to you, sir," cries she.
+
+"Why, then, to-morrow morning be the day," cries he.
+
+"Why, then, to-morrow morning shall be the day, papa, since you will
+have it so," said Sophia. Jones then fell upon his knees and kissed her
+hand in an agony of joy, while Western began to caper and dance about
+the room, presently crying out, "Where the devil is Allworthy?" He then
+sallied out in quest of him, and very opportunely left the lovers to
+enjoy a few tender minutes alone.
+
+But he soon returned with Allworthy, saying, "If you won't believe me,
+you may ask her yourself. Hast not gin thy consent, Sophy, to be married
+to-morrow?"
+
+"Such are your commands, sir," cries Sophia, "and I dare not be guilty
+of disobedience."
+
+"I hope there is not the least constraint," cries Allworthy.
+
+"Why, there," cried Western, "you may bid her unsay all again if you
+will. Dost repent heartily of thy promise, dost not, Sophy?"
+
+"Indeed, papa," cried she. "I do not repent, nor do I believe I ever
+shall, of any promise in favour of Mr. Jones."
+
+"Then, nephew," cries Allworthy, "I felicitate you most heartily, for I
+think you are the happiest of men."
+
+Mr. Allworthy, Mr. Western, and Mrs. Miller were the only persons
+present at the wedding, and within two days of that event Mr. Jones and
+Sophia attended Mr. Western and Mr. Allworthy into the country.
+
+There is not a neighbour or a servant, who doth not most gratefully
+bless the day when Mr. Jones was married to Sophia.
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+CAMILLE FLAMMARION
+
+
+Urania
+
+
+     Camille Flammarion is one of the most remarkable of modern
+     French scientists. Born on February 25, 1842, he was
+     apprenticed at an early age to an engraver, but, attracted by
+     astronomy, he studied so well that, when a lad of sixteen, he
+     was admitted as a pupil to the Paris Observatory. There is no
+     doubt that the great French mathematician, Le Verrier,
+     regarded Flammarion with a certain disdain as more of a poet
+     than an astronomer; but he soon vindicated, by several
+     important discoveries, his title to be regarded as a man of
+     science. "Urania," which appeared in 1889, is an excellent
+     example of his ability as a thinker, and of his charm as a
+     writer. The work is hardly a novel, though it is far more
+     popular than many books of fiction. It is really an essay in
+     philosophy dealing with the question of the immortality of the
+     soul; and it has an especial interest for English readers
+     owing to the fact that much in it that seems to be pure
+     fantasy is based on researches undertaken by the British
+     Society for Psychical Research. The plot and the characters
+     are of secondary importance; they are only used for the
+     purpose of illustrating certain ideas.
+
+
+_I.--The Muse of Astronomy_
+
+
+I was seventeen years old when I fell in love with Urania. Was she a
+fair, young, blue-eyed daughter of Eve? No; she was an exquisite statue
+of the Muse of Astronomy, chiselled by Pradier in the days of the
+Empire. She stood on the mantelpiece in the study of the famous
+mathematician, Le Verrier, who directed the Paris Observatory, where I
+was working. At four o'clock in the afternoon my illustrious chief used
+to depart, and I would then steal into his room and sit down before
+Urania and dream of lovelier worlds than ours, hidden in the infinite
+spaces of the starry sky. Sometimes my friend and companion in studies,
+Georges Spero, would come and sit beside me; and, inspired by the
+immortal beauty of Urania, we would let our young and ardent
+imaginations play over the glories and wonders of the heavens.
+
+"You will be too late for Jupiter," said Le Verrier, entering
+unexpectedly one evening, and catching me in an attitude of adoration
+before Urania. "I am afraid you are more of a poet than an astronomer."
+
+The great man of science himself certainly did not love beauty as much
+as he loved wisdom, for the next day he sold the lovely image of Urania
+in order to buy an old Chinese astronomical clock. I was almost
+heartbroken when I entered his room and found that Urania had
+disappeared. With her had gone the vivifying power of imagination which
+had transmuted the abstruse calculations on which I was engaged into
+glimpses of heavenly visions of infinite life. With what wild joy then
+did I see, when I returned home, Urania shining in all her loveliness on
+my own mantelpiece. Knowing my love for the beautiful figure of the
+muse, Georges Spero had bought it back from the watchmaker to whom Le
+Verrier had sent it, and placed it in my room as a gift.
+
+It was an extraordinary mark of friendship, for Georges loved Urania
+even more passionately than I did. To him she was the personification of
+everything in life that lifted man above the level of the brute.
+
+Possessing a nobler and finer intellect than mine, he had thrown himself
+into the study of the problems of the soul with a fury of passion and a
+concentration of thought that almost killed him. Are our souls immortal,
+or do they perish with our bodies? This was the question that tormented
+him to madness. One night I found him sitting in his room in the Place
+du Panthéon with a glass of poison in his hand.
+
+"This is the quickest road to the knowledge I want," he said, with a
+smile. "I shall soon know if the soul is immortal."
+
+He had been dissecting a skull; and by his side was a microscope with
+which he had been studying the grey matter of the brain. Convinced at
+last of the uncertainty of the positive sciences, he had fallen into
+violent despair. But Urania was at hand to comfort him, and his mind
+became calmer and clearer when we ceased to talk about earthly things,
+and ascended into high regions of philosophic speculation over which the
+muse of heaven presides.
+
+"Ah, Camille," he exclaimed, "the Uranian way is the best. It is only by
+studying the heavens that we shall be able to understand this little
+earth of ours, and the part we play in it. Look at the midnight sky,
+streaming with the light of infinite suns, and filled with an unending
+procession of worlds in which the spirit of life clothes itself in an
+unimaginable variety of forms. This clot of dust on which we live will
+grow cold, and break and scatter in the abysses of space. But it is not
+our home; we are only passengers, and when our journey here is done,
+fairer mansions are waiting for us in the depths of the sky. If I die
+before you, I will return and convince you of this truth."
+
+Returning to the study of astronomy, Spero built up a system of
+philosophy which made him, at the age of twenty-five, one of the most
+famous men in France.
+
+
+_II.--Love and Death_
+
+
+By way of relief from his severer work, Georges Spero resolved to go to
+Norway and study the wild and beautiful phenomena of the Aurora
+Borealis, and I went with him. One morning, as we were standing on a
+mountain looking at a magnificent sunrise, I saw a girl climbing a
+neighbouring peak. She did not perceive us; but when she reached the
+summit the image of Spero was thrown on a cloud in front of her, by one
+of those curious plays of sunlight and mist which sometimes occur in
+hazy, mountainous regions. His fine, austere features and graceful
+figure were enlarged into a vast, god-like apparition, with a halo of
+bright colours shining like a glory around his head, and a fainter
+circle of rainbow hues framing his whole form. It was the first anthelia
+that the lovely girl had seen, and it filled her with wonder and awe.
+
+Theirs was a strange courtship--Spero's and Iclea's. The lovely young
+Norwegian lady had recently lost her mother, and being, like many of the
+cultivated women of Northern Europe, somewhat dubious of the dogmas of
+religion, she had found death a terrible mystery when it was thus
+brought sharply home to her. She was wandering in the dreadful labyrinth
+of modern doubt, vainly seeking to forget her trouble in the excitements
+of mountaineering, when she saw the unearthly apparition of the young
+French philosopher. A study of his works heightened the feeling of awe
+with which she already regarded him. At first there was no room for love
+in the passionate desire after knowledge which drew her to him. She was
+merely a disciple sitting at the feet of the great master. Accompanied
+by her father, she continued her studies under him when he returned to
+Paris, and for three months they were bound together wholly by
+intellectual interest. For several hours every day they studied side by
+side, and much of Iclea's time was spent in translating papers in
+foreign languages, bearing on subjects in which Georges was interested.
+One morning he arrived earlier than usual, his eyes shining with joy.
+
+"I have settled the problem," he cried, leaning against the mantelpiece.
+"At least," he added, with his usual modesty, "I have settled it to my
+own satisfaction."
+
+Striding up and down the room, he rapidly sketched out a system of
+philosophy in which the ultimate truths of modern science were
+transformed into the bases of religion. Iclea listened to him in silence
+as he went on to explain the spiritual forces still dormant in the human
+soul.
+
+"We are still in our spiritual infancy," he said. "It is scarcely four
+thousand years since mankind began to manifest its higher powers. Our
+greatest conquests over nature are all of recent date, and they are the
+work of a few noble souls who have erected themselves above the animal
+conditions of life. The reign of brute force is over, and I am certain
+that as soon as we learn to exercise the powers of our soul we shall
+acquire transcendental faculties that will enable us to transport
+ourselves from one world to another."
+
+"That, too, is my belief," said Iclea.
+
+Georges bent over her and gazed into her eyes of heavenly blue through
+which her very soul was speaking. There was a strange silence, and then
+their lips met.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+For some months I lost sight of my two friends. In the ecstasy of their
+love they forgot for a while the problems of philosophy which had
+brought them together. The joys of intellectual communion were submerged
+and almost lost in the new, strange feeling which crowned and glorified
+their lives. Hand in hand the lovers wandered about Paris, which had now
+become to them a city in fairyland. Meeting them one evening on the
+banks of the Seine, I learned that they were returning to Norway with
+Iclea's father, and that they were to be married at Christiania on the
+anniversary of the mysterious apparition on the mountain which had
+brought them together. Georges was about to resume his interrupted
+studies of the Aurora Borealis, which he wished to trace to its source
+by means of a balloon ascent, and Iclea intended to accompany him in his
+voyage through the air.
+
+To my great regret I was unable to go with them to Norway, as my duties
+as an astronomer kept me in Paris. I anxiously awaited that
+extraordinary agitation of the magnetic needle which announces the
+existence of an Aurora Borealis in Northern Europe. When at last the
+magnetic perturbation occurred in the observatory, I rejoiced to think
+that Spero and his bride were floating high, feasting their eyes on the
+most gorgeous of spectacles.
+
+But suddenly an indefinable feeling of uneasiness came over me, which
+grew into a dreadful presentiment of disaster. Long before the telegram
+arrived from Christiania I knew what had happened. Georges and Iclea
+were dead!
+
+Every reader of the newspapers next morning knew as much as I did. An
+escape of gas which could not be stopped sent the balloon hurtling to
+the earth. Spero threw everything movable out of the car in a vain
+attempt to lighten it and break the force of the descent. The balloon
+still kept falling; then Iclea, with a wild courage born of love, saved
+Georges' life by leaping out of the car. Relieved of her weight, the
+balloon rose up, but Spero had now no wish to live. He jumped out with a
+wild cry, and his body crashed on the edge of the lake into which Iclea
+had fallen. There the mortal remains of the two lovers now lie, covered
+by a single stone. But where were their souls?
+
+One night Georges Spero remembered his promise to me, and returned to
+earth.
+
+
+_III.--A Soul from Mars_
+
+
+Sitting alone on the top of the ancient castle of Montlhéry, I was
+conducting an experiment in optics by means of electrical communications
+with two assistants at Paris and Juvisy. I was trying to find out if the
+rays of different colours in the spectrum travel at the same rate. It
+was just on midnight before I brought the experiment to a successful
+conclusion. As I covered up my instruments, some one said, "You would
+not have brought that off, Camille, if it had not been for me. I gave
+you the idea of comparing the violet vibrations with the red."
+
+I turned round with a cry of fear. Georges Spero was sitting in the
+moonlight on the parapet, looking at me with a smile.
+
+"Are you afraid of me, Camille?" he said.
+
+"You, Georges! You!" I stammered. "Is it really you? Keep still, and let
+me touch you."
+
+I put my hands on his face, and stroked his hair, and felt his body. I
+could no longer doubt that I had him before me in the actual flesh, but
+he read my thoughts.
+
+"You are mistaken, Camille," he said. "My real body is asleep on Mars."
+
+"So you still live?" I exclaimed. "You have solved the great problem.
+And Iclea?"
+
+"Let us sit here and talk," he replied. "There are many things I want to
+tell you."
+
+My fears had vanished, and I sat by my beloved friend.
+
+"It seemed to me," said Georges, "that my fall from the balloon knocked
+me senseless. When I came to, I was lying in the darkness with the
+ripple of lake-water breaking on my ear. What amazed me was a strange
+sense of lightness that made me feel I could rise up and float away if I
+wanted to. Thinking this was a disorder of the mind, I did not attempt
+to move, but watched with wondering eyes the sky above me. It was
+lighted by two strange moons. When the day broke, and showed around me a
+world of unimaginable splendour, I knew the meaning of the two moons and
+of my strange feeling of lightness. I was a disembodied spirit that had
+been transported to Mars.
+
+"Do you know, Camille, that the soul is able to choose its mortal
+covering? This is, at least, the case on Mars. For some time I wandered
+about in an invisible form, studying the conditions of life there.
+Animal strength, I found, counted for nothing. The Martians are an
+aerial race, with exquisite senses, which respond in a way unknown on
+earth to spiritual influences. Do you remember I read your thoughts when
+we first met, and answered them before you spoke? That is one of the
+Martians' gifts. Finding that these wonderful faculties were better
+developed in the women of Mars than in the men, I chose the feminine
+form for my reincarnation."
+
+"And Iclea?" I said.
+
+"Iclea," said Spero, "was re-born in a masculine shape. It was partly
+because of the mystic attraction that I felt for her that I chose the
+other form. Neither of us remembered our earthly existence, but a vague
+yet deep sentiment of our spiritual relationship made me seek her out
+and unite myself to her. It was your beloved muse Uriana," he added,
+"who revealed the ties that bound us in our former lives.
+
+"Owing to their superior faculties, the Martians have carried every
+science to a perfection undreamt of on this earth. In astronomical
+observations, for instance, they employ a system of telephotography. For
+thousands of years their instruments have been photographing, on an
+unending roll of paper, the wild spectacle of terrestrial life.
+
+"One day, as Iclea and I were examining recent photographs, we saw a
+picture of Paris during the Great Exhibition. Seizing a microscope, we
+looked at the figures, and recognised ourselves among them. Strange
+memories stirred within us, and we stared at each other in silent
+amazement. Suddenly I remembered the sacred words I learnt at my
+mother's knee. Yes, there were many mansions in our Father's house! The
+blood-stained planet from which we had escaped was neither the cradle
+nor the grave of His children.
+
+"Then we wept as we thought of the cruelty, ignorance, misery, and
+grossness of existence on earth. It was, dear Camille, with no joy that
+I recollected the promise I had made to you. But, you see, I have
+carried it out. I wish to convince you, and, through you, all the rest
+of mankind, that the soul is immortal, and that the earth is only a
+temporary stage of existence in a spiritual progress in which the whole
+universe is included."
+
+"But how is it possible for you, Georges," I interrupted, "to appear to
+me in the body you wore on earth?"
+
+"All this," said Spero, touching his body, "is an illusion. Do you not
+recollect my saying that only invisible things are real? You do not see
+me with your eyes, or feel me with your hands, as you think you do. The
+impression which you have of my presence is born of the influence which
+my mind is exerting in an invisible way on your mind. Can't you
+understand? It is a kind of hypnotism. At the present moment, as I have
+said, I am lying asleep on Mars, but my spirit is in direct
+communication with yours. The form you see sitting beside you on this
+parapet is only an illusion of your senses. My soul is speaking to your
+soul."
+
+"But could you not," I said, "give me some description of life on Mars?"
+
+"A dream," he replied, "would be more vivid than a mere description,
+though it would only be a shadow of the reality. For since you have not,
+my dear friend, our exquisite faculties of knowledge, your mind could
+not clearly mirror our life. Hark! Iclea is awake, and calling me. I
+cannot stay any longer. Shut your eyes, and I will send you a dream."
+
+I turned to say good-bye, but Spero had vanished. A deep drowsiness fell
+upon me, and just as I got off the parapet and found a safer position I
+fell asleep.
+
+
+_IV.--The Eternal Progress_
+
+
+I was sitting under a strange tree covered with gigantic red flowers. In
+the sky above me were two moons that shed a dim brightness on the lovely
+and fantastic scenery. A multitude of radiant shapes fluttered and
+darted through the air. They were Martians--exquisite, aerial, and
+divinely beautiful figures glowing with luminous tints. Airy gondolas,
+which seemed to be fashioned from phosphorescent flowers, passed above
+my head, and one of them floated down to the tree under which I was
+lying. In it were Iclea and Georges, but etherealised beyond the reach
+of human imagination.
+
+They took me in their flying chariot as day was breaking, and we
+coursed, with a strange silent interchange of thoughts, over the
+orange-coloured land of Mars. I could not understand everything which
+was communicated to me, now by Iclea and now by Georges; but I perceived
+that all manual labour on the planet was done by means of machines
+directed by animals whose intelligence was on a level with my own. The
+Martians themselves lived only for the things of the mind; they had
+twelve senses instead of five, and their bodies, in which electricity
+played the part that blood does in our systems, were so finely and yet
+so strongly organised that they possessed an extraordinary power over
+the forces of nature. Everything on their world, seas, mountains and
+rivers were like their wonderful canals, works of art and science.
+Nature was completely plastic in their hands. There was no poverty and
+no crime. Deriving their food from the air which they breathe, the
+Martians were liberated from material cares and immersed in the joys of
+intellectual pursuits.
+
+"You now see, Camille," said Spero, resorting at last to language which
+I could clearly understand, "that life on Mars has developed as
+peacefully and nobly as it began. There is no break between our
+vegetable kingdom and our animal kingdom. We are nourished, like your
+plants, trees, and herbs, by the air which we breathe. Ten million years
+ago your world was also a scene of innocence and tranquil felicity. The
+land was overgrown with a wildly beautiful vegetation that fed on the
+gentle winds of heaven, and primitive forms of animal life had spread
+from the depths of the sea along the shallow shores, and were there
+learning to extract from the air a nourishment similar to that which
+they obtained from the water. But by a woeful chance, one of your
+primitive animals--a deaf, blind, sexless clot of jelly--then had its
+body pierced by a drop of sea-water thicker than usual, and it found
+that this way of feeding was quicker than simple respiration. Such was
+the origin of the first digestive tube, which has exercised so baleful
+an influence on the course of terrestrial life, and turned the earth
+into a vast slaughterhouse."
+
+"Is there no hope for us?" I said.
+
+"No," he replied; "the earth is a shipwrecked planet. None of the higher
+organisms there will ever rise to our level. How can they alter the
+structure of their bodies, and empty their veins of blood, and fill them
+with the subtle electricity which serves us as a life force? And the
+grossness of their blood-fed senses! How can all the fine powers of the
+immortal soul ever develop along with such degraded instruments of
+knowledge?"
+
+"But even if our earth is a shipwrecked planet," I exclaimed, "there is
+at least some means of escaping from it. You and Iclea, for instance----"
+
+"Yes, there is a way of escape," said Spero, "the Uranian way. By
+soaring aloft into the serene region of spiritual ideas, a terrestrial
+soul can still free itself from its animality. Some save themselves by
+their high moral qualities, others are purified and uplifted by their
+imagination and intellect. Virtue and science are the wings that enable
+earth-born spirits to mount the skies. The destiny of a soul is
+determined by its works and aspirations. Lovers of knowledge sojourn
+awhile on Mars, which is only the first stage in the eternal progress.
+Spirits animated by divine feelings rise at once into high regions of
+starry splendour. The Uranian way is open to all, and the day will
+arrive when every inhabitant of your wild, dark planet will recognise
+that he, too, is a citizen of heaven. Then Urania will at last inspire
+and direct him, and point out the path by which he can ascend from the
+blood-stained earth to the fairer mansions prepared for him in the
+skies."
+
+As he was speaking our aerial chariot floated down to a fairy palace by
+the shore of an enchanted sea. I alighted; and a radiant, flower-like
+maiden, who was standing by the portal, unfolded her rainbow wings and
+shadowed me with them, and murmured, "Do you wish to return to earth?"
+
+"No," I cried, running up to clasp her in my arms.
+
+I awoke with a sudden shock. I was lying on the top of the tower of
+Montlhéry; the sun was rising, and the vast circle of country below me
+shone clear and distinct in the morning light.
+
+"Was it a dream?" I said to myself. "Surely not. The earth is not the
+only home of life in the universe. Urania, the celestial muse, is now
+unfolding before our astonished eyes the panoramas of infinity, and we
+know at last that we are not the children of the earth, but citizens of
+the heavens."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+DE LA MOTTE FOUQUÉ
+
+
+Undine
+
+
+     Friedrich Heinrich Karl Fouqué, Baron de la Motte, was born at
+     Brandenburg, in Prussia, Feb. 12, 1777, and died in Berlin
+     January 23, 1843. The mixed nationality indicated by his name
+     is accounted for by his descent from a French Huguenot family.
+     He served as a Prussian cavalryman in the two campaigns
+     against Napoleon of 1792 and 1813, but during the long
+     interval between devoted himself actively to intellectual
+     culture and literary pursuits. He began his career as an
+     author by translating the "Numancia" of Cervantes, but his
+     admiration of the ancient Norse sagas and the old German
+     legends led him into the composition of exquisitely beautiful
+     and tender, though exceedingly fantastic, romances which
+     speedily gained immense popularity. In these productions fairy
+     and magical elements predominate. His masterpiece is "Undine,"
+     published in 1814, the other best-known works being "Sintram,"
+     "Aslauga's Knight," and "The Two Captains." In all Fouqué's
+     stories the marks of genius appear in his brilliant
+     imagination and pure and fascinating diction.
+
+
+_I.--The Water Sprite_
+
+
+About a century ago an aged fisherman sat mending his nets by his
+cottage door, in front of a lovely lake. Behind his dwelling stretched a
+sombre forest, reputed to be haunted by goblin creatures. Through this
+gloomy solitude the pious old fisherman frequently passed, religiously
+dispelling all terrors by singing hymns as he went with his fish to a
+town near the border of the forest.
+
+One evening he heard the sound of a horse's hoofs, and presently
+appeared a knight riding on a splendid steed, and clad in resplendent
+armour. The stranger stopped, and besought shelter for the night, and
+the good old fisherman accorded him a most cheery welcome, taking him
+into the cottage, where sat his aged wife by a scanty fire. Soon the
+three were freely conversing. The knight told of his travels and
+revealed that he was Sir Huldbrand of Ringstetten, where he had a castle
+by the Rhine.
+
+A splash against the window surprising the guest he was informed by his
+host, with some little show of vexation, that little tricks were often
+played by a foster-child of the old couple, named Undine, a girl of
+eighteen.
+
+The door flew open, and a lovely girl glided, laughing, into the room.
+Without the slightest token of shyness she gazed at the knight for a few
+moments, then asked why he had come to the poor cottage.
+
+"Have you come through the wild forest?"
+
+He confessed that he had, and she instantly demanded a recital of his
+adventures. With a slight shudder at his own recollections of the
+strange creatures he had encountered, Huldbrand consented, but a reproof
+from the fisherman at her obtrusiveness angered Undine. The girl sprang
+up and rushed forth into the night, exclaiming, "Sleep alone in your
+smoky old hut!"
+
+In great alarm, the fisherman and Huldbrand rose to follow the girl, but
+she had vanished in the darkness. Remarking that she had acted so
+before, the old fisherman invited Huldbrand to sit by the fire and talk
+awhile, and began to relate how Undine had come to live with them.
+
+The couple had lost their only child, a wonderfully beautiful little
+girl. At the age of three, when sitting in her mother's lap at the edge
+of the lake, she seemed to be attracted by some lovely apparition in the
+water, for, suddenly stretching out her hands and laughing, she had in a
+moment sprung into the lake. No trace of the child could ever be found.
+But the same evening a lovely little girl, three or four years old, with
+water streaming from her golden tresses, suddenly entered the cottage,
+smiling sweetly at the fisherman and his wife. They hastily undressed
+the little stranger and put her to bed. She uttered not a word, but
+simply smiled. In the morning she talked a little, confusedly telling
+how she had been in a boat on the lake with her mother, and had fallen
+in, and could recollect nothing more. She could say nothing as to who
+she was or whence she came. But she talked often of golden castles and
+crystal domes.
+
+While the fisherman was talking thus to the knight, he was suddenly
+interrupted by the noise of rushing water. Floods seemed to be bursting
+forth, and he and his guest, going hastily to the door, saw by the
+moonlight that the brook which issued from the forest was surging in a
+wild torrent over its margin, while a roaring wind was lashing the lake.
+In great alarm both shouted, "Undine! Undine!" But there was no
+response, and the two ran off in different directions in search of the
+fugitive.
+
+It was Huldbrand who discovered the girl. Clambering down some rocks at
+the edge of the stream, thinking Undine might have fallen there, he was
+hailed by the sweet voice of the girl herself.
+
+"Venture not," she cried. "The old man of the stream is full of tricks."
+
+Looking across at a tiny isle in the stream, the knight saw her nestling
+in the grass, smiling, and in an instant he had crossed.
+
+"The fisherman is distressed at your absence," said he. "Let us go
+back."
+
+Looking at him with her beautiful blue eyes, the girl replied. "If you
+think so, well; whatever you think is right to me."
+
+Taking Undine in his arms, Huldbrand bore her over the stream to the
+cottage, where she was received with joy. Dawn was breaking, and
+breakfast was prepared under the trees. Undine flung herself on the
+grass at Huldbrand's feet, and at her renewed request the knight told
+the story of his forest adventures.
+
+"It is now about eight days since I rode into the city on the other side
+of the forest to join in a great tournament. In one of the intervals
+between the jousts I noticed a lovely lady among the spectators. I
+learned that she was Bertalda, foster-daughter of a great duke, and each
+evening I became her partner in the dances.
+
+"This Bertalda was a wayward girl, and each day pleased me less and
+less; but I continued in her company, and asked her jestingly to give me
+a glove. She said she would do so if I would explore alone the haunted
+forest. As an honourable knight I could not decline the challenge, and
+yesterday I set out on the enterprise. Before I had penetrated very far
+within the glades, I saw what looked like a bear in the branches of an
+oak; but the creature, in a harsh, human voice, growled that it was
+getting branches with which to roast me at night. My horse was scared at
+this, and other grim apparitions, but at last I emerged from the forest,
+and saw the lake and this cottage."
+
+When he had finished, the fisherman spoke of the best way by which the
+visitor could return to the city; but, with sly laughter, Undine
+declared that the knight could not depart, for if he attempted now to
+cross the deluged wood, he would be overwhelmed.
+
+
+_II.--"I Have No Soul!"_
+
+
+Huldbrand, detained at the cottage by the increasing overflow of the
+stream, enjoyed the most perfect satisfaction with his sojourn.
+
+The old folks with pleasure regarded the two young people as being
+betrothed, and Huldbrand assumed that he was accepted by the girl, whom
+he had come to look upon as not being in reality one of this poor
+household, but one of some illustrious family, and when, one evening, an
+aged priest appeared at the cottage, driven in by the storm, Huldbrand
+addressed to him a request that he should on the spot at once unite him
+and the maiden, as they were pledged to each other. A discussion arose,
+but matters were at length settled, and the old wife produced two
+consecrated tapers. Lighting these, the priest, with brief, solemn
+ceremony, celebrated the nuptials.
+
+Undine had been quiet and grave during these proceedings, but a singular
+change took place in her demeanour as soon as the rite had been
+performed. She began at intervals to indulge in wild freaks, teasing the
+priest, and indulging in a variety of silly tricks. At length the priest
+gently expostulated with Undine, exhorting her so to attune her soul
+that it might always be in concord with that of her husband.
+
+Her reply amazed the listeners, for she said, "If one has no soul, as I
+have none, what is there to harmonise?" Then she burst into a fit of
+passionate weeping, to the consternation of all the little company. As
+she again and again wept, the priest, fearing that she was possessed by
+some evil spirit, sought to exorcise it. The priest turned to the
+bridegroom with the assurance that he could discover nothing evil in the
+bride, mysterious though her behaviour was, and he commended him to be
+loving and true to her.
+
+The next morning Undine, when she and her husband made their appearance,
+responded gracefully to the paternal greeting of the priest, beseeching
+his pardon for her folly of the previous evening, and begging him to
+pray for the good of her soul. Through the whole day Undine behaved
+angelically. She was kind, quiet, and gentle. At eventide she led her
+husband out to the edge of the stream, which, to the wonder of
+Huldbrand, had subsided into gentle, rippling waves.
+
+She whispered, "Carry me across to that little isle, and we will decide
+there."
+
+Wondering, he carried her across, and, laying her on the turf, listened
+as she began.
+
+"My loved one, know that there are strange beings which, though seeming
+almost mortals, are rarely visible to human eyes--salamanders in the
+flames, gnomes down in the earth, spirits in the air. And in the water
+are myriads of spirits dwelling in crystal domes, in the coral-trees,
+and in the lovely shells. These are far more beautiful than the fairest
+of human beings, and sometimes a fisherman has seen a tender mermaid,
+and has listened to her song. Such wonderful creatures are called
+Undines, and one of these you see now before you!
+
+"We should be far superior to other beings--for we consider ourselves
+human--but for one defect. We have no souls, and nothing remains of us
+after this mortal life is over. Yet every being aspires to rise higher,
+and so my father, who is a great water prince in the Mediterranean Sea,
+desired that his only daughter should become possessed of a soul. But
+this can only come to pass with loving union with one of your race. Now,
+O my dearly beloved, I have to thank you that I am gifted with a soul,
+and it will be due to you should all my life be made wretched. For what
+will become of me if you forsake me? If you would do so, do it now! Then
+I will plunge into the stream--which is my uncle--and as he brought me
+here, so will he take me back to my parents, a loving, suffering woman
+with a soul."
+
+Undine would have said yet more, but Huldbrand, astonishing though the
+recital was, with tears and kisses vowed he would never leave his lovely
+wife; and with her leaning in loving trustfulness on his arm, they
+returned to the hut.
+
+The next day, at Undine's strange urgency, farewell was said with bitter
+tears and lamentations.
+
+Undine was placed on the beautiful horse, and Huldbrand and the priest
+walked on either side as the three passed through the solemn glades of
+the wood. A fourth soon joined them. He was dressed in a white robe,
+like that of the priest, and presently attempted to speak to Undine. But
+she shrank from him, declaring she wished to have nothing to do with
+him.
+
+"Oh, oh!" cried the stranger, with a laugh. "What kind of a marriage is
+this you have made, that you must not speak to your relative? Do you not
+know I am your uncle Kühleborn, who brought you to this region, and that
+I am here to protect you from goblins and sprites? So let me quietly
+accompany you."
+
+"We are near the end of the forest, and shall not need you further," was
+her rejoinder. But he grinned at her so frightfully that she shrieked
+for help, and the knight aimed at his head a blow from his sword.
+Instantly Kühleborn was transformed into a gushing waterfall, foaming
+over them from a rock near by and drenching all three.
+
+
+_III.--"Woe! Woe!"_
+
+
+The sudden disappearance of the young knight had caused a sensation in
+the city, for the duke and duchess, and the friends and servants of
+Huldbrand, feared he had perished in the forest during the terrible
+tempest When he suddenly reappeared, all rejoiced except Bertalda, who
+was profoundly vexed at seeing with him a beautiful bride. She so far
+reconciled herself to the conditions that a warm friendship sprang up
+between Undine and herself.
+
+It was agreed that Bertalda should accompany the wedded pair to
+Ringstetten, and with the consent of the noble foster-parents of
+Bertalda the three appointed a day for departure. One beautiful evening,
+as they walked about the market-place round the great fountain, suddenly
+a tall man emerged from among the people and stopped in front of Undine.
+He quickly whispered something in her ear, and though at first she
+seemed vexed at the intrusion, presently she clapped her hands and
+laughed joyously. Then the stranger mysteriously vanished, and seemed to
+disappear in the fountain.
+
+Huldbrand had suspected that he had seen the man before, and now felt
+assured that he was Kühleborn. Undine admitted the fact, and said that
+her uncle had told her a secret, which she was to reveal on the third
+day afterwards, which would be the anniversary of Bertalda's nameday.
+
+The anniversary came, and strange incidents happened. After the banquet
+given by the duke and duchess, Undine suddenly gave a signal, and from
+among the retainers at the door came forth the old fisherman and his
+wife, and Undine declared that in these Bertalda saw her real parents.
+The proud maiden instantly flew into a violent rage, weeping
+passionately, and utterly refused to acknowledge the old couple as her
+father and mother. She declared that Undine was an enchantress and a
+witch, sustaining intercourse with evil spirits.
+
+Undine, with great dignity, indignantly denied the accusation, while
+Bertalda's violent conduct created a feeling of disgust in the minds of
+all in the assembly. The matter was settled in a simple manner, for the
+duke commanded Bertalda to withdraw to a private apartment with the
+duchess and the two old folks from the hut, that an investigation might
+be made. It was soon over, for the noble lady was able presently to
+inform the company that Undine's story was absolutely true. The guests
+silently departed, and Undine sank sobbing into her husband's arms.
+
+Next day Bertalda, humbled by these events, sought pardon of Undine for
+her evil behaviour, and was instantly welcomed with loving assurances of
+forgiveness, moreover, she was cordially invited to go with the pair to
+Ringstetten.
+
+"We will share all things there as sisters," said Undine.
+
+The three journeyed to the distant castle, and took up their abode
+together. Soon Kühleborn appeared on the scene, but Undine at once
+repulsed him. Next, when her husband was one day hunting, she ordered
+the great well in the courtyard to be covered with a big stone, on which
+she cut some curious characters.
+
+Bertalda waywardly complained that this proceeding deprived her of water
+that was good for her complexion, but Undine privately explained to
+Huldbrand that she had caused the servants to seal up this spring
+because only by that way of access could her uncle Kühleborn come to
+disturb their peace.
+
+As time passed on, Huldbrand gradually cooled toward his wife and turned
+affectionately towards Bertalda. Undine bore patiently and silently the
+sorrow thus inflicted on her. But when her husband was impatient and
+angry she would plead with him never to speak to her in accents of
+unkindness when they happened to be on the water, for the water spirits
+had her completely in their power on their element, and would seek to
+protect her, and even seize her and take her down for ever to dwell in
+the crystal castles of the deep.
+
+After some estrangements, Undine and Bertalda had again become loving
+friends, and Huldbrand's affection for his wife had revived with its old
+and welcome warmth, while the attachment between him and Bertalda seemed
+forgotten.
+
+One day the three were enjoying a delightful excursion on the glorious
+Danube. Bertalda had taken off a beautiful coral necklace which
+Huldbrand had given her. She leaned over and drew the coral beads across
+the surface, enjoying the glitter thus caused, when suddenly a great
+hand from beneath seized the necklace and snatched it down. The maiden's
+scream of terror was answered by mocking laughter from the water.
+
+In an outburst of passion, Huldbrand started up and poured forth curses
+on the river and its denizens, whether spirits or sirens. With tears in
+her eyes, Undine besought him softly not to scold her there, and she
+took from her neck a beautiful necklace and offered it to Bertalda as a
+compensation.
+
+But the angry knight snatched it away, and hurled it into the river,
+exclaiming, "Are you still connected with them? In the name of all the
+witches, remain among them with your presents, and leave us mortals in
+peace, you sorceress!"
+
+Bitterly weeping and crying, "Woe! Woe!" she vanished over the side of
+the vessel. Her last words were, "Remain true! Woe! Woe!" Huldbrand lay
+swooning on the deck, and little waves seemed to be sobbing on the
+surface of the Danube, "Woe! Woe! Remain true!"
+
+
+_IV.--The White Stranger_
+
+
+For a time deep sorrow fell on the lord of Ringstetten and Bertalda.
+They lived long in the castle quietly, often weeping for Undine,
+tenderly cherishing her memory. Undine often visited Huldbrand in his
+dreams, caressing him and weeping silently so that his cheeks were wet
+when he awoke. But these visions grew less frequent, and the knight's
+grief diminished by degrees. At length he and Bertalda were married, but
+it was in spite of a grave warning from Father Heilmann, who declared
+that Undine had appeared to him in visions, beseeching him to warn
+Huldbrand and Bertalda to leave each other. They were too infatuated to
+heed the admonition, and a priest from a neighbouring monastery promised
+to perform the ceremony in a few days.
+
+Meantime, when lying between sleeping and waking, the knight seemed
+fanned by the wings of a swan, and, as he fell asleep, seemed borne
+along on the wings of swans which sang their sweetest music. All at once
+he seemed to be hovering over the Mediterranean Sea. Its waters were so
+crystalline that he could see through them to the bottom, and there,
+under a crystal arch, sat Undine, weeping bitterly. She seemed not to
+perceive him. Kühleborn approached her, and told her that Huldbrand was
+to be wedded again, and that it would be her duty, from which nothing
+could release her, to end his life.
+
+"That I cannot do," said she. "I have sealed up the fountain against my
+race."
+
+Huldbrand felt as if he were soaring back again over the sea, and at
+length he seemed to reach his castle. He awoke on his couch, but he
+could not bring himself to break off the arrangements that had been
+made.
+
+The marriage feast at Ringstetten was not as bright and happy as such
+occasions usually are, for a veil of gloom seemed to rest over the
+company. Even the bride affected a happy and thoughtless demeanour which
+she did not really feel. The company dispersed early, Bertalda retiring
+with her maidens, and Huldbrand with his attendants.
+
+In her apartment Bertalda, with a sigh, noticed how freckled was her
+neck, and a remark she made to her maidens as she gazed in the mirror
+excited the eager attention of one of them. She heard her fair mistress
+say, "Oh, that I had a flask of the purifying water from the closed
+fountain!" Presently the officious waiting-woman was seen leading men to
+the fountain. With levers they quickly lifted the stone, for some
+mysterious force within seemed to aid them.
+
+Then from the fountain solemnly rose a white column of water. It was
+presently perceived that it was a pale female figure, veiled in white.
+She was weeping bitterly as she walked slowly to the building, while
+Bertalda and her attendants, pale with terror, watched from the window.
+The figure passed on, and at the door of Huldbrand's room, where the
+knight was partly undressed, was heard a gentle tap. The white figure
+slowly entered. It was Undine, who softly said, "They have opened the
+spring, and now I am here and you must die." Said the knight, "It must
+be so! But let me die in your embrace."
+
+"Most gladly, my loved one," said she, throwing back her veil and
+disclosing her face divinely smiling. Imprinting on his lips a sacred
+kiss, Undine clasped the knight in her arms, weeping as if she would
+weep her very soul away. Huldbrand fell softly back on the pillows of
+his couch, a corpse.
+
+At the funeral of Huldbrand the veiled figure appeared when the
+procession formed a circle round the grave. All knelt in mute devotion
+at a signal from Father Heilmann. When they rose again the white
+stranger had vanished, and on the spot where she had knelt a silvery
+little fountain gushed forth, which almost encircled the grave and then
+ran on till it reached a lake near by. And to this day the inhabitants
+cherish the tradition that thus the poor rejected Undine still lovingly
+embraces her husband.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+ÉMILE GABORIAU
+
+
+"File No. 113"
+
+
+     Émile Gaboriau, one of the best-known exponents of the "police
+     story," was born at Saujon, in France, on November 9, 1833. He
+     began life in a lawyer's office, became a volunteer in a
+     cavalry regiment, and, later, secretary to Paul Feval, the
+     novelist and dramatist. In the meantime, Gaboriau had
+     contributed a number of sketches dealing with military and
+     fashionable life to various minor Parisian journals, but it
+     was not until 1866, with the publication of "L'Affaire
+     Lerouge," that he suddenly sprang into fame. From that time
+     until his death, on September 28, 1873, story after story
+     appeared rapidly from his pen. "File No. 113" ("Le Dossier
+     113") was published in 1867, and was the first of a remarkable
+     series of detective tales introducing the figure of Lecoq.
+     "File No. 113" is perhaps the most characteristic specimen of
+     his work, exhibiting as it does a careful study of the Paris
+     police system, and a thorough acquaintance with all phases of
+     criminal life.
+
+
+_I.--The Robbery and a Clue_
+
+
+The first mention of the celebrated robbery which took place at M.
+Fauvel's bank in Paris--the _dossier_ of the case is numbered 113 in the
+police files--appeared in the evening papers, February 28, 1866.
+
+On the previous day a certain Count Louis de Clameran sent word to M.
+Fauvel that he wished to withdraw the following morning at ten o'clock
+the sum of £12,000 which had been deposited in the bank by his brother,
+an ironmaster from the south of France who had recently died.
+
+M. Fauvel made it a rule never to keep any large sums of money on the
+premises, but to deposit all such amounts in the keeping of the Bank of
+France. As this sum, however, had to be paid the first thing in the
+morning, the chief cashier, M. Prosper Bertomy, thought he was justified
+in obtaining the amount from the Bank of France on the evening of the
+27th, and in locking it up in the bank safe against the morning.
+
+The safe was a formidable-looking affair constructed entirely of wrought
+iron of treble thickness. An ingenious device regulated its opening. On
+the massive door were five movable steel buttons engraved with the
+letters of the alphabet. Before the key could be inserted in the lock,
+these buttons had to be manipulated in the same order in which they had
+been used when the safe was last shut. The buttons were arranged so that
+the letters on them formed some word, which was changed from time to
+time. This word was known only to M. Fauvel and his cashier, each of
+whom possessed a key of the safe.
+
+As soon as the bank opened on the morning of February 28, the count put
+in an appearance, and Prosper Bertomy went to the safe to obtain the
+money. When, a second later, he reappeared, his face was ashy pale, and
+his steps tottered as he walked. The £12,000 had disappeared from within
+the safe. What made the affair all the more mysterious was that the safe
+was locked just as the cashier had left it the night before.
+
+The room in which the safe was situated communicated with the bank by
+another room in which every night a tried servant of the establishment
+slept. By a second door admittance was obtained to the private
+apartments of M. and Madame Fauvel and their niece Madeline.
+
+As soon as M. Fauvel had heard the startling news, he first obtained the
+necessary money from the Bank of France, settled the business with the
+count, and then turned his attention to the elucidation of the robbery.
+He summoned the cashier to his presence.
+
+Bertomy was a young man of thirty to whom M. Fauvel had shown great
+kindness, advancing his interests wherever possible until, though very
+young for the position, he was his most important and most confidential
+employee. Besides the paternal affection with which the bank manager
+regarded his cashier, another tie tended to make their relations all the
+stronger and more personal. Bertomy loved M. Fauvel's niece Madeline,
+and though a curious estrangement had sprung up between them during the
+previous nine or ten months, the banker always regarded their marriage
+as practically arranged.
+
+The interview between the two men was a curious one. To each it appeared
+that the other must be the thief. They alone had the keys of the safe;
+they alone knew the magic word which could open the massive door. The
+banker urged Bertomy to confess, promising him forgiveness; the other
+haughtily rejected the suggestion, and hinted that his employer had
+converted the £12,000 to his own use. In the end M. Fauvel lost his
+temper, sent for the police, and before twenty-four hours were up,
+Prosper Bertomy, who but the day before had held one of the most
+important and envied positions in the financial world of Paris, was
+charged before a magistrate as being a common thief.
+
+Investigation of the case was at first entrusted to a detective named
+Fanferlot, nicknamed by his comrades the "Squirrel." Fanferlot's
+examination of the premises resulted in little. All he discovered was a
+scratch upon the door of the safe, but certain words that passed between
+M. Fauvel and his niece, which seemed to indicate that the former was
+secretly opposed to the marriage of Madeline with Bertomy, caused him to
+jump to the conclusion that the banker had robbed his own safe in order
+to bring disgrace upon his cashier. He connived, however, at the arrest
+of Bertomy, hoping that later on he might obtain great kudos for himself
+by unmasking the banker. What might have been the result of his improper
+and unofficial methods will never be known, but in all probability great
+inconvenience would have been caused to a number of innocent persons and
+the whole course of justice thwarted had it not been for the
+intervention of the great and famous M. Lecoq.
+
+M. Lecoq's interest in the bank robbery case was largely a personal one.
+Even detectives have hearts, and M. Lecoq had loved with heart and soul
+a charming young girl named Nina Gipsy. Under the name of Caldas in one
+of his innumerable disguises, he had wooed her for many months. When he
+thought at last that he had won her affections, she had fled to the
+protection of no less a person than Prosper Bertomy himself. The cashier
+cared nothing for her, but embittered by an estrangement that had sprung
+up between Madeline and himself, he had sought forgetfulness in her
+society. Bertomy's arrest gave Lecoq an opportunity for a noble revenge.
+He determined to prove to the woman he loved his superiority over his
+rival by saving the cashier from disgrace.
+
+Though the case looked black against Bertomy, for it was shown that he
+was heavily in debt, and living far beyond his means, Lecoq was
+satisfied that he had not committed the crime. When Fanferlot,
+hopelessly befogged, called for his advice at his house in the Rue
+Montmartre, the great detective deigned to explain the preliminary data
+and the deductions from the data he had made.
+
+The scratch on the safe door, slight and minute as it was, was his
+starting-point. How had it been made? He had found by experiment that it
+was impossible to make such a scratch upon the varnish without the
+exercise of considerable force. It was clear, therefore, that the
+scratch by the keyhole could not have been made by the thief in his
+trembling anxiety to get the business he had undertaken accomplished.
+But why was such force used?
+
+For a long time Lecoq puzzled over this problem. Then, with Fanferlot,
+he tried an experiment. In his room was an iron box varnished like the
+safe. Taking the key of this box from his pocket, he ordered Fanferlot
+to seize his arm just as he put it near the lock. The key slipped,
+pulled away from the lock, and sliding along the surface of the door,
+left upon it a diagonal scratch, almost an exact reproduction of the one
+on the safe.
+
+From this simple experiment Lecoq deduced that two people were present
+when the safe was robbed; one wanted to take the money, the other wanted
+to prevent it being taken. This was the basis of the case which he set
+out to draw up against some person or persons unknown. He argued, with
+his usual clear logic, that neither Fauvel nor Bertomy could have robbed
+the safe. Both of them had keys; both of them knew the secret word and
+could have robbed the safe whenever they pleased. Therefore, neither of
+them would have committed the theft in the presence of somebody else.
+
+
+_II.--A Mysterious Journey_
+
+
+Lecoq's first steps after establishing these preliminary deductions was
+to secure the release of Bertomy on the grounds of insufficient
+evidence.
+
+On the very morning of his release, Bertomy had received a mysterious
+letter composed of printed words cut out letter by letter from a book
+and pasted on paper.
+
+"My dear Prosper," so the epistle ran, "a friend who knows the horror of
+your situation sends you this help. There is one heart at least which
+feels for you. Leave France; you are yourself. The future is before you.
+Go, and may this money be of use."
+
+Enclosed with this note were banknotes for £400. Lecoq, disguised as a
+M. Verduret, a country merchant, a friend of Bertomy's father, secured
+this epistle and studied it carefully. His knowledge of the various
+types used by the printers in Paris showed him that the letters had been
+taken from a book printed by a well-known firm who published volumes of
+devotion. The correctness of this conclusion was established by the
+discovery on the back of one of the small cuttings the word "Deus." The
+words had been cut from a Catholic prayer-book. To find that prayer-book
+was his next business.
+
+In another disguise he sought out Nina Gipsy, and, by asking her
+assistance to clear Prosper, induced her to take up the position of
+lady's-maid in the Fauvel family, for it was there, he conceived, the
+mutilated book of devotion would be found. Again his wonderful instinct
+proved right. In a few days Nina brought him the very book--a prayer-
+book, belonging to Madeline, which had been given her by Bertomy.
+
+Why had Madeline sent the cashier this elaborately disguised letter? Why
+had she wished him to leave France, confident as she was, so she told
+him, of his innocence?
+
+To find an answer to these important queries, Lecoq closely questioned
+Bertomy. He learnt that the night before the robbery the cashier had
+dined with his friend Raoul de Lagors, the wealthy, dissolute young
+nephew of M. Fauvel's wife. This Lagors was the friend of Count Louis de
+Clameran, whose demand for the £12,000 left him by his dead brother had
+resulted in the discovery of the mysterious robbery.
+
+Bertomy had nothing but the highest praise for Lagors, but, on the other
+hand, spoke most disparagingly of the count. The count, it appeared, had
+proposed for the hand of Madeline, and had pressed his suit with great
+determination. And Madeline--and this was what provided a new problem
+for Lecoq's consideration--had tacitly accepted his attention.
+
+Through Nina, Lecoq had arranged a meeting between Bertomy and Madeline,
+and satisfied himself that the girl was whole-heartedly and devotedly
+attached to her uncle's cashier. Then why was she favouring the suit of
+the count? Lecoq at once made it his business to inquire into the
+count's past.
+
+He was the second son of an old and noble family. His elder brother,
+Gaston, having to fly the country in consequence of causing the death of
+several men, he had inherited the property. A life of dissolute
+pleasures had soon exhausted his patrimony and he was reduced to living
+by his wits. Some weeks before the robbery, he had discovered that his
+brother Gaston was alive and was living on a large estate in the south
+of France, which he had purchased with the wealth he had accumulated in
+business. Six weeks after the two brothers met again, the elder died and
+the younger inherited his vast fortune.
+
+Raoul de Lagors was the next character in the drama whose past the
+detective made it his business to expose. Lagors, it has been said, was
+the nephew of Madame Fauvel. To his surprise, Lecoq discovered, by
+inquiries in her native place, that the banker's wife had never had any
+brothers or sisters. Lagors, therefore, was not her nephew.
+
+Fanferlot, acting on instructions, had kept a strict watch on the
+movements of Madeline, and by this means Lecoq received timely warning
+of a mysterious excursion which the girl made one night. He followed her
+to a lonely house on the outskirts of the city. When she had gained
+admittance, the appearance of a light in one of the windows on the first
+floor seemed to indicate the room to which she had been taken. By the
+aid of a ladder, Lecoq was able to watch what was going on within
+through the shutters.
+
+He saw Madeline standing opposite Lagors, evidently, from her attitude,
+pleading with him. For some time he listened to her, with a cynical
+smile upon his face, but after an hour he seemed to decide, with evident
+reluctance, to comply with her request. Going to a cabinet, he took out
+a bundle of pawn tickets and flung them on the table. Hastily going
+through the collection, she selected three, and concealing them in her
+dress, left the house.
+
+By following her to a pawnshop, Lecoq discovered that she had redeemed
+certain valuable articles of jewelry belonging to Madame Fauvel. Lecoq
+knew, through Nina Gipsy, who still filled the part of lady's-maid in
+the Fauvel family, that M. Fauvel had insisted on his wife accompanying
+him on the following evening to a great fancy-dress ball which was to be
+given by one of the wealthiest families in the capital. Obviously, then,
+the jewelry that Madeline had redeemed was required by Madame Fauvel for
+the occasion. Why had she pawned it for Lagors?
+
+A theory had half formed itself in Lecoq's brain. He determined to prove
+its truth. Disguised as a clown, he attended the fancy-dress ball, and
+in the character of a mountebank collected a group of ladies and
+gentlemen around him while he related with the inimitable skill of a
+buffoon a romantic narrative. To most of the people present it was
+simply an amusing story, but to the count and Lagors and Madame Fauvel,
+who were among the listeners, it seemed something much more, for Lecoq
+dressed out his theory of the robbery in the trappings of romance. Just
+as he reached the climax of the story there was a cry, and Madame Fauvel
+almost fell fainting on the floor. The count and Lagors rushed up
+furiously to Lecoq.
+
+"Master Clown," said Lagors, "your tongue is too long."
+
+"Perhaps, my pretty boy," retorted Lecoq, "perhaps it is. But it is, I
+can assure you, not so long as my arm."
+
+"Who are you, M. le Clown?" the count exclaimed angrily.
+
+"I am," replied Lecoq, "the best friend your brother Gaston had. I was
+his counsellor. I am the confidant of his last wishes."
+
+Though the solution of the problem seemed so tantalisingly near, there
+were still some threads in the tangle which required sorting out before
+Lecoq could say that the case was complete. Among other matters he
+inquired of Bertomy the word which had been used to lock the safe on,
+the night of the robbery. The word had been "gipsy." Bertomy was
+confident that he had not mentioned it to anybody, but Nina Gipsy was
+able to throw light on this part of the problem. She recollected a
+chance remark of Bertomy's while sitting at dinner with herself and
+Lagors on the night of the robbery. She had reproached Bertomy with
+neglecting her.
+
+"It's too bad for you to reproach me," cried the cashier, "for it is
+your name which at this very moment guards the safe of M. Fauvel."
+
+Lagors, therefore, had known the password. What did this new discovery
+imply? How did it fit in with the rest of the data which Lecoq had so
+brilliantly collected?
+
+After his custom, he marshalled once more in his mind all the facts at
+his disposal, but they were like so many loose links in a chain. They
+required the connecting link to make the chain complete. To find that
+link Lecoq spent a month in visiting the old home of the De Clamerans,
+the estate formerly occupied by Gaston de Clameron, who had died a few
+days before the robbery, and also in a trip to England. When he returned
+to Paris, _dossier_ No. 113 was complete.
+
+
+_III.--The Dossier_
+
+
+In her extreme youth, Madame Fauvel had been secretly loved by Gaston de
+Clameron. It was a result of certain contemptuous words spoken of the
+girl he loved that Gaston had committed those deeds which had compelled
+him to fly the country. Shortly after his flight, the girl, finding that
+she was about to give birth to a child, imparted the secret to her
+mother. Fearing a scandal, the mother, accompanied by a faithful nurse,
+took her daughter over to England. There, near London, a child was born,
+who was immediately handed over to some simple country people to adopt.
+The unhappy girl returned to France, and shortly after married M.
+Fauvel, the banker.
+
+Years after, the Count Louis de Clameron, who had inherited and ruined
+the estates of which his brother Gaston had been deprived, discovered
+this secret from the nurse, and finding on inquiries in London that the
+child had died, persuaded a young ne'er-do-well Englishman to play the
+_rôle_ of his brother's son. He secretly introduced him to Madame
+Fauvel, and through this means obtained what money he required from the
+unhappy woman, who feared the discovery of her past secret by her
+husband. The situation was complicated by the count falling in love with
+Madeline and the sudden appearance of Gaston de Clameron, who was
+thought to be dead.
+
+The count poisoned his brother, and then, finding that Madeline refused
+to give up Bertomy, determined to accomplish the cashier's ruin, and at
+the same time obtain an amount of money large enough to buy off his
+fellow-conspirator Lagors. Lagors, having learnt by chance the password
+that guarded the safe, was sent to Madame Fauvel late at night with a
+request for money.
+
+At this time Madame Fauvel was at the end of her resources. Lagors
+suggested taking the money from the safe. Tom between a desire to help
+her supposed son and the risk of discovery, she at last consented.
+Taking M. Fauvel's key, they descended silently to the safe-room. At the
+last moment, just as the key was in the lock, Madame Fauvel attempted to
+deter Lagors from his purpose. In the struggle that scratch was made on
+the door which formed the basis of Lecoq's inquiries and enabled the
+great detective to unravel the mystery.
+
+Madeline, who all the while half guessed at the truth, and perceived
+without being told that Madame Fauvel was at the mercy of the count, had
+been prepared to sacrifice her future happiness in order to prevent the
+scandal being made public.
+
+M. Lecoq, armed with these facts, sought out Lagors. He arrived only in
+time to prevent a tragedy. Warned by an anonymous letter that his wife
+had pawned her diamonds for the benefit of Lagors, the banker came upon
+them when they were together in Lagor's rooms. Imagining the young man
+was his wife's lover, the banker drew a revolver and fired four times.
+Fortunately, none of the shots took effect, and before he could fire
+again Lecoq had rushed into the room and torn the weapon from his grasp.
+It was the moment of the great detective's triumph. With the dramatic
+skill of which he was a master, he laid bare the whole story and
+disclosed the true identity of Raoul Lagors. Before he left he compelled
+Lagors to refund the £12,000 he had stolen, and in order to avoid a
+scandal allowed the young man to go free. Then, that nothing should be
+wanting to his triumph, he obtained the consent of the banker to
+Bertomy's marriage with Madeline.
+
+Hurrying from the banker's house, Lecoq hastened to effect the arrest of
+the count. He arrived too late. Realising that he was hopelessly in the
+toils, the count was bereft of his senses and become a hopeless maniac.
+
+Four days later M. Lecoq, the official M. Lecoq, awaited the arrival of
+Nina Gipsy and Prosper Bertomy. They declared that they had come to meet
+M. Verduret, who had saved Prosper Bertomy. The detective retired,
+promising to summon the man they had come to see. A quarter of an hour
+later M. Verduret entered the room. Facing them, he told them how a
+friend of his named Caldas had fallen in love with a girl, and how that
+girl had been won from him by a man who cared nothing for her.
+
+"Caldas determined to revenge himself in his own way. It was his hand
+that saved the man on the very verge of disgrace. I see you know that
+you, Nina, are the woman, and you, Prosper, the man; while Caldas
+is...."
+
+With a quick gesture he removed his wig and whiskers, and the true Lecoq
+appeared.
+
+"Caldas!" cried Nina.
+
+"No, not Caldas, not Verduret, but Lecoq, the detective."
+
+After the moments of amazement had passed, Lecoq turned to leave the
+room, but Nina barred the way.
+
+"Caldas," she cried, "have you not punished me enough? Caldas...."
+
+Prosper went from the office alone.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+JOHN GALT
+
+
+Annals of the Parish
+
+
+     John Gait, poet, dramatist, historian, and novelist, was born
+     at Irvine, Ayrshire, Scotland, on May 2, 1779. He was trained
+     for a commercial career in the Greenock Custom House, and in
+     the office of a merchant in that seaport. Removing to London,
+     Gait engaged in business and afterwards travelled extensively
+     to forward mercantile enterprises in all the countries
+     bordering on the Mediterranean and the Near East, where he
+     repeatedly met Lord Byron. His first work of fiction was a
+     Sicilian story, published in 1816, but it was not until 1820
+     that he found his true literary expression, when the "Ayrshire
+     Legatees" appeared in "Blackwood's Magazine." The success of
+     this tale was so great that Gait finished the "Annals of the
+     Parish; or the Chronicle of Dalmailing, during the Ministry of
+     the Rev. Micah Balwhidder," which he had really begun in 1813,
+     and they were published in 1821. The "Annals" contain a lively
+     and humorous picture of Scottish character, manners, and
+     feeling during the era described. In the latter part of his
+     life Gait wrote several novels, a life of Byron, an
+     autobiography, and his "Literary Life and Miscellanies." He
+     died on April 11, 1838.
+
+
+_I.--The Placing of Mr. Balwhidder_
+
+
+The year A.D. 1760 was remarkable for three things in the parish of
+Dalmailing. First and foremost, there was my placing, then the coming of
+Mrs. Malcolm with her five children to settle among us, and next my
+marriage with my own cousin, Miss Betty Lanshaw. The placing was a great
+affair, for I was put in by the patron, and the people knew nothing of
+me whatsoever. They were really mad and vicious, insomuch that there was
+obliged to be a guard of soldiers to protect the presbytery. Dirt was
+flung upon us as we passed, and the finger of scorn held out to me. But
+I endured it with a resigned spirit, compassionating their wilfulness
+and blindness.
+
+The kirk door was nailed up and we were obligated to go in by the
+window, making the Lord's house like an inn on a fair-day with their
+grievous yelly hooing. Thomas Thorl, the weaver, a pious zealot, got up
+at the time of the induction and protested, and said, "Verily, verily, I
+say unto you, he that entereth not by the door of the sheepfold, but
+climbeth up some other way, the same is a thief and a robber."
+
+When the laying on of the hands upon me was adoing, Mr. Given, minister
+of Lugton, a jocose man, who could not get near, stretched out his staff
+and touched my head, saying, to the great diversion of the rest, "This
+will do well enough--timber to timber."
+
+After the ceremony we went to the manse, and there had an excellent
+dinner. Although my people received me in this unruly manner, I was
+resolved to cultivate civility among them; and next morning I began a
+round of visitations. But, oh! it was a steep brae to climb. The doors
+in some places were barred against me; in others the bairns ran crying
+to their mothers, "Here's the feckless Mess-John." But Thomas Thorl
+received me kindly, and said that this early visitation was a symptom of
+grace, and that not to condemn me without trial he and some neighbours
+would be at the kirk at the next Lord's day, so that I would not have to
+preach just to the bare walls and the laird's family.
+
+As to Mrs. Malcolm, she was the widow of a Clyde shipmaster that was
+lost at sea with his vessel. A genty body, she never changed her widow's
+weeds, and span frae morning tae nicht to keep her bairns and herself.
+When her daughter Effie was ill, I called on her in a sympathising way,
+and offered her some assistance frae the Session, but she refused help
+out of the poor's-box, as it might be hereafter cast up to her bairns.
+
+It was in the year 1761 that the great smuggling trade corrupted the
+west coast. Tea was going like chaff, and brandy like well-water. There
+was nothing minded but the riding of cadgers by day and excisemen by
+night, and battles between the smugglers and the king's men, both by sea
+and land; continual drunkenness and debauchery, and our Session had an
+awful time o't.
+
+I did all that was in my power to keep my people from the contagion. I
+preached sixteen times from the text, "Render to Caesar the things that
+are Caesar's." I visited, exhorted, warned, and prophesied, but the evil
+got in among us. The third year of my ministry was long held in
+remembrance. The small-pox came in among the poor bits o' weans of the
+parish, and the smashing it made among them was woeful. When the
+pestilence was raging, I preached a sermon about Rachel weeping for her
+children, which Thomas Thorl, a great judge of good preaching, said,
+"was a monument of divinity whilk searched the heart of many a parent
+that day"--a thing I was well pleased to hear, and was minded to make
+him an elder the next vacancy. But, worthy man, it was not permitted him
+to arrive at that honour; for that fall it pleased Him that alone can
+give and take to pluck him from this life.
+
+In this year Charlie Malcolm, Mrs. Malcolm's eldest son, was sent to sea
+in a tobacco-trader that sailed between Port Glasgow and Virginia.
+Tea-drinking was beginning to spread more openly, in so much that by the
+advice of the first Mrs. Balwhidder, Mrs. Malcolm took in tea to sell to
+eke out something to the small profits of her wheel. I lost some of my
+dislike to the tea after that, and we had it for breakfast at the manse
+as well as in the afternoon. But what I thought most of it for was that
+it did no harm to the head of the drinkers, which was not always the
+case with the possets in fashion before, when I remember decent ladies
+coming home with red faces from a posset-masking. So I refrained from
+preaching against tea henceforth, but I never lifted the weight of my
+displeasure from off the smuggling trade, until it was utterly put down
+by the strong hand of government.
+
+
+_II.--The Minister's Second Marriage_
+
+
+A memorable year, both in public and private, was 1763. The king granted
+peace to the French. Lady Macadam, widow of General Macadam, who lived
+in her jointure-house, took Kate Malcolm to live with her as companion,
+and she took pleasure in teaching Kate all her accomplishments and how
+to behave herself like a lady. The lint-mill on Lugton Water was burned
+to the ground, with not a little of the year's crop of lint in our
+parish. The first Mrs. Balwhidder lost upwards of twelve stone, which
+was intended for sarking to ourselves and sheets and napery. A great
+loss indeed it was, and the vexation thereof had a visible effect on her
+health, which from the spring had been in a dwining way. But for it, I
+think she might have wrestled through the winter. However, it was
+ordered otherwise, and she was removed from mine to Abraham's bosom on
+Christmas Day, and buried on Hogmanay, for it was thought uncanny to
+have a dead corpse in the house on the New Year's Day.
+
+Just by way of diversion in my heavy sorrow, I got a well-shapen
+headstone made for her; but a headstone without a epitaph being no
+better than a body without the breath of life in't, I made a poesy for
+the monument, not in the Latin tongue, which Mrs. Balwhidder, worthy
+woman as she was, did not understand, but in sedate language, which was
+greatly thought of at the time. My servant lassies, having no eye of a
+mistress over them, wasted everything at such a rate that, long before
+the end of the year, the year's stipend was all spent, and I did not
+know what to do. At lang and length I sent for Mr. Auld, a douce and
+discreet elder, and told him how I was situated. He advised me, for my
+own sake, to look out for another wife, as soon as decency would allow.
+
+In the following spring I placed my affections, with due consideration,
+on Miss Lizzy Kibbock, the well-brought-up daughter of Mr. Joseph
+Kibbock, of the Gorbyholm, farmer; and we were married on the 29th day
+of April, on account of the dread we had of being married in May, for it
+is said, "Of the marriages in May, the bairns die of a decay." The
+second Mrs. Balwhidder had a genius for management, and started a dairy,
+and set the servant lassies to spin wool for making blankets and lint
+for sheets and napery. She sent the butter on market days to Irville,
+her cheese and huxtry to Glasgow. We were just coining money, in so much
+that, after the first year, we had the whole tot of stipend to put into
+the bank.
+
+The opening of coal-pits in Douray Moor brought great prosperity to the
+parish, but the coal-carts cut up the roads, especially the Vennel, a
+narrow and crooked street in the clachan. Lord Eglesham came down from
+London in the spring of 1767 to see the new lands he had bought in our
+parish. His coach couped in the Vennel, and his lordship was thrown head
+foremost into the mud. He swore like a trooper, and said he would get an
+act of parliament to put down the nuisance. His lordship came to the
+manse, and, being in a woeful plight, he got the loan of my best suit of
+clothes. This made him wonderful jocose both with Mrs. Balwhidder and
+me, for he was a portly man, and I but a thin body, and it was really
+droll to see his lordship clad in my garments. Out of this accident grew
+a sort of neighbourliness between Lord Eglesham and me.
+
+
+_III.--A Runaway Match_
+
+
+About Christmas, Lady Macadam's son, having been perfected in the art of
+war at a school in France, had, with the help of his mother's friends
+and his father's fame, got a stand of colours in the Royal Scots
+Regiment. He came to show himself in his regimentals to his lady mother,
+and during the visit he fell in love and entered into correspondence
+with Kate Malcolm. A while after, her ladyship's flunkey came to the
+manse and begged me to go to her. So I went; and there she was, with
+gum-flowers on her head, sitting on a settee, for she was lame, and in
+her hand she held a letter.
+
+"Sir," she said, as I came into the room, "I want you to go instantly to
+your clerk," meaning Mr. Lorimore, the schoolmaster, "and tell him I
+will give him a couple of hundred pounds to marry Miss Malcolm without
+delay."
+
+"Softly, my lady; you must first tell me the meaning of all this haste
+of kindness," said I, in my calm, methodical manner. At which she began
+to sob, and bewail her ruin and the dishonour of her family. I was
+confounded, but at length it came out that she had accidentally opened a
+letter that had come from London for Kate, that she had read it, by
+which she came to know that Kate and her darling son were trysted, and
+that this was not the first love-letter which had passed between them.
+Mr. Lorimore promptly declined her ladyship's proposal, as he was
+engaged to be married to his present worthy helpmate. Although her
+ladyship was so overcome with passion, she would not part with Kate, nor
+allow her to quit the house.
+
+Three years later the young Laird Macadam, being ordered with his
+regiment for America, got leave from the king to come and see his lady
+mother before his departure. But it was not to see her only. He arrived
+at a late hour unwarned, lest his mother would send Kate out of the way;
+but no sooner did her ladyship behold his face than she kindled upon
+both him and Kate, and ordered them out of her sight and house. The
+young folk had discretion. Kate went home to her mother, and the laird
+came to the manse and begged us to take him in.
+
+He asked me to perform the ceremony, as he was resolved to marry Kate.
+We stepped over to Mrs. Malcolm's house, where we found the saintly
+woman with Kate and Erne and Willie, preparing to read their Bible for
+the night. After speaking to Mrs. Malcolm for a time, she consented to
+the marriage. It was sanctified by me before we left Mrs. Malcolm's, the
+young couple setting off in the laird's chaise to Glasgow, and
+authorising me to break the matter to Lady Macadam. I was spared this
+performance, for the servants jealoused what had been done, and told her
+ladyship. When I entered the room she was like a mad woman in Bedlam.
+She sent her coachman on horseback to overtake them, which he did at
+Kilmarnock, and they returned in the morning, when her ladyship was as
+cagey and meikle taken up with them as if they had gotten her full
+consent and privilege from the first. Captain Macadam afterwards bought
+a house at the Braehead, and gave it, with a judicious income, to Mrs.
+Malcolm, telling her it was not becoming that she should any longer be
+dependent upon her own industry. For this the young man got a name like
+a sweet odour in all the country-side.
+
+It will be remembered that Charlie Malcolm went a-sailing in a
+tobacco-trader to America. When his ship was lying in the harbour of
+Virginia, a press-gang, that was in need of men for the Avenger,
+man-of-war, came on board and pressed poor Charles. I wrote to Lord
+Eglesham anent the matter, and his lordship's brother being connected
+with the Admiralty, the captain of the man-of-war was instructed to make
+a midshipman of Charles. This was done, and Mrs. Malcolm heard from time
+to time from her son, saying that he had found a friend in the captain,
+that was just a father to him.
+
+In the latter end of 1776, the man-of-war, with Charles Malcolm in her,
+came to the Tail of the Bank at Greenock, and Charles got leave from his
+captain to come and see his mother. He brought with him Mr. Howard,
+another midshipman, the son of a great Parliament man in London. They
+were dressed in their fine gold-laced garbs. When Charles had seen his
+mother and his sister, Effie, he came with his friend to see me at the
+manse, and got Mrs. Balwhidder to ask his friend to sleep there. In
+short, we had a ploy the whole two days they stayed with us, Lady
+Macadam made for them at a ball, and it was a delight to see how old and
+young of all degrees made much of Charles.
+
+
+_IV.--Years of Lamentation_
+
+
+I was named in the year 1779 for the General Assembly, and Mrs.
+Balwhidder, by her continual thrift, having made our purse able to stand
+a shake against the wind, we resolved to go into Edinburgh in a
+creditable manner. We put up at Widow M'Vicar's, a relation to my first
+wife, a gawsy, furthy woman, taking great pleasure in hospitality. In
+short, everybody in Edinburgh was in a manner wearisome kind.
+
+I was delighted and surprised to find Lord Eglesham at the levee, and he
+introduced me to his grace the Commissioner, who required me to preach
+before him. Fain would I have eschewed the honour that was thus thrust
+upon me; but both my wife and Mrs. M'Vicar were just lifted out of
+themselves at the thought. After the sermon the Commissioner
+complimented me on my apostolic earnestness, and Mrs. M'Vicar said I had
+surprised everybody; but I was fearful there was something of jocularity
+at the bottom of all this.
+
+The year 1781 was one of dolour and tribulation, for Lord Eglesham was
+shot dead by a poaching exciseman, and Lady Macadam died of paralysis;
+but the year after was one of greater lamentation. Three brave young
+fellows belonging to the clachan, who had gone as soldiers in America,
+were killed in battle with the rebels, for which there was great grief.
+Shortly after this the news came of a victory over the French fleet, and
+by the same post I got a letter from Mr. Howard, the midshipman, telling
+me that poor Charles had been mortally wounded in the action, and had
+afterwards died of his wounds.
+
+Mrs. Malcolm heard the news of the victory through the steeple bell
+being set a-ringing, and she came over to the manse in great anxiety.
+When I saw her I could not speak, but looked at her in pity, and, the
+tears fleeing into my eyes, she guessed what had happened. After giving
+a deep and sore sigh, she inquired, "How did he behave? I hope well, for
+he was aye a gallant laddie!" And then she wept very bitterly. I gave
+her the letter, which she begged me to give to her to keep, saying,
+"It's all that I have left now of my pretty boy; but it is mair precious
+to me than the wealth of the Indies!"
+
+
+_V.--Death of the Second Mrs. Balwhidder_
+
+
+Some time after this a Mr. Cayenne, a man of crusty temper but good
+heart, and his family, American loyalists, settled among us. In the year
+1788, a proposal came from Glasgow to build a cotton mill on the banks
+of the Brawl burn, a rapid stream which ran through the parish. Mr.
+Cayenne took a part in the profit or loss of the concern, and the cotton
+mill and a new town was built, and the whole called Cayenneville.
+Weavers of muslin were brought to the mill, and women to teach the
+lassie bairns in our old clachan tambouring instead of hand-spinning.
+
+Prosperity of fortune is like the golden hue of the evening cloud that
+delighteth the spirit and passeth away. In the month of February 1796,
+my second wife was gathered to the Lord. Her death was to me a great
+sorrow, for she was a most excellent wife, industrious to a degree. With
+her I had grown richer than any other minister in the presbytery.
+
+I laid her by the side of my first love, Betty Lanshaw, and I inscribed
+her name upon the same headstone. Time had drained my poetical vein, and
+I have not yet been able to indite an epithet on her merits and virtues,
+for she had an eminent share of both. Above all, she was the mother of
+my children. She was not long deposited in her place of rest until
+things fell into amazing confusion, and I saw it would be necessary, as
+soon as decency would allow, for me to take another wife, both for a
+helpmate, and to tend me in my approaching infirmities.
+
+I saw it would not do for me to look out for an overly young woman, nor
+yet would it do for one of my way to take an elderly maiden, ladies of
+that sort being liable to possess strong-set particularities. I
+therefore resolved that my choice should lie among widows of a discreet
+age, and I fixed my purpose on Mrs. Nugent, the relict of a professor in
+the University of Glasgow, both because she was a well-bred woman
+without any children, and because she was held in great estimation as a
+lady of Christian principle. And so we were married as soon as a
+twelve-month and a day had passed from the death of the second Mrs.
+Balwhidder; and neither of us have had occasion to rue the bargain.
+
+
+_VI.--The Last Sermon_
+
+
+Two things made 1799 a memorable year; the marriage of my daughter Janet
+with the Rev. Dr. Kittleword of Swappington, a match in every way
+commendable; and the death of Mrs. Malcolm. If ever there was a saint on
+earth she was surely one. She bore adversity with an honest pride; she
+toiled in the day of penury and affliction with thankfulness for her
+little earnings.
+
+The year 1803 saw tempestuous times. Bonaparte gathered his host fornent
+the English coast, and the government at London were in terror of their
+lives for an invasion. All in the country saw that there was danger, and
+I was not backward in sounding the trumpet to battle. I delivered on
+Lord's Day a religious and political exhortation on the present posture
+of public affairs before a vast congregation of all ranks. The week
+following there were meetings of weavers and others, and volunteers were
+enrolled in defence of king and country.
+
+In the course of the next four or five years many changes took place in
+the parish. The weavers and cotton-mill folk and seceders from my own
+kirk built a meeting-house in Cayenneville, where there had been for a
+while great suffering on account of the failure of the cotton-mill
+company. In the year 1809 the elders came in a body to the manse, and
+said that, seeing that I was now growing old, they thought they could
+not testify their respect for me in a better manner than by agreeing to
+get me a helper; and the next year several young ministers spared me
+from the necessity of preaching.
+
+When it was known that I was to preach my last sermon on the last
+sabbath of 1810, everyone, including the seceders to the meeting-house,
+made it a point to be in the parish kirk, or to stand in the crowd that
+made a lane of reverence for me to pass from the kirk door to the
+back-yett of the manse. It was a moving discourse, and there were few
+dry eyes in the kirk that day; for my bidding them farewell was as when
+of old among the heathen an idol was taken away by the hand of the
+enemy. Shortly after, a deputation of the seceders, with their minister
+at their head, came to me and presented a server of silver in token of
+their esteem of my blameless life, and the charity I had practised
+towards the poor.
+
+I am thankful that I have been spared with a sound mind to write this
+book to the end, having really no more to say, saving only to wish a
+blessing on all people from on high, where I soon hope to be, and to
+meet there all the old and long-departed sheep of my flock, especially
+the first and second Mrs. Balwhidders.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+ELIZABETH CLEGHORN GASKELL
+
+
+Cranford
+
+
+     Mrs. Gaskell, whose maiden name was Elizabeth C. Stevenson,
+     was born in Chelsea, London, Sept. 29, 1810. She married a
+     Unitarian clergyman in Manchester. Her first literary work was
+     published anonymously, and met with a storm of mingled
+     approval and disapproval. Charles Dickens invited her to
+     contribute to his "Household Words," and it was in the pages
+     of that famous periodical, at intervals between December 13,
+     1851, and May 21, 1853, that her charming sketches of social
+     life in a little country town first appeared. In June, 1853,
+     they were grouped together under the title of "Cranford,"
+     meeting with wide approval, and have long taken rank as one of
+     the accepted English classics. The town which figures here as
+     Cranford is understood to have been Knutsford, in Cheshire,
+     which still retains something of that old-world feeling and
+     restfulness which Mrs. Gaskell embodied in the pages of her
+     most engaging book. "Cranford" is probably the direct
+     progenitor of many latter-day books of the class to which the
+     word "idyll" has been somewhat loosely applied. Its charm and
+     freshness are unfading; it remains unique and unrivalled as a
+     sympathetic and kindly humorous description of English
+     provincial life. Mrs. Gaskell died in November, 1865.
+
+
+_I.--Our Society_
+
+
+On the first visit I paid to Cranford, after I had left it as a
+residence, I was astonished to find a man had settled there--a Captain
+Brown. In my time Cranford was in possession of the Amazons. If a
+married couple came to settle there, somehow the man always disappeared.
+Either he was fairly frightened to death by being the only man at the
+evening parties, or he was accounted for by being with his regiment, his
+ship, or closely connected in business all the week in the great
+neighbouring commercial town of Drumble, distant only twenty miles on
+the railroad.
+
+I was naturally interested to learn what opinions Captain Brown had
+managed to win for himself in Cranford. So, with all the delicacy which
+the subject demanded, I made inquiries of my hostess, Miss Jenkyns. I
+was surprised to learn that Captain Brown not only was respected, but
+had even gained an extraordinary place of authority among the Cranford
+ladies. Of course, he had been forced to overcome great difficulties.
+
+In the first place, the ladies of Cranford had moaned over the invasion
+of their territories by a man and a gentleman. Then Captain Brown had
+started badly, very badly, by openly referring to his poverty. If he had
+whispered it to an intimate friend, the doors and windows being
+previously closed, his vulgarity--a tremendous word in Cranford--might
+have been forgiven. But he had published his poverty in the public
+street, in a loud military voice, alleging it as a reason for not taking
+a particular house.
+
+In Cranford, too, where it was tacitly agreed to ignore that anyone with
+whom we associated on terms of equality could ever be prevented by
+poverty from doing anything they wished. Where, if we walked to and from
+a party, it was because the night was _so_ fine or the air _so_
+refreshing, not because sedan-chairs were so expensive.
+
+So the poor captain had been sent to Coventry. The ladies of Cranford
+had frozen him out, until the day when the cow, an Alderney cow, had
+broken the ice.
+
+It happened like this. Miss Betsy Barker had an Alderney cow, which she
+looked upon as a daughter. You could not pay the regulation short
+quarter of an hour's call--to stay longer was a breach of
+manners--without being told of the wonderful milk or wonderful
+intelligence of this animal. The whole town knew and kindly regarded
+Miss Betsy Barker's Alderney.
+
+One day the cow fell into a lime-pit, and Cranford grieved over the
+spectacle of the poor beast being drawn out, having lost most of her
+hair, and looking naked, cold and miserable, in a bare skin. Miss Betsy
+Barker absolutely cried with sorrow and dismay, and was about to prepare
+a bath of oil for the sufferer, when Captain Brown called out: "Get her
+a flannel waistcoat and flannel drawers, ma'am, if you wish to keep her
+alive. But my advice is, 'kill the poor creature at once.'" Miss Betsy
+Barker dried her eyes, and in a few hours the whole town turned out to
+see the Alderney meekly going to her pasture, clad in dark-gray flannel.
+Do you ever see cows dressed in gray flannel in London?
+
+On that day was born the respect of the Cranford ladies for Captain
+Brown.
+
+Soon after my arrival in Cranford, Miss Jenkyns gave a party in my
+honour, and recalling the old days when we had almost persuaded
+ourselves that to be a man was to be "vulgar," I was curious to see what
+the ladies would do with Captain Brown.
+
+The preparations were much as usual. Card-tables, with green baize tops,
+were set out by daylight, and towards four, when the evening closed in,
+we all stood dressed in our best, each with a candle-lighter in our
+hand, ready to dart at the candles as soon as the first knock came. The
+china was delicate egg-shell; the old-fashioned silver glittered with
+polishing; but the eatables were of the slightest description. While the
+trays were yet on the table, Captain Brown arrived with his two
+daughters, Miss Brown and Miss Jessie, the former with a sickly, pained,
+and careworn expression; the latter with a pretty, round, dimpled face,
+and the look of a child which will remain with her should she live to be
+a hundred.
+
+I could see that the captain was a favourite with all the ladies
+present. Ruffled brows were smoothed and sharp voices hushed at his
+approach. He immediately and quietly assumed the man's place in the
+room; attended to everyone's wants, lessened the pretty maidservant's
+labour by waiting on empty cups and bread-and-butterless ladies; and yet
+did it all in so easy and dignified a manner, and so much as if it were
+a matter of course for the strong to attend to the weak, that he was a
+true man throughout.
+
+The party passed off very well in spite of one or two little hitches.
+One was Miss Jessie Brown's unguarded admission--_à propos_ of Shetland
+wool--that she had an uncle, her mother's brother, who was a shopkeeper
+in Edinburgh. Miss Jenkyns tried to drown this confession by a terrible
+cough, for the honourable Mrs. Jamieson was sitting at the card-table
+nearest Miss Jessie, and what would she say or think if she found out
+she was in the same room with a shopkeeper's niece!
+
+Then there was a slight breeze between Miss Jenkyns and Captain Brown
+over the relative merits of Dr. Johnson and the author of "Pickwick
+Papers"--then being published in parts--as writers of light and
+agreeable fiction. Captain Brown read an account of the "Swarry" which
+Sam Weller gave at Bath. Some of us laughed very heartily. _I_ did not
+dare, because I was staying in the house. At the conclusion Miss Jenkyns
+said to me, with mild dignity, "Fetch me 'Rasselas,' my dear, out of the
+book-room."
+
+After delivering one of the conversations between Rasselas and Imlac in
+a majestic, high-pitched voice, Miss Jenkyns said, "I imagine I am now
+justified in my preference for Dr. Johnson over your Mr. Boz as a writer
+of fiction."
+
+The captain said nothing, merely screwed his lips up and drummed on the
+table; but when Miss Jenkyns returned later to the charge and
+recommended the doctor's style to Captain Brown's favourite, the captain
+replied, "I should be very sorry for him to exchange his style for any
+such pompous writing."
+
+Miss Jenkyns felt this as a personal affront in a way of which the
+captain had not dreamed. How could he know that she and her friends
+looked upon epistolary writing as their forte, and that when in a letter
+they "seized the half-hour just previous to post-time to assure" their
+friends of this and that, they were using the doctor as a model?
+
+As it was Miss Jenkyns refused to be mollified by Captain Brown's
+efforts later to beguile her into conversation on some more pleasing
+subject. She was inexorable.
+
+Captain Brown endeavoured to make peace after this memorable dispute by
+a present to Miss Jenkyns of a wooden fire-shovel (his own making),
+having heard her say how much the grating of an iron one annoyed her.
+She received the present with cool gratitude and thanked him formally.
+When he was gone she bade me put it in the lumber-room, feeling probably
+that no present from a man who preferred Mr. Boz to Dr. Johnson could be
+less jarring than an iron fire-shovel.
+
+Such was the state of affairs at the time when I left Cranford and went
+to Drumble. I had, however, several correspondents who kept me _au fait_
+as to the proceedings of the inhabitants of the dear little town.
+
+
+_II.--The Captain_
+
+
+My next visit to Cranford was in the summer. There had been neither
+births, deaths, nor marriages since I was there last. Everybody lived in
+the same house, and wore pretty near the same well-preserved,
+old-fashioned clothes. The greatest event was that the Misses Jenkyns
+had purchased a new carpet for the drawing-room. Oh, the busy work Miss
+Matty and I had in chasing the sunbeams as they fell in an afternoon
+right down on this carpet through the blindless windows! We spread our
+newspapers over the places and sat down to our book or our work; and,
+lo! in a quarter of an hour the sun had moved and was blazing away in a
+fresh spot; and down again we went on our knees to alter the position of
+the newspapers. One whole morning, too, we spent in cutting out and
+stitching together pieces of newspapers so as to form little paths to
+every chair, lest the shoes of visitors should defile the purity of the
+carpet. Do you make paper paths for every guest to walk upon in London?
+
+The literary dispute between Captain Brown and Miss Jenkyns continued.
+She had formed a habit of talking _at_ him. And he retaliated by
+drumming his fingers, which action Miss Jenkyns felt and resented as
+disparaging to Dr. Johnson.
+
+The poor captain! I noticed on this visit that he looked older and more
+worn, and his clothes were very threadbare. But he seemed as bright and
+cheerful as ever, unless he was asked about his daughter's health.
+
+One afternoon we perceived little groups in the street, all listening
+with faces aghast to some tale or other. It was some time before Miss
+Jenkyns took the undignified step of sending Jenny out to inquire.
+
+Jenny came back with a white face of terror.
+
+"Oh, ma'am! Oh, Miss Jenkyns, ma'am! Captain Brown is killed by them
+nasty cruel railroads." And she burst into tears.
+
+"How, where--where? Good God! Jenny, don't waste time in crying, but
+tell us something."
+
+Miss Matty rushed out into the street, and presently an affrighted
+carter appeared in the drawing-room and told the story.
+
+"'Tis true, mum, I seed it myself. The captain was a-readin' some book,
+waitin' for the down train, when a lass as gave its sister the slip came
+toddling across the line. He looked up sudden, see'd the child, darted
+on the line, cotched it up, and his foot slipped and the train came over
+him in no time. The child's safe. Poor captain would be glad of that,
+mum, wouldn't he? God bless him!"
+
+The great rough carter turned away to hide his tears. I turned to Miss
+Jenkyns. She looked very ill, as though she were going to faint, and
+signed to me to open a window.
+
+"Matilda, bring me my bonnet. I must go to those girls. God pardon me if
+ever I have spoken contemptuously to the captain."
+
+Miss Brown did not long survive her father. Her last words were a prayer
+for forgiveness for her selfishness in allowing her sister Jessie to
+sacrifice herself for her all her life.
+
+But Miss Jessie was not long left alone. Miss Jenkyns insisted she
+should come and stay with her, and would not hear of her going out into
+the world to earn her living as a saleswoman. "Some people have no idea
+of their rank as a captain's daughter," she related indignantly, and
+stumped out of the room. Presently she came back with a strange look on
+her face.
+
+"I have been much startled--no, I've not been startled--don't mind me,
+my dear Miss Jessie, only surprised--in fact, I've had a caller whom you
+once knew, my dear Miss Jessie."
+
+Miss Jessie went very white, then flushed scarlet.
+
+"Is it?--it is not----" stammered out Miss Jessie, and got no farther.
+
+"This is his card," said Miss Jenkyns, and went through a series of
+winks and odd faces at me, and formed a long sentence with her lips, of
+which I could not understand a word.
+
+Major Gordon was shown upstairs.
+
+While downstairs Miss Jenkyns told me what the major had told her. How
+he had served in the same regiment as Captain Brown and had fallen in
+love with Miss Jessie, then a sweet-looking, blooming girl of eighteen;
+how she had refused him, though obviously not indifferent to him; how he
+had discovered the obstacle to be the fell disease which had stricken
+her sister, whom there was no one to nurse and comfort but herself; how
+he had believed her cold and had left in anger; and finally how he had
+read of the death of Captain Brown in a foreign newspaper.
+
+Just then Miss Matty burst into the room.
+
+"Oh, Deborah," she said, "there's a gentleman sitting in the drawing-
+room with his arm round Miss Jessie's waist!"
+
+"The most proper place for his arm to be in. Go, Matilda, and mind your
+own business."
+
+Poor Miss Matty! This was a shock, coming from her decorous sister.
+
+Thus happiness, and with it some of her early bloom, returned to Miss
+Jessie, and as Mrs. Gordon her dimples were not out of place.
+
+
+_III.--Poor Peter_
+
+
+My visits to Cranford continued for many years, and did not cease even
+after the death of Miss Jenkyns.
+
+Miss Matty became my new hostess. At first I rather dreaded the changed
+aspect of things. Miss Matty, too, began to cry as soon as she saw me.
+She was evidently nervous from having anticipated my visit. I comforted
+her as well as I could, and I found the best consolation I could give
+was the honest praise that came from my heart as I spoke of the
+deceased.
+
+Miss Matty made me her confidante in many matters, and one evening she
+sent Martha to go for eggs at a farm at the other end of the town and
+told me the story of her brother.
+
+"Poor Peter! The sole honour he brought from Shrewsbury was the
+reputation of being captain of the school in the art of practical
+joking. He even thought that the people of Cranford might be hoaxed.
+'Hoaxing' is not a pretty word, my dear, and I hope you won't tell your
+father I used it, for I should not like him to think I was not choice in
+my language, after living with such a woman as Deborah. I don't know how
+it slipped out of my mouth, except it was that I was thinking of poor
+Peter, and it was always his expression.
+
+"One day my father had gone to see some sick people in the village.
+Deborah, too, was away from home for a fortnight or so. I don't know
+what possessed poor Peter, but he went to her room and dressed himself
+in her old gown and shawl and bonnet. And he made the pillow into a
+little--you are sure you locked the door, my dear?--into--into a little
+baby with white long clothes. And he went and walked up and down in the
+Filbert Walk--just half hidden by the rails and half seen; and he
+cuddled the pillow just like a baby and talked to it all the nonsense
+people do. Oh, dear, and my father came stepping stately up the street,
+as he always did, and pushing past the crowd saw--I don't know what he
+saw--but old Clare said his face went grey-white with anger. He seized
+hold of poor Peter, tore the clothes off his back--bonnet, shawl, gown,
+and all--threw them among the crowd, and before all the people lifted up
+his cane and flogged Peter.
+
+"My dear, that boy's trick on that sunny day, when all promised so well,
+broke my mother's heart and changed my father for life. Old Clare said
+Peter looked as white as my father and stood still as a statue to be
+flogged.
+
+"'Have you done enough, sir?' he asked hoarsely, when my father stopped.
+Then Peter bowed grandly to the people outside the railing and walked
+slowly home. He went straight to his mother, looking as haughty as any
+man, and not like a boy.
+
+"'Mother,' he said, 'I am come to say "God bless you for ever."'
+
+"He would say no more, and by the time my mother had found out what had
+happened from my father, and had gone to her boy's room to comfort him,
+he had gone, and did not come back. That spring day was the last time he
+ever saw his mother's face. He wrote a passionate entreaty to her to
+come and see him before his ship left the Mersey for the war, but the
+letter was delayed, and when she arrived it was too late. It killed my
+mother. And think, my dear, the day after her death--for she did not
+live a twelve-month after Peter left--came a parcel from India from her
+poor boy. It was a large, soft white India shawl. Just what my mother
+would have liked.
+
+"We took it to my father in the hopes it would rouse him, for he had sat
+with her hand in his all night long. At first he took no notice of it.
+Then suddenly he got up and spoke. 'She shall be buried in it,' he said.
+'Peter shall have that comfort; and she would have liked it.'"
+
+"Did Mr. Peter ever come home?"
+
+"Yes, once. He came home a lieutenant. And he and my father were such
+friends. My father was so proud to show him to all the neighbours. He
+never walked out without Peter's arm to lean on. And then Peter went to
+sea again, and by-and-by my father died, blessing us both and thanking
+Deborah for all she had been to him. And our circumstances were changed,
+and from a big rectory with three servants we had come down to a small
+house with a servant-of-all-work. But, as Deborah used to say, we have
+always lived genteelly, even if circumstances have compelled us to
+simplicity. Poor Deborah!"
+
+"And Mr. Peter?" I asked.
+
+"Oh, there was some great war in India, and we have never heard of Peter
+since then. I believe he is dead myself. Sometimes when I sit by myself
+and the house is quiet, I think I hear his step coming up the street,
+and my heart begins to flutter and beat; but the sound goes, and Peter
+never comes back."
+
+
+_IV.--Friends in Need_
+
+
+The years rolled on. I spent my time between Drumble and Cranford. I was
+thankful that I happened to be staying with Miss Matty when the Town and
+County Bank failed, which had such a disastrous effect on her little
+fortune.
+
+It was an example to me, and I fancy it might be to many others, to see
+how immediately Miss Matty set about the retrenchment she knew to be
+right under her altered circumstances. I did the little I could. Some
+months back a conjuror had given a performance in the Cranford Assembly
+Rooms. By a strange set of circumstances the identity of Signor Brunoni
+was revealed. He was plain Samuel Brown, who had fallen out of his cart
+and had to be attended by our doctor. I went to visit the patient and
+his wife, and learned that she had been India. She told me a long story
+about being befriended, after a perilous journey, by a kind Englishman
+who lived right in the midst of the natives. It was his name which
+astonished me. Agra Jenkyns.
+
+Could Agra Jenkyns be the long lost Peter? I resolved to say nothing to
+Miss Matty, but got the address from the signor (as we still called him
+from habit), spelt by sound, and very queer it looked, and posted a
+letter to him.
+
+All sorts of plans were discussed for Miss Matty's future. I thought of
+all the things by which a woman, past middle age, and with the education
+common to ladies fifty years ago, could earn or add to a living without
+materially losing caste; but at length I put even this last clause on
+one side, and wondered what in the world Miss Matty could do. Even
+teaching was out of the question, for, reckoning over her
+accomplishments, I had to come down to reading, writing, and
+arithmetic--and in reading the chapter every morning she always coughed
+before coming to long words.
+
+I was still in a quandary the next morning, when I received a letter
+from Miss Pole, so mysteriously wrapped up and with so many seals on it
+to secure secrecy that I had to tear the paper before I could unfold it.
+
+It summoned me to go to Miss Pole at 11 a.m., the a.m. twice dashed
+under as if I were likely to come at eleven at night, when all Cranford
+was usually abed and asleep by ten. I went and found Miss Pole dressed
+in solemn array, though there were only Mrs. Forrester, crying quietly
+and sadly, and Mrs. FitzAdam present. Miss Pole was armed with a card,
+on which I imagine she had written some notes.
+
+"Miss Smith," she began, when I entered (I was familiarly known to all
+Cranford as Mary, but this was a state occasion), "I have conversed in
+private with these ladies on the misfortune which has happened to our
+friend, and one and all have agreed that while we have a superfluity, it
+is not only a duty but a pleasure--a true pleasure, Mary!"--her voice
+was rather choked just here, and she had to wipe her spectacles before
+she could go on--"to give what we can to assist her--Miss Matilda
+Jenkyns. Only in consideration of the feelings of delicate independence
+existing in the mind of every refined female"--I was sure she had got
+back to the card--"we wish to contribute our mites in a secret and
+concealed manner, so as not to hurt the feelings I have referred to."
+
+Well, the upshot of this solemn meeting was that each of those dear old
+ladies wrote down the sum she could afford annually, signed the paper
+and sealed it mysteriously, and I was commissioned to get my father to
+administer the fund in such a manner that Miss Jenkyns should imagine
+the money came from her own improved investments.
+
+As I was going, Mrs. Forrester took me aside, and in the manner of one
+confessing a great crime the poor old lady told me how very, very little
+she had to live on--a confession she was brought to make from a dread
+lest we should think that the small contribution named in her paper bore
+any proportion to her love and regard for Miss Mary. And yet that sum
+which she so eagerly relinquished was, in truth, more than a twentieth
+part of what she had to live on. And when the whole income does not
+nearly amount to a hundred pounds, to give up a twentieth of it will
+necessitate many careful economies and many pieces of self-denial--small
+and insignificant in the world's account, but bearing a different value
+in another account book that I have heard of.
+
+The upshot of it all was that dear Miss Matty was comfortably installed
+in her own house, and added to her slender income by selling tea! This
+last was my idea, and it was a proud moment for me when it realized. The
+small dining-room was converted into a shop, without any of its
+degrading characteristics, a table formed the counter, one window was
+retained unaltered and the other changed into a glass door, and there
+she was. Tea was certainly a happy commodity, as it was neither greasy
+nor sticky, grease and stickiness being two of the qualities which Miss
+Matty could not endure. Moreover, as Miss Matty said, one good thing
+about it was that men did not buy it, and it was of men particularly she
+was afraid. They had such sharp, loud ways with them, and did up
+accounts and counted their change so quickly.
+
+Very little remains to be told. The approval of the Honourable Mrs.
+Jamieson set the seal upon the successful career of Miss Matty as a
+purveyor of tea. Thus did she escape even the shadow of "vulgarity."
+
+One afternoon I was sitting in the shop parlour with Miss Matty, when we
+saw a gentleman go slowly past the window and then stand opposite to the
+door, as if looking out for the name which we had so carefully hidden.
+His clothes had an out-of-the-way foreign cut, and it flashed across me
+it was the Agra himself! He entered.
+
+Miss Matty looked at him, and something of tender relaxation in his face
+struck home to her heart. She said: "It is--oh, sir, can you be Peter?"
+and trembled from head to foot. In a moment he had her in his arms,
+sobbing the tearless cries of old age.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+Mary Barton
+
+
+     "Mary Barton," although not Mrs. Gaskell's first attempt at
+     authorship, was her first literary success; and although her
+     later writings revealed a gain in skill, subtlety and humour,
+     none of them equalled "Mary Barton" in dramatic intensity and
+     fervent sincerity. This passionate tale of the sorrows of the
+     Manchester poor, given to the world anonymously in the year
+     1848, was greeted with a storm of mingled approval and
+     disapproval. It was praised by Carlyle and Landor, but some
+     critics attacked it fiercely as a slander on the Manchester
+     manufacturers, and there were admirers who complained that it
+     was too heartrending. The controversy has long since died
+     down, but the book holds a permanent place in literature as a
+     vivid revelation of a dark and painful phase of English life
+     in the middle of the last century.
+
+
+_I.--Rich and Poor_
+
+
+"Mary," said John Barton to his daughter, "what's come o'er thee and Jem
+Wilson? You were great friends at one time."
+
+"Oh, folk say he is going to be married to Molly Gibson," answered Mary,
+as indifferently as she could.
+
+"Thou'st played thy cards badly, then," replied her father in a surly
+tone. "At one time he were much fonder o' thee than thou deservedst."
+
+"That's as people think," said Mary pertly, for she remembered that the
+very morning before, when on her way to her dressmaking work, she had
+met Mr. Harry Carson, who had sighed, and sworn and protested all manner
+of tender vows. Mr. Harry Carson was the son and the idol of old Mr.
+Carson, the wealthy mill-owner. Jem Wilson, her old playmate, and the
+son of her father's, closest friend, although he had earned a position
+of trust at the foundry where he worked, was but a mechanic after all!
+Mary was ambitious; she knew that she had beauty; she believed that when
+young Mr. Carson declared he meant to marry her he spoke the truth.
+
+It so happened that Jem, after much anxious thought, had determined that
+day to "put his fortune to the touch." Just after John Barton had gone
+out, Jem appeared at the door, looking more awkward and abashed than he
+had ever done before.
+
+He thought he had better begin at once.
+
+"Mary, it's no new story I'm going to speak about. Since we were boy and
+girl I ha' loved you above father and mother and all. And now, Mary, I'm
+foreman at the works, and I've a home to offer you, and a heart as true
+as ever man had to love you and cherish you. Darling, say that you'll be
+mine."
+
+Mary could not speak at once.
+
+"Mary, they say, silence gives consent," he whispered.
+
+"No, not with me! I can never be your wife."
+
+"Oh, Mary, think awhile!" he urged.
+
+"Jem, it cannot be," she said calmly, although she trembled from head to
+foot. "Once for all, I will never marry you."
+
+"And this is the end!" he cried passionately. "Mary, you'll hear, maybe,
+of me as a drunkard, and maybe as a thief, and maybe as a murderer.
+Remember! it's your cruelty that will have made me what I feel I shall
+become."
+
+He rushed out of the house.
+
+When he had gone, Mary lay half across the dresser, her head hidden in
+her hands, and her body shaken with violent sobs. For these few minutes
+had unveiled her heart to her; it had convinced her that she loved Jem
+above all persons or things. What were the wealth and prosperity that
+Mr. Harry Carson might bring to her now that she had suddenly discovered
+the passionate secret of her soul?
+
+Her first duty, she saw, was to reject the advances of her rich lover.
+She avoided him as far as possible, and slighted him when he forced his
+presence upon her. And how was she to redress the wrong she had done to
+Jem in denying him her heart? She took counsel with her friend,
+Margaret Legh. When Mary had first known Margaret and her grandfather,
+Job Legh--an old man who belonged to the class of Manchester workmen who
+are warm and devoted followers of science, a man whose home was like a
+wizard's dwelling, filled with impaled insects and books and
+instruments--Margaret had a secret fear of blindness. The fear had since
+been realised, but she remained the quiet, sensible, tender-hearted girl
+she had been before her great deprivation. She opposed Mary's notion of
+writing a letter to Jem.
+
+"You must just wait and be patient," she advised; "being patient is the
+hardest work we have to do through life, I take it. Waiting is far more
+difficult than doing; but it's one of God's lessons we must learn, one
+way or another."
+
+So Mary waited. But Jem took his disappointment as final, and her hopes
+of seeing him were always baffled.
+
+John Barton, on the night of Jem's proposal, had gone to his union. The
+members of the union were all desperate men, ready for anything; made
+ready by want. Barton himself was out of work. He had seen much of the
+bitterness of poverty in Manchester; now he was feeling the pinch of it
+himself.
+
+Ever since the death of his wife, whose end had been hastened by the
+sudden and complete disappearance of her darling sister Esther, the wan
+colourlessness of his face had been intensified; his stern enthusiasm,
+once latent, had become visible; his heart, tenderer than ever towards
+the victims of the misery around him, grew harder towards the employers,
+whom he believed to be the cause of that misery. Trade grew worse, but
+there was no sign that the masters were suffering; they still had their
+carriages and their comforts; the woe in these terrible years 1839,
+1840, and 1841 seemed to fall wholly upon the poor. It is impossible
+even faintly to picture the state of distress which prevailed in
+Manchester at that time. Whole families went through a gradual
+starvation; John Barton saw them starve, saw fathers and mothers and
+children die of low, putrid fever in foetid cellars, and cursed the rich
+men who never extended a helping hand to the sufferers.
+
+"Working folk won't be ground to the dust much longer," he declared.
+"We'n ha' had as much to bear as human nature can bear."
+
+Fiercer grew he, and more sullen. Darker and darker were the schemes he
+brooded over in his desolate home, or discussed with others at the
+meetings of the union. Even Mary did not escape his ill-temper. Once he
+struck her. And yet Mary was the one being on earth he devotedly loved.
+What would he have thought had he known that his daughter had listened
+to the voice of an employer's son? But he did not know.
+
+
+_II.--The Rivals_
+
+
+One night, as Jem was leaving the foundry, a woman laid her hand upon
+his arm. A momentary glance at the faded finery she wore told him the
+class to which she belonged, and he made an effort to pass on. But she
+grasped him firmly.
+
+"You must listen to me, Jem Wilson," she said, "for Mary Barton's sake."
+
+"And who can you be to know Mary Barton?" he exclaimed.
+
+"Do you remember Esther, Mary's aunt?"
+
+'"Yes, I mind her well." He looked into her face. "Why, Esther! Where
+have ye been this many a year?"
+
+She answered with fierce earnestness, "Where have I been? What have I
+been doing? Can you not guess? See after Mary, and take care she does
+not become like me. As she is loving now, so did I love once--one above
+me, far."
+
+Jem cut her short with his hoarse, stern inquiry, "Who is this spark
+that Mary loves?"
+
+"It's old Carson's son." Then, after a pause, she continued, "Oh, Jem, I
+charge you with the care of her! Her father won't listen to me." She
+cried a little at the recollection of John Barton's harsh words when she
+had timidly tried to approach him. "It would be better for her to die
+than to live to lead such a life as I do!"
+
+"It would be better," said Jem, as if thinking aloud. Then he went on.
+"Esther, you may trust to my doing all I can for Mary. And now, listen.
+Come home with me. Come to my mother."
+
+"God bless you, Jem!" she replied. "But it is too late now--too late!"
+
+She rapidly turned away. Jem felt that the great thing was to reach home
+and solitude. His heart was filled with jealous anguish. Mary loved
+another! She was lost to him for evermore. A frenzied longing for blood
+entered his mind as he brooded that night over his loss. But at last the
+thought of duty brought peace to his soul. If Carson loved Mary, Carson
+must marry her. It was Jem's part to speak straightforwardly to Carson,
+to be unto Mary as a brother.
+
+Four days later his opportunity came. He met Carson in an unfrequented
+lane.
+
+"May I speak a word wi' you, sir?" said Jem respectfully.
+
+"Certainly, my good man," replied Harry Carson.
+
+"I think, sir, you're keeping company wi' Mary Barton?"
+
+"Mary Barton! Ay, that is her name. An arrant flirt the little hussy is,
+but very pretty."
+
+"I will tell you in plain words," said Jem, angered, "what I have got to
+say to you. I'm an old friend of Mary's and her father's, and I want to
+know if you mean fair by Mary or not."
+
+"You will have the kindness to leave us to ourselves," answered Carson
+contemptuously. "No one shall interfere between my little girl and me.
+Get out of my way! Won't you? Then I'll make you!"
+
+He raised his cane, and smote the mechanic on his face. An instant
+afterwards he lay stretched in the muddy road, Jem standing over him,
+panting with rage. Just then a policeman, who had been watching them
+unobserved, interfered with expostulations and warnings.
+
+"If you dare to injure her," shouted Jem, as he was dragged away, "I
+will wait you where no policeman can step in between. And God shall
+judge between us two!"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The mill-workers had struck against low wages. Five haggard, earnest-
+looking men had presented the workpeople's demands to the assembled
+mill-owners, and the demands had been rejected. None had been fiercer in
+opposing the delegates, none more bitter in mockery of their rags and
+leanness, than the son of old Mr. Carson.
+
+That evening, starved, irritated, despairing men gathered to hear the
+delegates tell of their failure.
+
+"It's the masters as has wrought this woe," said John Barton in a low
+voice. "It's the masters as should pay for it. Set me to serve out the
+masters, and see if there's aught I'll stick at!"
+
+Deeper and darker grew the import of the speeches as the men stood
+hoarsely muttering their meaning out with set teeth and livid looks.
+After a fierce and terrible oath had been sworn, a number of pieces of
+paper, one of them marked, were shuffled in a hat. The gas was
+extinguished; each drew a paper. The gas was re-lighted. Each examined
+his paper, with a countenance as immovable as he could make it. Then
+they went every one his own way.
+
+He who had drawn the marked paper had drawn the lot of the assassin. And
+no one, save God and his own conscience, knew who was the appointed
+murderer.
+
+
+_III.--Murder_
+
+
+Two nights later, Barton was to leave for Glasgow, whither he was to
+travel as delegate to entreat assistance for the strikers. "What could
+be the matter with him?" thought Mary. He was so restless; he seemed so
+fierce, too.
+
+Presently he rose, and in a short, cold manner bade her farewell. She
+stood at the door, looking after him, her eyes blinded with tears. He
+was so strange, so cold, so hard. Suddenly he came back, and took her in
+his arms.
+
+"God in heaven bless thee, Mary!"
+
+She threw her arms round his neck. He kissed her, unlaced her soft,
+twining arms, and set off on his errand.
+
+When Mary reached the dressmaker's next morning, she noticed that the
+girls stopped talking. They eyed her! then they began to whisper. At
+last one of them asked her if she had heard the news.
+
+"No! What news?" she answered.
+
+"Have you not heard that young Mr. Carson was murdered last night?"
+
+Mary could not speak, but no one who looked at her pale and
+terror-stricken face could have doubted that she had not heard before of
+the fearful occurrence.
+
+She felt throughout the day as if the haunting horror were a nightmare
+from which awakening would relieve her. Everybody was full of the one
+subject.
+
+In the evening she went to Mrs. Wilson's, hoping that at last she might
+see Jem. But here a new and terrible shock awaited her.
+
+Mrs. Wilson turned fiercely upon her.
+
+"And is it thee that dares set foot in this house, after what has come
+to pass? Dost thou know where my son is, all through thee?"
+
+"No," quivered out poor Mary.
+
+"He's lying in prison, waiting to take his trial for murdering young Mr.
+Carson."
+
+So, indeed, it was. At the inquest the policeman who had witnessed the
+quarrel between the rivals testified to the threats uttered by Jem; and
+the gun used by the murderer, and thrown away by him in his haste to
+escape, had been proved to be Jem's property.
+
+Jem an assassin, and because of her! In the agony of that night Mary saw
+the gallows standing black against the burning light which dazzled her
+shut eyes, press on them as she would. She thought she was going mad;
+then Heaven blessed her unawares, and she sank to sleep.
+
+She was awakened by the coming of a visitor. It was her long-lost,
+unrecognised aunt Esther, who had come to her niece bringing her a
+little piece of paper compressed into a round shape. It was the paper
+that had served as wadding for the murderer's gun. Esther had picked it
+up while wandering in curiosity about the scene of the murder. There was
+writing on the paper, and she had brought it to Mary, fearing that if it
+fell into the hands of the police it would provide more evidence against
+Jem.
+
+The paper told Mary everything. It had belonged to John Barton. Jem was
+innocent, and her own father was the murderer! Jem must be saved, and
+she must do it; for was she not the sole repository of the terrible
+secret? And how could she prove Jem's innocence without admitting her
+father's guilt?
+
+When she could think calmly, she realised that she must discover where
+Jem had been on the Thursday night when the murder had been committed.
+Tremblingly she went to Mrs. Wilson, and learnt what she wanted to know.
+Jem had walked towards Liverpool with his cousin Will, a sailor who had
+spent all his money in Manchester, and could not afford railway-fare.
+Will's ship was to sail on Tuesday, and on Tuesday Jem was to be tried
+at the Liverpool assizes.
+
+Job Legh engaged a lawyer to defend Jem, and Mary prepared to go to
+Liverpool to find the one man whose evidence could save her lover. Ere
+she left, a policeman brought her a bit of parchment. Her heart misgave
+her as she took it; she guessed its purport. It was a summons to bear
+witness against Jem Wilson at the assizes.
+
+
+_IV.--"Not Guilty_"
+
+
+Arrived at Liverpool on Monday, after the bewilderment of a railway
+journey--the first she had ever made--Mary found her way to the little
+court, not far from the docks, were Jem's sailor cousin lodged.
+
+"Is Will Wilson here?" she asked the landlady.
+
+"No, he is not," replied the woman, curtly.
+
+"Tell me--where he is?" asked Mary, sickening.
+
+"He's gone this very morning, my poor dear," answered the landlady,
+relenting at the sight of Mary's obvious distress. "He's sailed, my
+dear--sailed in the John Cropper this very blessed morning!"
+
+Mary staggered into the house, stricken into hopelessness. Yet hope was
+not dead. The landlady's son told her that the John Cropper would be
+waiting for high-water to cross the sandbanks at the river's mouth, and
+that there was a chance that a sailing-boat might overtake the vessel.
+
+Mary hurried down to the docks, spent every penny she had in hiring a
+boat, and presently was tossing on the water for the first time in her
+life, alone with two rough men.
+
+The boatmen hailed the John Cropper just as the crew were heaving
+anchor, and told their errand. The captain refused with a dreadful oath
+to stop his ship for anyone, whoever swung for it. But Will Wilson,
+standing at the stern, shouted through his hands, "So help me God, Mary
+Barton, I'll come back in the pilot-boat time enough to save his life!"
+
+As the ship receded in the distance, Mary asked anxiously when the
+pilot-boat would be back. The boatmen did not know; it might be twelve
+hours, it might be two days. A chance yet remained, but she could no
+longer hope. When she reached the landing-place, faint and penniless,
+one of the boatmen took her to his home, and there she sat sleeplessly
+awaiting the dawn of the day of trial.
+
+When she entered the witness-box next day, the whole court reeled before
+her, save two figures only--that of the judge and that of the prisoner.
+Jem sat silent--he had held his peace ever since his arrest--with his
+face bowed on his hands.
+
+Mary answered a few questions with a sort of wonder at the reality of
+the terrible circumstances in which she was placed.
+
+"And pray, may I ask, which was the favoured lover?" went on the
+barrister.
+
+A look of indignation for an instant contracted Mary's brow. She was
+aware that Jem had raised his head and was gazing at her. Turning
+towards the judge, she said steadily, "Perhaps I liked Mr. Harry Carson
+once; but I loved James Wilson beyond what tongue can tell. When he
+asked me to marry him, I was very hard in my answer; but he'd not been
+gone out of my sight above a minute before I knew I loved him--far above
+my life."
+
+After these words the prisoner's head was no longer bowed. He stood
+erect and firm, with self-respect in his attitude; yet he seemed lost in
+thought.
+
+But Will Wilson did not come, and the evidence against Jem grew stronger
+and stronger. Mary was flushed and anxious, muttering to herself in a
+wild, restless manner. Job Legh heard her repeat again and again, "I
+must not go mad; I must not!"
+
+Suddenly she threw up her arms and shrieked aloud: "Oh, Jem! Jem! You're
+saved! and I am mad!" and was carried out of court stiff and convulsed.
+And as they bore her off, a sailor forced his way over rails and seats,
+through turnkeys and policemen. Will Wilson had come in time.
+
+He told his tale clearly and distinctly; the efforts of the prosecution
+to shake him were useless. "Not guilty" was the verdict that thrilled
+through the breathless court. One man sank back in his seat in sickening
+despair. The vengeance that old Mr. Carson had longed to compass for the
+murder of his beloved boy was thwarted; he had been cheated of the
+desire that now ruled his life--the desire of blood for blood.
+
+
+_V.--"Forgive Us Our Trespasses_"
+
+
+For many days Mary hovered between life and death, and it was long ere
+she could make the journey back to Manchester under the tender care of
+the man who now knew she loved him. Not until she had recovered did he
+tell her that he had lost his situation at the foundry--the men refused
+to work under one who had been tried for murder--and that he was looking
+for work elsewhere.
+
+"Mary," he asked, "art thou much bound to Manchester? Would it grieve
+thee sore to quit the old smoke-jack?"
+
+"With thee?" was her quiet response.
+
+"I've heard fine things of Canada. Thou knowest where Canada is, Mary?"
+
+"Not rightly--but with thee, Jem"--her voice sank to a
+whisper--"anywhere." Then, after a pause, she added, "But father!"
+
+John Barton was smitten, helpless, very near to death. His face was sunk
+and worn--like a skull, with yet a suffering expression that skulls have
+not! Crime and all had been forgotten by his daughter when she saw him;
+fondly did she serve him in every way that heart could devise.
+
+Jem had known from the first that Barton was the murderer of Harry
+Carson. Several days before the murder Barton had borrowed Jem's gun,
+and Jem had seen the truth at the moment of his arrest. When Mary came
+to tell him that her father wished to speak to him, Jem could not guess
+what was before him, and did not try to guess.
+
+When they entered the room, Mary saw all at a glance. Her father stood
+holding on to a chair as if for support. Behind him sat Job Legh,
+listening; before him stood the stern figure of Mr. Carson.
+
+"Don't dare to think that I shall be merciful; you shall be
+hanged--hanged--man!" said Mr. Carson, with slow, emphasis.
+
+"I've had far, far worse misery than hanging!" cried Barton. "Sir, one
+word! My hairs are grey with suffering."
+
+"And have I had no suffering?" interrupted Mr. Carson. "Is not my boy
+gone--killed--out of my sight for ever? He was my sunshine, and now it
+is night! Oh, my God! comfort me, comfort me!" cried the old man aloud.
+
+Barton lay across the table broken-hearted. "God knows I didn't know
+what I was doing," he whispered. "Oh, sir," he said wildly, "say you
+forgive me?"
+
+"Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive them that trespass against us,"
+said Job solemnly.
+
+Mr. Carson took his hands from his face.
+
+"Let my trespasses be unforgiven, so that I may have vengeance for my
+son's murder."
+
+John Barton lay on the ground as one dead.
+
+When Mr. Carson had left the house, he leant against a railing to steady
+himself, for he was dizzy with agitation. He looked up to the calm,
+majestic depths of the heavens, and by-and-by the last words he had
+spoken returned upon him, as if they were being echoed through all that
+infinite space in tones of unutterable sorrow. He went homewards; not to
+the police-office. All night long, the archangel combated with the demon
+in his soul.
+
+All night long, others watched by the bed of death. As morning dawned,
+Barton grew worse; his breathing seemed almost stopped. Jem had gone to
+the druggist's, and Mary cried out for assistance to raise her father.
+
+A step, which was not Jem's, came up the stairs. Mr. Carson stood in the
+doorway. He raised up the powerless frame, and the departing soul looked
+out of the eyes with gratitude.
+
+"Pray for us!" cried Mary, sinking on her knees.
+
+"God be merciful to us sinners," was Mr. Carson's prayer. "Forgive us
+our trespasses as we forgive them that trespass against us."
+
+And when the words were said, John Barton lay a corpse in Mr. Carson's
+arms.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+At the door of a long, low wooden house stands Mary, watching the return
+of her husband from his work.
+
+Her baby boy, in his grandmother's arms, sees him come with a crow of
+delight.
+
+"English letters!" cries Jem. "Guess the good news!"
+
+"Oh, tell me!" says Mary.
+
+"Margaret has recovered her sight. She and Will are to be married, and
+he's bringing her out here to Canada; and Job Legh talks of coming,
+too--not to see you, Mary, but to try and pick up a few specimens of
+Canadian insects."
+
+"Dear Job Legh!" said Mary, softly.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+WILLIAM GODWIN
+
+
+Caleb Williams
+
+
+     William Godwin, the son of a dissenting parson, was a man of
+     remarkable gifts and the father of the poet Shelley's second
+     wife, Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley (see Vol. VII). Born at
+     Wisbeach, England, March 3, 1756, he served for five years,
+     1778-83, as a Nonconformist minister, and then going to
+     London, joined the leading Whig circle of the day, and turned
+     his attention to political writings. His "Political Justice,"
+     though little read to-day, had a great number of readers and
+     considerable influence a hundred years ago. "Things as They
+     Are, or the Adventures of Caleb Williams," published in 1794,
+     has a philosophical significance, suggested by the falseness
+     of the common code of morality, which is apt to be overlooked
+     by many readers in the strong interest of the tale. It is one
+     of the few books of that period which may still be said to
+     live. It is quite the best of his novels. "It raised Godwin's
+     reputation to a pinnacle," according to contemporary
+     criticism, though some of his other novels, notably
+     "Fleetwood," have been preferred for their descriptive
+     writing. He was an exceedingly industrious writer; essays,
+     biography, political philosophy, and history all coming from
+     his pen; but in spite of this and of his many distinguished
+     friendships, Godwin was always in difficulties, which he bore
+     with the becoming grace of a philosopher. He died on April 7,
+     1836.
+
+
+_I.--Mr. Falkland's Secret_
+
+
+My life has for several years been a theatre of calamity. My fairest
+prospects have been blasted. My enemy has shown himself inaccessible to
+entreaties and untired in persecution. I was born of humble parents, in
+a remote county of England. Their occupations were such as usually fall
+to the lot of peasants, and they had no portion to give me. I was taught
+the rudiments of no science, except reading, writing, and arithmetic.
+But I had an inquisitive mind, and neglected no means of information
+from conversation or books.
+
+The residence of my parents was within the manor of Ferdinando Falkland,
+a country squire of considerable opulence. At an early age I attracted
+the favourable notice of Mr. Collins, this gentleman's steward, who used
+to call in occasionally at my father's.
+
+In the summer of the year----, Mr. Falkland visited his estate in our
+county after an absence of several months. This was a period of
+misfortune to me. I was then eighteen years of age. My father lay dead
+in our cottage, and I had lost my mother some years before. In this
+forlorn situation I received a message from the squire, ordering me to
+repair to the manor house.
+
+My reception was as gracious and encouraging as I could possibly desire.
+Mr. Falkland questioned me respecting my learning, and my conceptions of
+men and things, and listened to my answers with condescension and
+approbation. He then informed me that he was in want of a secretary, and
+that if I approved of the employment he would take me into his house.
+
+I felt highly flattered by the proposal, and found my employment--which
+included the duties of librarian as well as those of a secretary--easy
+and agreeable.
+
+Mr. Falkland's mode of living was in the utmost degree recluse and
+solitary. His features were scarcely ever relaxed in a smile, and the
+distemper which afflicted him with incessant gloom had its paroxysms.
+None of the domestics, except myself and Mr. Collins approached Mr.
+Falkland but at stated seasons and then only for a very short interval.
+
+Once after I had seen my patron in a strange fit of intolerable anguish,
+I could not help confiding in Mr. Collins that I feared Mr. Falkland had
+some secret trouble, and in answer to my communication Mr. Collins told
+me the story of Tyrrel's murder.
+
+Barnabas Tyrrel had been a neighbouring squire insupportably brutish and
+arrogant, tyrannical to his inferiors, and insolent to his equals. From
+the first he hated Falkland, whose dignity and courtesy were a constant
+rebuke to the other's boorish ill-humours, and rejected with scorn all
+proposals for civil intercourse.
+
+The crisis came when Tyrrel, who had been expelled from the rural
+assembly which met every week at the market-town, forced his way in. He
+was intoxicated, and at once attacked Falkland, knocking him down, and
+then kicking his prostrate enemy before anyone had time to interfere.
+
+To Mr. Falkland disgrace was worse than death. This complication of
+ignominy, base, humiliating, and public, stung him to the very soul, and
+filled his mind with horror and uproar. One other event closed that
+memorable evening. Mr. Tyrrel was found dead in the street, having been
+murdered a few yards from the assembly-house.
+
+From that day Falkland was a changed man. His cheerfulness and
+tranquillity gave way to gloomy and unsociable melancholy, and, filled
+with the ideas of chivalry, the humiliating and dishonourable situation
+in which he had been placed could never be forgotten. To add to his
+misfortunes, it was presently whispered that he was no other than the
+murderer of his antagonist, and even the magistrates at length decided
+that the matter must be investigated, and requested Falkland to appear
+before them.
+
+Mr. Falkland attended, and easily convinced the magistrates of his
+innocence, pointing out that his one desire was to have called out the
+man who had insulted him so horribly, and to have fought him to the
+death. He was not only acquitted, but a public demonstration of sympathy
+was arranged at once to show the esteem in which he was held.
+
+A few weeks, and the real murderer was discovered. This was a man named
+Hawkins, who, with his son, had been reduced from an honest livelihood
+to beggary and ruin by Tyrrel. On circumstantial evidence, Hawkins and
+his son were condemned and executed.
+
+This was the story Mr. Collins told me in order that I might understand
+Mr. Falkland's unhappy state. In reality it only added to my
+embarrassment.
+
+Was it possible, after all, that Mr. Falkland should be the murderer? It
+was but a passing thought, and yet what was the meaning of Mr.
+Falkland's agonies of mind? I could not accept Mr. Collins's view that
+Mr. Falkland was so much the slave and fool of honour that the shame of
+Tyrrel's savage assault alone had driven him to this melancholy and
+solitude, and compelled the violent outbursts of passion.
+
+
+_II.--I Learn the Secret_
+
+
+My suspicions would not be set at rest. No spark of malignity was
+harboured in my soul. I reverenced the sublime mind of Mr. Falkland, but
+I had a mistaken curiosity to find out the truth of Tyrrel's murder.
+Often it seemed that Mr. Falkland was about to speak to me, but the
+movement always ended in silence.
+
+At last one day he sent for me to his room, and after making me swear
+never to disclose his confidence, and warning me that he had observed my
+suspicions, told me that he was the murderer of Tyrrel and the assassin
+of the two Hawkins.
+
+"This it is to be a gentleman, a man of honour!" Falkland went on, in
+extreme distress. "My virtue, my honesty, my everlasting peace of mind,
+all sacrificed that I may preserve my good name. And I am as much the
+fool of fame as ever. Though I be the blackest of villains, I will leave
+behind me a spotless and illustrious name. Why is it that I am compelled
+to this confidence? From the love of fame. I had no alternative but to
+make you my confidant or my victim, and perhaps my next murder would not
+have been so fortunate. I do not want to shed more blood. It is better
+to trust you with the whole truth, under every seal of secrecy, than to
+live in perpetual fear of your penetration. But look what you have done
+with your foolishly inquisitive humour. You shall continue in my
+service, and I will benefit you in respect of fortune; but I shall
+always hate you. If ever an unguarded word escape from your lips, you
+may expect to pay for it with your death, or worse. By everything that
+is sacred, preserve your faith!"
+
+Such was the secret I had been so desirous to know.
+
+"It is a wretched prospect," I said to myself, "that he holds up to me.
+But I will never become an informer. I will never injure my patron; and
+therefore he will not be my enemy."
+
+It was no long time after this that Mr. Forester--Mr. Falkland's
+half-brother--came to stay in the house while his own residence was
+being got ready for him, and there being little in common between the
+two, Mr. Forester being of a peculiarly sociable disposition, our
+visitor chose to make me his companion. No sooner was this growing
+intimacy observed than Mr. Falkland warned me that it was not agreeable
+to him, and that he would not have it.
+
+"Young man, take warning!" he said to me one day when we were alone.
+"You little suspect the extent of my power. You might as well think of
+escaping from the power of the omnipresent God as from mine."
+
+My whole soul now revolted against the treatment I endured, and yet I
+could not utter a word. I resolved to quit Mr. Falkland's service, and
+when Mr. Forester had retired to his own house, I wrote a letter to Mr.
+Falkland to that effect.
+
+"You shall never quit it with your life," was his reply. "If you attempt
+it, you shall never cease to rue your folly as long as you exist. Do not
+imagine I am afraid of you! I wear an armour against which all your
+weapons are impotent. Do you not know, miserable wretch, that I have
+sworn to preserve my reputation, whatever it cost? I have dug a pit for
+you, and whichever way you move it is ready to swallow you."
+
+This speech was the dictate of frenzy, and it created in me a similar
+frenzy. It determined me to do the very thing against which I was thus
+solemnly warned, and fly from my patron's house.
+
+No sooner, however, had I set off, and travelled some miles, than a
+horseman overtook me, and handed me a letter from Mr. Forester. I opened
+the letter, and read as follows:
+
+"Williams:--My brother Falkland has sent the bearer in pursuit of you.
+He expects that, if found, you will return with him. I expect it, too.
+If you are a villain and a rascal, you will perhaps endeavour to fly; if
+your conscience tells you you are innocent, you will, out of all doubt,
+come back. If you come, I pledge myself that if you clear your
+reputation, you shall not only be free to go wherever you please, but
+shall receive every assistance in my power to give.
+
+"Valentine Forester."
+
+To a mind like mine, such a letter was enough to draw me from one end of
+the earth to the other. I could not recall anything out of which the
+shadow of a criminal accusation could be extorted, and I returned with
+willingness and impatience. I knew the stern inflexibility of Mr.
+Falkland's mind, but I also knew his virtuous and magnanimous
+principles. I could not believe my innocence could be confounded with
+guilt.
+
+
+_III.--My Persecutions and Sufferings_
+
+
+Mr. Falkland accused me of having stolen money and jewels from him, and
+when my boxes, which I had left behind, were opened, a watch and certain
+jewels were found in one of them.
+
+My amazement yielded to indignation and horror. I protested my innocence
+I declared that Mr. Falkland knew I was innocent, and that while I was
+wholly unable to account for the articles found in my possession, I
+firmly believed that their being there was of Mr. Falkland's
+contrivance.
+
+Mr. Falkland now expressed his willingness to proceed no further against
+me, and, since I had been brought to public shame, to let me depart
+wherever I pleased. I was unworthy of his resentment, he said, and he
+could afford to smile at my malice.
+
+Mr. Forester, however, said this was impossible, and, as a magistrate,
+he thereupon committed me to prison to await my trial. Not one of the
+servants who had been present at my examination expressed any compassion
+for me. The robbery appeared to them atrocious, and they were indignant
+at my recrimination on their excellent master.
+
+When I had been about a month in prison the assizes were held, but my
+case was not brought forward, and I was suffered to stand over six
+months longer.
+
+I noticed a change in my jailer's behaviour at this time. He offered to
+make better provision for my comfort, and as I had no doubt he was
+instigated by Mr. Falkland, I answered that he might tell his employer I
+would accept no favours from a man that held a halter about my neck.
+Then the idea of an escape occurred to me, and as I had some proficiency
+in carpentry, I decided to obtain tools by proposing to make some chairs
+for the jailer. My offer was accepted, and I gradually accumulated tools
+of various sorts--gimlets, chisels, etc.
+
+In the middle of the night, my plans being now thoroughly digested, I
+set about making my escape. I had to get the first door from its hinges,
+and though this was attended with considerable difficulty, I was
+successful. The second door being fastened on the inside, all I had to
+do was to push back the bolts and unscrew the box of the lock.
+
+Thus far I had proceeded with the happiest success; but close on the
+other side there was a kennel with a large mastiff dog, of which I had
+not the smallest previous knowledge. However, I managed to soothe the
+animal, and go to the wall. Before I had gained half the ascent, a voice
+at the garden door cried out, "Halloa! Who is there?" At this the dog
+began to bark violently, and a second man came out. Alarmed at my
+situation, I descended on the other side too quickly, and in my fall
+nearly dislocated my ankle.
+
+In the meantime, the two warders came through a door in the wall, of
+which I had not been aware, and were at the place where I had descended,
+in no time. The pain in my ankle was so intense that I could scarcely
+stand, and I suffered myself to be retaken.
+
+The condition in which I was now placed was totally different from that
+which had preceded this attempt. I was chained all day in my dungeon, my
+manual labors were at an end, my cell was searched every night, and
+every kind of tool carefully kept from me.
+
+Nevertheless, an active mind, which has once been forced into any
+particular train, can scarcely give it up as hopeless. One day I chanced
+to observe a nail trodden into the mud floor at no great distance from
+me. I seized upon this new treasure, and found that I could unlock with
+it the padlock that fastened me to the staple in the floor. By this
+means I had the pitiful consolation of being able to range, without
+constraint, the miserable coop in which I was confined. It became my
+constant practice to liberate myself at night; but security breeds
+negligence. One morning I overslept myself, and the turnkey, to his
+surprise, found me disengaged.
+
+Again my apartment was changed. I was now put in the strong-room, an
+underground dungeon, and handcuffs were added to my fetters.
+
+It was at this time that Thomas, Mr. Falkland's footman, and an old
+acquaintance of mine, visited me. He was of the better order of
+servants, and my condition shocked him. He returned again in the
+afternoon.
+
+"Well, Master Williams," he said, "you have been very wicked, to be
+sure, and I thought it would have done me good to see you hanged. I know
+I am doing wrong; but if they hang me, too, I cannot help it. For
+Christ's sake, get out of this place; I cannot bear the thought of it."
+
+With that, he slipped into my hand a chisel, a file, and a saw. I
+received the implements with great joy, and thrust them into my bosom.
+
+I waited for bright moonlight; it was necessary that I should work in
+the night, and between nine and seven.
+
+It was ten o'clock when I first took off my handcuffs. I then filed
+through my fetters, and next performed the same service to the three
+iron bars that secured my window. All this was the work of more than two
+hours. But, even with the bars removed, the space was by no means wide
+enough to admit the passing of my body. Therefore, I had to loosen the
+brickwork, and this I did partly with the chisel, and partly with one of
+the iron bars. When the space was sufficient for my purpose, I crept
+through the opening and stepped upon a shed outside.
+
+The prison wall, which now had to be scaled, was of considerable height,
+and there was no resource for me but that of making a breach in its
+lower part. For six hours I worked at this with incredible labour, and
+at last I had made a passage. But the day was breaking, and in ten
+minutes' time the keepers would probably enter my apartment and see the
+devastation I had left.
+
+I decided to avoid the town as much as possible, and depended upon the
+open country for protection; and so I passed along the lane beyond the
+wall.
+
+I was free of my prison, but I was destitute, and had not a shilling in
+the world.
+
+
+_IV.--The Doom of Falkland_
+
+
+Mr. Falkland's implacable animosity pursued me beyond the prison. A
+hundred guineas was at once offered for my recapture, and though I
+evaded arrest for some months, a man named Gines, who had at one time
+been a member of a gang of robbers, undertook to lay hold of me, and
+tracked me to my place of hiding in London. By this time the hawkers
+were actually selling papers in the streets containing "The most
+Wonderful and Surprising History and Miraculous Adventures of Caleb
+Williams," for a halfpenny, and I had the temerity to purchase one. In
+this I was informed how I, Caleb Williams, "first robbed, and then
+brought false accusations against my master"; how I attempted at divers
+times to break out of prison, and at last succeeded "in the most
+wonderful and incredible manner"; and how I had travelled the kingdom in
+disguise, and was now lying concealed in London, with a hundred guineas
+reward for my discovery.
+
+It seemed then that there was no end to my persecution, and I thought of
+death as my only release. That very night the landlord of my humble
+lodgings brought Gines to the house, and gave me up to the authorities.
+
+And now the result of all my labour to get out of prison and evade my
+pursuers had brought me back to my starting-place! Never was a human
+creature so hunted by enemies. What hope was there they would ever cease
+their persecution.
+
+My long-cherished reverence for Mr. Falkland was changed to something
+like abhorrence. I determined to bring the real criminal to justice.
+
+Accordingly, when I was taken before the magistrates at Bow Street, I
+declared that Mr. Falkland was a murderer, and that I was entirely
+innocent.
+
+But the magistrates simply told me they had nothing to do with such
+statements, and that I seemed a most impudent rascal to trump up such
+things against my master.
+
+I was conducted back to the very prison from which I had escaped, and my
+situation seemed more irremediable than ever. How great, therefore, was
+my astonishment, at the assizes when my case was called, to find neither
+Mr. Falkland, nor Mr. Forester, nor any individual to appear against me.
+I, who had come to the bar with the sentence of death already ringing in
+my ears, to be told I was free to go whithersoever I pleased!
+
+I was not, however, yet free of Mr. Falkland. I was kidnapped by Gines
+and an accomplice, and carried to an inn, and here Mr. Falkland
+commanded me to sign a paper declaring that the charge I had alleged
+against him at Bow Street was false, malicious, and groundless. On my
+refusal, he told me that he would exercise a power that should grind me
+to atoms.
+
+The impression of that memorable meeting on my understanding is
+indelible. The deathlike weakness and decay of Mr. Falkland, his misery
+and rage, his haggard, emaciated, and fleshless visage, are still before
+me.
+
+There was to be no peace or happiness for me. Wherever I went, sooner or
+later, Gines found me, and any new acquaintances turned from me with
+loathing after they had read the handbills containing my "Wonderful and
+Surprising History." This man followed me from place to place, blasting
+my reputation.
+
+I now formed my resolution and carried it into execution. At all costs I
+would free myself from this overpowering tyranny.
+
+I set out for the chief town of the county in which Mr. Falkland lived,
+and there laid a formal charge of murder before the principal
+magistrate.
+
+After an interval of three days, I met Mr. Falkland in the presence of
+the magistrate. It was now the appearance of a ghost before me. He was
+brought in in a chair, unable to stand, fatigued and almost destroyed by
+the journey he had just taken.
+
+Until that moment my breast was steeled to pity; it was now too late to
+draw back.
+
+I told my story plainly, declared the nobility of Mr. Falkland's
+character, and admitted that my own proceedings now seemed to me a
+dreadful mistake.
+
+When I had finished, Mr. Falkland rose from his seat, and, to my
+infinite astonishment, threw himself into my arms.
+
+"Williams," said he, "you have conquered. All that I most ardently
+desired is for ever frustrated. I have spent a life of the basest
+cruelty to cover one act of momentary passion. And now"--turning to the
+magistrate--"do with me as you please. I am prepared to suffer all the
+vengeance of the law."
+
+He survived this dreadful scene but three days, and I feel, and always
+shall feel, that I have been his murderer. I began these memoirs to
+vindicate my character. I have now no character that I wish to
+vindicate.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+JOHANN WOLFGANG VON GOETHE
+
+
+The Sorrows of Young Werther
+
+
+     Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, the greatest of German poets, and
+     one of the most highly gifted men of the eighteenth century,
+     was born in 1749 at Frankfort-on-the-Main. He received his
+     early education from his father, who was an imperial
+     councillor, and in the year 1765 he went to the University of
+     Leipzig. Goethe's first great work was "Goetz von
+     Berlichingen" (see Vol. XVII). which was translated into
+     English by Sir Walter Scott. "The Sorrows of Young Werther"
+     ("Die Leiden des jungen Werthers") was begun in 1772, when
+     Goethe was twenty-three years old, and was published
+     anonymously two years later. It immediately created an immense
+     sensation, made a round of the world, and was everywhere
+     either enthusiastically praised or severely condemned. It
+     became the fashion of young men to dress themselves in blue
+     coats and yellow breeches in imitation of the hero, and many
+     of them were moved to follow Werther's example as the simplest
+     way of settling their love affairs. Nevertheless, "Werther"
+     formed the real basis of Goethe's fame. It was the first
+     revelation to the world of the genius, which, a quarter of a
+     century later, was to give it "Faust" (Vol. XVI). The story is
+     frankly sentimental, but as such it is easily the best of the
+     sentimental novels of the eighteenth century. When, many years
+     later, Goethe was invited to an audience with Napoleon, the
+     emperor volunteered the information that he had read "Werther"
+     through six times. Goethe died in March, 1832, in his
+     eighty-fourth year.
+
+
+_I.--"I Have Found an Angel"_
+
+
+_May 4_. What a strange thing is the heart of man. To leave my dearest
+friend, and yet to feel happy! I know you will forgive me, and I in
+return will promise that I will no longer worry myself over every petty
+stab of fortune. Poor Leonora! And yet I was not to blame. Was I in
+fault that, while I was pleasantly entertained by the charms of her
+sister, her feeble heart conceived a passion for me? And yet I am not
+wholly blameless. Did I not encourage her emotion? Did I not--but what
+is man that he dares so to accuse himself? Beyond doubt, the sufferings
+of mankind would be far less did they but endure the present with
+equanimity, instead of raking up the past for memories of sorrow.
+
+A wonderful calm has come over me; I am alone, and feel that a spot like
+this was created for the happiness of souls like mine. You ask if you
+shall send me books; I pray you spare me. My heart craves for no
+excitement; I need strains to soothe me, and I find them to perfection
+in my Homer.
+
+_May 17_. I have formed many acquaintances, but as yet have found no
+friends. If you inquire what sort of people are here, I answer "the same
+as everywhere." The human race is a monotonous affair. The majority
+labours nearly all its time for mere subsistence, and is then so
+distressed to have a small portion of freedom still unemployed that it
+exerts even greater efforts to get rid of it.
+
+I have just become acquainted with a very worthy person, the district
+judge. They tell me how charming it is to see him in the midst of his
+family of nine. His eldest daughter is much spoken of. He has invited me
+to go and see him.
+
+_June 16_. Why do I not write to you? You should have guessed that I was
+pre-occupied; that, in a word, that I have made a friend who has won my
+heart. I have found--I know not what. An angel? Nonsense! Everyone so
+describes his mistress. And yet I cannot tell you how perfect she is, or
+why so perfect. Between ourselves, I have been three times on the point
+of throwing down my pen, ordering my horse, and riding out. And yet this
+morning I determined not to ride to-day; and I keep running to the
+window to see how high the sun is.
+
+I could not restrain myself; go to her I must. I have just returned,
+Wilhelm, and while I eat my supper I will write to you. I had already
+made the acquaintance of her aunt, the judge's sister, and with her I
+was going to accompany Charlotte to a ball given by some young people in
+the neighbourhood. While we were on our way to fetch her, my companion
+was loud in her praises of her niece's beauty and charm. "Take care,
+however," she added, "that you do not lose your heart." "Why?" I asked.
+"Because she is already betrothed to a most excellent man."
+
+As the door opened, I saw before me the most charming sight that I have
+ever beheld. Six children, of various ages, were running about the hall
+and surrounding a lady of medium height, with a lovely figure, dressed
+in a robe of simple white, trimmed with pink ribbons. She held a loaf of
+brown bread, and was cutting slices for the little ones all round. She
+apologised for not being quite ready, explaining that household duties
+had made her forget the children's supper, which they always preferred
+to take from her. I uttered some unmeaning compliment, but my whole soul
+was absorbed by her air, her voice, her manner. You who know me can
+imagine how I gazed upon her rich, dark eyes; how my soul gloated over
+her warm lips and fresh glowing cheeks.
+
+Never did I dance more lightly; I felt myself more than mortal, holding
+this loveliest of creatures in my arms, flying with her as rapidly as
+the wind, till I lost sight of every other object. And, oh, Wilhelm, I
+vowed at that moment that no maiden whom I loved should ever waltz with
+another than myself, if I went to perdition for it.
+
+Returning from the ball, there was a most magnificent sunrise. Our
+companions were asleep. Charlotte asked me if I did not wish to sleep
+too, and begged me not to stand on ceremony. Looking deep into her eyes,
+I answered, "As long as those eyes remain open, there is no fear for
+mine." We continued awake until we reached her door. I left her, asking
+her permission to call in the course of the day. She consented, and I
+went Since then, sun, moon, and stars may pursue their course; I know
+not whether it is day or night; the whole world is nothing to me.
+
+_June 21_. My days are as happy as those reserved by God for His elect,
+and whatever be my fate hereafter, I can never say that I have not
+tasted joy--the purest joy of life. Little did I think when I selected
+this spot for my home that all heaven lay within half a league of it.
+
+How childish is man. To be disturbed about a mere look. We had been to
+Walheim, but during our walk I thought I saw in Charlotte's eyes--I am a
+fool, but forgive me. You should see her eyes. However, to be brief, as
+the ladies were preparing to drive away I watched her eyes; they
+wandered from one to another, but they did not alight on me--on me who
+saw nothing but her. She noticed me not. The carriage drove off, and my
+eyes filled with tears. Suddenly I saw Charlotte's bonnet leaning out of
+the window, and she turned to look back--was it at me? I know not, and
+in uncertainty is my consolation. Perhaps she turned to look at me.
+Perhaps. Good-night. What a child I am!
+
+_July 10_. Someone asked me the other day how I like her. How I _like_
+her! What sort of creature must he be who merely likes Charlotte? Whose
+entire being were not absolutely filled with her? Like her! One might as
+well ask if I like Ossian.
+
+_July 13_. No, I am not deceived. In her dark eyes I read a real
+interest in me. Yes, I feel it, and I believe my own heart which tells
+me--dare I say it?--that she loves me. How the idea exalts me in my own
+eyes. And as you can understand my feelings, I may say to you, how I
+honour myself because she loves me.
+
+I do not know a man able to take my place in her heart; yet when she
+speaks of Albert with so much warmth and affection, I feel like a
+soldier who has been stripped of all his honours. Sometimes when we are
+talking, in the eagerness of conversation she comes closer to me, and
+her balmy breath reaches my lips, I feel that I could sink into the
+earth for very joy. And yet, Wilhelm, if I know myself, and should ever
+dare--you understand me--No, no; my heart is not so corrupt; it is weak,
+but is not that a degree of corruption?
+
+She is to me a sacred being; how her simplest song enchants me.
+Sometimes, when I am ready to commit suicide, she sings some favourite
+air, and instantly the gloom and madness are dispersed.
+
+_July 24_. Yes, dear Charlotte. I will arrange everything. Only give me
+more commissions; the more the better. One thing, however, I must
+request you--use no more writing-sand with the letters you send me!
+Today, I raised your letter to my lips, and it set my teeth on edge.
+
+
+_II.--Bereft of Comfort_
+
+
+_July 30_. Albert is arrived, and I must take my departure. Were he the
+best of men, and I absolutely beneath him, I could not endure to see him
+in possession of my perfect being. Enough! her betrothed is here. A fine
+fellow, whom I cannot help liking. And he is so considerate; he has not
+given Charlotte one kiss in my presence. Heaven reward him for it. He is
+free from ill-humour, which you know is the fault I detest most. I do
+not ask whether he may not now and then tease her with some little
+jealousies, as I know that in his place I should not be entirely free
+from such feelings.
+
+_August 8_. I am amazed to see from my diary, which I have somewhat
+neglected of late, how deliberately I have entangled myself, step by
+step. But even though I see the result plainly, I have no thought of
+acting with any greater prudence. And yet I feel that if only I knew
+where to go, I would abandon everything and fly from this place.
+
+And yet I feel that, if I were not a fool, I could enjoy life here most
+delightfully. Admitted into this charming family, loved by the father as
+a son, by his children as a second father, and by Charlotte!
+Furthermore, Albert welcomes me with the heartiest affection, and loves
+me, next to Charlotte, more than all the world.
+
+_August 21_. In vain do I stretch out my arms towards her when I wake in
+the morning. In vain do I seek for her when some innocent dream has
+happily deceived me, and placed me near her in the fields when I have
+seized her hand and covered it with kisses. Tears flow from my oppressed
+heart; and, bereft of all comfort, I weep over my future woes.
+
+_August 28_. This is my birthday, and early in the morning I received a
+packet from Albert. I found within one of the pink ribbons which
+Charlotte wore in her dress the first time I saw her, and which I had
+often asked her to give me. With it were two volumes of Wetstein's
+Homer, a book I had often wished for. How well they understood those
+little attentions of friendship, so superior to costly presents, unhappy
+being that I am. Why do I thus deceive myself? What is to be the outcome
+of all this wild, aimless, endless passion? I cannot pray except to her.
+Oh, Wilhelm, the hermit's cell, his sackcloth and girdle of thorns,
+would be luxury and indulgence compared with what I have to suffer.
+
+_October 20_. I have taken the plunge, and following your repeated
+advice, I have taken a post with the ambassador. We arrived here
+yesterday. If he were less peevish and morose all would be well. As it
+is, he occasions me continual annoyance; he is the most punctilious
+blockhead in the world. He does everything step by step, with the paltry
+fussiness of an old woman; and he is a man whom it is impossible to
+please, because he is never pleased with himself.
+
+_January 20_. I have but one being here to interest me, my dear
+Charlotte--a Miss B----. She resembles you, if indeed anyone can
+possibly resemble you. "Ah," you will say, "he has learnt to pay fine
+compliments." And this is partly true; I have been very agreeable
+lately, as it was not in my power to be otherwise. But I must tell you
+of Miss B----. She has abundance of soul, which flashes from her deep
+blue eyes. Her rank is a torment to her, and satisfies no single desire
+of her heart. She knows you, my dear Charlotte, as I have told her all
+about you, and renders homage to your merits; but her homage is not
+exacted, but voluntary--she loves you, and delights to hear you made the
+subject of conversation. Adieu! Is Albert with you, and what is he to
+you? Forgive the question.
+
+_February 20_. I thank you, Albert, for having deceived me. I waited for
+the news that your wedding-day was fixed, and I meant on that day to
+remove Charlotte's picture from the wall, and bury it with some old
+papers that I wish destroyed. You are now united, and the picture
+remains. Well, let it remain. Why should it not?
+
+
+_III.--"I Can Remain No Longer"_
+
+
+_June 11_. Say what you will, I can remain here no longer. Why should I
+remain? The prince is as gracious to me as anyone could be, and yet I am
+not at my ease. There is, indeed, nothing in common between us; he is a
+man of understanding, but quite of the ordinary kind. His conversation
+gives me no more amusement than I should derive from an ordinary
+well-written book. Whither am I going? I think it would be better for me
+to visit the mines in----. But I am only deluding myself thus. You know
+that I only want to be near my dear Charlotte once more. I smile at the
+suggestion of my heart, but I obey its dictates.
+
+_July 29_. Dear Wilhelm, my whole frame feels convulsed when I see
+Albert put his arms round that slender waist. Oh, the very thought of
+folding that dearest of heaven's creatures in one's arms.
+
+And--shall I avow it? Why should I not?--she would have been happier
+with me than with him. Albert is not the man to satisfy the wishes of
+such a heart. He wants a certain sensibility; he wants--in short, their
+hearts do not beat in unison. But, Wilhelm, he loves her with his whole
+heart, and what does not such a love deserve?
+
+_September 5_. Charlotte had written a letter to her husband in the
+country, where he was detained on business. It began: "My dearest love,
+return as soon as possible. I await you with a thousand raptures!"
+
+A friend who arrived brought word that he could not return immediately.
+Her letter fell into my hands. I read it, and smiled. She asked the
+reason. "What a heavenly treasure is imagination," I exclaimed. "I
+fancied for a moment that this was written to me." She paused, and
+seemed displeased. I was silent.
+
+_October 10_. Only to gaze into her dark eyes is to me a source of
+happiness. And what grieves me is that Albert does not seem so happy as
+he--as I--as he hoped to be--as I should have been--if--. I am no friend
+to these pauses, but here I cannot express myself otherwise; and
+probably I am explicit enough.
+
+_October 19_. Alas the void--the fearful void which I feel in my bosom!
+Sometimes I think, if I could only once press her to my heart, this
+dreadful void would be filled.
+
+_October 30_. A hundred times I have been on the point of embracing her.
+Heavens! what a torment it is to see so much loveliness passing and
+repassing before us, and yet not dare to touch it. And to touch is the
+most natural of human instincts. Do not children touch everything that
+they see?
+
+_November 8_. Charlotte reproves me for my excesses with so much
+tenderness and goodness. I have lately drunk more wine than usual.
+"Don't do it," she said; "think of Charlotte." "Think of you," I
+answered; "can such advice be necessary? Do I not ever think of you?"
+She immediately changed the subject to prevent me pursuing it further.
+My dear friend, my energies are all prostrated; she can do with me what
+she pleases. Yesterday, when I took leave, she seized me by the hand,
+and said, "Adieu, dear Werther!" It was the first time she had ever
+called me "dear." I have repeated it a hundred times.
+
+
+_IV.--"I am Resolved to Die"_
+
+
+_November 24_. She is sensible of my sufferings. This morning her look
+pierced my soul. I found her alone; she was silent, and only gazed
+steadfastly at me. Oh, who can express my emotions? I was quite
+overcome, and bending down, pronounced this vow to myself, "Beautiful
+lips, which angels guard, never will I seek to profane your purity with
+a kiss." And yet, oh, I wish--But, alas, my heart is darkened by doubt
+and indecision. Could I but taste felicity, and then die to expiate the
+sin. What sin?
+
+_December 21_. I am lost. My senses are bewildered, my recollection is
+confused, my eyes are bathed in tears. I am ill, and yet am well. I wish
+for nothing; I have no desires; it were better I were gone. I saw
+Charlotte to-day; she was busy preparing some little gifts for her
+brothers and sisters, to be given to them on Christmas Day. "You shall
+have a gift too," she said, "if you behave well." "And what do you call
+behaving well?" I asked. "What should I do; what can I do?" "Thursday
+night," she answered, "is Christmas Eve; the children are all to be
+here, and my father too; there is a present for each of them. Do you
+come likewise, but do not come before that time!"
+
+I started. She must have seen my emotion, for she continued, hastily "I
+desire that you will not. It must be so; I ask it of you as a favour,
+for my own peace and tranquillity. We cannot go on in this manner any
+longer!" It were idle to attempt to describe my emotions I was as if
+paralysed; it was as if the sun had suddenly gone out. When I
+recollected myself, Charlotte was trying to speak on some indifferent
+topic. "No, Charlotte," I explained, "I understand you perfectly. I will
+never see you again!"
+
+_December 22_. It is all over, Charlotte; I am resolved to die. I make
+this declaration deliberately and coolly, without any romantic passion,
+on the morning of the day when I am to see you for the last time. At the
+moment that you read these lines the cold grave will hold the remains of
+that restless and unhappy being who, in his last moments of existence,
+knew no pleasure so great as that of conversing with you.
+
+When I tore myself from you yesterday my senses were in tumult and
+disorder. I could scarcely reach my room. A thousand ideas floated
+through my mind. At last one fixed, final thought took possession of my
+heart. It was to die. Oh, beloved Charlotte, this heart, excited by rage
+and fury, has often conceived the horrid idea of murdering your
+husband--you--myself.
+
+What do they mean by saying that Albert is your husband? He may be so
+for this world, and in this world it is a sin to love you--to wish to
+tear you from his embrace. Yes, it is a crime, and I suffer the
+punishment--but I have enjoyed the full delight of my sin. I have
+inhaled a balm that has revived my soul; from this hour you are mine;
+yes, Charlotte, you are mine. I do not dream, I do not rave. Drawing
+nearer to the grave my perceptions become clearer. We shall exist; we
+shall see each other again.
+
+I wish to be buried in the dress I wear at present; it has been made
+sacred by your touch. How warmly I have loved you, Charlotte. Since the
+first hour I saw you, how impossible have I found it to leave you. This
+ribbon must be buried with me; it was a present from you on my birthday.
+How confused it all appears. Little did I think then that I should
+journey on this road. But peace, I pray you, peace.
+
+Both my pistols are loaded. The clock strikes twelve. I say Amen.
+Charlotte! Charlotte! Farewell! Farewell!
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+Wilhelm Meister's Apprenticeship
+
+
+     Goethe's prestige was enormously increased by the publication
+     in 1796 of "Wilhelm Meister's Apprenticeship" ("Wilhelm
+     Meisters Lehrjahre"). Representing the fruit of twenty years'
+     labour, it was, like "Faust," written in fragments during the
+     ripest period of his intellectual activity. The story of
+     "Wilhelm Meister" is by no means exciting, but, as a gallery
+     of portraits and repository of wise observation, it is more
+     characteristic of the genius of its author than any other of
+     his prose works. It is more mellow than "Werther," and the
+     action moves slower. Incident follows incident in a leisurely
+     fashion. The keen psychological analysis in the story is
+     assumed to have been derived from Goethe's own experience.
+     "Wilhelm Meister" was dramatised and produced at Leipzig a few
+     years ago, but with no marked success.
+
+
+_I.--On the Road_
+
+
+The moment was now at hand to which poor Mariana had been looking
+forward as to the last of her life. Wilhelm Meister, the man she loved,
+was departing on a long journey in connection with his father's
+business; a disagreeable lover was threatening to come.
+
+"I am miserable," she exclaimed, "miserable for life! I love him, and he
+loves me; yet I see that we must part, and know not how I shall survive
+it. Wilhelm is poor, and can do nothing for me--"
+
+Darkness had scarcely come on when Wilhelm glided forth to her house; he
+carried with him a letter in which he entreated her to marry him
+forthwith, saying that he would abandon his father's business, and earn
+his living on the stage, to which he had always been strongly drawn.
+This he could do with certainty, as he was well acquainted with Serlo,
+manager of a theatre in a town at some distance.
+
+His plan was to leave the letter with her, and return a little later for
+her answer. The vehemence of his emotion at first prevented him from
+noticing that she did not greet him with her wonted heartiness; she
+complained of a headache, and would not hear of his coming back later
+that evening. Suspecting nothing wrong, he ceased to urge her, but he
+felt that this was not the moment for delivering his letter. He retained
+it, therefore, and, in a tumult of insatiable love, as he tore himself
+away from her he snatched one of her neckerchiefs, and, after pressing
+it madly to his lips, crushed it into his pocket.
+
+His whole being was in a ferment of excitement as he walked aimlessly
+about the streets. Midnight found him again in the neighbourhood of
+Mariana's house; consciousness of the fact brought him to himself. He
+went slowly away, set himself for home, and constantly turned round
+again; at last, with an effort, he constrained himself, and actually
+departed. At the corner of the street, looking back yet once more, he
+imagined that he saw Mariana's door open, and a dark figure issue from
+it. He was too distant to see clearly, and in a moment the appearance
+was lost in the night.
+
+On his way, he had almost effaced the unexpected delusion from his mind
+by the most sufficient reasons. To soothe his heart, and put the last
+seal on his returning belief, ere he disrobed for the night, he took her
+kerchief from his pocket. The rustle of a letter which fell from it took
+the kerchief from his lips; he lifted it, and read a passionate letter
+from another man, railing at her for her coldness on the preceding
+night, making an appointment for that same night, and breathing a spirit
+of intimate familiarity.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+A violent fever, with its train of consequences, besides the unwearied
+attentions of his family, were so many fresh occupations for his mind,
+and formed a kind of painful entertainment. On his recovery, he
+determined to abandon for ever his former leaning towards the stage, and
+to apply himself with greater diligence to business, and, to the great
+contentment of his father, no one was now more diligent in the
+counting-house. For a long time he continued to show exemplary attention
+to his duties, and was then thought sufficiently master of his business
+to be sent on a long expedition on behalf of the firm.
+
+The first part of his business successfully accomplished, Wilhelm found
+himself at a little mountain town called Hochdorf. A troupe of actors
+had got stranded there, their exchequer empty, their properties seized
+as security for debts. Wilhelm recognised among them an old man whom he
+recollected as having seen on the stage with Mariana. After some
+hesitation, he hazarded a question concerning her. "Do not speak to me
+of that baggage!" cried the old man. "I am ashamed that I felt such a
+friendship for her. Yet, had you known the girl better, you would excuse
+me. I loved her as my own daughter; indeed, I had formed a resolution to
+take the creature into my own house, and save her from the hands of that
+old crone Barbara, her confidante; but my wife died, and so the project
+came to nothing. At the end of our stay in your native town, I noticed a
+visible sadness about her. I questioned her, but she evaded me. At last
+we set out on our journey. She travelled in the same coach with me, and
+I soon observed what she could not deny, that she was about to become a
+mother. In a short time the manager made the same discovery; he paid her
+off at once and left her behind at the village inn."
+
+Wilhelm's old wounds were all torn open afresh by the old man's story;
+the thought that perhaps Mariana was not wholly unworthy of his love was
+again brought to life. Nay, even the bitter accusations brought against
+her could not lower her in his estimation; for he, as well as she, was
+guilty in all her aberrations. He saw her as a frail, ill-succoured
+mother, wandering helplessly about the world.
+
+The old longing for the stage came back to him with redoubled force; he
+determined to give it vent, for a time at least, and to this end he
+advanced to Melina, the manager of the actors, a sum of money sufficient
+to redeem their properties, and accompanied the troupe until such time
+as it should be repaid.
+
+A profitable engagement soon came their way. A wealthy count, who
+happened to pass through the town, required their services to entertain
+the prince, whom he was shortly expecting as a guest. For several weeks
+they stayed at his castle, and when, on the prince's departure, their
+engagement came to an end, they were all weightier in purse than they
+had been for many a long day. Melina was now in hopes to get established
+with his company in a thriving town at some distance. To get there it
+was necessary to take a considerable journey by unfrequented roads.
+
+Accordingly, conveyances were hired, and a start was made. Towards
+evening, they began to pitch their camp in the midst of a beech wood;
+all were busily engaged about the task allotted to each--the women to
+prepare the evening meal, the men to attend to everything necessary for
+their comfort for the night. All at once, a shot went off; immediately
+another; the party flew asunder in terror. Next moment armed men were to
+be seen pressing forward to the spot where the coaches, packed with
+luggage, stood.
+
+The men all rushed at the intruders. Wilhelm fired his pistol at one who
+was already on the top of the coach cutting the cords of the packages.
+The scoundrel fell, but several of his friends rushed to his aid; our
+hero fell, stunned by a shot-wound and by a sword-stroke that almost
+penetrated to his brain.
+
+When he recovered his senses, it was to find himself deserted by all his
+companions except two of the girls. His head was lying in Phillina's
+lap, while Mignon, the child whom he had rescued from a brutal circus
+master who was ill-treating her, was vainly trying to staunch his wounds
+with her hair. For some time they continued in this position, no one
+returning to their aid. At last, they heard a troop of horses coming up
+the road; a young lady emerged on horseback, accompanied by some
+cavaliers. Wilhelm fixed his eye on the soft, calm, sympathising
+features of the stranger; he thought he had never seen aught nobler or
+more lovely. In a few moments one of the party stepped to the side of
+our hero. He held in his hand some surgeon's instruments and bandages,
+with which he hastily attended to his wounds. The lady asked several
+questions, and then, turning to the old gentleman, said, "Dear uncle,
+may I be generous at your expense?" taking off the coat that she was
+wearing as she spoke, and laying it softly above him. As he tried to
+open his mouth to stammer out some words of gratitude to the beautiful
+Amazon, the impression of her presence worked so strongly on his senses
+that all at once it seemed to him that her head was encircled with rays,
+and a glancing light seemed by degrees to spread itself all over her
+form. At this moment the surgeon gave him a sharper twinge; he lost
+consciousness; and on returning to himself the horsemen and coaches, the
+fair one and her attendants, had vanished like a dream.
+
+
+_II.--A Message from the Dead_
+
+
+Wilhelm's wounds were slow to heal, and it was long before he was able
+to move about freely again. When he fully recovered he went to his old
+friend, Serlo, and obtained a position in his company, both for himself,
+and also for many of his companions in misfortune.
+
+With Serlo he remained for a considerable period, until an untoward
+event led to his leaving him. Aurelia, Serlo's sister, had long
+entertained an affection for a nobleman, whom she knew by the name of
+Lothario; though at one time much attached to her, his affection had
+cooled off, and for a long time now he had not had any communication
+with her. Heartbroken at this treatment, though still devotedly attached
+to him, she gradually pined away, and complete neglect of her health
+finally brought her to her death-bed. Before she died, however, she
+wrote a letter of farewell to him, which she entrusted to Wilhelm to
+deliver as soon after her death as possible.
+
+Arrived at the castle where the baron lived, he found his lordship
+unable to give him any attention that day, as he was engaged to fight a
+duel, and was busy settling up his affairs in preparation. Wilhelm was
+requested to remain until a more convenient season. On the following
+morning, while the company were seated at breakfast, the baron was
+brought back in a carriage, seriously wounded.
+
+As the surgeon came out from attending him, the band hanging from his
+pouch caught Wilhelm's eye; he fancied that he knew it. He was convinced
+that he beheld the very pouch of the surgeon who had dressed his wounds
+in the forest, and the hope, so long deferred, of again finding his
+lovely Amazon struck like a flame through his soul.
+
+The abbé entered from Lothario's chamber, and said to Wilhelm, "The
+baron bids me ask you to remain here to share his hospitality, and, in
+the present circumstances, to contribute to his solacement."
+
+From this hour our friend was treated in the house as if he belonged to
+it.
+
+"We have a kindness to ask of you," said Jarno, the baron's confidential
+companion, to Wilhelm one morning. "The violent, unreasonable love and
+passionateness of the Lady Lydia only hinder the baron's recovery. She
+must be removed by some means. His wound requires rest and calmness; you
+see how she tortures him with her tempestuous anxieties, her
+ungovernable terrors, her never-drying tears. Enough! Our doctor
+expressly requires that she should quit us for a while; we have
+persuaded her to pay a visit to a lady, an old friend of hers; it will
+be your task to escort her, as you can best be spared."
+
+"I willingly undertake the charge," said Wilhelm, "though it is easy to
+foresee the pain I shall have to suffer from the tears, the despair, of
+Lydia."
+
+"And for this no small reward awaits you," said Jarno. "Fraulein
+Theresa, with whom you will get acquainted, is a lady such as you will
+rarely see. Indeed, were it not for an unfortunate passage between her
+mother and the baron, she would long since have been married to his
+lordship."
+
+When they returned from their visit, Lothario was in the way of full
+recovery. He was now for the first time able to talk with Wilhelm about
+the sad cause that had brought him to the castle. "You may, however,
+well forgive me," he said, with a smile, "that I forsook Aurelia for
+Theresa; with the one I could expect a calm and cheerful life, with the
+other not a happy hour."
+
+"I confess," said Wilhelm, "that in coming hither I had no small anger
+in my heart against you, that I proposed to censure with severity your
+conduct towards Aurelia. But, at the grave in which the hapless mother
+sleeps, let me ask you why you acknowledge not the child--a son in whom
+any father might rejoice and whom you appear entirely to overlook. With
+your tender nature, how can you altogether cast away the instinct of a
+parent?"
+
+"Of whom do you speak?" said Lothario. "I do not understand you."
+
+"Of whom but your son, Aurelia's son, the lovely child to whose good
+fortune there is nothing wanting but that a tender father should
+acknowledge and receive him."
+
+"You mistake, my friend," said Lothario; "Aurelia never had a son. I
+know of no child, or I would gladly acknowledge it. But did she ever
+give you to believe that the boy was hers--was mine?"
+
+"I cannot recollect that I ever heard a word from her expressly on the
+subject, but we took it so, and I never for a moment doubted it."
+
+"I can give you a clue to this perplexity," interposed Jarno. "An old
+woman, whom Wilhelm must have noticed, gave Aurelia the child, telling
+her that it was yours. She accepted it eagerly, hoping to alleviate her
+sorrows by its presence; and, in truth, it gave her many a comfortable
+hour."
+
+This discovery awoke anxieties in Wilhelm. He thought of the beautiful
+child Felix with the liveliest apprehension, and expressed his wish to
+remove him from the state in which he was.
+
+"We can soon arrange that," said Lothario. "I think you ought yourself
+to take charge of him; what in us the women leave uncultivated, children
+cultivate when we retain them near us."
+
+It was agreed to lose no time in putting this plan into execution, and
+Wilhelm departed forthwith to fetch the child.
+
+Passing through the house, he found Aurelia's old serving-maid, whom he
+had never seen at close quarters before, employed in sewing. Felix and
+Mignon were sitting by her on the floor.
+
+"Art thou the person," he demanded earnestly, "from whom Aurelia
+received this child?"
+
+She looked up, and turned her face to him; he saw her in full light, and
+started back in terror. It was old Barbara!
+
+"Where is Mariana?" cried he.
+
+"Far from here."
+
+"And Felix?"
+
+"Is the son of that unhappy and too tender-hearted girl. Here are
+Mariana's last words," she added, handing him a letter.
+
+"She is dead?" cried he.
+
+"Dead," said the old woman.
+
+A bitter grief took hold of Wilhelm; he could scarcely read the words
+that Barbara placed before him.
+
+"If this should reach thee, then lament thine ill-starred friend. The
+boy, whose birth I survived but a few days, is thine. I die faithful to
+thee, much as appearances may be against me; with thee I lost everything
+that bound me to life. This will be my only comfort, that though I
+cannot call myself blameless, towards thee I am free from blame."
+
+Wilhelm was stupified by this news. He removed the children from
+Barbara's care, and took them both back with him to Lothario's castle.
+Felix he kept with him, while Mignon, who was not in the best of health,
+was sent by the baron to the house of his sister, at some distance.
+
+
+_III.--Wilhelm's Apprenticeship_
+
+
+One evening Jarno said to Wilhelm, "We can now consider you as one of
+ourselves with such security that it were unjust not to introduce you
+deeper into our mysteries. You shall see what a curious little world is
+at your very hand, and how well you are known in it." He led our friend
+through certain unknown chambers and galleries of the castle to a door,
+strongly framed with iron. Jarno knocked; the door opened a little, so
+as to admit one person. Jarno introduced our friend, but did not follow
+him.
+
+Within was complete darkness. A voice cried "Enter"; he pressed forward
+and found that only tapestry was hemming him in. Raising this, he
+entered. Within, he found a man, who said, in a tone of dignity, "To
+guard from error is not the instructor's duty, but to lead the erring
+pupil; nay, let him quaff his error in deep, satiating draughts; he who
+only tastes his error will long dwell with it; he who drains it to the
+dregs will, if he be not crazy, find it out."
+
+A curtain closed before the figure, whom Wilhelm vaguely recollected as
+having seen at some time previously; possibly on the night when he had
+parted from Mariana. Then the curtain opened again; another figure
+advanced, "Learn to know the men who may be trusted," he said, and again
+the curtain closed. "Dispute not with us," cried a voice; "thou art
+saved, thou art on the way to the goal. None of thy follies wilt thou
+repent; none wilt thou wish to repeat."
+
+The curtain opened; the abbé came into view. "Come hither," he cried to
+his marvelling friend. Wilhelm mounted the steps. On the table lay a
+little roll.
+
+"Here is your indenture," said the abbé. "Take it to heart; it is of
+weighty import." Wilhelm opened it, and read:
+
+     "_INDENTURE_.
+
+     "_Art is long, life short, judgment difficult, opportunity
+     transient. To act is easy, to think is hard, to act according
+     to our thought is troublesome. It is but a part of art that
+     can be taught; the artist needs it all. Who knows it half,
+     speaks much, and is always wrong; who knows it all, speaks
+     seldom, and is inclined to act. No one knows what he is doing
+     while he acts aright; but of wrong-doing we are always
+     conscious. The instruction which the true artist gives us
+     opens the mind, for where words fail him, deeds speak. The
+     true scholar learns from the known to unfold the unknown, and
+     approaches more and more to being a master_----"
+
+"Enough," cried the abbé; "the rest in due time. Now look round you
+among these cases." With astonishment Wilhelm found, among others,
+"_Lothario's Apprenticeship," "Jarno's Apprenticeship_," and his own
+"_Apprenticeship_" placed there. "May I hope to look into these rolls?"
+
+"In this chamber nothing is now hid from you."
+
+Wilhelm heard a noise behind him, and saw a child's face peeping through
+the tapestry at the end of the room. It was Felix. His father rushed
+towards him, took him in his arms, and pressed him to his heart.
+
+"Yes, I feel it," cried he. "Thou art mine. For what a gift of Heaven
+have I to thank my friends! How comest thou, my child, at this important
+moment?"
+
+"Ask not," said the abbé. "Hail, young man! Thy apprenticeship is done;
+nature has pronounced thee free."
+
+After sorrow, often and in vain repeated, for the loss of Mariana,
+Wilhelm felt that he must find a mother for the boy; and also, that he
+could not find one equal to Theresa. With this gifted lady he was now
+thoroughly acquainted. Such a spouse and helpmate seemed the only one to
+trust to in such circumstances. Her affection for Lothario did not make
+him hesitate; she looked on herself as free; she had even spoken of
+marrying, with indifference, indeed, but as a matter understood.
+
+Before Theresa's answer came to hand, Lothario sent for our friend. "My
+sister Natalia bids me beg of you to go to her as soon as possible. Poor
+Mignon seems to be getting steadily worse, and it is thought that your
+presence might allay the malady." Wilhelm agreed, and proceeded on the
+journey.
+
+
+_IV.--Heart Against Reason_
+
+
+Behind a light screen, which threw a shadow on her, sat a young lady,
+reading; she rose and came to him. It was the Amazon! Unable to restrain
+himself, he fell on his knee and cried "It is she!" He seized her hand,
+and kissed it with unbounded rapture.
+
+A day or two later, the following letter from Theresa was handed to
+Wilhelm.
+
+"I am yours, as I am, and as you know me. I call you mine, as you are,
+and as I know you. As it is no passion, but trust and inclination for
+each other, that leads us together, we run less risk than thousands of
+others. You will forgive me, will you not, if I still think often and
+kindly of my former friend; in return, I will press Felix to my heart,
+as if I were his mother. Adieu, dear friend! Theresa clasps you to her
+breast with hope and joy."
+
+Natalia wrote a letter to her brother; she invited Wilhelm to add a word
+or two. They were just about to seal it, when Jarno unexpectedly came
+in.
+
+"I am come," he said, "to give you very curious and pleasing tidings
+about Theresa; now guess."
+
+"We are more skilful than you think," said Natalia, smiling. "Before you
+asked, we had the answer down in black and white," handing him as she
+spoke the letter she had just written. Jarno read the sheet hastily.
+"What shall I say?" cried he. "Surprise against surprise! I came to tell
+you that Theresa is not the daughter of her reputed mother. There is no
+obstacle to her marriage with Lothario: _I came to ask you to prepare
+her for it_."
+
+"And what," said Lothario, taking Wilhelm by the hand, "what if your
+alliance with my sister were the secret article on which depended my
+alliance with Theresa? These amends the noble maiden has appointed for
+you; she has vowed that we two pairs should appear together at the
+altar. 'His reason has made choice of me,' she said; 'his heart demands
+Natalia: my reason shall assist his heart.'"
+
+Lothario embraced his friend, and led him to Natalia, who, with Theresa,
+came to meet them. "To my mind, thou resemblest Saul, the son of Kish,
+who went out to seek his father's asses, and found a kingdom."
+
+"I know not the worth of a kingdom," said Wilhelm, "but I know that I
+have attained a happiness undeserved, which I would not change for
+anything in life."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+OLIVER GOLDSMITH
+
+
+The Vicar of Wakefield
+
+
+     Oliver Goldsmith, the most versatile and perhaps the most
+     unstable of eighteenth century men of letters, was born in
+     Ireland on November 10, 1728. At Trinity College, Dublin, he
+     revealed three characteristics that clung to him throughout
+     his career--high spirits, conversational brilliance, and
+     inability to keep money in his pocket. After a spell of
+     "philosophic vagabondage" on the Continent, he settled in
+     London in 1756, earned money in various ways, and spent it
+     all. "The Vicar of Wakefield," perhaps the greatest of all
+     Goldsmith's works, was published on March 27, 1766, after Dr.
+     Johnson had raised £60 for him on the manuscript of it. The
+     liveliness and grace of Goldsmith's style were never more
+     plainly manifested than in this delightful story; and its
+     faults--it contains many coincidences and improbabilities--are
+     far more than atoned for by the masterly portrait of the
+     simple, manly, generous, and wholly lovable vicar who is the
+     central figure of the story. "It has," says Mitford, "the
+     truth of Richardson, without his minuteness, and the humour of
+     Fielding, without his grossness; if it yields to LeSage in the
+     diversified variety of his views of life, it far excels him in
+     the description of domestic virtues and the pleasing moral of
+     the tale." Goldsmith died on April 4, 1774. (See also Vol.
+     XVII.)
+
+
+_I.--Family Portraits_
+
+
+I was ever of opinion that the honest man who married and brought up a
+large family did more service than he who continued single and only
+talked of population. From this motive, I chose my wife, as she did her
+wedding-gown, not for a fine glossy surface, but such qualities as would
+wear well. There was nothing that could make us angry with the world or
+each other. We had no revolutions to fear, nor fatigues to undergo; all
+our adventures were by the fireside, and all our migrations from the
+blue bed to the brown.
+
+My children, as they were educated without softness, so they were at
+once well-formed and healthy; my four sons hardy and active, my two
+daughters beautiful and blooming. Olivia, the elder daughter, was open,
+sprightly, and commanding; Sophia's features were not so striking at
+first, but often did more certain execution, for they were soft, modest,
+and alluring.
+
+The profits of my living I made over to the orphans and widows of the
+clergy of our diocese; for, having a sufficient fortune of my own, I was
+careless of temporalities, and felt a secret pleasure in doing my duty
+without reward.
+
+My eldest son, George, just upon leaving college, fixed his affections
+upon Miss Arabella Wilmot, the daughter of a neighbouring clergyman, who
+was in circumstances to give her a large fortune. Mr. Wilmot was not
+averse to the match, but after the day for the nuptials had been fixed,
+I engaged in a dispute with him which threatened to interrupt our
+intended alliance. I have always maintained that it is unlawful for a
+priest of the Church of England, after the death of his first wife, to
+take a second; and I showed Mr. Wilmot a tract which I had written in
+defence of this principle. It was not till too late I discovered that he
+was violently attached to the contrary opinion, and with good reason;
+for he was at that time actually courting a fourth wife.
+
+While the controversy was hottest, a relation, with a face of concern,
+called me out.
+
+"The merchant in town," he said, "in whose hands your money was lodged
+has gone off, to avoid a statute of bankruptcy. Your fortune is now
+almost nothing."
+
+It would be useless to describe the sensations of my family when I
+divulged the news. Near a fortnight had passed before I attempted to
+restrain their affliction; for premature consolation is but the
+remembrance of sorrow. During this interval I determined to send my
+eldest son to London, and I accepted a small cure of fifteen pounds a
+year in a distant neighbourhood.
+
+The first day's journey brought us within thirty miles of our future
+retreat, and we put up at an obscure inn in a village by the way. At the
+inn was a gentleman who, the landlord told me, had been so liberal in
+his charity that he had no money left to pay his reckoning. I could not
+avoid expressing my concern at seeing a gentleman in such circumstances,
+and offered the stranger my purse. "I take it with all my heart, sir,"
+replied he, "and am glad that my late oversight has shown me that there
+are still some men like you." The stranger's conversation was so
+pleasing and instructive that we were rejoiced to hear that he was going
+the same way as ourselves.
+
+The next morning we all set forward together. Mr. Burchell and I
+lightened the fatigues of the road with philosophical disputes, and he
+also informed me to whom the different seats belonged that lay in our
+view.
+
+"That, Dr. Primrose," he said to me, pointing to a very magnificent
+house, "belongs to Mr. Thornhill, a young gentleman who enjoys a large
+fortune, though entirely dependent upon the will of his uncle, Sir
+William Thornhill."
+
+"What!" cried I, "is my young landlord, then, the nephew of one who is
+represented as a man of consummate benevolence?"
+
+At this point we were alarmed by the cries of my family, and I perceived
+my youngest daughter in the midst of a rapid stream, and struggling with
+the torrent; she must have certainly perished had not my companion
+instantly plunged in to her relief. Her gratitude may be more readily
+imagined than described; she thanked her deliverer more with looks than
+words. Soon afterwards Mr. Burchell took leave of us, and we pursued our
+journey to the place of our retreat.
+
+
+_II.--The Squire_
+
+
+At a small distance from our habitation was a seat overshaded by a hedge
+of hawthorn and honeysuckle. Here, when the weather was fine, and our
+labour soon finished, we usually sat together to enjoy an extensive
+landscape in the calm of the evening. On an afternoon about the
+beginning of autumn, when I had drawn out my family to the seat, dogs
+and horsemen swept past us with great swiftness. After them a young
+gentleman, of a more genteel appearance than the rest, came forward,
+and, instead of pursuing the chase, stopped short, and approached us
+with a careless, superior air. He let us know that his name was
+Thornhill, and that he was the owner of the estate that lay around us.
+As his address, though confident, was easy, we soon became more
+familiar; and the whole family seemed earnest to please him.
+
+As soon as he was gone, my wife gave the opinion that it was a most
+fortunate hit, and hoped again to see the day in which we might hold up
+our heads with the best of them.
+
+"For my part," cried Olivia, "I don't like him, he is so extremely
+impudent and familiar." I interpreted this speech by contrary, and found
+that Olivia secretly admired him.
+
+"To confess the truth," said I, "he has not prepossessed me in his
+favour. I had heard that he was particularly remarkable for
+faithlessness to the fair sex."
+
+A few days afterwards we entertained our young landlord at dinner, and
+it may be easily supposed what provisions were exhausted to make an
+appearance. As he directed his looks and conversation to Olivia, it was
+no longer doubted but that she was the object that induced him to be our
+visitor; and my wife exulted in her daughter's victory as if it were her
+own.
+
+On one evening Mr. Thornhill came with two young ladies, richly dressed,
+whom he introduced as women of very great distinction and fashion from
+town. The two ladies threw my girls quite into the shade, for they would
+talk of nothing but high life and high-lived company. 'Tis true, they
+once or twice mortified us sensibly by slipping out an oath; their
+finery, however, threw a veil over any grossness in their conversation.
+
+I now began to find that all my long and painful lectures upon
+temperance, simplicity, and contentment were entirely disregarded. The
+distinctions lately paid us by our betters awakened that pride which I
+had laid asleep, but not removed. When the two ladies of quality showed
+a willingness to take our girls to town with them as companions, my wife
+was overjoyed at our good fortune. But Mr. Burchell, who had at first
+been a welcome guest at our house, but had become less welcome since we
+had been favoured with the company of persons of superior station,
+dissuaded her with great ardour, and so angered her that she ended by
+asking him to stay away.
+
+Returning home one day, I found my wife and girls all in tears, Mr.
+Thornhill having been there to inform them that their journey to town
+was entirely over. The two ladies, having heard reports of us from some
+malicious person, were that day set out for London. We were not long in
+finding who it was that had been so base as to asperse the character of
+a family so harmless as ours. One of our boys found a letter-case which
+we knew to belong to Mr. Burchell. Within it was a sealed note,
+superscribed, "The copy of a letter to be sent to the two ladies at
+Thornhill Castle." At the joint solicitation of the family, I opened it,
+and read as follows:
+
+"Ladies,--I am informed that you have some intention of bringing two
+young ladies to town, whom I have some knowledge of, under the character
+of companions. As I would neither have simplicity imposed upon nor
+virtue contaminated, I must offer it as my opinion that the impropriety
+of such a step will be attended with dangerous consequences. Take
+therefore, the admonition of a friend, and seriously reflect on the
+consequences of introducing infamy and vice into retreats where peace
+and innocence have hitherto resided."
+
+Our doubts were now at an end. It appeared to me one of the vilest
+instances of unprovoked ingratitude I had ever met with. As we set
+ruminating upon schemes of vengeance, Mr. Burchell himself entered and
+sat down.
+
+"Do you know this, sir--this pocket-book?" said I.
+
+"Yes, sir," returned he, with a face of impenetrable assurance.
+
+"And do you know this letter?"
+
+"Yes; it was I that wrote that letter."
+
+"And how could you so basely presume to write this letter?"
+
+"And how came you," replied he, with looks of unparalleled effrontery,
+"so basely to presume to open this letter?"
+
+I could scarcely govern my passion. "Ungrateful wretch!" I cried.
+"Begone, and no longer pollute my dwelling with thy baseness!"
+
+So saying, I threw him his pocket-book, which he took up with a smile,
+and left us astonished at the serenity of his assurance.
+
+
+_III.--The Elopement_
+
+
+The visits of Mr. Thornhill now became more frequent and longer; but all
+the schemes of Olivia and her mother to bring him to a declaration came
+to nothing. And although Olivia considered his fine sentiments as
+instances of the most exalted passion, it seemed to me plain that they
+had more of love than matrimony in them.
+
+One evening as I sat by the fireside, thanking Heaven for tranquillity,
+health, and competence, and thinking myself happier than the greatest
+monarch upon earth, I noticed that Olivia was absent.
+
+"Where is my darling Olivia?" I asked. Just as I spoke, my boy Dick came
+running in.
+
+"Oh, papa, papa, she is gone from us; she is gone from us for ever!"
+
+"Gone, child?"
+
+"Yes; she is gone off with two gentlemen in a postchaise, and one of
+them kissed her. And she cried very much, but he persuaded her, and she
+went into the chaise."
+
+"Now, then," cried I, "may Heaven's everlasting fury light upon him and
+his! Thus to rob me of my child! Bring me my pistols; I'll pursue the
+traitor. Old as I am, he shall find I can sting him yet--the perfidious
+villain!"
+
+My poor wife caught me in her arms.
+
+"Indeed, sir," said my son Moses, "your rage is too violent."
+
+"I did not curse him, child, did I?"
+
+"Indeed, sir, you did."
+
+"Then may Heaven forgive me and him. But it is not--it is not a small
+distress that can wring tears from these old eyes. My child--to undo my
+darling! May confusion seize--Heaven forgive me! What am I about to say?
+Had she but died! My son, bring hither my Bible and my staff. I will
+pursue her; and though I cannot save her from shame, I may prevent the
+continuance of her iniquity."
+
+My suspicions fell entirely upon our young landlord, whose character for
+such intrigues was but too well known. I therefore directed my steps
+towards Thornhill Castle. He soon appeared, with the most open, familiar
+air, and seemed perfectly amazed at my daughter's elopement, protesting
+upon his honour that he was quite a stranger to it. A man, however,
+averred that my daughter and Mr. Burchell had been seen driving very
+fast towards the Wells, about thirty miles distant.
+
+I walked towards the Wells with earnestness, and on entering the town I
+was met by a person on horseback, whom I remembered to have seen at the
+squire's, and he assured me that if I followed them to the races, which
+were but thirty miles further, I might depend upon overtaking them.
+
+Early the next day I walked forward to the races, but saw nothing of my
+daughter or of Mr. Burchell.
+
+The agitations of my mind, and the fatigues I had undergone, now threw
+me into a fever. I retired to a little ale-house by the roadside, and
+here I languished for nearly three weeks.
+
+The night coming on as I was twenty miles from home on my return
+journey, I put up at a little public-house, and asked for the landlord's
+company over a pint of wine. I could hear the landlady upstairs bitterly
+reproaching a lodger who could not pay.
+
+"Out, I say," she cried; "pack out this moment!"
+
+"Oh, dear madame," replied the stranger, "pity a poor, abandoned
+creature for one night and death will soon do the rest!"
+
+I instantly knew the voice of my poor ruined child, Olivia, and flew to
+her rescue.
+
+"Welcome, anyway welcome, my dearest lost one, to your poor old father's
+bosom!"
+
+"Oh, my own dear"--for minutes she could say no more--"my own dearest,
+good papa! You can't forgive me--I know you cannot!"
+
+"Yes, my child, from my heart I do forgive thee." After we had talked
+ourselves into some tranquillity, I said, "It surprises me how a person
+of Mr. Burchell's seeming honour could be guilty of such deliberate
+baseness."
+
+"My dear papa," returned my daughter, "you labour under a strange
+mistake. It is Mr. Thornhill who has ruined me; who employed the two
+ladies, as he called them, but who, in fact, were abandoned women of the
+town, to decoy us up to London. Their artifices would certainly have
+succeeded but for Mr. Burchell's letter, who directed those reproaches
+at them which we all applied to ourselves."
+
+"You amaze me, my dear!" cried I. "But tell me, what temptation was it
+that could thus obliterate your virtue?"
+
+"He offered me marriage," replied she. "We were indeed married secretly
+by a popish priest, whose name I was sworn to conceal."
+
+"What!" interrupted I. "And were you indeed married?"
+
+"Alas!" she said, "he has been married already by the same priest to six
+or eight wives more, whom, like me, he has deceived and abandoned."
+
+"Have patience, my child," cried I, "and I hope things will yet be
+better. To-morrow I'll carry you home to your mother. Poor woman, this
+has gone to her heart; but she loves you still, Olivia, and will forget
+it."
+
+
+_IV.--Fresh Calamities_
+
+
+It was late the next night when I approached my own home. I had left
+Olivia at an inn five miles away, intending to prepare my family for her
+reception. To my amazement, I saw the house bursting out into a blaze of
+fire, and every aperture red with conflagration! I gave a loud
+convulsive outcry, which alarmed my son, and all my family ran out, wild
+with apprehension. Our neighbours came running to our assistance; but
+the flames had taken too strong a hold to be extinguished, and all the
+neighbours could do was to stand spectators of the calamity. They
+brought us clothes and furnished one of our outhouses with kitchen
+utensils; so that by daylight we had another, though a wretched,
+dwelling to retire to.
+
+In the midst of this affliction our poor lost one returned to us. "Ah,
+madam," cried her mother, "this is but a poor place to come to after so
+much finery! I can afford but little entertainment to persons who have
+kept company only with persons of distinction; but I hope Heaven will
+forgive you."
+
+The unhappy victim stood pale and trembling, unable to weep or to reply.
+
+"I entreat, woman," I said to my wife, with severity in my voice and
+manner, "that my words may be now marked once for all. I have here
+brought you back a poor deluded wanderer--her return to duty demands the
+revival of our tenderness. The real hardships of life are now coming
+fast upon us; let us not increase them by dissensions among each other.
+The kindness of Heaven is promised to the penitent, and let ours be
+directed by the example."
+
+My daughter's grief, however, seemed formed for continuing, and her
+wretchedness was increased by the news that Mr. Thornhill was going to
+be married to the rich Miss Wilmot, who had formerly been betrothed to
+my eldest son.
+
+On a morning of peculiar warmth for the season, when we were
+breakfasting out of doors, Mr. Thornhill drove up in his chariot,
+alighted, and inquired after my health with his usual air of
+familiarity.
+
+"Sir," replied I, "your present assurance only serves to aggravate your
+baseness."
+
+"My dear sir," returned he, "I cannot understand what this means!"
+
+"Go!" cried I. "Thou art a poor, pitiful wretch, and every way a liar;
+but your meanness secures you from my anger!"
+
+"I find," he said, "you are bent upon obliging me to talk in a harsher
+manner than I intended. My steward talks of driving for the rent, and it
+is certain he knows his duty. Yet, still, I could wish to serve you, and
+even to have you and your daughter present at my marriage."
+
+"Mr. Thornhill," replied I, "as to your marriage with any but my
+daughter, that I never will consent to! And though your friendship could
+raise me to a throne, or your resentment sink me to the grave, yet would
+I despise both."
+
+"Depend upon it," returned he, "you shall feel the effects of this
+insolence," and departed abruptly.
+
+On the very next morning his steward came to demand my annual rent,
+which, by reason of the accidents already related, I was unable to pay.
+On the following day two officers of justice took me to the county gaol.
+
+There is no situation, however wretched it seems, but has some sort of
+comfort attending it; and I found mine in the help and kindness of a
+fellow-prisoner, Mr. Jenkinson by name, who was awaiting trial for
+several acts of cheating and roguery. I myself, indeed, had been one of
+his victims.
+
+The fortune of my family, who were lodged in the town, was wholly and
+distressingly adverse. Olivia was ill, and longed for me to make my
+submission to Mr. Thornhill by approving his marriage with Miss Wilmot.
+When I had been confined a fortnight, Mr. Jenkinson brought me dreadful
+news--Olivia was dead! And while yet my grief was fresh upon me my wife
+came weeping to tell me that Sophia had been seized by ruffians and
+carried off.
+
+The sum of my miseries, thought, I, is now made up; nor is it in the
+power of anything on earth to give me another pang. Yet another awaited
+me. My eldest son, George, to whom I had written, went to Thornhill
+Castle to punish our betrayer; he was attacked by the coward's servants,
+injured one of them, and was brought into the very prison where I was
+confined.
+
+The enemy of my family had now triumphed completely. My only hope was in
+a letter I had written to Sir William Thornhill, telling him of the
+misdeeds of his nephew. I was by this time myself extremely ill. I
+sought to break from my heart all ties that bound it to earth, and to
+fit myself for eternity.
+
+
+_V.--The Rescue_
+
+
+On parting from my unhappy son, who was removed to a stronger cell, I
+laid me down in bed, when Mr. Jenkinson, entering, informed me that
+there was news of my daughter. He had scarcely delivered his message
+when my dearest girl entered with Mr. Burchell.
+
+"Here, papa," she cried, "here is the brave man to whom I owe my
+delivery; to this gentleman's intrepidity--"
+
+A kiss from Mr. Burchell interrupted what she was going to add.
+
+"Ah, Mr. Burchell," said I, "you were ever our friend. We have long
+discovered our errors with regard to you, and repented our ingratitude.
+And now, as you have delivered my girl, if you think her a recompense,
+she is yours."
+
+"But I suppose, sir," he replied, "you are apprised of my incapacity to
+support her as she deserves?"
+
+"I know no man," I returned, "so worthy to deserve her as you."
+
+Without the least reply to my offer, he ordered from the next inn the
+best dinner that could be provided. While we were at dinner, the gaoler
+brought a message from Mr. Thornhill, desiring permission to appear
+before his uncle in order to vindicate his innocence and honour. The
+poor, harmless Mr. Burchell, then, was in reality the celebrated Sir
+William Thornhill!
+
+Mr. Thornhill entered with a smile, and was going to embrace his uncle.
+
+"No fawning, sir, at present," cried the baronet. "The only way to my
+heart is by the road of honour; but here I only see complicated
+instances of falsehood, cowardice, and oppression."
+
+At this moment Jenkinson and the gaoler's two servants entered, hauling
+in a tall man very genteelly dressed. As soon as Mr. Thornhill perceived
+the prisoner and Mr. Jenkinson, he seemed to shrink backward with
+terror, for this was the man whom he had put upon the carrying off of
+Sophia.
+
+"Heavens," cried Sir William, "what a viper have I been fostering in my
+bosom!"
+
+"As Mr. Thornhill and I have been old fellow-sporters," said Jenkinson,
+"I have a friendship for him; and I hope he will show a proper return of
+friendship to his own honest Jenkinson, who brings him a wife."
+
+So saying, he went off and left us.
+
+"I am surprised," said the baronet, "what he can intend by this?"
+
+"When we reflect," I replied, "on the various schemes--Amazement! Do I
+see my lost daughter? It is--it is my Olivia!"
+
+"As for you, squire," said Jenkinson, "this young lady is your lawful
+wedded wife. Here is the licence to prove it. He commissioned me,
+gentlemen," he continued, "to procure him a false licence and a false
+priest in order to deceive this young lady. What did I do, but went and
+got a true licence and a true priest. To my shame, I confess it, my only
+design was to keep the licence and let the squire know that I could
+prove it upon him whenever I wanted money."
+
+"How could you," I cried, "add to my miseries by the story of her
+death?"
+
+"That," replied Jenkinson, "is easily answered. I thought the only
+probable means of freeing you from prison was by submitting to the
+squire, and consenting to his marriage with the other young lady. But
+this you had vowed never to grant while your daughter was living, so I
+had to join with your wife in persuading you that she was dead."
+
+Mr. Thornhill's assurance had now entirely forsaken him. He fell on his
+knees before his uncle, and implored compassion.
+
+"Thy vices, crimes, and ingratitude," said the baronet, "deserve no
+compassion; but a bare competence shall be supplied thee, and thy wife
+shall possess a third part of that fortune which once was thine." Then,
+turning to Sophia, he caught her to his breast with ardour. "I have
+sought," he cried, "for a woman who, a stranger to my fortune, could
+think I had merit as a man. How great must be my rapture to have made a
+conquest over such sense and such heavenly beauty!"
+
+On the next day Sophia was wedded to Sir William Thornhill; and my son
+George, now freed from justice, as the person supposed to be wounded by
+him was detected to be an impostor, led Miss Wilmot to the altar. As
+soon as I had awakened that morning, I had heard that my merchant had
+been arrested at Antwerp, and that my fortune had been restored to me.
+
+It may not be improper to observe, with respect to Mr. Thornhill, that
+he now resides as companion at a relation's house. My eldest daughter
+has told me that when he reforms she may be brought to relent.
+
+I had now nothing on this side of the grave to wish for. All my cares
+were over. It only remained that my gratitude in good fortune should
+exceed my submission in adversity.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+EDMOND AND JULES DE GONCOURT
+
+
+Renée Mauperin
+
+
+     Edmond de Goncourt, born at Nancy on May 26, 1822, and his
+     brother Jules, born in Paris on December 17, 1830, were
+     primarily artists, who, while wandering over France, knapsack
+     on back, discovered that their note-books also made them
+     writers. In 1850 they entered upon a literary partnership
+     which only finished with the death of the younger brother on
+     June 20, 1870. Their earliest literary endeavours consisted of
+     a series of historical studies dealing with the France of the
+     second half of the eighteenth century. It was not until 1860,
+     with the publication of their first novel, "Les Hommes de
+     Lettres," that they discovered their true bent lay in fiction.
+     "Renée Mauperin," which is, perhaps, the best known of their
+     books, was published in 1864. As a psychological analysis of
+     contemporaneous youth, it is probably without its equal in
+     French fiction. "The plot of the story," wrote Edmond de
+     Goncourt, "is secondary. The authors have rather preferred to
+     paint the modern young woman as she is: the product of the
+     artistic and masculine system of education in force during the
+     last thirty years. We have also attempted to portray the
+     modern young college man influenced by the republican ideas of
+     the time since Louis Philippe." Edmond de Goncourt died on
+     July 16, 1896.
+
+
+_I.--A Wayward Girl_
+
+
+"Yes, I love riding and hunting. I never miss a meet. The wind blowing
+through one's hair, the hounds, the horns, the trees flying past you--it
+is intoxicating! In those moments I feel brave. Life has few other
+pleasures for a well-brought-up girl like me. Everything is shocking! I
+dance, yes ... but do you think I am allowed to talk to my partner? Yes,
+no, no, yes--that's all! That's proper. And I am allowed to read if the
+books and articles are proper. I paint in oils, and that shocks my
+family; a young lady must not go beyond copying roses in water-colours.
+Isn't the current strong here?"
+
+Renée Mauperin and young Reverchon, her parent's guest, were swimming in
+the Seine.
+
+"How beautiful!" exclaimed the girl, as she noticed the evening sun
+gilding the river and the banks where country and suburb merged into
+each other.
+
+"You are an artist by nature, mademoiselle."
+
+"Ouf!" she exclaimed with a comic intonation.
+
+A boat approached.
+
+"Well, Renée, how is the water?" asked one of the rowers.
+
+"Splendid, thanks, Denoisel," she replied, as she mounted the steps
+lowered for her.
+
+"I was almost getting nervous for you. And Reverchon? Ah, there he is!"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Renée was the youngest daughter of a distinguished Napoleonic officer,
+who, at the time of the revolution of 1830, was elected deputy, and
+fought with all his ardour for the Liberal cause, but who subsequently,
+at the urging of his wife, a tyrannical conventional member of the
+_bourgeois_, retired from the world of politics and established a sugar
+refinery, so as to be able to provide suitably for his three children.
+
+The first two, a boy born in 1826 and a daughter in 1827, were a
+disappointment to the old soldier. They were too reasonable, too
+"grown-up" before they were children, but in Renée, who was born after
+an interval of eight years, M. Mauperin found ample consolation. His
+heart revelled in her pranks and merry laughter, and she grew up the pet
+of her father, whose affection she returned with all her heart. She was
+now twenty; her brother Henri, serious, studious, plodding and
+determined to make a career, was a lawyer, and had made some reputation
+by his articles on statistical subjects; and Henriette, her elder
+sister, had found a husband in M. Davarande, whose wealth and position
+allowed her to devote herself to the life of empty amusement, divided
+mainly between long rounds of calls, the opera, and the Bois, which
+filled the days of the moneyed Paris _bourgeoisie_ of that time.
+
+Madame Mauperin, delighted with Henriette's match, was anxious to find
+an equally suitable partner for Renée; but the high-spirited girl had a
+will of her own, and seemed to take almost a pleasure in crossing her
+mother's transparent matrimonial schemes. Quite a number of eligible
+young men had been introduced to the house at La Briche--and had left it
+without having furthered their suit. Reverchon had now been invited with
+similar intentions, and Renée was no more amenable than before. While
+her mother filled the young man's ears with praise of her
+accomplishments, the wayward girl, with her charming ingenuous talk, did
+her best to demonstrate her lack of those negative conventional virtues
+that were expected from a well-educated French girl in those days. She
+made Madame Mauperin turn first crimson, then pale, when she finally
+proceeded to cut Denoisel's hair in the drawing-room after dinner.
+
+Denoisel was the son of Mauperin's bosom friend, who had fought by his
+side in many battles, and who on his death-bed had made him his son's
+guardian. Mauperin became more than a guardian to the boy--he became his
+father. When Henri and Henriette were born, it seemed to Denoisel that
+he had been given a brother and sister; but he adored the baby Renée,
+and he alone succeeded in making her listen and obey.
+
+"Sometimes," said Henri to Denoisel as they travelled back to Paris, "my
+sister's follies are harmless enough; but to-night ... before that
+fellow ... I am sure the marriage will fall through. And such an
+excellent match!"
+
+"You think so? I began to fear for her. And that's why I lent myself to
+her prank. He is too hopelessly commonplace--a tailor's dummy! He would
+never have understood her. Your sister ought to marry a man of
+intelligence and character."
+
+And Madame Mauperin, as she prepared for bed, lectured her husband upon
+acceding to all his favourite's whims.
+
+"Another marriage missed! Henri spoke to me this evening. He is sure
+Reverchon will not have her."
+
+"Well, what of it?"
+
+"Why, he is the tenth! Renée will get an awful reputation. She will see
+when she is thirty ... and you too." Then, after a pause, "And now about
+your son. He is twenty-nine now. He, at any rate, has no objection to
+marriage. Have you ever thought of finding him a suitable wife?"
+
+She continued to talk and to grumble until Mauperin fell asleep.
+
+"Henri is reasonable enough, but he is a young man, and you know the
+danger. It's driving me mad! What do you think of trying Madame
+Rosiéres?"
+
+There was no reply. Madame Mauperin resigned herself to silence, and
+turned to find the sleep which only came with morning.
+
+
+_II.--Plots and Plays_
+
+
+Next morning Madame Mauperin proceeded to Paris, and drove to her son's
+apartments in the Rue Taitbout. She found him at work. After some
+beating about the bush she approached the object of her visit.
+
+"I fear," she began, "that you must have some reason for ..."
+
+"For not marrying, isn't it? My dear mother, you need not worry. I know
+that wealth is needed for a successful career, and that the best and
+most honourable way to obtain it is a good marriage. And I am determined
+to make a career. I shall get married soon enough... and better,
+perhaps, than you think."
+
+At La Briche, meanwhile, M. Mauperin vainly tried to be stern with his
+pet.
+
+"I have done it purposely," she said.
+
+"And why?"
+
+"Because I love you better than that young gentleman who was in no way
+sympathetic to me. You are ungrateful."
+
+"But listen, my dear child! Fathers are egotists, and would prefer to
+keep their children. But I am old, and I should not like to part without
+seeing you married, a mother, with affections that will replace mine."
+
+"Oh, this is wicked! Never, never!" she exclaimed; "let me cry alone for
+a minute." And she left the room hurriedly.
+
+When she returned after a while, she found Denoisel in the room.
+
+"You have been out? And where have you been?"
+
+"Well, if you want to know, I have been to church to pray that I may die
+before father. I knelt before a statue of the Virgin. And, you may
+laugh, but it seemed to me that she nodded at my request. And it made me
+quite happy."
+
+The conversation drifted to gayer topics, and the two soon fell into
+their wonted tone of banter. "Tell me, Renée," said Denoisel, "have you
+never felt, I won't say love, but some sentiment for anybody?"
+
+"Never. That sort of thing only occurs when the heart is empty. But when
+it is defended by the affection one feels for a father--as a child I
+felt perhaps the beginning of that emotion of which one reads in novels.
+And do you know for whom?"
+
+"No."
+
+"For you. Oh, only for a moment. I soon loved you differently for having
+corrected the spoilt child of its faults, for having directed my
+attention to noble and beautiful things. And I resolved to repay you by
+true friendship."
+
+M. Mauperin entered the room, and interrupted the confidences.
+
+A few days later, Renée having set her mind upon playing in private
+theatricals, a discussion arose about the filling of the second lady's
+part in the play that had been chosen. One by one the names suggested
+were dismissed, until Henri said, "Why not ask Mlle. Bourjot? They are
+just staying at Sannois."
+
+"Noémi?" replied Renée. "I'd love it. But she, was so cold towards me
+last winter. I don't know why."
+
+"She will have £12,000 a year," interrupted Denoisel, "and her mother
+knows that you have a brother. And they are not a little proud of their
+money."
+
+Twelve thousand a year! Madame Mauperin thought of her son's future, and
+supported his suggestion. It was decided that they would call on the
+Bourjots on Saturday.
+
+To Sannois they went as arranged on the Saturday. They were received
+with effusion, and had to put up for an hour or so with the unbearable
+arrogance of their hosts' display of wealth. Renée's warm advances to
+the playmate of her childhood were received by Noémi with coolness, not
+to say reluctance, but the request that Noémi should take part in the
+theatricals met with her mother's approval, the shy girl's objections--
+nervousness, lack of talent, and so forth--being overruled by Madame
+Bourjot. Before the two families parted it was arranged that Noémi
+should be taken by her governess to attend the rehearsals at the
+Mauperins' house.
+
+Renée's whole-hearted friendliness and sparkling humour soon overcame
+Noémi's reserve, and under Denoisel's direction the amateur actors made
+rapid progress. Madame Bourjot herself came to one of the rehearsals,
+and, after the first compliments, expressed her surprise that Henri, the
+principal actor, was absent. "Oh, he has a wonderful memory," said his
+proud mother; "two rehearsals will set him right."
+
+At last the great day arrived. A stage had been arranged in the large
+drawing-room, which was filled to its utmost capacity, the ladies being
+seated in the long rows of chairs, the men standing behind and
+overflowing through open doors into the adjoining rooms. The play chosen
+was "The Caprice." Henri, who revealed rare talent, took the part of the
+husband; Noémi of the neglected wife. The curtain fell upon enthusiastic
+applause, and Madame Bourjot, who had feared that her daughter would be
+a fiasco, was delighted with her success. Amid the hum of voices she
+heard the lady sitting next to her say to her neighbour, "His sister, I
+know ... but for the part he is not sufficiently in love with her ...
+and too much with his wife. Did you notice?" she continued, in a
+whisper.
+
+In the second piece Henri appeared as Pierrot, Renée as the forsaken
+wife, and Noémi as the beloved. Henri played with real passion. From
+time to time his eyes seemed to search for Madame Bourjot's. Her
+neighbour felt her leaning against her shoulder. The curtain fell.
+Madame Bourjot swayed, and fell back in a faint.
+
+She was carried to the garden.
+
+"Leave me now," she said, "I am all right now; it was the heat. I only
+want a little air ... Let M. Henri stay with me."
+
+They were left alone.
+
+"You love her?" said Madame Bourjot, clutching Henri's arm. "I know
+all.... Have you nothing to say?"
+
+"Nothing. I have struggled for a year. I will not excuse myself. I owe
+you the truth. I love your daughter, it is true."
+
+Finally, Madame Bourjot rose and walked towards the house. Henri
+followed.
+
+"I count upon never seeing you again, sir," she said, without looking
+round. With a mighty effort she regained her composure, and walked back
+to the house on Henri's arm.
+
+
+_III.--Stint to Death by his Sister_
+
+
+It was Madame Bourjot herself who insisted upon seeing Henri again, and,
+since he did not answer her letter, she went to his apartments. The
+interview was painful, but she gave her consent to Henri's marriage with
+Noémi, and undertook to overcome M. Bourjot's possible objections, on
+condition that Henri should humour her husband's vanity by adopting a
+title--an easy matter enough. The Mauperins had a farm called
+Villacourt. Mauperin de Villacourt would do very well. Henri promised to
+see what he could do.
+
+Madame Bourjot and her daughter called on the Mauperins next day. The
+two girls were asked to leave their mothers to their talk, and to take a
+walk in the garden.
+
+"A secret!" said Renée, as soon as they were alone. "Can you guess it? I
+can--my brother. ... But you are crying. What is it, my darling Noémi?"
+
+"Oh, you don't know!" her friend sobbed. "I cannot--if you only
+knew----Save me! If I could only die!"
+
+"Die! But why?"
+
+"Because your brother is----" She stopped in horror at what she was
+about to say, then whispered the rest of her sentence into her ear, and
+hid her face on her friend's bosom.
+
+"You lie!" Renée pushed her back.
+
+"I?" Renée did not reply, but looked sadly and gently into Noémi's eyes.
+
+Renée doubted no longer. She was silent for a moment; she felt almost
+the duties of a mother towards this child.
+
+In the evening Henri was surprised to find his sister waiting in his
+room. She approached the subject of his impending marriage, and implored
+him, by his love for her, not to give up his name, and to break off the
+match.
+
+"Are you mad? Enough of this!"
+
+Renée fixed her eyes upon her brother.
+
+"Noémi has told me--everything!"
+
+Her cheeks flushed, Henri turned deathly pale.
+
+"My dear," he said, with a shaky voice, "you interfere in things which
+do not concern you. A young girl--" Then seizing her hand, he pointed
+towards the door, and said, "Go!"
+
+Renée was ill for a week, and Henri, knowing the cause, did his best to
+alleviate her suffering. Still, a coldness remained between them. He
+understood that she had forgiven the brother, but not the man. One day
+she accompanied Henri to town and went with him to the Record Office,
+where he had to make some inquiries about the legality of adopting his
+own name. While he was questioning the keeper, she overheard two clerks
+discuss her brother and his claim. "He thinks the Villacourt family is
+extinct. But he is misinformed, although they have gone down in the
+world. In fact, I know the heir to the title--a M. Boisjorand with whom
+I once had a fight when we were boys. They lived in the forest of the
+Croix-du-Soldat, near St. Mihiel, at La Motte-Noire." Renée fixed these
+names in her mind.
+
+"I have got all I want," said Henri, gaily coming towards her. And they
+went out together.
+
+The Bourjots were giving a great ball to celebrate the public
+announcement of the engagement of their daughter to M. Mauperin de
+Villacourt.
+
+"You are enjoying yourself," said Renée to Noémi.
+
+"I have never danced so much, it is true." And Noémi took her arm and
+drew her into a small salon. "No, never." She kissed her. "Oh, what it
+is to be happy! She loves him no longer. I am sure of it--I can see it;
+I feel it."
+
+"And you love him now?"
+
+Noémi closed her mouth by pressing her lips upon Renée's. A young man
+came to claim Noémi for the dance, and Denoisel requested the same
+favour from Renée.
+
+Denoisel was with Henri Mauperin. They were smoking and talking
+peacefully, when the door was thrust open, and a man forced his way in,
+pushing aside the valet who wanted to prevent him from entering.
+
+"M. Mauperin de Villacourt?" he asked.
+
+"That is my name," said Henri, rising.
+
+"Good. My name is Boisjorand de Villacourt," retorted the stranger,
+striking him so violently on the cheek that his face was immediately
+covered with blood. Henri conquered his first impulse to throw himself
+upon the intruder, and said calmly, "You find that there is one
+Villacourt too many--so do I. Leave your card with my servant. I shall
+send to you to-morrow."
+
+It was from a marked number of the "Moniteur," which the impoverished
+heir of the glorious name of De Villacourt found on his return from a
+two years' sojourn in Africa, that M. Boisjorand had learned that Henri
+had taken from him this name, which was all that had come down to him
+from his famous ancestors. He immediately proceeded to Paris and sought
+legal advice, but found that his poverty rendered legal action
+impossible. After his interview with the solicitor, he went straight to
+Henri's apartment to obtain the only satisfaction that was in his power.
+
+Denoisel and another friend of Henri's arranged with Boisjorand's
+seconds next morning the details of the meeting. Henri, who was an
+excellent shot, had insisted on pistols at thirty-five paces, each
+combatant to have the right to advance ten steps. The duel was to take
+place at four o'clock the same afternoon near the ponds of Ville
+d'Avray.
+
+Neither of the two adversaries showed a trace of nervousness. The signal
+was given, M. De Villacourt advanced five steps, Henri remaining
+stationary. At the sixth step Henri fired, and his opponent fell. Henri
+hurried towards him.
+
+"Back to your place," shouted the wounded man. On his hands and knees he
+crawled forward to the limit of his advance leaving a trail of blood in
+the snow. Then he took careful aim--and Henri fell with arms extended
+and his face towards the ground.
+
+
+_IV.--Broken Wanderers_
+
+
+To Denoisel fell the painful duty of informing Mauperin of his son's
+death. The old man's grief was heartbreaking. When Denoisel was admitted
+to Renée, he found her sitting on a footstool, sobbing, with her
+handkerchief pressed to her mouth.
+
+"Renée," he said, taking her hands, "he has been killed--that man should
+never have known. He did not read, he saw nobody, he lived like a
+wolf--he was not a subscriber to the 'Moniteur.' Some enemy must have
+sent him that paper."
+
+Renée had risen; she moved her lips; she wanted to scream "It was I!"
+Then, suddenly pressing her hand against her heart, she fell senseless
+on the floor.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Renée did not seem to recover from her illness. Denoisel saw her daily,
+but a certain coldness had set in between them--he thought that Renée
+held him responsible for not having prevented the duel, while Renée
+vaguely feared that Denoisel had guessed her secret. He started upon a
+long journey.
+
+In those days of illness and anxiety the hearts of father and daughter
+seemed to come together more closely even than before. The heartbroken
+old man saw his beloved child wasting away. He called in the best
+specialist from Paris, who did not exactly give up all hope, but did not
+conceal that Renée's life was in danger. The poor girl, who could not
+bear to witness her father's misery, put on a gay air, assuring him
+again and again that she was recovering. Indeed, when, at her urging,
+the family removed to the country house where she had spent her
+childhood, there was a real and marked improvement, and for a while the
+roses seemed to return to her pale cheeks.
+
+But she soon fell back into her listless state. Thus she lingered on for
+several months, always cheering her father and speaking of her happy
+future, always fading away until she became a mere shadow of her former
+bright and healthy self. Only to Denoisel, when after a long absence he
+returned from the Pyrenees, she opened her heart. To him she confessed
+that she knew her days were counted.
+
+Those who travel far afield have perhaps met in foreign towns or among
+the ruins of dead places--now in Russia, now in Egypt--two aged people,
+a man and a woman, who seem to march along without looking and without
+seeing. They are the Mauperins--father and mother.
+
+They have sold everything and have gone. Thus they wander from land to
+land, from hotel to hotel. They wander, trying to lose their grief in
+the fatigue of the road, dragging their weary life to all the corners of
+the globe.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+JAMES GRANT
+
+
+Bothwell
+
+
+     The author of "Bothwell," and many other romantic tales, was a
+     Scotsman by birth, parentage, and perfervid sentiment. He was
+     born at Edinburgh on August 1, 1822. His father was a
+     distinguished Highland officer; by his mother he was related
+     to his illustrious literary exemplar, Sir Walter Scott. He was
+     only twenty-three years of age when "The Romance of War" made
+     him one of the most famous authors of his day. Other tales
+     quickly followed, including, in 1853, "Bothwell, or The Days
+     of Mary Queen of Scots," and it seemed as if readers could
+     not have too much of the lively adventure and vigorous
+     historical portraiture to which Grant unfailingly treated
+     them. Altogether he wrote more than fifty novels, many of them
+     involving considerable research. Grant outlived his
+     popularity; the public sought new writers, and when he died,
+     on May 5, 1887, he was penniless. For fertility of incident,
+     rapid change of scene, and skilful intermingling of historical
+     with imaginary people and events, "Bothwell" is not surpassed
+     by any of the romances that came from its author's fertile
+     pen.
+
+
+_I.--Anna of Bergen_
+
+
+Erick Rosenkrantz, Governor of Aggerhuis, in Norway, and castellan of
+Bergen, stood in the hall of his castle to welcome noble guests. It was
+a bleak and stormy day in September of 1565. Ill, indeed, would it have
+fared with the newcomers had not Konrad of the Salzberg, the young
+captain of the crossbowmen of Bergen, ventured forth on the raging sea
+at the peril of his life, and piloted their vessel into safety.
+
+The first of these was a tall and handsome man, about thirty years old,
+with a peculiar, dare-devil expression in his deep, dark eye, richly
+attired, and wearing a long sword and Scottish dagger. His companion,
+who deferentially remained a few paces behind, was a man of gigantic
+stature, swarthy and dark in complexion, with fierce and restless eyes.
+
+"Sir Erick," began the chamberlain, "allow me to introduce Sir James
+Hepburn, Earl of Bothwell, a noble peer, ambassador from Mary Queen of
+Scots to his Danish majesty."
+
+"We thank you for your gracious hospitality, fair sir," said Bothwell,
+with a profound courtesy; then, turning to Konrad, "And now, brave
+youth, by whose valour we have been saved, let me thank _you_."
+
+He warmly shook Konrad's hand, while the youth tried to catch the eye of
+Anna, the governor's fair-haired and lovely niece. But Anna was too
+intently regarding the strangers.
+
+Suddenly Bothwell perceived her; his colour heightened, his eyes
+sparkled.
+
+"Anna--Lady Anna," he exclaimed, "art _thou_ here? When we parted at the
+palace of King Frederick, I feared it was to meet no more."
+
+"Thou seest, my lord," she replied gaily, "that fate never meant to
+separate us altogether."
+
+It was Bothwell who sat by Anna's side at the banquet, not Konrad, her
+lover from childhood. Konrad was displaced and slighted; he left the
+hall with a heart full of jealous and bitter thoughts.
+
+"Dost thou not see the hand of fate in this meeting with Anna?" said
+Bothwell, when retiring, to his gigantic companion, Black Hob of
+Ormiston, the most merciless and ferocious of border barons.
+
+"Nay," said Hob; "I perceive only the finger of mischief!"
+
+"I own to thee," replied the earl, "that all my old passion is revived
+in full force. My whole heart and soul are hers," he went on
+passionately.
+
+"Remember your solemn plight to the Lady Jane Gordon. If that be broken,
+our doleful case will be worse than ever." For Bothwell was no
+ambassador, but an exile; and his real mission to King Frederick was in
+pursuit of a design to hand over the northern Scottish isles to Denmark,
+and become viceroy of them.
+
+"Hob, be not insolent," retorted Bothwell. "I love her a thousand times
+more than Huntly's sickly sister."
+
+It was always thus with this reckless noble--the passion of the moment
+was ever too strong for past pledges and future policy. While waiting at
+Bergen for the ship to be repaired, he wooed Anna with all the skill of
+an accomplished man of pleasure.
+
+Anna's heart was ready to be won, and it was not long ere Bothwell,
+having gained her love, asked Governor Rosenkrantz for her hand. To his
+mortification, he was refused. Anna, said the governor, had long been
+pledged to Konrad.
+
+But Konrad, meanwhile, was in despair. Anna no longer smiled upon him;
+he was lightly cast aside to make way for a more favoured lover. One
+evening he was missing. A day and a night passed, and Konrad was nowhere
+to be seen. Search for him was useless--he had disappeared.
+
+Two letters were brought to Bothwell by a king's messenger. One was from
+King Frederick, commanding him to desist from his mock embassy, and
+instantly leave the Danish seas; the other, from the Earl of Huntly,
+told him that his enemies in Scotland were banished, and his forfeiture
+reversed.
+
+Bothwell's thoughts instantly turned to Anna. He knew that she would not
+accompany him unless he married her, and policy now more than ever
+required that he should keep his troth to the sister of his friend, the
+Earl of Huntly. Then there occurred to him the sinister thought of a
+mock marriage.
+
+His actions were quick, and his persuasions, to the love-sick Anna,
+irresistible. That evening the two were wedded by a crazy hermit who
+dwelt among the rocks of the fjord, and Anna, without a word of farewell
+to her kin, left her native land, it might be for ever.
+
+A stormy voyage brought the ship to Westeray, in Shetland. Bothwell
+escorted Anna to the castle of Noltland; and as she landed at the pier,
+a young man sprang forward and helped her across the plank. She felt
+agitated, she knew not why; she looked at the man's face, but it was
+concealed. It was Konrad. He had fallen over a cliff, had been carried
+out to sea on a plank, had been picked up by a ship which had carried
+him to Shetland, and had taken service with the castellan of Noltland.
+The unexpected sight of Anna brought back his emotions to their
+starting-point, and recalled the poignancy of the hour in which he had
+realised that he had lost her.
+
+
+_II.--Bothwell Castle_
+
+
+"I have resolved!" exclaimed the earl, on the morning after their
+arrival at Noltland. "I would be worse than mad to forego the prospect
+of power by marring my union with the sister of Huntly."
+
+"Cock and pie! now thou speakest like a man of mettle!" growled Hob.
+
+"Anna is not my first love," mused the earl. "Have I not felt how feeble
+have been my sentiments for Anna, for Jane of Huntly, for all who have
+succeeded her whom I met in France long ago?"
+
+"Then thou wilt sail----"
+
+"Yes, like Æneas, leaving my Dido behind me."
+
+With a pretence of the love he felt no longer, Bothwell bade Anna
+farewell, and left her to doubts which, as the months went on and his
+promise to return was not fulfilled, gradually rose to despair.
+
+During the decline of a spring evening, as Anna wandered dejectedly on
+the battlements, Konrad stood before her for the first time since her
+arrival at Noltland.
+
+"Konrad," she faltered, "thou here!"
+
+"Anna--dear Anna!" exclaimed the unhappy young man. "I have tidings to
+tell thee. The false lord of Bothwell hath been espoused to the sister
+of Huntly!"
+
+"And I--" gasped Anna.
+
+"Thou art a captive for life in this island castle!"
+
+Anna would have fallen backwards had Konrad not sprung to her
+assistance.
+
+"Listen," he said, in a low voice. "If thou wouldst escape, an hour will
+set thee free."
+
+"Yes, land me once in Scotland, and I will make my way to Bothwell."
+
+That night Anna was on a Norwegian vessel bound for Glasgow, and Konrad
+was with her. She could not, he knew, be his bride, but he could at
+least protect and cherish her, and strive to redress the wrongs she had
+suffered.
+
+A storm was gathering above the lovely valley of the Clyde one June
+evening as two strangers--a man and a woman--plodded wearily towards
+Bothwell Castle. The woman became wholly exhausted; the man laid her
+gently down in shelter among the ruins of Blantyre Priory, and went on
+his errand alone. The storm had now burst, and the river was rising
+rapidly; but Konrad--for it was he--plunged into the raging waters, and
+strove to swim across. The current was too strong for him; he clung to
+an ash tree that projected over the stream, and was nearly exhausted
+when a man on the bank flung down his mantle and poniard, plunged in,
+and dragged him to the shore.
+
+Konrad, almost senseless, was carried within the castle. When he had
+revived and was dressed in dry garments, he was brought before his
+rescuer--it was Bothwell himself.
+
+"I thank thee," said Konrad proudly, "for saving my life."
+
+"Thou didst save mine. We are now equal," replied the earl.
+
+"'Tis well! I would not be _thy_ debtor for all the silver in the mines
+of Bergen! Lord of Bothwell, I tell thee in thine own hall that thou art
+a dishonoured villain!"
+
+"Thou art stark mad!" cried the earl. Then he went on, "Konrad, I have
+wronged thee deeply. In my youth I loved one who neglected me as cruelly
+as thou hast been neglected, and since then a mischievous spirit of
+vengeance, as it were, has led me to make women my playthings, to be won
+and thrown aside. I love thy spirit, Konrad. If I could be thy friend----"
+
+"Never!" cried Konrad. "I come not for friendship, but for justice to
+Anna! Hast thou not wedded another after thine espousal of her?"
+
+"Dost thou deem the mock blessing of yon mad hermit a spousal rite?"
+exclaimed the earl, laughing.
+
+Konrad repressed his passion.
+
+"I go to push my fortune with your turbulent border chiefs; and if, in
+the strife that will soon convulse this land, thou meetest Konrad of
+Salzberg, look well to thyself!"
+
+"Go thy way, and God be with thee!" replied the earl. "Thou art the
+first who hath bent a dark brow on a lord of Bothwell under his own
+roof-tree."
+
+Konrad returned to Anna, and in the ruined priory told her how Bothwell
+was false to her. Anna's grief was dreadful to behold.
+
+"Anna," said Konrad, after a pause, "Scotland hath a queen whose
+goodness of heart is revered in every land save her own."
+
+"True; and at her feet will I pour forth my sorrow and my tears
+together."
+
+So the two traversed the thickets around the priory, and reached the
+broad highway, which was to lead them at length to Edinburgh.
+
+
+_III.--Mary Queen of Scots_
+
+
+But it was long ere Anna looked upon the face of the queen. At the Red
+Lion Inn in Edinburgh her beauty struck the eye of the Earl of Morton,
+the factious, proud, and ferocious associate of Moray in all the dark
+intrigues of that craftiest of Scottish statesmen. Morton promised that
+Anna should be entrusted to a lady of fair repute, and soon presented to
+the queen. Konrad trusted him, little knowing that the repute of Dame
+Alison Craig, Anna's new guardian, was anything but fair, and set forth
+for the Border.
+
+It was to Sir John Elliot of Park that he offered the service of his
+sword, for it was against this turbulent borderer, who had just raided
+Northumberland, and threatened the peace of the two kingdoms, that
+Bothwell was advancing with the army of Queen Mary. Now garrisoning some
+solitary peel-tower, now hiding in some unfathomed cavern, now issuing
+with uplifted lance from the haggs of some deep moss, Konrad engaged
+with ardour in every desperate foray, and his daring made him the idol
+of the wild spirits around him. In every deed of arms one thought was in
+his mind--to come within a lance-length of Bothwell.
+
+Long and fierce was the struggle, but it ended as a fight so unequal was
+bound to end. John of Park was slain, refusing with his dying breath to
+surrender, and Konrad was carried, a half-senseless captive to
+Bothwell's castle of Hermitage. Even then the earl spared his life. He
+lay in a hideous den, in pitch darkness and dead silence broken only by
+the splash of drops of fetid water that fell from the slimy arch of the
+vault.
+
+No token reached him of what was happening above; and an event happened
+there that had vast influence on Bothwell's future. Across the hills to
+Hermitage rode the Queen of Scots herself. The sight of her stirred in
+Bothwell's heart an emotion he had never wholly conquered, for she, Mary
+herself, was his first love of the bygone days in France. He had begun
+to realise that he loved her still; he knew the coldness of her
+relations with the dissolute and unfaithful Darnley, her husband; now
+she had come to Hermitage.
+
+"Jesu Maria!" cried the queen, as Bothwell, with beating heart, paused
+in the conversation. "Have you lost your tongue?"
+
+"Nay, madame--my heart."
+
+"That is very serious; but search for another."
+
+"I want no other," replied the earl, in a trembling voice, "but
+_thine_!"
+
+"Lord Bothwell," she said, with a hauteur that froze her admirer, "thou
+art in a dream."
+
+"Pardon me, I pray you--"
+
+"I do pardon thee," replied the queen, with a calm smile; but added,
+significantly, "I think 'tis time I was riding from Hermitage."
+
+So ended the famous visit to Hermitage, which was interpreted throughout
+Scotland as a token of Mary's love for her favourite earl.
+
+Konrad, a month afterwards, was sent to Edinburgh and confined in the
+old tower of Holyrood, awaiting trial as a Border outlaw. Bothwell
+himself soon followed, and celebrated his return by a wild revel in
+company with Hob of Ormiston and other choice spirits.
+
+As the revellers wandered through the narrow streets at midnight,
+seeking a quarrel, they passed the house of Dame Alison Craig.
+
+"My page tells me," said Bothwell, "there is a famous foreign beauty
+concealed there. Ho! within!"
+
+A stoup of water, poured on them from an upper window, was the answer.
+They broke open the door, and forced the shrieking dame to lead them to
+the apartment where the foreign beauty was hidden.
+
+"Death and confusion!" muttered the earl when he saw who was within.
+
+"Cock and pie!" said Ormiston. "We have started the wrong game."
+
+Hastily they thrust back their companions. But Anna had recognised him.
+When Morton had made advances towards her, she had repulsed him
+scornfully, telling him she was the Countess of Bothwell. Morton had
+seized on this opportunity of injuring a man he hated, and resolved to
+bring Anna before the queen. Bothwell now knew the danger before him,
+and prepared for it.
+
+Next day, as the queen sat with her grim lords in council, Morton led in
+Anna.
+
+"I have the pleasure," said he, "to present a lady who accuseth the Earl
+of Bothwell of wedding and ignobly deserting her."
+
+"'Tis false, Lord Earl!" cried Bothwell.
+
+"Oh, madam, hear my story, and condemn me not unheard," pleaded Anna.
+
+"Let her speak for herself," said Mary.
+
+Thus encouraged, Anna, in moving accents, told her story.
+
+"A meloncholy tale, in sooth," said Mary; "but what proof is there?"
+
+"Your majesty," said Bothwell, "this is the invention of some unknown
+enemy"--he glanced at Morton--"to deprive me of your royal favour. Let
+this frantic damsel be removed to a Danish vessel now at Leith, and
+conveyed to her home."
+
+"Well, so be it!" replied the facile queen.
+
+Anna drew herself up to her full height.
+
+"Farewell, Bothwell," she cried. "In that dark time of ruin and regret
+that is coming upon thee, remember Anna!"
+
+And as she spoke they hurried her away.
+
+Bothwell henceforth was more than ever in the queen's favour. Only the
+life of Darnley intervened between him and the goal of his love and
+ambition; and the sinister promptings of Ormiston suggested that even
+that obstacle was not irremovable.
+
+
+_IV.--The Kirk of Field_
+
+
+On a dark winter night a conference of nobles was held at Whittinghame.
+Mary had been asked to divorce her husband, and had proudly and
+indignantly refused. Only one way remained. A solemn bond was drawn up
+among the assembled nobles, and the bond sealed the fate of Darnley. It
+was not without doubt and shrinking that Bothwell saw whither his
+schemes were leading him, but he would not, he could not, turn back.
+
+It was at Ormiston's suggestion that Konrad was employed as an
+unconscious tool in the affair. Ormiston hinted that with a little
+adroitness the whole blame might be laid on the unhappy prisoner. Konrad
+accordingly, on the night when the deed was to be done, was awakened
+from a reverie in his cell at Holyrood by the entry of a tall, masked
+figure.
+
+"If thou wouldst attain liberty, follow me!" said Ormiston, for it was
+he.
+
+He put a sword in Konrad's hand. Konrad as he grasped the weapon, felt
+his spirits rise again, and he followed.
+
+Presently they came to a group of masked men, and silently the party
+went through a private door in the city walls. Their destination, though
+Konrad knew it not, was the lonely house of the Kirk of Field, where
+Darnley was lying slowly recovering from small-pox--an illness through
+which the queen, forgetting her wrongs at his hands, had tenderly nursed
+him.
+
+Konrad, arrived at the house, helped to unload a horse of heavy packages
+which he conjectured to contain plunder; but it was gunpowder that he
+unwittingly handled.
+
+Suddenly a piercing cry came from above. A moment later the startled
+Konrad perceived Bothwell, his mask awry, his eyes glazed and haggard.
+
+"Thou hast done well!" said Ormiston grimly.
+
+"Well! My God!" groaned the earl.
+
+"Away while I fire the train!" shouted Ormiston.
+
+Like a fiery serpent the train glowed along the ground. Then, red and
+lurid in the shadowy night, there flashed a volume of dazzling light;
+then came a roar as if the earth was splitting.
+
+Konrad fled in bewildered terror, and wandered about the outskirts of
+the city until, in a little ruined chapel on the verge of a moor, he lay
+down exhausted and fell asleep.
+
+In the morning he was awakened by a rough grasp on his shoulder.
+
+"We have meshed one of the knaves at least," said a stern voice. Konrad
+found himself amidst knights and men-at-arms, and he was led back to the
+city.
+
+The citizens were in arms, furious at the outrage of the night before.
+The appearance of a suspected murderer aroused their passion to the
+utmost; Konrad's escort was overpowered and thrust aside. "Awa' wi' him
+to the Papist's pillar!" cried a voice. Down they went with him to the
+North Loch, and tied him there to an oaken stake about five feet deep in
+the water--a spot where many a luckless Catholic had perished. The mob
+retired, and Konrad was left alone, helpless, and to die.
+
+Bothwell sat by the fire in his apartments at Holyrood, with knit brows
+and muttering lips; the word he muttered was, "Murderer." The shriek of
+the man whose death-blow he had struck still echoed in his ears.
+
+Presently there entered the room one of his followers, Hepburn of
+Bolton.
+
+"The Norwegian hath been bound to the Papist's pillar," said he; "and by
+this time he must be dead, for it rains heavily, and the loch fills
+fast."
+
+"One other life!" said the earl gloomily. "By heaven, Bolton! if I can
+save him--come!"
+
+In the darkness and the rain, with the water rising around him, Konrad
+waited for death. A sound of oars roused him from the stupefaction into
+which he had fallen. "Here, here! His head is above water still," said a
+voice. The bonds were cut, Konrad was dragged into the boat and taken to
+land, and offered a draught that revived him.
+
+"Here we part," said the voice. "Give him dry garments, and take him to
+the Norwegian vessel, and bid him cross my path no more!"
+
+"Who art thou?" asked Konrad feebly.
+
+"Thy greatest enemy, James, Earl of Bothwell!"
+
+Slowly Konrad mounted the horse that had been brought for him, and with
+difficulty he rode; but the morning saw him on board a vessel of Bergen,
+in the hands of countrymen and friends.
+
+Bothwell was tried for the murder of Darnley, and triumphantly
+acquitted. He procured the secret assent of the nobles to his marriage
+with Mary; he divorced the Countess Jane; one more vigorous action, and
+the goal would be attained.
+
+On an April day, as Mary rode along the Stirling road towards Edinburgh,
+her way was barred by a thousand armed horsemen in close array; and
+Bothwell, riding up, requested that she should accompany him to his
+castle of Dunbar. It was useless to resist. Once in the castle, Bothwell
+offered her his hand, and was proudly refused.
+
+"Lord Earl," cried Mary, "thou mayest tremble when I leave Dunbar!"
+
+"Madame," he replied, "thou shalt never leave Dunbar but as the bride of
+Bothwell!"
+
+In May, Mary and Bothwell were married. A month later Bothwell fled
+before the wrath of an outraged nation, never to see Mary again; and
+within a week of their parting he roamed a pirate on the northern seas.
+
+
+_V.--Nemesis_
+
+
+A large Danish war vessel approached the port of Bergen, with prisoners
+to hand over to the castellan--the new castellan, for old Erick
+Rosenkrantz was dead. Chief of the captives was Bothwell, nonchalant but
+melancholy, pale, and more thoughtful than formerly; still, in pleasure
+and in sorrow, was he haunted by the shriek of the dying Darnley.
+
+Near him stood one who was not a captive, but a returning wanderer.
+Konrad had again crossed the path of the earl; his vessel, long detained
+in port, and afterwards delayed by storms, had been captured by the
+Scottish pirate ship, and he had been rescued from this new misfortune
+by the great Norwegian war vessel.
+
+The prisoners were escorted to the hall of the castle, and Bothwell
+assumed his most defiant look. The arras that concealed the daïs was
+withdrawn, and Bothwell looked upon the face of the hereditary castellan
+of Bergen, Anna Rosenkrantz!
+
+On seeing the earl, she turned pale as death. The earl recovered
+instantly from his surprise, and bowed smilingly.
+
+"Well, madam," said he, "we foresaw not this meeting!"
+
+"Dost thou know," replied Anna firmly, "that thy life and liberty are in
+my power?"
+
+"I am assured," he answered, "that they could not be in safer keeping."
+
+"Regicide and betrayer," return Anna, with flashing eyes, "from this
+hour thou shalt have meted out to thee the stern measures thou hast so
+ruthlessly dealt to others. This man," she went on, turning to the
+captain of the war ship, "is the king's prisoner; away with him to the
+Castle of Kiobenhafen--be under sail before sunset!"
+
+Red-bearded Danish bowmen crowded round the earl, who thus passed away
+to the wretched captivity that ended only with his death, ten years
+afterwards.
+
+Konrad, unnoticed and uncared for, stood alone in the hall where he had
+once been so welcome a guest. He had no intention of remaining in a
+place where all was so changed; but ere he turned to leave it for ever
+he paused a moment irresolutely. Once more the arras was withdrawn, and
+Anna stood before him.
+
+"I heard thou wert here, Konrad," she said, with a blushing cheek.
+"Wouldst thou go without one word to me?"
+
+She seated herself in the recess of a window. "I have long wished," she
+faltered, "to see thee once more. I have now seen the worth and faith of
+thy heart when contrasted with mine own, and I blush for my weakness--my
+wickedness--my folly. Thou mayest deem this unwomanly--indelicate; but
+in love we are equal, and why may not one make reparation as the other?"
+
+"Anna," said Konrad, in a choking voice, "though my heart be soured and
+saddened, my first sentiment for thee hath never altered. For all thou
+hast made me endure I forgive thee, and I pray that thou mayest be
+happy. Anna--dearest Anna--I am going far away, for I have doomed myself
+to exile, but I still regard thee as a sister--as a friend. All is
+forgotten and forgiven. And now, farewell!"
+
+He felt the hand of Anna in his; another moment, and she sank upon his
+breast.
+
+"Oh, Konrad," she whispered, "if my heart is still prized by thee, it is
+thine, as in the days of our first love."
+
+And, borne away by his passion, the forgiving Konrad pressed the woman
+he loved closer and closer to his breast.
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 10921 ***
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+<body>
+<div>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 10921 ***</div>
+
+<h1>THE WORLD'S GREATEST BOOKS</h1>
+
+<h2 class="no-break">JOINT EDITORS</h2>
+
+<h3>ARTHUR MEE</h3>
+
+<h4>Editor and Founder of the Book of Knowledge</h4>
+
+<h3>J. A. HAMMERTON</h3>
+
+<h4>Editor of Harmsworth's Universal Encyclopaedia</h4>
+
+<h3>VOL. IV</h3>
+
+<h3>FICTION</h3>
+
+<h4>COPYRIGHT, MCMX</h4>
+
+<hr />
+
+<h2>Table of Contents</h2>
+
+<p>
+<a href="#ebers">EBERS, GEORG</a><br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<a href="#ebers1">An Egyptian Princess</a><br /><br />
+<a href="#edgeworth">EDGEWORTH, MARIE</a><br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<a href="#edgeworth1">Belinda</a><br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<a href="#edgeworth2">Castle Rackrent</a><br /><br />
+<a href="#eliot">ELIOT, GEORGE</a><br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<a href="#eliot1">Adam Bede</a><br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<a href="#eliot2">Felix Holt</a><br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<a href="#eliot3">Romola</a><br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<a href="#eliot4">Silas Marner</a><br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<a href="#eliot5">The Mill on the Floss</a><br /><br />
+<a href="#erckmann">ERCKMANN-CHATRIAN</a><br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<a href="#erckmann1">Waterloo</a><br /><br />
+<a href="#feuillet">FEUILLET, OCTAVE</a><br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<a href="#feuillet1">Romance of a Poor Young Man</a><br /><br />
+<a href="#fielding">FIELDING, HENRY</a><br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<a href="#fielding1">Amelia</a><br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<a href="#fielding2">Jonathan Wild</a><br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<a href="#fielding3">Joseph Andrews</a><br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<a href="#fielding4">Tom Jones</a><br /><br />
+<a href="#flammarion">FLAMMARION, CAMILLE</a><br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<a href="#flammarion1">Urania</a><br /><br />
+<a href="#fouque">FOUQUÉ, DE LA MOTTE</a><br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<a href="#fouque1">Undine</a><br /><br />
+<a href="#gaboriau">GABORIAU, EMILE</a><br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<a href="#gaboriau1">File No. 113</a><br /><br />
+<a href="#galt">GALT, JOHN</a><br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<a href="#galt1">Annals of the Parish</a><br /><br />
+<a href="#gaskell">GASKELL, MRS.</a><br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<a href="#gaskell1">Cranford</a><br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<a href="#gaskell2">Mary Barton</a><br /><br />
+<a href="#godwin">GODWIN, WILLIAM</a><br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<a href="#godwin1">Caleb Williams</a><br /><br />
+<a href="#goethe">GOETHE</a><br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<a href="#goethe1">Sorrows of Young Werther</a><br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<a href="#goethe2">Wilhelm Meister</a><br /><br />
+<a href="#goldsmith">GOLDSMITH, OLIVER</a><br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<a href="#goldsmith1">Vicar of Wakefield</a><br /><br />
+<a href="#goncourt">GONCOURT, EDMOND AND JULES DE</a><br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<a href="#goncourt1">Renée Mauperin</a><br /><br />
+<a href="#grant">GRANT, JAMES</a><br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<a href="#grant1">Bothwell</a><br />
+</p>
+
+<p>A Complete Index of THE WORLD'S GREATEST BOOKS will be found at the end
+of Volume XX.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="ebers">GEORG EBERS</a></h2>
+
+
+<h3><a name="ebers1">An Egyptian Princess</a></h3>
+
+<p class="letter">
+Georg Moritz Ebers, a great Orientalist and Egyptologist, was
+born in Berlin on March 1, 1837, received his first instruction at Keilhau
+in Thuringen, then attended a college at Quedlinburg, and finally took up
+the study of law at G&ouml;ttingen University. In 1858, when his feet
+became lame, he abandoned this study, and took up philology and
+arch&aelig;ology. After 1859 he devoted himself almost exclusively to
+Egyptology. Having recovered from his long illness, he visited the most
+important European museums, and in 1869 he travelled to Egypt, Nubia, and
+Arabia. On his return he took the chair of Egyptology at Leipzig
+University. He went back to Egypt in 1872, and discovered, besides many
+other important inscriptions, the famous papyrus which bears his name. "An
+Egyptian Princess" is his first important novel, written during his
+illness, and published in 1864. It has gone through numerous editions, and
+has been translated into most European languages. It was followed by
+several other similar works of fiction, of which "Serapis" achieved wide
+popularity. Ebers died on August 7, 1898.
+</p>
+
+<h4><i>I.--The Royal Bride</i></h4>
+
+
+<p>A cavalcade of dazzling splendour was moving along the high road towards
+Babylon. The embassy sent by Cambyses, the mighty King of the East, had
+accomplished its mission, and now Nitetis, the daughter of Amasis, King of
+Egypt, was on the way to meet her future spouse. At the head of the
+sumptuous escort were Bartja, Cambyses' handsome golden-haired younger
+brother; his kinsman Darius; Croesus, the dethroned King of Lydia, and his
+son Gyges; Prexaspes, the king's ambassador, and Zopyrus, the son of
+Megabyzus, a Persian noble.</p>
+
+<p>A few miles before the gates of Babylon they perceived a troop of
+horsemen galloping towards them. Cambyses himself came to honour his bride.
+His pale face, framed by an immense black beard, expressed great power and
+unbounded pride. Deep pallor and bright colour flitted by turns across the
+face of Nitetis, as his fiery eyes fixed her with a piercing gaze. Then he
+waved a welcome, sprang from his horse, shook Croesus by the hand, and
+asked him to act as interpreter. "She is beautiful and pleases me well,"
+said the king. And Nitetis, who had begun to learn the language of her new
+home on the long journey, blushed deeply and began softly in broken
+Persian, "Blessed be the gods, who have caused me to find favour in thine
+eyes."</p>
+
+<p>Cambyses was delighted with her desire to win his approbation and with
+her industry and intellect, so different from the indolence and idleness of
+the Persian women in his harem. His wonder and satisfaction increased when,
+after recommending her to obey the orders of Boges, the eunuch, who was
+head over the house of women, she reminded him that she was a king's
+daughter, bound to obey the commands of her lord, but unable to bow to a
+venal servant.</p>
+
+<p>Her pride found an echo in his own haughty disposition. "You have spoken
+well. A separate dwelling shall be appointed you. I, and no one else, will
+prescribe your rules of life and conduct. Tell me now, how my messengers
+pleased you and your countrymen?"</p>
+
+<p>"Who could know the noble Croesus without loving him? Who could fail to
+admire the beauty of the young heroes, your friends, and especially of your
+handsome brother Bartja? The Egyptians have no love for strangers, but he
+won all hearts."</p>
+
+<p>At these words the king's brows darkened, he struck his horse so that
+the creature reared, and then, turning it quickly round, he galloped
+towards Babylon. He decided in his mind to give Bartja the command of an
+expedition against the Tapuri, and to make him marry Rosana, the daughter
+of a Persian noble. He also determined to make Nitetis his real queen and
+adviser. She was to be to him what his mother Kassandane had been to Cyrus,
+his great father. Not even Ph&aelig;dime, his favourite wife, had occupied
+such a position. And as for Bartja, "he had better take care," he murmured,
+"or he shall know the fate that awaits the man who dares to cross my
+path."</p>
+
+
+<h4><i>II.--The Plot</i></h4>
+
+
+<p>According to Persian custom a year had to pass before Nitetis could
+become Cambyses' lawful wife, but, conscious of his despotic power, he had
+decided to reduce this term to a few months. Meanwhile, he only saw the
+fair Egyptian in the presence of his blind mother or of his sister Atossa,
+both of whom became Nitetis' devoted friends. Meanwhile, Boges, the eunuch,
+sank in public estimation, since it was known that Cambyses had ceased to
+visit the harem, and he began to conspire with Ph&aelig;dime as to the best
+way of ruining Nitetis, who had come to love Cambyses with ever growing
+passion.</p>
+
+<p>The Egyptian princess's happiness was seriously disturbed by the arrival
+of a letter from her mother, which brought her naught but sad news. Her
+father, Amasis, had been struck with blindness on the very day she had
+reached Babylon; and her frail twin-sister Tachot, after falling into a
+violent fever, was wasting away for love of Bartja, whose beauty had
+captured her heart at the time of his mission in Sais. His name had been
+even on her lips in her delirium, and the only hope for her was to see him
+again.</p>
+
+<p>Nitetis' whole happiness was destroyed in one moment. She wept and
+sighed, until she fell asleep from sheer exhaustion. When her maid Mandane
+came to put a last touch to her dress for the banquet, she found her
+sleeping, and as there was ample time she went out into the garden, where
+she met the eunuch Boges. He was the bearer of good news. Mandane had been
+brought up with the children of a Magian, one of whom was now the
+high-priest Oropastes. Love had sprung up between her and his handsome
+brother Gaumata; and Oropastes, who had ambitious schemes, had sent his
+brother to Rhag&aelig; and procured her a situation at court, so that they
+might forget one another. And now Gaumata had come and begged her to meet
+him next evening in the hanging gardens. Mandane consented after a hard
+struggle.</p>
+
+<p>Boges hurried away with malicious pleasure in the near success of his
+scheme. He met one of the gardeners, whom he promised to bring some of the
+nobles to inspect a special kind of blue lily, in which the gardener took
+great pride. He then hurried to the harem, to make sure that the king's
+wives should look their best, and insisted upon Ph&aelig;dime painting her
+face white, and putting on a simple, dark dress without ornament, except
+the chain given her by Cambyses on her marriage, to arouse the pity of the
+Ach&aelig;menid&aelig;, to which family she herself belonged.</p>
+
+<p>The eunuch's cunning scheme succeeded but too well. At the end of the
+great banquet Bartja, to whom Cambyses had promised to grant a favour on
+his victorious return from the war, confessed to him his love for Sappho, a
+charming and cultured Greek maiden of noble descent, whom he wished to make
+his wife. Cambyses was delighted at this proof of the injustice of his
+jealous suspicions, and announced aloud that Bartja would in a few days
+depart to bring home a bride. At these words Nitetis, thinking of her poor
+sister's misery, fainted.</p>
+
+<p>Cambyses sprang up pale as death; his lips trembled and his fist was
+clenched. Nitetis looked at him imploringly, but he commanded Boges to take
+the women back to their apartments. "Sleep well, Egyptian, and pray to the
+gods to give you the power of dissembling your feelings. Here, give me
+wine; but taste it well, for to-day, for the first time, I fear poison. Do
+you hear, Egyptian? Yes, all the poison, as well as the medicine, comes
+from Egypt."</p>
+
+<p>Boges gave strict orders that nobody--not even the queen-mother or
+Croesus--was to have access to the hanging gardens, whither he had
+conducted Nitetis. Cambyses, meanwhile, continued the drinking bout,
+thinking the while of punishment for the false woman. Bartja could have had
+no share in her perfidy, or he would have killed him on the spot; but he
+would send him away. And Nitetis should be handed to Boges, to be made the
+servant of his concubines and thus to atone for her crimes.</p>
+
+<p>When the king left the hall, Boges, who had slipped out before him,
+intercepted one of the gardener's boys with a letter for Prince Bartja. The
+boy refused to hand it over, as Nitetis had instructed him to hand it only
+to the prince; and on Cambyses' approach the boy fell on his knees,
+touching the ground with his forehead. Cambyses snatched the papyrus roll
+from his hand, and stamped furiously on the ground at seeing that the
+letter was written in Greek, which he could not read. He went to his own
+apartments, followed by Boges, whom he instructed to keep a strict watch
+over the Egyptian and the hanging gardens. "If a single human being or a
+message reach her without my knowledge, your life will be the forfeit."</p>
+
+<p>Boges, pleading a burning fever, begged that Kandaules, the Lydian
+captain of eunuchs, who was true as gold and inflexibly severe, should
+relieve him on the morrow. On the king's consent, he begged furthermore
+that Oropastes, Croesus, and three other nobles should be allowed to
+witness the opening of the blue lily in the hanging gardens. Kandaules
+would see that they enter into no communication with the Egyptian.</p>
+
+<p>"Kandaules must keep his eyes open, if he values his own life--go!"</p>
+
+
+<h4><i>III.--Conflicting Evidence</i></h4>
+
+
+<p>The hunt was over, and Bartja, who had invited his bosom friends,
+Darius, Gyges, Zopyrus, and Croesus, to drink a parting-cup with him, sat
+with the first three in the bower of the royal gardens. They talked long of
+love, of their ambitions, of the influence of stars on human destinies,
+when Croesus rapidly approached the arbour. When he beheld Bartja, he stood
+transfixed, then whispered to him, "Unhappy boy, you are still here? Fly
+for your life! The whip-bearers are close on my heels."</p>
+
+<p>"What do you mean?"</p>
+
+<p>"Fly, I tell you, even if your visit to the hanging gardens was
+innocently meant. You know Cambyses' violent temper. You know his jealousy
+of you; and your visit to the Egyptian to-night...."</p>
+
+<p>"My visit? I have never left this garden!"</p>
+
+<p>"Don't add a lie to your offense. Save yourself, quickly."</p>
+
+<p>"I speak the truth, and I shall remain."</p>
+
+<p>"You are infatuated. We saw you in the hanging-gardens not an hour
+ago."</p>
+
+<p>Bartja appealed to his friends, who confirmed on oath the truth of his
+assertion; and before Croesus could arrive at a solution of the mystery,
+the soldiers had arrived, led by an officer who had served under Bartja. He
+had orders to arrest everybody found in the suspect's company, but at the
+risk of his life urged Bartja to escape the king's fury. His men would
+blindly follow his command. But Bartja steadfastly refused. He was
+innocent, and knew that Cambyses, though hasty, was not unjust.</p>
+
+<p>Two hours later Bartja and his friends stood before the king who had
+just recovered from an epileptic fit. A few hours earlier he would have
+killed Bartja with his own hands. Now he was ready to lend an ear to both
+sides. Boges first related that he was with the Ach&aelig;menid&aelig;,
+looking at the blue lily, and called Kandaules to inquire if everything was
+in order. On being told that Nitetis had not tasted food or drink all day,
+he sent Kandaules to fetch a physician. It was then that he saw Bartja by
+the princess's window. She herself came out of the sleep-room. Croesus
+called to Bartja, and the two figures disappeared behind a cypress. He went
+to search the house and found Nitetis lying unconscious on a couch.
+Hystaspes and the other nobles confirmed the eunuch's words, and even
+Croesus had to admit their substantial truth, but added that they must have
+been deceived by some remarkable likeness--at which Boges grew pale.</p>
+
+<p>Bartja's friends were equally definite in their evidence for the
+accused. Cambyses looked first on the one, then on the other party of these
+strange witnesses. Then Bartja begged permission to speak.</p>
+
+<p>"A son of Cyrus," he said, "would rather die than lie. I confess no
+judge was ever placed in so perplexing a position. But were the entire
+Persian nation to rise up against you, and swear that Cambyses had
+committed an evil deed, and you were to say, 'I did not commit it,' I,
+Bartja, would give all Persia the lie and exclaim, 'Ye are all false
+witnesses! A son of Cyrus cannot allow his mouth to deal in lies.' I swear
+to you that I am innocent. I have not once set foot in the hanging gardens
+since my return."</p>
+
+<p>Cambyses' looks grew milder on hearing these words, and when Oropastes
+suggested that an evil spirit must have taken Bartja's form to ruin him, he
+nodded assent and stretched out his hand towards Bartja. At this moment a
+staff-bearer came in and gave the king a dagger found by a eunuch under
+Nitetis' window. Cambyses examined it, dashed the dagger violently to the
+ground, and shrieked, "This is your dagger! At last you are convicted, you
+liar! Ah, you are feeling in your girdle! You may well turn pale, your
+dagger is gone! Seize him, put on his fetters! He shall be strangled
+to-morrow! Away with you, you perjured villains! They shall all die
+to-morrow! And the Egyptian--at noon she shall be flogged through the
+streets. Then I'll----"</p>
+
+<p>But here he was stopped by another fit of epilepsy, and sank down in
+convulsions.</p>
+
+<p>The fate of the unfortunates was sealed when, afterwards, Cambyses made
+Croesus read to him Nitetis' Greek letter to Bartja.</p>
+
+<p>"Nitetis, daughter of Amasis of Egypt, to Bartja, son of the great
+Cyrus.</p>
+
+<p>"I have something important to tell you; I can tell it to no one but
+yourself. To-morrow I hope to meet you in your mother's rooms. It lies in
+your power to comfort a sad and loving heart, and to give it one happy
+moment before death. I repeat that I must see you soon."</p>
+
+<p>Croesus, who tried to intercede on behalf of the condemned, was
+sentenced to share their fate. In his heart even he was now convinced of
+Bartja's guilt, and of the perjury of his own son and of Darius.</p>
+
+
+<h4><i>IV.--The Unexpected Witness</i></h4>
+
+
+<p>Nitetis had passed many a wretched hour since the great banquet. All day
+long she was kept in strict seclusion, and in the twilight Boges came to
+her to tell her jeeringly that her letter had fallen into the king's hand,
+and that its bearer had been executed. The princess swooned away, and Boges
+carried her to her sleeping-room, the door of which he barred carefully.
+When, later, Mandane left her lover Gaumata, the maid hurried into her
+mistress's room, found her in a faint, and used every remedy to restore her
+to consciousness.</p>
+
+<p>Then Boges came with two eunuchs, loaded the princess's arms with
+fetters, and gave vent to his long-nourished spite, telling her of the
+awful fate that was in store for her. Nitetis resolved to swallow a
+poisonous ointment for the complexion directly the executioner should draw
+near her. Then, in spite of her fetters, she managed to write to Cambyses,
+to assure him once more of her love and to explain her innocence. "I commit
+this crime against myself, Cambyses, to save you from doing a disgraceful
+deed."</p>
+
+<p>Meanwhile, Boges, after exciting Ph&aelig;dime's curiosity by many vague
+hints, divulged to her the nature of his infamous scheme. When Gaumata had
+come to Babylon for the New Year's festival, Boges had discovered his
+remarkable likeness to Bartja. He knew of his love for Mandane, gained his
+confidence, and arranged the nocturnal meeting under Nitetis' bedroom
+window. In return he exacted the promise of the lover's immediate departure
+after the meeting. He helped him to escape through a trap-door. To get
+Bartja out of the way, he had induced a Greek merchant to dispatch a letter
+to the prince, asking him, in the name of her he loved best, to come alone
+in the evening to the first station outside the Euphrates gate.
+Unfortunately, the messenger managed the matter clumsily, and apparently
+gave the letter to Gaumata. But to counteract Bartja's proof of innocence,
+Boges had managed to get hold of his dagger, which was conclusive evidence.
+And now Nitetis was sentenced to be set astride upon an ass and led through
+the streets of Babylon. As for Gaumata, three men were lying in wait for
+him to throw him into the Euphrates before he could get back to Rhagae.
+Ph&aelig;dime joined in Boges' laughter, and hung a heavy jewel-studded
+chain round his neck.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p>A few hours only were wanted for the time fixed for Nitetis' disgrace,
+and the streets of Babylon were thronged with a dense crowd of sightseers,
+when a small caravan approached the Bel gate. In the first carriage was a
+fine, handsome man of about fifty, of commanding aspect, and dressed as a
+Persian courtier. With difficulty the driver cleared a passage through the
+crowd. "Make way for us! The royal post has no time to lose, and I am
+driving some one who will make you repent every minute's delay." They
+arrived at the palace, and the stranger's insistence succeeded in gaining
+admission to the king. The Greek--for such the stranger had declared
+himself--affirmed that he could prove the condemned men's innocence.</p>
+
+<p>"Call him in!" exclaimed Cambyses. "But if he wants to deceive me, let
+him remember that where the head of a son of Cyrus is about to fall, a
+Greek head has but very little chance." The Greek's calm and noble manner
+impressed Cambyses favourably, and his hostility was entirely overcome when
+the stranger revealed to him that he was Phanes, the famous commander of
+the Greek mercenaries in Egypt, and that he had come to offer his service
+to Cambyses.</p>
+
+<p>Phanes now related how, on approaching Babylon by the royal post, just
+before midnight, they heard some cries of distress, and found three
+fierce-looking fellows dragging a youth towards the river; how with his
+Greek war-cry he had rushed on the murderers, slain one of them, and put
+the others to flight; and how he discovered--so he thought--the youth to be
+none other but Bartja, whom he had met at the Egyptian court.</p>
+
+<p>They took him to the nearest station, bled him, and bound up his wounds.
+When he regained consciousness, he told them his name was Gaumata. Then he
+was seized by fever, during which he constantly spoke of the hanging
+gardens and of his Mandane.</p>
+
+<p>"Set the prisoners free, my king. I will answer for it with my own head,
+that Bartja was not in the hanging gardens."</p>
+
+<p>The king was surprised at this speech, but not angry. Phanes then
+advised him to send for Oropastes and Mandane, whose examination elicited
+the full truth. Boges, who was also sent for, had disappeared. Cambyses had
+all the prisoners set free, gave Phanes his hand to kiss--a rare
+honour--and, greater honour still, invited him to eat at the king's table.
+Then he went to the rooms of his mother, who had sent for him.</p>
+
+<p>Nitetis had been carried insensible to the queen-mother's apartments.
+When she opened her eyes, her head was resting on the blind queen's lap,
+she felt Atossa's warm kisses on her forehead, and Cambyses was standing by
+her side. She gazed around, and smiled as she recognised them one by one.
+She raised herself with difficulty. "How could you believe such a thing of
+me, my king?" she asked. There was no reproach in her tone, but deep
+sadness; Cambyses replied, "Forgive me."</p>
+
+<p>Nitetis then gave them the letter she had received from her mother,
+which would explain all, and begged them not to scorn her poor sister.
+"When an Egyptian girl once loves, she cannot forget. But I feel so
+frightened. The end must be near. That horrible man, Boges, read me the
+fearful sentence, and it was that which forced the poison into my
+hand."</p>
+
+<p>The physician rushed forward. "I thought so! She has taken a poison
+which results in certain death. She is lost!"</p>
+
+<p>On hearing this, the king exclaimed in anguish, "She <i>shall</i> live;
+it is my will! Summon all the physicians in Babylon. Assemble the priests.
+She is not to die! She must live! I am the king, and I command it!"</p>
+
+<p>Nitetis opened her eyes as if endeavouring to obey her lord. She looked
+upon her lover, who was pressing his burning lips to her right hand. She
+murmured, with a smile, "Oh, this great happiness!" Then she closed her
+eyes and was seized with fever.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p>All efforts to save Nitetis' life were fruitless. Cambyses fell into the
+deepest gloom, and wanted action, war, to dispel his sad thoughts. Phanes
+gave him the pretext. As commander of the Greek mercenaries in Egypt, he
+had enjoyed Amasis' confidence. He alone, with the high-priest, shared
+Amasis' secret about the birth of Nitetus, who was not the daughter of
+Amasis, but of Hophra, his predecessor, whose throne Amasis had usurped.
+When, owing to the intrigues of Psamtik, Amasis' son, Phanes fell into
+disgrace and had to fly for his life, his little son was seized and cruelly
+murdered by his persecutors. Phanes had sworn revenge. He now persuaded
+Cambyses to wage war upon Egypt, and to claim Amasis' throne as the husband
+of Hophra's daughter.</p>
+
+<p>The rest is known to all students of history--how Cambyses, with the
+help of Phanes, defeated Psamtik's host at Pelusium and took possession of
+the whole Egyptian Empire; how, given more and more to drink and fearful
+excesses, he set up a rule of untold terror, had his brother Bartja
+murdered in another fit of jealousy, and finally suffered defeat at the
+hands of the Ethiopians. They will also know how, on his death, Gaumata,
+the "pseudo-Smerdis" of the Greeks, was urged by his ambitious brother,
+Oropastes, to seize the throne by impersonating the dead Bartja; how,
+finally, the pretender was defeated and had to pay for his attempt with his
+life; and how Persia rose again to unity and greatness under the rule of
+the noble Darius, Bartja's faithful kinsman and friend.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+
+
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="edgeworth">MARIA EDGEWORTH</a></h2>
+
+
+<h3><a name="edgeworth1">Belinda</a></h3>
+
+<p class="letter">
+Maria Edgeworth was born at Black Bourton, Oxfordshire,
+England, Jan. 1, 1767, and eleven years later her father removed to Ireland
+and settled on his own estate at Edgeworthstown. "Belinda," published in
+1801, is Maria Edgeworth's one early example of a novel not placed in Irish
+surroundings, but dealing with fashionable life. Issued just a year after
+the appearance of her first Irish tale, "Castle Rackrent," it betrays
+entirely the influence of the novelist's autocratic and eccentric father,
+Richard Lovell Edgeworth, with whom the daughter had been previously
+collaborating. No one could be less suited than he to advise about fiction,
+yet to his daughter his advice was almost the equivalent of a command. The
+story is interesting as an example of literary workmanship outside of the
+scenes in which special success had been achieved. Miss Edgeworth died at
+Edgeworthstown on May 22, 1849.
+</p>
+
+<h4><i>I.--A Match-Maker's Handicap</i></h4>
+
+
+<p>Mrs. Stanhope, a well-bred woman, accomplished in the art of rising in
+the world, had, with but a small fortune, contrived to live in the highest
+company. She prided herself upon having established half a dozen nieces
+most happily--that is to say, upon having married them to men of fortunes
+far superior to their own. One niece still remained unmarried, Belinda
+Portman, of whom she determined to get rid with all convenient expedition;
+but finding that, owing to declining health, she could not go out with her
+as much as she wished, she succeeded in fastening her upon the fashionable
+Lady Delacour for a winter in London.</p>
+
+<p>"Nothing, to my mind, can be more miserable than the situation of a poor
+girl who fails in her matrimonial expectations (as many do merely from not
+beginning to speculate in time)," she wrote from Bath. "She finds herself
+at five or six-and-thirty a burden to her friends, destitute of the means
+of rendering herself independent--for the girls I speak of never think of
+<i>learning</i> to play cards--<i>de trop</i> in society, yet obliged to
+hang upon all her acquaintances, who wish her in heaven, because she is
+unqualified to make the <i>expected</i> return for civilities, having no
+home--I mean no establishment, no house, etc.--fit for the reception of
+company of certain rank. My dearest Belinda, may this never be your case. I
+have sent your bracelet to you by Mr. Clarence Hervey, an acquaintance of
+Lady Delacour, an uncommonly pleasant young man, highly connected, a wit
+and a gallant, and having a fine independent fortune; so, my dear Belinda,
+I make it a point--look well when he is introduced to you, and remember
+that nobody <i>can</i> look well without taking some pains to please."</p>
+
+<p>Belinda had been charmed by Lady Delacour, who was the most agreeable,
+the most fascinating person she had ever beheld; and to be a visitor at her
+house was a delightful privilege. But, a short time after her arrival, she
+began to see through the thin veil with which politeness covers domestic
+misery. Abroad, Lady Delacour appeared all spirit, life, and good humour;
+at home, listless, fretful, and melancholy, a prey to thoughts, seemingly,
+of the most painful nature.</p>
+
+<p>The first time Belinda saw his lordship he was dead drunk in the arms of
+two footmen; his lady, who had just returned from Ranelagh, passed him on
+the stairs with the utmost contempt.</p>
+
+<p>"Don't look so shocked and amazed, Belinda. Don't look so <i>new</i>,
+child. This funeral of my lord's intellects is to me a nightly ceremony;
+or," said her ladyship, looking at her watch and yawning, "I believe I
+should say a daily ceremony--six o'clock, I protest!"</p>
+
+<p>The next morning Clarence Hervey called, and Belinda found him a most
+uncommonly pleasant young man. Lord Delacour was jealous of him; but
+although he would have started with horror at the idea of disturbing the
+peace of a family, in that family, he said, there was no peace to disturb.
+Consequently, he visited her ladyship every day, and every day viewed
+Belinda with increasing admiration, and with increasing dread of being
+taken in to marry a niece of that "catch-matchmaker," as Mrs. Stanhope was
+known amongst the men of his acquaintance.</p>
+
+<p>Under the guise of a tragic muse--in which character Lady Delacour had
+pretended she was going to a masquerade--Belinda heard his true sentiments
+with regard to her.</p>
+
+<p>"You don't believe I go to Lady Delacour's to look for a wife? Do you
+think I'm an idiot? Do you think I could be taken in by one of the Stanhope
+school?" he said to the facetious friends who rallied him on his
+attachment. "Do you think I don't see as plainly as any of you that Belinda
+Portman is a composition of art and affectation?"</p>
+
+<p>"Melpomene, hast thou forgot thyself to warble?" asked Lady Delacour,
+tripping towards them as the comic muse.</p>
+
+<p>"I am not very well," whispered Miss Portman. "Could we get away?"</p>
+
+<p>"Do see if you can find any of my people!" cried Lady Delacour to
+Clarence Hervey, who had followed them downstairs.</p>
+
+<p>"Lady Delacour, the comic muse!" exclaimed he. "I had thought----"</p>
+
+<p>"No matter what you thought!" interrupted her ladyship. "Let my carriage
+draw up, and put this lady into it!" And he obeyed without uttering a
+syllable.</p>
+
+<p>"Dry up your tears, <i>keep on your mask</i>, and elbow your way through
+the crowd," she said, when she had heard Belinda's story. "If you stop to
+be civil and 'hope I don't hurt ye,' you will be trod underfoot."</p>
+
+<p>She insisted on driving to the Panthéon instead of going home,
+but to Belinda the night seemed long and dull. The masquerade had no charm
+to keep her thoughts from the conversation that had given her so much
+pain.</p>
+
+
+<h4><i>II.--Fashion and Fortitude</i></h4>
+
+
+<p>"How happy you are, Lady Delacour!" she said, when they got into the
+carriage to go home. "How happy to have such an amazing flow of
+spirits!"</p>
+
+<p>And then she learnt the reason of her ladyship's strange unevenness of
+temper. She was dying of an incurable complaint, which she kept hidden from
+all the world except her maid, Marriott, who attended on her in a
+mysterious cabinet full of medicines and linen rags, the door of which she
+had hitherto kept locked.</p>
+
+<p>"You are shocked, Belinda," said she, "but as yet you have seen nothing.
+Look here!" And baring one half of her bosom, she revealed a hideous
+spectacle.</p>
+
+<p>"Am I humbled? Am I wretched enough?" she asked. "No matter. I will die
+as I have lived, the envy and admiration of the world. Promise--swear to me
+that you will never reveal what you have seen to-night!" And Belinda
+promised not only that, but to remain with her as long as ever she
+wished.</p>
+
+<p>Belinda's quiet avoidance of Clarence Hervey made him begin to believe
+that she might not be "a compound of art and affectation," and he was
+mortified to find that, though she joined with ease and dignity in the
+general conversation with the others, her manner to him was grave and
+reserved. To divert her, he declared he was convinced he was as well able
+to manage a hoop as any woman in England, except Lady Delacour; accordingly
+he was dressed by Marriott, and made his <i>entree</i> with very composed
+assurance and grace, being introduced as the Countess de Pomenars to the
+purblind dowager, Lady Boucher, who had come to call. He managed his part
+well, speaking French and broken English, until Lady Delacour dexterously
+let down Belinda's beautiful tresses, and, calling the French lady to
+admire <i>la belle chevelure,</i> artfully let fall her comb.</p>
+
+<p>Totally forgetting his hoop and his character, he stooped to pick it up,
+and lost his wager by knocking over a music-stand. He would have liked a
+lock of her hair, but she refused with a modest, graceful dignity; she was
+glad she had done so later when a tress of hair dropped from his
+pocket-book, and his confusion showed her he was extremely interested about
+the person to whom it belonged.</p>
+
+<p>During her absence from the room Clarence entreated Lady Delacour to
+make his peace with her. She consented on condition that he found her a
+pair of horses from Tattersall's, on which Belinda, she said, had secretly
+set her heart. He was vexed to find Belinda had so little delicacy, and
+relapsed into his former opinion of Mrs. Stanhope's niece, addressing her
+with the air of a man of gallantry, who thought his peace had been cheaply
+made.</p>
+
+<p>The horses ran away with Lady Delacour, injuring her ankle, and on her
+being brought home by Clarence, Lord Delacour wished to enter the locked
+cabinet for <i>arque-busade.</i> On being denied entrance, he seized the
+key, believing a lover of hers was concealed there, until Belinda sprang
+forward and took it from him, leaving them to believe what they would.</p>
+
+<p>This circumstance was afterwards explained by Dr. X----, a mutual
+friend, and Hervey was so much charmed with Belinda that he would have gone
+to her at once--only that he had undertaken the reformation of Lady
+Delacour.</p>
+
+
+<h4><i>III.--An Unexpected Suitor</i></h4>
+
+
+<p>In the meantime, after spending a morning in tasting wines, and thinking
+that, although he had never learned to swim, some recollection he had of an
+essay on swimming would ensure his safety, he betted his friends a hundred
+guineas that he would swim to a certain point, and flinging himself into
+the Serpentine, would have drowned before their eyes but for the help of
+Mr. Percival. The breach caused by this affair induced Sir Philip Baddely,
+a gentleman who always supplied "each vacuity of sense" with an oath, to
+endeavour to cut him out by proposing to Belinda.</p>
+
+<p>"Damme, you're ten times handsomer than the finest woman I ever saw,
+for, damme, I didn't know what it was to be in love then," he said, heaving
+an audible sigh. "I'll trouble you for Mrs. Stanhope's direction, Miss
+Portman; I believe, to do the thing in style, I ought to write to her
+before I speak to you."</p>
+
+<p>Belinda looked at him in astonishment, and then, finding he was in
+earnest, assured him it was not in her power to encourage his addresses,
+although she was fully sensible of the honour he had done her.</p>
+
+<p>"Confusion seize me!" cried he, starting up, "if it isn't the most
+extraordinary thing I ever heard! Is it to Sir Philip Baddely's
+fortune--&pound;15,000 a year--you object, or to his family, or to his
+person? Oh, curse it!" said he, changing his tone, "you're only quizzing me
+to see how I should look--you do it too well, you little coquette!"</p>
+
+<p>Belinda again assured him she was entirely in earnest, and that she was
+incapable of the sort of coquetry which he ascribed to her. To punish her
+for this rejection he spread the report of Hervey's entanglement with a
+beautiful girl named Virginia, whose picture he had sent to an exhibition.
+He also roused Lady Delacour's jealousy into the belief that Belinda meant
+to marry her husband, the viscount, after her death.</p>
+
+<p>In her efforts to bring husband and wife together, Belinda had forgotten
+that jealousy could exist without love, and a letter from Mrs. Stanhope,
+exaggerating the scandalous reports in the hope of forcing her niece to
+marry Sir Philip Baddely, shocked her so much that when Lady Delacour
+quarrelled with her, she accepted an invitation from Lady Anne Percival,
+and went there at once.</p>
+
+<p>There she became acquainted with Mr. Percival's ward, Augustus Vincent,
+a Creole, about two-and-twenty, tall and remarkably handsome, with striking
+manners and an engaging person, who fixed his favourable attention on her.
+The Percivals would have wished her to marry him, but she still thought too
+much of Clarence Hervey to consent, although she believed he had some
+engagement with the lovely Virginia.</p>
+
+
+<h4><i>IV.--Explanation and Reconciliation</i></h4>
+
+
+<p>Quite unexpectedly a summons came from Lady Delacour, and Belinda
+returned to her at once, to find her so seriously ill that she persuaded
+her at last to consent to an operation, and inform her husband of the
+dangerous disease from which she was suffering. He believed from her
+preamble that she was about to confess her love for another man; he tried
+to stop her with an emotion and energy he had never shown until now.</p>
+
+<p>"I am not sufficiently master of myself. I once loved you too well to
+hear such a stroke. Say no more--trust me with no such secret! you have
+said enough--too much. I forgive you, that is all I can do; but we must
+part, Lady Delacour!" said he, breaking from her with agony expressed in
+his countenance.</p>
+
+<p>"The man has a heart, a soul, I protest! You knew him better that I did,
+Miss Portman. Nay, you are not gone yet, my lord! You really love me, I
+find."</p>
+
+<p>"No, no, no!" cried he vehemently. "Weak as you take me to be, Lady
+Delacour, I am incapable of loving a woman who has disgraced me, disgraced
+herself, her--" His utterance failed.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, Lady Delacour," cried Belinda, "how can you trifle in this
+manner?"</p>
+
+<p>"I meant not," said her ladyship, "to trifle; I am satisfied. My lord, I
+can give you the most irrefragable proof that whatever may have been the
+apparent levity of my conduct, you have had no serious cause for jealousy.
+But the proof will shock, disgust you. Have you courage to know more? Then
+follow me."</p>
+
+<p>He followed her. Belinda heard the boudoir door unlocked. In a few
+minutes they returned. Grief and horror and pity were painted on Lord
+Delacour's countenance as he passed hastily out of the room.</p>
+
+<p>"My dearest friend, I have taken your advice; would to heaven I had
+taken it sooner!" said Lady Delacour. "I have revealed to Lord Delacour my
+real situation. Poor man, he was shocked beyond expression. The moment his
+foolish jealousy was extinguished, his love for me revived in full."</p>
+
+<p>Lady Delacour awaited the operation with the utmost fortitude; but, to
+everyone's joy, it was found there was no necessity for it; she had been
+deceived by a villainous quack, who knew too well how to make a wound
+hideous and painful, and had continued her delusion for his own
+advantage.</p>
+
+<p>Meanwhile, Belinda having permitted Mr. Vincent to address her, he was
+being given a fair trial whether he could win her love. They had heard
+reports of Clarence Hervey's speedy marriage with an heiress, Miss Hartley,
+and found them confirmed by a letter Lady Delacour received from him. Some
+years ago he had formed the romantic idea of educating a wife for himself,
+and having found a beautiful, artless girl in the New Forest, he had taken
+her under his care on the death of her grandmother.</p>
+
+<p>She felt herself bound in honour and gratitude to him when her fortune
+changed, and she was acknowledged by her father, Mr. Hartley, who had long
+been searching for her, and who had traced her at last by the picture
+Clarence Hervey had caused to be exhibited.</p>
+
+<p>With the utmost magnanimity, Hervey, although he saw a successful rival
+for Belinda's hand in Augustus Vincent, rescued him from ruin at the
+gaming-table, and induced him to promise never to gamble again.</p>
+
+<p>"I was determined Belinda's husband should be my friend. I have
+succeeded beyond my hopes," he said.</p>
+
+<p>But Vincent's love of play had decided Belinda at last. She refused him
+finally in a letter which she confessed she found difficult to write, but
+which she sent because she had promised she would not hold him in suspense
+once she had made her decision.</p>
+
+<p>After this Virginia Hartley confessed to her attachment for one Captain
+Sunderland, and Clarence was free to avow his passion for Belinda.</p>
+
+<p>"And what is Miss Portman to believe," cried one of Belinda's friends,
+"when she has seen you on the very eve of marriage with another lady?"</p>
+
+<p>"The strongest merit I can plead with such a woman as Miss Portman," he
+replied, "is that I was ready to sacrifice my own happiness to a sense of
+duty."</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+
+
+
+<h3><a name="edgeworth2">Castle Rackrent</a></h3>
+
+<p class="letter">
+"Castle Rackrent" was published anonymously in 1800. It was
+not only the first of Miss Edgeworth's novels,--it is in many respects her
+best work. Later came "The Absentee," "Belinda," "Helen," the "Tales of
+Fashionable Life," and the "Moral Tales." Sir Walter Scott wrote that
+reading these stories of Irish peasant life made him feel "that something
+might be tempted for my own country of the same kind as that which Miss
+Edgeworth so fortunately achieved for Ireland," something that would
+procure for his own countrymen "sympathy for their virtues and indulgence
+for their foibles." As a study of Irish fidelity in the person of Old
+Thady, the steward who tells the story of "Castle Rackrent," the book is a
+masterpiece.
+</p>
+
+<h4><i>I.--Sir Patrick and Sir Murtagh</i></h4>
+
+
+<p>Having, out of friendship for the family, undertaken to publish the
+memoirs of the Rackrent family, I think it my duty to say a few words
+concerning myself first. My real name is Thady Quirk, though in the family
+I've always been known as "Honest Thady"; afterwards, I remember to hear
+them calling me "Old Thady," and now I've come to "Poor Thady." To look at
+me you would hardly think poor Thady was the father of Attorney Quirk; he
+is a high gentleman, and having better than fifteen hundred a year, landed
+estate, looks down upon honest Thady. But I wash my hands of his doings,
+and as I lived so will I die, true and loyal to the family.</p>
+
+<p>I ought to bless that day when Sir Tallyhoo Rackrent lost a fine hunter
+and his life, all in one day's hunt, for the estate came straight into
+<i>the</i> family, upon one condition, that Sir Patrick O'Shaughlin (whose
+driver my grandfather was) should, by Act of Parliament, take the surname
+and arms of Rackrent.</p>
+
+<p>Now it was the world could see what was in Sir Patrick. He gave the
+finest entertainments ever was heard of in the country; not a man could
+stand after supper but Sir Patrick himself. He had his house, from one
+year's end to another, as full of company as it would hold; and this went
+on, I can't tell you how long.</p>
+
+<p>But one year, on his birthday, just as the company rose to drink his
+health, he fell down in a sort of fit, and in the morning it was all over
+with poor Sir Patrick.</p>
+
+<p>Never did any gentleman die more beloved by rich and poor. All the
+gentlemen in the three counties came to his funeral; and happy the man who
+could get but a sight of the hearse!</p>
+
+<p>Just as they were passing through his own town the body was seized for
+debt! Little gain had the creditors!</p>
+
+<p>First and foremost, they had the curses of the country, and Sir Murtagh,
+the new heir, refused to pay a shilling on account of the insult to his
+father's body; in which he was countenanced by all the gentlemen of
+property of his acquaintance. He did not take at all after the old
+gentleman. The cellars were never filled, and no open house; even the
+tenants were sent away without their whiskey. I was ashamed myself, but put
+it all down to my lady; she was of the family of the Skinflints. I must
+say, she made the best of wives, being a notable, stirring woman, and
+looking close to everything. 'Tis surprising how cheap my lady got things
+done! What with fear of driving for rent, and Sir Murtagh's lawsuits, the
+tenants were kept in such good order they never came near Castle Rackrent
+without a present of something or other--nothing too much or too little for
+my lady. And Sir Murtagh taught 'em all, as he said, the law of landlord
+and tenant. No man ever loved the law as he did.</p>
+
+<p>Out of the forty-nine suits he had, he never lost one, but
+seventeen.</p>
+
+<p>Though he and my lady were much of a mind in most things, there was a
+deal of sparring and jarring between them. In a dispute about an abatement
+one day, my lady would have the last word, and Sir Murtagh grew mad. I was
+within hearing--he spoke so loud, all the kitchen was out on the stairs.
+All on a sudden he stopped, and my lady, too. Sir Murtagh, in his passion,
+had broken a blood-vessel. My lady sent for five physicians; but Sir
+Murtagh died. She had a fine jointure settled upon her, and took herself
+away, to the great joy of the tenantry.</p>
+
+
+<h4><i>II.--Sir Kit and his Wife</i></h4>
+
+
+<p>Then the house was all hurry-scurry, preparing for my new master, Sir
+Murtagh's younger brother, a dashing young officer. He came before I knew
+where I was, with another spark with him, and horses and dogs, and
+servants, and harum-scarum called for everything, as if he were in a
+public-house. I walk slow, and hate a bustle, and if it had not been for my
+pipe and tobacco, should, I verily believe, have broke my heart for poor
+Sir Murtagh.</p>
+
+<p>But one morning my new master caught sight of me. "And is that Old
+Thady?" says he. I loved him from that day to this, his voice was so like
+the family, and I never saw a finer figure of a man.</p>
+
+<p>A fine life we should have led had he stayed among us, God bless him!
+But, the sporting season over, he grew tired of the place, and was off in a
+whirlwind to town. A circular letter came next post from the new agent to
+say he must remit &pound;500 to the master at Bath within a fortnight--bad
+news for the poor tenants. Sir Kit Rackrent, my new master, left it all to
+the agent, and now not a week without a call for money. Rents must be paid
+to the day, and afore--old tenants turned out, anything for the ready
+penny.</p>
+
+<p>The agent was always very civil to me, and took a deal of notice of my
+son Jason, who, though he be my son, was a good scholar from his birth, and
+a very cute lad. Seeing he was a good clerk, the agent gave him the rent
+accounts to copy, which he did for nothing at first, being always proud to
+serve the family.</p>
+
+<p>By-and-by, a good farm fell vacant, and my son put in a proposal for it.
+Why not? The master, knowing no more of the land than a child unborn, wrote
+over, leaving it to the agent, and he must send over &pound;200 by return
+post. So my son's proposal was just the thing, and he a good tenant, and he
+got a promise of abatement after the first year for advancing the
+half-year's rent to make up the &pound;200, and my master was satisfied.
+The agent told us then, as a great secret, that Sir Kit was a little too
+fond of play.</p>
+
+<p>At last, at Christmas, the agent wrote he could raise no more money,
+anyhow, and desired to resign the agency. My son, Jason, who had
+corresponded privately with Sir Kit, was requested to take over the
+accounts forthwith. His honour also condescended to tell us he was going to
+be married in a fortnight to the grandest heiress in England, and had
+immediate occasion for &pound;200 for travelling expenses home to Castle
+Rackrent, where he intended to be early next month. We soon saw his
+marriage in the paper, and news came of him and his bride being in Dublin
+on their way home. We had bonfires all over the country, expecting them all
+day, and were just thinking of giving them up for the night, when the
+carriage came thundering up. I got the first sight of the bride, and
+greatly shocked I was, for she was little better than a blackamoor. "You're
+kindly welcome, my lady," I says; but neither spoke a word, nor did he so
+much as hand her up the steps.</p>
+
+<p>I concluded she could not speak English, and was from foreign parts, so
+I left her to herself, and went down to the servants' hall to learn
+something about her. Sir Kit's own man told us, at last, that she might
+well be a great fortune, for she was a Jewess, by all accounts. I had never
+seen any of that tribe before, and could only gather that she could not
+abide pork nor sausages, and went neither to church nor mass. "Mercy upon
+his honour's poor soul," thought I. But when, after this, strange
+gentleman's servants came and began to talk about the bride, I took care to
+put the best foot foremost, and passed her for a nabob.</p>
+
+<p>I saw plain enough, next morning, how things were between Sir Kit and
+his lady, though they went arm-in-arm to look at the building.</p>
+
+<p>"Old Thady, how do you do?" says my master, just as he used to do, but I
+could see he was not well pleased, and my heart was in my mouth as I walked
+after them.</p>
+
+<p>There were no balls, no dinners, no doings. Sir Kit's gentleman told me
+it was all my lady's fault, because she was so obstinate about the
+cross.</p>
+
+<p>"What cross?" says I. "Is it about her being a heretic?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, no such matter," says he. "My master does not mind about her
+heresies, but her diamond cross. She's thousands of English pounds
+concealed in her diamonds, which she as good as promised to give to my
+master before they married; but now she won't part with any of them, and
+must take the consequences."</p>
+
+<p>One morning, his honour says to me, "Thady, buy me a pig," and that was
+the first breaking out of my lady's troubles when the sausages were
+ordered. My lady went down to the kitchen herself, and desired never more
+to see them on her table. The cook took her part, but the master made it a
+principle to have the sausages; so, for fear of her place, she gave in, and
+from that day forward, always sausages or pig-meat in one form or other
+went up to table; upon which my lady shut herself up in her own room, and
+my master turned the key in the door, and kept it ever after in his pocket.
+We none of us saw her, or heard her speak for seven years after; he carried
+her dinner in himself.</p>
+
+<p>Then his honour had a deal of company, and was as gay and gallant as
+before he was married. The country, to be sure, talked and wondered, but
+nobody cared to ask impertinent questions, my master being a famous shot.
+His character was so well known that he lived in peace and quiet ever
+after, and was a great favourite with the ladies; so that, when he gave out
+that my lady was now skin and bone, and could not live through the winter,
+there were no less than three ladies at daggers drawn, as his gentleman
+swore, at the balls, for Sir Kit for their partner. I could not but think
+them bewitched, but it was not known how my lady's fortune was settled, nor
+how the estate was all mortgaged, and bonds out against him, for he was
+never cured of his gaming tricks; but that was the only fault he had, God
+bless him!</p>
+
+<p>Then it was given out, by mistake, that my lady was dead, and the three
+ladies showed their brothers Sir Kit's letters, and claimed his promises.
+His honour said he was willing to meet any man who questioned his conduct,
+and the ladies must settle among themselves who was to be his second, while
+his first was alive, to his mortification and theirs. He met the first
+lady's brother, and shot him; next day called out the second, whose wooden
+leg stuck fast in the ploughed land, so Sir Kit, with great candour, fired
+over his head, whereupon they shook hands cordially, and went home together
+to dinner.</p>
+
+<p>To establish his sister's reputation this gentleman went out as Sir
+Kit's second next day, when he met the last of his adversaries. He had just
+hit the toothpick out of his enemy's hand, when he received a ball in a
+vital part, and was brought home speechless in a hand-barrow. We got the
+key out of his pocket at once, and my son Jason ran to release her
+ladyship. She would not believe but that it was some new trick till she saw
+the men bringing Sir Kit up the avenue. There was no life in him, and he
+was "waked" the same night.</p>
+
+<p>The country was all in an uproar about him, and his murderer would have
+been hanged surely, but he prudently withdrew to the Continent.</p>
+
+<p>My lady got surprisingly well, and no sooner was it known that Sir Kit
+was dead than all the country came round in a body, as it were, to set her
+free. But she had taken an unaccountable prejudice against the country, and
+was not easy, but when she was packing up to leave us, I considered her
+quite as a foreigner, and no longer part of the family. Her diamond cross
+was at the bottom of it all; and it was a shame for her, being his wife,
+not to have given it up to him when he condescended to ask for it so often,
+especially when he made it no secret he had married her for her money.</p>
+
+
+<h4><i>III.--Sir Condy</i></h4>
+
+
+<p>The new heir, Sir Conolly, commonly called Sir Condy, was the most
+universally beloved man I ever saw or heard of. He was ever my white-headed
+boy, when he used to live in a small but slated house at the end of the
+avenue, before he went to college. He had little fortune of his own, and a
+deal of money was spent on his education. Many of the tenants secretly
+advanced him cash upon his promising bargains of leases, and lawful
+interest should he ever come into the estate. So that when he did succeed,
+he could not command a penny of his first year's income. My son Jason, who
+was now agent, explained matters to Sir Condy, who, not willing to take his
+affairs in his own hands, or even to look them in the face, gave my son a
+bargain of some acres at a reasonable rent to pay him for his many years'
+service in the family gratis.</p>
+
+<p>There was a hunting-lodge convenient to my son's land that he had his
+eye upon, but Sir Condy talked of letting it to his friend Captain
+Moneygawl, with whom he had become very friendly, and whose sister, Miss
+Isabella, fell over head and ears in love with my master the first time he
+went there to dinner.</p>
+
+<p>But Sir Condy was at a terrible nonplus, for he had no liking for Miss
+Isabella. To his mind, little Judy McQuirk, daughter to a sister's son of
+mine, was worth twenty of her. But her father had locked her in her room
+and forbidden her to think of him, which raised his spirit; and I could see
+him growing more and more in the mind to carry Miss Isabella off to
+Scotland, as she desired. And I had wished her joy, a week after, on her
+return with my poor master. Lucky for her she had a few thousands of her
+own, for her father would not give her a farthing. My master and my lady
+set out in great style, and it was reported that her father had undertaken
+to pay all Sir Condy's debts; and, of course, all the tradesmen gave him
+fresh credit, and everything went on smack smooth. I was proud to see
+Castle Rackrent again in all its glory. She went on as if she had a mint of
+money; and all Sir Condy asked--God bless him!--was to live in peace and
+quiet, and have his whiskey punch at night. But my lady's few thousands
+could not last for ever. Things in a twelve-month or so came to such a pass
+that there was no going on any longer.</p>
+
+<p>Well, my son Jason put in a word about the lodge, and Sir Condy was fain
+to take the purchase-money to settle matters, for there were two writs come
+down against him to the sheriff, who was no friend of his. Then there came
+a general election, and Sir Condy was called upon by all his friends to
+stand candidate; they would do all the business, and it should not cost him
+a penny.</p>
+
+<p>There was open house then at Castle Rackrent, and grand dinners, and all
+the gentlemen drinking success to Sir Condy till they were carried off. The
+election day came, and a glorious day it was. I thought I should have died
+with joy in the street when I saw my poor master chaired, and the crowd
+following him up and down. But a stranger man in the crowd gets me to
+introduce him to my son Jason, and little did I guess his meaning. He gets
+a list of my master's debts from him, and goes round and buys them up, and
+so got to be sole creditor over all, and must needs have an execution
+against the master's goods and furniture.</p>
+
+<p>After the election shoals of people came from all parts, claiming to
+have obliged him with votes, and to remind him of promises he never made.
+Worst of all, the gentlemen who had managed everything and subscribed by
+hundreds very genteelly forgot to pay, and it was all left at my master's
+door. All he could do to content 'em was to take himself off to Dublin,
+where my lady had taken a house fitting for a member of parliament.</p>
+
+<p>Soon my son Jason said, "Sir Condy must look out for another agent. If
+my lady had the Bank of Ireland to spend, it would all go in one
+winter."</p>
+
+<p>I could scarcely believe my own old eyes when I saw my son's name joined
+in the <i>custodian</i>, that the villain who got the list of debts brought
+down in the spring; but he said it would make it easier for Sir Condy.</p>
+
+
+<h4><i>IV.--The Last of the Rackrents</i></h4>
+
+
+<p>When Sir Condy and his lady came down in June, he was pleased to take me
+aside to complain of my son and other matters; not one unkind word of my
+lady, but he wondered that her relations would do nothing for them in their
+great distress. He did not take anything long to heart; let it be as it
+might this night, it was all out of his head before he went to bed. Next
+morning my lady had a letter from her relations, and asked to be allowed to
+go back to them. He fell back as if he was shot, but after a minute said
+she had his full consent, for what could she do at Castle Rackrent with an
+execution coming down? Next morning she set off for Mount Juliet.</p>
+
+<p>Then everything was seized by the gripers, my son Jason, to his shame be
+it spoken, among them. On the evening Sir Condy had appointed to settle
+all, when he sees the sight of bills and loads of papers on the table, he
+says to Jason, "Can't you now just sit down here and give me a clear view
+of the balance, you know, which is all I need be talking about? Thady, do
+just step out, and see they are bringing the things for the punch." When I
+came back Jason was pointing to the balance, a terrible sight for my poor
+master.</p>
+
+<p>"A--h! Hold your hand!" cries my master. "Where in the wide world am I
+to find hundreds, let alone thousands?"</p>
+
+<p>"There's but one way," says Jason. "Sure, can't you sell, though at a
+loss? Sure, you can sell, and I've a purchaser ready for you."</p>
+
+<p>"Have you so?" says Sir Condy. Then, colouring up a good deal, he tells
+Jason of &pound;500 a year he had settled upon my lady, at which Jason was
+indeed mad; but, with much ado, agreed to a compromise. "And how much am I
+going to sell? The lands of O'Shaughlin's town, and the lands of"--just
+reading to himself--"oh, murder, Jason! Surely you won't put this
+in--castle, stables, and appurtenances of Castle Rackrent?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, murder!" says I. "This is too bad, Jason."</p>
+
+<p>"Why so?" says Jason. "When it's all mine, and a great deal more, all
+lawfully mine, was I to push for it?"</p>
+
+<p>But I took no heed, for I was grieved and sick at heart for my poor
+master, and couldn't but speak.</p>
+
+<p>"Here's the punch," says Jason, for the door opened.</p>
+
+<p>So my master starts up in his chair, and Jason uncorks the whiskey.
+Well, I was in great hopes when I saw him making the punch, and my master
+taking a glass; but Jason put it back when he saw him going to fill again,
+saying, "No, Sir Condy; let us settle all before we go deeper into the
+punch-bowl. You've only to sign," says Jason, putting the pen to him.</p>
+
+<p>"Take all, and be content," said my master. So he signed, and the man
+who brought the punch witnessed, for I was crying like a child.</p>
+
+<p>So I went out to the street door, and the neighbours' children left
+their play to come to see what ailed me; and I told them all. When they
+heard Sir Condy was going to leave Castle Rackrent for good and all, they
+set up such a whillaluh as brought all their parents round the doors in
+great anger against Jason. I was frightened, and went back to warn my son.
+He grew quite pale and asked Sir Condy what he'd best do.</p>
+
+<p>"I'll tell you," says Sir Condy, laughing to see his fright. "Finish
+your glass first, then let's go to the window, and I'll tell them--or you
+shall, if you please--that I'm going to the lodge for change of air for my
+health, and by my own desire, for the rest of my days."</p>
+
+<p>"Do so," says Jason, who never meant it to be so, but could not refuse
+at such a time.</p>
+
+<p>So the very next day he sets off to the lodge, and I along with him.
+There was great bemoaning all through the town, which I stayed to witness.
+He was in his bed, and very low, when I got there, and complained of a
+great pain about his heart; but I, knowing the nature of him from a boy,
+took my pipe and began telling him how he was beloved and regretted in the
+country. And it did him a great deal of good to hear it.</p>
+
+<p>There was a great horn at the lodge that used to belong to the
+celebrated Sir Patrick, who was reported to have drunk the full of it
+without stopping to draw breath, which no other man, afore or since, could
+do.</p>
+
+<p>One night Sir Condy was drinking with the excise-man and the gauger, and
+wagered that he could do it. Says he, "Your hand is steadier than mine, Old
+Thady; fill you the horn for me." And so, wishing his honour success, I
+did. He swallowed it down and dropped like one shot. We put him to bed, and
+for five days the fever came and went, and came and went. On the sixth he
+says, knowing me very well, "I'm in a burning pain all withinside of me,
+Thady." I could not speak. "Brought to this by drink," says he. "Where are
+all the friends? Gone, hey? Ay, Sir Condy has been a fool all his days,"
+said he, and died. He had but a very poor funeral, after all.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+
+
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="eliot">GEORGE ELIOT</a></h2>
+
+
+<h3><a name="eliot1">Adam Bede</a></h3>
+
+<p class="letter">
+Mary Ann Evans ("George Eliot") was born Nov. 22, 1819, at
+South Farm, Arbury, Warwickshire, England, where her father was agent on
+the Newdigate estate. In her youth, she was adept at butter-making and
+similar rural work, but she found time to master Italian and German. Her
+first important literary work was the translation of Strauss's "Life of
+Jesus" in 1844, and shortly after her father's death in 1849 she was
+writing in the "Westminster Review." It was not until 1856 that George
+Eliot settled down to the writing of novels. "Scenes from Clerical Life"
+first appeared serially in "Blackwood's Magazine" during 1857 and 1858;
+"Adam Bede," the first and most popular of her long stories, in 1859. In
+May, 1880, eighteen months after the death of her friend George Henry Lewes
+(see PHILOSOPHY, Vol. XIV), George Eliot married Mr. J. W. Cross. She died
+on December 22 in the same year. With all her sense of humour there is a
+note of sadness in George Eliot's novels. She deals with ordinary, everyday
+people, and describes their joys and sorrows. In "Adam Bede," as in most of
+her work, the novelist drew from the ample stores of her early life in the
+Midlands, while the plot is unfolded with singular simplicity, purity, and
+power.
+</p>
+
+<h4><i>I.--The Two Brothers</i></h4>
+
+
+<p>In the roomy workshop of Mr. Jonathan Burge, carpenter and builder, in
+the village of Hayslope, on the eighteenth of June, 1799, five workmen were
+busy upon doors and window-frames.</p>
+
+<p>The tallest of the five was a large-boned, muscular man, nearly six feet
+high. The sleeve rolled up above the elbow showed an arm that was likely to
+win the prize for feats of strength; yet the long, supple hand, with its
+broad finger tips, looked ready for works of skill. In his tall
+stalwartness Adam Bede was a Saxon, and justified his name. The face was
+large and roughly hewn, and when in repose had no other beauty than such as
+belongs to an expression of good-humoured, honest intelligence.</p>
+
+<p>It is clear at a glance that the next workman is Adam's brother. He is
+nearly as tall; he has the same type of features. But Seth's broad
+shoulders have a slight stoop, and his glance, instead of being keen, is
+confiding and benignant.</p>
+
+<p>The idle tramps always felt sure they could get a copper from Seth; they
+scarcely ever spoke to Adam.</p>
+
+<p>At six o'clock the men stopped working, and went out. Seth lingered, and
+looked wistfully at Adam, as if he expected him to say something.</p>
+
+<p>"Shalt go home before thee go'st to the preaching?" Adam asked.</p>
+
+<p>"Nay, I shan't be home before going for ten. I'll happen see Dinah
+Morris safe home, if she's willing. There's nobody comes with her from
+Poyser's, thee know'st."</p>
+
+<p>Adam set off home, and at a quarter to seven Seth was on the village
+green where the Methodists were preaching. The people drew nearer when
+Dinah Morris mounted the cart which served as a pulpit. There was a total
+absence of self-consciousness in her demeanour; she walked to the cart as
+simply as if she were going to market. There was no keenness in the eyes;
+they seemed rather to be shedding love than making observations. When Dinah
+spoke it was with a clear but not loud voice, and her sincere,
+unpremeditated eloquence held the attention of her audience without
+interruption.</p>
+
+<p>When the service was over, Seth Bede walked by Dinah's side along the
+hedgerow path that skirted the pastures and corn-fields which lay between
+the village and the Hall Farm.</p>
+
+<p>Seth could see an expression of unconscious placid gravity on her
+face--an expression that is most discouraging to a lover. He was timidly
+revolving something he wanted to say, and it was only when they were close
+to the yard-gates of the Hall Farm he had the courage to speak.</p>
+
+<p>"It may happen you'll think me overbold to speak to you again after what
+you told me o' your thoughts. But it seems to me there's more texts for
+your marrying than ever you can find against it. St. Paul says, 'Two are
+better than one,' and that holds good with marriage as well as with other
+things. For we should be o' one heart and o' one mind, Dinah. I'd never be
+the husband to make a claim on you as could interfere with your doing the
+work God has fitted you for. I'd make a shift, and fend indoor and out, to
+give you more liberty--more than you can have now; for you've got to get
+your own living now, and I'm strong enough to work for us both."</p>
+
+<p>When Seth had once begun to urge his suit, he went on earnestly and
+almost hurriedly. His voice trembled at the last sentence.</p>
+
+<p>They had reached one of those narrow passes between two tall stones,
+which performed the office of a stile in Loamshire. And Dinah paused, and
+said, in her tender but calm notes, "Seth Bede, I thank you for your love
+towards me, and if I could think of any man as more than a Christian
+brother, I think it would be you. But my heart is not free to marry, or to
+think of making a home for myself in this world. God has called me to speak
+His word, and He has greatly owned my work."</p>
+
+<p>They said farewell at the yard-gate, for Seth wouldn't enter the
+farmhouse, choosing rather to turn back along the fields through which he
+and Dinah had already passed. It was ten o'clock when he reached home, and
+he heard the sound of tools as he lifted the latch.</p>
+
+<p>"Why, mother," said Seth, "how is it as father's working so late?"</p>
+
+<p>"It's none o' thy feyther as is a-workin'; it's thy brother as does
+iverything, for there's niver nobody else i' th' way to do nothin'."</p>
+
+<p>Lisbeth Bede was going on, for she was not at all afraid of Seth--who
+had never in his life spoken a harsh word to his mother--and usually poured
+into his ears all the querulousness which was repressed by the awe which
+mingled itself with her idolatrous love of Adam.</p>
+
+<p>But Seth, with an anxious look, had passed into the workshop, and said,
+"Addy, how's this? What! Father's forgot the coffin?"</p>
+
+<p>"Ay, lad, th' old tale; but I shall get it done," said Adam, looking up.
+"Why, what's the matter with thee--thee'st in trouble?"</p>
+
+<p>Seth's eyes were red, and there was a look of deep depression on his
+mild face.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, Addy, but it's what must be borne, and can't be helped. Let me
+take my turn now, and do thee go to bed."</p>
+
+<p>"No, lad; I'd rather go on, now I'm in harness. The coffin's promised to
+be ready at Brox'on by seven o'clock to-morrow morning. I'll call thee up
+at sunrise, to help me to carry it when it's done. Go and eat thy supper
+and shut the door, so as I mayn't hear mother's talk."</p>
+
+<p>Adam worked throughout the night, thinking of his childhood and its
+happy days, and then of the days of sadness that came later when his father
+began to loiter at public-houses, and Lisbeth began to cry at home. He
+remembered well the night of shame and anguish when he first saw his father
+quite wild and foolish.</p>
+
+<p>The two brothers set off in the early sunlight, carrying the long coffin
+on their shoulders. By six o'clock they had reached Broxton, and were on
+their way home.</p>
+
+<p>When they were coming across the valley, and had entered the pasture
+through which the brook ran, Seth said suddenly, beginning to walk faster,
+"Why, what's that sticking against the willow?"</p>
+
+<p>They both ran forward, and dragged the tall, heavy body out of the
+water; and then looked with mute awe at the glazed eyes--forgetting
+everything but that their father lay dead before them.</p>
+
+<p>Adam's mind rushed back over the past in a flood of relenting and pity.
+Only a few hours ago, and the gray-haired father, of whom he had been
+thinking with a sort of hardness as certain to live to be a thorn in his
+side, was perhaps even then struggling with that watery death!</p>
+
+
+<h4><i>II.--The Hall Farm</i></h4>
+
+
+<p>It is a very fine old place of red brick, the Hall Farm--once the
+residence of a country squire, and the Hall.</p>
+
+<p>Plenty of life there, though this is the drowsiest time of the year,
+just before hay-harvest; and it is the drowsiest time of the day, too, for
+it is half-past three by Mrs. Poyser's handsome eight-day clock.</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Poyser, a good-looking woman, not more than eight-and-thirty, of
+fair complexion and sandy hair, well shaped, light-footed, had just taken
+up her knitting, and was seated with her niece, Dinah Morris. Another
+motherless niece, Hetty Sorrel, a distractingly pretty girl of seventeen,
+was busy in the adjoining dairy.</p>
+
+<p>"You look the image o' your aunt Judith, Dinah, when you sit a-sewing,"
+said Mrs. Poyser. "I allays said that o' Judith, as she'd bear a pound
+weight any day to save anybody else carrying a ounce. And it made no
+difference in her, as I could see, when she took to the Methodists; only
+she talked a bit different, and wore a different sort o' cap. If you'd only
+come and live i' this country you might get married to some decent man, and
+there'd be plenty ready to have you, if you'd only leave off that
+preaching, as is ten times worse than anything your Aunt Judith ever did.
+And even if you'd marry Seth Bede, as is a poor, wool-gathering Methodist,
+and's never like to have a penny beforehand, I know your uncle 'ud help you
+with a pig, and very like a cow, for he's allays been good-natur'd to my
+kin, for all they're poor, and made 'em welcome to the house; and 'ud do
+for you, I'll be bound, as much as ever he'd do for Hetty, though she's his
+own niece."</p>
+
+<p>The arrival of Mr. Irwine, the rector of Hayslope, and Captain
+Donnithorne, Squire Donnithorne's grandson and heir, interrupted Mrs.
+Poyser's flow of talk.</p>
+
+<p>"I'll lay my life they're come to speak about your preaching on the
+Green, Dinah. It's you must answer 'em, for I'm dumb. I've said enough
+a'ready about your bringing such disgrace upo' your uncle's family. I
+wouldn't ha' minded if you'd been Mr. Poyser's own niece. Folks must put up
+wi' their own kin as they put up wi' their own noses; it's their own flesh
+and blood."</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Irwine, however, was the last man to feel any annoyance at the
+Methodist preaching, and young Arthur Donnithorne's visit was merely an
+excuse for exchanging a few words with Hetty Sorrel.</p>
+
+<p>The rector mentioned before he left that Thias Bede had been found
+drowned in the Willow Brook; and Dinah Morris at once decided that she
+might be of some comfort to the widow, and set out for the village.</p>
+
+<p>As for Hetty Sorrel, she was thinking more of the looks Captain
+Donnithorne had cast at her than of Adam and his troubles. Bright, admiring
+glances from a handsome young gentleman--those were the warm rays that set
+poor Hetty's heart vibrating.</p>
+
+<p>Hetty was quite used to the thought that people liked to look at her.
+She was aware that Mr. Craig, the gardener at Squire Donnithorne's, was
+over head-and-ears in love with her. She knew still better that Adam
+Bede--tall, upright, clever, brave Adam Bede--who carried such authority
+with all the people round about, and whom her uncle was always delighted to
+see of an evening, saying that "Adam knew a fine sight more o' the natur o'
+things than those as thought themselves his betters"--she knew that this
+Adam, who was often rather stern to other people, and not much given to run
+after the lassies, could be made to turn pale or red any day by a word or a
+look from her. Hetty's sphere of comparison was not large, but she couldn't
+help perceiving that Adam was "something like" a man; always knew what to
+say about things; knew, with only looking at it, the value of a
+chestnut-tree that was blown down, and why the damp came in the walls, and
+what they must do to stop the rats; and wrote a beautiful hand that you
+could read, and could do figures in his head--a degree of accomplishment
+totally unknown among the richest farmers of that country-side.</p>
+
+<p>Hetty was quite certain her uncle wanted her to encourage Adam, and
+would be pleased for her to marry him. For the last three years--ever since
+he had superintended the building of the new barn--Adam had always been
+made welcome at the Hall Farm, and for the last two years at least Hetty
+had been in the habit of hearing her uncle say, "Adam Bede may be working
+for a wage now, but he'll be a master-man some day, as sure as I sit in
+this chair. Master Burge is in the right on't to want him to go partners
+and marry his daughter, if it's true what they say. The woman as marries
+him 'ull have a good take, be't Lady Day or Michaelmas," a remark which
+Mrs. Poyser always followed up with her cordial assent.</p>
+
+<p>"Ah," she would say, "it's all very fine having a ready-made rich man,
+but may happen he'll be a ready-made fool; and it's no use filling your
+pocket full of money if you've got a hole in the corner. It'll do you no
+good to sit in a spring-cart o' your own if you've got a soft to drive you;
+he'll soon turn you over into the ditch."</p>
+
+<p>But Hetty had never given Adam any steady encouragement. She liked to
+feel that this strong, keen-eyed man was in her power; but as to marrying
+Adam, that was a very different affair.</p>
+
+<p>Hetty's dreams were all of luxuries. She thought if Adam had been rich,
+and could have given the things of her dreams--large, beautiful earrings
+and Nottingham lace and a carpeted parlour--she loved him well enough to
+marry him.</p>
+
+<p>The last few weeks a new influence had come over Hetty; she had become
+aware that Mr. Arthur Donnithorne would take a good deal of trouble for the
+chance of seeing her. And Dinah Morris was away, preaching and working in a
+manufacturing town.</p>
+
+
+<h4><i>III.--Adam's First Love</i></h4>
+
+
+<p>Adam Bede, like many other men, thought the signs of love for another
+were signs of love towards himself. The time had come to him that summer,
+as he helped Hetty pick currants in the orchard of the Hall Farm, that a
+man can least forget in after-life--the time when he believes that the
+first woman he has ever loved is, at least, beginning to love him in
+return.</p>
+
+<p>He was not wrong in thinking that a change had come over Hetty; the
+anxieties and fears of a first passion with which she was trembling had
+become stronger than vanity, and while Adam drew near to her she was
+absorbed in thinking and wondering about Arthur Donnithorne's possible
+return.</p>
+
+<p>For the first time Hetty felt that there was something soothing to her
+in Adam's timid yet manly tenderness; she wanted to be treated lovingly.
+And Arthur was away from home; and, oh, it was very hard to bear the blank
+of absence. She was not afraid that Adam would tease her with love-making
+and flattering speeches; he had always been so reserved to her. She could
+enjoy without any fear the sense that this strong, brave man loved her and
+was near her. It never entered into her mind that Adam was pitiable, too,
+that Adam, too, must suffer one day.</p>
+
+<p>It was from Adam that she found out that Captain Donnithorne would be
+back in a day or two, and this knowledge made her the more kindly disposed
+towards him. But for all the world Adam would not have spoken of his love
+to Hetty yet, till this commencing kindness towards him should have grown
+into unmistakable love. He did no more than pluck a rose for her, and walk
+back to the farm with her arm in his.</p>
+
+<p>When Adam, after stopping a while to chat with the Poysers, had said
+good-night, Mr. Poyser remarked, "If you can catch Adam for a husband,
+Hetty, you'll ride i' your own spring-cart some day, I'll be your
+warrant."</p>
+
+<p>Her uncle did not see the little toss of the head with which Hetty
+answered him. To ride in a spring-cart seemed a very miserable lot indeed
+to her now.</p>
+
+<p>It was on August 18, when Adam, going home from some work he had been
+doing at one of the farms, passed through a grove of beeches, and saw, at
+the end of the avenue, about twenty yards before him, two figures. They
+were standing opposite to each other with clasped hands, and they separated
+with a start at a sharp bark from Adam Bede's dog. One hurried away through
+a gate out of the grove; the other, Arthur Donnithorne, looking flushed and
+excited, sauntered towards Adam. The young squire had been home for some
+weeks celebrating his twenty-first birthday, and he was leaving on the
+morrow to rejoin his regiment.</p>
+
+<p>Hitherto there had been a cordial and sincere liking and a mutual esteem
+between the two young men; but now Adam stood as if petrified, and his
+amazement turned quickly to fierceness.</p>
+
+<p>Arthur tried to pass the matter off lightly, as if it had been a chance
+meeting with Hetty; but Adam, who felt that he had been robbed
+treacherously by the man in whom he had trusted, would not so easily let
+him off. It came to blows, and Arthur sank under a well-planted blow of
+Adam's, as a steel rod is broken by an iron bar.</p>
+
+<p>Before they separated, Arthur promised that he would write and tell
+Hetty there could be no further communication between them. And this
+promise he kept. Adam rested content with the assurance that nothing but an
+innocent flirtation had been stopped. As the days went by he found that the
+calm patience with which he had waited for Hetty's love had forsaken him
+since that night in the beech-grove. The agitations of jealousy had given a
+new restlessness to his passion.</p>
+
+<p>Hetty, for her part, after the first misery caused by Arthur's letter,
+had turned into a mood of dull despair, and sought only for change. Why
+should she not marry Adam? She did not care what she did so that it made
+some change in her life.</p>
+
+<p>So, in November, when Mr. Burge offered Adam a share in his business,
+Adam not only accepted it, but decided that the time had come to ask Hetty
+to marry him.</p>
+
+<p>Hetty did not speak when Adam got out the question, but his face was
+very close to hers, and she put up her round cheek against his, like a
+kitten. She wanted to be caressed--she wanted to feel as if Arthur were
+with her again.</p>
+
+<p>Adam only said after that, "I may tell your uncle and aunt, mayn't I,
+Hetty?" And she said "Yes."</p>
+
+<p>The red firelight on the hearth at the Hall Farm shone on joyful faces
+that evening when Adam took the opportunity of telling Mr. and Mrs. Poyser
+that he saw his way to maintaining a wife now, and that Hetty had consented
+to have him.</p>
+
+<p>There was a great deal of discussion before Adam went away about the
+possibility of his finding a house that would do for him to settle in.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, well," said Mr. Poyser at last, "we needna fix everything
+to-night. You canna think o' getting married afore Easter. I'm not for long
+courtships, but there must be a bit o' time to make things
+comfortable."</p>
+
+<p>This was in November.</p>
+
+<p>Then in February came the full tragedy of Hetty Sorrel's life. She left
+home, and in a strange village, a child--Arthur Donnithorne's child--was
+born. Hetty left the baby in a wood, and returned to find it dead. Arrest
+and trial followed, and only at the last moment was the capital sentence
+commuted to transportation.</p>
+
+<p>She died a few years later on her way home.</p>
+
+
+<h4><i>IV.--The Wife of Adam Bede</i></h4>
+
+
+<p>It was the autumn of 1801, and Dinah Morris was once more at the Hall
+Farm, only to leave it again for her work in the town. Mrs. Poyser noticed
+that Dinah, who never used to change colour, flushed when Adam said, "Why,
+I hoped Dinah was settled among us for life. I thought she'd given up the
+notion o' going back to her old country."</p>
+
+<p>"Thought! Yes," said Mrs. Poyser; "and so would anybody else ha' thought
+as had got their right ends up'ards. But I suppose you must be a Methodist
+to know what a Methodist 'ull do. It's all guessing what the bats are
+flying after."</p>
+
+<p>"Why, what have we done to you, Dinah, as you must go away from us?"
+said Mr. Poyser. "It's like breaking your word; for your aunt never had no
+thought but you'd make this your home."</p>
+
+<p>"Nay, uncle," said Dinah, trying to be quite calm. "When I first came I
+said it was only for a time, as long as I could be of any comfort to my
+aunt."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, an' who said you'd ever left off being a comfort to me?" said
+Mrs. Poyser. "If you didna mean to stay wi' me, you'd better never ha'
+come. Them as ha' never had a cushion don't miss it."</p>
+
+<p>Dinah set off with Adam, for Lisbeth was ailing and wanted Dinah to sit
+with her a bit. On the way he reverted to her leaving the Hall Farm. "You
+know best, Dinah, but if it had been ordered so that you could ha' been my
+sister, and lived wi' us all our lives, I should ha' counted it the
+greatest blessing as could happen to us now."</p>
+
+<p>Dinah made no answer, and they walked on in silence, until presently,
+crossing the stone stile, Adam saw her face, flushed, and with a look of
+suppressed agitation.</p>
+
+<p>It struck him with surprise, and then he said, "I hope I've not hurt or
+displeased you by what I've said, Dinah; perhaps I was making too free.
+I've no wish different from what you see to be best; and I'm satisfied for
+you to live thirty miles off if you think it right."</p>
+
+<p>Poor Adam! Thus do men blunder.</p>
+
+<p>Lisbeth opened his eyes on the Sunday morning when Adam sat at home and
+read from his large pictured Bible.</p>
+
+<p>For a long time his mother talked on about Dinah, and about how they
+were losing her when they might keep her, and Adam at last told her she
+must make up her mind that she would have to do without Dinah.</p>
+
+<p>"Nay, but I canna ma' up my mind, when she's just cut out for thee; an'
+nought shall ma' me believe as God didna make her and send her here o'
+purpose for thee. What's it sinnify about her being a Methody? It 'ud
+happen wear out on her wi' marryin'."</p>
+
+<p>Adam threw himself back in his chair and looked at his mother. He
+understood now what her talk had been aiming at, and tried to chase away
+the notion from her mind.</p>
+
+<p>He was amazed at the way in which this new thought of Dinah's love had
+taken possession of him with an overmastering power that made all other
+feelings give way before the impetuous desire to know that the thought was
+true. He spoke to Seth, who said quite simply that he had long given up all
+thoughts of Dinah ever being his wife, and would rejoice in his brother's
+joy. But he could not tell whether Dinah was for marrying.</p>
+
+<p>"Thee might'st ask her," Seth said presently. "She took no offence at
+<i>me</i> for asking, and thee'st more right than I had."</p>
+
+<p>When Adam did ask, Dinah answered that her heart was strongly drawn
+towards him, but that she must wait for divine guidance. So she left the
+Hall Farm and went back to the town, and Adam waited,--and then went after
+her to get his answer.</p>
+
+<p>"Adam," she said when they had met and walked some distance together,
+"it is the divine will. My soul is so knit to yours that it is but a
+divided life I live without you. And this moment, now you are with me, and
+I feel that our hearts are filled with the same love, I have a fullness of
+strength to bear and do our Heavenly Father's will that I had lost
+before."</p>
+
+<p>Adam paused and looked into her sincere eyes.</p>
+
+<p>"Then we'll never part any more, Dinah, till death parts us."</p>
+
+<p>And they kissed each other with deep joy.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+
+
+
+<h3><a name="eliot2">Felix Holt, the Radical</a></h3>
+
+<p class="letter">
+"Felix Holt, the Radical," was published in 1866. It has never
+been one of George Eliot's very popular books. There is less in it of her
+own life and experience than in most of her novels, less of the homely wit
+of agricultural England. The real value of the book is the picture it gives
+of the social and political life, and for this reason, it will always be
+read by those who want to know what English political methods and customs
+were like at the time of the passing of the Reform Bill of 1832. The
+character of Mr. Rufus Lyon, the independent minister, is an admirable
+study of the non-conformist of that period. Esther's renunciation of a
+brilliant fortune for a humbler lot with the man she loved and admired, was
+quite in accord with the teaching George Eliot inculcated all her life. The
+scene of the story is laid in the Midlands, and the action, covering about
+nine months, begins in 1832.
+</p>
+
+<h4><i>I.--The Minister's Daughter</i></h4>
+
+
+<p>The Rev. Rufus Lyon, Minister of the Independent Chapel, in the
+old-fashioned market town of Treby Magna, in the County of Loumshire, lived
+in a small house, adjoining the entry which led to the Chapel Yard.</p>
+
+<p>He sat this morning, as usual, in a low upstairs room, called his study,
+which served also as a sleeping-room, and from time to time got up to walk
+about between the piles of old books which lay around him on the floor. His
+face looked old and worn, yet the curtain of hair that fell from his bald
+crown and hung about his neck retained much of its original auburn tint,
+and his large, brown short-sighted eyes were still clear and bright. At the
+first glance, everyone thought him a very odd-looking, rusty old man, and
+the free-school boys often hooted after him, and called him "Revelations."
+But he was too short-sighted and too absent from the world of small facts
+and petty impulses to notice those who tittered at him.</p>
+
+<p>He was meditating on the text for his Sunday morning sermon, when old
+Lyddy, the minister's servant, opened the door to tell him that Mrs. Holt
+was wanting to see him. "She says she comes out of season, but she's in
+trouble."</p>
+
+<p>The minister bade her send Mistress Holt up, and a tall elderly woman
+dressed in black entered.</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Holt, Mr. Lyon said to himself, is a woman who darkens counsel by
+words without knowledge, and angers the reason of the natural man; and he
+prayed for patience while his visitor rambled on concerning her late
+husband and her son Felix.</p>
+
+<p>The minister made out that Felix objected to the sale of his father's
+quack medicines, Holt's Elixir and Cancer Cure, and wanted Mr. Lyon to talk
+to him.</p>
+
+<p>"For after we'd been to chapel, he spoke better of you than he does of
+most: he said you was a fine old fellow, and an old-fashioned Puritan--he
+uses dreadful language, Mr. Lyon; but I saw he didn't mean you ill, for all
+that; he calls most folks' religion rottenness."</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Holt departed, and in the evening, when Mr. Lyon was in the
+sitting-room, Felix Holt knocked at the door.</p>
+
+<p>The minister, accustomed to the respectable air of provincial townsmen,
+felt a slight shock, when his spectacles made clear to him the
+shaggy-headed, large-eyed, strong-limbed person of this questionable young
+man, without waistcoat or cravat.</p>
+
+<p>Felix spoke loudly and brusquely when the minister mentioned the subject
+of Mrs. Holt's visit.</p>
+
+<p>"As to those absurd medicines and gulling advertisements that my mother
+has been talking of to you, I've no more doubt about <i>them</i> than I
+have about pocket-picking. If I allowed the sale of those medicines to go
+on, and my mother to live out of the proceeds when I can keep her by the
+honest labour of hands, I've not the least doubt that I should be a
+rascal."</p>
+
+<p>"I would fain inquire more particularly into your objection to these
+medicines," said Mr. Lyon gravely.</p>
+
+<p>"My father was ignorant," said Felix, bluntly. "I know something about
+these things. I was 'prentice for five miserable years to a stupid brute of
+a country apothecary--my poor father left money for that--he thought
+nothing could be finer for me. No matter: I know that the Cathartic Pills
+may be as bad as poison to half the people who swallow them, and that the
+cancer cure might as well be bottled ditch-water. I can keep my mother, as
+well, nay, better, than she keeps herself. With my watch and clock
+cleaning, and teaching one or two little chaps that I've got to come to me,
+I can earn enough."</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Lyon's suggestion that some situation might be obtained as clerk or
+assistant was brushed aside.</p>
+
+<p>"Why should I want to get into the middle class because I have some
+learning? The most of the middle class are as ignorant as the working
+people about everything that doesn't belong to their own Brummagem
+life."</p>
+
+<p>The entrance of Lyddy with the tea tray disturbed the conversation, but
+the minister, interested in his visitor, asked Felix to stay for a dish of
+tea, and Felix accepted.</p>
+
+<p>"My daughter, who has been detained in giving a lesson in the French
+tongue, has doubtless returned now," said the minister. On the entrance of
+the young lady, Felix was conscious she was not the sort of person he had
+expected the minister's daughter to be, and the incongruity repelled him.
+There were things about her, her walk, the long neck and high crown of
+shining brown hair, that suggested a fine lady to him. A fine lady was
+always a sort of spun glass affair; but a fine lady as the daughter of this
+rusty old Puritan was especially offensive.</p>
+
+<p>The discovery that Miss Lyon read Byron set Felix off on a tirade
+against the poet, and his works, and throughout the meal no agreement on
+any topic seemed possible between Esther and the guest.</p>
+
+<p>Felix noted that Mr. Lyon was devoted to his daughter and stood in some
+fear of her.</p>
+
+<p>"That is a singular young man, Esther," said the minister, when Felix
+had gone. "I discern in him a love for whatever things are honest and true,
+and I feel a great enlargement in his presence."</p>
+
+<p>"I think he is very coarse and rude," said Esther, with a touch of
+temper. "But he speaks better English than most of our visitors. What is
+his occupation?"</p>
+
+<p>"Watch and clock making, my dear."</p>
+
+<p>Esther was disappointed, she thought he was something higher than
+that.</p>
+
+<p>Felix on his side wondered how the queer old minister had a daughter so
+little in his own likeness. He decided that nothing should make him
+marry.</p>
+
+
+<h4><i>II.--The Election Riot</i></h4>
+
+
+<p>The return of Mr. Harold Transome, to Transome Court, after fifteen
+years' absence, and his adoption as Radical Candidate for the county
+created no little stir and excitement in Treby. It also assisted the
+growing intimacy between Mr. Lyon and Felix Holt, for though neither
+possessed votes in that memorable year 1832, they shared the same liberal
+sympathies. Perhaps the most delightful friendships are those in which
+there is much agreement, much disputation, and yet more personal liking;
+and the advent of the public-spirited, contradictory, yet affectionate
+Felix, into Treby life had made a welcome epoch to the minister.</p>
+
+<p>Esther had not seen so much of their new acquaintance as her father had.
+But she had begun to find him amusing, though he always opposed and
+criticised her, and looked at her as if he never saw a single detail about
+her person. It seemed to Esther that he thought slightly of her. "But, rude
+and queer as he is, I cannot say there is anything vulgar about him," she
+said to herself.</p>
+
+<p>One Sunday afternoon Felix Holt rapped at the door of Mr. Lyon's house,
+although he could hear the voice of the minister in the chapel.</p>
+
+<p>Esther was in the kitchen alone, reading a French romance, and she
+opened the door and invited him in.</p>
+
+<p>He scoffed at her book, and as the talk went on, upbraided her for her
+vanity. Finally he told her that he wanted her to change. "Of course, I am
+a brute to say so," he added. "I ought to say you are perfect. Another man
+would, perhaps; I can't bear to see you going the way of the foolish women
+who spoil men's lives."</p>
+
+<p>Mortification and anger filled Esther's mind, and when Felix got up to
+say he was going, she returned his "good-bye" without even looking at
+him.</p>
+
+<p>Only, when the door closed she burst into tears. She revolted against
+his assumption of superiority.... Did he love her one little bit, and was
+that the reason why he wanted her to change? But Esther was quite sure she
+could never love anyone who was so much of a pedagogue and a master.</p>
+
+<p>Yet, a few weeks later, and Esther accepted willingly when Felix
+proposed a walk for the first time together. That same afternoon he told
+her that she was very beautiful, and that he would never be rich: he
+intended going away to some manufacturing town to lead the people to better
+things and this meant a life of poverty.</p>
+
+<p>Something Esther said made Felix ask suddenly, "Can you imagine yourself
+choosing hardship as the better lot?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, I can," she answered, flushing over neck and brow. They walked
+home very silently after that. Felix struggling as a firm man struggles
+with a temptation, Esther struggling as a woman struggles with the yearning
+for some expression of love.</p>
+
+<p>On the day of the election a mob of miners, primed with liquor by an
+unscrupulous agent of Transome's, came into the town to hoot the Tory
+voters; and as the disturbance increased, Felix knowing that Mr. Lyon was
+away preaching went round to the minister's house to reassure Esther.</p>
+
+<p>"I am so thankful to see you," she said eagerly. He mentioned that the
+magistrates and constables were coming and that the town would be quieter.
+His only fear was that drinking might inflame the mob again.</p>
+
+<p>Again Felix told her of his renunciation of the ordinary hopes and
+ambitions of men, and at the same time tried to prove that he thought very
+highly of her. He wanted her to know that her love was dear to him, and he
+felt that they must not marry--to do so would be to ruin each other's
+lives.</p>
+
+<p>When Felix went out into the streets in the afternoon, the crowd was
+larger and more mischievous. The constables were quite unable to cope with
+the mob, the polling booth was closed for the day, and the magistrates had
+sent to the neighbouring town of Duffield for the military.</p>
+
+<p>There were proofs that the predominant will of the crowd was in favour
+of Transome for several shops were attacked and they were all of them "Tory
+shops."</p>
+
+<p>Felix was soon hotly occupied trying to save a wretched publican named
+Spratt from the fury of the crowd. The man had been dragged out into the
+streets, and Felix had got as near him as he could when a young constable
+armed with a sabre rushed upon him. It was a choice of two evils, and quick
+as lightning Felix frustrated him, the constable fell undermost and Felix
+got his weapon. Tucker did not rise immediately, but Felix did not imagine
+that he was much hurt, and bidding the crowd follow him tried to lead them
+away from the town. He hoped that the soldiers would soon arrive, and felt
+confident that there would be no resistance to a military force.</p>
+
+<p>Suddenly a cry was raised, "Let us go to Treby Manor," the residence of
+Sir Maximus Debarry, whose son was the Tory candidate.</p>
+
+<p>From that moment Felix was powerless, and was carried along with the
+rush. All he could hope to do was to get to the front terrace of the house,
+and assure the inmates that the soldiers would arrive quickly. Just as he
+approached a large window he heard the horses of the troopers, and then
+came the words, "Halt! Fire!" Before he had time to move a bullet whizzed,
+and passed through Felix Holt's shoulder--the shoulder of the arm that bore
+the sabre.</p>
+
+<p>Felix fell. The rioters ran confusedly, like terrified sheep.</p>
+
+<p>It was a weary night for Felix, and the next day his wound was declared
+trivial, and he was lodged in Loumford Jail. There were three charges
+against him; that he had assaulted a constable, that he had committed
+manslaughter (Tucker was dead from spinal concussion), and that he had led
+a riotous onslaught on a dwelling house.</p>
+
+<p>Four other men were arrested, one for theft, and three others for riot
+and assault.</p>
+
+
+<h4><i>III.--The Trial</i></h4>
+
+
+<p>A great change took place in the fortunes of Esther in the interval
+between the riot and the opening of the assizes. It was found that she, and
+not Harold Transome, was the rightful owner of the Transome estates. For
+Esther's real name was Bycliffe and not Lyon, and she was the step-daughter
+only of the minister. Mr. Lyon had found Esther's mother, a French woman of
+great beauty, in destitution--her husband, an Englishman, lying in some
+unknown prison. This Englishman was a Bycliffe--and heir to the Transome
+property, and on the proof of his death Mr. Lyon, knowing nothing of
+Bycliffe's family, married his widow, who, however, died while Esther was
+still a tiny child. Not till the time of the election did Esther learn that
+her real father was dead.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Transome's lawyer--Jermyn--was fully aware of the claim of the
+Bycliffes, but knew they were powerless without money to enforce the claim,
+and that Esther and her step-father alike were ignorant of all the facts.
+It was only when Harold Transome, on his return, quarrelled with Jermyn on
+the management of the estates, and, after the Election (which Transome
+lost) threatened him with a law-suit, that Jermyn turned round and told
+Harold the truth. At the same time, another lawyer, formerly in Jermyn's
+confidence, thought the more profitable course could be found in throwing
+Jermyn over, and wrote to Esther informing her of her inheritance.</p>
+
+<p>Harold Transome decided to act openly. With his mother, he drove to the
+minister's house and Mrs. Transome persuaded Esther to come and stay at
+Transome Court. Both mother and son found Esther to their liking, and it
+appeared to Harold that marriage with Esther would be a happy conclusion to
+the divided claim to the property. He was rich, and the Transome (or
+Bycliffe) property was heavily encumbered.</p>
+
+<p>The Transomes, Esther and Mr. Lyon all agreed that no law-suit over the
+property should take place.</p>
+
+<p>But while Esther stayed at Transome Court she never forgot her friend in
+prison. Mr. Lyon had visited Felix, and Esther herself obtained an
+interview with him just before the assizes began.</p>
+
+<p>She had grown conscious that Harold Transome was making love to her,
+that Mrs. Transome really desired her for a daughter-in-law, and it seemed
+to her as she waited with the minister in the cheerless prison room, that
+she stood at the first and last parting of the ways.</p>
+
+<p>Soon the door opened, and Felix Holt entered.</p>
+
+<p>"Miss Lyon--Esther!" and her hand was in his grasp. He was just the
+same--no, something inexpressibly better, because of the distance and
+separation, which made him like the return of morning.</p>
+
+<p>"Take no heed of me, children," said Mr. Lyon. "I have some notes to
+make." And the old man sat down at a window with his back to them, writing
+with his head bent close to the paper.</p>
+
+<p>Felix had heard of Esther's change of fortune and felt sure she would
+marry Harold Transome. It was only when the time for parting came that he
+could bring himself to say:</p>
+
+<p>"I had a horrible struggle, Esther. But you see I was right. There was a
+fitting lot in reserve for you." Esther felt too miserable for tears to
+come. She looked helplessly at Felix for a moment, then took her hands from
+his, and turning away mutely, said, "Father, I am ready--there is no more
+to say."</p>
+
+<p>"Esther."</p>
+
+<p>She heard Felix say the word, with an entreating cry, and went towards
+him swiftly. He clasped her, and they kissed each other.</p>
+
+<p>When the trial came on Esther went under Mrs. Transome's protection to
+the court.</p>
+
+<p>The case against Felix looked very black when the prosecution closed.
+Various respectable witnesses swore to the prisoner's leadership of the
+mob, to his fatal assault on Tucker, and to his attitude in front of the
+drawing-room window at the Manor.</p>
+
+<p>Felix then gave a concise narrative of his motives and conduct on the
+day of the riot, and explained that in throwing the constable down he had
+not foreseen the possibility of death ensuing. It was a good,
+straightforward speech, not without a touch of defiant independence, which
+did the prisoner little good with judge or jury.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Lyon and Harold Transome both gave evidence in favour of Felix,
+stating that the prisoner had often expressed his hatred of rioting, and
+had protested with indignation against the treating that went on during the
+election by some of the Radical agents.</p>
+
+<p>One or two witnesses were called who swore that Felix had tried to lead
+the mob in the opposite direction to Treby Manor, and it was understood
+that the case for the defence was closed.</p>
+
+<p>Then it came to Esther that she must speak if Felix was to be saved.
+There had been no witness to tell what had been his behaviour just before
+the riot. There was time, but not too much time.</p>
+
+<p>Before Harold Transome was aware of Esther's intention she was on her
+way to the witness-box.</p>
+
+<p>A sort of gleam shot across the face of Felix Holt, and anyone close to
+the prisoner would have seen that his hand trembled, for the first time, at
+Esther's beautiful aspect. There was no blush on her face: she stood,
+divested of all personal consideration whether of vanity or shyness, and
+gave her story as if she had been making a confession of faith.</p>
+
+<p>She knew Felix Holt well, she said. He came to see her on the day of the
+election, and told her he feared the men might collect again after
+drinking. "It was the last thing he would have done to join in riot or to
+hurt any man, if he could have helped it. He could never have had any
+intention that was not brave and good."</p>
+
+<p>When she was back in her place Felix could not help looking towards her,
+and their eyes met in one solemn glance.</p>
+
+<p>Esther stayed in court till the end. She heard the verdict, "Guilty of
+Manslaughter," followed by the judge's sentence, "Imprisonment for four
+years." But so great was the impression made by Esther's speech that a
+petition to the Home Secretary was at once set on foot by the leading men
+of the county.</p>
+
+
+<h4><i>IV.--Felix and Esther</i></h4>
+
+
+<p>One April day, when the sun shone on the lingering raindrops, Lyddy was
+gone out, and Esther chose to sit in the kitchen. She was not reading, but
+stitching, and as her fingers moved nimbly, something played about her lips
+like a ray.</p>
+
+<p>A loud rap came at the door.</p>
+
+<p>"Mr. Lyon at home?" said Felix in his firm tones. "No, sir," said
+Esther: "but Miss Lyon is, if you'll please to walk in."</p>
+
+<p>"Esther!" exclaimed Felix, amazed.</p>
+
+<p>They held each other by both hands, and looked into each other's faces
+with delight.</p>
+
+<p>"You are out of prison?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, till I do something bad again. But you--how is it all? Are you
+come back to live here then?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes."</p>
+
+<p>"You are not going to be married to Harold Transome, or to be rich?"</p>
+
+<p>"No."</p>
+
+<p>"Why?" said Felix in rather a low tone, leaning his elbow on the table,
+and resting his head on his hand while he looked at her.</p>
+
+<p>"I did not wish to marry him, or to be rich."</p>
+
+<p>"You have given it all up?" said Felix, leaning forward a little and
+speaking in a still lower tone. "Could you share the life of a poor man,
+then, Esther?"</p>
+
+<p>"If I thought well enough of him," she said, with a smile, and a pretty
+movement of her head.</p>
+
+<p>"Have you considered well what it would be?--that it would be a very
+bare and simple life? and the people I shall live among, Esther? They have
+not just the same follies and vices as the rich, but they have their own
+forms of folly and vice. It is very serious, Esther."</p>
+
+<p>"I know it is serious," said Esther, looking up at him. "Since I have
+been at Transome Court I have seen many things very seriously. If I had
+not, I should not have left what I did leave. I made a deliberate
+choice."</p>
+
+<p>She could not tell him that at Transome Court, all that finally seemed
+balanced against her love for him, was the offer of a silken bondage that
+arrested all motive, and was nothing better than a well-cushioned despair.
+A vision of being restless amidst ease, of being languid among all
+appliances had quickened her resignation of the Transome estates.</p>
+
+<p>Esther explained, however, that she thought of retaining a little of the
+wealth.</p>
+
+<p>"How?" said Felix, anxiously. "What do you mean?"</p>
+
+<p>"I think even of two pounds a week: one needn't live up to the splendour
+of all that, you know: we might live as simply as you liked. And then I
+think of a little income for your mother, and a little income for my
+father, to save him from being dependent when he is no longer able to
+preach!"</p>
+
+<p>Felix put his hand on her shoulder, said, lifting up his eyes with a
+smile:</p>
+
+<p>"Why, I shall be able to set up a great library, and lend the
+books!"</p>
+
+<p>They laughed merrily, each holding the other's arms, like girl and boy.
+There was the ineffable sense of youth in common.</p>
+
+<p>Then Felix leaned forward, that their lips might meet, and after that
+his eyes roved tenderly over her face and curls.</p>
+
+<p>"I'm a rough, severe fellow, Esther. Shall you never repent?--never be
+inwardly reproaching me that I was not a man who could have shared your
+wealth? Are you quite sure?"</p>
+
+<p>The very next May, Felix and Esther were married. Everyone in those days
+was married at the parish church; but Mr. Lyon was not satisfied without an
+additional private solemnity, "so that he might have a more enlarged
+utterance of joy and supplication."</p>
+
+<p>It was a very simple wedding; but no wedding, even the gayest, ever
+raised so much interest and debate in Treby Magna. Even the very great
+people of the county went to the church to look at this bride, who had
+renounced wealth, and chosen to be the wife of a man who said he would
+always be poor.</p>
+
+<p>Some few shook their heads; could not quite believe it; and thought
+there was more behind. But the majority of honest Trebians were affected
+somewhat in the same way as Mr. Wall, the brewer of the town, who observed
+to his wife as they walked home, "I feel somehow as if I believed more in
+everything that's good."</p>
+
+<p>Felix and Esther did not take up their abode in Treby Magna; and after
+awhile Mr. Lyon left the town too, and joined them where they dwelt.</p>
+
+<p>As to the town in which Felix Holt now resides I will keep that a
+secret.</p>
+
+<p>I will only say that Esther has never repented. Felix, however, grumbles
+a little that she has made his life too easy.</p>
+
+<p>There is a young Felix, who has a great deal more science than his
+father, but not much more money.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+
+
+
+<h3><a name="eliot3">Romola</a></h3>
+
+<p class="letter">
+"Romola" was George Eliot's fifth book, and followed "Silas
+Marner," which was published in 1861. It is a story of Florence in the days
+of Savonarola, and was largely the outcome of a visit the novelist paid to
+Italy with her life-long friend, George Henry Lewes. With dim ideas for the
+story in her mind, she made exhaustive researches in the Florentine
+libraries, gathering historical and topographical details of the city and
+its life as they were in the medi&aelig;val period which she was setting
+herself to re-create. After much study there and at home, and after one
+false start, she made a serious beginning in January, 1862. She was engaged
+upon it for eighteen months, always in doubt and sometimes in despair of
+her ability to accomplish the task, and by June of the following year she
+had thankfully written the last words of what is regarded by some as her
+greatest book. Meanwhile, the romance had begun to appear serially in the
+"Cornhill" in July, 1862. The writing of "Romola" is said to have "ploughed
+into her" more than any of her other books.
+</p>
+
+<h4><i>I.--Tito and Little Tessa</i></h4>
+
+
+<p>Under the Loggia de Cerchi, in the heart of old Florence, in the early
+morning of April 9, 1492, two men had their eyes fixed on each other. One
+was looking downward with the scrutiny of curiosity; the other, lying on
+the pavement, was looking upward with the startled gaze of a suddenly
+awakened dreamer.</p>
+
+<p>"Young man," said the standing figure, pointing to a ring on the finger
+of the other, "when your chin has got a stiffer crop on it you'll know
+better than to take your nap in street corners with a ring like that on
+your forefinger. By the holy 'vangels, if it had been anybody but me
+standing over you--but Bratti Ferravecchi is not the man to steal! Three
+years ago, one San Giovanni, the saint, sent a dead body in my way--a blind
+beggar, with his cap well lined with pieces. But how comes a young man like
+you, with the face of Messer San Michele, to be sleeping on a stone bed?
+Your tunic and hose match ill with that jewel, young man. Anybody might say
+the saints had sent you a dead body; but if you took the jewels, I hope you
+buried him--and you can afford a mass or two for him into the bargain!"</p>
+
+<p>Something like a painful thrill appeared to dart through the frame of
+the listener, and arrest the careless stretching of his arms. But he
+immediately recovered an air of indifference, took off the red Levantine
+cap which hung like a great purse over his left ear, and pushing back his
+long, dark brown curls, said smiling, "The fact is, I'm a stranger in
+Florence, and when I came in footsore last night, I preferred flinging
+myself in the corner of this hospitable porch to hunting for a chance
+hostelry, which might turn out to be a nest of bloodsuckers. Can you show
+me the way to a more lively quarter, where I can get a meal and a
+lodging?"</p>
+
+<p>"That I can," said Bratti.</p>
+
+<p>And, talking volubly as they went, Bratti led the way to the Mercato
+Vecchio, or the Old Market, promising to conduct him to the prettiest
+damsel in the Mercato for a cup of milk.</p>
+
+<p>But as soon as they emerged from the narrow streets into the Old Market,
+they found the place packed with excited groups of men and women humming
+with gossip.</p>
+
+<p>"Diavolo!" said Bratti. "The Mercato has gone as mad as if the Holy
+Father had excommunicated us again! I must know what this is."</p>
+
+<p>He pushed about among the crowd, inquiring and disputing, and was
+presently absorbed in discussing the newest development of Florentine
+politics, the death of Lorenzo de Medici, and whether or not this death was
+the beginning of the time of tribulation that Savonarola had been seeing in
+visions and foretelling in sermons.</p>
+
+<p>Indifferent to this general agitation, the young stranger became tired
+of waiting for Bratti's escort, and strolling on round the piazza, felt, on
+a sudden thought, in the wallet that hung at his waist.</p>
+
+<p>"Not an obolus, by Jupiter!" he murmured, in a language that was not
+Tuscan or even Italian. "I must get my breakfast for love, then!"</p>
+
+<p>In a corner, away from any group of talkers, two mules were standing.
+One carried wooden milk vessels, the other a pair of panniers filled with
+herbs and salads. Resting her elbow on the mule that carried the milk,
+there leaned a young girl, apparently not more than sixteen, with a red
+hood surrounding her face, which was all the more baby-like in its
+prettiness from the entire concealment of her hair. The poor child was
+weary, and it seemed to have gone to sleep in that half-standing,
+half-leaning posture. Nevertheless, our stranger had no compunction in
+awaking her. She opened her baby-blue eyes, and stared up with astonishment
+and confusion.</p>
+
+<p>"Forgive me, pretty one, for awaking you," he said. "I'm dying with
+hunger, and the scent of milk makes breakfast seem more desirable than
+ever."</p>
+
+<p>She bestirred herself, and in a few moments a large cup of fragrant milk
+was held out to him; and by the time he set the cup down she had brought
+bread from a bag which hung by the side of the mule, and shyly and mutely
+insisted on his taking it, even though he told her he had nothing to pay
+her with; and just as he was leaning down to kiss her he was harshly
+interrupted by Monna Ghita, Tessa's mother, who had come upon them
+unobserved.</p>
+
+<p>The handsome presence of the stranger and his charm of manner were of no
+avail with Monna Ghita; her noisy rating of him drew Bratti and the barber,
+Nello, to the spot, and with these he was glad to make good his escape,
+having waived a furtive adieu to the pretty Tessa.</p>
+
+<p>It was not until after Bratti, having business at home, had handed the
+young stranger over to Nello, and in the barber's shop he had been shaved
+and trimmed, and made to look presentable, that Tito Melema became more
+confidential, and explained that he was a Greek; that he was returning from
+adventures abroad, had suffered shipwreck, and found himself in Florence
+with nothing saved from the disaster but some few rare old gems for which
+he was anxious to obtain a purchaser.</p>
+
+<p>"Let us see, let us see," said Nello, walking up and down his shop.
+"What you want is a man of wealth and influence and scholarly tastes; and
+that man is Bartolommeo Scala, the Secretary of our Republic. He came to
+Florence as a poor adventurer himself, a miller's son; and that may be a
+reason why he may be the more ready to do a good turn to a strange scholar.
+I could take you to a man who, if he has a mind, can help you to a chance
+of a favourable interview with Scala--a man worth seeing for his own sake,
+too, to say nothing of his collections, or of his daughter Romola, who is
+as fair as the Florentine lily before it got quarrelsome and turned
+red."</p>
+
+<p>"But if the father of this beautiful Romola makes collections, why
+should he not like to buy some of my gems himself?"</p>
+
+<p>Nello shrugged his shoulders. "For two good reasons--want of sight to
+look at the gems and want of money to pay for them."</p>
+
+
+<h4><i>II.--"More than a Man's Ransom"</i></h4>
+
+
+<p>He was a moneyless, blind old scholar, the Bardo de Bardi, to whom Nello
+introduced Tito Melema; a man who came of a proud, energetic stock, whose
+ancestors had loved to play the signor, had been merchants and usurers of
+keen daring, and conspicuous among those who clutched the sword in the
+earliest world-famous quarrels of Florentine with Florentine. The family
+passions lived on in Bardo under altered conditions; he was a man with a
+deep-veined hand cramped by much copying of manuscripts, who ate sparing
+dinners, and wore threadbare clothes, at first from choice, and at last
+from necessity; who sat among his books and manuscripts, and saw them only
+by the light of those far-off younger days which still shone in his
+memory.</p>
+
+<p>And among his books and antiquities and rare marble fragments, in a
+spacious room surrounded with laden shelves, Romola was his daily companion
+and assistant. There was a time when he had hoped that his son, Dino, would
+have followed in his steps, to be the prop of his age, and to take up and
+continue his scholarly labours after he was dead. But Dino had failed him;
+Dino had given himself up to religion and entered the priesthood, and the
+passion of Bardo's resentment had flamed into fierce hatred towards this
+recreant son of his, and none dared so much as to name him within his
+hearing.</p>
+
+<p>Maso, the old serving-man ushered in the two visitors he had announced a
+few minutes previously, and Nello introduced Tito to Bardo and his daughter
+as a scholar of considerable learning.</p>
+
+<p>Romola's astonishment could hardly have been greater if the stranger had
+worn a panther-skin and carried a thyrsus, for the cunning barber had said
+nothing of the Greeks age or appearance, and among her father's scholarly
+visitors she had hardly ever seen any but gray-headed men.</p>
+
+<p>Nevertheless, she returned Tito's bow with the same pale, proud face as
+ever; but as he approached the snow melted, and when he ventured to look
+towards her again a pink flush overspread her face, to vanish again almost
+immediately, as if her imperious will had recalled it. Tito's glance, on
+the other hand, as he looked at this tall maiden of seventeen or eighteen,
+as she stood at the reading-desk with one hand on the back of her father's
+chair, had that gentle, beseeching admiration in it which is the most
+propitiating of appeals to a proud, shy woman, and is perhaps the only
+atonement a man can make for being too handsome.</p>
+
+<p>"Messere, I give you welcome," said Bardo with some condescension;
+"misfortune wedded to learning, and especially to Greek learning, is a
+letter of credit that should win the ear of every instructed
+Florentine."</p>
+
+<p>He proceeded to question Tito as to what part of Greece he came from,
+learned that he was a young man of unusual scholastic attainments, and that
+he had a father who was himself a scholar.</p>
+
+<p>"At least," said Tito, "a father by adoption. He was a Neapolitan, but,"
+he added, after another slight pause, "he is lost to me--was lost on a
+voyage he too rashly undertook to Delos."</p>
+
+<p>Bardo forbore to speak further on so painful a topic; he discoursed
+freely upon his own studies, his past hopes, and the one great ambition
+that remained to him--that his library and his magnificent collection of
+treasures should not be dissipated on his death, but should become the
+property of the public, and be honourably housed in Florence for all time,
+with his name over the door.</p>
+
+<p>In his eagerness he made passing reference to his son, of how Romola had
+been filling his place to the best of her power, and plainly hinted--and
+Tito was not slow to profit by the opportunity--that if he could have the
+young Greek scholar to work with him instead of her, he might yet look to
+fulfill some of the notable designs he had abandoned when his blindness
+came upon him.</p>
+
+<p>"But," he resumed, in his original tone of condescension, "we are
+departing from what I believe is your most important business. Nello
+informed me that you had certain gems which you would fain dispose of."</p>
+
+<p>"I have one or two intagli of much beauty," said Tito. "But they are now
+in the keeping of Messer Domenico Cennini, who has a strong and safe place
+for such things. He estimates them as worth at least five hundred
+ducats."</p>
+
+<p>"Ah, then, they are fine intagli!" said Bardo. "Five hundred ducats! Ah,
+more than a man's ransom!"</p>
+
+<p>Tito gave a slight, almost imperceptible start, and opened his long,
+dark eyes with questioning surprise at Bardo's blind face, as if his
+words--a mere phrase of common parlance at a time when men were often being
+ransomed from slavery or imprisonment--had some special meaning for
+him.</p>
+
+<p>But Bardo had used the words in all innocence, and went on to talk of
+superstitions that attached to certain gems, and to undertake that he would
+use his influence with the Secretary of the Republic in Tito's behalf. Both
+Romola and her father were attracted by the charm and freshness and
+apparent simplicity of the young man; but just as he was making ready to
+depart they were interrupted by the entrance of Bernardo del Nero, one of
+the chief citizens of Florence, Bardo's oldest friend, and Romola's
+godfather; and Bernardo felt an instant, instinctive distrust of the
+handsome, ingratiating stranger, and did not hesitate to say so after Tito
+had left them.</p>
+
+<p>"Remember, Bardo," he said at length, "thou hast a rare gem of thy own;
+take care no one gets it who is not like to pay a worthy price. That pretty
+Greek has a sleekness about him that seems marvelously fitted for slipping
+into any nest he fixes his mind on."</p>
+
+
+<h4><i>III.--The Man who was Wronged</i></h4>
+
+
+<p>It was undeniable that Tito's coming had been the dawn of a new life for
+both father and daughter, and he grew to care for Romola supremely--to wish
+to have her for his beautiful and loving wife.</p>
+
+<p>He took her place as Bardo's assistant, and served him with an easy
+efficiency that had been beyond her; and she, happier in her father's
+happiness, had given her love to Tito even before he ventured to offer her
+his own. He was thus sailing under the fairest breeze, and besides
+convincing fair judges that his talents squared with his good fortune, he
+wore that fortune so unpretentiously that no one seemed to be offended by
+it.</p>
+
+<p>And that was not the whole of Tito's good fortune, for he had sold his
+jewels, and was master of full five hundred gold florins. Yet the moment
+when he first had this sum in his possession was the crisis of the first
+serious struggle his facile, good-humoured nature had known.</p>
+
+<p>"A man's ransom!" Who was it that had said five hundred florins was more
+than a man's ransom? If, now, under this mid-day sun, on some hot coast far
+away, a man somewhat stricken in years--a man not without high thoughts,
+and with the most passionate heart--a man who long years ago had rescued a
+little boy from a life of beggary, filth, and cruel wrong, and had reared
+him tenderly, if that man were now, under this summer sun, toiling as a
+slave, hewing wood and drawing water? If he were saying to himself, "Tito
+will find me. He had but to carry our gems to Venice; he will have raised
+money, and will never rest till he finds me out?" If that were certain,
+could he--Tito--see the price of the gems lying before him, and say, "I
+will stay at Florence, where I am fanned by soft airs of love and
+prosperity; I will not risk myself for his sake?" No, surely not <i>if it
+were certain</i>. But the galley had been taken by a Turkish vessel; that
+was known by the report of the companion galley which had escaped; and
+there had been resistance and probable bloodshed, a man had been seen
+falling overboard.</p>
+
+<p>He quieted his conscience with such reasonings as these, and when
+definite tidings reached him that his father was still a prisoner, he
+contrived to keep the knowledge to himself, and still did nothing. The
+death of the exhausted, emaciated monk who had brought these tidings freed
+him of one fear; but this monk was Romola's brother, Dino, and obeying his
+summons she had been in secret to see him as he lay dying.</p>
+
+<p>"Romola," her brother began to speak, "in the deep night, as I lay
+awake, I saw my father's room, and I saw you ... And at the <i>leggio</i>
+where I used to stand stood a man whose face I could not see. I saw him
+move and take thee, Romola, by the hand, and then I saw thee take my father
+by the hand, and you all three went down the stone steps into the streets,
+the man, whose face was a blank to me, leading the way. And you stood at
+the altar of Santa Croce, and the priest who married you had the face of
+death; and the graves opened and the dead in their shrouds followed you
+like a bridal train. And it seemed to me that at last you came to a stony
+place where there was no water, and no trees or herbage; but instead of
+water I saw written parchment unrolling itself everywhere, and instead of
+trees and herbage I saw men of bronze and marble springing up and crowding
+round you. And my father was faint, and fell to the ground; and the man
+loosed thy hand and departed; and as he went I could see his face, and it
+was the face of the Great Tempter.... Thrice have I had that vision,
+Romola. I believe it is a revelation meant for thee--to warn thee against
+marriage as a temptation of the enemy...."</p>
+
+<p>The words died away.</p>
+
+<p>"Frate," said the dying voice. "Give her----"</p>
+
+<p>"The crucifix," said the voice of Fra Girolamo Savonarola, who was
+standing in the shadows behind her.</p>
+
+<p>"Dino!" said Romola, with a low but piercing cry.</p>
+
+<p>"Take the crucifix, my daughter," said Fra Girolamo, after a few
+minutes. "His eyes behold it no more."</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p>But, heedless of the distrust and opposition of Messer Bernardo del
+Nero, and with this vision of Dino's menacing his highest hope, Tito went
+gaily on his triumphant way.</p>
+
+<p>Also he had renewed acquaintance with the little Tessa. He came upon her
+in the thronged streets during carnival time, and seeing her, a timorous,
+tearful little <i>contadin</i>, terrified by the burlesque threats of a
+boisterous conjurer, took her under his protection.</p>
+
+<p>Thereafter, he met her again at intervals, finding her naive love and
+humble adoration and obedience very pleasant; and, meeting her once at a
+peasant's fair, he jestingly yielded to the burlesque solicitations of a
+mountebank in a white mitre, paid a small fee, and went through an absurd
+ceremony of mock-marriage with her.</p>
+
+<p>Tessa herself believed the marriage to be real enough, and he would not
+mar her delight by undeceiving her. Later, since she was wretched at home
+with her scolding mother and a brutal step-father, and there were dangers
+in allowing her to go on waylaying him in streets when too long a period
+elapsed between his visits to her, he quietly took her away and established
+her in a small house on the outskirts of the city, with the deaf, discreet
+old Monna Lisa as her servant and companion.</p>
+
+<p>Neither this nor the darker secret of his treachery to his adoptive
+father cast any cloud over his habitual cheerfulness. His love for Romola
+was a higher and deeper passion than anything he felt for the child-like,
+submissive little Tessa, and when she told him frankly of her brother's
+warning vision, he set himself to convince her it was the mere nightmare of
+a diseased imagination, and the perfect love and trust she had for him made
+the task easy.</p>
+
+<p>For a while after their marriage she was ideally happy; she was not even
+separated from her father, for Tito came to live with them, and was to
+Bardo, in his scholastic labours, all that he had wished his own son to be.
+Then came the first cloud.</p>
+
+<p>On November 17, 1494, more than eighteen months after the marriage of
+Tito and Romola, the King of France marched his army into Florence on his
+way to take possession of Naples and impose peace on the warring little
+states into which Italy was divided. There were those in Florence who were
+prepared to welcome the invaders, but the majority, the common people in
+particular, resented their coming.</p>
+
+<p>With the soldiery came three wretched prisoners; they were led in ropes
+by their captors, and with blows from knotted cords were stimulated to beg.
+Two, as they passed, held out their hands, crying piteously, "For the love
+of God and the Holy Madonna, give us something towards our ransom!"</p>
+
+<p>But the third remained obstinately silent. He was old, white-haired,
+emaciated, with a thick-set figure that seemed to express energy in spite
+of age; yet there was something fitful in his eyes.</p>
+
+<p>This sight was witnessed by the Florentines with growing exasperation,
+and presently from jeering at the French soldiers and hustling them, they
+became bent upon rescuing this third prisoner from his tormentors; one
+venturesome youth suddenly dashed in, cut the old man's bonds and urged him
+to run; and the next moment he had plunged into the crowd, which closed
+behind him and hampered the pursuit.</p>
+
+<p>With one soldier struggling desperately on his track, the fugitive sped
+towards the Duomo, to seek refuge in that sanctuary, but in mounting the
+steps his foot slipped, he was precipitated towards a group of signori who
+stood there with their backs to him, and clutched one to save himself.</p>
+
+<p>It was Tito Melema who felt the clutch. He turned, and saw the face of
+his adoptive father, Baldassarre Calvo, close to his own. The two men
+looked at each other silent as death; Tito with cheeks and lips all
+bloodless, fascinated by terror. The next instant the grasp on his arm
+relaxed, and Baldassarre disappeared within the church.</p>
+
+
+<h4><i>IV.--Romola's Ordeal</i></h4>
+
+
+<p>With Baldassarre lurking in Florence, Tito went in hourly fear. At any
+moment the story of his baseness might be blown abroad; at any moment,
+worse still, he might be struck down by the old man, in whose wild eyes he
+had read only a fierce yearning for vengeance.</p>
+
+<p>As a precaution, Tito took to wearing a coat of fine chain-mail under
+his doublet, and the discovery of this alarmed Romola for his safety, and
+shocked her with a suspicion that he was something of a coward.</p>
+
+<p>But by now Tito was deeply involved in Florentine politics, and easily
+persuaded her that it was against secret political intriguers that he thus
+shielded himself. He went on to confess that his life was no longer safe in
+Florence, and he was resolved to leave the city for good. But to this she
+demurred; her father had died and left his library and his collection as a
+sacred trust to her and Tito, and until they had carried out his wish and
+made them over to the city authorities, she felt she could not go.</p>
+
+<p>Tito made light of her scruples. Her father's wish, he said, had been a
+mere foolish vanity; they had need of money, and he intended to sell both
+the library and collection, and when, for the first time in her life, she
+spoke bitterly, in scorn and anger of his faithlessness, he told her flatly
+it was useless to bandy words for he had sold them already, and they were
+to be removed that day.</p>
+
+<p>Frantic with grief and resentment, she thought of desperate ways of
+preventing the accomplishment of his heartless plans, even to borrowing of
+her godfather and buying back the treasures, so that Tito might keep his
+ill-gotten gain and her father's last wish still be fulfilled; but he
+convinced her that all interference was too late, for the things had been
+purchased by the Count di San Severino and the Seneschal de Beaucaire, who
+were already on their way with the French king to Sienna.</p>
+
+<p>Latterly, in many ways, Romola had been disappointed in her husband's
+character; she had found that his handsome face and gay air masked a
+cowardice, a cunning meanness, a sordid selfishness of disposition that
+were all at variance with her high ideal of him; but that final unspeakable
+treachery of the dead man who had trusted him so implicitly shattered her
+love for Tito utterly.</p>
+
+<p>As soon as her father's library was dismantled and his treasures taken
+away, Romola went from the house with the old man-servant, Maso, and would
+never have looked upon Tito's face again, but that Fra Girolamo intercepted
+her.</p>
+
+<p>"I have a command to call you back," he said. "My daughter, you must
+return to your place. You are flying from your debts; the debt of a
+Florentine woman to her fellow citizens; the debt of a wife. You are
+turning your back on the lot that has been appointed for you--you are going
+to choose another. My daughter, you are fleeing from the presence of God
+into the wilderness. My daughter, if the cross comes to you as a wife, you
+must carry it as a wife. You may say, 'I will forsake my husband,' but you
+cannot cease to be a wife."</p>
+
+<p>There was hunger and misery in the streets, and he urged upon her that
+if she had no other purpose in life she could stay, and help the poor of
+her own city. Her pride was broken, and she yielded.</p>
+
+
+<h4><i>V.--Baldassarre is Avenged</i></h4>
+
+
+<p>Meanwhile, Baldassarre, lurking about Florence, had armed himself with a
+knife, and was ravenous for revenge. Being homeless, he called by chance at
+Tessa's little house, and she, not knowing who he was, took pity on his age
+and misery, gave him shelter in a shed, and food and drink.</p>
+
+<p>Whilst he was there, Tito came, and, too frankly simple to keep anything
+from him, Tessa confessed that she had disobeyed his injunctions against
+holding converse with strangers, and was sheltering a strange, weary old
+man in the shed without. Her description of this guest left Tito in no
+doubt as to his identity, and, subduing his first perturbation, he
+conceived that he might turn the situation to his own advantage. He went
+out to the shed, and looking down upon Baldassarre in the moonlight, sought
+to propitiate him with honeyed words, specious explanations, and a plea for
+pardon. But the old man answered nothing, till his smouldering fury burst
+into a flame, then he precipitated himself upon the intruder and struck
+with all his force; but the blade of the knife broke off short against the
+hidden coat of mail.</p>
+
+<p>Tito insisted that he was welcome to remain there, and said what he
+could to soothe him, but Baldassarre would stay no longer when he knew
+whose roof covered him. Presently, he armed himself anew, and waited for
+another opportunity. He learned all that was to be known of Tito's career
+since his arrival in Florence; ascertained that he was married, and had
+thoughts of winning his wife's sympathy and telling her of Tessa. Then one
+night he contrived to get into the Rucellai Gardens, where Tito was at
+supper with a gathering of Florentine notabilities, and, seized in time and
+held back from assassinating him, he passionately denounced him before the
+company as a scoundrel, a liar, and a robber.</p>
+
+<p>There were those present who had been on the church steps that day when
+Baldassarre had clutched Tito by the arm, and Tito had then explained away
+his momentary panic. Questioned now by one of these, he declared that
+though when first he encountered his accuser he did not recognise him, he
+now saw that he was the servant who years ago accompanied him and his
+adoptive father to Greece, and was dismissed on account of misdemeanours,
+and that the story of his being rescued from beggary was the vision of a
+disordered brain.</p>
+
+<p>Baldassarre was given a chance to prove that he was not the servant, but
+the great scholar to whom Tito was indebted for his learning.</p>
+
+<p>"The ring I possess," said Rucellai, "is a fine sard that I myself
+purchased from Messer Tito. It is engraved with a subject from Homer. Will
+you turn to the passage in Homer from which that subject was taken?"</p>
+
+<p>But sitting to look over the book, Baldassarre realised that the
+sufferings through which he had passed had unhinged his mind and his
+memory; the words he stared at had no meaning for him, and he lifted his
+hands to his head in despair.</p>
+
+<p>The consequence of this fresh failure was that Baldassarre was cast into
+prison, and Tito was at liberty to pursue his political ambitions unhaunted
+by that dogging shadow that was to him as the shadow of death. He managed
+his affairs so cleverly that whichever party came uppermost he was secure
+of favour and money.</p>
+
+<p>But by-and-by the tide began to turn against him. Baldassarre was at
+large again, and met Romola and told her not only of his own wrongs, but of
+Tessa. She saw Tessa and her two children, and befriended them, and was so
+far from blaming that innocent little creature that she did not even
+disclose the truth to her; but she was importunate with Tito that he should
+make atonement to the man who had been a father to him. Then came a day
+when Tito's treacheries were discovered by the party he was supposed to
+serve, and he had to flee for his life through Florence. Scattering jewels
+and gold to delay his pursuers, he leaped from the bridge into the river,
+and swam in the darkness, leaving the bellowing mob to think he was
+drowned.</p>
+
+<p>But far down the stream there were certain eyes that saw him from the
+banks of the river, and when he landed and fell, faint and helpless,
+Baldassarre's hands closed on his throat; and next evening a passer-by
+found the two dead bodies there.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+
+
+
+<h3><a name="eliot4">Silas Marner</a></h3>
+
+<p class="letter">
+"Silas Marner, the Weaver of Raveloe," begun about November,
+1860, and published early in 1861, is in many respects the most admirable
+of all George Eliot's works. It is not a long story, but it is a most
+carefully finished novel--"a perfect gem, a pure work of art," Mr. Oscar
+Browning describes it. Mr. Blackwood, the publisher, found it rather
+sombre, and George Eliot replied to him, "I hope you will not find it at
+all a sad story as a whole, since it sets--or is intended to set--in a
+strong light the remedial influences of pure, natural, human relations. I
+have felt all through as if the story would have lent itself best to
+metrical rather than to prose fiction, especially in all that relates to
+the psychology of Silas; except that, under that treatment, there could not
+be an equal play of humour." No novel of George Eliot's has received more
+praise from men of letters than "Silas Marner."
+</p>
+
+<h4><i>I.--Why Silas Came to Raveloe</i></h4>
+
+
+<p>In the early years of the nineteenth century a linen-weaver named Silas
+Marner worked at his vocation in a stone cottage that stood among the nutty
+hedgerows near the village of Raveloe, and not far from the edge of a
+deserted stone-pit.</p>
+
+<p>It was fifteen years since Silas Marner had first come to Raveloe; he
+was then simply a pallid young man with prominent, short-sighted brown
+eyes. To the villagers among whom he had come to settle he seemed to have
+mysterious peculiarities, chiefly owing to his advent from an unknown
+region called "North'ard." He invited no comer to step across his
+door-sill, and he never strolled into the village to drink a pint at the
+Rainbow, or to gossip at the wheel-wrights'; he sought no man or woman,
+save for the purposes of his calling, or in order to supply himself with
+necessaries.</p>
+
+<p>At the end of fifteen years the Raveloe men said just the same things
+about Silas Marner as at the beginning. There was only one important
+addition which the years had brought; it was that Master Marner had laid by
+a fine sight of money somewhere, and that he could buy up "bigger men than
+himself."</p>
+
+<p>But while his daily habits presented scarcely any visible change,
+Marner's inward life had been a history and a metamorphosis as that of
+every fervid nature must be when it has been condemned to solitude. His
+life, before he came to Raveloe, had been filled with the close fellowship
+of a narrow religious sect, where the poorest layman had the chance of
+distinguishing himself by gifts of speech; and Marner was highly thought of
+in that little hidden world, known to itself as the church assembling in
+Lantern Yard. He was believed to be a young man of exemplary life and
+ardent faith, and a peculiar interest had been centred in him ever since he
+had fallen at a prayer-meeting into a trance or cataleptic fit, which
+lasted for an hour.</p>
+
+<p>Among the members of his church there was one young man, named William
+Dane, with whom he lived in close friendship; and it seemed to the
+unsuspecting Silas that the friendship suffered no chill, even after he had
+formed a closer attachment, and had become engaged to a young
+servant-woman.</p>
+
+<p>At this time the senior deacon was taken dangerously ill, and Silas and
+William, with others of the brethren, took turns at night-watching. On the
+night the old man died, Silas fell into one of his trances, and when he
+awoke at four o'clock in the morning death had come, and, further, a little
+bag of money had been stolen from the deacon's bureau, and Silas's
+pocket-knife was found inside the bureau. For some time Silas was mute with
+astonishment, then he said, "God will clear me; I know nothing about the
+knife being there, or the money being gone. Search me and my dwelling."</p>
+
+<p>The search was made, and it ended in William Dane finding the deacon's
+bag, empty, tucked behind the chest of drawers in Silas's chamber.</p>
+
+<p>According to the principles of the church in Lantern Yard prosecution
+was forbidden to Christians. But the members were bound to take other
+measures for finding out the truth, and they resolved on praying and
+drawing lots; there was nothing unusual about such proceedings a hundred
+years ago. Silas knelt with his brethren, relying on his own innocence
+being certified by immediate Divine interference. <i>The lots declared that
+Silas Marner was guilty</i>. He was solemnly suspended from
+church-membership, and called upon to render up the stolen money; only on
+confession and repentance could he be received once more within the fold of
+the church. Marner listened in silence. At last, when everyone rose to
+depart, he went towards William Dane and said, in a voice shaken by
+agitation, "The last time I remember using my knife was when I took it out
+to cut a strap for you. I don't remember putting it in my pocket again.
+<i>You</i> stole the money, and you have woven a plot to lay the sin at my
+door. But you may prosper for all that; there is no just God, but a God of
+lies, that bears witness against the innocent!"</p>
+
+<p>There was a general shudder at this blasphemy. Poor Marner went out with
+that despair in his soul--that shaken trust in God and man which is little
+short of madness to a loving nature. In the bitterness of his wounded
+spirit, he said to himself, "<i>She</i> will cast me off, too!" and for a
+whole day he sat alone, stunned by despair.</p>
+
+<p>The second day he took refuge from benumbing unbelief by getting into
+his loom and working away as usual, and, before many hours were past, the
+minister and one of the deacons came to him with a message from Sarah, the
+young woman to whom he had been engaged, that she held her engagement at an
+end. In little more than a month from that time Sarah was married to
+William Dane, and not long afterwards it was known to the brethren in
+Lantern Yard that Silas Marner had departed from the town.</p>
+
+
+<h4><i>II.--The Second Blow</i></h4>
+
+
+<p>When Silas Marner first came to Raveloe he seemed to weave like a
+spider, from pure impulse, without reflection. Then there were the calls of
+hunger, and Silas, in his solitude, had to provide his own breakfast,
+dinner, and supper, to fetch his own water from the well, and put his own
+kettle on the fire; and all these immediate promptings helped to reduce his
+life to the unquestioning activity of a spinning insect. He hated the
+thought of the past; there was nothing that called out his love and
+fellowship towards the strangers he had come amongst; and the future was
+all dark, for there was no Unseen Love that cared for him.</p>
+
+<p>It was then, when all purpose of life was gone, that Silas got into the
+habit of looking towards the money he received for his weaving, and
+grasping it with a sense of fulfilled effort. Gradually, the guineas, the
+crowns, and the half-crowns, grew to a heap, and Marner drew less and less
+for his own wants, trying to solve the problem of keeping himself strong
+enough to work sixteen hours a day on as small an outlay as possible. He
+handled his coins, he counted them, till their form and colour were like
+the satisfaction of a thirst to him; but it was only in the night, when his
+work was done, that he drew them out, to enjoy their companionship. He had
+taken up some bricks in his floor underneath his loom, and here he had made
+a hole in which he set the iron pot that contained his guineas and silver
+coins, covering the bricks with sand whenever he replaced them.</p>
+
+<p>So, year after year, Silas Marner lived in this solitude, his guineas
+rising in the iron pot, and his life narrowing and hardening itself more
+and more as it became reduced to the functions of weaving and hoarding.</p>
+
+<p>This is the history of Silas Marner until the fifteenth year after he
+came to Raveloe. Then, about the Christmas of that year, a second great
+change came over his life.</p>
+
+<p>It was a raw, foggy night, with rain, and Silas was returning from the
+village, plodding along, with a sack thrown round his shoulders, and with a
+horn lantern in his hand. His legs were weary, but his mind was at ease
+with the sense of security that springs from habit. Supper was his
+favourite meal, because it was his time of revelry, when his heart warmed
+over his gold.</p>
+
+<p>He reached his door in much satisfaction that his errand was done; he
+opened it, and to his short-sighted eyes everything remained as he had left
+it, except that the fire sent out a welcome increase of heat.</p>
+
+<p>As soon as he was warm he began to think it would be a long while to
+wait till after supper before he drew out his guineas, and it would be
+pleasant to see them on the table before him as he ate his food.</p>
+
+<p>He rose and placed his candle unsuspectingly on the floor near his loom,
+swept away the sand, without noticing any change, and removed the bricks.
+The sight of the empty hole made his heart leap violently, but the belief
+that his gold was gone could not come at once--only terror, and the eager
+effort to put an end to the terror. He passed his trembling hand all about
+the hole, then he held the candle and examined it curiously, trembling more
+and more. He searched in every corner, he turned his bed over, and shook
+it, and kneaded it; he looked in his brick oven; and when there was no
+other place to be searched, he felt once more all round the hole.</p>
+
+<p>He could see every object in his cottage, and his gold was not there. He
+put his trembling hands to his head, and gave a wild, ringing scream--the
+cry of desolation. Then the idea of a thief began to present itself, and he
+entertained it eagerly, because a thief might be caught and made to restore
+the gold. The robber must be laid hold of. Marner's ideas of legal
+authority were confused, but he felt that he must go and proclaim his loss;
+and the great people in the village--the clergyman, the constable, and
+Squire Cass--would make the thief deliver up the stolen money.</p>
+
+<p>It was to the village inn Silas Marner went, where the parish clerk and
+a select company were assembled, and told the story of his loss--&pound;272
+12s. 6d. in all. The machinery of the law was set in motion, but no thief
+was ever captured, nor could grounds be found for suspicion against any
+persons.</p>
+
+<p>What had really happened was that Dunsey Cass, Squire Cass's second
+son--a mean, boastful rascal--on his way home on foot from hunting, saw the
+light in the weaver's cottage, and knocked, hoping to borrow a lantern, for
+the lane was unpleasantly slippery, and the night dark. But all was silence
+in the cottage, for the weaver at that moment had not yet reached home. For
+a minute Dunsey thought that old Marner might be dead, fallen over into the
+stone pits. And from that came the decision that he must be dead. If so,
+the question arose, what would become of the money that everybody said the
+old miser had put by?</p>
+
+<p>Dunstan Cass was in difficulties for want of money, and he had killed
+his brother's horse that day on the hunting-field. Who would know, if
+Marner was dead, that anybody had come to take his hoard of money away?</p>
+
+<p>There were only three hiding-places where he had heard of cottagers'
+hoards being found: the thatch, the bed, and a hole in the floor. His eyes
+travelling eagerly over the floor, noted a spot where the sand had been
+more carefully spread.</p>
+
+<p>Dunstan found the hole and the money, now hidden in two leathern bags.
+From their weight he judged they must be filled with guineas. Quickly he
+hastened out into the darkness with the bags, and Dunstan Cass was seen no
+more alive.</p>
+
+<p>At the very moment when he turned his back on the cottage Silas Marner
+was not more than a hundred yards away.</p>
+
+
+<h4><i>III.--Silas Marner's Visitor</i></h4>
+
+
+<p>It was New Year's Eve, and Squire Cass was giving a dance to the
+neighbouring gentry of Raveloe. There had been snow in the afternoon, but
+at seven o'clock it had ceased, and a freezing wind had sprung up.</p>
+
+<p>A woman, shabbily dressed, with a child in her arms, was making her way
+towards Raveloe, seeking the Red House, where Squire Cass lived. It was not
+the squire she wanted, but his eldest son, Godfrey, to whom she was
+secretly married. The marriage--the result of rash impulse--had been an
+unhappy one from the first, for Godfrey's wife was the slave of opium. The
+squire had long desired that his son should marry Miss Nancy Lammeter, and
+would have turned him out of house and home had he known of the unfortunate
+marriage already contracted. Cold and weariness drove the woman, even while
+she walked, to the only comfort she knew. She raised the black remnant to
+her lips, and then flung the empty phial away. Now she walked, always more
+and more drowsily, and clutched more and more automatically the sleeping
+child at her bosom. Soon she felt nothing but a supreme longing to lie down
+and sleep; and so sank down against a straggling furze-bush, an easy pillow
+enough; and the bed of snow, too, was soft. The cold was no longer felt,
+but her arms did not at once relax their instinctive clutch, and the little
+one slumbered on.</p>
+
+<p>The complete torpor came at last; the fingers lost their tension, the
+arms unbent; then the little head fell away from the bosom, and the blue
+eyes of the child opened wide on the cold starlight. At first there was a
+little peevish cry of "Mammy," as the child rolled downward; and then,
+suddenly, its eyes were caught by a bright gleaming light on the white
+ground, and with the ready transition of infancy it decided the light must
+be caught.</p>
+
+<p>In an instant the child had slipped on all fours, and, after making out
+that the cunning gleam came from a very bright place, the little one,
+rising on its legs, toddled through the snow--toddled on to the open door
+of Silas Marner's cottage, and right up to the warm hearth, where was a
+bright fire.</p>
+
+<p>The little one, accustomed to be left to itself for long hours without
+notice, squatted down on the old sack spread out before the fire, in
+perfect contentment. Presently the little golden head sank down, and the
+blue eyes were veiled by their delicate half-transparent lids.</p>
+
+<p>But where was Silas Marner while this strange visitor had come to his
+hearth? He was in the cottage, but he did not see the child. Since he had
+lost his money he had contracted the habit of opening his door, and looking
+out from time to time, as if he thought that his money might, somehow, be
+coming back to him.</p>
+
+<p>That morning he had been told by some of his neighbours that it was New
+Year's Eve, and that he must sit up and hear the old year rung out, and the
+new rung in, because that was good luck, and might bring his money back
+again. Perhaps this friendly Raveloe way of jesting had helped to throw
+Silas into a more than usually excited state. Certainly he opened his door
+again and again that night, and the last time, just as he put out his hand
+to close it, the invisible wand of catalepsy arrested him, and there he
+stood like a graven image, powerless to resist either the good or evil that
+might enter.</p>
+
+<p>When Marner's sensibility returned he was unaware of the break in his
+consciousness, and only noticed that he was chilled and faint.</p>
+
+<p>Turning towards the hearth it seemed to his blurred vision as if there
+was a heap of gold on the floor; but instead of hard coin his fingers
+encountered soft, warm curls. In utter amazement, Silas fell on his knees
+to examine the marvel: it was a sleeping child, a round, fair thing, with
+soft, yellow rings all over its head. Could this be the little sister come
+back to him in a dream--his little sister whom he had carried about in his
+arms for a year before she died? That was the first thought. <i>Was</i> it
+a dream? It was very much like his little sister. How and when had the
+child come in without his knowledge?</p>
+
+<p>But there was a cry on the hearth; the child had awakened, and Marner
+stooped to lift it on to his knee. He had plenty to do through the next
+hour. The porridge, sweetened with some dry brown sugar, stopped the cries
+of the little one for "mammy." Then it occurred to Silas's dull bachelor
+mind that the child wanted its wet boots off, and this having been done,
+the wet boots suggested that the child had been walking on the snow.</p>
+
+<p>He made out the marks of the little feet in the snow, and, holding the
+child in his arms, followed their track to the furze-bush. Then he became
+aware that there was something more than the bush before him--that there
+was a human body, half covered with the shifting snow.</p>
+
+<p>With the child in his arms, Silas at once went for the doctor, who was
+spending the evening at the Red House. And Godfrey Cass recognised that it
+was his own child he saw in Marner's arms.</p>
+
+<p>The woman was dead--had been dead for some hours, the doctor said; and
+Godfrey, who had accompanied him to Marner's cottage, understood that he
+was free to marry Nancy Lammeter.</p>
+
+<p>"You'll take the child to the parish to-morrow?" Godfrey asked, speaking
+as indifferently as he could.</p>
+
+<p>"Who says so?" said Marner sharply. "Will they make me take her? I shall
+keep her till anybody shows they've a right to take her away from me. The
+mother's dead, and I reckon it's got no father. It's a lone thing, and I'm
+a lone thing. My money's gone--I don't know where, and this is come from I
+don't know where."</p>
+
+<p>Godfrey returned to the Red House with a sense of relief and gladness,
+and Silas kept the child. There had been a softening of feeling to him in
+the village since the day of his robbery, and now an active sympathy was
+aroused amongst the women. The child was christened Hephzibah, after
+Marner's mother, and was called Eppie for short.</p>
+
+
+<h4><i>IV--Eppie's Decision</i></h4>
+
+
+<p>Eppie had come to link Silas Marner once more with the whole world. The
+disposition to hoard had utterly gone, and there was no longer any
+repulsion around to him.</p>
+
+<p>As the child grew up, one person watched with keener, though more
+hidden, interest than any other the prosperous growth of Eppie under the
+weaver's care. The squire was dead, and Godfrey Cass was married to Nancy
+Lammeter. He had no child of his own save the one that knew him not. No
+Dunsey had ever turned up, and people had ceased to think of him.</p>
+
+<p>Sixteen years had passed, and now Aaron Winthrop, a well-behaved young
+gardener, is wanting to marry Eppie, and Eppie is willing to have him "some
+time."</p>
+
+<p>"'Everybody's married some time,' Aaron says," said Eppie. "But I told
+him that wasn't true, for I said look at father--he's never been
+married."</p>
+
+<p>"No, child," said Silas, "your father was a lone man till you was sent
+to him."</p>
+
+<p>"But you'll never be lone again, father," said Eppie tenderly. "That was
+what Aaron said--'I could never think o' taking you away from Master
+Marner, Eppie.' And I said, 'It 'ud be no use if you did, Aaron.' And he
+wants us all to live together, so as you needn't work a bit, father, only
+what's for your own pleasure, and he'd be as good as a son to you--that was
+what he said."</p>
+
+<p>The proposal to separate Eppie from her foster-father came from Godfrey
+Cass.</p>
+
+<p>When the old stone-pit by Marner's cottage went dry, owing to drainage
+operations, the skeleton of Dunstan Cass was found, wedged between two
+great stones. The watch and seals were recognised, and all the weaver's
+money was at the bottom of the pit. The shock of this discovery moved
+Godfrey to tell Nancy the secret of his earlier marriage.</p>
+
+<p>"Everything comes to light, Nancy, sooner or later," he said. "That
+woman Marner found dead in the snow--Eppie's mother--was my wife. Eppie is
+my child. I oughtn't to have left the child unowned. I oughtn't to have
+kept it from you."</p>
+
+<p>"It's but little wrong to me, Godfrey," Nancy answered sadly. "You've
+made it up to me--you've been good to me for fifteen years. It'll be a
+different coming to us, now she's grown up."</p>
+
+<p>They were childless, and it hadn't occurred to them as they approached
+Silas Marner's cottage that Godfrey's offer might be declined. At first
+Godfrey explained that he and his wife wanted to adopt Eppie in place of a
+daughter.</p>
+
+<p>"Eppie, my child, speak," said old Marner faintly. "I won't stand in
+your way. Thank Mr. and Mrs. Cass."</p>
+
+<p>"Thank you, ma'am--thank you, sir," said Eppie dropping a curtsy; "but I
+can't leave my father, nor own anybody nearer than him."</p>
+
+<p>Godfrey Cass was irritated at this obstacle.</p>
+
+<p>"But I've a claim on you, Eppie," he returned. "It's my duty, Marner, to
+own Eppie as my child, and provide for her. She's my own child. Her mother
+was my wife. I've a natural claim on her."</p>
+
+<p>"Then, sir, why didn't you say so sixteen years ago, and claim her
+before I'd come to love her, i'stead o' coming to take her from me now,
+when you might as well take the heart out o' my body? When a man turns a
+blessing from his door, it falls to them as take it in. But let it be as
+you will. Speak to the child. I'll hinder nothing."</p>
+
+<p>"Eppie, my dear," said Godfrey, looking at his daughter not without some
+embarrassment, "it'll always be our wish that you should show your love and
+gratitude to one who's been a father to you so many years; but we hope
+you'll come to love us as well, and though I haven't been what a father
+should ha' been to you all these years, I wish to do the utmost in my power
+for you now, and provide for you as my only child. And you'll have the best
+of mothers in my wife."</p>
+
+<p>Eppie did not come forward and curtsy as she had done before, but she
+held Silas's hand in hers and grasped it firmly.</p>
+
+<p>"Thank you, ma'am--thank you, sir, for your offers--they're very great
+and far above my wish. For I should have no delight in life any more if I
+was forced to go away from my father."</p>
+
+<p>In vain Nancy expostulated mildly.</p>
+
+<p>"I can't feel as I've got any father but one," said Eppie. "I've always
+thought of a little home where he'd sit i' the corner, and I should fend
+and do everything for him. I can't think o' no other home. I wasn't brought
+up to be a lady, and," she ended passionately, "I'm promised to marry a
+working man, as'll live with father and help me to take care of him."</p>
+
+<p>Godfrey Cass and his wife went out.</p>
+
+<p>A year later Eppie was married, and Mrs. Godfrey Cass provided the
+wedding dress, and Mr. Cass made some necessary alterations to suit Silas's
+larger family.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, father," said Eppie, when the bridal party returned from the
+church, "what a pretty home ours is! I think nobody could be happier than
+we are!"</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+
+
+
+<h3><a name="eliot5">The Mill on the Floss</a></h3>
+
+<p class="letter">
+In "The Mill on the Floss," published in 1860, George Eliot
+went to her own early life for the chief characters in the story, and in
+the relations of Tom and Maggie Tulliver we get a picture of the youth of
+Mary Ann Evans and her brother Isaac. Lord Lytton objected that Maggie was
+too passive in the scene at Red Deeps, and that the tragedy of the flood
+was not adequately prepared. To this criticism George Eliot answered, "Now
+that the defect is suggested to me, if the book were still in manuscript I
+should alter, or rather expand, that scene at Red Deeps." She also admitted
+that there was "a want of proportionate fulness" in the conclusion. But,
+with all its faults, "The Mill on the Floss" deserves the reputation it has
+won. The reception of the story at first was disappointing, and we find the
+authoress telling her publisher that "she does not want to see any
+newspaper articles." But the book made its way, and prepared an
+ever-growing public for "Silas Marner."
+</p>
+
+<h4><i>I.--The Tullivers of Dorlcote Mill</i></h4>
+
+
+<p>"What I want, you know," said Mr. Tulliver, "what I want is to give Tom
+a good eddication--an eddication as'll be a bread to him. I mean to put him
+to a downright good school at midsummer. The two years at th' academy 'ud
+ha' done well enough if I'd meant to make a miller and farmer of him, but I
+should like Tom to be a bit of a scholard. It 'ud be a help to me wi' these
+lawsuits, and arbitrations, and things. I wouldn't make a downright lawyer
+o' the lad--I should be sorry for him to be a raskill--but a sort of
+engineer, or a surveyor, or an auctioneer and vallyer, like Riley, or one
+o' them smartish businesses as are all profits and no outlay, only for a
+big watch-chain and a high stool. They're pretty nigh all one, and they're
+not far off being even wi' the law, I believe; for Riley looks Lawyer Wakem
+i' the face as hard as one cat looks another. <i>He's</i> none frightened
+at him."</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Tulliver was speaking to his wife, a blonde, comely woman, nearly
+forty years old.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, Mr. Tulliver, you know best. <i>I've</i> no objections. But if
+Tom's to go to a new school, I should like him to go where I can wash him
+and mend him, else he might as well have calico as linen. And then, when
+the box is goin' backwards and forwards, I could send the lad a cake, or a
+pork-pie, or an apple."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, well, we won't send him out o' reach o' the carrier's cart, if
+other things fit in," said Mr. Tulliver. "Riley's as likely a man as any to
+know o' some school; he's had schooling himself, an' goes about to all
+sorts o' places--arbitratin' and vallyin', and that."</p>
+
+<p>So a day or two later Mr. Riley, the auctioneer, came to Dorlcote Mill,
+and stayed the night, the better that Mr. Tulliver, who was slow at coming
+to a point, might consult him on the all-important subject of his boy.</p>
+
+<p>"You see, I want to put him to a new school at midsummer," said Mr.
+Tulliver, when the topic had been reached. "I want to send him to a
+downright good school, where they'll make a scholard of him. I don't mean
+Tom to be a miller an' farmer. I see no fun i' that. I shall give Tom an
+eddication and put him to a business as he may make a nest for himself, an'
+not want to push me out o' mine."</p>
+
+<p>At the sound of her brother's name, Maggie, the second and only other
+child of the Tullivers, who was seated on a low stool close by the fire,
+with a large book open on her lap, looked up eagerly. Tom, it appeared, was
+supposed capable of turning his father out of doors. This was not to be
+borne, and Maggie jumped up from her stool, and going up between her
+father's knees, said, in a half-crying, half-indignant voice, "Father, Tom
+wouldn't be naughty to you ever; I know he wouldn't."</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Tulliver's heart was touched.</p>
+
+<p>"What! They mustn't say any harm o' Tom, eh?" he said, looking at Maggie
+with a twinkling eye. Then, in a lower voice, turning to Mr. Riley, "She
+understands what one's talking about so as never was. And you should hear
+her read--straight off, as if she knowed it all beforehand. But it's
+bad--it's bad. A woman's no business wi' being so clever; it'll turn to
+trouble, I doubt. It's a pity, but what she'd been the lad--she'd ha' been
+a match for the lawyers, she would."</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Riley took a pinch of snuff before he said, "But your lad's not
+stupid, is he? I saw him, when I was here last, busy making fishing-tackle;
+he seemed quite up to it."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, he isn't not to say stupid; he's got a notion o' things out o'
+door, an' a sort o' commonsense, as he'd lay hold o' things by the right
+handle. But he's slow with his tongue, you see, and reads but poorly, and
+can't abide the books, and spells all wrong, they tell me, an' as shy as
+can be wi' strangers. Now, what I want is to send him to a school where
+they'll make him a bit nimble with his tongue and his pen, to make a smart
+chap of him. I want my son to be even wi' these fellows as have got the
+start o' me with schooling."</p>
+
+<p>The talk ended in Mr. Riley recommending a country parson named Stelling
+as a suitable tutor for Tom, and Mr. Tulliver decided that his son should
+go to Mr. Stelling at King's Lorton, fifteen miles from Dorlcote Mill.</p>
+
+
+<h4><i>II.--School-Time</i></h4>
+
+
+<p>Tom Tulliver's sufferings during the first quarter he was at King's
+Lorton, under the distinguished care of the Rev. Walter Stelling, were
+rather severe. It had been very difficult for him to reconcile himself to
+the idea that his school-time was to be prolonged, and that he was not to
+be brought up to his father's business, which he had always thought
+extremely pleasant, for it was nothing but riding about, giving orders, and
+going to market.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Stelling was not a harsh-tempered or unkind man--quite the contrary,
+but he thought Tom a stupid boy, and determined to develop his powers
+through Latin grammar and Euclid to the best of his ability.</p>
+
+<p>As for Tom, he had no distinct idea how there came to be such a thing as
+Latin on this earth. It would have taken a long while to make it
+conceivable to him that there ever existed a people who bought and sold
+sheep and oxen, and transacted the everyday affairs of life through the
+medium of this language, or why he should be called upon to learn it, when
+its connection with those affairs had become entirely latent. He was of a
+very firm, not to say obstinate disposition, but there was no brute-like
+rebellion or recklessness in his nature; the human sensibilities
+predominated, and he was anxious to acquire Mr. Stelling's approbation by
+showing some quickness at his lessons, if he had known how to accomplish
+it.</p>
+
+<p>In his secret heart Tom yearned to have Maggie with him, and, before the
+first dreary half-year was ended, Maggie actually came. Mrs. Stelling had
+given a general invitation for the little girl to come and stay with her
+brother; so when Mr. Tulliver drove over to King's Lorton late in October,
+Maggie came too, with the sense that she was taking a great journey, and
+beginning to see the world.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, my lad," Mr. Tulliver said, "you look rarely! School agrees with
+you!"</p>
+
+<p>"I don't think I <i>am</i> well, father," said Tom; "I wish you'd ask
+Mr. Stelling not to let me do Euclid--it brings on the toothache, I
+think."</p>
+
+<p>"Euclid, my lad--why, what's that?" said Mr. Tulliver.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, I don't know! It's definitions and axioms and triangles and things.
+It's a book I've got to learn in--there's no sense in it."</p>
+
+<p>"Go, go!" said Mr. Tulliver reprovingly. "You mustn't say so. You must
+learn what your master tells you. He knows what it's right for you to
+learn."</p>
+
+<p>In the second term Mr. Stelling had a second pupil--Philip, the son of
+Lawyer Wakem, Mr. Tulliver's standing enemy.</p>
+
+<p>Philip was a very old-looking boy, Tom thought. His spine had been
+deformed through an accident in infancy, and to Tom he was simply a
+humpback. He had a vague notion that the deformity of Wakem's son had some
+relation to the lawyer's rascality, of which he had so often heard his
+father talk with hot emphasis.</p>
+
+<p>There was a natural antipathy of temperament between the two boys; for
+Tom was an excellent bovine lad, and Philip was sensitive, and suffered
+acute pain when the other blurted out offensive things.</p>
+
+<p>Maggie, on her second visit to King's Lorton, pronounced Philip to be "a
+nice boy."</p>
+
+<p>"He couldn't choose his father, you know," she said to Tom. "And I've
+read of very bad men who had good sons, as well as good parents who had bad
+children."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, he's a queer fellow," said Tom curtly, "and he's as sulky as can be
+with me because I told him his father was a rogue. And I'd a right to tell
+him so, for it was true--and he began it with calling me names."</p>
+
+<p>An accident to Tom's foot brought the two boys nearer again, and also
+threw Philip and Maggie together.</p>
+
+<p>"Maggie," said Philip one day, "if you had had a brother like me, do you
+think you should have loved him as well as Tom?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, yes, better," she answered immediately. "No, not better; because I
+don't think I could love you better than Tom. But I should be so sorry--so
+sorry for you."</p>
+
+<p>Philip coloured. He had meant to imply, would she love him as well in
+spite of his deformity, and yet when she alluded to it so plainly he winced
+under her pity. Maggie, young as she was, felt her mistake.</p>
+
+<p>"But you are so very clever, Philip, and you can play and sing," she
+added quickly. "I wish you were my brother. I'm very fond of you."</p>
+
+<p>"But you'll go away soon, and go to school, Maggie, and then you'll
+forget all about me, and not care for me any more."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, no, I shan't forget you, I'm sure." And Maggie put her arm round
+his neck, and kissed him quite earnestly.</p>
+
+
+<h4><i>III.--The Downfall</i></h4>
+
+
+<p>When Tom had turned sixteen, and Maggie, three years younger, was at
+boarding school, came the downfall of the Tullivers. A long and expensive
+law-suit concerning rights of water, brought by Mr. Tulliver, ended in
+defeat. Wakem was his opponent's lawyer.</p>
+
+<p>Maggie broke the news to Tom. Not only would mill and lands and
+everything be lost, and nothing left, but their father had fallen off his
+horse, and knew nobody, and seemed to have lost his senses.</p>
+
+<p>"They say Mr. Wakem has got a mortgage or something on the land, Tom,"
+said Maggie, on their way home from King's Lorton. "It was the letter with
+that news in it that made father ill, they think."</p>
+
+<p>"I believe that scoundrel's been planning all along to ruin my father,"
+said Tom, leaping from the vaguest impressions to a definite conclusion.
+"I'll make him feel for it when I'm a man. Mind you never speak to Philip
+again!"</p>
+
+<p>For more than two months Mr. Tulliver lay ill in his room, oblivious to
+all that was taking place around him. From time to time recognition came to
+him of his wife and family, but there was no remembrance of recent
+events.</p>
+
+<p>The mill and land of the Tullivers were sold to Wakem the lawyer, and
+the bulk of their household goods were disposed of by public auction; but
+the Tullivers were not turned out of Dorlcote Mill. And, indeed, when Mr.
+Tulliver, known to be a man of proud honesty, was once more able to be up
+and about, it was proposed that he should remain and accept employment as
+manager of the mill for Mr. Wakem.</p>
+
+<p>It was with difficulty that poor Tulliver could bring himself to accept
+the situation, but he saw the possibility, by much pinching, of saving
+money out of the thirty shillings a week salary promised by Wakem, and
+paying a second dividend to his creditors. The strongest influence of all
+was the love of the old premises where he had run about when he was a boy,
+just as Tom had done after him.</p>
+
+<p>Tom, who had at once applied to his Uncle Deane, partner in a wealthy
+merchant's business, for work, and was now earning a pound a week, had
+protested against entertaining the proposition; he shouldn't like his
+father to be under Wakem; he thought it would look nothing but mean
+spirited.</p>
+
+<p>But Mr. Tulliver had come to a decision. The first evening of his new
+life downstairs, he called his family round him, and began to speak,
+looking first at his wife.</p>
+
+<p>"I've made up my mind, Bessy. I'll stop in the old place, and I'll serve
+under Wakem, and I'll serve him like an honest man; there's no Tulliver but
+what's honest, mind that, Tom. They'll have it to throw up against me as I
+paid a dividend--but it wasn't my fault--it was because there's raskills in
+the world. They've been too many for me, and I must give in. But I'll serve
+him as honest as if he was no raskill. I'm an honest man, though I shall
+never hold my head up no more! I'm a tree as is broke--a tree as is
+broke."</p>
+
+<p>He paused, and looked on the ground. Then suddenly raising his head, he
+said, in a louder yet deeper tone, "But I won't forgive him! I know what
+they say--he never meant me any harm! I shouldn't ha' gone to law they say.
+But who made it so as there was no arbitrating and no justice to be got? It
+signifies nothing to him--I know that he's one o' them fine gentlemen as
+get money by doing business for poorer folks, and when he's made beggars of
+'em he'll give 'em charity. I won't forgive him! I wish he might be
+punished with shame till his own son 'ud like to forget him. And you mind
+this, Tom--you never forgive him, neither, if you mean to be my son. Now
+write--write it i' the Bible!"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, father, what?" said Maggie. "It's wicked to curse and bear
+malice."</p>
+
+<p>"It isn't wicked, I tell you," said her father, fiercely. "It's wicked
+as the raskills should prosper--it's the devil's doing. Do as I tell you,
+Tom! Write."</p>
+
+<p>The big Bible was open at the beginning, where many family entries were
+put down.</p>
+
+<p>"What am I to write, father?" said Tom, with gloomy submission.</p>
+
+<p>"Write as your father, Edward Tulliver, took service under John Wakem,
+the man as had helped to ruin him, because I'd promised my wife to make her
+what amends I could, and because I wanted to die in th' old place where I
+was born, and my father was born. Put that i' the right words--you know
+how--and then write as I don't forgive Wakem for all that; and for all I'll
+serve him honest, I wish evil may befall him. Write that."</p>
+
+<p>There was a dead silence as Tom's pen moved along the paper.</p>
+
+<p>"Now let me hear what you've wrote," said Mr. Tulliver; and Tom read
+aloud, slowly.</p>
+
+<p>"Now, write--write as you'll remember what Wakem's done to your father,
+and you'll make him and his feel it, if ever the day comes. And sign your
+name--Thomas Tulliver!"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, no, father, dear father!" said Maggie, trembling like a leaf. "You
+shouldn't make Tom write that!"</p>
+
+<p>"Be quiet, Maggie!" said Tom, impatiently, "I shall write it!"</p>
+
+
+<h4><i>IV.--In Death They Were Not Divided</i></h4>
+
+
+<p>The Red Deeps was always a favourite place to Maggie to walk in. An old
+stone quarry, so long exhausted that both mounds and hollows were now
+clothed with brambles and trees, and with here and there a stretch of grass
+which a few sheep kept close nibbled. This was the Red Deeps, and it was
+here in June that Maggie once more met Philip Wakem, five years after their
+first meeting at Mr. Stelling's. He told her that she was much more
+beautiful than he had thought she would be, and assured her, in answer to
+the difficulties she raised as to their meeting, that there was no enmity
+in his father's mind.</p>
+
+<p>And Maggie went home with an inward conflict already begun, and Philip
+went home to do nothing but remember and hope.</p>
+
+<p>In the following April they met again, after Philip had been abroad.</p>
+
+<p>And now he took her hand, and asked her the simple question, "<i>Do</i>
+you love me?"</p>
+
+<p>"I think I could hardly love anyone better; there is nothing but what I
+love you for," Maggie answered. But she pointed out how impossible even
+their friendship was, if it were discovered.</p>
+
+<p>Philip, on his side, refused to give up hope, and before they parted
+that day she had kissed him.</p>
+
+<p>Tom intervened before the next visit to the Red Deeps. He had heard that
+Philip Wakem had been seen there with his sister, and Maggie admitted, on
+his questioning her, that she had told Philip that she loved him.</p>
+
+<p>"Now, then, Maggie," Tom said coldly, "there are but two courses for you
+to take. Either you vow solemnly to me, with your hand on father's Bible,
+that you will never have another meeting or speak another word in private
+to Philip Wakem, or you refuse and I tell my father everything!"</p>
+
+<p>In vain Maggie pleaded. Tom was obdurate, and she repeated the words of
+renunciation.</p>
+
+<p>But that was not enough for Tom Tulliver; he accompanied Maggie to Red
+Deeps, and in a voice of harsh scorn told Philip that he had been taking a
+mean, unmanly advantage.</p>
+
+<p>"It was for my father's sake, Philip," said Maggie, imploringly. "Tom
+threatens to tell my father--and he couldn't bear it. I have promised, I
+have vowed solemnly, that we will not have any intercourse without my
+brother's knowledge."</p>
+
+<p>"It is enough, Maggie. <i>I</i> shall not change, but I wish you to hold
+yourself entirely free. But trust me--remember that I can never seek for
+anything but good to what belongs to you."</p>
+
+<p>Tom only replied with angry contempt, and led Maggie away. All his
+sister's remonstrances he answered with cold obstinacy.</p>
+
+<p>For his character in its strength was hard. Tom had laboured to one end
+in these years: to pay off his father's creditors, and regain Dorlcote
+Mill. By his industry, and by some successful private ventures in trade,
+the day came when the first of the objects was realised, and Mr. Tulliver
+lived to see himself free of debt.</p>
+
+<p>But Mr. Tulliver's satisfaction was short-lived. Excited by the dinner
+given to celebrate the payment of his creditors, he met Mr. Wakem near the
+mill. From angry words it came to blows, and Tulliver fell on the lawyer
+furiously, only ceasing from attack when Maggie and Mrs. Tulliver appeared.
+Wakem went off without serious injury, but Tulliver only lived through the
+night; the excitement had killed him.</p>
+
+<p>"You must take care of her, Tom," said the dying man, turning to his
+daughter. "You'll manage to pay for a brick grave, Tom, so as your mother
+and me can lie together? This world's...too many...honest man..."</p>
+
+<p>At last there was total stillness, and poor Tulliver's dimly lighted
+soul had ceased to be vexed with the painful riddle of this world.</p>
+
+<p>Tom and Maggie went downstairs together, and Maggie spoke. "Tom, forgive
+me; let us always love each other"--and they clung and wept together.</p>
+
+<p>But they were not to be always united.</p>
+
+<p>Tom lived in lodgings in the town, and was anxious to provide for his
+sister, but Maggie preferred to take up teaching in her old
+boarding-school. She met Philip Wakem again, and though Tom released her
+from her old promise, he could not regard Philip with any feelings of
+friendship.</p>
+
+<p>It was when Tom had, by years of steady work, fulfilled his father's
+wishes and become once more master of Dorlcote Mill that Maggie
+returned--to be no more separated from her brother. She was staying in the
+town near the river on the night when the flood came, and the river rose
+beyond its banks. Her first thought, as the water entered the lower part of
+the house, was of the mill, where Tom was. There was no time to get
+assistance; she must go herself, and alone. Hastily she procured a boat,
+and at last reached the mill. The water was up to the first story, but
+still the mill stood firm.</p>
+
+<p>"Tom, where are you? Here is Maggie!" she called out, in a loud,
+piercing voice. Tom opened the middle window, and got into the boat. Tom
+rowed with vigour, but a new danger was before them in the river.</p>
+
+<p>"Get out of the current!" was shouted at them, but it could not be done
+at once. Huge fragments of machinery, swept off one of the wharves, blocked
+the stream in one wide mass, and the current swept the boat swiftly on to
+its doom.</p>
+
+<p>"It is coming, Maggie!" Tom said, in a deep, hoarse voice, loosing the
+oars and clasping her.</p>
+
+<p>The next instant the boat was no longer seen upon the water, and brother
+and sister had gone down in an embrace never to be parted; living through
+again in one supreme moment the days when they had clasped their little
+hands in love.</p>
+
+<p>"In their death they were not divided."</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+
+
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="erckmann">ERCKMANN-CHATRIAN</a></h2>
+
+
+<h3><a name="erckmann1">Waterloo</a></h3>
+
+<p class="letter">
+Emile Erckmann was born at Phalsbourg, in Alsace, on May 20,
+1822, and Alexandre Chatrian, at Soldatenthal, on December 18, 1826.
+Erckmann, the son of a bookseller, became a law student, and was admitted
+to the Bar in 1858. But the law studies were always uncongenial, and
+Erckmann meeting Chatrian as a fellow student in the gymnasium at
+Phalsbourg, the two young men decided to join forces in authorship. The
+Erckmann-Chatrian partnership lasted from 1860 to 1885, and resulted in a
+remarkable series of novels, short stories, plays, and operas. "Waterloo"
+was published in 1865, and has enjoyed a wide popularity in many languages.
+Like "The Conscript," its predecessor, the charm of "Waterloo" consists
+largely in the character of Joseph Bertha, the young clockmaker of
+Phalsbourg, who tells the story. Bertha is a peaceful citizen who hates war
+and has no taste for glory. Yet he is nothing of a coward, and behaves like
+a man when he is forced to fight. To the student of history, the light
+thrown on the rise and fall of the Bourbon popularity in France, 1813-14,
+in this novel, will always be of interest. Chatrian died in Paris on
+September 4, 1890, and Erckmann at Luneville, on March 14, 1899.
+</p>
+
+<h4><i>I.--Napoleon Returns</i></h4>
+
+
+<p>Never was anything so joyous as the spring of 1814 Louis XVIII. was
+king, and the war was over. All except the old soldiers were content; and
+only when the nobles, who had fled at the Revolution, returned, and it was
+said that they were going to bring back all their old ideas, did M. Goulden
+express any dissatisfaction. There were great religious processions
+everywhere and expiatory services, and talk of rebuilding all the convents,
+and setting up the nobles again in their castles. But these things did not
+trouble me, because I was married to Catherine, and knew nothing about
+politics.</p>
+
+<p>The treatment of the old soldiers enraged me. On the day of the
+religious procession at Phalsbourg, half a dozen old veterans, restored
+prisoners, were set upon in our town by that rascal Pinacle and the people
+of Baraques, and knocked about. Pinacle did this to curry favour with Louis
+XVIII., and M. Goulden warned us that if ruffians like Pinacle got the
+upper hand it would open people's eyes.</p>
+
+<p>Sure enough, Pinacle received the cross of honour in the autumn when the
+Duc de Berry came to review the troops at Phalsbourg, and even Aunt
+Grédel, who was fond of abusing Napoleon and the Jacobins, and
+applauding the king and the clergy, thought this a shameful thing.</p>
+
+<p>It really was scandalous the way titles and honours were given to
+worthless people who shouted for the king. Worse than this was the way
+Napoleon's old officers were treated. Men who had fought and bled for
+France for twenty years were now well-nigh starving, driven out of the army
+to make room for the king's favourites.</p>
+
+<p>We read all this in the "Gazette," and Zébédé, who
+had come back alive and in time for my wedding, and was still in the army,
+would often come in and tell us of the growing indignation of the soldiers.
+The whole of that winter the indignation was spreading in the town at the
+sight of so many brave officers, the heroes of Marengo, Austerlitz, and
+Wagram, wandering forlornly about, starving on half-pay, and deprived of
+their posts.</p>
+
+<p>How well I remember one day in January, 1815, two of these officers,
+pale and gaunt, coming into the workshop to sell a watch.</p>
+
+<p>M. Goulden examined the watch with great care and said, "Do not be
+offended, gentlemen; I, too, served France under the Republic, and I know
+it must cut to the heart to be forced to sell something which recalls
+sacred memories."</p>
+
+<p>"It was given me by Prince Eug&egrave;ne," said one of the officers,
+Commandant Margarot, a hussar.</p>
+
+<p>"It is worth more than 1,000 francs," said M. Goulden, "and I cannot
+afford to buy it. But I will advance you 200 francs, and the watch shall
+remain here if you like, and shall be yours whenever you come to reclaim
+it."</p>
+
+<p>The old hussar broke down at this, and though his comrade, Colonel
+Falconette, tried to restrain him, he poured forth thanks and bitter words
+against the government.</p>
+
+<p>From that time it always seemed to me that things would end badly, and
+that the nobles had gone too far. The old commandant had said that the
+government behaved like Cossacks to the army, and this was horrible.</p>
+
+<p>M. Goulden read the "Gazette" aloud to us every day, and both Catherine
+and I were pleased to find there were men in Paris maintaining the very
+things we thought ourselves.</p>
+
+<p>All this time the clergy were going on with their processions, and
+sermons were being preached about the rebellion of 1790, the restitution of
+property to the landowners, and the re-establishment of convents, and the
+need for missionaries for the conversion of France. From such ideas what
+good could come?</p>
+
+<p>It is no wonder that when a report came early in March that Napoleon had
+landed at Cannes and was marching on Paris we were all very agitated at
+Phalsbourg.</p>
+
+<p>"It is plain," said M. Goulden, "that the emperor will reach Paris. The
+soldiers are for him; so are the peasantry, whose property is threatened;
+and so are the middle classes, provided he will make treaties of
+peace."</p>
+
+
+<h4><i>II.--"Vive l'Empereur!"</i></h4>
+
+
+<p>For some days, though all knew Napoleon had set foot in France, no one
+dared talk of it aloud. Only the looks of the half-pay officers betrayed
+their anxiety. If they had possessed horses and arms I am sure they would
+have set out to meet their emperor.</p>
+
+<p>On March 8, Zébédé entered our house and said
+abruptly, "The two first batallions are starting."</p>
+
+<p>"They are going to stop him?" said M. Goulden.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, they'll stop him, that is very likely,"
+Zébédé answered, winking. At the foot of the stairs he
+drew me aside and whispered, "Look inside my cap, Joseph; all the soldiers
+have got it, too."</p>
+
+<p>Sure enough it was the old tricolour cockade, which had been removed on
+the return of Louis XVIII.</p>
+
+<p>At last the papers had to admit that Buonaparte had escaped from Elba.
+What a scene it was in the café the night the papers arrived! M.
+Goulden and I were hardly seated before the place was filled with people,
+and it was so close the windows had to be opened.</p>
+
+<p>Commandant Margarot mounted on a table with other officers all around
+him, and began to read the "Gazette" aloud. It took a long time, the
+reading, and the people laughed and jeered at the passages that said the
+troops were faithful to the king, that Buonaparte was surrounded and would
+soon be taken, and that the illustrious Ney and the other marshals had
+hastened to place their swords at the service of the king. The commandant
+read on firmly in that distinct voice of his until he came to the order
+calling upon the French to seize Buonaparte and give him up dead or
+alive.</p>
+
+<p>Then his whole face changed and his eyes glittered. He took the
+"Gazette" up and tore it into little pieces, and, drawing himself up, his
+long arms stretched out, cried, "Vive l'Empereur!" with all his might.
+Immediately all the half-pay officers took up the cry, and "Vive
+l'Empereur!" was repeated again by the very soldiers posted outside the
+town hall when they heard the shout.</p>
+
+<p>The commandant was carried shoulder high round the café, and
+everyone was now calling out, "Vive l'Empereur!" I saw the tears in the
+eyes of the commandant, tears at hearing the name he loved best acclaimed
+once more.</p>
+
+<p>As for me, I felt as if cold water was being forced down my back. "It's
+all over," I said to myself. "It's no good talking about peace."</p>
+
+<p>But M. Goulden was more hopeful, and after we got home spoke cheerfully
+of the blessings of liberty and a good constitution.</p>
+
+<p>Aunt Grédel did not take this view. She came to see us the
+morning after the scene in the café, when all the town was
+discussing the great news, and began at once, "So it seems the villain has
+run away from his island?"</p>
+
+<p>Both M. Goulden and I were anxious to avoid a dispute, for Aunt
+Grédel was really angry, and she couldn't leave the subject.</p>
+
+<p>M. Goulden admitted that he preferred Napoleon to the Bourbons, with
+their nobles and missionary priests, because the emperor was bound to
+respect the national property, whereas the later would have destroyed all
+that the Revolution had accomplished. "Still, I am now, and always shall be
+till death, for the Republic and the rights of man," M. Goulden
+concluded.</p>
+
+<p>The old gentleman took his hat and went out to escape further argument,
+and Aunt Grédel turned to me and told me that M. Goulden was an old
+fool and always had been, and that I should have to go to Switzerland now,
+unless Buonaparte was taken before he reached Paris.</p>
+
+<p>In the evening, however, when Aunt Grédel had gone, and we three
+were together, Catherine said quietly, "M. Goulden is right; he knows more
+about these things than my mother does, and we will always listen to his
+advice."</p>
+
+<p>I thought to myself, "Yes, that's all very well; but it will be a
+horrible thing to have to put on one's knapsack again and be off. I would
+rather be in Switzerland than in Leipzig."</p>
+
+<p>Each day now brought news of Napoleon's advance, from Grenoble to Lyons,
+from Lyons to Macon and Auxerre. There was no opposition anywhere to his
+progress, and the only question that troubled M. Goulden's mind was the
+attitude of Ney to the emperor. Could Ney, an old soldier of the
+Revolution, though he had kissed the hand of Louis XVIII., betray the
+country to please the king? The uneasiness disappeared when we learnt that
+Ney had followed the example of the army, the citizens, and of all who did
+not wish to go back to the customs and laws of twenty-five years
+earlier.</p>
+
+<p>On March 21, just as it was getting dark, we knew that something
+decisive must have happened at Paris. The drums were calling to arms in the
+market-place, and a great crowd soon assembled.</p>
+
+<p>The soldiers fell into their ranks, Commandant Gémeau, who had
+only just recovered from his wounds, drew his sword, and gave the order to
+form square.</p>
+
+<p>M. Goulden and I got on a bench to listen; we knew that the fate of
+France depended on the message we were to hear.</p>
+
+<p>"Present arms!" called out the commandant in the same clear voice which
+had bidden us at L&uuml;tzen and Leipzig, "Close up your ranks!"</p>
+
+<p>Then came the news we had been waiting for.</p>
+
+<p>"Soldiers, his Majesty Louis XVIII. left Paris on March 20, and the
+Emperor Napoleon entered the capital the same day."</p>
+
+<p>For a second there was a dead silence, and then the commandant spoke of
+the banner of France, the banner of Marengo, Austerlitz, and Jena, stained
+with our blood; and the old sergeant drew out the tattered tricolour flag
+from its case.</p>
+
+<p>"I know no other flag!" cried the commandant, raising his sword. "Vive
+la France! Vive l'Empereur!"</p>
+
+<p>What a shout there was of "Vive l'Empereur! Vive la France!" at this.
+The people and the soldiers embraced one another, and that night and for
+the next five or six days there was, if anything, even more rejoicing than
+there had been on the return of Louis XVIII. We still hoped for the
+continuance of peace, but who could say how long the peace would last?</p>
+
+<p>Phalsbourg was ordered to put itself into a state of defence, a large
+workshop was set up at the arsenal for the repairing of arms, and engineers
+and artillerymen came over from Metz to make earthworks in the
+fortifications. It seemed to me that a large number of men would be
+required for all the guns and forts, and that my watchmaking days would
+soon be exchanged for active service. I began to think that, after all,
+religious processions were better than being sent to fight against people
+one knew nothing about.</p>
+
+
+<h4><i>III.--On the Road to Waterloo</i></h4>
+
+
+<p>Aunt Grédel had not been to see us for a month, and it was a
+great comfort to Catherine and me when one Sunday M. Goulden proposed that
+we should all three pay her a visit at Quatre Vents. As soon as she saw us,
+Aunt Grédel rushed to kiss her daughter, and called out, "You are a
+good man, M. Goulden, better a thousand times than I am. How glad I am to
+see you! It doesn't matter about being a Jacobin or anything else; the main
+thing is to have a good heart."</p>
+
+<p>It was not until the afternoon that M. Goulden explained that he had
+known for some days that I should be called up to rejoin my old regiment,
+and that he had arranged with the commandant of artillery that I should be
+received at the arsenal as a workman. What relief this was to us, for I
+could not bear the thought of separation from Catherine. So from that day I
+went to work at the arsenal, and Aunt Grédel came to see us again as
+she had been accustomed to do.</p>
+
+<p>It can be guessed with what spirit I worked at the arsenal, and how
+pleased I was when the commandant expressed satisfaction at my work. But I
+was not allowed to stop at Phalsbourg.</p>
+
+<p>On May 23 the commandant told me that I must go to Metz with the 3rd
+battalion, to which I belonged. He assured me, however, that I should be
+kept at Metz in the workshops, and we all did our best to believe that I
+was fortunate in my destination. M. Goulden, however, warned me before I
+left that France was threatened by her enemies, that the allies would make
+no peace with the emperor, but were determined to set Louis XVIII. once
+more on the throne, and that now the question was not of invading other
+countries, but of defending our own.</p>
+
+<p>Catherine was asleep when the morning came for my departure, and I was
+glad to escape the pain of saying "good-bye." At the barracks,
+Zébédé, who was now a sergeant, led me into the
+soldiers' room, and I put on my uniform. Then the battalion defiled through
+the gates, the soldiers at the outworks presented arms, and we were on the
+way to Waterloo.</p>
+
+<p>It was useless to think of stopping in Metz. We arrived in that city of
+Jews and soldiers after five days' march, and were at once, after our
+night's rest, supplied with ammunition. I saw that my only chance of
+staying at the workshops of Metz would be after the campaign was over, for
+we were on the march the very next morning. Zébédé was
+not always with me now, and my closest comrade was Jean Buche, the son of a
+sledge-maker at Harberg, who had never eaten anything better than potatoes
+before he became a conscript. Buche turned in his feet in walking, but he
+never seemed to know the meaning of being tired, and in his own fashion was
+a wonderful pedestrian.</p>
+
+<p>From Metz we marched through Thionville, Ch&acirc;telet, Etain, Dannevoux,
+Yong, Vivier, and Cul-de-Sard. All our troops were pouring into
+Belgium--cavalry, infantry, and artillery--and though there were no signs
+of the enemy, it was reported that we were to attack the English. I thought
+as well English as Prussians, Austrians, or Russians, since we were to kill
+each other.</p>
+
+<p>On the night of June 14 we bivouacked outside the village of Roly, and
+General Pécheux read a proclamation by the emperor, reminding us
+that this was the anniversary of Marengo, that the powers were in coalition
+against France, and that the hour had come for France to conquer or
+perish.</p>
+
+<p>It is impossible to describe the enthusiasm at this message from the
+emperor; our courage was stronger, and the conscripts were even more
+anxious than the veterans for the fighting to begin.</p>
+
+<p>We were up at daybreak next day and on the march, eager to get a sight
+of the Prussians, who had been repulsed from Charleroi by the emperor, we
+were told. At the village of Ch&acirc;telet we halted, and heard the noise of
+firing away across the River Sambre, in the direction of Gilly. An old bald
+peasant told us that evening that the Prussians had men in the villages of
+Fleurus and Lambusart, that the English and Belgians were on the great
+Brussels road, and that the causeway through Quatre Bras and Ligny enabled
+the Prussians and English to communicate freely with each other. He also
+told us that the Prussians said insulting things of the French army, and
+were generally hated by the people. When I heard of the way the Prussians
+boasted, my blood boiled, and I said to myself, "There shall be no more
+compassion. Either they or we must be utterly destroyed."</p>
+
+<p>I can recall with what splendour the sun rose next morning above a
+cornfield--it was the morning of the battle of Ligny.
+Zébédé and one or two comrades whom I had known in
+1813 came and chattered while we lit our fires. We could see the Prussians
+before us, posting themselves behind hedges and walls, and preparing to
+defend the villages, and all the time we were kept roasting in the corn,
+waiting for the signal to attack. The emperor arrived, and held a short
+conference with the superior officers, and I saw him at close quarters
+before he rode off again to the village of Fleurus, already vacated by the
+Prussians.</p>
+
+<p>And still we waited, though we knew the attack on St. Amand had
+begun.</p>
+
+<p>At last came our turn to advance on Ligny. "Forward! Forward!" cried the
+officers. "Vive l'Empereur!" we shouted. The Prussian bullets whizzed like
+hail upon us, and then we could see or hear nothing till we were in the
+village.</p>
+
+<p>No quarter was given that day; we fought in houses and gardens, in barns
+and lanes, with muskets and bayonets. Those who fell were lost. At one time
+fifteen of us were in possession of a barn, and the Prussians, for a time
+outnumbering us, drove us up a ladder. They fired up at our floor, and
+finally, when it seemed we were lost, and were all to be massacred we heard
+the shout of "Vive l'Empereur!" and the Prussians fled. Out of that fifteen
+only six were left alive, but Zébédé and Buche were
+among the survivors.</p>
+
+<p>The battle still raged in the village streets, dead and dying were
+everywhere. Towards nightfall it was plain we were the victors; Ligny and
+St. Amand were in our hands, and the Prussians had moved away. On the
+plateau behind Ligny, where our cavalry had been at work, the slaughter had
+been terrible.</p>
+
+<p>The dozen or so remaining of our company rested for a few hours that
+night in the ruins of a farmhouse, and next day came the roll-call of our
+battalion, and the sending off of the wounded. More than 360 of our men,
+including Commandant Gémeau and Captain Vidal, were disabled, and we
+were busy all day over the wounded.</p>
+
+<p>It was wet and muddy that evening, and we were hungry and dispirited
+when we reached Quatre Bras, about eight o'clock. We were not allowed to
+halt here, but marched on to a village called Jemappes, and at midnight we
+settled down in a furrow to wait for morning.</p>
+
+<p>The red coats of the English were visible before us when we awoke next
+morning; behind their lines was the village of Mont St. Jean, and they had
+also the farmhouses of La Haie-Sainte and Hougomont. At six o'clock I
+looked at their position, with Zébédé, Captain
+Florentin, and Buche, and it seemed to me it was a difficult task before
+us. It was Sunday, and I could hear the bells of villages, recalling
+Phalsbourg. But in a very little while we heard no more bells, for at
+half-past eight our battalion was on its way to the high road in front, and
+the battle of Waterloo had begun.</p>
+
+
+<h4><i>IV.--The Hour of Disaster</i></h4>
+
+
+<p>I have often heard veterans describe the order of battle given by the
+emperor. But all I remember of that terrible day is that we marched out
+with the bands playing, that we got to close quarters with the English,
+were repulsed, and were assisted by regiments of cuirassiers, that we
+carried La Haie-Sainte with terrible slaughter at Ney's command. Hougomont
+we could not carry. When we thought we were winning, the news was spread
+that Bl&uuml;cher, with 60,000 men, was advancing on our flank, and that unless
+Grouchy, with his 30,000, arrived in time to reinforce us the day might be
+lost.</p>
+
+<p>All the world knows now that Grouchy did not arrive, that we threw
+ourselves again and again upon the English squares, and that at last, when
+regiment after regiment had tried in vain to break the enemy's line, the
+Old Guard were called up by the emperor. It was the last chance of
+retrieving the day, the grand stroke--and it failed.</p>
+
+<p>The four battalions of the Guards, reduced from 3,000 to 1,200 men, were
+assailed by so fierce a fire that they were compelled to retire. They
+retired slowly, defending themselves with muskets and bayonets, but with
+their retirement, and the approach of night, the battle ended for us in the
+confusion of a rout. It was like a flood. We were surrounded on all sides
+when Bl&uuml;cher arrived. The Old Guard formed a square for the emperor and his
+officers, and the rest of us simply straggled away, back to France. The
+most awful thing of all was the beating of the drum of the Old Guard in
+that hour of disaster. It was like a fire-bell, the last appeal of a
+burning nation.</p>
+
+<p>Buche was by my side in the retreat. Several times the Prussians
+attacked us. We heard that the emperor had departed for Paris, and we
+struggled on, only hoping to escape with our lives. At Charleroi the
+inhabitants shut the city gates in our face, and Buche shared in the
+general rage, and proposed to destroy the town. But I thought we had had
+enough massacres, and that it was not right we should be killing our own
+countrymen, and I persuaded Buche to come on with me.</p>
+
+<p>In a few days we felt ourselves safe from pursuing Prussians, and at the
+village of Bouvigny I wrote a letter to Catherine, telling her I was safe.
+In this village some officers of our regiment, the 6th of the Line, found
+us, and we had to rejoin. Presently we saw all that was left of Grouchy's
+army corps in retreat, and a day or two later we heard of the emperor's
+abdication. On July 1, we reached Paris, and outside the city, near the
+village of Issy, we once more fell in with the Prussians; for two days we
+fought them with fury, and then some generals announced that peace had been
+made.</p>
+
+<p>We believed that this truce was to give the enemy time to leave the
+country, and that otherwise France would rise, as it rose in '92, and drive
+them out.</p>
+
+<p>Unhappily, we soon learnt that the Prussians and English were to occupy
+Paris, and that the remains of the French army were to be kept beyond the
+Loire. We all felt that we had been betrayed, and the old officers, pale
+with anger, wept in their misery. Paris in the hands of the Prussians!
+Besides, were we to go to the other side of the Loire at the command of
+Bl&uuml;cher?</p>
+
+<p>Desertions began that very day, and I said to Buche, "Let us return to
+Phalsbourg and Harberg, and take up our work, and live like honest men."
+About fifty of us from Alsace-Lorraine were in the battalion, and we set
+off together on the road to Strasbourg.</p>
+
+<p>On July 8 we heard that Louis XVIII. was to come back, and already the
+white banner of the Bourbons was being displayed in the villages.</p>
+
+<p>In some places there were rascals who called us Buonapartists, and
+gendarmes who took us to the town hall and made us shout "Vive le Roi!"
+Buche and some of the old soldiers hated this; but what did it matter who
+was king, and what these fools wanted us to shout?</p>
+
+<p>Our little company got smaller and smaller as men halted in their own
+villages, and when, on July 16, we reached Phalsbourg, Buche and I were
+alone.</p>
+
+<p>Buche went on to break the news of my return, but I could not wait, and
+ran after him.</p>
+
+<p>I heard people saying, "There's Joseph, Bertha," and in a moment I was
+in the house, and in Catherine's arms. Then I embraced M. Goulden, and an
+hour later Aunt Grédel arrived.</p>
+
+<p>Jean Buche would not stay and dine with us, but hurried home to Harberg.
+I have often seen him since; and Zébédé, too, who
+remained in the army.</p>
+
+<p>Many insulting things were said about us by the Pinacles, but I had
+happiness in my family circle, especially when Catherine presented me with
+a little Joseph.</p>
+
+<p>I am an old man now, but M. Goulden always said the principles of
+freedom and liberty would triumph, and I have lived long enough to see his
+words come true.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+
+
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="feuillet">OCTAVE FEUILLET</a></h2>
+
+
+<h3><a name="feuillet1">Romance of a Poor Young Man</a></h3>
+
+<p class="letter">
+Octave Feuillet, born at Saint L&ocirc;, in France, on August
+11, 1821, was the son of a Norman gentleman who regarded literature as an
+ignoble profession. When Octave ran away to Paris in order to pursue a
+literary career, his father refused to help him, and for some years the
+young writer had a very hard struggle. But on taking to novel-writing,
+Feuillet quickly acquired fame and fortune. His "Romance of a Poor Young
+Man" ("Le Roman d'un Jeune Homme Pauvre"), which appeared in 1858, made him
+the most popular author of the day. Standing midway between the novelists
+of the romantic school and the writers of the realistic movement, he
+combined a sense of the poetry of life with a gift for analysing the finer
+shades of feeling. The plot of the "Romance of a Poor Young Man" is
+certainly extraordinary; but in the present case some allowance must be
+made for the fact that the hero is induced to accept the humble position in
+which he finds himself by his old family lawyer, who secretly designs to
+marry him to the daughter of his new employers. A scheme of this sort would
+not Strike a French reader as improbable, for marriage in France is often
+more a business arrangement than a love affair. Feuillet spent the latter
+part of his life in retirement, and died on December 29, 1890.
+</p>
+
+<h4><i>I.--A Nobleman in Difficulties</i></h4>
+
+
+<p>Here I am, then, in the situation that Lawyer Laubépin obtained
+for me. I am alone at last, thank goodness, sitting in a gloomy room in
+this old Breton castle, in which the former steward to the Laroque family
+used to live. My position is certainly very strange, but as Laubépin
+was discreet, and did not tell his clients that he was sending them a new
+steward in the person of the young Marquis of Champcey, perhaps I shall not
+find my post very difficult. I was afraid that the Laroques were a family
+of the vulgarly rich sort, like the dreadful persons who have bought my
+father's lands. Laroque is a picturesque figure in his old age, and though
+his widowed daughter-in-law is rather more commonplace, his grand-daughter,
+Marguerite Laroque, is a nobly beautiful girl.</p>
+
+<p>If it were not for my accursed pride, I should now feel happier than I
+have ever felt since that day of disaster, misery, and shame when
+Laubépin told me that my poor dead father had lost his fortune in
+speculations, and left nothing but his title and his debts. Well, I have
+paid the debts, and if I can now only earn enough money to keep my little
+sister Hél&egrave;ne at school, I shall not grumble at my lot. I
+feel the loss of my friends, it is true. There is not a soul I can confide
+in, and I must find some outlet for the thoughts and feelings that oppress
+me; so I will keep this diary.</p>
+
+<p>It will be at least a silent confidant, and perhaps when I am older I
+shall be able to read with a certain pleasurable interest its record of my
+singular adventures. No other man in France, on May 1, 1857, can have been
+transformed so suddenly, as by the wand of a witch, from a powerful and
+wealthy young nobleman of ancient lineage into a humble and despised
+domestic servant. Perhaps a good fairy will appear and restore me to my
+proper shape; but I wish she had appeared at dinner this evening. There
+were twenty guests, and it was the first time since the change of my
+fortunes that I took part in a society affair. Nobody spoke to me, except
+the pretty little governess of the family, Mlle. Hélouin; and we
+were placed at the end of the table. The position of honour was given to a
+young and brilliant nobleman, M. de Bévallan, whose estate joined
+that of the Laroque family. I gathered from Mlle. Hélouin that it
+was his ambition to unite the two estates by marrying Mlle. Marguerite
+Laroque. I was, therefore, surprised when the lovely heiress led her
+grandfather into the room when everybody was seated, placed him in a chair
+by Bévallan, and came and sat by my side.</p>
+
+<p>"She can't," I thought to myself, "be much in love with her wooer," and
+I began to study her with a certain curiosity. Her fine, clear-cut features
+and large dark eyes attracted me; and by way of opening the conversation I
+spoke of the wildly beautiful scenery through which I had passed on my way
+to the castle. It was a bad beginning.</p>
+
+<p>"I see," she said, with a singular expression of irony, "that you are a
+poet. You must talk about the forests and moorlands with Mlle.
+Hélouin, who also adores these things. For my part I do not love
+them."</p>
+
+<p>"What is it, then, that you really love?" I said.</p>
+
+<p>She gave me a supercilious look and said, in a hard voice, "Nothing,
+sir."</p>
+
+<p>I must confess I was hurt. I could not see that I had done anything to
+lay myself open to so harsh an answer. No doubt I was only a servant. But
+why had she come and sat beside me if she did not want to talk? I was glad
+when the dinner was over and we went into the drawing-room. Madame Laroque,
+the widowed mother of Marguerite, began to ask M. Bévallan about the
+new opera in Paris; he was unable to reply, so, as I had seen the work in
+Italy before it was produced in France, I gave her a description of it. I
+am afraid I forgot myself with Madame Laroque--a fine-looking, cultivated
+woman of forty years of age. Flattered by the way in which she treated me
+entirely as her equal, I insensibly glided from theatrical topics to
+fashionable gossip, and just stopped in time in an anecdote about my tour
+in Russia. A few more words and she would have learnt that her humble
+steward, Maxime Odiot--as I am now called--was a man with very aristocratic
+connections.</p>
+
+<p>In order to hide my embarrassment, I moved towards the table where some
+of the guests were playing whist. This led to my committing a blunder
+which, I fear, may make my position a difficult one. Among the
+whist-players was a Mlle. de Porhoet-Gael, eighty-eight years of age and
+full of strange crotchets. The last descendant of the noblest of Breton
+families, she lived, so Madame Laroque told me, on an income of forty
+pounds a year, her fortune having been spent in vainly fighting for the
+succession to a great estate in Spain. She was talking about it to her
+partner when I came up.</p>
+
+<p>"The estate belongs to me," she was saying. "My father told me so a
+hundred times, and the persons who are trying to take it from me have no
+more connection with my family than this handsome young gentleman has."</p>
+
+<p>And she designated me with a look and a movement of her head. No doubt
+she did not mean to imply that because I was a steward I was of mean birth;
+but I was stung by her remark, and forgetting myself, I replied rather
+sharply, "You are mistaken, madam, in thinking that I am unrelated to your
+family."</p>
+
+<p>"You will have to prove that to me, young man."</p>
+
+<p>Confused and ashamed, I withdrew into the corner and tried to talk to
+Mlle. Hélouin about poetry and art, but at last, upset and
+distracted, I arose and walked out of the room. Mlle. de Porhoet followed
+me.</p>
+
+<p>"Monsieur Odiot," she said, "would you mind seeing me home? My servant
+has not arrived, and I am growing too feeble now to walk without help."</p>
+
+<p>Naturally, I went with her.</p>
+
+<p>"What did you mean," she said, as we walked on together, "by claiming to
+be a relation of mine?"</p>
+
+<p>"I hope," I replied very humbly, "that you will pardon a jest
+that--"</p>
+
+<p>"A jest!" she interrupted. "Is a matter touching my honour a jest? I
+see; a remark which would be an insult if addressed to a man becomes only a
+jest when it is levelled at an old, unprotected woman."</p>
+
+<p>After that, nothing was left to me, as a man of honour, but to entrust
+her with my secret. There had been several marriages between our families,
+and after listening with great interest to the story of my troubles, she
+became wonderfully kind in her manner to me.</p>
+
+<p>"You must come and see me to-morrow, cousin," she said, when we parted.
+"My law-suit is going very badly and I should like you to go through all my
+papers, and see if you can discover any new documents in support of my
+claim. Do not despair, my dear, over your own misfortunes. I think I shall
+be able to help you."</p>
+
+
+<h4><i>II.--Love and Jealousy</i></h4>
+
+
+<p>I am afraid I lack the industry necessary for keeping a diary. It is now
+two months since I wrote the last entry. If I had made every night a brief
+note of the events of the day, I should now have a better view of my
+position. Has Mlle. de Porhoet betrayed my secret? There has certainly been
+a curious change in my relations with the Laroques. I fancy it began on the
+day when Marguerite and I met at last on an equal footing at Mlle. de
+Porhoet's house. The document which I had just then found may not be as
+important as we thought, but our common joy in what we considered was a
+discovery of tremendous value brought us closer together.</p>
+
+<p>But I cannot understand Marguerite. Sometimes she still goes out of her
+way to be insulting towards me, and sometimes she treats me with a sweet
+frankness which has something sisterly in it. One day, for instance, she
+came to my window and asked me if I would go for a walk with her. "Bring
+your sketch-book, Monsieur Odiot," she called out gaily, "and I will take
+you to Merlin's Tomb in the Enchanted Valley."</p>
+
+<p>As a matter of fact, the woods around the castle of the Laroques were
+the remains of the famous forest of Broceliande, and I had always been
+promising myself a long ramble through this region of romance, but I had
+never found time to explore it. I was now glad I had waited, for Marguerite
+was a charming guide. Never had I seen her so light-hearted. When we
+reached a great block of stone in the depth of the wood, under which the
+wizard Merlin is said to be imprisoned by Vivien, Marguerite made herself a
+garland of oak-leaves, and standing like a lovely priestess clad all in
+white against the Druidic monument, she asked me to make a sketch of her.
+With what joy did I paint the poetic vision before me! I think she was
+pleased with the drawing, but on our way back to the castle a foolish word
+of mine brought our friendship to an end. We came to a picturesque little
+lake, at the end of which was a waterfall, overgrown with brambles. In
+order to show what a good swimmer her dog was, Marguerite threw something
+in the current and told him to fetch it, but he got carried over the
+waterfall and caught in the whirlpool below.</p>
+
+<p>"Come away! He is drowning--come away! I can't bear to see it!" cried
+Marguerite, seizing me by the arm. "No, do not attempt to save him. The
+pool is very dangerous."</p>
+
+<p>I am a good swimmer, however, and with a little trouble I managed to
+rescue the dog.</p>
+
+<p>"What madness!" she murmured. "You might have been drowned, and just for
+a dog!"</p>
+
+<p>"It was yours," I answered in a low voice.</p>
+
+<p>Her manner at once changed.</p>
+
+<p>"You had better run home, Monsieur Odiot," she said very coldly, "or you
+will get a chill. Do not wait for me."</p>
+
+<p>So I returned alone, and for some days Marguerite never spoke a word to
+me. What was still worse, M. Bévallan appeared at the castle, and
+she went for walks with him, leaving me in the company of Mlle.
+Hélouin. I am afraid that I became very friendly with the pretty
+governess. Nothing, however, that I ever said to her, or that she said to
+me, prepared me for the strange scene that happened to-night. As I was
+walking along the terrace, she came up and took my arm, and said, "Are you
+really my friend, Maxime?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," I said.</p>
+
+<p>"Then tell me the truth," she exclaimed. "Do you love me, or do you love
+Mademoiselle Marguerite?"</p>
+
+<p>"Why do you bring in her name?" I said.</p>
+
+<p>"Ah, you love her!" she cried fiercely; "or, rather, you love her
+fortune. But you shall never have it, Monsieur de Champcey. I know why you
+came here under a false name, and so shall she."</p>
+
+<p>With a movement of anger she departed. I cannot continue here under
+suspicion of being a fortune-hunter, so I have written to Laubépin
+to obtain another situation for me.</p>
+
+
+<h4><i>III.--Two on a Tower</i></h4>
+
+
+<p>It is all over. Was it because she still only half believed the slanders
+spread against me that Marguerite again asked me to go for a walk with her?
+Oh, what an unfortunate wretch I am! We rode through the forest together to
+one of the most magnificent monuments in Brittany, the Castle of Elven.
+Finding the door unlocked, we tethered our horses in the deserted
+courtyard, and climbed up the narrow, winding staircase to the battlements.
+The sea of autumnal foliage below was bathed in the light of the setting
+sun, and for a long time we sat side by side in silence, gazing at the
+infinite distances.</p>
+
+<p>"Come!" she said at last, in a low whisper, as the light died out of the
+sky. "It is finished!"</p>
+
+<p>But on descending the dark staircase we found that the door of the keep
+was locked. No doubt the shepherd boy who looked after the castle had come
+and shut up the place while we were sitting, watching the sunset.</p>
+
+<p>"Monsieur de Champcey," she said, in a cold, hard voice, "were there any
+scoundrels in your family before you?"</p>
+
+<p>"Marguerite!" I cried.</p>
+
+<p>"You paid that boy to lock us in," she exclaimed. "You think you will
+force me to marry you by compromising me in this manner. Do you think you
+will win my hand--and, what is more important to you still, my wretched
+wealth--by this trick? Rather than marry a scoundrel like you, I will shut
+myself up in a convent!"</p>
+
+<p>Carried away by my feelings, I seized her two hands, and said, "Now
+listen, Marguerite. I love you, it is true. Never did man love more
+devotedly, yes, and more disinterestedly, than I do. But I swear that if I
+get out of this place alive I will never marry you until you are as poor as
+I am, or I as rich as you are. If you love me, as I think you do, fall on
+your knees and pray, for unless a miracle happens you will never see me
+again alive."</p>
+
+<p>But a miracle did happen. I threw myself out of the window, and fell
+upon a branch of an oak-tree. It bent beneath my weight, and then broke;
+but it came so near the earth before breaking that if my left arm had not
+struck against the masonry I should have escaped uninjured. As it was, my
+arm was smashed, and I swooned away with the pain. When I came to,
+Marguerite was leaning out of the window, calling, "Maxime, speak to me!
+For the love of heaven, speak to me, and say you pardon me!"</p>
+
+<p>I arose, saying, "I am not hurt. If you will only wait another hour, I
+will go home and get some one to let you out. Believe me, I will save your
+honour as I have saved my own."</p>
+
+<p>Binding up my arm, I got on my horse, and galloped back to Laroque
+Castle. On the way I met Bévallan.</p>
+
+<p>"Have you seen Mlle. Marguerite?" he said. "We are afraid she has got
+lost."</p>
+
+<p>"I met her this afternoon," I replied. "She told me she was going for a
+ride to Elven Castle."</p>
+
+<p>He rode off in the direction from which I had come, and when I returned
+from the doctor with my broken arm set and bandaged, Marguerite and
+Bévallan entered.</p>
+
+<p>Hearing that I had had an accident, Madame Laroque came up late to-night
+to see me. Old Laroque has had a stroke of paralysis, she tells me, and she
+wishes to get the marriage contract between her daughter and
+Bévallan signed to-morrow. Laubépin is bringing the
+document.</p>
+
+
+<h4><i>IV.---A Test Case</i></h4>
+
+
+<p>I don't know why I take the trouble to go on with this diary, but having
+begun it I may as well finish it. Laubépin wanted me to go into the
+drawing-room to witness the signing of the marriage contract, but happily I
+was too ill to leave my bed; not only was my arm very painful, but I was
+suffering from the shock of the fall. What an hour of misery I passed
+before Mlle. de Porhoet-Gael appeared with the news of what had happened!
+Her sweet, kind old eyes were bright with joy.</p>
+
+<p>"It is all over," she said. "Bévallan has gone, and young
+Hélouin has also been turned out of the house."</p>
+
+<p>I started up with surprise.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," she continued, with a smile, "the contract has not been signed.
+Our friend Laubépin drew it up in such a way that the husband was
+not able to touch a penny of the wife's money. M. Bévallan objected
+to this; while he and his lawyer were arguing the matter with
+Laubépin, Marguerite rose up.</p>
+
+<p>"'Throw the contract in the fire,' she said, 'and, mother, give this
+gentleman back the presents he sent to me.'</p>
+
+<p>"Laubépin threw the deed in the flames, and Marguerite and her
+mother walked out of the room.</p>
+
+<p>"'What is the meaning of this?' cried Bévallan.</p>
+
+<p>"'I will tell you,' I answered. 'A certain young lady was afraid that
+you were merely a fortune-hunter. She wanted to be certain of it, and now
+she is so.'</p>
+
+<p>"Thereupon I, too, left the room.</p>
+
+<p>"But what is the matter with you, my dear boy? You are as pale as a
+corpse."</p>
+
+<p>The fact was that the unexpected news aroused in me such a mixture of
+joyful and painful feelings that I fell back in a swoon. When I recovered,
+dear old Laubépin was standing by my bed.</p>
+
+<p>"Will you not confide in me, my boy?" he said rather sadly. "Something,
+I can see, has happened which has made you miserable on the very day on
+which you should be full of joy. What is it?"</p>
+
+<p>Moved by his sympathy, I gave him this diary to read, and poured out my
+very soul to him.</p>
+
+<p>"It is useless for me," he said at last, "to conceal from you the fact
+that I sent you here with the design to marry you to Marguerite. Everything
+at first went as well as I could wish, and Madame Laroque was delighted
+with the match. You and Marguerite were made for each other, and you fell
+in love almost at first sight. But this affair at the Castle of Elven is
+something I had not reckoned on. To leap out of the window at the risk of
+breaking your neck was, my romantic young friend, a sufficient
+demonstration of your disinterestedness. You need not have taken a solemn
+oath never to marry Marguerite until you were as rich as she is. What can
+you do now? You cannot forswear yourself, and you cannot suddenly make an
+immense fortune."</p>
+
+<p>"I must depart with you," I said very sorrowfully. "There is no other
+way."</p>
+
+<p>"No, Maxime," he replied, "you are too unwell to move. Remain here for
+one month longer; then, if you do not hear from me, return to Paris."</p>
+
+<p>It is now a week since he left me, and I have seen no one for the last
+seven days but the servant who waits upon me. He tells me that Laroque has
+died, and that Marguerite and her mother, who have been tending him night
+and day, have worn themselves out, and are now laid up with some sort of
+fever. Mlle. de Porhoet is also very ill, and not expected to live. Since I
+am well enough to walk over to Mlle. de Porhoet. I am told that she keeps
+asking to see me.</p>
+
+
+<h4><i>V.--Two in a Garden</i></h4>
+
+
+<p>The little maid who came to open the door was weeping, and as I came in
+I was surprised to hear the voice of Laubépin.</p>
+
+<p>"It is Maxime, Marguerite," he said.</p>
+
+<p>Had Marguerite also risen up from a bed of sickness to see Mlle. de
+Porhoet? I sprang up the stairs, and entered the room.</p>
+
+<p>"My poor, dear boy!" said Mlle. de Porhoet, in a strange, broken
+voice.</p>
+
+<p>She was lying in bed. Laubépin, a priest, and a doctor were
+standing on one side, and Marguerite and her mother were kneeling down in
+prayer on the other. I saw at once that she was at the point of death, and
+knelt down beside Marguerite. The poor dying woman smiled faintly, and
+groped for my hand and put it in Marguerite's, and then fell back on the
+pillow. She was dead.</p>
+
+<p>Laubépin led me out of the room, and put a document in my hand.
+It was a will, and the ink on it was hardly dry. Mlle. de Porhoet had made
+me her heir.</p>
+
+<p>"How good of her!" I said to Laubépin. "I shall treasure her
+testament as a mark of her love for me. I will settle her little estate on
+my sister. It will at least keep Hél&egrave;ne from having to go out
+into the world as a governess."</p>
+
+<p>"And it will keep you, my friend, from having to go out into the world
+as a steward," said Laubépin, with a smile. "Don't you remember that
+document about the Spanish succession which you discovered and sent to me?
+We have won the law-suit, and you are the heir to an estate in Spain which
+will make you one of the richest men in France."</p>
+
+<p>I went into the garden to think over my strange fortune. How long I sat
+there in the darkness I do not know. On rising up, I heard a faint sound
+beneath one of the trees, and a beloved form emerged from the foliage, and
+stood against the starry sky.</p>
+
+<p>"Marguerite!" I cried, running up to her with outstretched arm.</p>
+
+<p>She murmured my name, and as I clasped her her lips sought mine, and we
+poured our souls out in a kiss.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p>I have given Hél&egrave;ne half of my fortune. Marguerite is my
+wife, and I close these pages for ever, having nothing more to confide to
+them. It can be said of men, as it has been said of nations, "Happy are
+those that have no story."</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+
+
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="fielding">HENRY FIELDING</a></h2>
+
+
+<h3><a name="fielding1">Amelia</a></h3>
+
+<p class="letter">
+Henry Fielding was born at Sharpham Park, near Glastonbury,
+England, April 12, 1707. His father, a grandson of the Earl of Desmond, and
+great-grandson of the first Earl of Denbigh, settled in England shortly
+after the battle of Ramillies as a country squire. In due course, Fielding
+was sent to Eton, and afterwards to Leyden, where he remained for two years
+studying civil law. Financial difficulties, however, put a temporary end to
+his intention of entering the Bar, and in 1727 he solved the problem of a
+career by beginning to write for the stage. During the next nine years some
+eighteen of his plays were produced. In 1748 he was appointed a justice of
+peace for Westminster, and his writings on police and crime are of interest
+to this day. "Amelia" was published in 1751, when its author was a
+magistrate at Bow Street. In a dedicatory letter, Fielding explained that
+the book was "sincerely designed to promote the cause of virtue, and to
+expose some of the most glaring evils, as well public as private, which at
+present infest the country." The licentiousness of wealthy "men about
+town," the corruption of justice, the abuses of the prison system, the lack
+of honour concerning marriage--these are some of the "glaring evils"
+exposed with all the great novelist's power in "Amelia." In the characters
+of Dr. Harrison and Amelia herself, the virtuous man and woman are drawn so
+clearly that they inevitably win the reader's sympathy. "Amelia" does not
+equal the genius of "Tom Jones," but it is remarkable for being so largely
+devoted to the adventures of a married couple, instead of ending at
+marriage. Fielding died on October 8, 1754.
+</p>
+
+<h4><i>I.--The Inside of a Prison</i></h4>
+
+
+<p>On the first of April, in the year--, the watchmen of a certain parish
+in Westminster brought several persons, whom they had apprehended the
+preceding night, before Jonathan Thrasher, Esq., one of the justices of the
+peace for that city.</p>
+
+<p>Among the prisoners a young fellow, whose name was Booth, was charged
+with beating the watchman in the execution of his office, and breaking his
+lantern. The justice perceiving the criminal to be but shabbily dressed,
+was going to commit him without asking any further questions, but at the
+earnest request of the accused the worthy magistrate submitted to hear his
+defence.</p>
+
+<p>The young man then alleged that as he was walking home to his lodgings
+he saw two men in the street cruelly beating a third, upon which he had
+stopped and endeavoured to assist the person who was so unequally attacked;
+that the watch came up during the affray, and took them all four into
+custody; that they were immediately carried to the round-house, where the
+two original assailants found means to make up the matter, and were
+discharged by the constable, a favour which he himself, having no money in
+his pocket, was unable to obtain. He utterly denied having assaulted any of
+the watchmen, and solemnly declared that he was offered his liberty at the
+price of half a crown.</p>
+
+<p>Though the bare word of an offender can never be taken against the oath
+of his accuser, yet the magistrate might have employed some labour in
+cross-examining the watchman, or at least have given the defendant time to
+send for the other persons who were present at the affray; neither of which
+he did.</p>
+
+<p>Booth and the poor man in whose defence he had been engaged were both
+dispatched to prison under a guard of watchmen.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Booth was no sooner arrived in the prison than a number of persons
+gathered around him, all demanding garnish. The master or keeper of the
+prison then acquainted him that it was the custom of the place for every
+prisoner, upon his first arrival there, to give something to the former
+prisoners to make them drink. This was what they called garnish. Mr. Booth
+answered that he would readily comply with this laudable custom, were it in
+his power; but that in reality he had not a shilling in his pocket, and,
+what was worse, he had not a shilling in the world. Upon which the keeper
+departed, and left poor Booth to the mercy of his companions, who, without
+loss of time, stripped him of his coat and hid it.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Booth was too weak to resist and too wise to complain of his usage.
+He summoned his philosophy to his assistance, and resolved to make himself
+as easy as possible under his present circumstances.</p>
+
+<p>On the following day, Miss Matthews, an old acquaintance whom he had not
+seen for some years, was brought into the prison, and Booth was shortly
+afterwards invited to the room this lady had engaged. Miss Matthews, having
+told her story, requested Booth to do the same, and to this he acceded.</p>
+
+
+<h4><i>II.--Captain Booth Tells His Story</i></h4>
+
+
+<p>"From the first I was in love with Amelia; but my own fortune was so
+desperate, and hers was entirely dependent on her mother, a woman of
+violent passions, and very unlikely to consent to a match so highly
+contrary to the interest of her daughter, that I endeavoured to refrain
+from any proposal of love. I had nothing more than the poor provision of an
+ensign's commission to depend on, and the thought of leaving my Amelia to
+starve alone, deprived of her mother's help, was intolerable to me.</p>
+
+<p>"In spite of this I could not keep from telling Amelia the state of my
+heart, and I soon found all that return of my affection which the tenderest
+lover can require. Against the opposition of Amelia's mother, Mrs. Harris,
+to our engagement, we had the support of that good man, Dr. Harrison, the
+rector; and at last Mrs. Harris yielded to the doctor, and we were married.
+There was an agreement that I should settle all my Amelia's fortune on her,
+except a certain sum, which was to be laid out in my advancement in the
+army, and shortly afterwards I was preferred to the rank of a lieutenant in
+my regiment, and ordered to Gibraltar. I noticed that Amelia's sister, Miss
+Betty, who had said many ill-natured things of our marriage, now again
+became my friend.</p>
+
+<p>"At the siege of Gibraltar I was very badly wounded, and in this
+situation the image of my Amelia haunted me day and night. Two months and
+more I continued in a state of uncertainty; when one afternoon poor
+Atkinson, my servant, came running to my room. I asked him what was the
+matter, when Amelia herself rushed into the room, and ran hastily to me.
+She gently chided me for concealing my illness from her, saying, 'Oh, Mr.
+Booth! And do you think so little of your Amelia as to think I could or
+would survive you?' Amelia then informed me that she had received a letter
+from an unknown hand, acquainting her with my misfortune, and advising her,
+if she desired to see me more, to come directly to Gibraltar.</p>
+
+<p>"From the time of Amelia's arrival nothing remarkable happened till my
+perfect recovery; and then the siege being at an end, and Amelia being in
+some sort of fever, the governor gave me leave to attend my wife to
+Montpelier, the air of which was judged to be most likely to restore her to
+health.</p>
+
+<p>"A fellow-officer, Captain James, willingly lent me money, and, after an
+ample recovery at Montpelier, and a stay in Paris, we returned to England.
+It was in Paris we received a long letter from Dr. Harrison, enclosing
+&pound;100, and containing the news that Mrs. Harris was dead, and had left
+her whole fortune to Miss Betty. So now it was that I was a married man
+with children, and the half-pay of a lieutenant.</p>
+
+<p>"Dr. Harrison, at whose rectory we were staying, came to our assistance.
+He asked me if I had any prospect of going again into the army; if not,
+what scheme of life I proposed to myself.</p>
+
+<p>"I told him that as I had no powerful friends, I could have but little
+expectations in a military way; that I was incapable of thinking of any
+other scheme, for I was without the necessary knowledge or experience, and
+was likewise destitute of money to set up with.</p>
+
+<p>"The doctor, after a little hesitation, said he had been thinking on
+this subject, and proposed to me to turn farmer. At the same time he
+offered to let me his parsonage, which was then become vacant; he said it
+was a farm which required but little stock, and that little should not be
+wanting.</p>
+
+<p>"I embraced this offer very eagerly, and Amelia received the news with
+the highest transports of joy. Thus, you see me degraded from my former
+rank in life; no longer Captain Booth, but Farmer Booth.</p>
+
+<p>"For a year all went well; love, health, and tranquillity filled our
+lives. Then a heavy blow befell us, and we were robbed of our dear friend
+the doctor, who was chosen to attend the young lord, the son of the patron
+of the living, in his travels as a tutor.</p>
+
+<p>"By this means I was bereft not only of the best companion in the world,
+but of the best counsellor, and in consequence of this loss I fell into
+many errors.</p>
+
+<p>"The first of these was in enlarging my business by adding a farm of one
+hundred a year to the parsonage, in renting which I had also as bad a
+bargain as the doctor had before given me a good one. The consequence of
+which was that whereas at the end of the first year I was &pound;80 to the
+good, at the end of the second I was nearly &pound;40 to the bad.</p>
+
+<p>"A second folly I was guilty of was in uniting families with the curate
+of the parish, who had just married. We had not, however, lived one month
+together before I plainly perceived the curate's wife had taken a great
+prejudice against my wife, though my Amelia had treated her with nothing
+but kindness, and, with the mischievous nature of envy, spread dislike
+against us.</p>
+
+<p>"My greatest folly, however, was the purchase of an old coach. The
+farmers and their wives considered that the setting up of a coach was the
+elevating ourselves above them, and immediately began to declare war
+against us. The neighbouring little squires, too, were uneasy to see a poor
+renter become their equal in a matter in which they placed so much dignity,
+and began to hate me likewise.</p>
+
+<p>"My neighbours now began to conspire against me. Whatever I bought, I
+was sure to buy dearer, and when I sold, I was obliged to sell cheaper than
+any other. In fact, they were all united; and while they every day
+committed trespasses on my lands with impunity, if any of my cattle escaped
+into their fields I was either forced to enter into a law-suit or to make
+amends for the damage sustained.</p>
+
+<p>"The consequence of all this could be no other than ruin. Before the end
+of four years I became involved in debt to the extent of &pound;300. My
+landlord seized my stock for rent, and, to avoid immediate confinement in
+prison, I was forced to leave the country.</p>
+
+<p>"In this condition I arrived in town a week ago. I had just taken a
+lodging, and had written my dear Amelia word where she might find me; and
+that very evening, as I was returning from a coffee-house, because I
+endeavoured to assist the injured party in an affray, I was seized by the
+watch and committed here by a justice of the peace."</p>
+
+
+<h4><i>III.--Amelia in London</i></h4>
+
+
+<p>Miss Matthews, being greatly drawn to Captain Booth, procured his
+discharge by the expenditure of &pound;20, and obtained her own release at
+the same time.</p>
+
+<p>Amelia arrived in London to receive her husband in her arms. "For," said
+she, "your confinement was known all over the county, my sister having
+spread the news with a malicious joy; and so, not hearing from you, I
+hastened to town with our children."</p>
+
+<p>Poor Booth, in spite of his release, was very cast down. Seeing tears in
+his eyes at the sight of his children, Amelia, embracing him with rapturous
+fondness, cried out, "My dear Billy, let nothing make you uneasy. Heaven
+will provide for us and these poor babes. Great fortunes are not necessary
+to happiness. Make yourself easy, my dear love, for you have a wife who
+will think herself happy with you, and endeavour to make you so, in any
+situation. Fear nothing, Billy; industry will always provide us a wholesome
+meal."</p>
+
+<p>Booth, who was naturally of a sanguine temper, took the cue she had
+given him, but he could not help reproaching himself as the cause of all
+her wretchedness. This it was that enervated his heart and threw him into
+agonies, which all that profusion of heroic tenderness that the most
+excellent of women intended for his comfort served only to heighten and
+aggravate: as the more she rose in his admiration, the more she quickened
+the sense of his unworthiness.</p>
+
+<p>His affairs did not prosper; in vain he solicited a commission in the
+army. With no great man to back him, and with his friend, Captain James
+(now a colonel, and in London), too taken up with his own affairs to exert
+any influence on behalf of Booth, it seemed as though no escape from misery
+was possible. The beautiful Amelia, always patient and cheerful, remained
+his comforter. And Atkinson, now a sergeant in the guards, was the devoted
+servant of both Amelia and her husband.</p>
+
+<p>Then one morning, when Amelia was out, Booth was arrested for debt and
+carried to the bailiff's house in Gray's Inn Lane.</p>
+
+<p>"Who has done this barbarous action?" cries Amelia, when the news is
+told her by Sergeant Atkinson.</p>
+
+<p>"One I am ashamed to name," cries the sergeant; "indeed, I had always a
+very different opinion of him; but Dr. Harrison is the man who has done the
+deed."</p>
+
+<p>"Dr. Harrison!" cries Amelia. "Well, then, there is an end of all
+goodness in the world. I will never have a good opinion of any human being
+more!"</p>
+
+<p>The fact was that while the doctor was abroad he had received from the
+curate, and from a gentleman of the neighbourhood, accounts of Booth's
+doings very much to his disadvantage. On his return to the parish these
+accusations were confirmed by many witnesses, and the whole neighbourhood
+rang with several gross and scandalous lies, which were merely the
+inventions of Booth's enemies. Poisoned with all this malice, the doctor
+came to London, and calling at Booth's lodgings, when both the captain and
+Amelia were out, learnt from the servant-maid that the children had got a
+gold watch and several fine trinkets. These presents, indeed, had come from
+a certain noble lord, who hoped by these means to win Amelia's affection;
+but no suspicion of his evil desire had entered the innocent mind of
+Amelia.</p>
+
+<p>The doctor had no doubt that these trinkets had been purchased by
+Amelia; and this account tallied so well with the ideas he had imbibed of
+Booth's extravagance in the country, that he firmly believed both the
+husband and wife to be the vainest, silliest and most unjust people
+alive.</p>
+
+<p>But no sooner did the doctor hear that Booth was arrested than the
+wretched condition of his wife and children began to affect his mind. In
+this temper of mind he resolved to pay Amelia a second visit, and was on
+his way thither when Sergeant Atkinson met him, and made himself known to
+him.</p>
+
+<p>The doctor received from Atkinson such an account of Booth and his
+family that he hastened at once to Amelia, and soon became satisfied
+concerning the trinkets which had given him so much uneasiness. Amelia
+likewise gave the doctor some satisfaction as to what he had heard of her
+husband's behaviour In the country, and assured him, upon her honour, that
+Booth could answer every complaint against his conduct, so that the doctor
+would find him an innocent, unfortunate man, the object of a good man's
+compassion, not of his anger or resentment.</p>
+
+<p>This worthy clergyman, who was not desirous of finding proofs to condemn
+the captain, rejoiced heartily in every piece of evidence which tended to
+clear up the character of his friend, and gave a ready ear to all which
+Amelia said.</p>
+
+<p>Induced, indeed, by the love he always had for that lady, whom he was
+wont to call his daughter, as well as by pity for her present condition,
+the doctor immediately endeavoured to comfort the afflicted, and then
+proceeded to accomplish the captain's release.</p>
+
+<p>"So, captain," says the doctor, on arrival at the bailiff's house, "when
+last we met I believe that we neither of us expected to meet in such a
+place as this."</p>
+
+<p>"Indeed, doctor," cries Booth, "I did not expect to have been sent
+hither by the gentleman who did me this favour."</p>
+
+<p>"How so, sir!" said the doctor. "You were sent hither by some person, I
+suppose, to whom you were indebted. But you ought to be more surprised that
+the gentleman who sent you thither is come to release you."</p>
+
+
+<h4><i>IV.--Fortune Smiles on Amelia</i></h4>
+
+
+<p>Booth was again arrested some months later, and lodged in the bailiff's
+house. This time his creditor was a Captain Trent, who had lent him money,
+and promised him assistance in getting returned to the army. In reality,
+Trent was only seeking to ingratiate himself with Amelia, and meeting with
+no encouragement, took his revenge accordingly.</p>
+
+<p>Amelia at once sought out Dr. Harrison, and told him what had occurred
+to her husband; and the doctor set forwards to the bailiff's to see what he
+could do for Booth.</p>
+
+<p>The doctor had not got so much money in town as Booth's debt amounted
+to, and therefore he was forced to give bail to the action.</p>
+
+<p>While the necessary forms were being made out, the bailiff, addressing
+himself to the doctor, said, "Sir, there is a man above in a dying
+condition that desires the favour of speaking to you. I believe he wants
+you to pray by him."</p>
+
+<p>Without making any further inquiry, the doctor immediately went
+upstairs.</p>
+
+<p>The sick man mentioned his name, and explained that he lived for many
+years in the town where the doctor resided, and that he used to write for
+the attorneys in those parts. He was anxious, he said, as he hoped for
+forgiveness, to make all the amends he could to some one he had injured,
+and to undo, if possible, the injury he had done.</p>
+
+<p>The doctor commended this as a sincere repentance.</p>
+
+<p>"You know, good doctor," the sick man resumed, "that Mrs. Harris, of our
+town, had two daughters--one now Mrs. Booth, and another. Before Mrs.
+Harris died, she made a will, and left all her fortune, except
+&pound;1,000, to Mrs. Booth, to which will Mr. Murphy, the lawyer, myself,
+and another were witnesses. Mrs. Harris afterwards died suddenly, upon
+which it was contrived, by her other daughter and Mr. Murphy, to make a new
+will, in which Mrs. Booth had a legacy of &pound;10, and all the rest was
+given to the other."</p>
+
+<p>"Good heaven, how wonderful is thy providence!" cries the doctor.
+"Murphy, say you? Why, this Murphy is still my attorney."</p>
+
+<p>Within a short time Murphy was arrested, and the sick man's depositions
+taken. Booth was released on the doctor's bail, and on the following
+morning Amelia learnt of the change in fortune that had befallen them.</p>
+
+<p>Dr. Harrison himself broke the good news by reading the following
+paragraph from the newspaper.</p>
+
+<p>"Yesterday, one Murphy, an eminent attorney-at-law, was committed to
+Newgate for the forgery of a will, under which an estate has been for many
+years detained from the right owner."</p>
+
+<p>"Now," said the doctor, "in this paragraph there is something very
+remarkable, and that is that it is true. But now let us read the following
+note upon the words 'right owner.' 'The right owner of this estate is a
+young lady of the highest merit, whose maiden name was Harris, and who some
+time since was married to an idle fellow, one Lieutenant Booth; and the
+best historians assure us that letters from the elder sister of this lady,
+which manifestly prove the forgery and clear up the whole affair, are in
+the hands of an old parson, called Dr. Harrison.'"</p>
+
+<p>"And is this really true?" cries Amelia.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, really and sincerely," cries the doctor, "the whole estate--for
+your mother left it you all; and it is as surely yours as if you were
+already in possession."</p>
+
+<p>"Gracious heaven!" cries she, falling on her knees, "I thank you!" And
+then, starting up, she ran to her husband, and embracing him, cried, "My
+dear love, I wish you joy! It is upon yours and my children's account that
+I principally rejoice."</p>
+
+<p>She then desired her children to be brought to her, whom she immediately
+caught in her arms; and having profusely cried over them, soon regained her
+usual temper and complexion.</p>
+
+<p>Miss Harris, having received a letter from Amelia, informing her of the
+discovery and the danger in which she stood, immediately set out for
+France, carrying with her all her money, most of her clothes, and some few
+jewels.</p>
+
+<p>About a week afterwards, Booth and Amelia, with their children, and
+Atkinson and his wife, all set forward together for Amelia's house, where
+they arrived amidst the acclamations of all the neighbours, and every
+public demonstration of joy.</p>
+
+<p>Miss Harris lived for three years with a broken heart at Boulogne, where
+she received annually &pound;50 from her sister; and then died in a most
+miserable manner.</p>
+
+<p>Dr. Harrison is grown old in years and in honour, beloved and respected
+by all his parishioners and neighbours.</p>
+
+<p>As to Booth and Amelia, fortune seems to have made them large amends for
+the tricks she played them in their youth. They have continued to enjoy an
+uninterrupted course of health and happiness. In about six weeks after
+Booth's first coming into the country, he went to London and paid all his
+debts, after which, and a stay of two days only, he returned into the
+country, and has never since been thirty miles from home.</p>
+
+<p>Amelia is still the finest woman in England of her age; Booth himself
+often avers she is as handsome as ever. Nothing can equal the serenity of
+their lives.</p>
+
+<p>Amelia declared the other day that she did not remember to have seen her
+husband out of humour these ten years!</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+
+
+
+<h3><a name="fielding2">Jonathan Wild</a></h3>
+
+<p class="letter">
+"Jonathan Wild," published in 1743, is in many respects
+Fielding's most powerful piece of satire, surpassed only, perhaps, by
+Thackeray's "Barry Lyndon." It can hardly be called a novel, and still less
+a serious biography, though it is founded on the real history of a
+notorious highway robber and thief. The author disclaimed in his preface
+any attempt on his part at authentic history or faithful portraiture.
+"Roguery, and not a rogue is my subject," he wrote; adding, that the ideas
+of goodness and greatness are too often confounded together. "A man may be
+great without being good, or good without being great." The story of
+"Jonathan Wild" is really a bitter, satirical attack on what Fielding
+called "the greatness which is totally devoid of goodness." He avowed it
+his intention "to expose the character of this bombast greatness," and no
+one can deny the success of his achievement. Surely no story was ever
+written under more desperate circumstances. The evils of poverty, which at
+this period were at their height, were aggravated by the serious illness of
+his wife, and his own sufferings from attacks of gout. These troubles and
+others may well increase our admiration for the genius which, in the face
+of all difficulties, is shown in "Jonathan Wild."
+</p>
+
+<h4><i>I.--Mr. Wild's Early Exploits</i></h4>
+
+
+<p>Mr. Jonathan Wild, who was descended from a long line of great men, was
+born in 1665. His father followed the fortunes of Mr. Snap, who enjoyed a
+reputable office under the sheriff of London and Middlesex; and his mother
+was the daughter of Scragg Hollow, Esq., of Hockley-in-the-Hole. He was
+scarce settled at school before he gave marks of his lofty and aspiring
+temper, and was regarded by his schoolfellows with that deference which men
+generally pay to those superior geniuses who will exact it of them. If an
+orchard was to be robbed, Wild was consulted; and though he was himself
+seldom concerned in the execution of the design, yet was he always
+concerter of it, and treasurer of the booty, some little part of which he
+would now and then, with wonderful generosity, bestow on those who took it.
+He was generally very secret on these occasions; but if any offered to
+plunder of his own head without acquainting Master Wild, and making a
+deposit of the booty, he was sure to have an information against him lodged
+with the schoolmaster, and to be severely punished for his pains.</p>
+
+<p>At the age of seventeen his father brought the young gentleman to town,
+where he resided with him till he was of an age to travel.</p>
+
+<p>Men of great genius as easily discover one another as Freemasons can. It
+was therefore no wonder that the Count la Ruse--who was confined in Mr.
+Snap's house until the day when he should appear in court to answer a
+certain creditor--soon conceived an inclination to an intimacy with our
+young hero, whose vast abilities could not be concealed from one of the
+count's discernment; for though the latter was exceedingly expert at his
+cards, he was no match for Master Wild, who never failed to send him away
+from the table with less in his pocket than he brought to it. With so much
+ingenuity, indeed, could our young hero extract a purse, that his hands
+made frequent visits to the count's pocket before the latter had
+entertained any suspicion of him. But one night, when Wild imagined the
+count asleep, he made so unguarded an attack upon him that the other caught
+him in the act. However, he did not think proper to acquaint him with the
+discovery he had made, but only took care for the future to button his
+pockets and to pack the cards with double industry.</p>
+
+<p>In reality, this detection recommended these two prigs to each other,
+for a wise man--that is to say, a rogue--considers a trick in life as a
+gamester doth a trick at play. It sets him on his guard, but he admires the
+dexterity of him who plays it.</p>
+
+<p>When our two friends met the next morning, the count began to bewail the
+misfortune of his captivity, and the backwardness of friends to assist each
+other in their necessities.</p>
+
+<p>Wild told him that bribery was the surest means of procuring his escape,
+and advised him to apply to the maid, telling him at the same time that as
+he had no money he must make it up with promises, which he would know how
+to put off.</p>
+
+<p>The maid only consented to leave the door open when Wild, depositing a
+guinea in the girl's hands, declared that he himself would swear that he
+saw the count descending from the window by a pair of sheets.</p>
+
+<p>Thus did our young hero not only lend his rhetoric, which few people
+care to do without a fee, but his money too, to procure liberty for his
+friend. At the same time it would be highly derogatory from the great
+character of Wild should the reader not understand that this was done
+because our hero had some interested view in the count's enlargement.</p>
+
+<p>Intimacy and friendship subsisted between the count and Mr. Wild, and
+the latter, now dressed in good clothes, was introduced into the best
+company. They constantly frequented the assemblies, auctions,
+gaming-tables, and play-houses, and Wild passed for a gentleman of great
+fortune.</p>
+
+<p>It was then that an accident occurred that obliged Wild to go abroad for
+seven years to his majesty's plantations in America; and there are such
+various accounts, one of which only can be true, of this accident that we
+shall pass them all over. It is enough that Wild went abroad, and stayed
+seven years.</p>
+
+
+<h4><i>II.--An Example of Wild's Greatness</i></h4>
+
+
+<p>The count was one night very successful at the gaming-table, where Wild,
+who was just returned from his travels, was then present; as was likewise a
+young gentleman whose name was Bob Bagshot, an acquaintance of Mr. Wild's.
+Taking, therefore, Mr. Bagshot aside, he advised him to provide himself
+with a case of pistols, and to attack the count on his way home.</p>
+
+<p>This was accordingly executed, and the count obliged to surrender to
+savage force what he had in so genteel a manner taken at play. As one
+misfortune never comes alone, the count had hardly passed the examination
+of Mr. Bagshot when he fell into the hands of Mr. Snap, who carried him to
+his house.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Wild and Mr. Bagshot went together to the tavern, where Mr. Bagshot
+offered to share the booty. Having divided the money into two unequal
+heaps, and added a golden snuffbox to the lesser heap, he desired Mr. Wild
+to take his choice.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Wild immediately conveyed the larger share of the ready into his
+pocket, according to an excellent maxim of his--"First secure what share
+you can before you wrangle for the rest"; and then, turning to his
+companion, he asked him whether he intended to keep all that sum himself.
+"I grant you took it," Wild said; "but, pray, who proposed or counselled
+the taking of it? Can you say that you have done more than execute my
+scheme? The ploughman, the shepherd, the weaver, the builder, and the
+soldier work not for themselves, but others; they are contented with a poor
+pittance--the labourer's hire--and permit us, the great, to enjoy the
+fruits of their labours. Why, then, should the state of a prig differ from
+all others? Or why should you, who are the labourer only, the executor of
+my scheme, expect a share in the profit? Be advised, therefore; deliver the
+whole booty to me, and trust to my bounty for your reward."</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Bagshot not being minded to yield to these arguments, Wild adopted a
+fiercer tone, and the other was glad to let him borrow a part of his share.
+So that Wild got three-fourths of the whole before taking leave of his
+companion.</p>
+
+<p>Wild then returned to visit his friend the count, now in captivity at
+Mr. Snap's; for our hero was none of those half-bred fellows who are
+ashamed to see their friends when they have plundered and betrayed
+them.</p>
+
+<p>The count, little suspecting that Wild had been the sole contriver of
+the misfortune which had befallen him, eagerly embraced him, and Wild
+returned his embrace with equal warmth.</p>
+
+<p>While they were discoursing, Mr. Snap introduced Mr. Bagshot; for Mr.
+Bagshot had lost what money he had from Mr. Wild at a gaming-table, and was
+directly afterwards arrested for debt. Mr. Wild no sooner saw his friend
+than he immediately presented him to the count, who received him with great
+civility. But no sooner was Mr. Bagshot out of the room than the count said
+to Wild, "I am very well convinced that Bagshot is the person who robbed
+me, and I will apply to a justice of the peace."</p>
+
+<p>Wild replied with indignation that Mr. Bagshot was a man of honour, but,
+as this had no weight with the count, he went on, more vehemently, "I am
+ashamed of my own discernment when I mistook you for a great man. Prosecute
+him, and you may promise yourself to be blown up at every gaming-house in
+the town. But leave the affair to me, and if I find he hath played you this
+trick, I will engage my own honour you shall in the end be no loser." The
+count answered, "If I was sure to be no loser, Mr. Wild, I apprehend you
+have a better opinion of my understanding than to imagine I would prosecute
+a gentleman for the sake of the public."</p>
+
+<p>Wild having determined to make use of Bagshot as long as he could, and
+then send him to be hanged, went to Bagshot next day and told him the count
+knew all, and intended to prosecute him, and the only thing to be done was
+to refund the money.</p>
+
+<p>"Refund the money!" cried Bagshot. "Why, you know what small part of it
+fell to my share!"</p>
+
+<p>"How?" replied Wild. "Is this your gratitude to me for saving your life?
+For your own conscience must convince you of your guilt."</p>
+
+<p>"Marry come up!" quoth Bagshot. "I believe my life alone will not be in
+danger. Can you deny your share?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, you rascal!" answered Wild. "I do deny everything, and do you find
+a witness to prove it. I will show you the difference between committing a
+robbery and conniving at it."</p>
+
+<p>So alarmed was Bagshot at the threats of Wild that he drew forth all he
+found in his pockets, to the amount of twenty-one guineas, which he had
+just gained at dice.</p>
+
+<p>Wild now returned to the count, and informed him that he had got ten
+guineas of Bagshot, and by these means the count was once more enlarged,
+and enabled to carry out a new plan of the great Wild.</p>
+
+
+<h4><i>III.--Mr. Heartfree's Weakness</i></h4>
+
+
+<p>By accident, Wild had met with a young fellow who had formerly been his
+companion at school.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Thomas Heartfree (for that was his name) was of an honest and open
+disposition. He was possessed of several great weaknesses of mind, being
+good-natured, friendly, and generous to a great excess.</p>
+
+<p>This young man, who was about Wild's age, had some time before set up in
+the trade of a jeweller, in the materials for which he had laid out the
+greatest part of a little fortune.</p>
+
+<p>He no sooner recognised Wild than he accosted him in the most friendly
+manner, and invited him home with him to breakfast, which invitation our
+hero, with no great difficulty, consented to.</p>
+
+<p>Wild, after vehement professions of friendship, then told him he had an
+opportunity of recommending a gentleman, on the brink of marriage, to his
+custom, "and," says he, "I will endeavour to prevail on him to furnish his
+lady with jewels at your shop."</p>
+
+<p>Having parted from Heartfree, Wild sought out the count, who, in order
+to procure credit from tradesmen, had taken a handsome house,
+ready-furnished, in one of the new streets. He instructed the count to take
+only one of Heartfree's jewels at the first interview, to reject the rest
+as not fine enough, and order him to provide some richer. The count was
+then to dispose of the jewel, and by means of that money, and his great
+abilities at cards and dice, to get together as large a sum as possible,
+which he was to pay down to Heartfree at the delivery of the set of
+jewels.</p>
+
+<p>This method was immediately put in execution; and the count, the first
+day, took only a single brilliant, worth about &pound;300, and ordered a
+necklace and earrings, of the value of &pound;3,000 more, to be prepared by
+that day week.</p>
+
+<p>This interval was employed by Wild in raising a gang, and within a few
+days he had levied several bold and resolute fellows, fit for any
+enterprise, how dangerous or great soever.</p>
+
+<p>The count disposed of his jewel for its full value, and by his dexterity
+raised &pound;1,000. This sum he paid down to Heartfree at the end of the
+week, and promised him the rest within a month. Heartfree did not in the
+least scruple giving him credit, but as he had in reality procured those
+jewels of another, his own little stock not being able to furnish anything
+so valuable. The count, in addition to the &pound;1,000 in gold, gave him
+his note for &pound;2,800 more.</p>
+
+<p>As soon as Heartfree was departed, Wild came in and received the casket
+from the count, and an appointment was made to meet the next morning to
+come to a division of its contents.</p>
+
+<p>Two gentlemen of resolution, in the meantime, attacked Heartfree on his
+way home, according to Wild's orders, and spoiled the enemy of the whole
+sum he had received from the count. According to agreement, Wild, who had
+made haste to overtake the conquerors, took nine-tenths of the booty, but
+was himself robbed of this &pound;900 before nightfall.</p>
+
+<p>As for the casket, when he opened it, the stones were but paste. For the
+sagacious count had conveyed the jewels into his own pocket, and in their
+stead had placed artificial stones. On Wild's departure the count hastened
+out of London, and was well on his way to Dover when Wild knocked at his
+door.</p>
+
+<p>Heartfree, wounded and robbed, had only the count's note left, and this
+was returned to him as worthless, inquiries having proved that the count
+had run away. So confused was poor Heartfree at this that his creditor for
+the jewels was frightened, and at once had him arrested for the debt.</p>
+
+<p>Heartfree applied in vain for money to numerous customers who were
+indebted to him; they all replied with various excuses, and the unhappy
+wretch was soon taken to Newgate. He had been inclined to blame Wild for
+his misfortunes, but our hero boldly attacked him for giving credit to the
+count, and this degree of impudence convinced both Heartfree and his wife
+of Wild's innocence, the more so as the latter promised to procure bail for
+his friend. In this he was unsuccessful, and it was long before Heartfree
+was released and restored to happiness.</p>
+
+
+<h4><i>IV.--The Highest Pinnacle of Greatness</i></h4>
+
+
+<p>Wild was a living instance that human greatness and happiness are not
+always inseparable. He was under a continual alarm of frights and fears and
+jealousies, and was thoroughly convinced there was not a single man amongst
+his own gang who would not, for the value of five shillings, bring him to
+the gallows.</p>
+
+<p>A clause in an act of parliament procured by a learned judge entrapped
+Wild. Hitherto he had always employed less gifted men to carry out his
+plans. Now, by this law it was made capital in a prig to steal with the
+hands of other people, and it was impossible for our hero to avoid the
+destruction so plainly calculated for his greatness.</p>
+
+<p>Wild, having received from some dutiful members of his gang a valuable
+piece of goods, did, for a consideration, re-convey it to the right owner,
+for which fact, being ungratefully informed against by the said owner, he
+was surprised in his own house, and, being overpowered by numbers, was
+hurried before a magistrate, and by him committed to Newgate.</p>
+
+<p>When the day of his trial arrived, our hero was, notwithstanding his
+utmost caution and prudence, convicted and sentenced to be hanged by the
+neck. He now suspected that the malice of his enemies would overpower him,
+and therefore betook himself to that true support of greatness in
+affliction--a bottle, by means of which he was enabled to curse, swear, and
+bully, and brave his fate. Other comfort, indeed, he had not much, for not
+a single friend ever came near him.</p>
+
+<p>From the time our hero gave over all hopes of life, his conduct was
+truly great and admirable. Instead of showing any marks of contrition or
+dejection, he rather infused more confidence and assurance into his looks.
+He spent most of his hours in drinking with acquaintances, and with the
+good chaplain; and being asked whether he was afraid to die, he answered,
+"It's only a dance without music. A man can die but once. Zounds! Who's
+afraid?"</p>
+
+<p>At length the morning came which Fortune had resolutely ordained for the
+consummation of our hero's greatness; he had himself, indeed, modestly
+declined the public honour she intended him, and had taken a quantity of
+laudanum in order to retire quietly off the stage. But it is vain to
+struggle against the decrees of fortune, and the laudanum proved
+insufficient to stop his breath.</p>
+
+<p>At the usual hour he was acquainted that the cart was ready, and his
+fetters having been knocked off in a solemn and ceremonious manner, after
+drinking a bumper of brandy, he ascended the cart, where he was no sooner
+seated than he received the acclamations of the multitude, who were highly
+ravished with his greatness.</p>
+
+<p>The cart now moved slowly on, preceded by a troop of Horse Guards,
+bearing javelins in their hands, through the streets lined with crowds all
+admiring the great behaviour of our hero, who rode on, sometimes sighing,
+sometimes swearing, sometimes singing or whistling, as his humour
+varied.</p>
+
+<p>When he came to the tree of glory, he was welcomed with an universal
+shout of the people; but there were not wanting some who maligned this
+completion of glory, now about to be fulfilled by our hero, and endeavoured
+to prevent it by knocking him on the head as he stood under the tree, while
+the chaplain was performing his last office.</p>
+
+<p>They therefore began to batter the cart with stones, brick-bats, dirt,
+and all manner of mischievous weapons, so that the ecclesiastic ended
+almost in an instant, and conveyed himself into a place of safety in a
+hackney coach.</p>
+
+<p>One circumstance must not be omitted. Whilst the chaplain was busy in
+his ejaculations, Wild, in the midst of the shower of stones, etc., which
+played upon him, true to his character, applied his hands to the parson's
+pocket, and emptied it of his bottle-screw, which he carried out of the
+world in his hand.</p>
+
+<p>The chaplain being now descended from the cart, Wild had just
+opportunity to cast his eyes around the crowd, and to give them a hearty
+curse, when immediately the horses moved on, and, with universal applause,
+our hero swung out of this world.</p>
+
+
+<hr />
+
+
+
+
+<h3><a name="fielding3">Joseph Andrews</a></h3>
+
+<p class="letter">
+"Joseph Andrews," Fielding's first novel, was published in
+1742, and was intended to be a satire on Richardson's "Pamela" (see Vol.
+VII), which appeared in 1740. He described it as "written in the manner of
+Cervantes," and in Parson Adams there is the same quaint blending of the
+humorous and the pathetic as in the Knight of La Mancha. Although such
+characters as Lady Booby and Mrs. Slipslop are admittedly ridiculous,
+Parson Adams remains an admirable study of a simple-minded clergyman of the
+eighteenth century.
+</p>
+
+<h4><i>I.--The Virtues of Joseph Andrews</i></h4>
+
+
+<p>Mr. Joseph Andrews was esteemed to be the only son of Gaffer and Gammer
+Andrews, and brother to the illustrious Pamela.</p>
+
+<p>At ten years old (by which time his education was advanced to writing
+and reading) he was bound an apprentice to Sir Thomas Booby, an uncle of
+Mr. Booby's by the father's side. From the stable of Sir Thomas he was
+preferred to attend as foot-boy on Lady Booby, to go on her errands, stand
+behind her chair, wait at her tea-table, and carry her prayer-book to
+church; at which place he behaved so well in every respect at divine
+service that it recommended him to the notice of Mr. Abraham Adams, the
+curate, who took an opportunity one day to ask the young man several
+questions concerning religion, with his answers to which he was wonderfully
+pleased.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Abraham Adams was an excellent scholar, a man of good sense and good
+nature, but at the same time entirely ignorant of the ways of the world. At
+the age of fifty he was provided with a handsome income of twenty-three
+pounds a year, which, however, he could not make any great figure with,
+because he was a little encumbered with a wife and six children.</p>
+
+<p>Adams had no nearer access to Sir Thomas or my lady than through Mrs.
+Slipslop, the waiting-gentlewoman, for Sir Thomas was too apt to estimate
+men merely by their dress or fortune, and my lady was a woman of gaiety,
+who never spoke of any of her country neighbours by any other appellation
+than that of the brutes.</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Slipslop, being herself the daughter of a curate, preserved some
+respect for Adams; she would frequently dispute with him, and was a mighty
+affecter of hard words, which she used in such a manner that the parson was
+frequently at some loss to guess her meaning.</p>
+
+<p>Adams was so much impressed by the industry and application he saw in
+young Andrews that one day he mentioned the case to Mrs. Slipslop, desiring
+her to recommend him to my lady as a youth very susceptible of learning,
+and one whose instruction in Latin he would himself undertake, by which
+means he might be qualified for a higher station than that of footman. He
+therefore desired that the boy might be left behind under his care when Sir
+Thomas and my lady went to London.</p>
+
+<p>"La, Mr. Adams," said Mrs. Slipslop, "do you think my lady will suffer
+any preambles about any such matter? She is going to London very concisely,
+and I am confidous would not leave Joey behind on any account, for he is
+one of the genteelest young fellows you may see in a summer's day; and I am
+confidous she would as soon think of parting with a pair of her grey mares,
+for she values herself on one as much as the other. And why is Latin more
+necessitous for a footman than a gentleman? I am confidous my lady would be
+angry with me for mentioning it, and I shall draw myself into no such
+delemy."</p>
+
+<p>So young Andrews went to London in attendance on Lady Booby, and became
+acquainted with the brethren of his profession. They could not, however,
+teach him to game, swear, drink, nor any other genteel vice the town
+abounded with. He applied most of his leisure hours to music, in which he
+greatly improved himself, so that he led the opinion of all the other
+footmen at an opera. Though his morals remain entirely uncorrupted, he was
+at the same time smarter and genteeler than any of the beaus in town either
+in or out of livery.</p>
+
+<p>At this time an accident happened, and this was no other than the death
+of Sir Thomas Booby, who left his disconsolate lady closely confined to her
+house. During the first six days the poor lady admitted none but Mrs.
+Slipslop and three female friends, who made a party at cards; but on the
+seventh she ordered Joey, whom we shall hereafter call Joseph, to bring up
+her teakettle.</p>
+
+<p>Lady Booby's affection for her footman had for some time been a matter
+of gossip in the town, but it is certain that her innocent freedoms had
+made no impression on young Andrews.</p>
+
+<p>Now, however, he thought my lady had become distracted with grief at her
+husband's death, so strange was her conduct, and wrote to his sister Pamela
+on the subject.</p>
+
+<p class="letter">
+If madam be mad, I shall not care for staying long in the
+family, so I heartily wish you could get me a place at some neighbouring
+gentleman's. I fancy I shall be discharged very soon, and the moment I am I
+shall return to my old master's country seat, if it be only to see Parson
+Adams, who is the best man in the world. London is a bad place, and there
+is so little good fellowship that the next-door neighbours don't know one
+another. Your loving brother,<br /> JOSEPH ANDREWS.
+</p>
+
+<p>The sending of this letter was quickly followed by the discharge of the
+writer. To Lady Booby's open declarations of love, Joseph replied that a
+lady having no virtue was not a reason against his having any.</p>
+
+<p>"I am out of patience!" cries the lady, "did ever mortal hear of a man's
+virtue? Will magistrates who punish lewdness, or parsons who preach against
+it, make any scruple of committing it? And can a boy have the confidence to
+talk of his virtue?"</p>
+
+<p>"Madam," says Joseph, "that boy is the brother of Pamela, and would be
+ashamed that the chastity of his family, which is preserved in her, should
+be stained in him. If there are such men as your ladyship mentions, I am
+sorry for it, and I wish they had an opportunity of reading my sister
+Pamela's letters; nor do I doubt but such an example would amend them."</p>
+
+<p>"You impudent villain!" cries the lady in a rage. "Get out of my sight,
+and leave the house this night!"</p>
+
+<p>Joseph having received what wages were due, and having been stripped of
+his livery, took a melancholy leave of his fellow-servants and set out at
+seven in the evening.</p>
+
+
+<h4><i>II.--Adventures on the Road</i></h4>
+
+
+<p>It may be wondered why Joseph made such extraordinary haste to get out
+of London, and why, instead of proceeding to the habitation of his father
+and mother, or to his beloved sister Pamela, he chose rather to set out
+full speed to Lady Booby's country seat, which he had left on his journey
+to town.</p>
+
+<p>Be it known then, that in the same parish where this seat stood there
+lived a young girl whom Joseph longed more impatiently to see than his
+parents or his sister. She was a poor girl, formerly bred up in Sir
+Thomas's house, and, discarded by Mrs. Slipslop on account of her
+extraordinary beauty, was now a servant to a farmer in the parish.</p>
+
+<p>Fanny was two years younger than our hero, and had been always beloved
+by him, and returned his affection. They had been acquainted from their
+infancy, and Mr. Adams had, with much ado, prevented them from marrying,
+and persuaded them to wait till a few years' service and thrift had a
+little improved their experience, and enabled them to live comfortably
+together.</p>
+
+<p>They followed this good man's advice, as, indeed, his word was little
+less than a law in his parish, for during twenty-five years he had shown
+that he had the good of his parishioners entirely at heart, so that they
+consulted him on every occasion, and very seldom acted contrary to his
+opinion.</p>
+
+<p>Honest Joseph therefore set out on his travels without delay, in order
+that he might once more look upon his Fanny, from whom he had been absent
+for twelve months.</p>
+
+<p>But on the road he was attacked by robbers, and, having been left
+wounded in a ditch, was mercifully taken to an inn by some later
+travellers.</p>
+
+<p>It was at this same inn that, to the great surprise on both sides, Mr.
+Abraham Adams found Joseph.</p>
+
+<p>The parson informed his young friend, who was still sick in bed, that
+the occasion of the journey he was making to London was to publish three
+volumes of sermons, being encouraged, as he said, by an advertisement
+lately set forth by the Society of Booksellers; but, though he imagined he
+should get a considerable sum of money on this occasion, which his family
+were in urgent need of, he protested he would not leave Joseph in his
+present penniless condition. Finally, he told him he had nine shillings and
+threepence-halfpenny in his pocket, which he was welcome to use as he
+pleased.</p>
+
+<p>This goodness of Parson Adams brought tears into Joseph's eyes; he had
+now a second reason to desire life, that he might show his gratitude to
+such a friend.</p>
+
+<p>Before pursuing his journey Adams made the acquaintance of another
+clergyman named Barnabas at the inn, who in his turn, hearing that Adams
+was proposing to publish sermons, introduced him to a stranger who he said
+was a bookseller.</p>
+
+<p>Adams, saluting the stranger, answered Barnabas that he was very much
+obliged to him; that nothing could be more convenient, for he had no other
+business to the great city, and was heartily desirous of returning with the
+young man, who was just recovered of his misfortune. To induce the
+bookseller to be as expeditious as possible, he assured them their meeting
+was extremely lucky to himself, for that he had the most pressing occasion
+for money at that time, his own being almost spent. "So that nothing," says
+he, "could be so opportune as my making an immediate bargain with you."</p>
+
+<p>"Sir, sermons are mere drugs," said the stranger. "The trade is so
+vastly stocked with them that really, unless they come out with the name of
+Whitefield or Wesley, or some other such great man, as a bishop, or those
+sort of people, I don't care to touch. However, I will, if you please, take
+the manuscript with me to town, and send you my opinion of it in a very
+short time."</p>
+
+<p>When, however, Adams began to describe the nature of his sermons the
+bookseller drew back, on the ground that the clergy would be certain to cry
+down such a book.</p>
+
+<p>An accident prevented Mr. Adams from pursuing a market for his sermons
+any further, which he would have done in spite of the advice of Barnabas
+and the bookseller. This accident was, that those sermons which the parson
+was travelling to London to publish were left behind; what he had mistaken
+for them in the saddle-bags were three shirts, which Mrs. Adams, who
+thought her husband would need shirts rather than sermons on his journey,
+had carefully provided for him.</p>
+
+<p>Joseph, concerned at the disappointment to his friend, begged him to
+pursue his journey all the same, and promised he would himself return with
+the books to him with the utmost expedition.</p>
+
+<p>"No, thank you, child," answered Adams; "it shall not be so. What would
+it avail me to tarry in the great city unless I had my discourses with me?
+No; as this accident has happened, I am resolved to return back to my cure,
+together with you; which, indeed, my inclination sufficiently leads me
+to."</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Adams, whose credit was good wherever he was known, having borrowed
+a guinea from a servant belonging to a coach-and-six, who had been formerly
+one of his parishioners, discharged the bill for Joseph and himself, and
+the two travellers set off.</p>
+
+
+<h4><i>III.--More Adventures</i></h4>
+
+
+<p>Adams and Joseph Andrews being for a time separated on the road, through
+the former's absent-mindedness, it fell to the lot of the parson to hasten
+to the assistance of a damsel who in a lonely place was being attacked by
+some ruffian.</p>
+
+<p>Adams was as strong as he was brave, and having rescued the maiden, took
+her under his protection. It was too dark for either to identify the other,
+but on Mr. Adams ejaculating the name of Joseph Andrews, for whose safety
+he was anxious, his companion recognised his voice, and the parson was
+quickly informed that it was Fanny who was by his side.</p>
+
+<p>The fact was the poor girl had heard of Joseph's misfortune from the
+servants of a coach which had stopped at the inn while the poor youth was
+confined to his bed; and she had that instant abandoned the cow she was
+milking, and taking with her a little bundle of clothes under her arm, and
+all the money she was worth in her own purse, immediately set forward in
+pursuit of one whom she loved with inexpressible violence, though with the
+purest and most delicate passion.</p>
+
+<p>Fanny was now in the nineteenth year of her age; she was tall and
+delicately shaped. Her hair was a chestnut brown; her complexion was fair;
+and, to conclude all, she had a natural gentility which surprised all who
+beheld her.</p>
+
+<p>Can it be wondered that on the following day, when Adams and the damsel
+overtook Andrews at a wayside ale-house, the youth imprinted numberless
+kisses on her lips, while Parson Adams danced about the room in a rapture
+of joy?</p>
+
+<p>It was so late when our travellers left the ale-house that they had not
+travelled many miles before night overtook them. They moved forwards where
+the nearest light presented itself; and having crossed a common field, they
+came to a meadow where they seemed to be at a very little distance from the
+light, when, to their grief, they arrived at the banks of a river. Adams
+declared he could swim, but Joseph answered, if they walked along its banks
+they might be certain of soon finding a bridge, especially as, by the
+number of lights, they might be assured a parish was near.</p>
+
+<p>"That's true, indeed," said Adams. "I did not think of that."</p>
+
+<p>Accordingly, Joseph's advice being taken, they passed over two meadows,
+and came to a little orchard which led them to a house. Fanny begged of
+Joseph to knock at the door, assuring him she was so weary that she could
+hardly stand on her feet; and the door being immediately opened, a plain
+kind of man appeared at it. Adams acquainted him that they had a young
+woman with them, who was so tired with her journey that he should be much
+obliged to him if he would suffer her to come in and rest herself.</p>
+
+<p>The man, who saw Fanny by the light of the candle which he held in his
+hand, perceiving her innocent and modest look, and having no apprehensions
+from the civil behaviour of Adams, presently answered that the young woman
+was very welcome to rest herself in his house, and so were her company. He
+then ushered them into a very decent room, where his wife was sitting at a
+table; she immediately rose up, and assisted them in setting forth chairs,
+and desired them to sit down.</p>
+
+<p>They now sat cheerfully round the fire till the master of the house,
+having surveyed his guests, and conceiving that the cassock which appeared
+under Adams's greatcoat, and the shabby livery of Joseph Andrews, did not
+well suit the familiarity between them, began to entertain some suspicions
+not much to their advantage. Addressing himself, therefore, to Adams, he
+said he perceived he was a clergyman by his dress, and supposed that honest
+man was his footman.</p>
+
+<p>"Sir," answered Adams, "I am a clergyman, at your service; but as to
+that young man, whom you have rightly termed honest, he is at present in
+nobody's service; he never lived in any other family than that of Lady
+Booby, from whence he was discharged; I assure you, for no crime."</p>
+
+<p>The modest behaviour of Joseph, with the character which Adams gave of
+him, entirely cured a jealousy which had lately been in the gentleman's
+mind that Fanny was the daughter of some person of fashion and that Joseph
+had run away with her, and Adams was concerned in the plot. Having had a
+full account from Adams of Joseph's history he became enamoured of his
+guests, drank their healths with great cheerfulness; and, at the parson's
+request, told something of his own life.</p>
+
+<p>"Sir," says Adams, at the conclusion of the history, "fortune has, I
+think, paid you all her debts in this sweet retirement."</p>
+
+<p>"Sir," replied the gentleman, whose name was Wilson, "I have the best of
+wives and three pretty children; but within three years of my arrival here
+I lost my eldest son. If he had died I could have borne the loss with
+patience; but, alas, he was stolen away from my door by some wicked
+travelling people, whom they call gypsies; nor could I ever, with the most
+diligent search, recover him. Poor child, he had the sweetest look! The
+exact picture of his mother!" Mr. Wilson went on to say that he should know
+his son amongst ten thousand, for he had a mark on his breast of a
+strawberry.</p>
+
+
+<h4><i>IV.--Joseph Finds his Father</i></h4>
+
+
+<p>Our travellers, having well refreshed themselves at Mr. Wilson's house,
+renewed their journey next morning with great alacrity, and two days later
+reached the parish they were seeking.</p>
+
+<p>The people flocked about Parson Adams like children round a parent; and
+the parson, on his side, shook every one by the hand. Nor did Joseph and
+Fanny want a hearty welcome from all who saw them. Adams carried his
+fellow-travellers home to his house, where he insisted on their partaking
+whatever his wife could provide, and on the very next Sunday he published,
+for the first time, the banns of marriage between Joseph Andrews and Fanny
+Goodwill.</p>
+
+<p>Lady Booby, who was now at her country seat again, was furious when she
+heard in church these banns called, and at once sent for Mr. Adams, and
+rated him soundly.</p>
+
+<p>"It is my orders that you publish these banns no more, and if you dare,
+I will recommend it to your master, the rector, to discard you from his
+service," says my lady. "The fellow Andrews is a vagabond, and shall not
+settle here and bring a nest of beggars into the parish."</p>
+
+<p>"Madam," answered Adams, "I know not what your ladyship means by the
+terms 'master' and 'service.' I am in the service of a Master who will
+never discard me for doing my duty; and if the rector thinks proper to turn
+me from my cure, God will provide me, I hope, another."</p>
+
+<p>The malice of Lady Booby did not stop at this; she endeavoured to get
+Joseph and Fanny convicted on a trumped-up charge of trespass. In this base
+wickedness she was defeated by her nephew, young Squire Booby, who had
+married the virtuous Pamela, Joseph's sister; and at once stopped the
+proceedings. More than that, he carried off Andrews to Lady Booby's, and on
+his arrival, said, "Madam, as I have married a virtuous and worthy woman, I
+am resolved to own her relations, and show them all respect; I shall think
+myself, therefore, infinitely obliged to all mine who will do the same. It
+is true her brother has been your servant, but he has now become my
+brother."</p>
+
+<p>Lady Booby answered that she would be pleased to entertain Joseph
+Andrews; but when the squire went on to speak of Fanny, his aunt put her
+foot down resolutely against her civility to the young woman.</p>
+
+<p>And now both Pamela and her husband were inclined to urge Joseph to
+break off the engagement with Fanny, but the young man would not give way,
+and in this he was supported by Mr. Adams.</p>
+
+<p>The arrival of a peddler in the parish, who had shown some civility to
+Adams and Andrews when they were travelling on the road, threatened the
+marriage prospect much more dangerously for a time.</p>
+
+<p>According to the pedaler, who was a man of some education and birth,
+Fanny had been stolen away from her home when an infant, and sold for three
+guineas to Sir Thomas Booby; the name of her family was Andrews, and they
+had a daughter of a very strange name, Pamela. This story he had received
+from a dying woman when he had been a drummer in an Irish regiment.</p>
+
+<p>The only thing now to be done was to send for old Mr. Andrews and his
+wife; and, in the meantime, the pedal was bidden to Booby Hall to tell the
+whole story again. All who heard him were well satisfied of the truth,
+except Pamela, who imagined as neither of her parents had ever mentioned
+such an incident to her, it must be false; and except Lady Booby, who
+suspected the falsehood of the story from her ardent desire that it should
+be true; and Joseph, who feared its truth, from his earnest wishes that it
+might prove false.</p>
+
+<p>On the following morning news came of the arrival of old Mr. Andrews and
+his wife. Mr. Andrews assured Mr. Booby that he had never lost a daughter
+by gypsies, nor ever had any other children than Joseph and Pamela. But old
+Mrs. Andrews, running to Fanny, embraced her, crying out, "She is--she is
+my child!"</p>
+
+<p>The company were all amazed at this disagreement, until the old woman
+explained the mystery. During her husband's absence at Gibraltar, when he
+was a sergeant in the army, a party of gypsies had stolen the little girl
+who had been born to him, and left a small male child in her place. So she
+had brought up the boy as her own.</p>
+
+<p>"Well," says Gaffer Andrews, "you have proved, I think, very plainly,
+that this girl does not belong to us; I hope you are certain the boy is
+ours."</p>
+
+<p>Then it turned out that Joseph had a strawberry mark on his left breast,
+and this made the peddler, who knew all about Mr. Wilson's loss, satisfied
+that Joseph was no other than Mr. Wilson's son.</p>
+
+<p>So Mr. Wilson had to be sent for, who, on his arrival, no sooner saw the
+mark than he cried out with tears of joy, "I have discovered my son!"</p>
+
+<p>The banns having been duly called, there was now nothing to prevent the
+wedding, which, having taken place, Joseph and his wife settled down in Mr.
+Wilson's parish, Mr. Booby having given Fanny a fortune of &pound;2,000. He
+also presented Mr. Adams with a living of &pound;130 a year.</p>
+
+
+<hr />
+
+
+
+
+<h3><a name="fielding4">Tom Jones</a></h3>
+
+<p class="letter">
+"The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling," described in the
+dedication as the "labour of some years of my life," appeared in six
+volumes, on February 28, 1749, a short time after Fielding's appointment as
+justice of peace for Westminster. Though its broad humour and coarseness of
+expression are perhaps hard to bear in these times, it is by common consent
+Fielding's masterpiece, and by way of being one of the greatest novels in
+the language. For experience of life, observation of character, and sheer
+humanity, it is certainly an outstanding specimen of the English novel and
+manners. Like others of his books, "Tom Jones" was written during a period
+of great mental strain. Ever haunted by poverty, Fielding acknowledges his
+debt to his old schoolfellow Lyttelton, to whom he owed his "existence
+during the composition of the book." The story was popular from the first.
+</p>
+
+<h4><i>I.--Mr. Allworthy Makes a Discovery</i></h4>
+
+
+<p>In that part of the country which is commonly called Somersetshire there
+lately lived a gentleman whose name was Allworthy, and who might well be
+called the favourite of both nature and fortune. From the former of these
+he derived an agreeable person, a sound constitution, a solid
+understanding, and a benevolent heart; by the latter he was decreed to the
+inheritance of one of the largest estates in the country.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Allworthy lived, for the most part, retired in the country, with one
+sister, for whom he had a very tender affection. This lady, Miss Bridget
+Allworthy, now somewhat past the age of thirty, was of that species of
+women whom you commend rather for good qualities than beauty.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Allworthy had been absent a full quarter of a year in London on some
+very particular business, and having returned to his house very late in the
+evening, retired, much fatigued, to his chamber. Here, after he had spent
+some minutes on his knees--a custom which he never broke through on any
+account--he was preparing to step into bed, when, upon opening the clothes,
+to his great surprise, he beheld an infant wrapped up in some coarse linen,
+in a sweet and profound sleep, between his sheets. He stood for some time
+lost in astonishment at this sight; but soon began to be touched with
+sentiments of compassion for the little wretch before him. He then rang his
+bell, and ordered an elderly woman-servant to rise immediately and come to
+him.</p>
+
+<p>The consternation of Mrs. Deborah Wilkins at the finding of the little
+infant was rather greater than her master's had been; nor could she refrain
+from crying out, with great horror, "My good sir, what's to be done?"</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Allworthy answered she must take care of the child that evening, and
+in the morning he would give orders to provide it a nurse.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, sir," says she, "and I hope your worship will send out your
+warrant to take up the hussy its mother. Indeed, such wicked sluts cannot
+be too severely punished for laying their sins at honest men's doors; and
+though your worship knows your own innocence, yet the world is censorious,
+and if your worship should provide for the child it may make the people
+after to believe. If I might be so bold as to give my advice, I would have
+it put in a basket, and sent out and laid at the churchwarden's door. It is
+a good night, only a little rainy and windy, and if it was well wrapped up
+and put in a warm basket, it is two to one but it lives till it is found in
+the morning. But if it should not, we have discharged our duty in taking
+care of it; and it is, perhaps, better for such creatures to die in a state
+of innocence than to grow up and imitate their mothers."</p>
+
+<p>But Mr. Allworthy had now got one of his fingers into the infant's hand,
+which, by its gentle pressure, seeming to implore his assistance, certainly
+outpleaded the eloquence of Mrs. Deborah. Mr. Allworthy gave positive
+orders for the child to be taken away and provided with pap and other
+things against it waked. He likewise ordered that proper clothes should be
+procured for it early in the morning, and that it should be brought to
+himself as soon as he was stirring.</p>
+
+<p>Such was the respect Mrs. Wilkins bore her master, under whom she
+enjoyed a most excellent place, that her scruples gave way to his
+peremptory commands, and, declaring the child was a sweet little infant,
+she walked off with it to her own chamber.</p>
+
+<p>Allworthy betook himself to those pleasing slumbers which a heart that
+hungers after goodness is apt to enjoy when thoroughly satisfied.</p>
+
+<p>In the morning Mr. Allworthy told his sister he had a present for her,
+and, when Mrs. Wilkins produced the little infant, told her the whole story
+of its appearance.</p>
+
+<p>Miss Bridget took the good-natured side of the question, intimated some
+compassion for the helpless little creature, and commended her brother's
+charity in what he had done. The good lady subsequently gave orders for
+providing all necessaries for the child, and her orders were indeed so
+liberal that had it been a child of her own she could not have exceeded
+them.</p>
+
+
+<h4><i>II.--The Foundling Achieves Manhood</i></h4>
+
+
+<p>Miss Bridget having been asked in marriage by one Captain Blifil, a
+half-pay officer, and the nuptials duly celebrated, Mrs. Blifil was in
+course of time delivered of a fine boy.</p>
+
+<p>Though the birth of an heir to his beloved sister was a circumstance of
+great joy to Mr. Allworthy, yet it did not alienate his affections from the
+little foundling to whom he had been godfather, and had given his own name
+of Thomas; the surname of Jones being added because it was believed that
+was the mother's name.</p>
+
+<p>He told his sister, if she pleased, the newborn infant should be bred up
+together with little Tommy, to which she consented, for she had truly a
+great complaisance for her brother.</p>
+
+<p>The captain, however, could not so easily bring himself to bear what he
+condemned as a fault in Mr. Allworthy; for his meditations being chiefly
+employed on Mr. Allworthy's fortune, and on his hopes of succession, he
+looked on all the instances of his brother-in-law's generosity as
+diminutions of his own wealth.</p>
+
+<p>But one day, while the captain was exulting in the happiness which would
+accrue to him by Mr. Allworthy's death, he himself died of apoplexy.</p>
+
+<p>So the two boys grew up together under the care of Mr. Allworthy and
+Mrs. Blifil, and by the time he was fourteen Tom Jones--who, according to
+universal opinion, was certainly born to be hanged--had been already
+convicted of three robberies--<i>viz</i>., of robbing an orchard, of
+stealing a duck out of a farmer's yard, and of picking Master Blifil's
+pocket of a ball.</p>
+
+<p>The vices of this young man were, moreover, heightened by the
+disadvantageous light in which they appeared when opposed to the virtues of
+Master Blifil, his companion. He was, indeed, a lad of remarkable
+disposition--sober, discreet, and pious beyond his age; and many expressed
+their wonder that Mr. Allworthy should suffer such a lad as Tom Jones to be
+educated with his nephew lest the morals of the latter should be corrupted
+by his example.</p>
+
+<p>To say the truth, the whole duck, and great part of the apples, were
+converted to the use of Tom's friend, the gamekeeper, and his family;
+though, as Jones alone was discovered, the poor lad bore not only the whole
+smart, but the whole blame.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Allworthy had committed the instruction of the two boys to a learned
+divine, the Reverend Mr. Thwackum, who resided in the house; but though Mr.
+Allworthy had given him frequent orders to make no difference between the
+lads, yet was Thwackum altogether as kind and gentle to Master Blifil as he
+was harsh, nay, even barbarous, to the other. In truth, Blifil had greatly
+gained his master's affections; partly by the profound respect he always
+showed his person, but much more by the decent reverence with which he
+received his doctrine, for he had got by heart, and frequently repeated,
+his phrases, and maintained all his master's religious principles, with a
+zeal which was surprising in one so young.</p>
+
+<p>Tom Jones, on the other hand, was not only deficient in outward tokens
+of respect, often forgetting to pull off his cap at his master's approach,
+but was altogether unmindful both of his master's precepts and example.</p>
+
+<p>At the, age of twenty, however, Tom, for his love of hunting, had become
+a great favourite with Mr. Allworthy's neighbour, Squire Western; and
+Sophia, Mr. Western's only child, lost her heart irretrievably to him
+before she suspected it was in danger. On his side, Tom was truly sensible
+of the great worth of Sophia. He liked her person extremely, no less
+admired her accomplishments, and tenderly loved her goodness. In reality,
+as he had never once entertained any thoughts of possessing her, nor had
+ever given the least voluntary indulgence to his inclinations, he had a
+much stronger passion for her than he himself was acquainted with.</p>
+
+<p>An accident occurred on the hunting-field in saving Sophia from her too
+mettlesome horse kept Jones a prisoner for some time in Mr. Western's
+house, and during those weeks he not only found that he loved Sophia with
+an unbounded passion, but he plainly saw the tender sentiments she had for
+him; yet could not this assurance lessen his despair of obtaining the
+consent of her father, nor the horrors which attended his pursuit of her by
+any base or treacherous method.</p>
+
+<p>Hence, at the approach of the young lady, he grew pale; and, if this was
+sudden, started. If his eyes accidentally met hers, the blood rushed into
+his cheeks, and his countenance became all over scarlet. If he touched her,
+his hand, nay, his whole frame, trembled.</p>
+
+<p>All these symptoms escaped the notice of the squire, but not so of
+Sophia. She soon perceived these agitations of mind in Jones, and was at no
+loss to discover the cause; for, indeed, she recognised it in her own
+breast. In a word, she was in love with him to distraction. It was not long
+before Jones was able to attend her to the harpsichord, where she would
+kindly condescend for hours together to charm him with the most delicious
+music.</p>
+
+<p>The news that Mr. Allworthy was dangerously ill (for a servant had
+brought word that he was dying) broke off Tom's stay at Mr. Western's, and
+drove all the thoughts of love out of his head. He hurried instantly into
+the chariot which was sent for him, and ordered the coachman to drive with
+all imaginable haste; nor did the idea of Sophia once occur to him on the
+way.</p>
+
+
+<h4><i>III.--Tom Jones Falls into Disgrace</i></h4>
+
+
+<p>On the night when the physician announced that Mr. Allworthy was out of
+danger Jones was thrown into such immoderate excess of rapture by the news
+that he might be truly said to be drunk with joy--an intoxication which
+greatly forwards the effects of wine; and as he was very free, too, with
+the bottle, on this occasion he became very soon literally drunk.</p>
+
+<p>Jones had naturally violent animal spirits, and Thwackum, resenting his
+speeches, only the doctor's interposition prevented wrath kindling. After
+which, Jones gave loose to mirth, sang two or three amorous songs, and fell
+into every frantic disorder which unbridled joy is apt to inspire; but so
+far was he from any disposition to quarrel that he was ten times
+better-humoured, if possible, than when he was sober.</p>
+
+<p>Blifil, whose mother had died during her brother's illness, was highly
+offended at a behaviour which was so inconsistent with the sober and
+prudent reserve of his own temper. The recent death of his mother, he
+declared, made such conduct very indecent.</p>
+
+<p>"It would become them better," he said, "to express the exultations of
+their hearts at Mr. Allworthy's recovery in thanksgiving, than in
+drunkenness and riot."</p>
+
+<p>Wine had not so totally overpowered Jones as to prevent him recollecting
+Blifil's loss the moment it was mentioned. He at once offered to shake Mr.
+Blifil by the hand, and begged his pardon, saying his excessive joy for Mr.
+Allworthy's recovery had driven every other thought out of his mind.</p>
+
+<p>Blifil scornfully rejected his hand, and with an insulting illusion to
+the misfortune of Jones's birth provoked the latter to blows. The scuffle
+which ensued might have produced mischief had it not been for the
+interference of Thwackum and the physician.</p>
+
+<p>Blifil, however, only waited for an opportunity to be revenged on Jones,
+and the occasion was soon forthcoming when Mr. Allworthy was fully
+recovered from his illness.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Western had found out that his daughter was in love with Tom Jones,
+and at once decided that she should marry Blifil, to whom Sophia professed
+great abhorrence.</p>
+
+<p>As for Blifil, the success of Jones was much more grievous to him than
+the loss of Sophia, whose estate, indeed, was dearer to him than her
+person.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Western swore that his daughter shouldn't have a ha'penny, nor the
+twentieth part of a brass farthing, if she married Jones; and Blifil, with
+many sighs, professed to his uncle that he could not bear the thought of
+Sophia being ruined by her preference for Jones.</p>
+
+<p>"This lady, I am sure, will be undone in every sense; for, besides the
+loss of most part of her own fortune, she will be married to a beggar. Nay,
+that is a trifle; for I know him to be one of the worst men in the
+world."</p>
+
+<p>"How?" said Mr. All worthy. "I command you to tell me what you
+mean."</p>
+
+<p>"You know, sir," said Blifil, "I never disobeyed you. In the very day of
+your utmost danger, when myself and all the family were in tears, he filled
+the house with riot and debauchery. He drank, and sang, and roared; and
+when I gave him a gentle hint of the indecency of his actions, he fell into
+a violent passion, swore many oaths, called me rascal, and struck me. I am
+sure I have forgiven him that long ago. I wish I could so easily forget his
+ingratitude to the best of benefactors."</p>
+
+<p>Thwackum was now sent for, and corroborated every circumstance which the
+other had deposed.</p>
+
+<p>Poor Jones was too full of grief at the thought that Western had
+discovered the whole affair between him and Sophia to make any adequate
+defence. He could not deny the charge of drunkenness, and out of modesty
+sunk everything that related particularly to himself.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Allworthy answered that he was now resolved to banish him from his
+sight for ever. "Your audacious attempt to steal away a young lady calls
+upon me to justify my own character in punishing you. And there is no part
+of your character which I resent more than your ill-treatment of that good
+young man (meaning Blifil), who hath behaved with so much tenderness and
+honour towards you."</p>
+
+<p>A flood of tears now gushed from the eyes of Jones, and every faculty of
+speech and motion seemed to have deserted him. It was some time before he
+was able to obey Allworthy's peremptory commands of departing, which he at
+length did, having first kissed his hands with a passion difficult to be
+affected, and as difficult to be described.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Allworthy, however, did not permit him to leave the house penniless,
+but presented him with a note for &pound;500. He then commanded him to go
+immediately, and told Jones that his clothes, and everything else, should
+be sent to him whithersoever he should order them.</p>
+
+<p>Jones had hardly set out, which he did with feelings of agony and
+despair, before Sophia Western decided that only in flight could she be
+saved from marriage with the detested Blifil.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Western, in spite of tremendous love for his daughter, thought her
+inclinations of as little consequence as Blifil himself conceived them to
+be; and Mr. Allworthy, who said "he would on no account be accessory to
+forcing a young lady into a marriage contrary to her own will," was
+satisfied by his nephew's disingenuous statement that the young lady's
+behaviour to him was full as forward as he wished it.</p>
+
+<p>Sophia, having appointed her maid to meet her at a certain place not far
+from the house, exactly at the ghostly and dreadful hour of twelve, began
+to prepare for her own departure.</p>
+
+<p>But first she was obliged to give a painful audience to her father, and
+he treated her in so violent and outrageous a manner that he frightened her
+into an affected compliance with his will, which so highly pleased the good
+squire that he at once changed his frowns into smiles, and his menaces into
+promises.</p>
+
+<p>He vowed his whole soul was wrapped in hers, that her consent had made
+him the happiest of mankind.</p>
+
+<p>He then gave her a large bank-bill to dispose of in any trinkets she
+pleased, and kissed and embraced her in the fondest manner.</p>
+
+<p>Sophia reverenced her father piously and loved him passionately, but the
+thoughts of her beloved Jones quickly destroyed all the regretful
+promptings of filial love.</p>
+
+
+<h4><i>IV.--Tom Jones's Restoration</i></h4>
+
+
+<p>After many adventures on the road Mr. Jones reached London; and as he
+had often heard Mr. Allworthy mention the gentlewoman at whose house in
+Bond Street he used to lodge when he was in town, he sought the house, and
+was soon provided with a room there on the second floor. Mrs. Miller, the
+person who let these lodgings, was the widow of a clergyman, and Mr.
+Allworthy had settled an annuity of &pound;50 a year on her, "in
+consideration of always having her first floor when he was in town."</p>
+
+<p>Tom Jones's fortunes were now very soon at the lowest. Having been
+forced into a quarrel in the streets with an acquaintance named
+Fitzpatrick, and having wounded him with his sword, a number of fellows
+rushed in and carried Jones off to the civil magistrate, who, being
+informed that the wound appeared to be mortal, straightway committed the
+prisoner to the Gatehouse.</p>
+
+<p>Sophia Western was also in London at the house of her aunt; and soon
+afterwards Mr. Western, Mr. Allworthy, and Blifil all reached the city.</p>
+
+<p>It was just at this time that Mr. Allworthy, consenting to his nephew
+once more offering himself to Sophia, came with Blifil to his accustomed
+lodgings in Bond Street. Mrs. Miller, to whom Jones had showed many
+kindnesses, at once put in a good word for the unfortunate young man; and,
+on Blifil exulting over the manslaughter Jones was alleged to have
+committed, declared that the wounded man, whoever he was, was in fault.
+This, indeed, was shortly afterwards corroborated by Fitzpatrick himself,
+who acknowledged his mistake.</p>
+
+<p>But it was not till Mr. Allworthy discovered that Blifil had been
+arranging with a lawyer to get the men who had arrested Jones to bear false
+witness, and learnt further that Tom Jones was his sister Bridget's child,
+and that on her death-bed Mrs. Blifil's message to her brother confessing
+the fact had been suppressed by her son, that his old feelings of affection
+for Tom Jones returned. Before setting out to visit Jones in the prison Mr.
+Allworthy called on Sophia to inform her that he regretted Blifil had ever
+been encouraged to give her annoyance, and that Mr. Jones was his nephew
+and his heir.</p>
+
+<p>Men over-violent in their dispositions are, for the most part, as
+changeable in them. No sooner was Western informed of Mr. Allworthy's
+intention to make Jones his heir than he joined heartily with the uncle in
+every commendation of the nephew, and became as eager for his daughter's
+marriage with Jones as he had before been to couple her to Blifil.</p>
+
+<p>Fitzpatrick being recovered of his wound, and admitting the aggression,
+Jones was released from custody and returned to his lodgings to meet Mr.
+Allworthy.</p>
+
+<p>It is impossible to conceive a more tender or moving scene than this
+meeting between the uncle and nephew. Allworthy received Jones into his
+arms. "O my child!" he cried, "how have I been to blame! How have I injured
+you! What amends can I ever make you for those unkind suspicions which
+I have entertained, and for all the sufferings they have occasioned
+you?"</p>
+
+<p>"Am I not now made amends?" cried Jones. "Would not my sufferings, had
+they been ten times greater, have been now richly repaid?"</p>
+
+<p>Here the conversation was interrupted by the arrival of Western, who
+could no longer be kept away even by the authority of Allworthy himself.
+Western immediately went up to Jones, crying out, "My old friend Tom, I am
+glad to see thee, with all my heart. All past must be forgotten. Come along
+with me; I'll carry thee to thy mistress this moment."</p>
+
+<p>Here Allworthy interposed; and the squire was obliged to consent to
+delay introducing Jones to Sophia till the afternoon.</p>
+
+<p>Blifil, now thoroughly exposed in his treachery, was at first sullen and
+silent, balancing in his mind whether he should yet deny all; but finding
+at last the evidence too strong against him, betook himself to confession,
+and was now as remarkably mean as he had been before remarkably wicked. Mr.
+Allworthy subsequently settled &pound;200 a year upon him, to which Jones
+hath privately added a third. Upon this income Blifil lives in one of the
+northern counties. He is also lately turned Methodist, in hopes of marrying
+a very rich widow of that sect. Sophia would not at first permit any
+promise of an immediate engagement with Jones because of certain stories of
+his inconstancy, but Mr. Western refused to hear of any delay.</p>
+
+<p>"To-morrow or next day?" says Western, bursting into the room where
+Sophia and Jones were alone.</p>
+
+<p>"Indeed, sir," says she, "I have no such intention."</p>
+
+<p>"But I can tell thee," replied he, "why hast not; only because thou dost
+love to be disobedient, and to plague and vex thy father. When I forbid
+her, then it was all nothing but sighing and whining, and languishing and
+writing; now I am for thee--(this to Jones)--she is against thee. All the
+spirit of contrary, that's all. She is above being guided and governed by
+her father, that is the whole truth on't. It is only to disoblige and
+contradict me."</p>
+
+<p>"What would my papa have me do?" cries Sophia.</p>
+
+<p>"What would I ha' thee do?" says he, "why gee un thy hand this
+moment."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, sir," said Sophia, "I will obey you. There is my hand, Mr.
+Jones."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, and will you consent to ha' un to-morrow morning?" says
+Western.</p>
+
+<p>"I will be obedient to you, sir," cries she.</p>
+
+<p>"Why, then, to-morrow morning be the day," cries he.</p>
+
+<p>"Why, then, to-morrow morning shall be the day, papa, since you will
+have it so," said Sophia. Jones then fell upon his knees and kissed her
+hand in an agony of joy, while Western began to caper and dance about the
+room, presently crying out, "Where the devil is Allworthy?" He then sallied
+out in quest of him, and very opportunely left the lovers to enjoy a few
+tender minutes alone.</p>
+
+<p>But he soon returned with Allworthy, saying, "If you won't believe me,
+you may ask her yourself. Hast not gin thy consent, Sophy, to be married
+to-morrow?"</p>
+
+<p>"Such are your commands, sir," cries Sophia, "and I dare not be guilty
+of disobedience."</p>
+
+<p>"I hope there is not the least constraint," cries Allworthy.</p>
+
+<p>"Why, there," cried Western, "you may bid her unsay all again if you
+will. Dost repent heartily of thy promise, dost not, Sophy?"</p>
+
+<p>"Indeed, papa," cried she. "I do not repent, nor do I believe I ever
+shall, of any promise in favour of Mr. Jones."</p>
+
+<p>"Then, nephew," cries Allworthy, "I felicitate you most heartily, for I
+think you are the happiest of men."</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Allworthy, Mr. Western, and Mrs. Miller were the only persons
+present at the wedding, and within two days of that event Mr. Jones and
+Sophia attended Mr. Western and Mr. Allworthy into the country.</p>
+
+<p>There is not a neighbour or a servant, who doth not most gratefully
+bless the day when Mr. Jones was married to Sophia.</p>
+
+
+<hr />
+
+
+
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="flammarion">CAMILLE FLAMMARION</a></h2>
+
+
+<h3><a name="flammarion1">Urania</a></h3>
+
+<p class="letter">
+Camille Flammarion is one of the most remarkable of modern
+French scientists. Born on February 25, 1842, he was apprenticed at an
+early age to an engraver, but, attracted by astronomy, he studied so well
+that, when a lad of sixteen, he was admitted as a pupil to the Paris
+Observatory. There is no doubt that the great French mathematician, Le
+Verrier, regarded Flammarion with a certain disdain as more of a poet than
+an astronomer; but he soon vindicated, by several important discoveries,
+his title to be regarded as a man of science. "Urania," which appeared in
+1889, is an excellent example of his ability as a thinker, and of his charm
+as a writer. The work is hardly a novel, though it is far more popular than
+many books of fiction. It is really an essay in philosophy dealing with the
+question of the immortality of the soul; and it has an especial interest
+for English readers owing to the fact that much in it that seems to be pure
+fantasy is based on researches undertaken by the British Society for
+Psychical Research. The plot and the characters are of secondary
+importance; they are only used for the purpose of illustrating certain
+ideas.
+</p>
+
+<h4><i>I.--The Muse of Astronomy</i></h4>
+
+
+<p>I was seventeen years old when I fell in love with Urania. Was she a
+fair, young, blue-eyed daughter of Eve? No; she was an exquisite statue of
+the Muse of Astronomy, chiselled by Pradier in the days of the Empire. She
+stood on the mantelpiece in the study of the famous mathematician, Le
+Verrier, who directed the Paris Observatory, where I was working. At four
+o'clock in the afternoon my illustrious chief used to depart, and I would
+then steal into his room and sit down before Urania and dream of lovelier
+worlds than ours, hidden in the infinite spaces of the starry sky.
+Sometimes my friend and companion in studies, Georges Spero, would come and
+sit beside me; and, inspired by the immortal beauty of Urania, we would let
+our young and ardent imaginations play over the glories and wonders of the
+heavens.</p>
+
+<p>"You will be too late for Jupiter," said Le Verrier, entering
+unexpectedly one evening, and catching me in an attitude of adoration
+before Urania. "I am afraid you are more of a poet than an astronomer."</p>
+
+<p>The great man of science himself certainly did not love beauty as much
+as he loved wisdom, for the next day he sold the lovely image of Urania in
+order to buy an old Chinese astronomical clock. I was almost heartbroken
+when I entered his room and found that Urania had disappeared. With her had
+gone the vivifying power of imagination which had transmuted the abstruse
+calculations on which I was engaged into glimpses of heavenly visions of
+infinite life. With what wild joy then did I see, when I returned home,
+Urania shining in all her loveliness on my own mantelpiece. Knowing my love
+for the beautiful figure of the muse, Georges Spero had bought it back from
+the watchmaker to whom Le Verrier had sent it, and placed it in my room as
+a gift.</p>
+
+<p>It was an extraordinary mark of friendship, for Georges loved Urania
+even more passionately than I did. To him she was the personification of
+everything in life that lifted man above the level of the brute.</p>
+
+<p>Possessing a nobler and finer intellect than mine, he had thrown himself
+into the study of the problems of the soul with a fury of passion and a
+concentration of thought that almost killed him. Are our souls immortal, or
+do they perish with our bodies? This was the question that tormented him to
+madness. One night I found him sitting in his room in the Place du
+Panthéon with a glass of poison in his hand.</p>
+
+<p>"This is the quickest road to the knowledge I want," he said, with a
+smile. "I shall soon know if the soul is immortal."</p>
+
+<p>He had been dissecting a skull; and by his side was a microscope with
+which he had been studying the grey matter of the brain. Convinced at last
+of the uncertainty of the positive sciences, he had fallen into violent
+despair. But Urania was at hand to comfort him, and his mind became calmer
+and clearer when we ceased to talk about earthly things, and ascended into
+high regions of philosophic speculation over which the muse of heaven
+presides.</p>
+
+<p>"Ah, Camille," he exclaimed, "the Uranian way is the best. It is only by
+studying the heavens that we shall be able to understand this little earth
+of ours, and the part we play in it. Look at the midnight sky, streaming
+with the light of infinite suns, and filled with an unending procession of
+worlds in which the spirit of life clothes itself in an unimaginable
+variety of forms. This clot of dust on which we live will grow cold, and
+break and scatter in the abysses of space. But it is not our home; we are
+only passengers, and when our journey here is done, fairer mansions are
+waiting for us in the depths of the sky. If I die before you, I will return
+and convince you of this truth."</p>
+
+<p>Returning to the study of astronomy, Spero built up a system of
+philosophy which made him, at the age of twenty-five, one of the most
+famous men in France.</p>
+
+
+<h4><i>II.--Love and Death</i></h4>
+
+
+<p>By way of relief from his severer work, Georges Spero resolved to go to
+Norway and study the wild and beautiful phenomena of the Aurora Borealis,
+and I went with him. One morning, as we were standing on a mountain looking
+at a magnificent sunrise, I saw a girl climbing a neighbouring peak. She
+did not perceive us; but when she reached the summit the image of Spero was
+thrown on a cloud in front of her, by one of those curious plays of
+sunlight and mist which sometimes occur in hazy, mountainous regions. His
+fine, austere features and graceful figure were enlarged into a vast,
+god-like apparition, with a halo of bright colours shining like a glory
+around his head, and a fainter circle of rainbow hues framing his whole
+form. It was the first anthelia that the lovely girl had seen, and it
+filled her with wonder and awe.</p>
+
+<p>Theirs was a strange courtship--Spero's and Iclea's. The lovely young
+Norwegian lady had recently lost her mother, and being, like many of the
+cultivated women of Northern Europe, somewhat dubious of the dogmas of
+religion, she had found death a terrible mystery when it was thus brought
+sharply home to her. She was wandering in the dreadful labyrinth of modern
+doubt, vainly seeking to forget her trouble in the excitements of
+mountaineering, when she saw the unearthly apparition of the young French
+philosopher. A study of his works heightened the feeling of awe with which
+she already regarded him. At first there was no room for love in the
+passionate desire after knowledge which drew her to him. She was merely a
+disciple sitting at the feet of the great master. Accompanied by her
+father, she continued her studies under him when he returned to Paris, and
+for three months they were bound together wholly by intellectual interest.
+For several hours every day they studied side by side, and much of Iclea's
+time was spent in translating papers in foreign languages, bearing on
+subjects in which Georges was interested. One morning he arrived earlier
+than usual, his eyes shining with joy.</p>
+
+<p>"I have settled the problem," he cried, leaning against the mantelpiece.
+"At least," he added, with his usual modesty, "I have settled it to my own
+satisfaction."</p>
+
+<p>Striding up and down the room, he rapidly sketched out a system of
+philosophy in which the ultimate truths of modern science were transformed
+into the bases of religion. Iclea listened to him in silence as he went on
+to explain the spiritual forces still dormant in the human soul.</p>
+
+<p>"We are still in our spiritual infancy," he said. "It is scarcely four
+thousand years since mankind began to manifest its higher powers. Our
+greatest conquests over nature are all of recent date, and they are the
+work of a few noble souls who have erected themselves above the animal
+conditions of life. The reign of brute force is over, and I am certain that
+as soon as we learn to exercise the powers of our soul we shall acquire
+transcendental faculties that will enable us to transport ourselves from
+one world to another."</p>
+
+<p>"That, too, is my belief," said Iclea.</p>
+
+<p>Georges bent over her and gazed into her eyes of heavenly blue through
+which her very soul was speaking. There was a strange silence, and then
+their lips met.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p>For some months I lost sight of my two friends. In the ecstasy of their
+love they forgot for a while the problems of philosophy which had brought
+them together. The joys of intellectual communion were submerged and almost
+lost in the new, strange feeling which crowned and glorified their lives.
+Hand in hand the lovers wandered about Paris, which had now become to them
+a city in fairyland. Meeting them one evening on the banks of the Seine, I
+learned that they were returning to Norway with Iclea's father, and that
+they were to be married at Christiania on the anniversary of the mysterious
+apparition on the mountain which had brought them together. Georges was
+about to resume his interrupted studies of the Aurora Borealis, which he
+wished to trace to its source by means of a balloon ascent, and Iclea
+intended to accompany him in his voyage through the air.</p>
+
+<p>To my great regret I was unable to go with them to Norway, as my duties
+as an astronomer kept me in Paris. I anxiously awaited that extraordinary
+agitation of the magnetic needle which announces the existence of an Aurora
+Borealis in Northern Europe. When at last the magnetic perturbation
+occurred in the observatory, I rejoiced to think that Spero and his bride
+were floating high, feasting their eyes on the most gorgeous of
+spectacles.</p>
+
+<p>But suddenly an indefinable feeling of uneasiness came over me, which
+grew into a dreadful presentiment of disaster. Long before the telegram
+arrived from Christiania I knew what had happened. Georges and Iclea were
+dead!</p>
+
+<p>Every reader of the newspapers next morning knew as much as I did. An
+escape of gas which could not be stopped sent the balloon hurtling to the
+earth. Spero threw everything movable out of the car in a vain attempt to
+lighten it and break the force of the descent. The balloon still kept
+falling; then Iclea, with a wild courage born of love, saved Georges' life
+by leaping out of the car. Relieved of her weight, the balloon rose up, but
+Spero had now no wish to live. He jumped out with a wild cry, and his body
+crashed on the edge of the lake into which Iclea had fallen. There the
+mortal remains of the two lovers now lie, covered by a single stone. But
+where were their souls?</p>
+
+<p>One night Georges Spero remembered his promise to me, and returned to
+earth.</p>
+
+
+<h4><i>III.--A Soul from Mars</i></h4>
+
+
+<p>Sitting alone on the top of the ancient castle of Montlhéry, I
+was conducting an experiment in optics by means of electrical
+communications with two assistants at Paris and Juvisy. I was trying to
+find out if the rays of different colours in the spectrum travel at the
+same rate. It was just on midnight before I brought the experiment to a
+successful conclusion. As I covered up my instruments, some one said, "You
+would not have brought that off, Camille, if it had not been for me. I gave
+you the idea of comparing the violet vibrations with the red."</p>
+
+<p>I turned round with a cry of fear. Georges Spero was sitting in the
+moonlight on the parapet, looking at me with a smile.</p>
+
+<p>"Are you afraid of me, Camille?" he said.</p>
+
+<p>"You, Georges! You!" I stammered. "Is it really you? Keep still, and let
+me touch you."</p>
+
+<p>I put my hands on his face, and stroked his hair, and felt his body. I
+could no longer doubt that I had him before me in the actual flesh, but he
+read my thoughts.</p>
+
+<p>"You are mistaken, Camille," he said. "My real body is asleep on
+Mars."</p>
+
+<p>"So you still live?" I exclaimed. "You have solved the great problem.
+And Iclea?"</p>
+
+<p>"Let us sit here and talk," he replied. "There are many things I want to
+tell you."</p>
+
+<p>My fears had vanished, and I sat by my beloved friend.</p>
+
+<p>"It seemed to me," said Georges, "that my fall from the balloon knocked
+me senseless. When I came to, I was lying in the darkness with the ripple
+of lake-water breaking on my ear. What amazed me was a strange sense of
+lightness that made me feel I could rise up and float away if I wanted to.
+Thinking this was a disorder of the mind, I did not attempt to move, but
+watched with wondering eyes the sky above me. It was lighted by two strange
+moons. When the day broke, and showed around me a world of unimaginable
+splendour, I knew the meaning of the two moons and of my strange feeling of
+lightness. I was a disembodied spirit that had been transported to
+Mars.</p>
+
+<p>"Do you know, Camille, that the soul is able to choose its mortal
+covering? This is, at least, the case on Mars. For some time I wandered
+about in an invisible form, studying the conditions of life there. Animal
+strength, I found, counted for nothing. The Martians are an aerial race,
+with exquisite senses, which respond in a way unknown on earth to spiritual
+influences. Do you remember I read your thoughts when we first met, and
+answered them before you spoke? That is one of the Martians' gifts. Finding
+that these wonderful faculties were better developed in the women of Mars
+than in the men, I chose the feminine form for my reincarnation."</p>
+
+<p>"And Iclea?" I said.</p>
+
+<p>"Iclea," said Spero, "was re-born in a masculine shape. It was partly
+because of the mystic attraction that I felt for her that I chose the other
+form. Neither of us remembered our earthly existence, but a vague yet deep
+sentiment of our spiritual relationship made me seek her out and unite
+myself to her. It was your beloved muse Uriana," he added, "who revealed
+the ties that bound us in our former lives.</p>
+
+<p>"Owing to their superior faculties, the Martians have carried every
+science to a perfection undreamt of on this earth. In astronomical
+observations, for instance, they employ a system of telephotography. For
+thousands of years their instruments have been photographing, on an
+unending roll of paper, the wild spectacle of terrestrial life.</p>
+
+<p>"One day, as Iclea and I were examining recent photographs, we saw a
+picture of Paris during the Great Exhibition. Seizing a microscope, we
+looked at the figures, and recognised ourselves among them. Strange
+memories stirred within us, and we stared at each other in silent
+amazement. Suddenly I remembered the sacred words I learnt at my mother's
+knee. Yes, there were many mansions in our Father's house! The
+blood-stained planet from which we had escaped was neither the cradle nor
+the grave of His children.</p>
+
+<p>"Then we wept as we thought of the cruelty, ignorance, misery, and
+grossness of existence on earth. It was, dear Camille, with no joy that I
+recollected the promise I had made to you. But, you see, I have carried it
+out. I wish to convince you, and, through you, all the rest of mankind,
+that the soul is immortal, and that the earth is only a temporary stage of
+existence in a spiritual progress in which the whole universe is
+included."</p>
+
+<p>"But how is it possible for you, Georges," I interrupted, "to appear to
+me in the body you wore on earth?"</p>
+
+<p>"All this," said Spero, touching his body, "is an illusion. Do you not
+recollect my saying that only invisible things are real? You do not see me
+with your eyes, or feel me with your hands, as you think you do. The
+impression which you have of my presence is born of the influence which my
+mind is exerting in an invisible way on your mind. Can't you understand? It
+is a kind of hypnotism. At the present moment, as I have said, I am lying
+asleep on Mars, but my spirit is in direct communication with yours. The
+form you see sitting beside you on this parapet is only an illusion of your
+senses. My soul is speaking to your soul."</p>
+
+<p>"But could you not," I said, "give me some description of life on
+Mars?"</p>
+
+<p>"A dream," he replied, "would be more vivid than a mere description,
+though it would only be a shadow of the reality. For since you have not, my
+dear friend, our exquisite faculties of knowledge, your mind could not
+clearly mirror our life. Hark! Iclea is awake, and calling me. I cannot
+stay any longer. Shut your eyes, and I will send you a dream."</p>
+
+<p>I turned to say good-bye, but Spero had vanished. A deep drowsiness fell
+upon me, and just as I got off the parapet and found a safer position I
+fell asleep.</p>
+
+
+<h4><i>IV.--The Eternal Progress</i></h4>
+
+
+<p>I was sitting under a strange tree covered with gigantic red flowers. In
+the sky above me were two moons that shed a dim brightness on the lovely
+and fantastic scenery. A multitude of radiant shapes fluttered and darted
+through the air. They were Martians--exquisite, aerial, and divinely
+beautiful figures glowing with luminous tints. Airy gondolas, which seemed
+to be fashioned from phosphorescent flowers, passed above my head, and one
+of them floated down to the tree under which I was lying. In it were Iclea
+and Georges, but etherealised beyond the reach of human imagination.</p>
+
+<p>They took me in their flying chariot as day was breaking, and we
+coursed, with a strange silent interchange of thoughts, over the
+orange-coloured land of Mars. I could not understand everything which was
+communicated to me, now by Iclea and now by Georges; but I perceived that
+all manual labour on the planet was done by means of machines directed by
+animals whose intelligence was on a level with my own. The Martians
+themselves lived only for the things of the mind; they had twelve senses
+instead of five, and their bodies, in which electricity played the part
+that blood does in our systems, were so finely and yet so strongly
+organised that they possessed an extraordinary power over the forces of
+nature. Everything on their world, seas, mountains and rivers were like
+their wonderful canals, works of art and science. Nature was completely
+plastic in their hands. There was no poverty and no crime. Deriving their
+food from the air which they breathe, the Martians were liberated from
+material cares and immersed in the joys of intellectual pursuits.</p>
+
+<p>"You now see, Camille," said Spero, resorting at last to language which
+I could clearly understand, "that life on Mars has developed as peacefully
+and nobly as it began. There is no break between our vegetable kingdom and
+our animal kingdom. We are nourished, like your plants, trees, and herbs,
+by the air which we breathe. Ten million years ago your world was also a
+scene of innocence and tranquil felicity. The land was overgrown with a
+wildly beautiful vegetation that fed on the gentle winds of heaven, and
+primitive forms of animal life had spread from the depths of the sea along
+the shallow shores, and were there learning to extract from the air a
+nourishment similar to that which they obtained from the water. But by a
+woeful chance, one of your primitive animals--a deaf, blind, sexless clot
+of jelly--then had its body pierced by a drop of sea-water thicker than
+usual, and it found that this way of feeding was quicker than simple
+respiration. Such was the origin of the first digestive tube, which has
+exercised so baleful an influence on the course of terrestrial life, and
+turned the earth into a vast slaughterhouse."</p>
+
+<p>"Is there no hope for us?" I said.</p>
+
+<p>"No," he replied; "the earth is a shipwrecked planet. None of the higher
+organisms there will ever rise to our level. How can they alter the
+structure of their bodies, and empty their veins of blood, and fill them
+with the subtle electricity which serves us as a life force? And the
+grossness of their blood-fed senses! How can all the fine powers of the
+immortal soul ever develop along with such degraded instruments of
+knowledge?"</p>
+
+<p>"But even if our earth is a shipwrecked planet," I exclaimed, "there is
+at least some means of escaping from it. You and Iclea, for
+instance----"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, there is a way of escape," said Spero, "the Uranian way. By
+soaring aloft into the serene region of spiritual ideas, a terrestrial soul
+can still free itself from its animality. Some save themselves by their
+high moral qualities, others are purified and uplifted by their imagination
+and intellect. Virtue and science are the wings that enable earth-born
+spirits to mount the skies. The destiny of a soul is determined by its
+works and aspirations. Lovers of knowledge sojourn awhile on Mars, which is
+only the first stage in the eternal progress. Spirits animated by divine
+feelings rise at once into high regions of starry splendour. The Uranian
+way is open to all, and the day will arrive when every inhabitant of your
+wild, dark planet will recognise that he, too, is a citizen of heaven. Then
+Urania will at last inspire and direct him, and point out the path by which
+he can ascend from the blood-stained earth to the fairer mansions prepared
+for him in the skies."</p>
+
+<p>As he was speaking our aerial chariot floated down to a fairy palace by
+the shore of an enchanted sea. I alighted; and a radiant, flower-like
+maiden, who was standing by the portal, unfolded her rainbow wings and
+shadowed me with them, and murmured, "Do you wish to return to earth?"</p>
+
+<p>"No," I cried, running up to clasp her in my arms.</p>
+
+<p>I awoke with a sudden shock. I was lying on the top of the tower of
+Montlhéry; the sun was rising, and the vast circle of country below
+me shone clear and distinct in the morning light.</p>
+
+<p>"Was it a dream?" I said to myself. "Surely not. The earth is not the
+only home of life in the universe. Urania, the celestial muse, is now
+unfolding before our astonished eyes the panoramas of infinity, and we know
+at last that we are not the children of the earth, but citizens of the
+heavens."</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+
+
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="fouque">DE LA MOTTE FOUQUÉ</a></h2>
+
+
+<h3><a name="fouque1">Undine</a></h3>
+
+<p class="letter">
+Friedrich Heinrich Karl Fouqué, Baron de la Motte, was
+born at Brandenburg, in Prussia, Feb. 12, 1777, and died in Berlin January
+23, 1843. The mixed nationality indicated by his name is accounted for by
+his descent from a French Huguenot family. He served as a Prussian
+cavalryman in the two campaigns against Napoleon of 1792 and 1813, but
+during the long interval between devoted himself actively to intellectual
+culture and literary pursuits. He began his career as an author by
+translating the "Numancia" of Cervantes, but his admiration of the ancient
+Norse sagas and the old German legends led him into the composition of
+exquisitely beautiful and tender, though exceedingly fantastic, romances
+which speedily gained immense popularity. In these productions fairy and
+magical elements predominate. His masterpiece is "Undine," published in
+1814, the other best-known works being "Sintram," "Aslauga's Knight," and
+"The Two Captains." In all Fouqué's stories the marks of genius
+appear in his brilliant imagination and pure and fascinating diction.
+</p>
+
+<h4><i>I.--The Water Sprite</i></h4>
+
+
+<p>About a century ago an aged fisherman sat mending his nets by his
+cottage door, in front of a lovely lake. Behind his dwelling stretched a
+sombre forest, reputed to be haunted by goblin creatures. Through this
+gloomy solitude the pious old fisherman frequently passed, religiously
+dispelling all terrors by singing hymns as he went with his fish to a town
+near the border of the forest.</p>
+
+<p>One evening he heard the sound of a horse's hoofs, and presently
+appeared a knight riding on a splendid steed, and clad in resplendent
+armour. The stranger stopped, and besought shelter for the night, and the
+good old fisherman accorded him a most cheery welcome, taking him into the
+cottage, where sat his aged wife by a scanty fire. Soon the three were
+freely conversing. The knight told of his travels and revealed that he was
+Sir Huldbrand of Ringstetten, where he had a castle by the Rhine.</p>
+
+<p>A splash against the window surprising the guest he was informed by his
+host, with some little show of vexation, that little tricks were often
+played by a foster-child of the old couple, named Undine, a girl of
+eighteen.</p>
+
+<p>The door flew open, and a lovely girl glided, laughing, into the room.
+Without the slightest token of shyness she gazed at the knight for a few
+moments, then asked why he had come to the poor cottage.</p>
+
+<p>"Have you come through the wild forest?"</p>
+
+<p>He confessed that he had, and she instantly demanded a recital of his
+adventures. With a slight shudder at his own recollections of the strange
+creatures he had encountered, Huldbrand consented, but a reproof from the
+fisherman at her obtrusiveness angered Undine. The girl sprang up and
+rushed forth into the night, exclaiming, "Sleep alone in your smoky old
+hut!"</p>
+
+<p>In great alarm, the fisherman and Huldbrand rose to follow the girl, but
+she had vanished in the darkness. Remarking that she had acted so before,
+the old fisherman invited Huldbrand to sit by the fire and talk awhile, and
+began to relate how Undine had come to live with them.</p>
+
+<p>The couple had lost their only child, a wonderfully beautiful little
+girl. At the age of three, when sitting in her mother's lap at the edge of
+the lake, she seemed to be attracted by some lovely apparition in the
+water, for, suddenly stretching out her hands and laughing, she had in a
+moment sprung into the lake. No trace of the child could ever be found. But
+the same evening a lovely little girl, three or four years old, with water
+streaming from her golden tresses, suddenly entered the cottage, smiling
+sweetly at the fisherman and his wife. They hastily undressed the little
+stranger and put her to bed. She uttered not a word, but simply smiled. In
+the morning she talked a little, confusedly telling how she had been in a
+boat on the lake with her mother, and had fallen in, and could recollect
+nothing more. She could say nothing as to who she was or whence she came.
+But she talked often of golden castles and crystal domes.</p>
+
+<p>While the fisherman was talking thus to the knight, he was suddenly
+interrupted by the noise of rushing water. Floods seemed to be bursting
+forth, and he and his guest, going hastily to the door, saw by the
+moonlight that the brook which issued from the forest was surging in a wild
+torrent over its margin, while a roaring wind was lashing the lake. In
+great alarm both shouted, "Undine! Undine!" But there was no response, and
+the two ran off in different directions in search of the fugitive.</p>
+
+<p>It was Huldbrand who discovered the girl. Clambering down some rocks at
+the edge of the stream, thinking Undine might have fallen there, he was
+hailed by the sweet voice of the girl herself.</p>
+
+<p>"Venture not," she cried. "The old man of the stream is full of
+tricks."</p>
+
+<p>Looking across at a tiny isle in the stream, the knight saw her nestling
+in the grass, smiling, and in an instant he had crossed.</p>
+
+<p>"The fisherman is distressed at your absence," said he. "Let us go
+back."</p>
+
+<p>Looking at him with her beautiful blue eyes, the girl replied. "If you
+think so, well; whatever you think is right to me."</p>
+
+<p>Taking Undine in his arms, Huldbrand bore her over the stream to the
+cottage, where she was received with joy. Dawn was breaking, and breakfast
+was prepared under the trees. Undine flung herself on the grass at
+Huldbrand's feet, and at her renewed request the knight told the story of
+his forest adventures.</p>
+
+<p>"It is now about eight days since I rode into the city on the other side
+of the forest to join in a great tournament. In one of the intervals
+between the jousts I noticed a lovely lady among the spectators. I learned
+that she was Bertalda, foster-daughter of a great duke, and each evening I
+became her partner in the dances.</p>
+
+<p>"This Bertalda was a wayward girl, and each day pleased me less and
+less; but I continued in her company, and asked her jestingly to give me a
+glove. She said she would do so if I would explore alone the haunted
+forest. As an honourable knight I could not decline the challenge, and
+yesterday I set out on the enterprise. Before I had penetrated very far
+within the glades, I saw what looked like a bear in the branches of an oak;
+but the creature, in a harsh, human voice, growled that it was getting
+branches with which to roast me at night. My horse was scared at this, and
+other grim apparitions, but at last I emerged from the forest, and saw the
+lake and this cottage."</p>
+
+<p>When he had finished, the fisherman spoke of the best way by which the
+visitor could return to the city; but, with sly laughter, Undine declared
+that the knight could not depart, for if he attempted now to cross the
+deluged wood, he would be overwhelmed.</p>
+
+
+<h4><i>II.--"I Have No Soul!"</i></h4>
+
+
+<p>Huldbrand, detained at the cottage by the increasing overflow of the
+stream, enjoyed the most perfect satisfaction with his sojourn.</p>
+
+<p>The old folks with pleasure regarded the two young people as being
+betrothed, and Huldbrand assumed that he was accepted by the girl, whom he
+had come to look upon as not being in reality one of this poor household,
+but one of some illustrious family, and when, one evening, an aged priest
+appeared at the cottage, driven in by the storm, Huldbrand addressed to him
+a request that he should on the spot at once unite him and the maiden, as
+they were pledged to each other. A discussion arose, but matters were at
+length settled, and the old wife produced two consecrated tapers. Lighting
+these, the priest, with brief, solemn ceremony, celebrated the
+nuptials.</p>
+
+<p>Undine had been quiet and grave during these proceedings, but a singular
+change took place in her demeanour as soon as the rite had been performed.
+She began at intervals to indulge in wild freaks, teasing the priest, and
+indulging in a variety of silly tricks. At length the priest gently
+expostulated with Undine, exhorting her so to attune her soul that it might
+always be in concord with that of her husband.</p>
+
+<p>Her reply amazed the listeners, for she said, "If one has no soul, as I
+have none, what is there to harmonise?" Then she burst into a fit of
+passionate weeping, to the consternation of all the little company. As she
+again and again wept, the priest, fearing that she was possessed by some
+evil spirit, sought to exorcise it. The priest turned to the bridegroom
+with the assurance that he could discover nothing evil in the bride,
+mysterious though her behaviour was, and he commended him to be loving and
+true to her.</p>
+
+<p>The next morning Undine, when she and her husband made their appearance,
+responded gracefully to the paternal greeting of the priest, beseeching his
+pardon for her folly of the previous evening, and begging him to pray for
+the good of her soul. Through the whole day Undine behaved angelically. She
+was kind, quiet, and gentle. At eventide she led her husband out to the
+edge of the stream, which, to the wonder of Huldbrand, had subsided into
+gentle, rippling waves.</p>
+
+<p>She whispered, "Carry me across to that little isle, and we will decide
+there."</p>
+
+<p>Wondering, he carried her across, and, laying her on the turf, listened
+as she began.</p>
+
+<p>"My loved one, know that there are strange beings which, though seeming
+almost mortals, are rarely visible to human eyes--salamanders in the
+flames, gnomes down in the earth, spirits in the air. And in the water are
+myriads of spirits dwelling in crystal domes, in the coral-trees, and in
+the lovely shells. These are far more beautiful than the fairest of human
+beings, and sometimes a fisherman has seen a tender mermaid, and has
+listened to her song. Such wonderful creatures are called Undines, and one
+of these you see now before you!</p>
+
+<p>"We should be far superior to other beings--for we consider ourselves
+human--but for one defect. We have no souls, and nothing remains of us
+after this mortal life is over. Yet every being aspires to rise higher, and
+so my father, who is a great water prince in the Mediterranean Sea, desired
+that his only daughter should become possessed of a soul. But this can only
+come to pass with loving union with one of your race. Now, O my dearly
+beloved, I have to thank you that I am gifted with a soul, and it will be
+due to you should all my life be made wretched. For what will become of me
+if you forsake me? If you would do so, do it now! Then I will plunge into
+the stream--which is my uncle--and as he brought me here, so will he take
+me back to my parents, a loving, suffering woman with a soul."</p>
+
+<p>Undine would have said yet more, but Huldbrand, astonishing though the
+recital was, with tears and kisses vowed he would never leave his lovely
+wife; and with her leaning in loving trustfulness on his arm, they returned
+to the hut.</p>
+
+<p>The next day, at Undine's strange urgency, farewell was said with bitter
+tears and lamentations.</p>
+
+<p>Undine was placed on the beautiful horse, and Huldbrand and the priest
+walked on either side as the three passed through the solemn glades of the
+wood. A fourth soon joined them. He was dressed in a white robe, like that
+of the priest, and presently attempted to speak to Undine. But she shrank
+from him, declaring she wished to have nothing to do with him.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, oh!" cried the stranger, with a laugh. "What kind of a marriage is
+this you have made, that you must not speak to your relative? Do you not
+know I am your uncle K&uuml;hleborn, who brought you to this region, and that I
+am here to protect you from goblins and sprites? So let me quietly
+accompany you."</p>
+
+<p>"We are near the end of the forest, and shall not need you further," was
+her rejoinder. But he grinned at her so frightfully that she shrieked for
+help, and the knight aimed at his head a blow from his sword. Instantly
+K&uuml;hleborn was transformed into a gushing waterfall, foaming over them from
+a rock near by and drenching all three.</p>
+
+
+<h4><i>III.--"Woe! Woe!"</i></h4>
+
+
+<p>The sudden disappearance of the young knight had caused a sensation in
+the city, for the duke and duchess, and the friends and servants of
+Huldbrand, feared he had perished in the forest during the terrible tempest
+When he suddenly reappeared, all rejoiced except Bertalda, who was
+profoundly vexed at seeing with him a beautiful bride. She so far
+reconciled herself to the conditions that a warm friendship sprang up
+between Undine and herself.</p>
+
+<p>It was agreed that Bertalda should accompany the wedded pair to
+Ringstetten, and with the consent of the noble foster-parents of Bertalda
+the three appointed a day for departure. One beautiful evening, as they
+walked about the market-place round the great fountain, suddenly a tall man
+emerged from among the people and stopped in front of Undine. He quickly
+whispered something in her ear, and though at first she seemed vexed at the
+intrusion, presently she clapped her hands and laughed joyously. Then the
+stranger mysteriously vanished, and seemed to disappear in the
+fountain.</p>
+
+<p>Huldbrand had suspected that he had seen the man before, and now felt
+assured that he was K&uuml;hleborn. Undine admitted the fact, and said that her
+uncle had told her a secret, which she was to reveal on the third day
+afterwards, which would be the anniversary of Bertalda's nameday.</p>
+
+<p>The anniversary came, and strange incidents happened. After the banquet
+given by the duke and duchess, Undine suddenly gave a signal, and from
+among the retainers at the door came forth the old fisherman and his wife,
+and Undine declared that in these Bertalda saw her real parents. The proud
+maiden instantly flew into a violent rage, weeping passionately, and
+utterly refused to acknowledge the old couple as her father and mother. She
+declared that Undine was an enchantress and a witch, sustaining intercourse
+with evil spirits.</p>
+
+<p>Undine, with great dignity, indignantly denied the accusation, while
+Bertalda's violent conduct created a feeling of disgust in the minds of all
+in the assembly. The matter was settled in a simple manner, for the duke
+commanded Bertalda to withdraw to a private apartment with the duchess and
+the two old folks from the hut, that an investigation might be made. It was
+soon over, for the noble lady was able presently to inform the company that
+Undine's story was absolutely true. The guests silently departed, and
+Undine sank sobbing into her husband's arms.</p>
+
+<p>Next day Bertalda, humbled by these events, sought pardon of Undine for
+her evil behaviour, and was instantly welcomed with loving assurances of
+forgiveness, moreover, she was cordially invited to go with the pair to
+Ringstetten.</p>
+
+<p>"We will share all things there as sisters," said Undine.</p>
+
+<p>The three journeyed to the distant castle, and took up their abode
+together. Soon K&uuml;hleborn appeared on the scene, but Undine at once repulsed
+him. Next, when her husband was one day hunting, she ordered the great well
+in the courtyard to be covered with a big stone, on which she cut some
+curious characters.</p>
+
+<p>Bertalda waywardly complained that this proceeding deprived her of water
+that was good for her complexion, but Undine privately explained to
+Huldbrand that she had caused the servants to seal up this spring because
+only by that way of access could her uncle K&uuml;hleborn come to disturb their
+peace.</p>
+
+<p>As time passed on, Huldbrand gradually cooled toward his wife and turned
+affectionately towards Bertalda. Undine bore patiently and silently the
+sorrow thus inflicted on her. But when her husband was impatient and angry
+she would plead with him never to speak to her in accents of unkindness
+when they happened to be on the water, for the water spirits had her
+completely in their power on their element, and would seek to protect her,
+and even seize her and take her down for ever to dwell in the crystal
+castles of the deep.</p>
+
+<p>After some estrangements, Undine and Bertalda had again become loving
+friends, and Huldbrand's affection for his wife had revived with its old
+and welcome warmth, while the attachment between him and Bertalda seemed
+forgotten.</p>
+
+<p>One day the three were enjoying a delightful excursion on the glorious
+Danube. Bertalda had taken off a beautiful coral necklace which Huldbrand
+had given her. She leaned over and drew the coral beads across the surface,
+enjoying the glitter thus caused, when suddenly a great hand from beneath
+seized the necklace and snatched it down. The maiden's scream of terror was
+answered by mocking laughter from the water.</p>
+
+<p>In an outburst of passion, Huldbrand started up and poured forth curses
+on the river and its denizens, whether spirits or sirens. With tears in her
+eyes, Undine besought him softly not to scold her there, and she took from
+her neck a beautiful necklace and offered it to Bertalda as a
+compensation.</p>
+
+<p>But the angry knight snatched it away, and hurled it into the river,
+exclaiming, "Are you still connected with them? In the name of all the
+witches, remain among them with your presents, and leave us mortals in
+peace, you sorceress!"</p>
+
+<p>Bitterly weeping and crying, "Woe! Woe!" she vanished over the side of
+the vessel. Her last words were, "Remain true! Woe! Woe!" Huldbrand lay
+swooning on the deck, and little waves seemed to be sobbing on the surface
+of the Danube, "Woe! Woe! Remain true!"</p>
+
+
+<h4><i>IV.--The White Stranger</i></h4>
+
+
+<p>For a time deep sorrow fell on the lord of Ringstetten and Bertalda.
+They lived long in the castle quietly, often weeping for Undine, tenderly
+cherishing her memory. Undine often visited Huldbrand in his dreams,
+caressing him and weeping silently so that his cheeks were wet when he
+awoke. But these visions grew less frequent, and the knight's grief
+diminished by degrees. At length he and Bertalda were married, but it was
+in spite of a grave warning from Father Heilmann, who declared that Undine
+had appeared to him in visions, beseeching him to warn Huldbrand and
+Bertalda to leave each other. They were too infatuated to heed the
+admonition, and a priest from a neighbouring monastery promised to perform
+the ceremony in a few days.</p>
+
+<p>Meantime, when lying between sleeping and waking, the knight seemed
+fanned by the wings of a swan, and, as he fell asleep, seemed borne along
+on the wings of swans which sang their sweetest music. All at once he
+seemed to be hovering over the Mediterranean Sea. Its waters were so
+crystalline that he could see through them to the bottom, and there, under
+a crystal arch, sat Undine, weeping bitterly. She seemed not to perceive
+him. K&uuml;hleborn approached her, and told her that Huldbrand was to be wedded
+again, and that it would be her duty, from which nothing could release her,
+to end his life.</p>
+
+<p>"That I cannot do," said she. "I have sealed up the fountain against my
+race."</p>
+
+<p>Huldbrand felt as if he were soaring back again over the sea, and at
+length he seemed to reach his castle. He awoke on his couch, but he could
+not bring himself to break off the arrangements that had been made.</p>
+
+<p>The marriage feast at Ringstetten was not as bright and happy as such
+occasions usually are, for a veil of gloom seemed to rest over the company.
+Even the bride affected a happy and thoughtless demeanour which she did not
+really feel. The company dispersed early, Bertalda retiring with her
+maidens, and Huldbrand with his attendants.</p>
+
+<p>In her apartment Bertalda, with a sigh, noticed how freckled was her
+neck, and a remark she made to her maidens as she gazed in the mirror
+excited the eager attention of one of them. She heard her fair mistress
+say, "Oh, that I had a flask of the purifying water from the closed
+fountain!" Presently the officious waiting-woman was seen leading men to
+the fountain. With levers they quickly lifted the stone, for some
+mysterious force within seemed to aid them.</p>
+
+<p>Then from the fountain solemnly rose a white column of water. It was
+presently perceived that it was a pale female figure, veiled in white. She
+was weeping bitterly as she walked slowly to the building, while Bertalda
+and her attendants, pale with terror, watched from the window. The figure
+passed on, and at the door of Huldbrand's room, where the knight was partly
+undressed, was heard a gentle tap. The white figure slowly entered. It was
+Undine, who softly said, "They have opened the spring, and now I am here
+and you must die." Said the knight, "It must be so! But let me die in your
+embrace."</p>
+
+<p>"Most gladly, my loved one," said she, throwing back her veil and
+disclosing her face divinely smiling. Imprinting on his lips a sacred kiss,
+Undine clasped the knight in her arms, weeping as if she would weep her
+very soul away. Huldbrand fell softly back on the pillows of his couch, a
+corpse.</p>
+
+<p>At the funeral of Huldbrand the veiled figure appeared when the
+procession formed a circle round the grave. All knelt in mute devotion at a
+signal from Father Heilmann. When they rose again the white stranger had
+vanished, and on the spot where she had knelt a silvery little fountain
+gushed forth, which almost encircled the grave and then ran on till it
+reached a lake near by. And to this day the inhabitants cherish the
+tradition that thus the poor rejected Undine still lovingly embraces her
+husband.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+
+
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="gaboriau">ÉMILE GABORIAU</a></h2>
+
+
+<h3><a name="gaboriau1">"File No. 113"</a></h3>
+
+<p class="letter">
+Émile Gaboriau, one of the best-known exponents of the
+"police story," was born at Saujon, in France, on November 9, 1833. He
+began life in a lawyer's office, became a volunteer in a cavalry regiment,
+and, later, secretary to Paul Feval, the novelist and dramatist. In the
+meantime, Gaboriau had contributed a number of sketches dealing with
+military and fashionable life to various minor Parisian journals, but it
+was not until 1866, with the publication of "L'Affaire Lerouge," that he
+suddenly sprang into fame. From that time until his death, on September 28,
+1873, story after story appeared rapidly from his pen. "File No. 113" ("Le
+Dossier 113") was published in 1867, and was the first of a remarkable
+series of detective tales introducing the figure of Lecoq. "File No. 113"
+is perhaps the most characteristic specimen of his work, exhibiting as it
+does a careful study of the Paris police system, and a thorough
+acquaintance with all phases of criminal life.
+</p>
+
+<h4><i>I.--The Robbery and a Clue</i></h4>
+
+
+<p>The first mention of the celebrated robbery which took place at M.
+Fauvel's bank in Paris--the <i>dossier</i> of the case is numbered 113 in
+the police files--appeared in the evening papers, February 28, 1866.</p>
+
+<p>On the previous day a certain Count Louis de Clameran sent word to M.
+Fauvel that he wished to withdraw the following morning at ten o'clock the
+sum of &pound;12,000 which had been deposited in the bank by his brother,
+an ironmaster from the south of France who had recently died.</p>
+
+<p>M. Fauvel made it a rule never to keep any large sums of money on the
+premises, but to deposit all such amounts in the keeping of the Bank of
+France. As this sum, however, had to be paid the first thing in the
+morning, the chief cashier, M. Prosper Bertomy, thought he was justified in
+obtaining the amount from the Bank of France on the evening of the 27th,
+and in locking it up in the bank safe against the morning.</p>
+
+<p>The safe was a formidable-looking affair constructed entirely of wrought
+iron of treble thickness. An ingenious device regulated its opening. On the
+massive door were five movable steel buttons engraved with the letters of
+the alphabet. Before the key could be inserted in the lock, these buttons
+had to be manipulated in the same order in which they had been used when
+the safe was last shut. The buttons were arranged so that the letters on
+them formed some word, which was changed from time to time. This word was
+known only to M. Fauvel and his cashier, each of whom possessed a key of
+the safe.</p>
+
+<p>As soon as the bank opened on the morning of February 28, the count put
+in an appearance, and Prosper Bertomy went to the safe to obtain the money.
+When, a second later, he reappeared, his face was ashy pale, and his steps
+tottered as he walked. The &pound;12,000 had disappeared from within the
+safe. What made the affair all the more mysterious was that the safe was
+locked just as the cashier had left it the night before.</p>
+
+<p>The room in which the safe was situated communicated with the bank by
+another room in which every night a tried servant of the establishment
+slept. By a second door admittance was obtained to the private apartments
+of M. and Madame Fauvel and their niece Madeline.</p>
+
+<p>As soon as M. Fauvel had heard the startling news, he first obtained the
+necessary money from the Bank of France, settled the business with the
+count, and then turned his attention to the elucidation of the robbery. He
+summoned the cashier to his presence.</p>
+
+<p>Bertomy was a young man of thirty to whom M. Fauvel had shown great
+kindness, advancing his interests wherever possible until, though very
+young for the position, he was his most important and most confidential
+employee. Besides the paternal affection with which the bank manager
+regarded his cashier, another tie tended to make their relations all the
+stronger and more personal. Bertomy loved M. Fauvel's niece Madeline, and
+though a curious estrangement had sprung up between them during the
+previous nine or ten months, the banker always regarded their marriage as
+practically arranged.</p>
+
+<p>The interview between the two men was a curious one. To each it appeared
+that the other must be the thief. They alone had the keys of the safe; they
+alone knew the magic word which could open the massive door. The banker
+urged Bertomy to confess, promising him forgiveness; the other haughtily
+rejected the suggestion, and hinted that his employer had converted the
+&pound;12,000 to his own use. In the end M. Fauvel lost his temper, sent
+for the police, and before twenty-four hours were up, Prosper Bertomy, who
+but the day before had held one of the most important and envied positions
+in the financial world of Paris, was charged before a magistrate as being a
+common thief.</p>
+
+<p>Investigation of the case was at first entrusted to a detective named
+Fanferlot, nicknamed by his comrades the "Squirrel." Fanferlot's
+examination of the premises resulted in little. All he discovered was a
+scratch upon the door of the safe, but certain words that passed between M.
+Fauvel and his niece, which seemed to indicate that the former was secretly
+opposed to the marriage of Madeline with Bertomy, caused him to jump to the
+conclusion that the banker had robbed his own safe in order to bring
+disgrace upon his cashier. He connived, however, at the arrest of Bertomy,
+hoping that later on he might obtain great kudos for himself by unmasking
+the banker. What might have been the result of his improper and unofficial
+methods will never be known, but in all probability great inconvenience
+would have been caused to a number of innocent persons and the whole course
+of justice thwarted had it not been for the intervention of the great and
+famous M. Lecoq.</p>
+
+<p>M. Lecoq's interest in the bank robbery case was largely a personal one.
+Even detectives have hearts, and M. Lecoq had loved with heart and soul a
+charming young girl named Nina Gipsy. Under the name of Caldas in one of
+his innumerable disguises, he had wooed her for many months. When he
+thought at last that he had won her affections, she had fled to the
+protection of no less a person than Prosper Bertomy himself. The cashier
+cared nothing for her, but embittered by an estrangement that had sprung up
+between Madeline and himself, he had sought forgetfulness in her society.
+Bertomy's arrest gave Lecoq an opportunity for a noble revenge. He
+determined to prove to the woman he loved his superiority over his rival by
+saving the cashier from disgrace.</p>
+
+<p>Though the case looked black against Bertomy, for it was shown that he
+was heavily in debt, and living far beyond his means, Lecoq was satisfied
+that he had not committed the crime. When Fanferlot, hopelessly befogged,
+called for his advice at his house in the Rue Montmartre, the great
+detective deigned to explain the preliminary data and the deductions from
+the data he had made.</p>
+
+<p>The scratch on the safe door, slight and minute as it was, was his
+starting-point. How had it been made? He had found by experiment that it
+was impossible to make such a scratch upon the varnish without the exercise
+of considerable force. It was clear, therefore, that the scratch by the
+keyhole could not have been made by the thief in his trembling anxiety to
+get the business he had undertaken accomplished. But why was such force
+used?</p>
+
+<p>For a long time Lecoq puzzled over this problem. Then, with Fanferlot,
+he tried an experiment. In his room was an iron box varnished like the
+safe. Taking the key of this box from his pocket, he ordered Fanferlot to
+seize his arm just as he put it near the lock. The key slipped, pulled away
+from the lock, and sliding along the surface of the door, left upon it a
+diagonal scratch, almost an exact reproduction of the one on the safe.</p>
+
+<p>From this simple experiment Lecoq deduced that two people were present
+when the safe was robbed; one wanted to take the money, the other wanted to
+prevent it being taken. This was the basis of the case which he set out to
+draw up against some person or persons unknown. He argued, with his usual
+clear logic, that neither Fauvel nor Bertomy could have robbed the safe.
+Both of them had keys; both of them knew the secret word and could have
+robbed the safe whenever they pleased. Therefore, neither of them would
+have committed the theft in the presence of somebody else.</p>
+
+
+<h4><i>II.--A Mysterious Journey</i></h4>
+
+
+<p>Lecoq's first steps after establishing these preliminary deductions was
+to secure the release of Bertomy on the grounds of insufficient
+evidence.</p>
+
+<p>On the very morning of his release, Bertomy had received a mysterious
+letter composed of printed words cut out letter by letter from a book and
+pasted on paper.</p>
+
+<p>"My dear Prosper," so the epistle ran, "a friend who knows the horror of
+your situation sends you this help. There is one heart at least which feels
+for you. Leave France; you are yourself. The future is before you. Go, and
+may this money be of use."</p>
+
+<p>Enclosed with this note were banknotes for &pound;400. Lecoq, disguised
+as a M. Verduret, a country merchant, a friend of Bertomy's father, secured
+this epistle and studied it carefully. His knowledge of the various types
+used by the printers in Paris showed him that the letters had been taken
+from a book printed by a well-known firm who published volumes of devotion.
+The correctness of this conclusion was established by the discovery on the
+back of one of the small cuttings the word "Deus." The words had been cut
+from a Catholic prayer-book. To find that prayer-book was his next
+business.</p>
+
+<p>In another disguise he sought out Nina Gipsy, and, by asking her
+assistance to clear Prosper, induced her to take up the position of
+lady's-maid in the Fauvel family, for it was there, he conceived, the
+mutilated book of devotion would be found. Again his wonderful instinct
+proved right. In a few days Nina brought him the very book--a prayer-book,
+belonging to Madeline, which had been given her by Bertomy.</p>
+
+<p>Why had Madeline sent the cashier this elaborately disguised letter? Why
+had she wished him to leave France, confident as she was, so she told him,
+of his innocence?</p>
+
+<p>To find an answer to these important queries, Lecoq closely questioned
+Bertomy. He learnt that the night before the robbery the cashier had dined
+with his friend Raoul de Lagors, the wealthy, dissolute young nephew of M.
+Fauvel's wife. This Lagors was the friend of Count Louis de Clameran, whose
+demand for the &pound;12,000 left him by his dead brother had resulted in
+the discovery of the mysterious robbery.</p>
+
+<p>Bertomy had nothing but the highest praise for Lagors, but, on the other
+hand, spoke most disparagingly of the count. The count, it appeared, had
+proposed for the hand of Madeline, and had pressed his suit with great
+determination. And Madeline--and this was what provided a new problem for
+Lecoq's consideration--had tacitly accepted his attention.</p>
+
+<p>Through Nina, Lecoq had arranged a meeting between Bertomy and Madeline,
+and satisfied himself that the girl was whole-heartedly and devotedly
+attached to her uncle's cashier. Then why was she favouring the suit of the
+count? Lecoq at once made it his business to inquire into the count's
+past.</p>
+
+<p>He was the second son of an old and noble family. His elder brother,
+Gaston, having to fly the country in consequence of causing the death of
+several men, he had inherited the property. A life of dissolute pleasures
+had soon exhausted his patrimony and he was reduced to living by his wits.
+Some weeks before the robbery, he had discovered that his brother Gaston
+was alive and was living on a large estate in the south of France, which he
+had purchased with the wealth he had accumulated in business. Six weeks
+after the two brothers met again, the elder died and the younger inherited
+his vast fortune.</p>
+
+<p>Raoul de Lagors was the next character in the drama whose past the
+detective made it his business to expose. Lagors, it has been said, was the
+nephew of Madame Fauvel. To his surprise, Lecoq discovered, by inquiries in
+her native place, that the banker's wife had never had any brothers or
+sisters. Lagors, therefore, was not her nephew.</p>
+
+<p>Fanferlot, acting on instructions, had kept a strict watch on the
+movements of Madeline, and by this means Lecoq received timely warning of a
+mysterious excursion which the girl made one night. He followed her to a
+lonely house on the outskirts of the city. When she had gained admittance,
+the appearance of a light in one of the windows on the first floor seemed
+to indicate the room to which she had been taken. By the aid of a ladder,
+Lecoq was able to watch what was going on within through the shutters.</p>
+
+<p>He saw Madeline standing opposite Lagors, evidently, from her attitude,
+pleading with him. For some time he listened to her, with a cynical smile
+upon his face, but after an hour he seemed to decide, with evident
+reluctance, to comply with her request. Going to a cabinet, he took out a
+bundle of pawn tickets and flung them on the table. Hastily going through
+the collection, she selected three, and concealing them in her dress, left
+the house.</p>
+
+<p>By following her to a pawnshop, Lecoq discovered that she had redeemed
+certain valuable articles of jewelry belonging to Madame Fauvel. Lecoq
+knew, through Nina Gipsy, who still filled the part of lady's-maid in the
+Fauvel family, that M. Fauvel had insisted on his wife accompanying him on
+the following evening to a great fancy-dress ball which was to be given by
+one of the wealthiest families in the capital. Obviously, then, the jewelry
+that Madeline had redeemed was required by Madame Fauvel for the occasion.
+Why had she pawned it for Lagors?</p>
+
+<p>A theory had half formed itself in Lecoq's brain. He determined to prove
+its truth. Disguised as a clown, he attended the fancy-dress ball, and in
+the character of a mountebank collected a group of ladies and gentlemen
+around him while he related with the inimitable skill of a buffoon a
+romantic narrative. To most of the people present it was simply an amusing
+story, but to the count and Lagors and Madame Fauvel, who were among the
+listeners, it seemed something much more, for Lecoq dressed out his theory
+of the robbery in the trappings of romance. Just as he reached the climax
+of the story there was a cry, and Madame Fauvel almost fell fainting on the
+floor. The count and Lagors rushed up furiously to Lecoq.</p>
+
+<p>"Master Clown," said Lagors, "your tongue is too long."</p>
+
+<p>"Perhaps, my pretty boy," retorted Lecoq, "perhaps it is. But it is, I
+can assure you, not so long as my arm."</p>
+
+<p>"Who are you, M. le Clown?" the count exclaimed angrily.</p>
+
+<p>"I am," replied Lecoq, "the best friend your brother Gaston had. I was
+his counsellor. I am the confidant of his last wishes."</p>
+
+<p>Though the solution of the problem seemed so tantalisingly near, there
+were still some threads in the tangle which required sorting out before
+Lecoq could say that the case was complete. Among other matters he inquired
+of Bertomy the word which had been used to lock the safe on, the night of
+the robbery. The word had been "gipsy." Bertomy was confident that he had
+not mentioned it to anybody, but Nina Gipsy was able to throw light on this
+part of the problem. She recollected a chance remark of Bertomy's while
+sitting at dinner with herself and Lagors on the night of the robbery. She
+had reproached Bertomy with neglecting her.</p>
+
+<p>"It's too bad for you to reproach me," cried the cashier, "for it is
+your name which at this very moment guards the safe of M. Fauvel."</p>
+
+<p>Lagors, therefore, had known the password. What did this new discovery
+imply? How did it fit in with the rest of the data which Lecoq had so
+brilliantly collected?</p>
+
+<p>After his custom, he marshalled once more in his mind all the facts at
+his disposal, but they were like so many loose links in a chain. They
+required the connecting link to make the chain complete. To find that link
+Lecoq spent a month in visiting the old home of the De Clamerans, the
+estate formerly occupied by Gaston de Clameron, who had died a few days
+before the robbery, and also in a trip to England. When he returned to
+Paris, <i>dossier</i> No. 113 was complete.</p>
+
+
+<h4><i>III.--The Dossier</i></h4>
+
+
+<p>In her extreme youth, Madame Fauvel had been secretly loved by Gaston de
+Clameron. It was a result of certain contemptuous words spoken of the girl
+he loved that Gaston had committed those deeds which had compelled him to
+fly the country. Shortly after his flight, the girl, finding that she was
+about to give birth to a child, imparted the secret to her mother. Fearing
+a scandal, the mother, accompanied by a faithful nurse, took her daughter
+over to England. There, near London, a child was born, who was immediately
+handed over to some simple country people to adopt. The unhappy girl
+returned to France, and shortly after married M. Fauvel, the banker.</p>
+
+<p>Years after, the Count Louis de Clameron, who had inherited and ruined
+the estates of which his brother Gaston had been deprived, discovered this
+secret from the nurse, and finding on inquiries in London that the child
+had died, persuaded a young ne'er-do-well Englishman to play the
+<i>r&ocirc;le</i> of his brother's son. He secretly introduced him to
+Madame Fauvel, and through this means obtained what money he required from
+the unhappy woman, who feared the discovery of her past secret by her
+husband. The situation was complicated by the count falling in love with
+Madeline and the sudden appearance of Gaston de Clameron, who was thought
+to be dead.</p>
+
+<p>The count poisoned his brother, and then, finding that Madeline refused
+to give up Bertomy, determined to accomplish the cashier's ruin, and at the
+same time obtain an amount of money large enough to buy off his
+fellow-conspirator Lagors. Lagors, having learnt by chance the password
+that guarded the safe, was sent to Madame Fauvel late at night with a
+request for money.</p>
+
+<p>At this time Madame Fauvel was at the end of her resources. Lagors
+suggested taking the money from the safe. Tom between a desire to help her
+supposed son and the risk of discovery, she at last consented. Taking M.
+Fauvel's key, they descended silently to the safe-room. At the last moment,
+just as the key was in the lock, Madame Fauvel attempted to deter Lagors
+from his purpose. In the struggle that scratch was made on the door which
+formed the basis of Lecoq's inquiries and enabled the great detective to
+unravel the mystery.</p>
+
+<p>Madeline, who all the while half guessed at the truth, and perceived
+without being told that Madame Fauvel was at the mercy of the count, had
+been prepared to sacrifice her future happiness in order to prevent the
+scandal being made public.</p>
+
+<p>M. Lecoq, armed with these facts, sought out Lagors. He arrived only in
+time to prevent a tragedy. Warned by an anonymous letter that his wife had
+pawned her diamonds for the benefit of Lagors, the banker came upon them
+when they were together in Lagor's rooms. Imagining the young man was his
+wife's lover, the banker drew a revolver and fired four times. Fortunately,
+none of the shots took effect, and before he could fire again Lecoq had
+rushed into the room and torn the weapon from his grasp. It was the moment
+of the great detective's triumph. With the dramatic skill of which he was a
+master, he laid bare the whole story and disclosed the true identity of
+Raoul Lagors. Before he left he compelled Lagors to refund the
+&pound;12,000 he had stolen, and in order to avoid a scandal allowed the
+young man to go free. Then, that nothing should be wanting to his triumph,
+he obtained the consent of the banker to Bertomy's marriage with
+Madeline.</p>
+
+<p>Hurrying from the banker's house, Lecoq hastened to effect the arrest of
+the count. He arrived too late. Realising that he was hopelessly in the
+toils, the count was bereft of his senses and become a hopeless maniac.</p>
+
+<p>Four days later M. Lecoq, the official M. Lecoq, awaited the arrival of
+Nina Gipsy and Prosper Bertomy. They declared that they had come to meet M.
+Verduret, who had saved Prosper Bertomy. The detective retired, promising
+to summon the man they had come to see. A quarter of an hour later M.
+Verduret entered the room. Facing them, he told them how a friend of his
+named Caldas had fallen in love with a girl, and how that girl had been won
+from him by a man who cared nothing for her.</p>
+
+<p>"Caldas determined to revenge himself in his own way. It was his hand
+that saved the man on the very verge of disgrace. I see you know that you,
+Nina, are the woman, and you, Prosper, the man; while Caldas is...."</p>
+
+<p>With a quick gesture he removed his wig and whiskers, and the true Lecoq
+appeared.</p>
+
+<p>"Caldas!" cried Nina.</p>
+
+<p>"No, not Caldas, not Verduret, but Lecoq, the detective."</p>
+
+<p>After the moments of amazement had passed, Lecoq turned to leave the
+room, but Nina barred the way.</p>
+
+<p>"Caldas," she cried, "have you not punished me enough? Caldas...."</p>
+
+<p>Prosper went from the office alone.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+
+
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="galt">JOHN GALT</a></h2>
+
+
+<h3><a name="galt1">Annals of the Parish</a></h3>
+
+<p class="letter">
+John Gait, poet, dramatist, historian, and novelist, was born
+at Irvine, Ayrshire, Scotland, on May 2, 1779. He was trained for a
+commercial career in the Greenock Custom House, and in the office of a
+merchant in that seaport. Removing to London, Gait engaged in business and
+afterwards travelled extensively to forward mercantile enterprises in all
+the countries bordering on the Mediterranean and the Near East, where he
+repeatedly met Lord Byron. His first work of fiction was a Sicilian story,
+published in 1816, but it was not until 1820 that he found his true
+literary expression, when the "Ayrshire Legatees" appeared in "Blackwood's
+Magazine." The success of this tale was so great that Gait finished the
+"Annals of the Parish; or the Chronicle of Dalmailing, during the Ministry
+of the Rev. Micah Balwhidder," which he had really begun in 1813, and they
+were published in 1821. The "Annals" contain a lively and humorous picture
+of Scottish character, manners, and feeling during the era described. In
+the latter part of his life Gait wrote several novels, a life of Byron, an
+autobiography, and his "Literary Life and Miscellanies." He died on April
+11, 1838.
+</p>
+
+<h4><i>I.--The Placing of Mr. Balwhidder</i></h4>
+
+
+<p>The year A.D. 1760 was remarkable for three things in the parish of
+Dalmailing. First and foremost, there was my placing, then the coming of
+Mrs. Malcolm with her five children to settle among us, and next my
+marriage with my own cousin, Miss Betty Lanshaw. The placing was a great
+affair, for I was put in by the patron, and the people knew nothing of me
+whatsoever. They were really mad and vicious, insomuch that there was
+obliged to be a guard of soldiers to protect the presbytery. Dirt was flung
+upon us as we passed, and the finger of scorn held out to me. But I endured
+it with a resigned spirit, compassionating their wilfulness and
+blindness.</p>
+
+<p>The kirk door was nailed up and we were obligated to go in by the
+window, making the Lord's house like an inn on a fair-day with their
+grievous yelly hooing. Thomas Thorl, the weaver, a pious zealot, got up at
+the time of the induction and protested, and said, "Verily, verily, I say
+unto you, he that entereth not by the door of the sheepfold, but climbeth
+up some other way, the same is a thief and a robber."</p>
+
+<p>When the laying on of the hands upon me was adoing, Mr. Given, minister
+of Lugton, a jocose man, who could not get near, stretched out his staff
+and touched my head, saying, to the great diversion of the rest, "This will
+do well enough--timber to timber."</p>
+
+<p>After the ceremony we went to the manse, and there had an excellent
+dinner. Although my people received me in this unruly manner, I was
+resolved to cultivate civility among them; and next morning I began a round
+of visitations. But, oh! it was a steep brae to climb. The doors in some
+places were barred against me; in others the bairns ran crying to their
+mothers, "Here's the feckless Mess-John." But Thomas Thorl received me
+kindly, and said that this early visitation was a symptom of grace, and
+that not to condemn me without trial he and some neighbours would be at the
+kirk at the next Lord's day, so that I would not have to preach just to the
+bare walls and the laird's family.</p>
+
+<p>As to Mrs. Malcolm, she was the widow of a Clyde shipmaster that was
+lost at sea with his vessel. A genty body, she never changed her widow's
+weeds, and span frae morning tae nicht to keep her bairns and herself. When
+her daughter Effie was ill, I called on her in a sympathising way, and
+offered her some assistance frae the Session, but she refused help out of
+the poor's-box, as it might be hereafter cast up to her bairns.</p>
+
+<p>It was in the year 1761 that the great smuggling trade corrupted the
+west coast. Tea was going like chaff, and brandy like well-water. There was
+nothing minded but the riding of cadgers by day and excisemen by night, and
+battles between the smugglers and the king's men, both by sea and land;
+continual drunkenness and debauchery, and our Session had an awful time
+o't.</p>
+
+<p>I did all that was in my power to keep my people from the contagion. I
+preached sixteen times from the text, "Render to Caesar the things that are
+Caesar's." I visited, exhorted, warned, and prophesied, but the evil got in
+among us. The third year of my ministry was long held in remembrance. The
+small-pox came in among the poor bits o' weans of the parish, and the
+smashing it made among them was woeful. When the pestilence was raging, I
+preached a sermon about Rachel weeping for her children, which Thomas
+Thorl, a great judge of good preaching, said, "was a monument of divinity
+whilk searched the heart of many a parent that day"--a thing I was well
+pleased to hear, and was minded to make him an elder the next vacancy. But,
+worthy man, it was not permitted him to arrive at that honour; for that
+fall it pleased Him that alone can give and take to pluck him from this
+life.</p>
+
+<p>In this year Charlie Malcolm, Mrs. Malcolm's eldest son, was sent to sea
+in a tobacco-trader that sailed between Port Glasgow and Virginia.
+Tea-drinking was beginning to spread more openly, in so much that by the
+advice of the first Mrs. Balwhidder, Mrs. Malcolm took in tea to sell to
+eke out something to the small profits of her wheel. I lost some of my
+dislike to the tea after that, and we had it for breakfast at the manse as
+well as in the afternoon. But what I thought most of it for was that it did
+no harm to the head of the drinkers, which was not always the case with the
+possets in fashion before, when I remember decent ladies coming home with
+red faces from a posset-masking. So I refrained from preaching against tea
+henceforth, but I never lifted the weight of my displeasure from off the
+smuggling trade, until it was utterly put down by the strong hand of
+government.</p>
+
+
+<h4><i>II.--The Minister's Second Marriage</i></h4>
+
+
+<p>A memorable year, both in public and private, was 1763. The king granted
+peace to the French. Lady Macadam, widow of General Macadam, who lived in
+her jointure-house, took Kate Malcolm to live with her as companion, and
+she took pleasure in teaching Kate all her accomplishments and how to
+behave herself like a lady. The lint-mill on Lugton Water was burned to the
+ground, with not a little of the year's crop of lint in our parish. The
+first Mrs. Balwhidder lost upwards of twelve stone, which was intended for
+sarking to ourselves and sheets and napery. A great loss indeed it was, and
+the vexation thereof had a visible effect on her health, which from the
+spring had been in a dwining way. But for it, I think she might have
+wrestled through the winter. However, it was ordered otherwise, and she was
+removed from mine to Abraham's bosom on Christmas Day, and buried on
+Hogmanay, for it was thought uncanny to have a dead corpse in the house on
+the New Year's Day.</p>
+
+<p>Just by way of diversion in my heavy sorrow, I got a well-shapen
+headstone made for her; but a headstone without a epitaph being no better
+than a body without the breath of life in't, I made a poesy for the
+monument, not in the Latin tongue, which Mrs. Balwhidder, worthy woman as
+she was, did not understand, but in sedate language, which was greatly
+thought of at the time. My servant lassies, having no eye of a mistress
+over them, wasted everything at such a rate that, long before the end of
+the year, the year's stipend was all spent, and I did not know what to do.
+At lang and length I sent for Mr. Auld, a douce and discreet elder, and
+told him how I was situated. He advised me, for my own sake, to look out
+for another wife, as soon as decency would allow.</p>
+
+<p>In the following spring I placed my affections, with due consideration,
+on Miss Lizzy Kibbock, the well-brought-up daughter of Mr. Joseph Kibbock,
+of the Gorbyholm, farmer; and we were married on the 29th day of April, on
+account of the dread we had of being married in May, for it is said, "Of
+the marriages in May, the bairns die of a decay." The second Mrs.
+Balwhidder had a genius for management, and started a dairy, and set the
+servant lassies to spin wool for making blankets and lint for sheets and
+napery. She sent the butter on market days to Irville, her cheese and
+huxtry to Glasgow. We were just coining money, in so much that, after the
+first year, we had the whole tot of stipend to put into the bank.</p>
+
+<p>The opening of coal-pits in Douray Moor brought great prosperity to the
+parish, but the coal-carts cut up the roads, especially the Vennel, a
+narrow and crooked street in the clachan. Lord Eglesham came down from
+London in the spring of 1767 to see the new lands he had bought in our
+parish. His coach couped in the Vennel, and his lordship was thrown head
+foremost into the mud. He swore like a trooper, and said he would get an
+act of parliament to put down the nuisance. His lordship came to the manse,
+and, being in a woeful plight, he got the loan of my best suit of clothes.
+This made him wonderful jocose both with Mrs. Balwhidder and me, for he was
+a portly man, and I but a thin body, and it was really droll to see his
+lordship clad in my garments. Out of this accident grew a sort of
+neighbourliness between Lord Eglesham and me.</p>
+
+
+<h4><i>III.--A Runaway Match</i></h4>
+
+
+<p>About Christmas, Lady Macadam's son, having been perfected in the art of
+war at a school in France, had, with the help of his mother's friends and
+his father's fame, got a stand of colours in the Royal Scots Regiment. He
+came to show himself in his regimentals to his lady mother, and during the
+visit he fell in love and entered into correspondence with Kate Malcolm. A
+while after, her ladyship's flunkey came to the manse and begged me to go
+to her. So I went; and there she was, with gum-flowers on her head, sitting
+on a settee, for she was lame, and in her hand she held a letter.</p>
+
+<p>"Sir," she said, as I came into the room, "I want you to go instantly to
+your clerk," meaning Mr. Lorimore, the schoolmaster, "and tell him I will
+give him a couple of hundred pounds to marry Miss Malcolm without
+delay."</p>
+
+<p>"Softly, my lady; you must first tell me the meaning of all this haste
+of kindness," said I, in my calm, methodical manner. At which she began to
+sob, and bewail her ruin and the dishonour of her family. I was confounded,
+but at length it came out that she had accidentally opened a letter that
+had come from London for Kate, that she had read it, by which she came to
+know that Kate and her darling son were trysted, and that this was not the
+first love-letter which had passed between them. Mr. Lorimore promptly
+declined her ladyship's proposal, as he was engaged to be married to his
+present worthy helpmate. Although her ladyship was so overcome with
+passion, she would not part with Kate, nor allow her to quit the house.</p>
+
+<p>Three years later the young Laird Macadam, being ordered with his
+regiment for America, got leave from the king to come and see his lady
+mother before his departure. But it was not to see her only. He arrived at
+a late hour unwarned, lest his mother would send Kate out of the way; but
+no sooner did her ladyship behold his face than she kindled upon both him
+and Kate, and ordered them out of her sight and house. The young folk had
+discretion. Kate went home to her mother, and the laird came to the manse
+and begged us to take him in.</p>
+
+<p>He asked me to perform the ceremony, as he was resolved to marry Kate.
+We stepped over to Mrs. Malcolm's house, where we found the saintly woman
+with Kate and Erne and Willie, preparing to read their Bible for the night.
+After speaking to Mrs. Malcolm for a time, she consented to the marriage.
+It was sanctified by me before we left Mrs. Malcolm's, the young couple
+setting off in the laird's chaise to Glasgow, and authorising me to break
+the matter to Lady Macadam. I was spared this performance, for the servants
+jealoused what had been done, and told her ladyship. When I entered the
+room she was like a mad woman in Bedlam. She sent her coachman on horseback
+to overtake them, which he did at Kilmarnock, and they returned in the
+morning, when her ladyship was as cagey and meikle taken up with them as if
+they had gotten her full consent and privilege from the first. Captain
+Macadam afterwards bought a house at the Braehead, and gave it, with a
+judicious income, to Mrs. Malcolm, telling her it was not becoming that she
+should any longer be dependent upon her own industry. For this the young
+man got a name like a sweet odour in all the country-side.</p>
+
+<p>It will be remembered that Charlie Malcolm went a-sailing in a
+tobacco-trader to America. When his ship was lying in the harbour of
+Virginia, a press-gang, that was in need of men for the Avenger,
+man-of-war, came on board and pressed poor Charles. I wrote to Lord
+Eglesham anent the matter, and his lordship's brother being connected with
+the Admiralty, the captain of the man-of-war was instructed to make a
+midshipman of Charles. This was done, and Mrs. Malcolm heard from time to
+time from her son, saying that he had found a friend in the captain, that
+was just a father to him.</p>
+
+<p>In the latter end of 1776, the man-of-war, with Charles Malcolm in her,
+came to the Tail of the Bank at Greenock, and Charles got leave from his
+captain to come and see his mother. He brought with him Mr. Howard, another
+midshipman, the son of a great Parliament man in London. They were dressed
+in their fine gold-laced garbs. When Charles had seen his mother and his
+sister, Effie, he came with his friend to see me at the manse, and got Mrs.
+Balwhidder to ask his friend to sleep there. In short, we had a ploy the
+whole two days they stayed with us, Lady Macadam made for them at a ball,
+and it was a delight to see how old and young of all degrees made much of
+Charles.</p>
+
+
+<h4><i>IV.--Years of Lamentation</i></h4>
+
+
+<p>I was named in the year 1779 for the General Assembly, and Mrs.
+Balwhidder, by her continual thrift, having made our purse able to stand a
+shake against the wind, we resolved to go into Edinburgh in a creditable
+manner. We put up at Widow M'Vicar's, a relation to my first wife, a gawsy,
+furthy woman, taking great pleasure in hospitality. In short, everybody in
+Edinburgh was in a manner wearisome kind.</p>
+
+<p>I was delighted and surprised to find Lord Eglesham at the levee, and he
+introduced me to his grace the Commissioner, who required me to preach
+before him. Fain would I have eschewed the honour that was thus thrust upon
+me; but both my wife and Mrs. M'Vicar were just lifted out of themselves at
+the thought. After the sermon the Commissioner complimented me on my
+apostolic earnestness, and Mrs. M'Vicar said I had surprised everybody; but
+I was fearful there was something of jocularity at the bottom of all
+this.</p>
+
+<p>The year 1781 was one of dolour and tribulation, for Lord Eglesham was
+shot dead by a poaching exciseman, and Lady Macadam died of paralysis; but
+the year after was one of greater lamentation. Three brave young fellows
+belonging to the clachan, who had gone as soldiers in America, were killed
+in battle with the rebels, for which there was great grief. Shortly after
+this the news came of a victory over the French fleet, and by the same post
+I got a letter from Mr. Howard, the midshipman, telling me that poor
+Charles had been mortally wounded in the action, and had afterwards died of
+his wounds.</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Malcolm heard the news of the victory through the steeple bell
+being set a-ringing, and she came over to the manse in great anxiety. When
+I saw her I could not speak, but looked at her in pity, and, the tears
+fleeing into my eyes, she guessed what had happened. After giving a deep
+and sore sigh, she inquired, "How did he behave? I hope well, for he was
+aye a gallant laddie!" And then she wept very bitterly. I gave her the
+letter, which she begged me to give to her to keep, saying, "It's all that
+I have left now of my pretty boy; but it is mair precious to me than the
+wealth of the Indies!"</p>
+
+
+<h4><i>V.--Death of the Second Mrs. Balwhidder</i></h4>
+
+
+<p>Some time after this a Mr. Cayenne, a man of crusty temper but good
+heart, and his family, American loyalists, settled among us. In the year
+1788, a proposal came from Glasgow to build a cotton mill on the banks of
+the Brawl burn, a rapid stream which ran through the parish. Mr. Cayenne
+took a part in the profit or loss of the concern, and the cotton mill and a
+new town was built, and the whole called Cayenneville. Weavers of muslin
+were brought to the mill, and women to teach the lassie bairns in our old
+clachan tambouring instead of hand-spinning.</p>
+
+<p>Prosperity of fortune is like the golden hue of the evening cloud that
+delighteth the spirit and passeth away. In the month of February 1796, my
+second wife was gathered to the Lord. Her death was to me a great sorrow,
+for she was a most excellent wife, industrious to a degree. With her I had
+grown richer than any other minister in the presbytery.</p>
+
+<p>I laid her by the side of my first love, Betty Lanshaw, and I inscribed
+her name upon the same headstone. Time had drained my poetical vein, and I
+have not yet been able to indite an epithet on her merits and virtues, for
+she had an eminent share of both. Above all, she was the mother of my
+children. She was not long deposited in her place of rest until things fell
+into amazing confusion, and I saw it would be necessary, as soon as decency
+would allow, for me to take another wife, both for a helpmate, and to tend
+me in my approaching infirmities.</p>
+
+<p>I saw it would not do for me to look out for an overly young woman, nor
+yet would it do for one of my way to take an elderly maiden, ladies of that
+sort being liable to possess strong-set particularities. I therefore
+resolved that my choice should lie among widows of a discreet age, and I
+fixed my purpose on Mrs. Nugent, the relict of a professor in the
+University of Glasgow, both because she was a well-bred woman without any
+children, and because she was held in great estimation as a lady of
+Christian principle. And so we were married as soon as a twelve-month and a
+day had passed from the death of the second Mrs. Balwhidder; and neither of
+us have had occasion to rue the bargain.</p>
+
+
+<h4><i>VI.--The Last Sermon</i></h4>
+
+
+<p>Two things made 1799 a memorable year; the marriage of my daughter Janet
+with the Rev. Dr. Kittleword of Swappington, a match in every way
+commendable; and the death of Mrs. Malcolm. If ever there was a saint on
+earth she was surely one. She bore adversity with an honest pride; she
+toiled in the day of penury and affliction with thankfulness for her little
+earnings.</p>
+
+<p>The year 1803 saw tempestuous times. Bonaparte gathered his host fornent
+the English coast, and the government at London were in terror of their
+lives for an invasion. All in the country saw that there was danger, and I
+was not backward in sounding the trumpet to battle. I delivered on Lord's
+Day a religious and political exhortation on the present posture of public
+affairs before a vast congregation of all ranks. The week following there
+were meetings of weavers and others, and volunteers were enrolled in
+defence of king and country.</p>
+
+<p>In the course of the next four or five years many changes took place in
+the parish. The weavers and cotton-mill folk and seceders from my own kirk
+built a meeting-house in Cayenneville, where there had been for a while
+great suffering on account of the failure of the cotton-mill company. In
+the year 1809 the elders came in a body to the manse, and said that, seeing
+that I was now growing old, they thought they could not testify their
+respect for me in a better manner than by agreeing to get me a helper; and
+the next year several young ministers spared me from the necessity of
+preaching.</p>
+
+<p>When it was known that I was to preach my last sermon on the last
+sabbath of 1810, everyone, including the seceders to the meeting-house,
+made it a point to be in the parish kirk, or to stand in the crowd that
+made a lane of reverence for me to pass from the kirk door to the back-yett
+of the manse. It was a moving discourse, and there were few dry eyes in the
+kirk that day; for my bidding them farewell was as when of old among the
+heathen an idol was taken away by the hand of the enemy. Shortly after, a
+deputation of the seceders, with their minister at their head, came to me
+and presented a server of silver in token of their esteem of my blameless
+life, and the charity I had practised towards the poor.</p>
+
+<p>I am thankful that I have been spared with a sound mind to write this
+book to the end, having really no more to say, saving only to wish a
+blessing on all people from on high, where I soon hope to be, and to meet
+there all the old and long-departed sheep of my flock, especially the first
+and second Mrs. Balwhidders.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+
+
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="gaskell">ELIZABETH CLEGHORN GASKELL</a></h2>
+
+
+<h3><a name="gaskell1">Cranford</a></h3>
+
+<p class="letter">
+Mrs. Gaskell, whose maiden name was Elizabeth C. Stevenson,
+was born in Chelsea, London, Sept. 29, 1810. She married a Unitarian
+clergyman in Manchester. Her first literary work was published anonymously,
+and met with a storm of mingled approval and disapproval. Charles Dickens
+invited her to contribute to his "Household Words," and it was in the pages
+of that famous periodical, at intervals between December 13, 1851, and May
+21, 1853, that her charming sketches of social life in a little country
+town first appeared. In June, 1853, they were grouped together under the
+title of "Cranford," meeting with wide approval, and have long taken rank
+as one of the accepted English classics. The town which figures here as
+Cranford is understood to have been Knutsford, in Cheshire, which still
+retains something of that old-world feeling and restfulness which Mrs.
+Gaskell embodied in the pages of her most engaging book. "Cranford" is
+probably the direct progenitor of many latter-day books of the class to
+which the word "idyll" has been somewhat loosely applied. Its charm and
+freshness are unfading; it remains unique and unrivalled as a sympathetic
+and kindly humorous description of English provincial life. Mrs. Gaskell
+died in November, 1865.
+</p>
+
+<h4><i>I.--Our Society</i></h4>
+
+
+<p>On the first visit I paid to Cranford, after I had left it as a
+residence, I was astonished to find a man had settled there--a Captain
+Brown. In my time Cranford was in possession of the Amazons. If a married
+couple came to settle there, somehow the man always disappeared. Either he
+was fairly frightened to death by being the only man at the evening
+parties, or he was accounted for by being with his regiment, his ship, or
+closely connected in business all the week in the great neighbouring
+commercial town of Drumble, distant only twenty miles on the railroad.</p>
+
+<p>I was naturally interested to learn what opinions Captain Brown had
+managed to win for himself in Cranford. So, with all the delicacy which the
+subject demanded, I made inquiries of my hostess, Miss Jenkyns. I was
+surprised to learn that Captain Brown not only was respected, but had even
+gained an extraordinary place of authority among the Cranford ladies. Of
+course, he had been forced to overcome great difficulties.</p>
+
+<p>In the first place, the ladies of Cranford had moaned over the invasion
+of their territories by a man and a gentleman. Then Captain Brown had
+started badly, very badly, by openly referring to his poverty. If he had
+whispered it to an intimate friend, the doors and windows being previously
+closed, his vulgarity--a tremendous word in Cranford--might have been
+forgiven. But he had published his poverty in the public street, in a loud
+military voice, alleging it as a reason for not taking a particular
+house.</p>
+
+<p>In Cranford, too, where it was tacitly agreed to ignore that anyone with
+whom we associated on terms of equality could ever be prevented by poverty
+from doing anything they wished. Where, if we walked to and from a party,
+it was because the night was <i>so</i> fine or the air <i>so</i>
+refreshing, not because sedan-chairs were so expensive.</p>
+
+<p>So the poor captain had been sent to Coventry. The ladies of Cranford
+had frozen him out, until the day when the cow, an Alderney cow, had broken
+the ice.</p>
+
+<p>It happened like this. Miss Betsy Barker had an Alderney cow, which she
+looked upon as a daughter. You could not pay the regulation short quarter
+of an hour's call--to stay longer was a breach of manners--without being
+told of the wonderful milk or wonderful intelligence of this animal. The
+whole town knew and kindly regarded Miss Betsy Barker's Alderney.</p>
+
+<p>One day the cow fell into a lime-pit, and Cranford grieved over the
+spectacle of the poor beast being drawn out, having lost most of her hair,
+and looking naked, cold and miserable, in a bare skin. Miss Betsy Barker
+absolutely cried with sorrow and dismay, and was about to prepare a bath of
+oil for the sufferer, when Captain Brown called out: "Get her a flannel
+waistcoat and flannel drawers, ma'am, if you wish to keep her alive. But my
+advice is, 'kill the poor creature at once.'" Miss Betsy Barker dried her
+eyes, and in a few hours the whole town turned out to see the Alderney
+meekly going to her pasture, clad in dark-gray flannel. Do you ever see
+cows dressed in gray flannel in London?</p>
+
+<p>On that day was born the respect of the Cranford ladies for Captain
+Brown.</p>
+
+<p>Soon after my arrival in Cranford, Miss Jenkyns gave a party in my
+honour, and recalling the old days when we had almost persuaded ourselves
+that to be a man was to be "vulgar," I was curious to see what the ladies
+would do with Captain Brown.</p>
+
+<p>The preparations were much as usual. Card-tables, with green baize tops,
+were set out by daylight, and towards four, when the evening closed in, we
+all stood dressed in our best, each with a candle-lighter in our hand,
+ready to dart at the candles as soon as the first knock came. The china was
+delicate egg-shell; the old-fashioned silver glittered with polishing; but
+the eatables were of the slightest description. While the trays were yet on
+the table, Captain Brown arrived with his two daughters, Miss Brown and
+Miss Jessie, the former with a sickly, pained, and careworn expression; the
+latter with a pretty, round, dimpled face, and the look of a child which
+will remain with her should she live to be a hundred.</p>
+
+<p>I could see that the captain was a favourite with all the ladies
+present. Ruffled brows were smoothed and sharp voices hushed at his
+approach. He immediately and quietly assumed the man's place in the room;
+attended to everyone's wants, lessened the pretty maidservant's labour by
+waiting on empty cups and bread-and-butterless ladies; and yet did it all
+in so easy and dignified a manner, and so much as if it were a matter of
+course for the strong to attend to the weak, that he was a true man
+throughout.</p>
+
+<p>The party passed off very well in spite of one or two little hitches.
+One was Miss Jessie Brown's unguarded admission--<i>à propos</i> of
+Shetland wool--that she had an uncle, her mother's brother, who was a
+shopkeeper in Edinburgh. Miss Jenkyns tried to drown this confession by a
+terrible cough, for the honourable Mrs. Jamieson was sitting at the
+card-table nearest Miss Jessie, and what would she say or think if she
+found out she was in the same room with a shopkeeper's niece!</p>
+
+<p>Then there was a slight breeze between Miss Jenkyns and Captain Brown
+over the relative merits of Dr. Johnson and the author of "Pickwick
+Papers"--then being published in parts--as writers of light and agreeable
+fiction. Captain Brown read an account of the "Swarry" which Sam Weller
+gave at Bath. Some of us laughed very heartily. <i>I</i> did not dare,
+because I was staying in the house. At the conclusion Miss Jenkyns said to
+me, with mild dignity, "Fetch me 'Rasselas,' my dear, out of the
+book-room."</p>
+
+<p>After delivering one of the conversations between Rasselas and Imlac in
+a majestic, high-pitched voice, Miss Jenkyns said, "I imagine I am now
+justified in my preference for Dr. Johnson over your Mr. Boz as a writer of
+fiction."</p>
+
+<p>The captain said nothing, merely screwed his lips up and drummed on the
+table; but when Miss Jenkyns returned later to the charge and recommended
+the doctor's style to Captain Brown's favourite, the captain replied, "I
+should be very sorry for him to exchange his style for any such pompous
+writing."</p>
+
+<p>Miss Jenkyns felt this as a personal affront in a way of which the
+captain had not dreamed. How could he know that she and her friends looked
+upon epistolary writing as their forte, and that when in a letter they
+"seized the half-hour just previous to post-time to assure" their friends
+of this and that, they were using the doctor as a model?</p>
+
+<p>As it was Miss Jenkyns refused to be mollified by Captain Brown's
+efforts later to beguile her into conversation on some more pleasing
+subject. She was inexorable.</p>
+
+<p>Captain Brown endeavoured to make peace after this memorable dispute by
+a present to Miss Jenkyns of a wooden fire-shovel (his own making), having
+heard her say how much the grating of an iron one annoyed her. She received
+the present with cool gratitude and thanked him formally. When he was gone
+she bade me put it in the lumber-room, feeling probably that no present
+from a man who preferred Mr. Boz to Dr. Johnson could be less jarring than
+an iron fire-shovel.</p>
+
+<p>Such was the state of affairs at the time when I left Cranford and went
+to Drumble. I had, however, several correspondents who kept me <i>au
+fait</i> as to the proceedings of the inhabitants of the dear little
+town.</p>
+
+
+<h4><i>II.--The Captain</i></h4>
+
+
+<p>My next visit to Cranford was in the summer. There had been neither
+births, deaths, nor marriages since I was there last. Everybody lived in
+the same house, and wore pretty near the same well-preserved, old-fashioned
+clothes. The greatest event was that the Misses Jenkyns had purchased a new
+carpet for the drawing-room. Oh, the busy work Miss Matty and I had in
+chasing the sunbeams as they fell in an afternoon right down on this carpet
+through the blindless windows! We spread our newspapers over the places and
+sat down to our book or our work; and, lo! in a quarter of an hour the sun
+had moved and was blazing away in a fresh spot; and down again we went on
+our knees to alter the position of the newspapers. One whole morning, too,
+we spent in cutting out and stitching together pieces of newspapers so as
+to form little paths to every chair, lest the shoes of visitors should
+defile the purity of the carpet. Do you make paper paths for every guest to
+walk upon in London?</p>
+
+<p>The literary dispute between Captain Brown and Miss Jenkyns continued.
+She had formed a habit of talking <i>at</i> him. And he retaliated by
+drumming his fingers, which action Miss Jenkyns felt and resented as
+disparaging to Dr. Johnson.</p>
+
+<p>The poor captain! I noticed on this visit that he looked older and more
+worn, and his clothes were very threadbare. But he seemed as bright and
+cheerful as ever, unless he was asked about his daughter's health.</p>
+
+<p>One afternoon we perceived little groups in the street, all listening
+with faces aghast to some tale or other. It was some time before Miss
+Jenkyns took the undignified step of sending Jenny out to inquire.</p>
+
+<p>Jenny came back with a white face of terror.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, ma'am! Oh, Miss Jenkyns, ma'am! Captain Brown is killed by them
+nasty cruel railroads." And she burst into tears.</p>
+
+<p>"How, where--where? Good God! Jenny, don't waste time in crying, but
+tell us something."</p>
+
+<p>Miss Matty rushed out into the street, and presently an affrighted
+carter appeared in the drawing-room and told the story.</p>
+
+<p>"'Tis true, mum, I seed it myself. The captain was a-readin' some book,
+waitin' for the down train, when a lass as gave its sister the slip came
+toddling across the line. He looked up sudden, see'd the child, darted on
+the line, cotched it up, and his foot slipped and the train came over him
+in no time. The child's safe. Poor captain would be glad of that, mum,
+wouldn't he? God bless him!"</p>
+
+<p>The great rough carter turned away to hide his tears. I turned to Miss
+Jenkyns. She looked very ill, as though she were going to faint, and signed
+to me to open a window.</p>
+
+<p>"Matilda, bring me my bonnet. I must go to those girls. God pardon me if
+ever I have spoken contemptuously to the captain."</p>
+
+<p>Miss Brown did not long survive her father. Her last words were a prayer
+for forgiveness for her selfishness in allowing her sister Jessie to
+sacrifice herself for her all her life.</p>
+
+<p>But Miss Jessie was not long left alone. Miss Jenkyns insisted she
+should come and stay with her, and would not hear of her going out into the
+world to earn her living as a saleswoman. "Some people have no idea of
+their rank as a captain's daughter," she related indignantly, and stumped
+out of the room. Presently she came back with a strange look on her
+face.</p>
+
+<p>"I have been much startled--no, I've not been startled--don't mind me,
+my dear Miss Jessie, only surprised--in fact, I've had a caller whom you
+once knew, my dear Miss Jessie."</p>
+
+<p>Miss Jessie went very white, then flushed scarlet.</p>
+
+<p>"Is it?--it is not----" stammered out Miss Jessie, and got no
+farther.</p>
+
+<p>"This is his card," said Miss Jenkyns, and went through a series of
+winks and odd faces at me, and formed a long sentence with her lips, of
+which I could not understand a word.</p>
+
+<p>Major Gordon was shown upstairs.</p>
+
+<p>While downstairs Miss Jenkyns told me what the major had told her. How
+he had served in the same regiment as Captain Brown and had fallen in love
+with Miss Jessie, then a sweet-looking, blooming girl of eighteen; how she
+had refused him, though obviously not indifferent to him; how he had
+discovered the obstacle to be the fell disease which had stricken her
+sister, whom there was no one to nurse and comfort but herself; how he had
+believed her cold and had left in anger; and finally how he had read of the
+death of Captain Brown in a foreign newspaper.</p>
+
+<p>Just then Miss Matty burst into the room.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, Deborah," she said, "there's a gentleman sitting in the
+drawing-room with his arm round Miss Jessie's waist!"</p>
+
+<p>"The most proper place for his arm to be in. Go, Matilda, and mind your
+own business."</p>
+
+<p>Poor Miss Matty! This was a shock, coming from her decorous sister.</p>
+
+<p>Thus happiness, and with it some of her early bloom, returned to Miss
+Jessie, and as Mrs. Gordon her dimples were not out of place.</p>
+
+
+<h4><i>III.--Poor Peter</i></h4>
+
+
+<p>My visits to Cranford continued for many years, and did not cease even
+after the death of Miss Jenkyns.</p>
+
+<p>Miss Matty became my new hostess. At first I rather dreaded the changed
+aspect of things. Miss Matty, too, began to cry as soon as she saw me. She
+was evidently nervous from having anticipated my visit. I comforted her as
+well as I could, and I found the best consolation I could give was the
+honest praise that came from my heart as I spoke of the deceased.</p>
+
+<p>Miss Matty made me her confidante in many matters, and one evening she
+sent Martha to go for eggs at a farm at the other end of the town and told
+me the story of her brother.</p>
+
+<p>"Poor Peter! The sole honour he brought from Shrewsbury was the
+reputation of being captain of the school in the art of practical joking.
+He even thought that the people of Cranford might be hoaxed. 'Hoaxing' is
+not a pretty word, my dear, and I hope you won't tell your father I used
+it, for I should not like him to think I was not choice in my language,
+after living with such a woman as Deborah. I don't know how it slipped out
+of my mouth, except it was that I was thinking of poor Peter, and it was
+always his expression.</p>
+
+<p>"One day my father had gone to see some sick people in the village.
+Deborah, too, was away from home for a fortnight or so. I don't know what
+possessed poor Peter, but he went to her room and dressed himself in her
+old gown and shawl and bonnet. And he made the pillow into a little--you
+are sure you locked the door, my dear?--into--into a little baby with white
+long clothes. And he went and walked up and down in the Filbert Walk--just
+half hidden by the rails and half seen; and he cuddled the pillow just like
+a baby and talked to it all the nonsense people do. Oh, dear, and my father
+came stepping stately up the street, as he always did, and pushing past the
+crowd saw--I don't know what he saw--but old Clare said his face went
+grey-white with anger. He seized hold of poor Peter, tore the clothes off
+his back--bonnet, shawl, gown, and all--threw them among the crowd, and
+before all the people lifted up his cane and flogged Peter.</p>
+
+<p>"My dear, that boy's trick on that sunny day, when all promised so well,
+broke my mother's heart and changed my father for life. Old Clare said
+Peter looked as white as my father and stood still as a statue to be
+flogged.</p>
+
+<p>"'Have you done enough, sir?' he asked hoarsely, when my father stopped.
+Then Peter bowed grandly to the people outside the railing and walked
+slowly home. He went straight to his mother, looking as haughty as any man,
+and not like a boy.</p>
+
+<p>"'Mother,' he said, 'I am come to say "God bless you for ever."'</p>
+
+<p>"He would say no more, and by the time my mother had found out what had
+happened from my father, and had gone to her boy's room to comfort him, he
+had gone, and did not come back. That spring day was the last time he ever
+saw his mother's face. He wrote a passionate entreaty to her to come and
+see him before his ship left the Mersey for the war, but the letter was
+delayed, and when she arrived it was too late. It killed my mother. And
+think, my dear, the day after her death--for she did not live a
+twelve-month after Peter left--came a parcel from India from her poor boy.
+It was a large, soft white India shawl. Just what my mother would have
+liked.</p>
+
+<p>"We took it to my father in the hopes it would rouse him, for he had sat
+with her hand in his all night long. At first he took no notice of it. Then
+suddenly he got up and spoke. 'She shall be buried in it,' he said. 'Peter
+shall have that comfort; and she would have liked it.'"</p>
+
+<p>"Did Mr. Peter ever come home?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, once. He came home a lieutenant. And he and my father were such
+friends. My father was so proud to show him to all the neighbours. He never
+walked out without Peter's arm to lean on. And then Peter went to sea
+again, and by-and-by my father died, blessing us both and thanking Deborah
+for all she had been to him. And our circumstances were changed, and from a
+big rectory with three servants we had come down to a small house with a
+servant-of-all-work. But, as Deborah used to say, we have always lived
+genteelly, even if circumstances have compelled us to simplicity. Poor
+Deborah!"</p>
+
+<p>"And Mr. Peter?" I asked.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, there was some great war in India, and we have never heard of Peter
+since then. I believe he is dead myself. Sometimes when I sit by myself and
+the house is quiet, I think I hear his step coming up the street, and my
+heart begins to flutter and beat; but the sound goes, and Peter never comes
+back."</p>
+
+
+<h4><i>IV.--Friends in Need</i></h4>
+
+
+<p>The years rolled on. I spent my time between Drumble and Cranford. I was
+thankful that I happened to be staying with Miss Matty when the Town and
+County Bank failed, which had such a disastrous effect on her little
+fortune.</p>
+
+<p>It was an example to me, and I fancy it might be to many others, to see
+how immediately Miss Matty set about the retrenchment she knew to be right
+under her altered circumstances. I did the little I could. Some months back
+a conjuror had given a performance in the Cranford Assembly Rooms. By a
+strange set of circumstances the identity of Signor Brunoni was revealed.
+He was plain Samuel Brown, who had fallen out of his cart and had to be
+attended by our doctor. I went to visit the patient and his wife, and
+learned that she had been India. She told me a long story about being
+befriended, after a perilous journey, by a kind Englishman who lived right
+in the midst of the natives. It was his name which astonished me. Agra
+Jenkyns.</p>
+
+<p>Could Agra Jenkyns be the long lost Peter? I resolved to say nothing to
+Miss Matty, but got the address from the signor (as we still called him
+from habit), spelt by sound, and very queer it looked, and posted a letter
+to him.</p>
+
+<p>All sorts of plans were discussed for Miss Matty's future. I thought of
+all the things by which a woman, past middle age, and with the education
+common to ladies fifty years ago, could earn or add to a living without
+materially losing caste; but at length I put even this last clause on one
+side, and wondered what in the world Miss Matty could do. Even teaching was
+out of the question, for, reckoning over her accomplishments, I had to come
+down to reading, writing, and arithmetic--and in reading the chapter every
+morning she always coughed before coming to long words.</p>
+
+<p>I was still in a quandary the next morning, when I received a letter
+from Miss Pole, so mysteriously wrapped up and with so many seals on it to
+secure secrecy that I had to tear the paper before I could unfold it.</p>
+
+<p>It summoned me to go to Miss Pole at 11 a.m., the a.m. twice dashed
+under as if I were likely to come at eleven at night, when all Cranford was
+usually abed and asleep by ten. I went and found Miss Pole dressed in
+solemn array, though there were only Mrs. Forrester, crying quietly and
+sadly, and Mrs. FitzAdam present. Miss Pole was armed with a card, on which
+I imagine she had written some notes.</p>
+
+<p>"Miss Smith," she began, when I entered (I was familiarly known to all
+Cranford as Mary, but this was a state occasion), "I have conversed in
+private with these ladies on the misfortune which has happened to our
+friend, and one and all have agreed that while we have a superfluity, it is
+not only a duty but a pleasure--a true pleasure, Mary!"--her voice was
+rather choked just here, and she had to wipe her spectacles before she
+could go on--"to give what we can to assist her--Miss Matilda Jenkyns. Only
+in consideration of the feelings of delicate independence existing in the
+mind of every refined female"--I was sure she had got back to the card--"we
+wish to contribute our mites in a secret and concealed manner, so as not to
+hurt the feelings I have referred to."</p>
+
+<p>Well, the upshot of this solemn meeting was that each of those dear old
+ladies wrote down the sum she could afford annually, signed the paper and
+sealed it mysteriously, and I was commissioned to get my father to
+administer the fund in such a manner that Miss Jenkyns should imagine the
+money came from her own improved investments.</p>
+
+<p>As I was going, Mrs. Forrester took me aside, and in the manner of one
+confessing a great crime the poor old lady told me how very, very little
+she had to live on--a confession she was brought to make from a dread lest
+we should think that the small contribution named in her paper bore any
+proportion to her love and regard for Miss Mary. And yet that sum which she
+so eagerly relinquished was, in truth, more than a twentieth part of what
+she had to live on. And when the whole income does not nearly amount to a
+hundred pounds, to give up a twentieth of it will necessitate many careful
+economies and many pieces of self-denial--small and insignificant in the
+world's account, but bearing a different value in another account book that
+I have heard of.</p>
+
+<p>The upshot of it all was that dear Miss Matty was comfortably installed
+in her own house, and added to her slender income by selling tea! This last
+was my idea, and it was a proud moment for me when it realized. The small
+dining-room was converted into a shop, without any of its degrading
+characteristics, a table formed the counter, one window was retained
+unaltered and the other changed into a glass door, and there she was. Tea
+was certainly a happy commodity, as it was neither greasy nor sticky,
+grease and stickiness being two of the qualities which Miss Matty could not
+endure. Moreover, as Miss Matty said, one good thing about it was that men
+did not buy it, and it was of men particularly she was afraid. They had
+such sharp, loud ways with them, and did up accounts and counted their
+change so quickly.</p>
+
+<p>Very little remains to be told. The approval of the Honourable Mrs.
+Jamieson set the seal upon the successful career of Miss Matty as a
+purveyor of tea. Thus did she escape even the shadow of "vulgarity."</p>
+
+<p>One afternoon I was sitting in the shop parlour with Miss Matty, when we
+saw a gentleman go slowly past the window and then stand opposite to the
+door, as if looking out for the name which we had so carefully hidden. His
+clothes had an out-of-the-way foreign cut, and it flashed across me it was
+the Agra himself! He entered.</p>
+
+<p>Miss Matty looked at him, and something of tender relaxation in his face
+struck home to her heart. She said: "It is--oh, sir, can you be Peter?" and
+trembled from head to foot. In a moment he had her in his arms, sobbing the
+tearless cries of old age.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<h3><a name="gaskell2">Mary Barton</a></h3>
+
+<p class="letter">
+"Mary Barton," although not Mrs. Gaskell's first attempt at
+authorship, was her first literary success; and although her later writings
+revealed a gain in skill, subtlety and humour, none of them equalled "Mary
+Barton" in dramatic intensity and fervent sincerity. This passionate tale
+of the sorrows of the Manchester poor, given to the world anonymously in
+the year 1848, was greeted with a storm of mingled approval and
+disapproval. It was praised by Carlyle and Landor, but some critics
+attacked it fiercely as a slander on the Manchester manufacturers, and
+there were admirers who complained that it was too heartrending. The
+controversy has long since died down, but the book holds a permanent place
+in literature as a vivid revelation of a dark and painful phase of English
+life in the middle of the last century.
+</p>
+
+<h4><i>I.--Rich and Poor</i></h4>
+
+<p>"Mary," said John Barton to his daughter, "what's come o'er thee and Jem
+Wilson? You were great friends at one time."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, folk say he is going to be married to Molly Gibson," answered Mary,
+as indifferently as she could.</p>
+
+<p>"Thou'st played thy cards badly, then," replied her father in a surly
+tone. "At one time he were much fonder o' thee than thou deservedst."</p>
+
+<p>"That's as people think," said Mary pertly, for she remembered that the
+very morning before, when on her way to her dressmaking work, she had met
+Mr. Harry Carson, who had sighed, and sworn and protested all manner of
+tender vows. Mr. Harry Carson was the son and the idol of old Mr. Carson,
+the wealthy mill-owner. Jem Wilson, her old playmate, and the son of her
+father's, closest friend, although he had earned a position of trust at the
+foundry where he worked, was but a mechanic after all! Mary was ambitious;
+she knew that she had beauty; she believed that when young Mr. Carson
+declared he meant to marry her he spoke the truth.</p>
+
+<p>It so happened that Jem, after much anxious thought, had determined that
+day to "put his fortune to the touch." Just after John Barton had gone out,
+Jem appeared at the door, looking more awkward and abashed than he had ever
+done before.</p>
+
+<p>He thought he had better begin at once.</p>
+
+<p>"Mary, it's no new story I'm going to speak about. Since we were boy and
+girl I ha' loved you above father and mother and all. And now, Mary, I'm
+foreman at the works, and I've a home to offer you, and a heart as true as
+ever man had to love you and cherish you. Darling, say that you'll be
+mine."</p>
+
+<p>Mary could not speak at once.</p>
+
+<p>"Mary, they say, silence gives consent," he whispered.</p>
+
+<p>"No, not with me! I can never be your wife."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, Mary, think awhile!" he urged.</p>
+
+<p>"Jem, it cannot be," she said calmly, although she trembled from head to
+foot. "Once for all, I will never marry you."</p>
+
+<p>"And this is the end!" he cried passionately. "Mary, you'll hear, maybe,
+of me as a drunkard, and maybe as a thief, and maybe as a murderer.
+Remember! it's your cruelty that will have made me what I feel I shall
+become."</p>
+
+<p>He rushed out of the house.</p>
+
+<p>When he had gone, Mary lay half across the dresser, her head hidden in
+her hands, and her body shaken with violent sobs. For these few minutes had
+unveiled her heart to her; it had convinced her that she loved Jem above
+all persons or things. What were the wealth and prosperity that Mr. Harry
+Carson might bring to her now that she had suddenly discovered the
+passionate secret of her soul?</p>
+
+<p>Her first duty, she saw, was to reject the advances of her rich lover.
+She avoided him as far as possible, and slighted him when he forced his
+presence upon her. And how was she to redress the wrong she had done to Jem
+in denying him her heart? She took counsel with her friend, Margaret Legh.
+When Mary had first known Margaret and her grandfather, Job Legh--an old
+man who belonged to the class of Manchester workmen who are warm and
+devoted followers of science, a man whose home was like a wizard's
+dwelling, filled with impaled insects and books and instruments--Margaret
+had a secret fear of blindness. The fear had since been realised, but she
+remained the quiet, sensible, tender-hearted girl she had been before her
+great deprivation. She opposed Mary's notion of writing a letter to
+Jem.</p>
+
+<p>"You must just wait and be patient," she advised; "being patient is the
+hardest work we have to do through life, I take it. Waiting is far more
+difficult than doing; but it's one of God's lessons we must learn, one way
+or another."</p>
+
+<p>So Mary waited. But Jem took his disappointment as final, and her hopes
+of seeing him were always baffled.</p>
+
+<p>John Barton, on the night of Jem's proposal, had gone to his union. The
+members of the union were all desperate men, ready for anything; made ready
+by want. Barton himself was out of work. He had seen much of the bitterness
+of poverty in Manchester; now he was feeling the pinch of it himself.</p>
+
+<p>Ever since the death of his wife, whose end had been hastened by the
+sudden and complete disappearance of her darling sister Esther, the wan
+colourlessness of his face had been intensified; his stern enthusiasm, once
+latent, had become visible; his heart, tenderer than ever towards the
+victims of the misery around him, grew harder towards the employers, whom
+he believed to be the cause of that misery. Trade grew worse, but there was
+no sign that the masters were suffering; they still had their carriages and
+their comforts; the woe in these terrible years 1839, 1840, and 1841 seemed
+to fall wholly upon the poor. It is impossible even faintly to picture the
+state of distress which prevailed in Manchester at that time. Whole
+families went through a gradual starvation; John Barton saw them starve,
+saw fathers and mothers and children die of low, putrid fever in foetid
+cellars, and cursed the rich men who never extended a helping hand to the
+sufferers.</p>
+
+<p>"Working folk won't be ground to the dust much longer," he declared.
+"We'n ha' had as much to bear as human nature can bear."</p>
+
+<p>Fiercer grew he, and more sullen. Darker and darker were the schemes he
+brooded over in his desolate home, or discussed with others at the meetings
+of the union. Even Mary did not escape his ill-temper. Once he struck her.
+And yet Mary was the one being on earth he devotedly loved. What would he
+have thought had he known that his daughter had listened to the voice of an
+employer's son? But he did not know.</p>
+
+
+<h4><i>II.--The Rivals</i></h4>
+
+
+<p>One night, as Jem was leaving the foundry, a woman laid her hand upon
+his arm. A momentary glance at the faded finery she wore told him the class
+to which she belonged, and he made an effort to pass on. But she grasped
+him firmly.</p>
+
+<p>"You must listen to me, Jem Wilson," she said, "for Mary Barton's
+sake."</p>
+
+<p>"And who can you be to know Mary Barton?" he exclaimed.</p>
+
+<p>"Do you remember Esther, Mary's aunt?"</p>
+
+<p>'"Yes, I mind her well." He looked into her face. "Why, Esther! Where
+have ye been this many a year?"</p>
+
+<p>She answered with fierce earnestness, "Where have I been? What have I
+been doing? Can you not guess? See after Mary, and take care she does not
+become like me. As she is loving now, so did I love once--one above me,
+far."</p>
+
+<p>Jem cut her short with his hoarse, stern inquiry, "Who is this spark
+that Mary loves?"</p>
+
+<p>"It's old Carson's son." Then, after a pause, she continued, "Oh, Jem, I
+charge you with the care of her! Her father won't listen to me." She cried
+a little at the recollection of John Barton's harsh words when she had
+timidly tried to approach him. "It would be better for her to die than to
+live to lead such a life as I do!"</p>
+
+<p>"It would be better," said Jem, as if thinking aloud. Then he went on.
+"Esther, you may trust to my doing all I can for Mary. And now, listen.
+Come home with me. Come to my mother."</p>
+
+<p>"God bless you, Jem!" she replied. "But it is too late now--too
+late!"</p>
+
+<p>She rapidly turned away. Jem felt that the great thing was to reach home
+and solitude. His heart was filled with jealous anguish. Mary loved
+another! She was lost to him for evermore. A frenzied longing for blood
+entered his mind as he brooded that night over his loss. But at last the
+thought of duty brought peace to his soul. If Carson loved Mary, Carson
+must marry her. It was Jem's part to speak straightforwardly to Carson, to
+be unto Mary as a brother.</p>
+
+<p>Four days later his opportunity came. He met Carson in an unfrequented
+lane.</p>
+
+<p>"May I speak a word wi' you, sir?" said Jem respectfully.</p>
+
+<p>"Certainly, my good man," replied Harry Carson.</p>
+
+<p>"I think, sir, you're keeping company wi' Mary Barton?"</p>
+
+<p>"Mary Barton! Ay, that is her name. An arrant flirt the little hussy is,
+but very pretty."</p>
+
+<p>"I will tell you in plain words," said Jem, angered, "what I have got to
+say to you. I'm an old friend of Mary's and her father's, and I want to
+know if you mean fair by Mary or not."</p>
+
+<p>"You will have the kindness to leave us to ourselves," answered Carson
+contemptuously. "No one shall interfere between my little girl and me. Get
+out of my way! Won't you? Then I'll make you!"</p>
+
+<p>He raised his cane, and smote the mechanic on his face. An instant
+afterwards he lay stretched in the muddy road, Jem standing over him,
+panting with rage. Just then a policeman, who had been watching them
+unobserved, interfered with expostulations and warnings.</p>
+
+<p>"If you dare to injure her," shouted Jem, as he was dragged away, "I
+will wait you where no policeman can step in between. And God shall judge
+between us two!"</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p>The mill-workers had struck against low wages. Five haggard,
+earnest-looking men had presented the workpeople's demands to the assembled
+mill-owners, and the demands had been rejected. None had been fiercer in
+opposing the delegates, none more bitter in mockery of their rags and
+leanness, than the son of old Mr. Carson.</p>
+
+<p>That evening, starved, irritated, despairing men gathered to hear the
+delegates tell of their failure.</p>
+
+<p>"It's the masters as has wrought this woe," said John Barton in a low
+voice. "It's the masters as should pay for it. Set me to serve out the
+masters, and see if there's aught I'll stick at!"</p>
+
+<p>Deeper and darker grew the import of the speeches as the men stood
+hoarsely muttering their meaning out with set teeth and livid looks. After
+a fierce and terrible oath had been sworn, a number of pieces of paper, one
+of them marked, were shuffled in a hat. The gas was extinguished; each drew
+a paper. The gas was re-lighted. Each examined his paper, with a
+countenance as immovable as he could make it. Then they went every one his
+own way.</p>
+
+<p>He who had drawn the marked paper had drawn the lot of the assassin. And
+no one, save God and his own conscience, knew who was the appointed
+murderer.</p>
+
+
+<h4><i>III.--Murder</i></h4>
+
+
+<p>Two nights later, Barton was to leave for Glasgow, whither he was to
+travel as delegate to entreat assistance for the strikers. "What could be
+the matter with him?" thought Mary. He was so restless; he seemed so
+fierce, too.</p>
+
+<p>Presently he rose, and in a short, cold manner bade her farewell. She
+stood at the door, looking after him, her eyes blinded with tears. He was
+so strange, so cold, so hard. Suddenly he came back, and took her in his
+arms.</p>
+
+<p>"God in heaven bless thee, Mary!"</p>
+
+<p>She threw her arms round his neck. He kissed her, unlaced her soft,
+twining arms, and set off on his errand.</p>
+
+<p>When Mary reached the dressmaker's next morning, she noticed that the
+girls stopped talking. They eyed her! then they began to whisper. At last
+one of them asked her if she had heard the news.</p>
+
+<p>"No! What news?" she answered.</p>
+
+<p>"Have you not heard that young Mr. Carson was murdered last night?"</p>
+
+<p>Mary could not speak, but no one who looked at her pale and
+terror-stricken face could have doubted that she had not heard before of
+the fearful occurrence.</p>
+
+<p>She felt throughout the day as if the haunting horror were a nightmare
+from which awakening would relieve her. Everybody was full of the one
+subject.</p>
+
+<p>In the evening she went to Mrs. Wilson's, hoping that at last she might
+see Jem. But here a new and terrible shock awaited her.</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Wilson turned fiercely upon her.</p>
+
+<p>"And is it thee that dares set foot in this house, after what has come
+to pass? Dost thou know where my son is, all through thee?"</p>
+
+<p>"No," quivered out poor Mary.</p>
+
+<p>"He's lying in prison, waiting to take his trial for murdering young Mr.
+Carson."</p>
+
+<p>So, indeed, it was. At the inquest the policeman who had witnessed the
+quarrel between the rivals testified to the threats uttered by Jem; and the
+gun used by the murderer, and thrown away by him in his haste to escape,
+had been proved to be Jem's property.</p>
+
+<p>Jem an assassin, and because of her! In the agony of that night Mary saw
+the gallows standing black against the burning light which dazzled her shut
+eyes, press on them as she would. She thought she was going mad; then
+Heaven blessed her unawares, and she sank to sleep.</p>
+
+<p>She was awakened by the coming of a visitor. It was her long-lost,
+unrecognised aunt Esther, who had come to her niece bringing her a little
+piece of paper compressed into a round shape. It was the paper that had
+served as wadding for the murderer's gun. Esther had picked it up while
+wandering in curiosity about the scene of the murder. There was writing on
+the paper, and she had brought it to Mary, fearing that if it fell into the
+hands of the police it would provide more evidence against Jem.</p>
+
+<p>The paper told Mary everything. It had belonged to John Barton. Jem was
+innocent, and her own father was the murderer! Jem must be saved, and she
+must do it; for was she not the sole repository of the terrible secret? And
+how could she prove Jem's innocence without admitting her father's
+guilt?</p>
+
+<p>When she could think calmly, she realised that she must discover where
+Jem had been on the Thursday night when the murder had been committed.
+Tremblingly she went to Mrs. Wilson, and learnt what she wanted to know.
+Jem had walked towards Liverpool with his cousin Will, a sailor who had
+spent all his money in Manchester, and could not afford railway-fare.
+Will's ship was to sail on Tuesday, and on Tuesday Jem was to be tried at
+the Liverpool assizes.</p>
+
+<p>Job Legh engaged a lawyer to defend Jem, and Mary prepared to go to
+Liverpool to find the one man whose evidence could save her lover. Ere she
+left, a policeman brought her a bit of parchment. Her heart misgave her as
+she took it; she guessed its purport. It was a summons to bear witness
+against Jem Wilson at the assizes.</p>
+
+
+<h4><i>IV.---"Not Guilty</i>"</h4>
+
+
+<p>Arrived at Liverpool on Monday, after the bewilderment of a railway
+journey--the first she had ever made--Mary found her way to the little
+court, not far from the docks, were Jem's sailor cousin lodged.</p>
+
+<p>"Is Will Wilson here?" she asked the landlady.</p>
+
+<p>"No, he is not," replied the woman, curtly.</p>
+
+<p>"Tell me--where he is?" asked Mary, sickening.</p>
+
+<p>"He's gone this very morning, my poor dear," answered the landlady,
+relenting at the sight of Mary's obvious distress. "He's sailed, my
+dear--sailed in the John Cropper this very blessed morning!"</p>
+
+<p>Mary staggered into the house, stricken into hopelessness. Yet hope was
+not dead. The landlady's son told her that the John Cropper would be
+waiting for high-water to cross the sandbanks at the river's mouth, and
+that there was a chance that a sailing-boat might overtake the vessel.</p>
+
+<p>Mary hurried down to the docks, spent every penny she had in hiring a
+boat, and presently was tossing on the water for the first time in her
+life, alone with two rough men.</p>
+
+<p>The boatmen hailed the John Cropper just as the crew were heaving
+anchor, and told their errand. The captain refused with a dreadful oath to
+stop his ship for anyone, whoever swung for it. But Will Wilson, standing
+at the stern, shouted through his hands, "So help me God, Mary Barton, I'll
+come back in the pilot-boat time enough to save his life!"</p>
+
+<p>As the ship receded in the distance, Mary asked anxiously when the
+pilot-boat would be back. The boatmen did not know; it might be twelve
+hours, it might be two days. A chance yet remained, but she could no longer
+hope. When she reached the landing-place, faint and penniless, one of the
+boatmen took her to his home, and there she sat sleeplessly awaiting the
+dawn of the day of trial.</p>
+
+<p>When she entered the witness-box next day, the whole court reeled before
+her, save two figures only--that of the judge and that of the prisoner. Jem
+sat silent--he had held his peace ever since his arrest--with his face
+bowed on his hands.</p>
+
+<p>Mary answered a few questions with a sort of wonder at the reality of
+the terrible circumstances in which she was placed.</p>
+
+<p>"And pray, may I ask, which was the favoured lover?" went on the
+barrister.</p>
+
+<p>A look of indignation for an instant contracted Mary's brow. She was
+aware that Jem had raised his head and was gazing at her. Turning towards
+the judge, she said steadily, "Perhaps I liked Mr. Harry Carson once; but I
+loved James Wilson beyond what tongue can tell. When he asked me to marry
+him, I was very hard in my answer; but he'd not been gone out of my sight
+above a minute before I knew I loved him--far above my life."</p>
+
+<p>After these words the prisoner's head was no longer bowed. He stood
+erect and firm, with self-respect in his attitude; yet he seemed lost in
+thought.</p>
+
+<p>But Will Wilson did not come, and the evidence against Jem grew stronger
+and stronger. Mary was flushed and anxious, muttering to herself in a wild,
+restless manner. Job Legh heard her repeat again and again, "I must not go
+mad; I must not!"</p>
+
+<p>Suddenly she threw up her arms and shrieked aloud: "Oh, Jem! Jem! You're
+saved! and I am mad!" and was carried out of court stiff and convulsed. And
+as they bore her off, a sailor forced his way over rails and seats, through
+turnkeys and policemen. Will Wilson had come in time.</p>
+
+<p>He told his tale clearly and distinctly; the efforts of the prosecution
+to shake him were useless. "Not guilty" was the verdict that thrilled
+through the breathless court. One man sank back in his seat in sickening
+despair. The vengeance that old Mr. Carson had longed to compass for the
+murder of his beloved boy was thwarted; he had been cheated of the desire
+that now ruled his life--the desire of blood for blood.</p>
+
+
+<h4><i>V.--"Forgive Us Our Trespasses</i>"</h4>
+
+
+<p>For many days Mary hovered between life and death, and it was long ere
+she could make the journey back to Manchester under the tender care of the
+man who now knew she loved him. Not until she had recovered did he tell her
+that he had lost his situation at the foundry--the men refused to work
+under one who had been tried for murder--and that he was looking for work
+elsewhere.</p>
+
+<p>"Mary," he asked, "art thou much bound to Manchester? Would it grieve
+thee sore to quit the old smoke-jack?"</p>
+
+<p>"With thee?" was her quiet response.</p>
+
+<p>"I've heard fine things of Canada. Thou knowest where Canada is,
+Mary?"</p>
+
+<p>"Not rightly--but with thee, Jem"--her voice sank to a
+whisper--"anywhere." Then, after a pause, she added, "But father!"</p>
+
+<p>John Barton was smitten, helpless, very near to death. His face was sunk
+and worn--like a skull, with yet a suffering expression that skulls have
+not! Crime and all had been forgotten by his daughter when she saw him;
+fondly did she serve him in every way that heart could devise.</p>
+
+<p>Jem had known from the first that Barton was the murderer of Harry
+Carson. Several days before the murder Barton had borrowed Jem's gun, and
+Jem had seen the truth at the moment of his arrest. When Mary came to tell
+him that her father wished to speak to him, Jem could not guess what was
+before him, and did not try to guess.</p>
+
+<p>When they entered the room, Mary saw all at a glance. Her father stood
+holding on to a chair as if for support. Behind him sat Job Legh,
+listening; before him stood the stern figure of Mr. Carson.</p>
+
+<p>"Don't dare to think that I shall be merciful; you shall be
+hanged--hanged--man!" said Mr. Carson, with slow, emphasis.</p>
+
+<p>"I've had far, far worse misery than hanging!" cried Barton. "Sir, one
+word! My hairs are grey with suffering."</p>
+
+<p>"And have I had no suffering?" interrupted Mr. Carson. "Is not my boy
+gone--killed--out of my sight for ever? He was my sunshine, and now it is
+night! Oh, my God! comfort me, comfort me!" cried the old man aloud.</p>
+
+<p>Barton lay across the table broken-hearted. "God knows I didn't know
+what I was doing," he whispered. "Oh, sir," he said wildly, "say you
+forgive me?"</p>
+
+<p>"Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive them that trespass against us,"
+said Job solemnly.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Carson took his hands from his face.</p>
+
+<p>"Let my trespasses be unforgiven, so that I may have vengeance for my
+son's murder."</p>
+
+<p>John Barton lay on the ground as one dead.</p>
+
+<p>When Mr. Carson had left the house, he leant against a railing to steady
+himself, for he was dizzy with agitation. He looked up to the calm,
+majestic depths of the heavens, and by-and-by the last words he had spoken
+returned upon him, as if they were being echoed through all that infinite
+space in tones of unutterable sorrow. He went homewards; not to the
+police-office. All night long, the archangel combated with the demon in his
+soul.</p>
+
+<p>All night long, others watched by the bed of death. As morning dawned,
+Barton grew worse; his breathing seemed almost stopped. Jem had gone to the
+druggist's, and Mary cried out for assistance to raise her father.</p>
+
+<p>A step, which was not Jem's, came up the stairs. Mr. Carson stood in the
+doorway. He raised up the powerless frame, and the departing soul looked
+out of the eyes with gratitude.</p>
+
+<p>"Pray for us!" cried Mary, sinking on her knees.</p>
+
+<p>"God be merciful to us sinners," was Mr. Carson's prayer. "Forgive us
+our trespasses as we forgive them that trespass against us."</p>
+
+<p>And when the words were said, John Barton lay a corpse in Mr. Carson's
+arms.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p>At the door of a long, low wooden house stands Mary, watching the return
+of her husband from his work.</p>
+
+<p>Her baby boy, in his grandmother's arms, sees him come with a crow of
+delight.</p>
+
+<p>"English letters!" cries Jem. "Guess the good news!"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, tell me!" says Mary.</p>
+
+<p>"Margaret has recovered her sight. She and Will are to be married, and
+he's bringing her out here to Canada; and Job Legh talks of coming,
+too--not to see you, Mary, but to try and pick up a few specimens of
+Canadian insects."</p>
+
+<p>"Dear Job Legh!" said Mary, softly.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+
+
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="godwin">WILLIAM GODWIN</a></h2>
+
+
+<h3><a name="godwin1">Caleb Williams</a></h3>
+
+<p class="letter">
+William Godwin, the son of a dissenting parson, was a man of
+remarkable gifts and the father of the poet Shelley's second wife, Mary
+Wollstonecraft Shelley (see Vol. VII). Born at Wisbeach, England, March 3,
+1756, he served for five years, 1778-83, as a Nonconformist minister, and
+then going to London, joined the leading Whig circle of the day, and turned
+his attention to political writings. His "Political Justice," though little
+read to-day, had a great number of readers and considerable influence a
+hundred years ago. "Things as They Are, or the Adventures of Caleb
+Williams," published in 1794, has a philosophical significance, suggested
+by the falseness of the common code of morality, which is apt to be
+overlooked by many readers in the strong interest of the tale. It is one of
+the few books of that period which may still be said to live. It is quite
+the best of his novels. "It raised Godwin's reputation to a pinnacle,"
+according to contemporary criticism, though some of his other novels,
+notably "Fleetwood," have been preferred for their descriptive writing. He
+was an exceedingly industrious writer; essays, biography, political
+philosophy, and history all coming from his pen; but in spite of this and
+of his many distinguished friendships, Godwin was always in difficulties,
+which he bore with the becoming grace of a philosopher. He died on April 7,
+1836.
+</p>
+
+<h4><i>I.--Mr. Falkland's Secret</i></h4>
+
+
+<p>My life has for several years been a theatre of calamity. My fairest
+prospects have been blasted. My enemy has shown himself inaccessible to
+entreaties and untired in persecution. I was born of humble parents, in a
+remote county of England. Their occupations were such as usually fall to
+the lot of peasants, and they had no portion to give me. I was taught the
+rudiments of no science, except reading, writing, and arithmetic. But I had
+an inquisitive mind, and neglected no means of information from
+conversation or books.</p>
+
+<p>The residence of my parents was within the manor of Ferdinando Falkland,
+a country squire of considerable opulence. At an early age I attracted the
+favourable notice of Mr. Collins, this gentleman's steward, who used to
+call in occasionally at my father's.</p>
+
+<p>In the summer of the year----, Mr. Falkland visited his estate in our
+county after an absence of several months. This was a period of misfortune
+to me. I was then eighteen years of age. My father lay dead in our cottage,
+and I had lost my mother some years before. In this forlorn situation I
+received a message from the squire, ordering me to repair to the manor
+house.</p>
+
+<p>My reception was as gracious and encouraging as I could possibly desire.
+Mr. Falkland questioned me respecting my learning, and my conceptions of
+men and things, and listened to my answers with condescension and
+approbation. He then informed me that he was in want of a secretary, and
+that if I approved of the employment he would take me into his house.</p>
+
+<p>I felt highly flattered by the proposal, and found my employment--which
+included the duties of librarian as well as those of a secretary--easy and
+agreeable.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Falkland's mode of living was in the utmost degree recluse and
+solitary. His features were scarcely ever relaxed in a smile, and the
+distemper which afflicted him with incessant gloom had its paroxysms. None
+of the domestics, except myself and Mr. Collins approached Mr. Falkland but
+at stated seasons and then only for a very short interval.</p>
+
+<p>Once after I had seen my patron in a strange fit of intolerable anguish,
+I could not help confiding in Mr. Collins that I feared Mr. Falkland had
+some secret trouble, and in answer to my communication Mr. Collins told me
+the story of Tyrrel's murder.</p>
+
+<p>Barnabas Tyrrel had been a neighbouring squire insupportably brutish and
+arrogant, tyrannical to his inferiors, and insolent to his equals. From the
+first he hated Falkland, whose dignity and courtesy were a constant rebuke
+to the other's boorish ill-humours, and rejected with scorn all proposals
+for civil intercourse.</p>
+
+<p>The crisis came when Tyrrel, who had been expelled from the rural
+assembly which met every week at the market-town, forced his way in. He was
+intoxicated, and at once attacked Falkland, knocking him down, and then
+kicking his prostrate enemy before anyone had time to interfere.</p>
+
+<p>To Mr. Falkland disgrace was worse than death. This complication of
+ignominy, base, humiliating, and public, stung him to the very soul, and
+filled his mind with horror and uproar. One other event closed that
+memorable evening. Mr. Tyrrel was found dead in the street, having been
+murdered a few yards from the assembly-house.</p>
+
+<p>From that day Falkland was a changed man. His cheerfulness and
+tranquillity gave way to gloomy and unsociable melancholy, and, filled with
+the ideas of chivalry, the humiliating and dishonourable situation in which
+he had been placed could never be forgotten. To add to his misfortunes, it
+was presently whispered that he was no other than the murderer of his
+antagonist, and even the magistrates at length decided that the matter must
+be investigated, and requested Falkland to appear before them.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Falkland attended, and easily convinced the magistrates of his
+innocence, pointing out that his one desire was to have called out the man
+who had insulted him so horribly, and to have fought him to the death. He
+was not only acquitted, but a public demonstration of sympathy was arranged
+at once to show the esteem in which he was held.</p>
+
+<p>A few weeks, and the real murderer was discovered. This was a man named
+Hawkins, who, with his son, had been reduced from an honest livelihood to
+beggary and ruin by Tyrrel. On circumstantial evidence, Hawkins and his son
+were condemned and executed.</p>
+
+<p>This was the story Mr. Collins told me in order that I might understand
+Mr. Falkland's unhappy state. In reality it only added to my
+embarrassment.</p>
+
+<p>Was it possible, after all, that Mr. Falkland should be the murderer? It
+was but a passing thought, and yet what was the meaning of Mr. Falkland's
+agonies of mind? I could not accept Mr. Collins's view that Mr. Falkland
+was so much the slave and fool of honour that the shame of Tyrrel's savage
+assault alone had driven him to this melancholy and solitude, and compelled
+the violent outbursts of passion.</p>
+
+
+<h4><i>II.--I Learn the Secret</i></h4>
+
+
+<p>My suspicions would not be set at rest. No spark of malignity was
+harboured in my soul. I reverenced the sublime mind of Mr. Falkland, but I
+had a mistaken curiosity to find out the truth of Tyrrel's murder. Often it
+seemed that Mr. Falkland was about to speak to me, but the movement always
+ended in silence.</p>
+
+<p>At last one day he sent for me to his room, and after making me swear
+never to disclose his confidence, and warning me that he had observed my
+suspicions, told me that he was the murderer of Tyrrel and the assassin of
+the two Hawkins.</p>
+
+<p>"This it is to be a gentleman, a man of honour!" Falkland went on, in
+extreme distress. "My virtue, my honesty, my everlasting peace of mind, all
+sacrificed that I may preserve my good name. And I am as much the fool of
+fame as ever. Though I be the blackest of villains, I will leave behind me
+a spotless and illustrious name. Why is it that I am compelled to this
+confidence? From the love of fame. I had no alternative but to make you my
+confidant or my victim, and perhaps my next murder would not have been so
+fortunate. I do not want to shed more blood. It is better to trust you with
+the whole truth, under every seal of secrecy, than to live in perpetual
+fear of your penetration. But look what you have done with your foolishly
+inquisitive humour. You shall continue in my service, and I will benefit
+you in respect of fortune; but I shall always hate you. If ever an
+unguarded word escape from your lips, you may expect to pay for it with
+your death, or worse. By everything that is sacred, preserve your
+faith!"</p>
+
+<p>Such was the secret I had been so desirous to know.</p>
+
+<p>"It is a wretched prospect," I said to myself, "that he holds up to me.
+But I will never become an informer. I will never injure my patron; and
+therefore he will not be my enemy."</p>
+
+<p>It was no long time after this that Mr. Forester--Mr. Falkland's
+half-brother--came to stay in the house while his own residence was being
+got ready for him, and there being little in common between the two, Mr.
+Forester being of a peculiarly sociable disposition, our visitor chose to
+make me his companion. No sooner was this growing intimacy observed than
+Mr. Falkland warned me that it was not agreeable to him, and that he would
+not have it.</p>
+
+<p>"Young man, take warning!" he said to me one day when we were alone.
+"You little suspect the extent of my power. You might as well think of
+escaping from the power of the omnipresent God as from mine."</p>
+
+<p>My whole soul now revolted against the treatment I endured, and yet I
+could not utter a word. I resolved to quit Mr. Falkland's service, and when
+Mr. Forester had retired to his own house, I wrote a letter to Mr. Falkland
+to that effect.</p>
+
+<p>"You shall never quit it with your life," was his reply. "If you attempt
+it, you shall never cease to rue your folly as long as you exist. Do not
+imagine I am afraid of you! I wear an armour against which all your weapons
+are impotent. Do you not know, miserable wretch, that I have sworn to
+preserve my reputation, whatever it cost? I have dug a pit for you, and
+whichever way you move it is ready to swallow you."</p>
+
+<p>This speech was the dictate of frenzy, and it created in me a similar
+frenzy. It determined me to do the very thing against which I was thus
+solemnly warned, and fly from my patron's house.</p>
+
+<p>No sooner, however, had I set off, and travelled some miles, than a
+horseman overtook me, and handed me a letter from Mr. Forester. I opened
+the letter, and read as follows:</p>
+
+<p>"Williams:--My brother Falkland has sent the bearer in pursuit of you.
+He expects that, if found, you will return with him. I expect it, too. If
+you are a villain and a rascal, you will perhaps endeavour to fly; if your
+conscience tells you you are innocent, you will, out of all doubt, come
+back. If you come, I pledge myself that if you clear your reputation, you
+shall not only be free to go wherever you please, but shall receive every
+assistance in my power to give.</p>
+
+<p>"Valentine Forester."</p>
+
+<p>To a mind like mine, such a letter was enough to draw me from one end of
+the earth to the other. I could not recall anything out of which the shadow
+of a criminal accusation could be extorted, and I returned with willingness
+and impatience. I knew the stern inflexibility of Mr. Falkland's mind, but
+I also knew his virtuous and magnanimous principles. I could not believe my
+innocence could be confounded with guilt.</p>
+
+
+<h4><i>III.--My Persecutions and Sufferings</i></h4>
+
+
+<p>Mr. Falkland accused me of having stolen money and jewels from him, and
+when my boxes, which I had left behind, were opened, a watch and certain
+jewels were found in one of them.</p>
+
+<p>My amazement yielded to indignation and horror. I protested my innocence
+I declared that Mr. Falkland knew I was innocent, and that while I was
+wholly unable to account for the articles found in my possession, I firmly
+believed that their being there was of Mr. Falkland's contrivance.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Falkland now expressed his willingness to proceed no further against
+me, and, since I had been brought to public shame, to let me depart
+wherever I pleased. I was unworthy of his resentment, he said, and he could
+afford to smile at my malice.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Forester, however, said this was impossible, and, as a magistrate,
+he thereupon committed me to prison to await my trial. Not one of the
+servants who had been present at my examination expressed any compassion
+for me. The robbery appeared to them atrocious, and they were indignant at
+my recrimination on their excellent master.</p>
+
+<p>When I had been about a month in prison the assizes were held, but my
+case was not brought forward, and I was suffered to stand over six months
+longer.</p>
+
+<p>I noticed a change in my jailer's behaviour at this time. He offered to
+make better provision for my comfort, and as I had no doubt he was
+instigated by Mr. Falkland, I answered that he might tell his employer I
+would accept no favours from a man that held a halter about my neck. Then
+the idea of an escape occurred to me, and as I had some proficiency in
+carpentry, I decided to obtain tools by proposing to make some chairs for
+the jailer. My offer was accepted, and I gradually accumulated tools of
+various sorts--gimlets, chisels, etc.</p>
+
+<p>In the middle of the night, my plans being now thoroughly digested, I
+set about making my escape. I had to get the first door from its hinges,
+and though this was attended with considerable difficulty, I was
+successful. The second door being fastened on the inside, all I had to do
+was to push back the bolts and unscrew the box of the lock.</p>
+
+<p>Thus far I had proceeded with the happiest success; but close on the
+other side there was a kennel with a large mastiff dog, of which I had not
+the smallest previous knowledge. However, I managed to soothe the animal,
+and go to the wall. Before I had gained half the ascent, a voice at the
+garden door cried out, "Halloa! Who is there?" At this the dog began to
+bark violently, and a second man came out. Alarmed at my situation, I
+descended on the other side too quickly, and in my fall nearly dislocated
+my ankle.</p>
+
+<p>In the meantime, the two warders came through a door in the wall, of
+which I had not been aware, and were at the place where I had descended, in
+no time. The pain in my ankle was so intense that I could scarcely stand,
+and I suffered myself to be retaken.</p>
+
+<p>The condition in which I was now placed was totally different from that
+which had preceded this attempt. I was chained all day in my dungeon, my
+manual labors were at an end, my cell was searched every night, and every
+kind of tool carefully kept from me.</p>
+
+<p>Nevertheless, an active mind, which has once been forced into any
+particular train, can scarcely give it up as hopeless. One day I chanced to
+observe a nail trodden into the mud floor at no great distance from me. I
+seized upon this new treasure, and found that I could unlock with it the
+padlock that fastened me to the staple in the floor. By this means I had
+the pitiful consolation of being able to range, without constraint, the
+miserable coop in which I was confined. It became my constant practice to
+liberate myself at night; but security breeds negligence. One morning I
+overslept myself, and the turnkey, to his surprise, found me
+disengaged.</p>
+
+<p>Again my apartment was changed. I was now put in the strong-room, an
+underground dungeon, and handcuffs were added to my fetters.</p>
+
+<p>It was at this time that Thomas, Mr. Falkland's footman, and an old
+acquaintance of mine, visited me. He was of the better order of servants,
+and my condition shocked him. He returned again in the afternoon.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, Master Williams," he said, "you have been very wicked, to be
+sure, and I thought it would have done me good to see you hanged. I know I
+am doing wrong; but if they hang me, too, I cannot help it. For Christ's
+sake, get out of this place; I cannot bear the thought of it."</p>
+
+<p>With that, he slipped into my hand a chisel, a file, and a saw. I
+received the implements with great joy, and thrust them into my bosom.</p>
+
+<p>I waited for bright moonlight; it was necessary that I should work in
+the night, and between nine and seven.</p>
+
+<p>It was ten o'clock when I first took off my handcuffs. I then filed
+through my fetters, and next performed the same service to the three iron
+bars that secured my window. All this was the work of more than two hours.
+But, even with the bars removed, the space was by no means wide enough to
+admit the passing of my body. Therefore, I had to loosen the brickwork, and
+this I did partly with the chisel, and partly with one of the iron bars.
+When the space was sufficient for my purpose, I crept through the opening
+and stepped upon a shed outside.</p>
+
+<p>The prison wall, which now had to be scaled, was of considerable height,
+and there was no resource for me but that of making a breach in its lower
+part. For six hours I worked at this with incredible labour, and at last I
+had made a passage. But the day was breaking, and in ten minutes' time the
+keepers would probably enter my apartment and see the devastation I had
+left.</p>
+
+<p>I decided to avoid the town as much as possible, and depended upon the
+open country for protection; and so I passed along the lane beyond the
+wall.</p>
+
+<p>I was free of my prison, but I was destitute, and had not a shilling in
+the world.</p>
+
+
+<h4><i>IV.--The Doom of Falkland</i></h4>
+
+
+<p>Mr. Falkland's implacable animosity pursued me beyond the prison. A
+hundred guineas was at once offered for my recapture, and though I evaded
+arrest for some months, a man named Gines, who had at one time been a
+member of a gang of robbers, undertook to lay hold of me, and tracked me to
+my place of hiding in London. By this time the hawkers were actually
+selling papers in the streets containing "The most Wonderful and Surprising
+History and Miraculous Adventures of Caleb Williams," for a halfpenny, and
+I had the temerity to purchase one. In this I was informed how I, Caleb
+Williams, "first robbed, and then brought false accusations against my
+master"; how I attempted at divers times to break out of prison, and at
+last succeeded "in the most wonderful and incredible manner"; and how I had
+travelled the kingdom in disguise, and was now lying concealed in London,
+with a hundred guineas reward for my discovery.</p>
+
+<p>It seemed then that there was no end to my persecution, and I thought of
+death as my only release. That very night the landlord of my humble
+lodgings brought Gines to the house, and gave me up to the authorities.</p>
+
+<p>And now the result of all my labour to get out of prison and evade my
+pursuers had brought me back to my starting-place! Never was a human
+creature so hunted by enemies. What hope was there they would ever cease
+their persecution.</p>
+
+<p>My long-cherished reverence for Mr. Falkland was changed to something
+like abhorrence. I determined to bring the real criminal to justice.</p>
+
+<p>Accordingly, when I was taken before the magistrates at Bow Street, I
+declared that Mr. Falkland was a murderer, and that I was entirely
+innocent.</p>
+
+<p>But the magistrates simply told me they had nothing to do with such
+statements, and that I seemed a most impudent rascal to trump up such
+things against my master.</p>
+
+<p>I was conducted back to the very prison from which I had escaped, and my
+situation seemed more irremediable than ever. How great, therefore, was my
+astonishment, at the assizes when my case was called, to find neither Mr.
+Falkland, nor Mr. Forester, nor any individual to appear against me. I, who
+had come to the bar with the sentence of death already ringing in my ears,
+to be told I was free to go whithersoever I pleased!</p>
+
+<p>I was not, however, yet free of Mr. Falkland. I was kidnapped by Gines
+and an accomplice, and carried to an inn, and here Mr. Falkland commanded
+me to sign a paper declaring that the charge I had alleged against him at
+Bow Street was false, malicious, and groundless. On my refusal, he told me
+that he would exercise a power that should grind me to atoms.</p>
+
+<p>The impression of that memorable meeting on my understanding is
+indelible. The deathlike weakness and decay of Mr. Falkland, his misery and
+rage, his haggard, emaciated, and fleshless visage, are still before
+me.</p>
+
+<p>There was to be no peace or happiness for me. Wherever I went, sooner or
+later, Gines found me, and any new acquaintances turned from me with
+loathing after they had read the handbills containing my "Wonderful and
+Surprising History." This man followed me from place to place, blasting my
+reputation.</p>
+
+<p>I now formed my resolution and carried it into execution. At all costs I
+would free myself from this overpowering tyranny.</p>
+
+<p>I set out for the chief town of the county in which Mr. Falkland lived,
+and there laid a formal charge of murder before the principal
+magistrate.</p>
+
+<p>After an interval of three days, I met Mr. Falkland in the presence of
+the magistrate. It was now the appearance of a ghost before me. He was
+brought in in a chair, unable to stand, fatigued and almost destroyed by
+the journey he had just taken.</p>
+
+<p>Until that moment my breast was steeled to pity; it was now too late to
+draw back.</p>
+
+<p>I told my story plainly, declared the nobility of Mr. Falkland's
+character, and admitted that my own proceedings now seemed to me a dreadful
+mistake.</p>
+
+<p>When I had finished, Mr. Falkland rose from his seat, and, to my
+infinite astonishment, threw himself into my arms.</p>
+
+<p>"Williams," said he, "you have conquered. All that I most ardently
+desired is for ever frustrated. I have spent a life of the basest cruelty
+to cover one act of momentary passion. And now"--turning to the
+magistrate--"do with me as you please. I am prepared to suffer all the
+vengeance of the law."</p>
+
+<p>He survived this dreadful scene but three days, and I feel, and always
+shall feel, that I have been his murderer. I began these memoirs to
+vindicate my character. I have now no character that I wish to
+vindicate.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+
+
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="goethe">JOHANN WOLFGANG VON GOETHE</a></h2>
+
+
+<h3><a name="goethe1">The Sorrows of Young Werther</a></h3>
+
+<p class="letter">
+Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, the greatest of German poets, and
+one of the most highly gifted men of the eighteenth century, was born in
+1749 at Frankfort-on-the-Main. He received his early education from his
+father, who was an imperial councillor, and in the year 1765 he went to the
+University of Leipzig. Goethe's first great work was "Goetz von
+Berlichingen" (see Vol. XVII). which was translated into English by Sir
+Walter Scott. "The Sorrows of Young Werther" ("Die Leiden des jungen
+Werthers") was begun in 1772, when Goethe was twenty-three years old, and
+was published anonymously two years later. It immediately created an
+immense sensation, made a round of the world, and was everywhere either
+enthusiastically praised or severely condemned. It became the fashion of
+young men to dress themselves in blue coats and yellow breeches in
+imitation of the hero, and many of them were moved to follow Werther's
+example as the simplest way of settling their love affairs. Nevertheless,
+"Werther" formed the real basis of Goethe's fame. It was the first
+revelation to the world of the genius, which, a quarter of a century later,
+was to give it "Faust" (Vol. XVI). The story is frankly sentimental, but as
+such it is easily the best of the sentimental novels of the eighteenth
+century. When, many years later, Goethe was invited to an audience with
+Napoleon, the emperor volunteered the information that he had read
+"Werther" through six times. Goethe died in March, 1832, in his
+eighty-fourth year.
+</p>
+
+<h4><i>I.--"I Have Found an Angel"</i></h4>
+
+
+<p><i>May 4</i>. What a strange thing is the heart of man. To leave my
+dearest friend, and yet to feel happy! I know you will forgive me, and I in
+return will promise that I will no longer worry myself over every petty
+stab of fortune. Poor Leonora! And yet I was not to blame. Was I in fault
+that, while I was pleasantly entertained by the charms of her sister, her
+feeble heart conceived a passion for me? And yet I am not wholly blameless.
+Did I not encourage her emotion? Did I not--but what is man that he dares
+so to accuse himself? Beyond doubt, the sufferings of mankind would be far
+less did they but endure the present with equanimity, instead of raking up
+the past for memories of sorrow.</p>
+
+<p>A wonderful calm has come over me; I am alone, and feel that a spot like
+this was created for the happiness of souls like mine. You ask if you shall
+send me books; I pray you spare me. My heart craves for no excitement; I
+need strains to soothe me, and I find them to perfection in my Homer.</p>
+
+<p><i>May 17</i>. I have formed many acquaintances, but as yet have found
+no friends. If you inquire what sort of people are here, I answer "the same
+as everywhere." The human race is a monotonous affair. The majority labours
+nearly all its time for mere subsistence, and is then so distressed to have
+a small portion of freedom still unemployed that it exerts even greater
+efforts to get rid of it.</p>
+
+<p>I have just become acquainted with a very worthy person, the district
+judge. They tell me how charming it is to see him in the midst of his
+family of nine. His eldest daughter is much spoken of. He has invited me to
+go and see him.</p>
+
+<p><i>June 16</i>. Why do I not write to you? You should have guessed that
+I was pre-occupied; that, in a word, that I have made a friend who has won
+my heart. I have found--I know not what. An angel? Nonsense! Everyone so
+describes his mistress. And yet I cannot tell you how perfect she is, or
+why so perfect. Between ourselves, I have been three times on the point of
+throwing down my pen, ordering my horse, and riding out. And yet this
+morning I determined not to ride to-day; and I keep running to the window
+to see how high the sun is.</p>
+
+<p>I could not restrain myself; go to her I must. I have just returned,
+Wilhelm, and while I eat my supper I will write to you. I had already made
+the acquaintance of her aunt, the judge's sister, and with her I was going
+to accompany Charlotte to a ball given by some young people in the
+neighbourhood. While we were on our way to fetch her, my companion was loud
+in her praises of her niece's beauty and charm. "Take care, however," she
+added, "that you do not lose your heart." "Why?" I asked. "Because she is
+already betrothed to a most excellent man."</p>
+
+<p>As the door opened, I saw before me the most charming sight that I have
+ever beheld. Six children, of various ages, were running about the hall and
+surrounding a lady of medium height, with a lovely figure, dressed in a
+robe of simple white, trimmed with pink ribbons. She held a loaf of brown
+bread, and was cutting slices for the little ones all round. She apologised
+for not being quite ready, explaining that household duties had made her
+forget the children's supper, which they always preferred to take from her.
+I uttered some unmeaning compliment, but my whole soul was absorbed by her
+air, her voice, her manner. You who know me can imagine how I gazed upon
+her rich, dark eyes; how my soul gloated over her warm lips and fresh
+glowing cheeks.</p>
+
+<p>Never did I dance more lightly; I felt myself more than mortal, holding
+this loveliest of creatures in my arms, flying with her as rapidly as the
+wind, till I lost sight of every other object. And, oh, Wilhelm, I vowed at
+that moment that no maiden whom I loved should ever waltz with another than
+myself, if I went to perdition for it.</p>
+
+<p>Returning from the ball, there was a most magnificent sunrise. Our
+companions were asleep. Charlotte asked me if I did not wish to sleep too,
+and begged me not to stand on ceremony. Looking deep into her eyes, I
+answered, "As long as those eyes remain open, there is no fear for mine."
+We continued awake until we reached her door. I left her, asking her
+permission to call in the course of the day. She consented, and I went
+Since then, sun, moon, and stars may pursue their course; I know not
+whether it is day or night; the whole world is nothing to me.</p>
+
+<p><i>June 21</i>. My days are as happy as those reserved by God for His
+elect, and whatever be my fate hereafter, I can never say that I have not
+tasted joy--the purest joy of life. Little did I think when I selected this
+spot for my home that all heaven lay within half a league of it.</p>
+
+<p>How childish is man. To be disturbed about a mere look. We had been to
+Walheim, but during our walk I thought I saw in Charlotte's eyes--I am a
+fool, but forgive me. You should see her eyes. However, to be brief, as the
+ladies were preparing to drive away I watched her eyes; they wandered from
+one to another, but they did not alight on me--on me who saw nothing but
+her. She noticed me not. The carriage drove off, and my eyes filled with
+tears. Suddenly I saw Charlotte's bonnet leaning out of the window, and she
+turned to look back--was it at me? I know not, and in uncertainty is my
+consolation. Perhaps she turned to look at me. Perhaps. Good-night. What a
+child I am!</p>
+
+<p><i>July 10</i>. Someone asked me the other day how I like her. How I
+<i>like</i> her! What sort of creature must he be who merely likes
+Charlotte? Whose entire being were not absolutely filled with her? Like
+her! One might as well ask if I like Ossian.</p>
+
+<p><i>July 13</i>. No, I am not deceived. In her dark eyes I read a real
+interest in me. Yes, I feel it, and I believe my own heart which tells
+me--dare I say it?--that she loves me. How the idea exalts me in my own
+eyes. And as you can understand my feelings, I may say to you, how I honour
+myself because she loves me.</p>
+
+<p>I do not know a man able to take my place in her heart; yet when she
+speaks of Albert with so much warmth and affection, I feel like a soldier
+who has been stripped of all his honours. Sometimes when we are talking, in
+the eagerness of conversation she comes closer to me, and her balmy breath
+reaches my lips, I feel that I could sink into the earth for very joy. And
+yet, Wilhelm, if I know myself, and should ever dare--you understand
+me--No, no; my heart is not so corrupt; it is weak, but is not that a
+degree of corruption?</p>
+
+<p>She is to me a sacred being; how her simplest song enchants me.
+Sometimes, when I am ready to commit suicide, she sings some favourite air,
+and instantly the gloom and madness are dispersed.</p>
+
+<p><i>July 24</i>. Yes, dear Charlotte. I will arrange everything. Only
+give me more commissions; the more the better. One thing, however, I must
+request you--use no more writing-sand with the letters you send me! Today,
+I raised your letter to my lips, and it set my teeth on edge.</p>
+
+
+<h4><i>II.--Bereft of Comfort</i></h4>
+
+
+<p><i>July 30</i>. Albert is arrived, and I must take my departure. Were he
+the best of men, and I absolutely beneath him, I could not endure to see
+him in possession of my perfect being. Enough! her betrothed is here. A
+fine fellow, whom I cannot help liking. And he is so considerate; he has
+not given Charlotte one kiss in my presence. Heaven reward him for it. He
+is free from ill-humour, which you know is the fault I detest most. I do
+not ask whether he may not now and then tease her with some little
+jealousies, as I know that in his place I should not be entirely free from
+such feelings.</p>
+
+<p><i>August 8</i>. I am amazed to see from my diary, which I have somewhat
+neglected of late, how deliberately I have entangled myself, step by step.
+But even though I see the result plainly, I have no thought of acting with
+any greater prudence. And yet I feel that if only I knew where to go, I
+would abandon everything and fly from this place.</p>
+
+<p>And yet I feel that, if I were not a fool, I could enjoy life here most
+delightfully. Admitted into this charming family, loved by the father as a
+son, by his children as a second father, and by Charlotte! Furthermore,
+Albert welcomes me with the heartiest affection, and loves me, next to
+Charlotte, more than all the world.</p>
+
+<p><i>August 21</i>. In vain do I stretch out my arms towards her when I
+wake in the morning. In vain do I seek for her when some innocent dream has
+happily deceived me, and placed me near her in the fields when I have
+seized her hand and covered it with kisses. Tears flow from my oppressed
+heart; and, bereft of all comfort, I weep over my future woes.</p>
+
+<p><i>August 28</i>. This is my birthday, and early in the morning I
+received a packet from Albert. I found within one of the pink ribbons which
+Charlotte wore in her dress the first time I saw her, and which I had often
+asked her to give me. With it were two volumes of Wetstein's Homer, a book
+I had often wished for. How well they understood those little attentions of
+friendship, so superior to costly presents, unhappy being that I am. Why do
+I thus deceive myself? What is to be the outcome of all this wild, aimless,
+endless passion? I cannot pray except to her. Oh, Wilhelm, the hermit's
+cell, his sackcloth and girdle of thorns, would be luxury and indulgence
+compared with what I have to suffer.</p>
+
+<p><i>October 20</i>. I have taken the plunge, and following your repeated
+advice, I have taken a post with the ambassador. We arrived here yesterday.
+If he were less peevish and morose all would be well. As it is, he
+occasions me continual annoyance; he is the most punctilious blockhead in
+the world. He does everything step by step, with the paltry fussiness of an
+old woman; and he is a man whom it is impossible to please, because he is
+never pleased with himself.</p>
+
+<p><i>January 20</i>. I have but one being here to interest me, my dear
+Charlotte--a Miss B----. She resembles you, if indeed anyone can possibly
+resemble you. "Ah," you will say, "he has learnt to pay fine compliments."
+And this is partly true; I have been very agreeable lately, as it was not
+in my power to be otherwise. But I must tell you of Miss B----. She has
+abundance of soul, which flashes from her deep blue eyes. Her rank is a
+torment to her, and satisfies no single desire of her heart. She knows you,
+my dear Charlotte, as I have told her all about you, and renders homage to
+your merits; but her homage is not exacted, but voluntary--she loves you,
+and delights to hear you made the subject of conversation. Adieu! Is Albert
+with you, and what is he to you? Forgive the question.</p>
+
+<p><i>February 20</i>. I thank you, Albert, for having deceived me. I
+waited for the news that your wedding-day was fixed, and I meant on that
+day to remove Charlotte's picture from the wall, and bury it with some old
+papers that I wish destroyed. You are now united, and the picture remains.
+Well, let it remain. Why should it not?</p>
+
+
+<h4><i>III.--"I Can Remain No Longer"</i></h4>
+
+
+<p><i>June 11</i>. Say what you will, I can remain here no longer. Why
+should I remain? The prince is as gracious to me as anyone could be, and
+yet I am not at my ease. There is, indeed, nothing in common between us; he
+is a man of understanding, but quite of the ordinary kind. His conversation
+gives me no more amusement than I should derive from an ordinary
+well-written book. Whither am I going? I think it would be better for me to
+visit the mines in----. But I am only deluding myself thus. You know that I
+only want to be near my dear Charlotte once more. I smile at the suggestion
+of my heart, but I obey its dictates.</p>
+
+<p><i>July 29</i>. Dear Wilhelm, my whole frame feels convulsed when I see
+Albert put his arms round that slender waist. Oh, the very thought of
+folding that dearest of heaven's creatures in one's arms.</p>
+
+<p>And--shall I avow it? Why should I not?--she would have been happier
+with me than with him. Albert is not the man to satisfy the wishes of such
+a heart. He wants a certain sensibility; he wants--in short, their hearts
+do not beat in unison. But, Wilhelm, he loves her with his whole heart, and
+what does not such a love deserve?</p>
+
+<p><i>September 5</i>. Charlotte had written a letter to her husband in the
+country, where he was detained on business. It began: "My dearest love,
+return as soon as possible. I await you with a thousand raptures!"</p>
+
+<p>A friend who arrived brought word that he could not return immediately.
+Her letter fell into my hands. I read it, and smiled. She asked the reason.
+"What a heavenly treasure is imagination," I exclaimed. "I fancied for a
+moment that this was written to me." She paused, and seemed displeased. I
+was silent.</p>
+
+<p><i>October 10</i>. Only to gaze into her dark eyes is to me a source of
+happiness. And what grieves me is that Albert does not seem so happy as
+he--as I--as he hoped to be--as I should have been--if--. I am no friend to
+these pauses, but here I cannot express myself otherwise; and probably I am
+explicit enough.</p>
+
+<p><i>October 19</i>. Alas the void--the fearful void which I feel in my
+bosom! Sometimes I think, if I could only once press her to my heart, this
+dreadful void would be filled.</p>
+
+<p><i>October 30</i>. A hundred times I have been on the point of embracing
+her. Heavens! what a torment it is to see so much loveliness passing and
+repassing before us, and yet not dare to touch it. And to touch is the most
+natural of human instincts. Do not children touch everything that they
+see?</p>
+
+<p><i>November 8</i>. Charlotte reproves me for my excesses with so much
+tenderness and goodness. I have lately drunk more wine than usual. "Don't
+do it," she said; "think of Charlotte." "Think of you," I answered; "can
+such advice be necessary? Do I not ever think of you?" She immediately
+changed the subject to prevent me pursuing it further. My dear friend, my
+energies are all prostrated; she can do with me what she pleases.
+Yesterday, when I took leave, she seized me by the hand, and said, "Adieu,
+dear Werther!" It was the first time she had ever called me "dear." I have
+repeated it a hundred times.</p>
+
+
+<h4><i>IV.--"I am Resolved to Die"</i></h4>
+
+
+<p><i>November 24</i>. She is sensible of my sufferings. This morning her
+look pierced my soul. I found her alone; she was silent, and only gazed
+steadfastly at me. Oh, who can express my emotions? I was quite overcome,
+and bending down, pronounced this vow to myself, "Beautiful lips, which
+angels guard, never will I seek to profane your purity with a kiss." And
+yet, oh, I wish--But, alas, my heart is darkened by doubt and indecision.
+Could I but taste felicity, and then die to expiate the sin. What sin?</p>
+
+<p><i>December 21</i>. I am lost. My senses are bewildered, my recollection
+is confused, my eyes are bathed in tears. I am ill, and yet am well. I wish
+for nothing; I have no desires; it were better I were gone. I saw Charlotte
+to-day; she was busy preparing some little gifts for her brothers and
+sisters, to be given to them on Christmas Day. "You shall have a gift too,"
+she said, "if you behave well." "And what do you call behaving well?" I
+asked. "What should I do; what can I do?" "Thursday night," she answered,
+"is Christmas Eve; the children are all to be here, and my father too;
+there is a present for each of them. Do you come likewise, but do not come
+before that time!"</p>
+
+<p>I started. She must have seen my emotion, for she continued, hastily "I
+desire that you will not. It must be so; I ask it of you as a favour, for
+my own peace and tranquillity. We cannot go on in this manner any longer!"
+It were idle to attempt to describe my emotions I was as if paralysed; it
+was as if the sun had suddenly gone out. When I recollected myself,
+Charlotte was trying to speak on some indifferent topic. "No, Charlotte," I
+explained, "I understand you perfectly. I will never see you again!"</p>
+
+<p><i>December 22</i>. It is all over, Charlotte; I am resolved to die. I
+make this declaration deliberately and coolly, without any romantic
+passion, on the morning of the day when I am to see you for the last time.
+At the moment that you read these lines the cold grave will hold the
+remains of that restless and unhappy being who, in his last moments of
+existence, knew no pleasure so great as that of conversing with you.</p>
+
+<p>When I tore myself from you yesterday my senses were in tumult and
+disorder. I could scarcely reach my room. A thousand ideas floated through
+my mind. At last one fixed, final thought took possession of my heart. It
+was to die. Oh, beloved Charlotte, this heart, excited by rage and fury,
+has often conceived the horrid idea of murdering your
+husband--you--myself.</p>
+
+<p>What do they mean by saying that Albert is your husband? He may be so
+for this world, and in this world it is a sin to love you--to wish to tear
+you from his embrace. Yes, it is a crime, and I suffer the punishment--but
+I have enjoyed the full delight of my sin. I have inhaled a balm that has
+revived my soul; from this hour you are mine; yes, Charlotte, you are mine.
+I do not dream, I do not rave. Drawing nearer to the grave my perceptions
+become clearer. We shall exist; we shall see each other again.</p>
+
+<p>I wish to be buried in the dress I wear at present; it has been made
+sacred by your touch. How warmly I have loved you, Charlotte. Since the
+first hour I saw you, how impossible have I found it to leave you. This
+ribbon must be buried with me; it was a present from you on my birthday.
+How confused it all appears. Little did I think then that I should journey
+on this road. But peace, I pray you, peace.</p>
+
+<p>Both my pistols are loaded. The clock strikes twelve. I say Amen.
+Charlotte! Charlotte! Farewell! Farewell!</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+
+
+
+<h3><a name="goethe2">Wilhelm Meister's Apprenticeship</a></h3>
+
+<p class="letter">
+Goethe's prestige was enormously increased by the publication
+in 1796 of "Wilhelm Meister's Apprenticeship" ("Wilhelm Meisters
+Lehrjahre"). Representing the fruit of twenty years' labour, it was, like
+"Faust," written in fragments during the ripest period of his intellectual
+activity. The story of "Wilhelm Meister" is by no means exciting, but, as a
+gallery of portraits and repository of wise observation, it is more
+characteristic of the genius of its author than any other of his prose
+works. It is more mellow than "Werther," and the action moves slower.
+Incident follows incident in a leisurely fashion. The keen psychological
+analysis in the story is assumed to have been derived from Goethe's own
+experience. "Wilhelm Meister" was dramatised and produced at Leipzig a few
+years ago, but with no marked success.
+</p>
+
+<h4><i>I.--On the Road</i></h4>
+
+
+<p>The moment was now at hand to which poor Mariana had been looking
+forward as to the last of her life. Wilhelm Meister, the man she loved, was
+departing on a long journey in connection with his father's business; a
+disagreeable lover was threatening to come.</p>
+
+<p>"I am miserable," she exclaimed, "miserable for life! I love him, and he
+loves me; yet I see that we must part, and know not how I shall survive it.
+Wilhelm is poor, and can do nothing for me--"</p>
+
+<p>Darkness had scarcely come on when Wilhelm glided forth to her house; he
+carried with him a letter in which he entreated her to marry him forthwith,
+saying that he would abandon his father's business, and earn his living on
+the stage, to which he had always been strongly drawn. This he could do
+with certainty, as he was well acquainted with Serlo, manager of a theatre
+in a town at some distance.</p>
+
+<p>His plan was to leave the letter with her, and return a little later for
+her answer. The vehemence of his emotion at first prevented him from
+noticing that she did not greet him with her wonted heartiness; she
+complained of a headache, and would not hear of his coming back later that
+evening. Suspecting nothing wrong, he ceased to urge her, but he felt that
+this was not the moment for delivering his letter. He retained it,
+therefore, and, in a tumult of insatiable love, as he tore himself away
+from her he snatched one of her neckerchiefs, and, after pressing it madly
+to his lips, crushed it into his pocket.</p>
+
+<p>His whole being was in a ferment of excitement as he walked aimlessly
+about the streets. Midnight found him again in the neighbourhood of
+Mariana's house; consciousness of the fact brought him to himself. He went
+slowly away, set himself for home, and constantly turned round again; at
+last, with an effort, he constrained himself, and actually departed. At the
+corner of the street, looking back yet once more, he imagined that he saw
+Mariana's door open, and a dark figure issue from it. He was too distant to
+see clearly, and in a moment the appearance was lost in the night.</p>
+
+<p>On his way, he had almost effaced the unexpected delusion from his mind
+by the most sufficient reasons. To soothe his heart, and put the last seal
+on his returning belief, ere he disrobed for the night, he took her
+kerchief from his pocket. The rustle of a letter which fell from it took
+the kerchief from his lips; he lifted it, and read a passionate letter from
+another man, railing at her for her coldness on the preceding night, making
+an appointment for that same night, and breathing a spirit of intimate
+familiarity.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p>A violent fever, with its train of consequences, besides the unwearied
+attentions of his family, were so many fresh occupations for his mind, and
+formed a kind of painful entertainment. On his recovery, he determined to
+abandon for ever his former leaning towards the stage, and to apply himself
+with greater diligence to business, and, to the great contentment of his
+father, no one was now more diligent in the counting-house. For a long time
+he continued to show exemplary attention to his duties, and was then
+thought sufficiently master of his business to be sent on a long expedition
+on behalf of the firm.</p>
+
+<p>The first part of his business successfully accomplished, Wilhelm found
+himself at a little mountain town called Hochdorf. A troupe of actors had
+got stranded there, their exchequer empty, their properties seized as
+security for debts. Wilhelm recognised among them an old man whom he
+recollected as having seen on the stage with Mariana. After some
+hesitation, he hazarded a question concerning her. "Do not speak to me of
+that baggage!" cried the old man. "I am ashamed that I felt such a
+friendship for her. Yet, had you known the girl better, you would excuse
+me. I loved her as my own daughter; indeed, I had formed a resolution to
+take the creature into my own house, and save her from the hands of that
+old crone Barbara, her confidante; but my wife died, and so the project
+came to nothing. At the end of our stay in your native town, I noticed a
+visible sadness about her. I questioned her, but she evaded me. At last we
+set out on our journey. She travelled in the same coach with me, and I soon
+observed what she could not deny, that she was about to become a mother. In
+a short time the manager made the same discovery; he paid her off at once
+and left her behind at the village inn."</p>
+
+<p>Wilhelm's old wounds were all torn open afresh by the old man's story;
+the thought that perhaps Mariana was not wholly unworthy of his love was
+again brought to life. Nay, even the bitter accusations brought against her
+could not lower her in his estimation; for he, as well as she, was guilty
+in all her aberrations. He saw her as a frail, ill-succoured mother,
+wandering helplessly about the world.</p>
+
+<p>The old longing for the stage came back to him with redoubled force; he
+determined to give it vent, for a time at least, and to this end he
+advanced to Melina, the manager of the actors, a sum of money sufficient to
+redeem their properties, and accompanied the troupe until such time as it
+should be repaid.</p>
+
+<p>A profitable engagement soon came their way. A wealthy count, who
+happened to pass through the town, required their services to entertain the
+prince, whom he was shortly expecting as a guest. For several weeks they
+stayed at his castle, and when, on the prince's departure, their engagement
+came to an end, they were all weightier in purse than they had been for
+many a long day. Melina was now in hopes to get established with his
+company in a thriving town at some distance. To get there it was necessary
+to take a considerable journey by unfrequented roads.</p>
+
+<p>Accordingly, conveyances were hired, and a start was made. Towards
+evening, they began to pitch their camp in the midst of a beech wood; all
+were busily engaged about the task allotted to each--the women to prepare
+the evening meal, the men to attend to everything necessary for their
+comfort for the night. All at once, a shot went off; immediately another;
+the party flew asunder in terror. Next moment armed men were to be seen
+pressing forward to the spot where the coaches, packed with luggage,
+stood.</p>
+
+<p>The men all rushed at the intruders. Wilhelm fired his pistol at one who
+was already on the top of the coach cutting the cords of the packages. The
+scoundrel fell, but several of his friends rushed to his aid; our hero
+fell, stunned by a shot-wound and by a sword-stroke that almost penetrated
+to his brain.</p>
+
+<p>When he recovered his senses, it was to find himself deserted by all his
+companions except two of the girls. His head was lying in Phillina's lap,
+while Mignon, the child whom he had rescued from a brutal circus master who
+was ill-treating her, was vainly trying to staunch his wounds with her
+hair. For some time they continued in this position, no one returning to
+their aid. At last, they heard a troop of horses coming up the road; a
+young lady emerged on horseback, accompanied by some cavaliers. Wilhelm
+fixed his eye on the soft, calm, sympathising features of the stranger; he
+thought he had never seen aught nobler or more lovely. In a few moments one
+of the party stepped to the side of our hero. He held in his hand some
+surgeon's instruments and bandages, with which he hastily attended to his
+wounds. The lady asked several questions, and then, turning to the old
+gentleman, said, "Dear uncle, may I be generous at your expense?" taking
+off the coat that she was wearing as she spoke, and laying it softly above
+him. As he tried to open his mouth to stammer out some words of gratitude
+to the beautiful Amazon, the impression of her presence worked so strongly
+on his senses that all at once it seemed to him that her head was encircled
+with rays, and a glancing light seemed by degrees to spread itself all over
+her form. At this moment the surgeon gave him a sharper twinge; he lost
+consciousness; and on returning to himself the horsemen and coaches, the
+fair one and her attendants, had vanished like a dream.</p>
+
+
+<h4><i>II.--A Message from the Dead</i></h4>
+
+
+<p>Wilhelm's wounds were slow to heal, and it was long before he was able
+to move about freely again. When he fully recovered he went to his old
+friend, Serlo, and obtained a position in his company, both for himself,
+and also for many of his companions in misfortune.</p>
+
+<p>With Serlo he remained for a considerable period, until an untoward
+event led to his leaving him. Aurelia, Serlo's sister, had long entertained
+an affection for a nobleman, whom she knew by the name of Lothario; though
+at one time much attached to her, his affection had cooled off, and for a
+long time now he had not had any communication with her. Heartbroken at
+this treatment, though still devotedly attached to him, she gradually pined
+away, and complete neglect of her health finally brought her to her
+death-bed. Before she died, however, she wrote a letter of farewell to him,
+which she entrusted to Wilhelm to deliver as soon after her death as
+possible.</p>
+
+<p>Arrived at the castle where the baron lived, he found his lordship
+unable to give him any attention that day, as he was engaged to fight a
+duel, and was busy settling up his affairs in preparation. Wilhelm was
+requested to remain until a more convenient season. On the following
+morning, while the company were seated at breakfast, the baron was brought
+back in a carriage, seriously wounded.</p>
+
+<p>As the surgeon came out from attending him, the band hanging from his
+pouch caught Wilhelm's eye; he fancied that he knew it. He was convinced
+that he beheld the very pouch of the surgeon who had dressed his wounds in
+the forest, and the hope, so long deferred, of again finding his lovely
+Amazon struck like a flame through his soul.</p>
+
+<p>The abbé entered from Lothario's chamber, and said to Wilhelm,
+"The baron bids me ask you to remain here to share his hospitality, and, in
+the present circumstances, to contribute to his solacement."</p>
+
+<p>From this hour our friend was treated in the house as if he belonged to
+it.</p>
+
+<p>"We have a kindness to ask of you," said Jarno, the baron's confidential
+companion, to Wilhelm one morning. "The violent, unreasonable love and
+passionateness of the Lady Lydia only hinder the baron's recovery. She must
+be removed by some means. His wound requires rest and calmness; you see how
+she tortures him with her tempestuous anxieties, her ungovernable terrors,
+her never-drying tears. Enough! Our doctor expressly requires that she
+should quit us for a while; we have persuaded her to pay a visit to a lady,
+an old friend of hers; it will be your task to escort her, as you can best
+be spared."</p>
+
+<p>"I willingly undertake the charge," said Wilhelm, "though it is easy to
+foresee the pain I shall have to suffer from the tears, the despair, of
+Lydia."</p>
+
+<p>"And for this no small reward awaits you," said Jarno. "Fraulein
+Theresa, with whom you will get acquainted, is a lady such as you will
+rarely see. Indeed, were it not for an unfortunate passage between her
+mother and the baron, she would long since have been married to his
+lordship."</p>
+
+<p>When they returned from their visit, Lothario was in the way of full
+recovery. He was now for the first time able to talk with Wilhelm about the
+sad cause that had brought him to the castle. "You may, however, well
+forgive me," he said, with a smile, "that I forsook Aurelia for Theresa;
+with the one I could expect a calm and cheerful life, with the other not a
+happy hour."</p>
+
+<p>"I confess," said Wilhelm, "that in coming hither I had no small anger
+in my heart against you, that I proposed to censure with severity your
+conduct towards Aurelia. But, at the grave in which the hapless mother
+sleeps, let me ask you why you acknowledge not the child--a son in whom any
+father might rejoice and whom you appear entirely to overlook. With your
+tender nature, how can you altogether cast away the instinct of a
+parent?"</p>
+
+<p>"Of whom do you speak?" said Lothario. "I do not understand you."</p>
+
+<p>"Of whom but your son, Aurelia's son, the lovely child to whose good
+fortune there is nothing wanting but that a tender father should
+acknowledge and receive him."</p>
+
+<p>"You mistake, my friend," said Lothario; "Aurelia never had a son. I
+know of no child, or I would gladly acknowledge it. But did she ever give
+you to believe that the boy was hers--was mine?"</p>
+
+<p>"I cannot recollect that I ever heard a word from her expressly on the
+subject, but we took it so, and I never for a moment doubted it."</p>
+
+<p>"I can give you a clue to this perplexity," interposed Jarno. "An old
+woman, whom Wilhelm must have noticed, gave Aurelia the child, telling her
+that it was yours. She accepted it eagerly, hoping to alleviate her sorrows
+by its presence; and, in truth, it gave her many a comfortable hour."</p>
+
+<p>This discovery awoke anxieties in Wilhelm. He thought of the beautiful
+child Felix with the liveliest apprehension, and expressed his wish to
+remove him from the state in which he was.</p>
+
+<p>"We can soon arrange that," said Lothario. "I think you ought yourself
+to take charge of him; what in us the women leave uncultivated, children
+cultivate when we retain them near us."</p>
+
+<p>It was agreed to lose no time in putting this plan into execution, and
+Wilhelm departed forthwith to fetch the child.</p>
+
+<p>Passing through the house, he found Aurelia's old serving-maid, whom he
+had never seen at close quarters before, employed in sewing. Felix and
+Mignon were sitting by her on the floor.</p>
+
+<p>"Art thou the person," he demanded earnestly, "from whom Aurelia
+received this child?"</p>
+
+<p>She looked up, and turned her face to him; he saw her in full light, and
+started back in terror. It was old Barbara!</p>
+
+<p>"Where is Mariana?" cried he.</p>
+
+<p>"Far from here."</p>
+
+<p>"And Felix?"</p>
+
+<p>"Is the son of that unhappy and too tender-hearted girl. Here are
+Mariana's last words," she added, handing him a letter.</p>
+
+<p>"She is dead?" cried he.</p>
+
+<p>"Dead," said the old woman.</p>
+
+<p>A bitter grief took hold of Wilhelm; he could scarcely read the words
+that Barbara placed before him.</p>
+
+<p>"If this should reach thee, then lament thine ill-starred friend. The
+boy, whose birth I survived but a few days, is thine. I die faithful to
+thee, much as appearances may be against me; with thee I lost everything
+that bound me to life. This will be my only comfort, that though I cannot
+call myself blameless, towards thee I am free from blame."</p>
+
+<p>Wilhelm was stupified by this news. He removed the children from
+Barbara's care, and took them both back with him to Lothario's castle.
+Felix he kept with him, while Mignon, who was not in the best of health,
+was sent by the baron to the house of his sister, at some distance.</p>
+
+
+<h4><i>III.--Wilhelm's Apprenticeship</i></h4>
+
+
+<p>One evening Jarno said to Wilhelm, "We can now consider you as one of
+ourselves with such security that it were unjust not to introduce you
+deeper into our mysteries. You shall see what a curious little world is at
+your very hand, and how well you are known in it." He led our friend
+through certain unknown chambers and galleries of the castle to a door,
+strongly framed with iron. Jarno knocked; the door opened a little, so as
+to admit one person. Jarno introduced our friend, but did not follow
+him.</p>
+
+<p>Within was complete darkness. A voice cried "Enter"; he pressed forward
+and found that only tapestry was hemming him in. Raising this, he entered.
+Within, he found a man, who said, in a tone of dignity, "To guard from
+error is not the instructor's duty, but to lead the erring pupil; nay, let
+him quaff his error in deep, satiating draughts; he who only tastes his
+error will long dwell with it; he who drains it to the dregs will, if he be
+not crazy, find it out."</p>
+
+<p>A curtain closed before the figure, whom Wilhelm vaguely recollected as
+having seen at some time previously; possibly on the night when he had
+parted from Mariana. Then the curtain opened again; another figure
+advanced, "Learn to know the men who may be trusted," he said, and again
+the curtain closed. "Dispute not with us," cried a voice; "thou art saved,
+thou art on the way to the goal. None of thy follies wilt thou repent; none
+wilt thou wish to repeat."</p>
+
+<p>The curtain opened; the abbé came into view. "Come hither," he
+cried to his marvelling friend. Wilhelm mounted the steps. On the table lay
+a little roll.</p>
+
+<p>"Here is your indenture," said the abbé. "Take it to heart; it is
+of weighty import." Wilhelm opened it, and read:</p>
+
+<p class="letter">
+"<i>INDENTURE</i>.<br/>
+    "<i>Art is long, life short, judgment difficult, opportunity transient. To
+act is easy, to think is hard, to act according to our thought is troublesome.
+It is but a part of art that can be taught; the artist needs it all. Who knows
+it half, speaks much, and is always wrong; who knows it all, speaks seldom, and
+is inclined to act. No one knows what he is doing while he acts aright; but of
+wrong-doing we are always conscious. The instruction which the true artist
+gives us opens the mind, for where words fail him, deeds speak. The true
+scholar learns from the known to unfold the unknown, and approaches more and
+more to being a master</i>----"
+</p>
+
+<p>"Enough," cried the abbé; "the rest in due time. Now look round
+you among these cases." With astonishment Wilhelm found, among others,
+"<i>Lothario's Apprenticeship," "Jarno's Apprenticeship</i>," and his own
+"<i>Apprenticeship</i>" placed there. "May I hope to look into these
+rolls?"</p>
+
+<p>"In this chamber nothing is now hid from you."</p>
+
+<p>Wilhelm heard a noise behind him, and saw a child's face peeping through
+the tapestry at the end of the room. It was Felix. His father rushed
+towards him, took him in his arms, and pressed him to his heart.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, I feel it," cried he. "Thou art mine. For what a gift of Heaven
+have I to thank my friends! How comest thou, my child, at this important
+moment?"</p>
+
+<p>"Ask not," said the abbé. "Hail, young man! Thy apprenticeship is
+done; nature has pronounced thee free."</p>
+
+<p>After sorrow, often and in vain repeated, for the loss of Mariana,
+Wilhelm felt that he must find a mother for the boy; and also, that he
+could not find one equal to Theresa. With this gifted lady he was now
+thoroughly acquainted. Such a spouse and helpmate seemed the only one to
+trust to in such circumstances. Her affection for Lothario did not make him
+hesitate; she looked on herself as free; she had even spoken of marrying,
+with indifference, indeed, but as a matter understood.</p>
+
+<p>Before Theresa's answer came to hand, Lothario sent for our friend. "My
+sister Natalia bids me beg of you to go to her as soon as possible. Poor
+Mignon seems to be getting steadily worse, and it is thought that your
+presence might allay the malady." Wilhelm agreed, and proceeded on the
+journey.</p>
+
+
+<h4><i>IV.--Heart Against Reason</i></h4>
+
+
+<p>Behind a light screen, which threw a shadow on her, sat a young lady,
+reading; she rose and came to him. It was the Amazon! Unable to restrain
+himself, he fell on his knee and cried "It is she!" He seized her hand, and
+kissed it with unbounded rapture.</p>
+
+<p>A day or two later, the following letter from Theresa was handed to
+Wilhelm.</p>
+
+<p>"I am yours, as I am, and as you know me. I call you mine, as you are,
+and as I know you. As it is no passion, but trust and inclination for each
+other, that leads us together, we run less risk than thousands of others.
+You will forgive me, will you not, if I still think often and kindly of my
+former friend; in return, I will press Felix to my heart, as if I were his
+mother. Adieu, dear friend! Theresa clasps you to her breast with hope and
+joy."</p>
+
+<p>Natalia wrote a letter to her brother; she invited Wilhelm to add a word
+or two. They were just about to seal it, when Jarno unexpectedly came
+in.</p>
+
+<p>"I am come," he said, "to give you very curious and pleasing tidings
+about Theresa; now guess."</p>
+
+<p>"We are more skilful than you think," said Natalia, smiling. "Before you
+asked, we had the answer down in black and white," handing him as she spoke
+the letter she had just written. Jarno read the sheet hastily. "What shall
+I say?" cried he. "Surprise against surprise! I came to tell you that
+Theresa is not the daughter of her reputed mother. There is no obstacle to
+her marriage with Lothario: <i>I came to ask you to prepare her for
+it</i>."</p>
+
+<p>"And what," said Lothario, taking Wilhelm by the hand, "what if your
+alliance with my sister were the secret article on which depended my
+alliance with Theresa? These amends the noble maiden has appointed for you;
+she has vowed that we two pairs should appear together at the altar. 'His
+reason has made choice of me,' she said; 'his heart demands Natalia: my
+reason shall assist his heart.'"</p>
+
+<p>Lothario embraced his friend, and led him to Natalia, who, with Theresa,
+came to meet them. "To my mind, thou resemblest Saul, the son of Kish, who
+went out to seek his father's asses, and found a kingdom."</p>
+
+<p>"I know not the worth of a kingdom," said Wilhelm, "but I know that I
+have attained a happiness undeserved, which I would not change for anything
+in life."</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+
+
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="goldsmith">OLIVER GOLDSMITH</a></h2>
+
+
+<h3><a name="goldsmith1">The Vicar of Wakefield</a></h3>
+
+<p class="letter">
+Oliver Goldsmith, the most versatile and perhaps the most
+unstable of eighteenth century men of letters, was born in Ireland on
+November 10, 1728. At Trinity College, Dublin, he revealed three
+characteristics that clung to him throughout his career--high spirits,
+conversational brilliance, and inability to keep money in his pocket. After
+a spell of "philosophic vagabondage" on the Continent, he settled in London
+in 1756, earned money in various ways, and spent it all. "The Vicar of
+Wakefield," perhaps the greatest of all Goldsmith's works, was published on
+March 27, 1766, after Dr. Johnson had raised &pound;60 for him on the
+manuscript of it. The liveliness and grace of Goldsmith's style were never
+more plainly manifested than in this delightful story; and its faults--it
+contains many coincidences and improbabilities--are far more than atoned
+for by the masterly portrait of the simple, manly, generous, and wholly
+lovable vicar who is the central figure of the story. "It has," says
+Mitford, "the truth of Richardson, without his minuteness, and the humour
+of Fielding, without his grossness; if it yields to LeSage in the
+diversified variety of his views of life, it far excels him in the
+description of domestic virtues and the pleasing moral of the tale."
+Goldsmith died on April 4, 1774. (See also Vol. XVII.)
+</p>
+
+<h4><i>I.--Family Portraits</i></h4>
+
+
+<p>I was ever of opinion that the honest man who married and brought up a
+large family did more service than he who continued single and only talked
+of population. From this motive, I chose my wife, as she did her
+wedding-gown, not for a fine glossy surface, but such qualities as would
+wear well. There was nothing that could make us angry with the world or
+each other. We had no revolutions to fear, nor fatigues to undergo; all our
+adventures were by the fireside, and all our migrations from the blue bed
+to the brown.</p>
+
+<p>My children, as they were educated without softness, so they were at
+once well-formed and healthy; my four sons hardy and active, my two
+daughters beautiful and blooming. Olivia, the elder daughter, was open,
+sprightly, and commanding; Sophia's features were not so striking at first,
+but often did more certain execution, for they were soft, modest, and
+alluring.</p>
+
+<p>The profits of my living I made over to the orphans and widows of the
+clergy of our diocese; for, having a sufficient fortune of my own, I was
+careless of temporalities, and felt a secret pleasure in doing my duty
+without reward.</p>
+
+<p>My eldest son, George, just upon leaving college, fixed his affections
+upon Miss Arabella Wilmot, the daughter of a neighbouring clergyman, who
+was in circumstances to give her a large fortune. Mr. Wilmot was not averse
+to the match, but after the day for the nuptials had been fixed, I engaged
+in a dispute with him which threatened to interrupt our intended alliance.
+I have always maintained that it is unlawful for a priest of the Church of
+England, after the death of his first wife, to take a second; and I showed
+Mr. Wilmot a tract which I had written in defence of this principle. It was
+not till too late I discovered that he was violently attached to the
+contrary opinion, and with good reason; for he was at that time actually
+courting a fourth wife.</p>
+
+<p>While the controversy was hottest, a relation, with a face of concern,
+called me out.</p>
+
+<p>"The merchant in town," he said, "in whose hands your money was lodged
+has gone off, to avoid a statute of bankruptcy. Your fortune is now almost
+nothing."</p>
+
+<p>It would be useless to describe the sensations of my family when I
+divulged the news. Near a fortnight had passed before I attempted to
+restrain their affliction; for premature consolation is but the remembrance
+of sorrow. During this interval I determined to send my eldest son to
+London, and I accepted a small cure of fifteen pounds a year in a distant
+neighbourhood.</p>
+
+<p>The first day's journey brought us within thirty miles of our future
+retreat, and we put up at an obscure inn in a village by the way. At the
+inn was a gentleman who, the landlord told me, had been so liberal in his
+charity that he had no money left to pay his reckoning. I could not avoid
+expressing my concern at seeing a gentleman in such circumstances, and
+offered the stranger my purse. "I take it with all my heart, sir," replied
+he, "and am glad that my late oversight has shown me that there are still
+some men like you." The stranger's conversation was so pleasing and
+instructive that we were rejoiced to hear that he was going the same way as
+ourselves.</p>
+
+<p>The next morning we all set forward together. Mr. Burchell and I
+lightened the fatigues of the road with philosophical disputes, and he also
+informed me to whom the different seats belonged that lay in our view.</p>
+
+<p>"That, Dr. Primrose," he said to me, pointing to a very magnificent
+house, "belongs to Mr. Thornhill, a young gentleman who enjoys a large
+fortune, though entirely dependent upon the will of his uncle, Sir William
+Thornhill."</p>
+
+<p>"What!" cried I, "is my young landlord, then, the nephew of one who is
+represented as a man of consummate benevolence?"</p>
+
+<p>At this point we were alarmed by the cries of my family, and I perceived
+my youngest daughter in the midst of a rapid stream, and struggling with
+the torrent; she must have certainly perished had not my companion
+instantly plunged in to her relief. Her gratitude may be more readily
+imagined than described; she thanked her deliverer more with looks than
+words. Soon afterwards Mr. Burchell took leave of us, and we pursued our
+journey to the place of our retreat.</p>
+
+
+<h4><i>II.--The Squire</i></h4>
+
+
+<p>At a small distance from our habitation was a seat overshaded by a hedge
+of hawthorn and honeysuckle. Here, when the weather was fine, and our
+labour soon finished, we usually sat together to enjoy an extensive
+landscape in the calm of the evening. On an afternoon about the beginning
+of autumn, when I had drawn out my family to the seat, dogs and horsemen
+swept past us with great swiftness. After them a young gentleman, of a more
+genteel appearance than the rest, came forward, and, instead of pursuing
+the chase, stopped short, and approached us with a careless, superior air.
+He let us know that his name was Thornhill, and that he was the owner of
+the estate that lay around us. As his address, though confident, was easy,
+we soon became more familiar; and the whole family seemed earnest to please
+him.</p>
+
+<p>As soon as he was gone, my wife gave the opinion that it was a most
+fortunate hit, and hoped again to see the day in which we might hold up our
+heads with the best of them.</p>
+
+<p>"For my part," cried Olivia, "I don't like him, he is so extremely
+impudent and familiar." I interpreted this speech by contrary, and found
+that Olivia secretly admired him.</p>
+
+<p>"To confess the truth," said I, "he has not prepossessed me in his
+favour. I had heard that he was particularly remarkable for faithlessness
+to the fair sex."</p>
+
+<p>A few days afterwards we entertained our young landlord at dinner, and
+it may be easily supposed what provisions were exhausted to make an
+appearance. As he directed his looks and conversation to Olivia, it was no
+longer doubted but that she was the object that induced him to be our
+visitor; and my wife exulted in her daughter's victory as if it were her
+own.</p>
+
+<p>On one evening Mr. Thornhill came with two young ladies, richly dressed,
+whom he introduced as women of very great distinction and fashion from
+town. The two ladies threw my girls quite into the shade, for they would
+talk of nothing but high life and high-lived company. 'Tis true, they once
+or twice mortified us sensibly by slipping out an oath; their finery,
+however, threw a veil over any grossness in their conversation.</p>
+
+<p>I now began to find that all my long and painful lectures upon
+temperance, simplicity, and contentment were entirely disregarded. The
+distinctions lately paid us by our betters awakened that pride which I had
+laid asleep, but not removed. When the two ladies of quality showed a
+willingness to take our girls to town with them as companions, my wife was
+overjoyed at our good fortune. But Mr. Burchell, who had at first been a
+welcome guest at our house, but had become less welcome since we had been
+favoured with the company of persons of superior station, dissuaded her
+with great ardour, and so angered her that she ended by asking him to stay
+away.</p>
+
+<p>Returning home one day, I found my wife and girls all in tears, Mr.
+Thornhill having been there to inform them that their journey to town was
+entirely over. The two ladies, having heard reports of us from some
+malicious person, were that day set out for London. We were not long in
+finding who it was that had been so base as to asperse the character of a
+family so harmless as ours. One of our boys found a letter-case which we
+knew to belong to Mr. Burchell. Within it was a sealed note, superscribed,
+"The copy of a letter to be sent to the two ladies at Thornhill Castle." At
+the joint solicitation of the family, I opened it, and read as follows:</p>
+
+<p>"Ladies,--I am informed that you have some intention of bringing two
+young ladies to town, whom I have some knowledge of, under the character of
+companions. As I would neither have simplicity imposed upon nor virtue
+contaminated, I must offer it as my opinion that the impropriety of such a
+step will be attended with dangerous consequences. Take therefore, the
+admonition of a friend, and seriously reflect on the consequences of
+introducing infamy and vice into retreats where peace and innocence have
+hitherto resided."</p>
+
+<p>Our doubts were now at an end. It appeared to me one of the vilest
+instances of unprovoked ingratitude I had ever met with. As we set
+ruminating upon schemes of vengeance, Mr. Burchell himself entered and sat
+down.</p>
+
+<p>"Do you know this, sir--this pocket-book?" said I.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, sir," returned he, with a face of impenetrable assurance.</p>
+
+<p>"And do you know this letter?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes; it was I that wrote that letter."</p>
+
+<p>"And how could you so basely presume to write this letter?"</p>
+
+<p>"And how came you," replied he, with looks of unparalleled effrontery,
+"so basely to presume to open this letter?"</p>
+
+<p>I could scarcely govern my passion. "Ungrateful wretch!" I cried.
+"Begone, and no longer pollute my dwelling with thy baseness!"</p>
+
+<p>So saying, I threw him his pocket-book, which he took up with a smile,
+and left us astonished at the serenity of his assurance.</p>
+
+
+<h4><i>III.--The Elopement</i></h4>
+
+
+<p>The visits of Mr. Thornhill now became more frequent and longer; but all
+the schemes of Olivia and her mother to bring him to a declaration came to
+nothing. And although Olivia considered his fine sentiments as instances of
+the most exalted passion, it seemed to me plain that they had more of love
+than matrimony in them.</p>
+
+<p>One evening as I sat by the fireside, thanking Heaven for tranquillity,
+health, and competence, and thinking myself happier than the greatest
+monarch upon earth, I noticed that Olivia was absent.</p>
+
+<p>"Where is my darling Olivia?" I asked. Just as I spoke, my boy Dick came
+running in.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, papa, papa, she is gone from us; she is gone from us for ever!"</p>
+
+<p>"Gone, child?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes; she is gone off with two gentlemen in a postchaise, and one of
+them kissed her. And she cried very much, but he persuaded her, and she
+went into the chaise."</p>
+
+<p>"Now, then," cried I, "may Heaven's everlasting fury light upon him and
+his! Thus to rob me of my child! Bring me my pistols; I'll pursue the
+traitor. Old as I am, he shall find I can sting him yet--the perfidious
+villain!"</p>
+
+<p>My poor wife caught me in her arms.</p>
+
+<p>"Indeed, sir," said my son Moses, "your rage is too violent."</p>
+
+<p>"I did not curse him, child, did I?"</p>
+
+<p>"Indeed, sir, you did."</p>
+
+<p>"Then may Heaven forgive me and him. But it is not--it is not a small
+distress that can wring tears from these old eyes. My child--to undo my
+darling! May confusion seize--Heaven forgive me! What am I about to say?
+Had she but died! My son, bring hither my Bible and my staff. I will pursue
+her; and though I cannot save her from shame, I may prevent the continuance
+of her iniquity."</p>
+
+<p>My suspicions fell entirely upon our young landlord, whose character for
+such intrigues was but too well known. I therefore directed my steps
+towards Thornhill Castle. He soon appeared, with the most open, familiar
+air, and seemed perfectly amazed at my daughter's elopement, protesting
+upon his honour that he was quite a stranger to it. A man, however, averred
+that my daughter and Mr. Burchell had been seen driving very fast towards
+the Wells, about thirty miles distant.</p>
+
+<p>I walked towards the Wells with earnestness, and on entering the town I
+was met by a person on horseback, whom I remembered to have seen at the
+squire's, and he assured me that if I followed them to the races, which
+were but thirty miles further, I might depend upon overtaking them.</p>
+
+<p>Early the next day I walked forward to the races, but saw nothing of my
+daughter or of Mr. Burchell.</p>
+
+<p>The agitations of my mind, and the fatigues I had undergone, now threw
+me into a fever. I retired to a little ale-house by the roadside, and here
+I languished for nearly three weeks.</p>
+
+<p>The night coming on as I was twenty miles from home on my return
+journey, I put up at a little public-house, and asked for the landlord's
+company over a pint of wine. I could hear the landlady upstairs bitterly
+reproaching a lodger who could not pay.</p>
+
+<p>"Out, I say," she cried; "pack out this moment!"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, dear madame," replied the stranger, "pity a poor, abandoned
+creature for one night and death will soon do the rest!"</p>
+
+<p>I instantly knew the voice of my poor ruined child, Olivia, and flew to
+her rescue.</p>
+
+<p>"Welcome, anyway welcome, my dearest lost one, to your poor old father's
+bosom!"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, my own dear"--for minutes she could say no more--"my own dearest,
+good papa! You can't forgive me--I know you cannot!"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, my child, from my heart I do forgive thee." After we had talked
+ourselves into some tranquillity, I said, "It surprises me how a person of
+Mr. Burchell's seeming honour could be guilty of such deliberate
+baseness."</p>
+
+<p>"My dear papa," returned my daughter, "you labour under a strange
+mistake. It is Mr. Thornhill who has ruined me; who employed the two
+ladies, as he called them, but who, in fact, were abandoned women of the
+town, to decoy us up to London. Their artifices would certainly have
+succeeded but for Mr. Burchell's letter, who directed those reproaches at
+them which we all applied to ourselves."</p>
+
+<p>"You amaze me, my dear!" cried I. "But tell me, what temptation was it
+that could thus obliterate your virtue?"</p>
+
+<p>"He offered me marriage," replied she. "We were indeed married secretly
+by a popish priest, whose name I was sworn to conceal."</p>
+
+<p>"What!" interrupted I. "And were you indeed married?"</p>
+
+<p>"Alas!" she said, "he has been married already by the same priest to six
+or eight wives more, whom, like me, he has deceived and abandoned."</p>
+
+<p>"Have patience, my child," cried I, "and I hope things will yet be
+better. To-morrow I'll carry you home to your mother. Poor woman, this has
+gone to her heart; but she loves you still, Olivia, and will forget
+it."</p>
+
+
+<h4><i>IV.--Fresh Calamities</i></h4>
+
+
+<p>It was late the next night when I approached my own home. I had left
+Olivia at an inn five miles away, intending to prepare my family for her
+reception. To my amazement, I saw the house bursting out into a blaze of
+fire, and every aperture red with conflagration! I gave a loud convulsive
+outcry, which alarmed my son, and all my family ran out, wild with
+apprehension. Our neighbours came running to our assistance; but the flames
+had taken too strong a hold to be extinguished, and all the neighbours
+could do was to stand spectators of the calamity. They brought us clothes
+and furnished one of our outhouses with kitchen utensils; so that by
+daylight we had another, though a wretched, dwelling to retire to.</p>
+
+<p>In the midst of this affliction our poor lost one returned to us. "Ah,
+madam," cried her mother, "this is but a poor place to come to after so
+much finery! I can afford but little entertainment to persons who have kept
+company only with persons of distinction; but I hope Heaven will forgive
+you."</p>
+
+<p>The unhappy victim stood pale and trembling, unable to weep or to
+reply.</p>
+
+<p>"I entreat, woman," I said to my wife, with severity in my voice and
+manner, "that my words may be now marked once for all. I have here brought
+you back a poor deluded wanderer--her return to duty demands the revival of
+our tenderness. The real hardships of life are now coming fast upon us; let
+us not increase them by dissensions among each other. The kindness of
+Heaven is promised to the penitent, and let ours be directed by the
+example."</p>
+
+<p>My daughter's grief, however, seemed formed for continuing, and her
+wretchedness was increased by the news that Mr. Thornhill was going to be
+married to the rich Miss Wilmot, who had formerly been betrothed to my
+eldest son.</p>
+
+<p>On a morning of peculiar warmth for the season, when we were
+breakfasting out of doors, Mr. Thornhill drove up in his chariot, alighted,
+and inquired after my health with his usual air of familiarity.</p>
+
+<p>"Sir," replied I, "your present assurance only serves to aggravate your
+baseness."</p>
+
+<p>"My dear sir," returned he, "I cannot understand what this means!"</p>
+
+<p>"Go!" cried I. "Thou art a poor, pitiful wretch, and every way a liar;
+but your meanness secures you from my anger!"</p>
+
+<p>"I find," he said, "you are bent upon obliging me to talk in a harsher
+manner than I intended. My steward talks of driving for the rent, and it is
+certain he knows his duty. Yet, still, I could wish to serve you, and even
+to have you and your daughter present at my marriage."</p>
+
+<p>"Mr. Thornhill," replied I, "as to your marriage with any but my
+daughter, that I never will consent to! And though your friendship could
+raise me to a throne, or your resentment sink me to the grave, yet would I
+despise both."</p>
+
+<p>"Depend upon it," returned he, "you shall feel the effects of this
+insolence," and departed abruptly.</p>
+
+<p>On the very next morning his steward came to demand my annual rent,
+which, by reason of the accidents already related, I was unable to pay. On
+the following day two officers of justice took me to the county gaol.</p>
+
+<p>There is no situation, however wretched it seems, but has some sort of
+comfort attending it; and I found mine in the help and kindness of a
+fellow-prisoner, Mr. Jenkinson by name, who was awaiting trial for several
+acts of cheating and roguery. I myself, indeed, had been one of his
+victims.</p>
+
+<p>The fortune of my family, who were lodged in the town, was wholly and
+distressingly adverse. Olivia was ill, and longed for me to make my
+submission to Mr. Thornhill by approving his marriage with Miss Wilmot.
+When I had been confined a fortnight, Mr. Jenkinson brought me dreadful
+news--Olivia was dead! And while yet my grief was fresh upon me my wife
+came weeping to tell me that Sophia had been seized by ruffians and carried
+off.</p>
+
+<p>The sum of my miseries, thought, I, is now made up; nor is it in the
+power of anything on earth to give me another pang. Yet another awaited me.
+My eldest son, George, to whom I had written, went to Thornhill Castle to
+punish our betrayer; he was attacked by the coward's servants, injured one
+of them, and was brought into the very prison where I was confined.</p>
+
+<p>The enemy of my family had now triumphed completely. My only hope was in
+a letter I had written to Sir William Thornhill, telling him of the
+misdeeds of his nephew. I was by this time myself extremely ill. I sought
+to break from my heart all ties that bound it to earth, and to fit myself
+for eternity.</p>
+
+
+<h4><i>V.--The Rescue</i></h4>
+
+
+<p>On parting from my unhappy son, who was removed to a stronger cell, I
+laid me down in bed, when Mr. Jenkinson, entering, informed me that there
+was news of my daughter. He had scarcely delivered his message when my
+dearest girl entered with Mr. Burchell.</p>
+
+<p>"Here, papa," she cried, "here is the brave man to whom I owe my
+delivery; to this gentleman's intrepidity--"</p>
+
+<p>A kiss from Mr. Burchell interrupted what she was going to add.</p>
+
+<p>"Ah, Mr. Burchell," said I, "you were ever our friend. We have long
+discovered our errors with regard to you, and repented our ingratitude. And
+now, as you have delivered my girl, if you think her a recompense, she is
+yours."</p>
+
+<p>"But I suppose, sir," he replied, "you are apprised of my incapacity to
+support her as she deserves?"</p>
+
+<p>"I know no man," I returned, "so worthy to deserve her as you."</p>
+
+<p>Without the least reply to my offer, he ordered from the next inn the
+best dinner that could be provided. While we were at dinner, the gaoler
+brought a message from Mr. Thornhill, desiring permission to appear before
+his uncle in order to vindicate his innocence and honour. The poor,
+harmless Mr. Burchell, then, was in reality the celebrated Sir William
+Thornhill!</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Thornhill entered with a smile, and was going to embrace his
+uncle.</p>
+
+<p>"No fawning, sir, at present," cried the baronet. "The only way to my
+heart is by the road of honour; but here I only see complicated instances
+of falsehood, cowardice, and oppression."</p>
+
+<p>At this moment Jenkinson and the gaoler's two servants entered, hauling
+in a tall man very genteelly dressed. As soon as Mr. Thornhill perceived
+the prisoner and Mr. Jenkinson, he seemed to shrink backward with terror,
+for this was the man whom he had put upon the carrying off of Sophia.</p>
+
+<p>"Heavens," cried Sir William, "what a viper have I been fostering in my
+bosom!"</p>
+
+<p>"As Mr. Thornhill and I have been old fellow-sporters," said Jenkinson,
+"I have a friendship for him; and I hope he will show a proper return of
+friendship to his own honest Jenkinson, who brings him a wife."</p>
+
+<p>So saying, he went off and left us.</p>
+
+<p>"I am surprised," said the baronet, "what he can intend by this?"</p>
+
+<p>"When we reflect," I replied, "on the various schemes--Amazement! Do I
+see my lost daughter? It is--it is my Olivia!"</p>
+
+<p>"As for you, squire," said Jenkinson, "this young lady is your lawful
+wedded wife. Here is the licence to prove it. He commissioned me,
+gentlemen," he continued, "to procure him a false licence and a false
+priest in order to deceive this young lady. What did I do, but went and got
+a true licence and a true priest. To my shame, I confess it, my only design
+was to keep the licence and let the squire know that I could prove it upon
+him whenever I wanted money."</p>
+
+<p>"How could you," I cried, "add to my miseries by the story of her
+death?"</p>
+
+<p>"That," replied Jenkinson, "is easily answered. I thought the only
+probable means of freeing you from prison was by submitting to the squire,
+and consenting to his marriage with the other young lady. But this you had
+vowed never to grant while your daughter was living, so I had to join with
+your wife in persuading you that she was dead."</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Thornhill's assurance had now entirely forsaken him. He fell on his
+knees before his uncle, and implored compassion.</p>
+
+<p>"Thy vices, crimes, and ingratitude," said the baronet, "deserve no
+compassion; but a bare competence shall be supplied thee, and thy wife
+shall possess a third part of that fortune which once was thine." Then,
+turning to Sophia, he caught her to his breast with ardour. "I have
+sought," he cried, "for a woman who, a stranger to my fortune, could think
+I had merit as a man. How great must be my rapture to have made a conquest
+over such sense and such heavenly beauty!"</p>
+
+<p>On the next day Sophia was wedded to Sir William Thornhill; and my son
+George, now freed from justice, as the person supposed to be wounded by him
+was detected to be an impostor, led Miss Wilmot to the altar. As soon as I
+had awakened that morning, I had heard that my merchant had been arrested
+at Antwerp, and that my fortune had been restored to me.</p>
+
+<p>It may not be improper to observe, with respect to Mr. Thornhill, that
+he now resides as companion at a relation's house. My eldest daughter has
+told me that when he reforms she may be brought to relent.</p>
+
+<p>I had now nothing on this side of the grave to wish for. All my cares
+were over. It only remained that my gratitude in good fortune should exceed
+my submission in adversity.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+
+
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="goncourt">EDMOND AND JULES DE GONCOURT</a></h2>
+
+
+<h3><a name="goncourt1">Renée Mauperin</a></h3>
+
+<p class="letter">
+Edmond de Goncourt, born at Nancy on May 26, 1822, and his
+brother Jules, born in Paris on December 17, 1830, were primarily artists,
+who, while wandering over France, knapsack on back, discovered that their
+note-books also made them writers. In 1850 they entered upon a literary
+partnership which only finished with the death of the younger brother on
+June 20, 1870. Their earliest literary endeavours consisted of a series of
+historical studies dealing with the France of the second half of the
+eighteenth century. It was not until 1860, with the publication of their
+first novel, "Les Hommes de Lettres," that they discovered their true bent
+lay in fiction. "Renée Mauperin," which is, perhaps, the best known
+of their books, was published in 1864. As a psychological analysis of
+contemporaneous youth, it is probably without its equal in French fiction.
+"The plot of the story," wrote Edmond de Goncourt, "is secondary. The
+authors have rather preferred to paint the modern young woman as she is:
+the product of the artistic and masculine system of education in force
+during the last thirty years. We have also attempted to portray the modern
+young college man influenced by the republican ideas of the time since
+Louis Philippe." Edmond de Goncourt died on July 16, 1896.
+</p>
+
+<h4><i>I.--A Wayward Girl</i></h4>
+
+
+<p>"Yes, I love riding and hunting. I never miss a meet. The wind blowing
+through one's hair, the hounds, the horns, the trees flying past you--it is
+intoxicating! In those moments I feel brave. Life has few other pleasures
+for a well-brought-up girl like me. Everything is shocking! I dance, yes
+... but do you think I am allowed to talk to my partner? Yes, no, no,
+yes--that's all! That's proper. And I am allowed to read if the books and
+articles are proper. I paint in oils, and that shocks my family; a young
+lady must not go beyond copying roses in water-colours. Isn't the current
+strong here?"</p>
+
+<p>Renée Mauperin and young Reverchon, her parent's guest, were
+swimming in the Seine.</p>
+
+<p>"How beautiful!" exclaimed the girl, as she noticed the evening sun
+gilding the river and the banks where country and suburb merged into each
+other.</p>
+
+<p>"You are an artist by nature, mademoiselle."</p>
+
+<p>"Ouf!" she exclaimed with a comic intonation.</p>
+
+<p>A boat approached.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, Renée, how is the water?" asked one of the rowers.</p>
+
+<p>"Splendid, thanks, Denoisel," she replied, as she mounted the steps
+lowered for her.</p>
+
+<p>"I was almost getting nervous for you. And Reverchon? Ah, there he
+is!"</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p>Renée was the youngest daughter of a distinguished Napoleonic
+officer, who, at the time of the revolution of 1830, was elected deputy,
+and fought with all his ardour for the Liberal cause, but who subsequently,
+at the urging of his wife, a tyrannical conventional member of the
+<i>bourgeois</i>, retired from the world of politics and established a
+sugar refinery, so as to be able to provide suitably for his three
+children.</p>
+
+<p>The first two, a boy born in 1826 and a daughter in 1827, were a
+disappointment to the old soldier. They were too reasonable, too "grown-up"
+before they were children, but in Renée, who was born after an
+interval of eight years, M. Mauperin found ample consolation. His heart
+revelled in her pranks and merry laughter, and she grew up the pet of her
+father, whose affection she returned with all her heart. She was now
+twenty; her brother Henri, serious, studious, plodding and determined to
+make a career, was a lawyer, and had made some reputation by his articles
+on statistical subjects; and Henriette, her elder sister, had found a
+husband in M. Davarande, whose wealth and position allowed her to devote
+herself to the life of empty amusement, divided mainly between long rounds
+of calls, the opera, and the Bois, which filled the days of the moneyed
+Paris <i>bourgeoisie</i> of that time.</p>
+
+<p>Madame Mauperin, delighted with Henriette's match, was anxious to find
+an equally suitable partner for Renée; but the high-spirited girl
+had a will of her own, and seemed to take almost a pleasure in crossing her
+mother's transparent matrimonial schemes. Quite a number of eligible young
+men had been introduced to the house at La Briche--and had left it without
+having furthered their suit. Reverchon had now been invited with similar
+intentions, and Renée was no more amenable than before. While her
+mother filled the young man's ears with praise of her accomplishments, the
+wayward girl, with her charming ingenuous talk, did her best to demonstrate
+her lack of those negative conventional virtues that were expected from a
+well-educated French girl in those days. She made Madame Mauperin turn
+first crimson, then pale, when she finally proceeded to cut Denoisel's hair
+in the drawing-room after dinner.</p>
+
+<p>Denoisel was the son of Mauperin's bosom friend, who had fought by his
+side in many battles, and who on his death-bed had made him his son's
+guardian. Mauperin became more than a guardian to the boy--he became his
+father. When Henri and Henriette were born, it seemed to Denoisel that he
+had been given a brother and sister; but he adored the baby Renée,
+and he alone succeeded in making her listen and obey.</p>
+
+<p>"Sometimes," said Henri to Denoisel as they travelled back to Paris, "my
+sister's follies are harmless enough; but to-night ... before that fellow
+... I am sure the marriage will fall through. And such an excellent
+match!"</p>
+
+<p>"You think so? I began to fear for her. And that's why I lent myself to
+her prank. He is too hopelessly commonplace--a tailor's dummy! He would
+never have understood her. Your sister ought to marry a man of intelligence
+and character."</p>
+
+<p>And Madame Mauperin, as she prepared for bed, lectured her husband upon
+acceding to all his favourite's whims.</p>
+
+<p>"Another marriage missed! Henri spoke to me this evening. He is sure
+Reverchon will not have her."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, what of it?"</p>
+
+<p>"Why, he is the tenth! Renée will get an awful reputation. She
+will see when she is thirty ... and you too." Then, after a pause, "And now
+about your son. He is twenty-nine now. He, at any rate, has no objection to
+marriage. Have you ever thought of finding him a suitable wife?"</p>
+
+<p>She continued to talk and to grumble until Mauperin fell asleep.</p>
+
+<p>"Henri is reasonable enough, but he is a young man, and you know the
+danger. It's driving me mad! What do you think of trying Madame
+Rosiéres?"</p>
+
+<p>There was no reply. Madame Mauperin resigned herself to silence, and
+turned to find the sleep which only came with morning.</p>
+
+
+<h4><i>II.--Plots and Plays</i></h4>
+
+
+<p>Next morning Madame Mauperin proceeded to Paris, and drove to her son's
+apartments in the Rue Taitbout. She found him at work. After some beating
+about the bush she approached the object of her visit.</p>
+
+<p>"I fear," she began, "that you must have some reason for ..."</p>
+
+<p>"For not marrying, isn't it? My dear mother, you need not worry. I know
+that wealth is needed for a successful career, and that the best and most
+honourable way to obtain it is a good marriage. And I am determined to make
+a career. I shall get married soon enough... and better, perhaps, than you
+think."</p>
+
+<p>At La Briche, meanwhile, M. Mauperin vainly tried to be stern with his
+pet.</p>
+
+<p>"I have done it purposely," she said.</p>
+
+<p>"And why?"</p>
+
+<p>"Because I love you better than that young gentleman who was in no way
+sympathetic to me. You are ungrateful."</p>
+
+<p>"But listen, my dear child! Fathers are egotists, and would prefer to
+keep their children. But I am old, and I should not like to part without
+seeing you married, a mother, with affections that will replace mine."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, this is wicked! Never, never!" she exclaimed; "let me cry alone for
+a minute." And she left the room hurriedly.</p>
+
+<p>When she returned after a while, she found Denoisel in the room.</p>
+
+<p>"You have been out? And where have you been?"</p>
+
+<p>"Well, if you want to know, I have been to church to pray that I may die
+before father. I knelt before a statue of the Virgin. And, you may laugh,
+but it seemed to me that she nodded at my request. And it made me quite
+happy."</p>
+
+<p>The conversation drifted to gayer topics, and the two soon fell into
+their wonted tone of banter. "Tell me, Renée," said Denoisel, "have
+you never felt, I won't say love, but some sentiment for anybody?"</p>
+
+<p>"Never. That sort of thing only occurs when the heart is empty. But when
+it is defended by the affection one feels for a father--as a child I felt
+perhaps the beginning of that emotion of which one reads in novels. And do
+you know for whom?"</p>
+
+<p>"No."</p>
+
+<p>"For you. Oh, only for a moment. I soon loved you differently for having
+corrected the spoilt child of its faults, for having directed my attention
+to noble and beautiful things. And I resolved to repay you by true
+friendship."</p>
+
+<p>M. Mauperin entered the room, and interrupted the confidences.</p>
+
+<p>A few days later, Renée having set her mind upon playing in
+private theatricals, a discussion arose about the filling of the second
+lady's part in the play that had been chosen. One by one the names
+suggested were dismissed, until Henri said, "Why not ask Mlle. Bourjot?
+They are just staying at Sannois."</p>
+
+<p>"Noémi?" replied Renée. "I'd love it. But she, was so cold
+towards me last winter. I don't know why."</p>
+
+<p>"She will have &pound;12,000 a year," interrupted Denoisel, "and her
+mother knows that you have a brother. And they are not a little proud of
+their money."</p>
+
+<p>Twelve thousand a year! Madame Mauperin thought of her son's future, and
+supported his suggestion. It was decided that they would call on the
+Bourjots on Saturday.</p>
+
+<p>To Sannois they went as arranged on the Saturday. They were received
+with effusion, and had to put up for an hour or so with the unbearable
+arrogance of their hosts' display of wealth. Renée's warm advances
+to the playmate of her childhood were received by Noémi with
+coolness, not to say reluctance, but the request that Noémi should
+take part in the theatricals met with her mother's approval, the shy girl's
+objections--nervousness, lack of talent, and so forth--being overruled by
+Madame Bourjot. Before the two families parted it was arranged that
+Noémi should be taken by her governess to attend the rehearsals at
+the Mauperins' house.</p>
+
+<p>Renée's whole-hearted friendliness and sparkling humour soon
+overcame Noémi's reserve, and under Denoisel's direction the amateur
+actors made rapid progress. Madame Bourjot herself came to one of the
+rehearsals, and, after the first compliments, expressed her surprise that
+Henri, the principal actor, was absent. "Oh, he has a wonderful memory,"
+said his proud mother; "two rehearsals will set him right."</p>
+
+<p>At last the great day arrived. A stage had been arranged in the large
+drawing-room, which was filled to its utmost capacity, the ladies being
+seated in the long rows of chairs, the men standing behind and overflowing
+through open doors into the adjoining rooms. The play chosen was "The
+Caprice." Henri, who revealed rare talent, took the part of the husband;
+Noémi of the neglected wife. The curtain fell upon enthusiastic
+applause, and Madame Bourjot, who had feared that her daughter would be a
+fiasco, was delighted with her success. Amid the hum of voices she heard
+the lady sitting next to her say to her neighbour, "His sister, I know ...
+but for the part he is not sufficiently in love with her ... and too much
+with his wife. Did you notice?" she continued, in a whisper.</p>
+
+<p>In the second piece Henri appeared as Pierrot, Renée as the
+forsaken wife, and Noémi as the beloved. Henri played with real
+passion. From time to time his eyes seemed to search for Madame Bourjot's.
+Her neighbour felt her leaning against her shoulder. The curtain fell.
+Madame Bourjot swayed, and fell back in a faint.</p>
+
+<p>She was carried to the garden.</p>
+
+<p>"Leave me now," she said, "I am all right now; it was the heat. I only
+want a little air ... Let M. Henri stay with me."</p>
+
+<p>They were left alone.</p>
+
+<p>"You love her?" said Madame Bourjot, clutching Henri's arm. "I know
+all.... Have you nothing to say?"</p>
+
+<p>"Nothing. I have struggled for a year. I will not excuse myself. I owe
+you the truth. I love your daughter, it is true."</p>
+
+<p>Finally, Madame Bourjot rose and walked towards the house. Henri
+followed.</p>
+
+<p>"I count upon never seeing you again, sir," she said, without looking
+round. With a mighty effort she regained her composure, and walked back to
+the house on Henri's arm.</p>
+
+
+<h4><i>III.--Stint to Death by his Sister</i></h4>
+
+
+<p>It was Madame Bourjot herself who insisted upon seeing Henri again, and,
+since he did not answer her letter, she went to his apartments. The
+interview was painful, but she gave her consent to Henri's marriage with
+Noémi, and undertook to overcome M. Bourjot's possible objections,
+on condition that Henri should humour her husband's vanity by adopting a
+title--an easy matter enough. The Mauperins had a farm called Villacourt.
+Mauperin de Villacourt would do very well. Henri promised to see what he
+could do.</p>
+
+<p>Madame Bourjot and her daughter called on the Mauperins next day. The
+two girls were asked to leave their mothers to their talk, and to take a
+walk in the garden.</p>
+
+<p>"A secret!" said Renée, as soon as they were alone. "Can you
+guess it? I can--my brother. ... But you are crying. What is it, my darling
+Noémi?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, you don't know!" her friend sobbed. "I cannot--if you only
+knew----Save me! If I could only die!"</p>
+
+<p>"Die! But why?"</p>
+
+<p>"Because your brother is----" She stopped in horror at what she was
+about to say, then whispered the rest of her sentence into her ear, and hid
+her face on her friend's bosom.</p>
+
+<p>"You lie!" Renée pushed her back.</p>
+
+<p>"I?" Renée did not reply, but looked sadly and gently into
+Noémi's eyes.</p>
+
+<p>Renée doubted no longer. She was silent for a moment; she felt
+almost the duties of a mother towards this child.</p>
+
+<p>In the evening Henri was surprised to find his sister waiting in his
+room. She approached the subject of his impending marriage, and implored
+him, by his love for her, not to give up his name, and to break off the
+match.</p>
+
+<p>"Are you mad? Enough of this!"</p>
+
+<p>Renée fixed her eyes upon her brother.</p>
+
+<p>"Noémi has told me--everything!"</p>
+
+<p>Her cheeks flushed, Henri turned deathly pale.</p>
+
+<p>"My dear," he said, with a shaky voice, "you interfere in things which
+do not concern you. A young girl--" Then seizing her hand, he pointed
+towards the door, and said, "Go!"</p>
+
+<p>Renée was ill for a week, and Henri, knowing the cause, did his
+best to alleviate her suffering. Still, a coldness remained between them.
+He understood that she had forgiven the brother, but not the man. One day
+she accompanied Henri to town and went with him to the Record Office, where
+he had to make some inquiries about the legality of adopting his own name.
+While he was questioning the keeper, she overheard two clerks discuss her
+brother and his claim. "He thinks the Villacourt family is extinct. But he
+is misinformed, although they have gone down in the world. In fact, I know
+the heir to the title--a M. Boisjorand with whom I once had a fight when we
+were boys. They lived in the forest of the Croix-du-Soldat, near St.
+Mihiel, at La Motte-Noire." Renée fixed these names in her mind.</p>
+
+<p>"I have got all I want," said Henri, gaily coming towards her. And they
+went out together.</p>
+
+<p>The Bourjots were giving a great ball to celebrate the public
+announcement of the engagement of their daughter to M. Mauperin de
+Villacourt.</p>
+
+<p>"You are enjoying yourself," said Renée to Noémi.</p>
+
+<p>"I have never danced so much, it is true." And Noémi took her arm
+and drew her into a small salon. "No, never." She kissed her. "Oh, what it
+is to be happy! She loves him no longer. I am sure of it--I can see it; I
+feel it."</p>
+
+<p>"And you love him now?"</p>
+
+<p>Noémi closed her mouth by pressing her lips upon Renée's.
+A young man came to claim Noémi for the dance, and Denoisel
+requested the same favour from Renée.</p>
+
+<p>Denoisel was with Henri Mauperin. They were smoking and talking
+peacefully, when the door was thrust open, and a man forced his way in,
+pushing aside the valet who wanted to prevent him from entering.</p>
+
+<p>"M. Mauperin de Villacourt?" he asked.</p>
+
+<p>"That is my name," said Henri, rising.</p>
+
+<p>"Good. My name is Boisjorand de Villacourt," retorted the stranger,
+striking him so violently on the cheek that his face was immediately
+covered with blood. Henri conquered his first impulse to throw himself upon
+the intruder, and said calmly, "You find that there is one Villacourt too
+many--so do I. Leave your card with my servant. I shall send to you
+to-morrow."</p>
+
+<p>It was from a marked number of the "Moniteur," which the impoverished
+heir of the glorious name of De Villacourt found on his return from a two
+years' sojourn in Africa, that M. Boisjorand had learned that Henri had
+taken from him this name, which was all that had come down to him from his
+famous ancestors. He immediately proceeded to Paris and sought legal
+advice, but found that his poverty rendered legal action impossible. After
+his interview with the solicitor, he went straight to Henri's apartment to
+obtain the only satisfaction that was in his power.</p>
+
+<p>Denoisel and another friend of Henri's arranged with Boisjorand's
+seconds next morning the details of the meeting. Henri, who was an
+excellent shot, had insisted on pistols at thirty-five paces, each
+combatant to have the right to advance ten steps. The duel was to take
+place at four o'clock the same afternoon near the ponds of Ville
+d'Avray.</p>
+
+<p>Neither of the two adversaries showed a trace of nervousness. The signal
+was given, M. De Villacourt advanced five steps, Henri remaining
+stationary. At the sixth step Henri fired, and his opponent fell. Henri
+hurried towards him.</p>
+
+<p>"Back to your place," shouted the wounded man. On his hands and knees he
+crawled forward to the limit of his advance leaving a trail of blood in the
+snow. Then he took careful aim--and Henri fell with arms extended and his
+face towards the ground.</p>
+
+
+<h4><i>IV.--Broken Wanderers</i></h4>
+
+
+<p>To Denoisel fell the painful duty of informing Mauperin of his son's
+death. The old man's grief was heartbreaking. When Denoisel was admitted to
+Renée, he found her sitting on a footstool, sobbing, with her
+handkerchief pressed to her mouth.</p>
+
+<p>"Renée," he said, taking her hands, "he has been killed--that man
+should never have known. He did not read, he saw nobody, he lived like a
+wolf--he was not a subscriber to the 'Moniteur.' Some enemy must have sent
+him that paper."</p>
+
+<p>Renée had risen; she moved her lips; she wanted to scream "It was
+I!" Then, suddenly pressing her hand against her heart, she fell senseless
+on the floor.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p>Renée did not seem to recover from her illness. Denoisel saw her
+daily, but a certain coldness had set in between them--he thought that
+Renée held him responsible for not having prevented the duel, while
+Renée vaguely feared that Denoisel had guessed her secret. He
+started upon a long journey.</p>
+
+<p>In those days of illness and anxiety the hearts of father and daughter
+seemed to come together more closely even than before. The heartbroken old
+man saw his beloved child wasting away. He called in the best specialist
+from Paris, who did not exactly give up all hope, but did not conceal that
+Renée's life was in danger. The poor girl, who could not bear to
+witness her father's misery, put on a gay air, assuring him again and again
+that she was recovering. Indeed, when, at her urging, the family removed to
+the country house where she had spent her childhood, there was a real and
+marked improvement, and for a while the roses seemed to return to her pale
+cheeks.</p>
+
+<p>But she soon fell back into her listless state. Thus she lingered on for
+several months, always cheering her father and speaking of her happy
+future, always fading away until she became a mere shadow of her former
+bright and healthy self. Only to Denoisel, when after a long absence he
+returned from the Pyrenees, she opened her heart. To him she confessed that
+she knew her days were counted.</p>
+
+<p>Those who travel far afield have perhaps met in foreign towns or among
+the ruins of dead places--now in Russia, now in Egypt--two aged people, a
+man and a woman, who seem to march along without looking and without
+seeing. They are the Mauperins--father and mother.</p>
+
+<p>They have sold everything and have gone. Thus they wander from land to
+land, from hotel to hotel. They wander, trying to lose their grief in the
+fatigue of the road, dragging their weary life to all the corners of the
+globe.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+
+
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="grant">JAMES GRANT</a></h2>
+
+
+<h3><a name="grant1">Bothwell</a></h3>
+
+<p class="letter">
+The author of "Bothwell," and many other romantic tales, was a
+Scotsman by birth, parentage, and perfervid sentiment. He was born at
+Edinburgh on August 1, 1822. His father was a distinguished Highland
+officer; by his mother he was related to his illustrious literary exemplar,
+Sir Walter Scott. He was only twenty-three years of age when "The Romance
+of War" made him one of the most famous authors of his day. Other tales
+quickly followed, including, in 1853, "Bothwell, or The Days of Mary Queen
+of Scots," and it seemed as if readers could not have too much of the
+lively adventure and vigorous historical portraiture to which Grant
+unfailingly treated them. Altogether he wrote more than fifty novels, many
+of them involving considerable research. Grant outlived his popularity; the
+public sought new writers, and when he died, on May 5, 1887, he was
+penniless. For fertility of incident, rapid change of scene, and skilful
+intermingling of historical with imaginary people and events, "Bothwell" is
+not surpassed by any of the romances that came from its author's fertile
+pen.
+</p>
+
+<h4><i>I.--Anna of Bergen</i></h4>
+
+
+<p>Erick Rosenkrantz, Governor of Aggerhuis, in Norway, and castellan of
+Bergen, stood in the hall of his castle to welcome noble guests. It was a
+bleak and stormy day in September of 1565. Ill, indeed, would it have fared
+with the newcomers had not Konrad of the Salzberg, the young captain of the
+crossbowmen of Bergen, ventured forth on the raging sea at the peril of his
+life, and piloted their vessel into safety.</p>
+
+<p>The first of these was a tall and handsome man, about thirty years old,
+with a peculiar, dare-devil expression in his deep, dark eye, richly
+attired, and wearing a long sword and Scottish dagger. His companion, who
+deferentially remained a few paces behind, was a man of gigantic stature,
+swarthy and dark in complexion, with fierce and restless eyes.</p>
+
+<p>"Sir Erick," began the chamberlain, "allow me to introduce Sir James
+Hepburn, Earl of Bothwell, a noble peer, ambassador from Mary Queen of
+Scots to his Danish majesty."</p>
+
+<p>"We thank you for your gracious hospitality, fair sir," said Bothwell,
+with a profound courtesy; then, turning to Konrad, "And now, brave youth,
+by whose valour we have been saved, let me thank <i>you</i>."</p>
+
+<p>He warmly shook Konrad's hand, while the youth tried to catch the eye of
+Anna, the governor's fair-haired and lovely niece. But Anna was too
+intently regarding the strangers.</p>
+
+<p>Suddenly Bothwell perceived her; his colour heightened, his eyes
+sparkled.</p>
+
+<p>"Anna--Lady Anna," he exclaimed, "art <i>thou</i> here? When we parted
+at the palace of King Frederick, I feared it was to meet no more."</p>
+
+<p>"Thou seest, my lord," she replied gaily, "that fate never meant to
+separate us altogether."</p>
+
+<p>It was Bothwell who sat by Anna's side at the banquet, not Konrad, her
+lover from childhood. Konrad was displaced and slighted; he left the hall
+with a heart full of jealous and bitter thoughts.</p>
+
+<p>"Dost thou not see the hand of fate in this meeting with Anna?" said
+Bothwell, when retiring, to his gigantic companion, Black Hob of Ormiston,
+the most merciless and ferocious of border barons.</p>
+
+<p>"Nay," said Hob; "I perceive only the finger of mischief!"</p>
+
+<p>"I own to thee," replied the earl, "that all my old passion is revived
+in full force. My whole heart and soul are hers," he went on
+passionately.</p>
+
+<p>"Remember your solemn plight to the Lady Jane Gordon. If that be broken,
+our doleful case will be worse than ever." For Bothwell was no ambassador,
+but an exile; and his real mission to King Frederick was in pursuit of a
+design to hand over the northern Scottish isles to Denmark, and become
+viceroy of them.</p>
+
+<p>"Hob, be not insolent," retorted Bothwell. "I love her a thousand times
+more than Huntly's sickly sister."</p>
+
+<p>It was always thus with this reckless noble--the passion of the moment
+was ever too strong for past pledges and future policy. While waiting at
+Bergen for the ship to be repaired, he wooed Anna with all the skill of an
+accomplished man of pleasure.</p>
+
+<p>Anna's heart was ready to be won, and it was not long ere Bothwell,
+having gained her love, asked Governor Rosenkrantz for her hand. To his
+mortification, he was refused. Anna, said the governor, had long been
+pledged to Konrad.</p>
+
+<p>But Konrad, meanwhile, was in despair. Anna no longer smiled upon him;
+he was lightly cast aside to make way for a more favoured lover. One
+evening he was missing. A day and a night passed, and Konrad was nowhere to
+be seen. Search for him was useless--he had disappeared.</p>
+
+<p>Two letters were brought to Bothwell by a king's messenger. One was from
+King Frederick, commanding him to desist from his mock embassy, and
+instantly leave the Danish seas; the other, from the Earl of Huntly, told
+him that his enemies in Scotland were banished, and his forfeiture
+reversed.</p>
+
+<p>Bothwell's thoughts instantly turned to Anna. He knew that she would not
+accompany him unless he married her, and policy now more than ever required
+that he should keep his troth to the sister of his friend, the Earl of
+Huntly. Then there occurred to him the sinister thought of a mock
+marriage.</p>
+
+<p>His actions were quick, and his persuasions, to the love-sick Anna,
+irresistible. That evening the two were wedded by a crazy hermit who dwelt
+among the rocks of the fjord, and Anna, without a word of farewell to her
+kin, left her native land, it might be for ever.</p>
+
+<p>A stormy voyage brought the ship to Westeray, in Shetland. Bothwell
+escorted Anna to the castle of Noltland; and as she landed at the pier, a
+young man sprang forward and helped her across the plank. She felt
+agitated, she knew not why; she looked at the man's face, but it was
+concealed. It was Konrad. He had fallen over a cliff, had been carried out
+to sea on a plank, had been picked up by a ship which had carried him to
+Shetland, and had taken service with the castellan of Noltland. The
+unexpected sight of Anna brought back his emotions to their starting-point,
+and recalled the poignancy of the hour in which he had realised that he had
+lost her.</p>
+
+
+<h4><i>II.--Bothwell Castle</i></h4>
+
+
+<p>"I have resolved!" exclaimed the earl, on the morning after their
+arrival at Noltland. "I would be worse than mad to forego the prospect of
+power by marring my union with the sister of Huntly."</p>
+
+<p>"Cock and pie! now thou speakest like a man of mettle!" growled Hob.</p>
+
+<p>"Anna is not my first love," mused the earl. "Have I not felt how feeble
+have been my sentiments for Anna, for Jane of Huntly, for all who have
+succeeded her whom I met in France long ago?"</p>
+
+<p>"Then thou wilt sail----"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, like &AElig;neas, leaving my Dido behind me."</p>
+
+<p>With a pretence of the love he felt no longer, Bothwell bade Anna
+farewell, and left her to doubts which, as the months went on and his
+promise to return was not fulfilled, gradually rose to despair.</p>
+
+<p>During the decline of a spring evening, as Anna wandered dejectedly on
+the battlements, Konrad stood before her for the first time since her
+arrival at Noltland.</p>
+
+<p>"Konrad," she faltered, "thou here!"</p>
+
+<p>"Anna--dear Anna!" exclaimed the unhappy young man. "I have tidings to
+tell thee. The false lord of Bothwell hath been espoused to the sister of
+Huntly!"</p>
+
+<p>"And I--" gasped Anna.</p>
+
+<p>"Thou art a captive for life in this island castle!"</p>
+
+<p>Anna would have fallen backwards had Konrad not sprung to her
+assistance.</p>
+
+<p>"Listen," he said, in a low voice. "If thou wouldst escape, an hour will
+set thee free."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, land me once in Scotland, and I will make my way to Bothwell."</p>
+
+<p>That night Anna was on a Norwegian vessel bound for Glasgow, and Konrad
+was with her. She could not, he knew, be his bride, but he could at least
+protect and cherish her, and strive to redress the wrongs she had
+suffered.</p>
+
+<p>A storm was gathering above the lovely valley of the Clyde one June
+evening as two strangers--a man and a woman--plodded wearily towards
+Bothwell Castle. The woman became wholly exhausted; the man laid her gently
+down in shelter among the ruins of Blantyre Priory, and went on his errand
+alone. The storm had now burst, and the river was rising rapidly; but
+Konrad--for it was he--plunged into the raging waters, and strove to swim
+across. The current was too strong for him; he clung to an ash tree that
+projected over the stream, and was nearly exhausted when a man on the bank
+flung down his mantle and poniard, plunged in, and dragged him to the
+shore.</p>
+
+<p>Konrad, almost senseless, was carried within the castle. When he had
+revived and was dressed in dry garments, he was brought before his
+rescuer--it was Bothwell himself.</p>
+
+<p>"I thank thee," said Konrad proudly, "for saving my life."</p>
+
+<p>"Thou didst save mine. We are now equal," replied the earl.</p>
+
+<p>"'Tis well! I would not be <i>thy</i> debtor for all the silver in the
+mines of Bergen! Lord of Bothwell, I tell thee in thine own hall that thou
+art a dishonoured villain!"</p>
+
+<p>"Thou art stark mad!" cried the earl. Then he went on, "Konrad, I have
+wronged thee deeply. In my youth I loved one who neglected me as cruelly as
+thou hast been neglected, and since then a mischievous spirit of vengeance,
+as it were, has led me to make women my playthings, to be won and thrown
+aside. I love thy spirit, Konrad. If I could be thy friend----"</p>
+
+<p>"Never!" cried Konrad. "I come not for friendship, but for justice to
+Anna! Hast thou not wedded another after thine espousal of her?"</p>
+
+<p>"Dost thou deem the mock blessing of yon mad hermit a spousal rite?"
+exclaimed the earl, laughing.</p>
+
+<p>Konrad repressed his passion.</p>
+
+<p>"I go to push my fortune with your turbulent border chiefs; and if, in
+the strife that will soon convulse this land, thou meetest Konrad of
+Salzberg, look well to thyself!"</p>
+
+<p>"Go thy way, and God be with thee!" replied the earl. "Thou art the
+first who hath bent a dark brow on a lord of Bothwell under his own
+roof-tree."</p>
+
+<p>Konrad returned to Anna, and in the ruined priory told her how Bothwell
+was false to her. Anna's grief was dreadful to behold.</p>
+
+<p>"Anna," said Konrad, after a pause, "Scotland hath a queen whose
+goodness of heart is revered in every land save her own."</p>
+
+<p>"True; and at her feet will I pour forth my sorrow and my tears
+together."</p>
+
+<p>So the two traversed the thickets around the priory, and reached the
+broad highway, which was to lead them at length to Edinburgh.</p>
+
+
+<h4><i>III.--Mary Queen of Scots</i></h4>
+
+
+<p>But it was long ere Anna looked upon the face of the queen. At the Red
+Lion Inn in Edinburgh her beauty struck the eye of the Earl of Morton, the
+factious, proud, and ferocious associate of Moray in all the dark intrigues
+of that craftiest of Scottish statesmen. Morton promised that Anna should
+be entrusted to a lady of fair repute, and soon presented to the queen.
+Konrad trusted him, little knowing that the repute of Dame Alison Craig,
+Anna's new guardian, was anything but fair, and set forth for the
+Border.</p>
+
+<p>It was to Sir John Elliot of Park that he offered the service of his
+sword, for it was against this turbulent borderer, who had just raided
+Northumberland, and threatened the peace of the two kingdoms, that Bothwell
+was advancing with the army of Queen Mary. Now garrisoning some solitary
+peel-tower, now hiding in some unfathomed cavern, now issuing with uplifted
+lance from the haggs of some deep moss, Konrad engaged with ardour in every
+desperate foray, and his daring made him the idol of the wild spirits
+around him. In every deed of arms one thought was in his mind--to come
+within a lance-length of Bothwell.</p>
+
+<p>Long and fierce was the struggle, but it ended as a fight so unequal was
+bound to end. John of Park was slain, refusing with his dying breath to
+surrender, and Konrad was carried, a half-senseless captive to Bothwell's
+castle of Hermitage. Even then the earl spared his life. He lay in a
+hideous den, in pitch darkness and dead silence broken only by the splash
+of drops of fetid water that fell from the slimy arch of the vault.</p>
+
+<p>No token reached him of what was happening above; and an event happened
+there that had vast influence on Bothwell's future. Across the hills to
+Hermitage rode the Queen of Scots herself. The sight of her stirred in
+Bothwell's heart an emotion he had never wholly conquered, for she, Mary
+herself, was his first love of the bygone days in France. He had begun to
+realise that he loved her still; he knew the coldness of her relations with
+the dissolute and unfaithful Darnley, her husband; now she had come to
+Hermitage.</p>
+
+<p>"Jesu Maria!" cried the queen, as Bothwell, with beating heart, paused
+in the conversation. "Have you lost your tongue?"</p>
+
+<p>"Nay, madame--my heart."</p>
+
+<p>"That is very serious; but search for another."</p>
+
+<p>"I want no other," replied the earl, in a trembling voice, "but
+<i>thine</i>!"</p>
+
+<p>"Lord Bothwell," she said, with a hauteur that froze her admirer, "thou
+art in a dream."</p>
+
+<p>"Pardon me, I pray you--"</p>
+
+<p>"I do pardon thee," replied the queen, with a calm smile; but added,
+significantly, "I think 'tis time I was riding from Hermitage."</p>
+
+<p>So ended the famous visit to Hermitage, which was interpreted throughout
+Scotland as a token of Mary's love for her favourite earl.</p>
+
+<p>Konrad, a month afterwards, was sent to Edinburgh and confined in the
+old tower of Holyrood, awaiting trial as a Border outlaw. Bothwell himself
+soon followed, and celebrated his return by a wild revel in company with
+Hob of Ormiston and other choice spirits.</p>
+
+<p>As the revellers wandered through the narrow streets at midnight,
+seeking a quarrel, they passed the house of Dame Alison Craig.</p>
+
+<p>"My page tells me," said Bothwell, "there is a famous foreign beauty
+concealed there. Ho! within!"</p>
+
+<p>A stoup of water, poured on them from an upper window, was the answer.
+They broke open the door, and forced the shrieking dame to lead them to the
+apartment where the foreign beauty was hidden.</p>
+
+<p>"Death and confusion!" muttered the earl when he saw who was within.</p>
+
+<p>"Cock and pie!" said Ormiston. "We have started the wrong game."</p>
+
+<p>Hastily they thrust back their companions. But Anna had recognised him.
+When Morton had made advances towards her, she had repulsed him scornfully,
+telling him she was the Countess of Bothwell. Morton had seized on this
+opportunity of injuring a man he hated, and resolved to bring Anna before
+the queen. Bothwell now knew the danger before him, and prepared for
+it.</p>
+
+<p>Next day, as the queen sat with her grim lords in council, Morton led in
+Anna.</p>
+
+<p>"I have the pleasure," said he, "to present a lady who accuseth the Earl
+of Bothwell of wedding and ignobly deserting her."</p>
+
+<p>"'Tis false, Lord Earl!" cried Bothwell.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, madam, hear my story, and condemn me not unheard," pleaded
+Anna.</p>
+
+<p>"Let her speak for herself," said Mary.</p>
+
+<p>Thus encouraged, Anna, in moving accents, told her story.</p>
+
+<p>"A meloncholy tale, in sooth," said Mary; "but what proof is there?"</p>
+
+<p>"Your majesty," said Bothwell, "this is the invention of some unknown
+enemy"--he glanced at Morton--"to deprive me of your royal favour. Let this
+frantic damsel be removed to a Danish vessel now at Leith, and conveyed to
+her home."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, so be it!" replied the facile queen.</p>
+
+<p>Anna drew herself up to her full height.</p>
+
+<p>"Farewell, Bothwell," she cried. "In that dark time of ruin and regret
+that is coming upon thee, remember Anna!"</p>
+
+<p>And as she spoke they hurried her away.</p>
+
+<p>Bothwell henceforth was more than ever in the queen's favour. Only the
+life of Darnley intervened between him and the goal of his love and
+ambition; and the sinister promptings of Ormiston suggested that even that
+obstacle was not irremovable.</p>
+
+
+<h4><i>IV.--The Kirk of Field</i></h4>
+
+
+<p>On a dark winter night a conference of nobles was held at Whittinghame.
+Mary had been asked to divorce her husband, and had proudly and indignantly
+refused. Only one way remained. A solemn bond was drawn up among the
+assembled nobles, and the bond sealed the fate of Darnley. It was not
+without doubt and shrinking that Bothwell saw whither his schemes were
+leading him, but he would not, he could not, turn back.</p>
+
+<p>It was at Ormiston's suggestion that Konrad was employed as an
+unconscious tool in the affair. Ormiston hinted that with a little
+adroitness the whole blame might be laid on the unhappy prisoner. Konrad
+accordingly, on the night when the deed was to be done, was awakened from a
+reverie in his cell at Holyrood by the entry of a tall, masked figure.</p>
+
+<p>"If thou wouldst attain liberty, follow me!" said Ormiston, for it was
+he.</p>
+
+<p>He put a sword in Konrad's hand. Konrad as he grasped the weapon, felt
+his spirits rise again, and he followed.</p>
+
+<p>Presently they came to a group of masked men, and silently the party
+went through a private door in the city walls. Their destination, though
+Konrad knew it not, was the lonely house of the Kirk of Field, where
+Darnley was lying slowly recovering from small-pox--an illness through
+which the queen, forgetting her wrongs at his hands, had tenderly nursed
+him.</p>
+
+<p>Konrad, arrived at the house, helped to unload a horse of heavy packages
+which he conjectured to contain plunder; but it was gunpowder that he
+unwittingly handled.</p>
+
+<p>Suddenly a piercing cry came from above. A moment later the startled
+Konrad perceived Bothwell, his mask awry, his eyes glazed and haggard.</p>
+
+<p>"Thou hast done well!" said Ormiston grimly.</p>
+
+<p>"Well! My God!" groaned the earl.</p>
+
+<p>"Away while I fire the train!" shouted Ormiston.</p>
+
+<p>Like a fiery serpent the train glowed along the ground. Then, red and
+lurid in the shadowy night, there flashed a volume of dazzling light; then
+came a roar as if the earth was splitting.</p>
+
+<p>Konrad fled in bewildered terror, and wandered about the outskirts of
+the city until, in a little ruined chapel on the verge of a moor, he lay
+down exhausted and fell asleep.</p>
+
+<p>In the morning he was awakened by a rough grasp on his shoulder.</p>
+
+<p>"We have meshed one of the knaves at least," said a stern voice. Konrad
+found himself amidst knights and men-at-arms, and he was led back to the
+city.</p>
+
+<p>The citizens were in arms, furious at the outrage of the night before.
+The appearance of a suspected murderer aroused their passion to the utmost;
+Konrad's escort was overpowered and thrust aside. "Awa' wi' him to the
+Papist's pillar!" cried a voice. Down they went with him to the North Loch,
+and tied him there to an oaken stake about five feet deep in the water--a
+spot where many a luckless Catholic had perished. The mob retired, and
+Konrad was left alone, helpless, and to die.</p>
+
+<p>Bothwell sat by the fire in his apartments at Holyrood, with knit brows
+and muttering lips; the word he muttered was, "Murderer." The shriek of the
+man whose death-blow he had struck still echoed in his ears.</p>
+
+<p>Presently there entered the room one of his followers, Hepburn of
+Bolton.</p>
+
+<p>"The Norwegian hath been bound to the Papist's pillar," said he; "and by
+this time he must be dead, for it rains heavily, and the loch fills
+fast."</p>
+
+<p>"One other life!" said the earl gloomily. "By heaven, Bolton! if I can
+save him--come!"</p>
+
+<p>In the darkness and the rain, with the water rising around him, Konrad
+waited for death. A sound of oars roused him from the stupefaction into
+which he had fallen. "Here, here! His head is above water still," said a
+voice. The bonds were cut, Konrad was dragged into the boat and taken to
+land, and offered a draught that revived him.</p>
+
+<p>"Here we part," said the voice. "Give him dry garments, and take him to
+the Norwegian vessel, and bid him cross my path no more!"</p>
+
+<p>"Who art thou?" asked Konrad feebly.</p>
+
+<p>"Thy greatest enemy, James, Earl of Bothwell!"</p>
+
+<p>Slowly Konrad mounted the horse that had been brought for him, and with
+difficulty he rode; but the morning saw him on board a vessel of Bergen, in
+the hands of countrymen and friends.</p>
+
+<p>Bothwell was tried for the murder of Darnley, and triumphantly
+acquitted. He procured the secret assent of the nobles to his marriage with
+Mary; he divorced the Countess Jane; one more vigorous action, and the goal
+would be attained.</p>
+
+<p>On an April day, as Mary rode along the Stirling road towards Edinburgh,
+her way was barred by a thousand armed horsemen in close array; and
+Bothwell, riding up, requested that she should accompany him to his castle
+of Dunbar. It was useless to resist. Once in the castle, Bothwell offered
+her his hand, and was proudly refused.</p>
+
+<p>"Lord Earl," cried Mary, "thou mayest tremble when I leave Dunbar!"</p>
+
+<p>"Madame," he replied, "thou shalt never leave Dunbar but as the bride of
+Bothwell!"</p>
+
+<p>In May, Mary and Bothwell were married. A month later Bothwell fled
+before the wrath of an outraged nation, never to see Mary again; and within
+a week of their parting he roamed a pirate on the northern seas.</p>
+
+
+<h4><i>V.--Nemesis</i></h4>
+
+
+<p>A large Danish war vessel approached the port of Bergen, with prisoners
+to hand over to the castellan--the new castellan, for old Erick Rosenkrantz
+was dead. Chief of the captives was Bothwell, nonchalant but melancholy,
+pale, and more thoughtful than formerly; still, in pleasure and in sorrow,
+was he haunted by the shriek of the dying Darnley.</p>
+
+<p>Near him stood one who was not a captive, but a returning wanderer.
+Konrad had again crossed the path of the earl; his vessel, long detained in
+port, and afterwards delayed by storms, had been captured by the Scottish
+pirate ship, and he had been rescued from this new misfortune by the great
+Norwegian war vessel.</p>
+
+<p>The prisoners were escorted to the hall of the castle, and Bothwell
+assumed his most defiant look. The arras that concealed the da&iuml;s was
+withdrawn, and Bothwell looked upon the face of the hereditary castellan of
+Bergen, Anna Rosenkrantz!</p>
+
+<p>On seeing the earl, she turned pale as death. The earl recovered
+instantly from his surprise, and bowed smilingly.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, madam," said he, "we foresaw not this meeting!"</p>
+
+<p>"Dost thou know," replied Anna firmly, "that thy life and liberty are in
+my power?"</p>
+
+<p>"I am assured," he answered, "that they could not be in safer
+keeping."</p>
+
+<p>"Regicide and betrayer," return Anna, with flashing eyes, "from this
+hour thou shalt have meted out to thee the stern measures thou hast so
+ruthlessly dealt to others. This man," she went on, turning to the captain
+of the war ship, "is the king's prisoner; away with him to the Castle of
+Kiobenhafen--be under sail before sunset!"</p>
+
+<p>Red-bearded Danish bowmen crowded round the earl, who thus passed away
+to the wretched captivity that ended only with his death, ten years
+afterwards.</p>
+
+<p>Konrad, unnoticed and uncared for, stood alone in the hall where he had
+once been so welcome a guest. He had no intention of remaining in a place
+where all was so changed; but ere he turned to leave it for ever he paused
+a moment irresolutely. Once more the arras was withdrawn, and Anna stood
+before him.</p>
+
+<p>"I heard thou wert here, Konrad," she said, with a blushing cheek.
+"Wouldst thou go without one word to me?"</p>
+
+<p>She seated herself in the recess of a window. "I have long wished," she
+faltered, "to see thee once more. I have now seen the worth and faith of
+thy heart when contrasted with mine own, and I blush for my weakness--my
+wickedness--my folly. Thou mayest deem this unwomanly--indelicate; but in
+love we are equal, and why may not one make reparation as the other?"</p>
+
+<p>"Anna," said Konrad, in a choking voice, "though my heart be soured and
+saddened, my first sentiment for thee hath never altered. For all thou hast
+made me endure I forgive thee, and I pray that thou mayest be happy.
+Anna--dearest Anna--I am going far away, for I have doomed myself to exile,
+but I still regard thee as a sister--as a friend. All is forgotten and
+forgiven. And now, farewell!"</p>
+
+<p>He felt the hand of Anna in his; another moment, and she sank upon his
+breast.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, Konrad," she whispered, "if my heart is still prized by thee, it is
+thine, as in the days of our first love."</p>
+
+<p>And, borne away by his passion, the forgiving Konrad pressed the woman
+he loved closer and closer to his breast.
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 10921 ***</div>
+</body>
+</html>
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+
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+
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+Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for
+eBook #10921 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/10921)
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+The Project Gutenberg eBook of The World’s Greatest Books, Vol IV.
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and
+most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions
+whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms
+of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at
+www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you
+will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before
+using this eBook.
+
+Title: The World’s Greatest Books, Vol IV.
+
+Author: Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton
+
+Release Date: February 3, 2004 [eBook #10921]
+[Most recently updated: April 29, 2022]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: UTF-8
+
+Produced by: John Hagerson, Kevin Handy and PG Distributed Proofreaders
+
+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE WORLD’S GREATEST BOOKS, VOL. IV. ***
+
+
+
+
+THE WORLD'S
+GREATEST
+BOOKS
+
+JOINT EDITORS
+
+ARTHUR MEE
+Editor and Founder of the Book of Knowledge
+
+J. A. HAMMERTON
+Editor of Harmsworth's Universal Encyclopaedia
+
+VOL. IV
+FICTION
+
+
+
+Table of Contents
+
+EBERS, GEORG
+  An Egyptian Princess
+
+EDGEWORTH, MARIE
+  Belinda
+  Castle Rackrent
+
+ELIOT, GEORGE
+  Adam Bede
+  Felix Holt
+  Romola
+  Silas Marner
+  The Mill on the Floss
+
+ERCKMANN-CHATRIAN
+  Waterloo
+
+FEUILLET, OCTAVE
+  Romance of a Poor Young Man
+
+FIELDING, HENRY
+  Amelia
+  Jonathan Wild
+  Joseph Andrews
+  Tom Jones
+
+FLAMMARION, CAMILLE
+  Urania
+
+FOUQUÉ, DE LA MOTTE
+  Undine
+
+GABORIAU, EMILE
+  File No. 113
+
+GALT, JOHN
+  Annals of the Parish
+
+GASKELL, MRS.
+  Cranford
+  Mary Barton
+
+GODWIN, WILLIAM
+  Caleb Williams
+
+GOETHE
+  Sorrows of Young Werther
+  Wilhelm Meister
+
+GOLDSMITH, OLIVER
+  Vicar of Wakefield
+
+GONCOURT, EDMOND AND JULES DE
+  Renée Mauperin
+
+GRANT, JAMES
+  Bothwell
+
+
+A Complete Index of THE WORLD'S GREATEST BOOKS will be found at the end
+of Volume XX.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+GEORG EBERS
+
+
+An Egyptian Princess
+
+
+     Georg Moritz Ebers, a great Orientalist and Egyptologist, was
+     born in Berlin on March 1, 1837, received his first
+     instruction at Keilhau in Thuringen, then attended a college
+     at Quedlinburg, and finally took up the study of law at
+     Göttingen University. In 1858, when his feet became lame, he
+     abandoned this study, and took up philology and archæology.
+     After 1859 he devoted himself almost exclusively to
+     Egyptology. Having recovered from his long illness, he visited
+     the most important European museums, and in 1869 he travelled
+     to Egypt, Nubia, and Arabia. On his return he took the chair
+     of Egyptology at Leipzig University. He went back to Egypt in
+     1872, and discovered, besides many other important
+     inscriptions, the famous papyrus which bears his name. "An
+     Egyptian Princess" is his first important novel, written
+     during his illness, and published in 1864. It has gone through
+     numerous editions, and has been translated into most European
+     languages. It was followed by several other similar works of
+     fiction, of which "Serapis" achieved wide popularity. Ebers
+     died on August 7, 1898.
+
+
+_I.--The Royal Bride_
+
+
+A cavalcade of dazzling splendour was moving along the high road towards
+Babylon. The embassy sent by Cambyses, the mighty King of the East, had
+accomplished its mission, and now Nitetis, the daughter of Amasis, King
+of Egypt, was on the way to meet her future spouse. At the head of the
+sumptuous escort were Bartja, Cambyses' handsome golden-haired younger
+brother; his kinsman Darius; Croesus, the dethroned King of Lydia, and
+his son Gyges; Prexaspes, the king's ambassador, and Zopyrus, the son of
+Megabyzus, a Persian noble.
+
+A few miles before the gates of Babylon they perceived a troop of
+horsemen galloping towards them. Cambyses himself came to honour his
+bride. His pale face, framed by an immense black beard, expressed great
+power and unbounded pride. Deep pallor and bright colour flitted by
+turns across the face of Nitetis, as his fiery eyes fixed her with a
+piercing gaze. Then he waved a welcome, sprang from his horse, shook
+Croesus by the hand, and asked him to act as interpreter. "She is
+beautiful and pleases me well," said the king. And Nitetis, who had
+begun to learn the language of her new home on the long journey, blushed
+deeply and began softly in broken Persian, "Blessed be the gods, who
+have caused me to find favour in thine eyes."
+
+Cambyses was delighted with her desire to win his approbation and with
+her industry and intellect, so different from the indolence and idleness
+of the Persian women in his harem. His wonder and satisfaction increased
+when, after recommending her to obey the orders of Boges, the eunuch,
+who was head over the house of women, she reminded him that she was a
+king's daughter, bound to obey the commands of her lord, but unable to
+bow to a venal servant.
+
+Her pride found an echo in his own haughty disposition. "You have spoken
+well. A separate dwelling shall be appointed you. I, and no one else,
+will prescribe your rules of life and conduct. Tell me now, how my
+messengers pleased you and your countrymen?"
+
+"Who could know the noble Croesus without loving him? Who could fail to
+admire the beauty of the young heroes, your friends, and especially of
+your handsome brother Bartja? The Egyptians have no love for strangers,
+but he won all hearts."
+
+At these words the king's brows darkened, he struck his horse so that
+the creature reared, and then, turning it quickly round, he galloped
+towards Babylon. He decided in his mind to give Bartja the command of an
+expedition against the Tapuri, and to make him marry Rosana, the
+daughter of a Persian noble. He also determined to make Nitetis his real
+queen and adviser. She was to be to him what his mother Kassandane had
+been to Cyrus, his great father. Not even Phædime, his favourite wife,
+had occupied such a position. And as for Bartja, "he had better take
+care," he murmured, "or he shall know the fate that awaits the man who
+dares to cross my path."
+
+
+_II.--The Plot_
+
+
+According to Persian custom a year had to pass before Nitetis could
+become Cambyses' lawful wife, but, conscious of his despotic power, he
+had decided to reduce this term to a few months. Meanwhile, he only saw
+the fair Egyptian in the presence of his blind mother or of his sister
+Atossa, both of whom became Nitetis' devoted friends. Meanwhile, Boges,
+the eunuch, sank in public estimation, since it was known that Cambyses
+had ceased to visit the harem, and he began to conspire with Phædime as
+to the best way of ruining Nitetis, who had come to love Cambyses with
+ever growing passion.
+
+The Egyptian princess's happiness was seriously disturbed by the arrival
+of a letter from her mother, which brought her naught but sad news. Her
+father, Amasis, had been struck with blindness on the very day she had
+reached Babylon; and her frail twin-sister Tachot, after falling into a
+violent fever, was wasting away for love of Bartja, whose beauty had
+captured her heart at the time of his mission in Sais. His name had been
+even on her lips in her delirium, and the only hope for her was to see
+him again.
+
+Nitetis' whole happiness was destroyed in one moment. She wept and
+sighed, until she fell asleep from sheer exhaustion. When her maid
+Mandane came to put a last touch to her dress for the banquet, she found
+her sleeping, and as there was ample time she went out into the garden,
+where she met the eunuch Boges. He was the bearer of good news. Mandane
+had been brought up with the children of a Magian, one of whom was now
+the high-priest Oropastes. Love had sprung up between her and his
+handsome brother Gaumata; and Oropastes, who had ambitious schemes, had
+sent his brother to Rhagæ and procured her a situation at court, so that
+they might forget one another. And now Gaumata had come and begged her
+to meet him next evening in the hanging gardens. Mandane consented after
+a hard struggle.
+
+Boges hurried away with malicious pleasure in the near success of his
+scheme. He met one of the gardeners, whom he promised to bring some of
+the nobles to inspect a special kind of blue lily, in which the gardener
+took great pride. He then hurried to the harem, to make sure that the
+king's wives should look their best, and insisted upon Phædime painting
+her face white, and putting on a simple, dark dress without ornament,
+except the chain given her by Cambyses on her marriage, to arouse the
+pity of the Achæmenidæ, to which family she herself belonged.
+
+The eunuch's cunning scheme succeeded but too well. At the end of the
+great banquet Bartja, to whom Cambyses had promised to grant a favour on
+his victorious return from the war, confessed to him his love for
+Sappho, a charming and cultured Greek maiden of noble descent, whom he
+wished to make his wife. Cambyses was delighted at this proof of the
+injustice of his jealous suspicions, and announced aloud that Bartja
+would in a few days depart to bring home a bride. At these words
+Nitetis, thinking of her poor sister's misery, fainted.
+
+Cambyses sprang up pale as death; his lips trembled and his fist was
+clenched. Nitetis looked at him imploringly, but he commanded Boges to
+take the women back to their apartments. "Sleep well, Egyptian, and pray
+to the gods to give you the power of dissembling your feelings. Here,
+give me wine; but taste it well, for to-day, for the first time, I fear
+poison. Do you hear, Egyptian? Yes, all the poison, as well as the
+medicine, comes from Egypt."
+
+Boges gave strict orders that nobody--not even the queen-mother or
+Croesus--was to have access to the hanging gardens, whither he had
+conducted Nitetis. Cambyses, meanwhile, continued the drinking bout,
+thinking the while of punishment for the false woman. Bartja could have
+had no share in her perfidy, or he would have killed him on the spot;
+but he would send him away. And Nitetis should be handed to Boges, to be
+made the servant of his concubines and thus to atone for her crimes.
+
+When the king left the hall, Boges, who had slipped out before him,
+intercepted one of the gardener's boys with a letter for Prince Bartja.
+The boy refused to hand it over, as Nitetis had instructed him to hand
+it only to the prince; and on Cambyses' approach the boy fell on his
+knees, touching the ground with his forehead. Cambyses snatched the
+papyrus roll from his hand, and stamped furiously on the ground at
+seeing that the letter was written in Greek, which he could not read. He
+went to his own apartments, followed by Boges, whom he instructed to
+keep a strict watch over the Egyptian and the hanging gardens. "If a
+single human being or a message reach her without my knowledge, your
+life will be the forfeit."
+
+Boges, pleading a burning fever, begged that Kandaules, the Lydian
+captain of eunuchs, who was true as gold and inflexibly severe, should
+relieve him on the morrow. On the king's consent, he begged furthermore
+that Oropastes, Croesus, and three other nobles should be allowed to
+witness the opening of the blue lily in the hanging gardens. Kandaules
+would see that they enter into no communication with the Egyptian.
+
+"Kandaules must keep his eyes open, if he values his own life--go!"
+
+
+_III.--Conflicting Evidence_
+
+
+The hunt was over, and Bartja, who had invited his bosom friends,
+Darius, Gyges, Zopyrus, and Croesus, to drink a parting-cup with him,
+sat with the first three in the bower of the royal gardens. They talked
+long of love, of their ambitions, of the influence of stars on human
+destinies, when Croesus rapidly approached the arbour. When he beheld
+Bartja, he stood transfixed, then whispered to him, "Unhappy boy, you
+are still here? Fly for your life! The whip-bearers are close on my
+heels."
+
+"What do you mean?"
+
+"Fly, I tell you, even if your visit to the hanging gardens was
+innocently meant. You know Cambyses' violent temper. You know his
+jealousy of you; and your visit to the Egyptian to-night...."
+
+"My visit? I have never left this garden!"
+
+"Don't add a lie to your offense. Save yourself, quickly."
+
+"I speak the truth, and I shall remain."
+
+"You are infatuated. We saw you in the hanging-gardens not an hour ago."
+
+Bartja appealed to his friends, who confirmed on oath the truth of his
+assertion; and before Croesus could arrive at a solution of the mystery,
+the soldiers had arrived, led by an officer who had served under Bartja.
+He had orders to arrest everybody found in the suspect's company, but at
+the risk of his life urged Bartja to escape the king's fury. His men
+would blindly follow his command. But Bartja steadfastly refused. He was
+innocent, and knew that Cambyses, though hasty, was not unjust.
+
+Two hours later Bartja and his friends stood before the king who had
+just recovered from an epileptic fit. A few hours earlier he would have
+killed Bartja with his own hands. Now he was ready to lend an ear to
+both sides. Boges first related that he was with the Achæmenidæ, looking
+at the blue lily, and called Kandaules to inquire if everything was in
+order. On being told that Nitetis had not tasted food or drink all day,
+he sent Kandaules to fetch a physician. It was then that he saw Bartja
+by the princess's window. She herself came out of the sleep-room.
+Croesus called to Bartja, and the two figures disappeared behind a
+cypress. He went to search the house and found Nitetis lying unconscious
+on a couch. Hystaspes and the other nobles confirmed the eunuch's words,
+and even Croesus had to admit their substantial truth, but added that
+they must have been deceived by some remarkable likeness--at which Boges
+grew pale.
+
+Bartja's friends were equally definite in their evidence for the
+accused. Cambyses looked first on the one, then on the other party of
+these strange witnesses. Then Bartja begged permission to speak.
+
+"A son of Cyrus," he said, "would rather die than lie. I confess no
+judge was ever placed in so perplexing a position. But were the entire
+Persian nation to rise up against you, and swear that Cambyses had
+committed an evil deed, and you were to say, 'I did not commit it,' I,
+Bartja, would give all Persia the lie and exclaim, 'Ye are all false
+witnesses! A son of Cyrus cannot allow his mouth to deal in lies.' I
+swear to you that I am innocent. I have not once set foot in the hanging
+gardens since my return."
+
+Cambyses' looks grew milder on hearing these words, and when Oropastes
+suggested that an evil spirit must have taken Bartja's form to ruin him,
+he nodded assent and stretched out his hand towards Bartja. At this
+moment a staff-bearer came in and gave the king a dagger found by a
+eunuch under Nitetis' window. Cambyses examined it, dashed the dagger
+violently to the ground, and shrieked, "This is your dagger! At last you
+are convicted, you liar! Ah, you are feeling in your girdle! You may
+well turn pale, your dagger is gone! Seize him, put on his fetters! He
+shall be strangled to-morrow! Away with you, you perjured villains! They
+shall all die to-morrow! And the Egyptian--at noon she shall be flogged
+through the streets. Then I'll----"
+
+But here he was stopped by another fit of epilepsy, and sank down in
+convulsions.
+
+The fate of the unfortunates was sealed when, afterwards, Cambyses made
+Croesus read to him Nitetis' Greek letter to Bartja.
+
+"Nitetis, daughter of Amasis of Egypt, to Bartja, son of the great
+Cyrus.
+
+"I have something important to tell you; I can tell it to no one but
+yourself. To-morrow I hope to meet you in your mother's rooms. It lies
+in your power to comfort a sad and loving heart, and to give it one
+happy moment before death. I repeat that I must see you soon."
+
+Croesus, who tried to intercede on behalf of the condemned, was
+sentenced to share their fate. In his heart even he was now convinced of
+Bartja's guilt, and of the perjury of his own son and of Darius.
+
+
+_IV.--The Unexpected Witness_
+
+
+Nitetis had passed many a wretched hour since the great banquet. All day
+long she was kept in strict seclusion, and in the twilight Boges came to
+her to tell her jeeringly that her letter had fallen into the king's
+hand, and that its bearer had been executed. The princess swooned away,
+and Boges carried her to her sleeping-room, the door of which he barred
+carefully. When, later, Mandane left her lover Gaumata, the maid hurried
+into her mistress's room, found her in a faint, and used every remedy to
+restore her to consciousness.
+
+Then Boges came with two eunuchs, loaded the princess's arms with
+fetters, and gave vent to his long-nourished spite, telling her of the
+awful fate that was in store for her. Nitetis resolved to swallow a
+poisonous ointment for the complexion directly the executioner should
+draw near her. Then, in spite of her fetters, she managed to write to
+Cambyses, to assure him once more of her love and to explain her
+innocence. "I commit this crime against myself, Cambyses, to save you
+from doing a disgraceful deed."
+
+Meanwhile, Boges, after exciting Phædime's curiosity by many vague
+hints, divulged to her the nature of his infamous scheme. When Gaumata
+had come to Babylon for the New Year's festival, Boges had discovered
+his remarkable likeness to Bartja. He knew of his love for Mandane,
+gained his confidence, and arranged the nocturnal meeting under Nitetis'
+bedroom window. In return he exacted the promise of the lover's
+immediate departure after the meeting. He helped him to escape through a
+trap-door. To get Bartja out of the way, he had induced a Greek merchant
+to dispatch a letter to the prince, asking him, in the name of her he
+loved best, to come alone in the evening to the first station outside
+the Euphrates gate. Unfortunately, the messenger managed the matter
+clumsily, and apparently gave the letter to Gaumata. But to counteract
+Bartja's proof of innocence, Boges had managed to get hold of his
+dagger, which was conclusive evidence. And now Nitetis was sentenced to
+be set astride upon an ass and led through the streets of Babylon. As
+for Gaumata, three men were lying in wait for him to throw him into the
+Euphrates before he could get back to Rhagae. Phædime joined in Boges'
+laughter, and hung a heavy jewel-studded chain round his neck.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+A few hours only were wanted for the time fixed for Nitetis' disgrace,
+and the streets of Babylon were thronged with a dense crowd of
+sightseers, when a small caravan approached the Bel gate. In the first
+carriage was a fine, handsome man of about fifty, of commanding aspect,
+and dressed as a Persian courtier. With difficulty the driver cleared a
+passage through the crowd. "Make way for us! The royal post has no time
+to lose, and I am driving some one who will make you repent every
+minute's delay." They arrived at the palace, and the stranger's
+insistence succeeded in gaining admission to the king. The Greek--for
+such the stranger had declared himself--affirmed that he could prove the
+condemned men's innocence.
+
+"Call him in!" exclaimed Cambyses. "But if he wants to deceive me, let
+him remember that where the head of a son of Cyrus is about to fall, a
+Greek head has but very little chance." The Greek's calm and noble
+manner impressed Cambyses favourably, and his hostility was entirely
+overcome when the stranger revealed to him that he was Phanes, the
+famous commander of the Greek mercenaries in Egypt, and that he had come
+to offer his service to Cambyses.
+
+Phanes now related how, on approaching Babylon by the royal post, just
+before midnight, they heard some cries of distress, and found three
+fierce-looking fellows dragging a youth towards the river; how with his
+Greek war-cry he had rushed on the murderers, slain one of them, and put
+the others to flight; and how he discovered--so he thought--the youth to
+be none other but Bartja, whom he had met at the Egyptian court.
+
+They took him to the nearest station, bled him, and bound up his wounds.
+When he regained consciousness, he told them his name was Gaumata. Then
+he was seized by fever, during which he constantly spoke of the hanging
+gardens and of his Mandane.
+
+"Set the prisoners free, my king. I will answer for it with my own head,
+that Bartja was not in the hanging gardens."
+
+The king was surprised at this speech, but not angry. Phanes then
+advised him to send for Oropastes and Mandane, whose examination
+elicited the full truth. Boges, who was also sent for, had disappeared.
+Cambyses had all the prisoners set free, gave Phanes his hand to kiss--a
+rare honour--and, greater honour still, invited him to eat at the king's
+table. Then he went to the rooms of his mother, who had sent for him.
+
+Nitetis had been carried insensible to the queen-mother's apartments.
+When she opened her eyes, her head was resting on the blind queen's lap,
+she felt Atossa's warm kisses on her forehead, and Cambyses was standing
+by her side. She gazed around, and smiled as she recognised them one by
+one. She raised herself with difficulty. "How could you believe such a
+thing of me, my king?" she asked. There was no reproach in her tone, but
+deep sadness; Cambyses replied, "Forgive me."
+
+Nitetis then gave them the letter she had received from her mother,
+which would explain all, and begged them not to scorn her poor sister.
+"When an Egyptian girl once loves, she cannot forget. But I feel so
+frightened. The end must be near. That horrible man, Boges, read me the
+fearful sentence, and it was that which forced the poison into my hand."
+
+The physician rushed forward. "I thought so! She has taken a poison
+which results in certain death. She is lost!"
+
+On hearing this, the king exclaimed in anguish, "She _shall_ live; it is
+my will! Summon all the physicians in Babylon. Assemble the priests. She
+is not to die! She must live! I am the king, and I command it!"
+
+Nitetis opened her eyes as if endeavouring to obey her lord. She looked
+upon her lover, who was pressing his burning lips to her right hand. She
+murmured, with a smile, "Oh, this great happiness!" Then she closed her
+eyes and was seized with fever.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+All efforts to save Nitetis' life were fruitless. Cambyses fell into the
+deepest gloom, and wanted action, war, to dispel his sad thoughts.
+Phanes gave him the pretext. As commander of the Greek mercenaries in
+Egypt, he had enjoyed Amasis' confidence. He alone, with the
+high-priest, shared Amasis' secret about the birth of Nitetus, who was
+not the daughter of Amasis, but of Hophra, his predecessor, whose throne
+Amasis had usurped. When, owing to the intrigues of Psamtik, Amasis'
+son, Phanes fell into disgrace and had to fly for his life, his little
+son was seized and cruelly murdered by his persecutors. Phanes had sworn
+revenge. He now persuaded Cambyses to wage war upon Egypt, and to claim
+Amasis' throne as the husband of Hophra's daughter.
+
+The rest is known to all students of history--how Cambyses, with the
+help of Phanes, defeated Psamtik's host at Pelusium and took possession
+of the whole Egyptian Empire; how, given more and more to drink and
+fearful excesses, he set up a rule of untold terror, had his brother
+Bartja murdered in another fit of jealousy, and finally suffered defeat
+at the hands of the Ethiopians. They will also know how, on his death,
+Gaumata, the "pseudo-Smerdis" of the Greeks, was urged by his ambitious
+brother, Oropastes, to seize the throne by impersonating the dead
+Bartja; how, finally, the pretender was defeated and had to pay for his
+attempt with his life; and how Persia rose again to unity and greatness
+under the rule of the noble Darius, Bartja's faithful kinsman and
+friend.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+MARIA EDGEWORTH
+
+
+Belinda
+
+
+     Maria Edgeworth was born at Black Bourton, Oxfordshire,
+     England, Jan. 1, 1767, and eleven years later her father
+     removed to Ireland and settled on his own estate at
+     Edgeworthstown. "Belinda," published in 1801, is Maria
+     Edgeworth's one early example of a novel not placed in Irish
+     surroundings, but dealing with fashionable life. Issued just a
+     year after the appearance of her first Irish tale, "Castle
+     Rackrent," it betrays entirely the influence of the novelist's
+     autocratic and eccentric father, Richard Lovell Edgeworth,
+     with whom the daughter had been previously collaborating. No
+     one could be less suited than he to advise about fiction, yet
+     to his daughter his advice was almost the equivalent of a
+     command. The story is interesting as an example of literary
+     workmanship outside of the scenes in which special success had
+     been achieved. Miss Edgeworth died at Edgeworthstown on May
+     22, 1849.
+
+
+_I.--A Match-Maker's Handicap_
+
+
+Mrs. Stanhope, a well-bred woman, accomplished in the art of rising in
+the world, had, with but a small fortune, contrived to live in the
+highest company. She prided herself upon having established half a dozen
+nieces most happily--that is to say, upon having married them to men of
+fortunes far superior to their own. One niece still remained unmarried,
+Belinda Portman, of whom she determined to get rid with all convenient
+expedition; but finding that, owing to declining health, she could not
+go out with her as much as she wished, she succeeded in fastening her
+upon the fashionable Lady Delacour for a winter in London.
+
+"Nothing, to my mind, can be more miserable than the situation of a poor
+girl who fails in her matrimonial expectations (as many do merely from
+not beginning to speculate in time)," she wrote from Bath. "She finds
+herself at five or six-and-thirty a burden to her friends, destitute of
+the means of rendering herself independent--for the girls I speak of
+never think of _learning_ to play cards--_de trop_ in society, yet
+obliged to hang upon all her acquaintances, who wish her in heaven,
+because she is unqualified to make the _expected_ return for civilities,
+having no home--I mean no establishment, no house, etc.--fit for the
+reception of company of certain rank. My dearest Belinda, may this never
+be your case. I have sent your bracelet to you by Mr. Clarence Hervey,
+an acquaintance of Lady Delacour, an uncommonly pleasant young man,
+highly connected, a wit and a gallant, and having a fine independent
+fortune; so, my dear Belinda, I make it a point--look well when he is
+introduced to you, and remember that nobody _can_ look well without
+taking some pains to please."
+
+Belinda had been charmed by Lady Delacour, who was the most agreeable,
+the most fascinating person she had ever beheld; and to be a visitor at
+her house was a delightful privilege. But, a short time after her
+arrival, she began to see through the thin veil with which politeness
+covers domestic misery. Abroad, Lady Delacour appeared all spirit, life,
+and good humour; at home, listless, fretful, and melancholy, a prey to
+thoughts, seemingly, of the most painful nature.
+
+The first time Belinda saw his lordship he was dead drunk in the arms of
+two footmen; his lady, who had just returned from Ranelagh, passed him
+on the stairs with the utmost contempt.
+
+"Don't look so shocked and amazed, Belinda. Don't look so _new_, child.
+This funeral of my lord's intellects is to me a nightly ceremony; or,"
+said her ladyship, looking at her watch and yawning, "I believe I should
+say a daily ceremony--six o'clock, I protest!"
+
+The next morning Clarence Hervey called, and Belinda found him a most
+uncommonly pleasant young man. Lord Delacour was jealous of him; but
+although he would have started with horror at the idea of disturbing the
+peace of a family, in that family, he said, there was no peace to
+disturb. Consequently, he visited her ladyship every day, and every day
+viewed Belinda with increasing admiration, and with increasing dread of
+being taken in to marry a niece of that "catch-matchmaker," as Mrs.
+Stanhope was known amongst the men of his acquaintance.
+
+Under the guise of a tragic muse--in which character Lady Delacour had
+pretended she was going to a masquerade--Belinda heard his true
+sentiments with regard to her.
+
+"You don't believe I go to Lady Delacour's to look for a wife? Do you
+think I'm an idiot? Do you think I could be taken in by one of the
+Stanhope school?" he said to the facetious friends who rallied him on
+his attachment. "Do you think I don't see as plainly as any of you that
+Belinda Portman is a composition of art and affectation?"
+
+"Melpomene, hast thou forgot thyself to warble?" asked Lady Delacour,
+tripping towards them as the comic muse.
+
+"I am not very well," whispered Miss Portman. "Could we get away?"
+
+"Do see if you can find any of my people!" cried Lady Delacour to
+Clarence Hervey, who had followed them downstairs.
+
+"Lady Delacour, the comic muse!" exclaimed he. "I had thought----"
+
+"No matter what you thought!" interrupted her ladyship. "Let my carriage
+draw up, and put this lady into it!" And he obeyed without uttering a
+syllable.
+
+"Dry up your tears, _keep on your mask_, and elbow your way through the
+crowd," she said, when she had heard Belinda's story. "If you stop to be
+civil and 'hope I don't hurt ye,' you will be trod underfoot."
+
+She insisted on driving to the Panthéon instead of going home, but to
+Belinda the night seemed long and dull. The masquerade had no charm to
+keep her thoughts from the conversation that had given her so much pain.
+
+
+_II.--Fashion and Fortitude_
+
+
+"How happy you are, Lady Delacour!" she said, when they got into the
+carriage to go home. "How happy to have such an amazing flow of
+spirits!"
+
+And then she learnt the reason of her ladyship's strange unevenness of
+temper. She was dying of an incurable complaint, which she kept hidden
+from all the world except her maid, Marriott, who attended on her in a
+mysterious cabinet full of medicines and linen rags, the door of which
+she had hitherto kept locked.
+
+"You are shocked, Belinda," said she, "but as yet you have seen nothing.
+Look here!" And baring one half of her bosom, she revealed a hideous
+spectacle.
+
+"Am I humbled? Am I wretched enough?" she asked. "No matter. I will die
+as I have lived, the envy and admiration of the world. Promise--swear to
+me that you will never reveal what you have seen to-night!" And Belinda
+promised not only that, but to remain with her as long as ever she
+wished.
+
+Belinda's quiet avoidance of Clarence Hervey made him begin to believe
+that she might not be "a compound of art and affectation," and he was
+mortified to find that, though she joined with ease and dignity in the
+general conversation with the others, her manner to him was grave and
+reserved. To divert her, he declared he was convinced he was as well
+able to manage a hoop as any woman in England, except Lady Delacour;
+accordingly he was dressed by Marriott, and made his _entree_ with very
+composed assurance and grace, being introduced as the Countess de
+Pomenars to the purblind dowager, Lady Boucher, who had come to call. He
+managed his part well, speaking French and broken English, until Lady
+Delacour dexterously let down Belinda's beautiful tresses, and, calling
+the French lady to admire _la belle chevelure,_ artfully let fall her
+comb.
+
+Totally forgetting his hoop and his character, he stooped to pick it up,
+and lost his wager by knocking over a music-stand. He would have liked a
+lock of her hair, but she refused with a modest, graceful dignity; she
+was glad she had done so later when a tress of hair dropped from his
+pocket-book, and his confusion showed her he was extremely interested
+about the person to whom it belonged.
+
+During her absence from the room Clarence entreated Lady Delacour to
+make his peace with her. She consented on condition that he found her a
+pair of horses from Tattersall's, on which Belinda, she said, had
+secretly set her heart. He was vexed to find Belinda had so little
+delicacy, and relapsed into his former opinion of Mrs. Stanhope's niece,
+addressing her with the air of a man of gallantry, who thought his peace
+had been cheaply made.
+
+The horses ran away with Lady Delacour, injuring her ankle, and on her
+being brought home by Clarence, Lord Delacour wished to enter the locked
+cabinet for _arque-busade._ On being denied entrance, he seized the key,
+believing a lover of hers was concealed there, until Belinda sprang
+forward and took it from him, leaving them to believe what they would.
+
+This circumstance was afterwards explained by Dr. X----, a mutual
+friend, and Hervey was so much charmed with Belinda that he would have
+gone to her at once--only that he had undertaken the reformation of Lady
+Delacour.
+
+
+_III.--An Unexpected Suitor_
+
+
+In the meantime, after spending a morning in tasting wines, and thinking
+that, although he had never learned to swim, some recollection he had of
+an essay on swimming would ensure his safety, he betted his friends a
+hundred guineas that he would swim to a certain point, and flinging
+himself into the Serpentine, would have drowned before their eyes but
+for the help of Mr. Percival. The breach caused by this affair induced
+Sir Philip Baddely, a gentleman who always supplied "each vacuity of
+sense" with an oath, to endeavour to cut him out by proposing to
+Belinda.
+
+"Damme, you're ten times handsomer than the finest woman I ever saw,
+for, damme, I didn't know what it was to be in love then," he said,
+heaving an audible sigh. "I'll trouble you for Mrs. Stanhope's
+direction, Miss Portman; I believe, to do the thing in style, I ought to
+write to her before I speak to you."
+
+Belinda looked at him in astonishment, and then, finding he was in
+earnest, assured him it was not in her power to encourage his addresses,
+although she was fully sensible of the honour he had done her.
+
+"Confusion seize me!" cried he, starting up, "if it isn't the most
+extraordinary thing I ever heard! Is it to Sir Philip Baddely's
+fortune--£15,000 a year--you object, or to his family, or to his person?
+Oh, curse it!" said he, changing his tone, "you're only quizzing me to
+see how I should look--you do it too well, you little coquette!"
+
+Belinda again assured him she was entirely in earnest, and that she was
+incapable of the sort of coquetry which he ascribed to her. To punish
+her for this rejection he spread the report of Hervey's entanglement
+with a beautiful girl named Virginia, whose picture he had sent to an
+exhibition. He also roused Lady Delacour's jealousy into the belief that
+Belinda meant to marry her husband, the viscount, after her death.
+
+In her efforts to bring husband and wife together, Belinda had forgotten
+that jealousy could exist without love, and a letter from Mrs. Stanhope,
+exaggerating the scandalous reports in the hope of forcing her niece to
+marry Sir Philip Baddely, shocked her so much that when Lady Delacour
+quarrelled with her, she accepted an invitation from Lady Anne Percival,
+and went there at once.
+
+There she became acquainted with Mr. Percival's ward, Augustus Vincent,
+a Creole, about two-and-twenty, tall and remarkably handsome, with
+striking manners and an engaging person, who fixed his favourable
+attention on her. The Percivals would have wished her to marry him, but
+she still thought too much of Clarence Hervey to consent, although she
+believed he had some engagement with the lovely Virginia.
+
+
+_IV.--Explanation and Reconciliation_
+
+
+Quite unexpectedly a summons came from Lady Delacour, and Belinda
+returned to her at once, to find her so seriously ill that she persuaded
+her at last to consent to an operation, and inform her husband of the
+dangerous disease from which she was suffering. He believed from her
+preamble that she was about to confess her love for another man; he
+tried to stop her with an emotion and energy he had never shown until
+now.
+
+"I am not sufficiently master of myself. I once loved you too well to
+hear such a stroke. Say no more--trust me with no such secret! you have
+said enough--too much. I forgive you, that is all I can do; but we must
+part, Lady Delacour!" said he, breaking from her with agony expressed in
+his countenance.
+
+"The man has a heart, a soul, I protest! You knew him better that I did,
+Miss Portman. Nay, you are not gone yet, my lord! You really love me, I
+find."
+
+"No, no, no!" cried he vehemently. "Weak as you take me to be, Lady
+Delacour, I am incapable of loving a woman who has disgraced me,
+disgraced herself, her--" His utterance failed.
+
+"Oh, Lady Delacour," cried Belinda, "how can you trifle in this manner?"
+
+"I meant not," said her ladyship, "to trifle; I am satisfied. My lord, I
+can give you the most irrefragable proof that whatever may have been the
+apparent levity of my conduct, you have had no serious cause for
+jealousy. But the proof will shock, disgust you. Have you courage to
+know more? Then follow me."
+
+He followed her. Belinda heard the boudoir door unlocked. In a few
+minutes they returned. Grief and horror and pity were painted on Lord
+Delacour's countenance as he passed hastily out of the room.
+
+"My dearest friend, I have taken your advice; would to heaven I had
+taken it sooner!" said Lady Delacour. "I have revealed to Lord Delacour
+my real situation. Poor man, he was shocked beyond expression. The
+moment his foolish jealousy was extinguished, his love for me revived in
+full."
+
+Lady Delacour awaited the operation with the utmost fortitude; but, to
+everyone's joy, it was found there was no necessity for it; she had been
+deceived by a villainous quack, who knew too well how to make a wound
+hideous and painful, and had continued her delusion for his own
+advantage.
+
+Meanwhile, Belinda having permitted Mr. Vincent to address her, he was
+being given a fair trial whether he could win her love. They had heard
+reports of Clarence Hervey's speedy marriage with an heiress, Miss
+Hartley, and found them confirmed by a letter Lady Delacour received
+from him. Some years ago he had formed the romantic idea of educating a
+wife for himself, and having found a beautiful, artless girl in the New
+Forest, he had taken her under his care on the death of her grandmother.
+
+She felt herself bound in honour and gratitude to him when her fortune
+changed, and she was acknowledged by her father, Mr. Hartley, who had
+long been searching for her, and who had traced her at last by the
+picture Clarence Hervey had caused to be exhibited.
+
+With the utmost magnanimity, Hervey, although he saw a successful rival
+for Belinda's hand in Augustus Vincent, rescued him from ruin at the
+gaming-table, and induced him to promise never to gamble again.
+
+"I was determined Belinda's husband should be my friend. I have
+succeeded beyond my hopes," he said.
+
+But Vincent's love of play had decided Belinda at last. She refused him
+finally in a letter which she confessed she found difficult to write,
+but which she sent because she had promised she would not hold him in
+suspense once she had made her decision.
+
+After this Virginia Hartley confessed to her attachment for one Captain
+Sunderland, and Clarence was free to avow his passion for Belinda.
+
+"And what is Miss Portman to believe," cried one of Belinda's friends,
+"when she has seen you on the very eve of marriage with another lady?"
+
+"The strongest merit I can plead with such a woman as Miss Portman," he
+replied, "is that I was ready to sacrifice my own happiness to a sense
+of duty."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+Castle Rackrent
+
+
+     "Castle Rackrent" was published anonymously in 1800. It was
+     not only the first of Miss Edgeworth's novels,--it is in many
+     respects her best work. Later came "The Absentee," "Belinda,"
+     "Helen," the "Tales of Fashionable Life," and the "Moral
+     Tales." Sir Walter Scott wrote that reading these stories of
+     Irish peasant life made him feel "that something might be
+     tempted for my own country of the same kind as that which Miss
+     Edgeworth so fortunately achieved for Ireland," something that
+     would procure for his own countrymen "sympathy for their
+     virtues and indulgence for their foibles." As a study of Irish
+     fidelity in the person of Old Thady, the steward who tells the
+     story of "Castle Rackrent," the book is a masterpiece.
+
+
+_I.--Sir Patrick and Sir Murtagh_
+
+
+Having, out of friendship for the family, undertaken to publish the
+memoirs of the Rackrent family, I think it my duty to say a few words
+concerning myself first. My real name is Thady Quirk, though in the
+family I've always been known as "Honest Thady"; afterwards, I remember
+to hear them calling me "Old Thady," and now I've come to "Poor Thady."
+To look at me you would hardly think poor Thady was the father of
+Attorney Quirk; he is a high gentleman, and having better than fifteen
+hundred a year, landed estate, looks down upon honest Thady. But I wash
+my hands of his doings, and as I lived so will I die, true and loyal to
+the family.
+
+I ought to bless that day when Sir Tallyhoo Rackrent lost a fine hunter
+and his life, all in one day's hunt, for the estate came straight into
+_the_ family, upon one condition, that Sir Patrick O'Shaughlin (whose
+driver my grandfather was) should, by Act of Parliament, take the
+surname and arms of Rackrent.
+
+Now it was the world could see what was in Sir Patrick. He gave the
+finest entertainments ever was heard of in the country; not a man could
+stand after supper but Sir Patrick himself. He had his house, from one
+year's end to another, as full of company as it would hold; and this
+went on, I can't tell you how long.
+
+But one year, on his birthday, just as the company rose to drink his
+health, he fell down in a sort of fit, and in the morning it was all
+over with poor Sir Patrick.
+
+Never did any gentleman die more beloved by rich and poor. All the
+gentlemen in the three counties came to his funeral; and happy the man
+who could get but a sight of the hearse!
+
+Just as they were passing through his own town the body was seized for
+debt! Little gain had the creditors!
+
+First and foremost, they had the curses of the country, and Sir Murtagh,
+the new heir, refused to pay a shilling on account of the insult to his
+father's body; in which he was countenanced by all the gentlemen of
+property of his acquaintance. He did not take at all after the old
+gentleman. The cellars were never filled, and no open house; even the
+tenants were sent away without their whiskey. I was ashamed myself, but
+put it all down to my lady; she was of the family of the Skinflints. I
+must say, she made the best of wives, being a notable, stirring woman,
+and looking close to everything. 'Tis surprising how cheap my lady got
+things done! What with fear of driving for rent, and Sir Murtagh's
+lawsuits, the tenants were kept in such good order they never came near
+Castle Rackrent without a present of something or other--nothing too
+much or too little for my lady. And Sir Murtagh taught 'em all, as he
+said, the law of landlord and tenant. No man ever loved the law as he
+did.
+
+Out of the forty-nine suits he had, he never lost one, but seventeen.
+
+Though he and my lady were much of a mind in most things, there was a
+deal of sparring and jarring between them. In a dispute about an
+abatement one day, my lady would have the last word, and Sir Murtagh
+grew mad. I was within hearing--he spoke so loud, all the kitchen was
+out on the stairs. All on a sudden he stopped, and my lady, too. Sir
+Murtagh, in his passion, had broken a blood-vessel. My lady sent for
+five physicians; but Sir Murtagh died. She had a fine jointure settled
+upon her, and took herself away, to the great joy of the tenantry.
+
+
+_II.--Sir Kit and his Wife_
+
+
+Then the house was all hurry-scurry, preparing for my new master, Sir
+Murtagh's younger brother, a dashing young officer. He came before I
+knew where I was, with another spark with him, and horses and dogs, and
+servants, and harum-scarum called for everything, as if he were in a
+public-house. I walk slow, and hate a bustle, and if it had not been for
+my pipe and tobacco, should, I verily believe, have broke my heart for
+poor Sir Murtagh.
+
+But one morning my new master caught sight of me. "And is that Old
+Thady?" says he. I loved him from that day to this, his voice was so
+like the family, and I never saw a finer figure of a man.
+
+A fine life we should have led had he stayed among us, God bless him!
+But, the sporting season over, he grew tired of the place, and was off
+in a whirlwind to town. A circular letter came next post from the new
+agent to say he must remit £500 to the master at Bath within a
+fortnight--bad news for the poor tenants. Sir Kit Rackrent, my new
+master, left it all to the agent, and now not a week without a call for
+money. Rents must be paid to the day, and afore--old tenants turned out,
+anything for the ready penny.
+
+The agent was always very civil to me, and took a deal of notice of my
+son Jason, who, though he be my son, was a good scholar from his birth,
+and a very cute lad. Seeing he was a good clerk, the agent gave him the
+rent accounts to copy, which he did for nothing at first, being always
+proud to serve the family.
+
+By-and-by, a good farm fell vacant, and my son put in a proposal for it.
+Why not? The master, knowing no more of the land than a child unborn,
+wrote over, leaving it to the agent, and he must send over £200 by
+return post. So my son's proposal was just the thing, and he a good
+tenant, and he got a promise of abatement after the first year for
+advancing the half-year's rent to make up the £200, and my master was
+satisfied. The agent told us then, as a great secret, that Sir Kit was a
+little too fond of play.
+
+At last, at Christmas, the agent wrote he could raise no more money,
+anyhow, and desired to resign the agency. My son, Jason, who had
+corresponded privately with Sir Kit, was requested to take over the
+accounts forthwith. His honour also condescended to tell us he was going
+to be married in a fortnight to the grandest heiress in England, and had
+immediate occasion for £200 for travelling expenses home to Castle
+Rackrent, where he intended to be early next month. We soon saw his
+marriage in the paper, and news came of him and his bride being in
+Dublin on their way home. We had bonfires all over the country,
+expecting them all day, and were just thinking of giving them up for the
+night, when the carriage came thundering up. I got the first sight of
+the bride, and greatly shocked I was, for she was little better than a
+blackamoor. "You're kindly welcome, my lady," I says; but neither spoke
+a word, nor did he so much as hand her up the steps.
+
+I concluded she could not speak English, and was from foreign parts, so
+I left her to herself, and went down to the servants' hall to learn
+something about her. Sir Kit's own man told us, at last, that she might
+well be a great fortune, for she was a Jewess, by all accounts. I had
+never seen any of that tribe before, and could only gather that she
+could not abide pork nor sausages, and went neither to church nor mass.
+"Mercy upon his honour's poor soul," thought I. But when, after this,
+strange gentleman's servants came and began to talk about the bride, I
+took care to put the best foot foremost, and passed her for a nabob.
+
+I saw plain enough, next morning, how things were between Sir Kit and
+his lady, though they went arm-in-arm to look at the building.
+
+"Old Thady, how do you do?" says my master, just as he used to do, but I
+could see he was not well pleased, and my heart was in my mouth as I
+walked after them.
+
+There were no balls, no dinners, no doings. Sir Kit's gentleman told me
+it was all my lady's fault, because she was so obstinate about the
+cross.
+
+"What cross?" says I. "Is it about her being a heretic?"
+
+"Oh, no such matter," says he. "My master does not mind about her
+heresies, but her diamond cross. She's thousands of English pounds
+concealed in her diamonds, which she as good as promised to give to my
+master before they married; but now she won't part with any of them, and
+must take the consequences."
+
+One morning, his honour says to me, "Thady, buy me a pig," and that was
+the first breaking out of my lady's troubles when the sausages were
+ordered. My lady went down to the kitchen herself, and desired never
+more to see them on her table. The cook took her part, but the master
+made it a principle to have the sausages; so, for fear of her place, she
+gave in, and from that day forward, always sausages or pig-meat in one
+form or other went up to table; upon which my lady shut herself up in
+her own room, and my master turned the key in the door, and kept it ever
+after in his pocket. We none of us saw her, or heard her speak for seven
+years after; he carried her dinner in himself.
+
+Then his honour had a deal of company, and was as gay and gallant as
+before he was married. The country, to be sure, talked and wondered, but
+nobody cared to ask impertinent questions, my master being a famous
+shot. His character was so well known that he lived in peace and quiet
+ever after, and was a great favourite with the ladies; so that, when he
+gave out that my lady was now skin and bone, and could not live through
+the winter, there were no less than three ladies at daggers drawn, as
+his gentleman swore, at the balls, for Sir Kit for their partner. I
+could not but think them bewitched, but it was not known how my lady's
+fortune was settled, nor how the estate was all mortgaged, and bonds out
+against him, for he was never cured of his gaming tricks; but that was
+the only fault he had, God bless him!
+
+Then it was given out, by mistake, that my lady was dead, and the three
+ladies showed their brothers Sir Kit's letters, and claimed his
+promises. His honour said he was willing to meet any man who questioned
+his conduct, and the ladies must settle among themselves who was to be
+his second, while his first was alive, to his mortification and theirs.
+He met the first lady's brother, and shot him; next day called out the
+second, whose wooden leg stuck fast in the ploughed land, so Sir Kit,
+with great candour, fired over his head, whereupon they shook hands
+cordially, and went home together to dinner.
+
+To establish his sister's reputation this gentleman went out as Sir
+Kit's second next day, when he met the last of his adversaries. He had
+just hit the toothpick out of his enemy's hand, when he received a ball
+in a vital part, and was brought home speechless in a hand-barrow. We
+got the key out of his pocket at once, and my son Jason ran to release
+her ladyship. She would not believe but that it was some new trick till
+she saw the men bringing Sir Kit up the avenue. There was no life in
+him, and he was "waked" the same night.
+
+The country was all in an uproar about him, and his murderer would have
+been hanged surely, but he prudently withdrew to the Continent.
+
+My lady got surprisingly well, and no sooner was it known that Sir Kit
+was dead than all the country came round in a body, as it were, to set
+her free. But she had taken an unaccountable prejudice against the
+country, and was not easy, but when she was packing up to leave us, I
+considered her quite as a foreigner, and no longer part of the family.
+Her diamond cross was at the bottom of it all; and it was a shame for
+her, being his wife, not to have given it up to him when he condescended
+to ask for it so often, especially when he made it no secret he had
+married her for her money.
+
+
+_III.--Sir Condy_
+
+
+The new heir, Sir Conolly, commonly called Sir Condy, was the most
+universally beloved man I ever saw or heard of. He was ever my white-
+headed boy, when he used to live in a small but slated house at the end
+of the avenue, before he went to college. He had little fortune of his
+own, and a deal of money was spent on his education. Many of the tenants
+secretly advanced him cash upon his promising bargains of leases, and
+lawful interest should he ever come into the estate. So that when he did
+succeed, he could not command a penny of his first year's income. My son
+Jason, who was now agent, explained matters to Sir Condy, who, not
+willing to take his affairs in his own hands, or even to look them in
+the face, gave my son a bargain of some acres at a reasonable rent to
+pay him for his many years' service in the family gratis.
+
+There was a hunting-lodge convenient to my son's land that he had his
+eye upon, but Sir Condy talked of letting it to his friend Captain
+Moneygawl, with whom he had become very friendly, and whose sister, Miss
+Isabella, fell over head and ears in love with my master the first time
+he went there to dinner.
+
+But Sir Condy was at a terrible nonplus, for he had no liking for Miss
+Isabella. To his mind, little Judy McQuirk, daughter to a sister's son
+of mine, was worth twenty of her. But her father had locked her in her
+room and forbidden her to think of him, which raised his spirit; and I
+could see him growing more and more in the mind to carry Miss Isabella
+off to Scotland, as she desired. And I had wished her joy, a week after,
+on her return with my poor master. Lucky for her she had a few thousands
+of her own, for her father would not give her a farthing. My master and
+my lady set out in great style, and it was reported that her father had
+undertaken to pay all Sir Condy's debts; and, of course, all the
+tradesmen gave him fresh credit, and everything went on smack smooth. I
+was proud to see Castle Rackrent again in all its glory. She went on as
+if she had a mint of money; and all Sir Condy asked--God bless him!--was
+to live in peace and quiet, and have his whiskey punch at night. But my
+lady's few thousands could not last for ever. Things in a twelve-month
+or so came to such a pass that there was no going on any longer.
+
+Well, my son Jason put in a word about the lodge, and Sir Condy was fain
+to take the purchase-money to settle matters, for there were two writs
+come down against him to the sheriff, who was no friend of his. Then
+there came a general election, and Sir Condy was called upon by all his
+friends to stand candidate; they would do all the business, and it
+should not cost him a penny.
+
+There was open house then at Castle Rackrent, and grand dinners, and all
+the gentlemen drinking success to Sir Condy till they were carried off.
+The election day came, and a glorious day it was. I thought I should
+have died with joy in the street when I saw my poor master chaired, and
+the crowd following him up and down. But a stranger man in the crowd
+gets me to introduce him to my son Jason, and little did I guess his
+meaning. He gets a list of my master's debts from him, and goes round
+and buys them up, and so got to be sole creditor over all, and must
+needs have an execution against the master's goods and furniture.
+
+After the election shoals of people came from all parts, claiming to
+have obliged him with votes, and to remind him of promises he never
+made. Worst of all, the gentlemen who had managed everything and
+subscribed by hundreds very genteelly forgot to pay, and it was all left
+at my master's door. All he could do to content 'em was to take himself
+off to Dublin, where my lady had taken a house fitting for a member of
+parliament.
+
+Soon my son Jason said, "Sir Condy must look out for another agent. If
+my lady had the Bank of Ireland to spend, it would all go in one
+winter."
+
+I could scarcely believe my own old eyes when I saw my son's name joined
+in the _custodian_, that the villain who got the list of debts brought
+down in the spring; but he said it would make it easier for Sir Condy.
+
+
+_IV.--The Last of the Rackrents_
+
+
+When Sir Condy and his lady came down in June, he was pleased to take me
+aside to complain of my son and other matters; not one unkind word of my
+lady, but he wondered that her relations would do nothing for them in
+their great distress. He did not take anything long to heart; let it be
+as it might this night, it was all out of his head before he went to
+bed. Next morning my lady had a letter from her relations, and asked to
+be allowed to go back to them. He fell back as if he was shot, but after
+a minute said she had his full consent, for what could she do at Castle
+Rackrent with an execution coming down? Next morning she set off for
+Mount Juliet.
+
+Then everything was seized by the gripers, my son Jason, to his shame be
+it spoken, among them. On the evening Sir Condy had appointed to settle
+all, when he sees the sight of bills and loads of papers on the table,
+he says to Jason, "Can't you now just sit down here and give me a clear
+view of the balance, you know, which is all I need be talking about?
+Thady, do just step out, and see they are bringing the things for the
+punch." When I came back Jason was pointing to the balance, a terrible
+sight for my poor master.
+
+"A--h! Hold your hand!" cries my master. "Where in the wide world am I
+to find hundreds, let alone thousands?"
+
+"There's but one way," says Jason. "Sure, can't you sell, though at a
+loss? Sure, you can sell, and I've a purchaser ready for you."
+
+"Have you so?" says Sir Condy. Then, colouring up a good deal, he tells
+Jason of £500 a year he had settled upon my lady, at which Jason was
+indeed mad; but, with much ado, agreed to a compromise. "And how much am
+I going to sell? The lands of O'Shaughlin's town, and the lands
+of"--just reading to himself--"oh, murder, Jason! Surely you won't put
+this in--castle, stables, and appurtenances of Castle Rackrent?"
+
+"Oh, murder!" says I. "This is too bad, Jason."
+
+"Why so?" says Jason. "When it's all mine, and a great deal more, all
+lawfully mine, was I to push for it?"
+
+But I took no heed, for I was grieved and sick at heart for my poor
+master, and couldn't but speak.
+
+"Here's the punch," says Jason, for the door opened.
+
+So my master starts up in his chair, and Jason uncorks the whiskey.
+Well, I was in great hopes when I saw him making the punch, and my
+master taking a glass; but Jason put it back when he saw him going to
+fill again, saying, "No, Sir Condy; let us settle all before we go
+deeper into the punch-bowl. You've only to sign," says Jason, putting
+the pen to him.
+
+"Take all, and be content," said my master. So he signed, and the man
+who brought the punch witnessed, for I was crying like a child.
+
+So I went out to the street door, and the neighbours' children left
+their play to come to see what ailed me; and I told them all. When they
+heard Sir Condy was going to leave Castle Rackrent for good and all,
+they set up such a whillaluh as brought all their parents round the
+doors in great anger against Jason. I was frightened, and went back to
+warn my son. He grew quite pale and asked Sir Condy what he'd best do.
+
+"I'll tell you," says Sir Condy, laughing to see his fright. "Finish
+your glass first, then let's go to the window, and I'll tell them--or
+you shall, if you please--that I'm going to the lodge for change of air
+for my health, and by my own desire, for the rest of my days."
+
+"Do so," says Jason, who never meant it to be so, but could not refuse
+at such a time.
+
+So the very next day he sets off to the lodge, and I along with him.
+There was great bemoaning all through the town, which I stayed to
+witness. He was in his bed, and very low, when I got there, and
+complained of a great pain about his heart; but I, knowing the nature of
+him from a boy, took my pipe and began telling him how he was beloved
+and regretted in the country. And it did him a great deal of good to
+hear it.
+
+There was a great horn at the lodge that used to belong to the
+celebrated Sir Patrick, who was reported to have drunk the full of it
+without stopping to draw breath, which no other man, afore or since,
+could do.
+
+One night Sir Condy was drinking with the excise-man and the gauger, and
+wagered that he could do it. Says he, "Your hand is steadier than mine,
+Old Thady; fill you the horn for me." And so, wishing his honour
+success, I did. He swallowed it down and dropped like one shot. We put
+him to bed, and for five days the fever came and went, and came and
+went. On the sixth he says, knowing me very well, "I'm in a burning pain
+all withinside of me, Thady." I could not speak. "Brought to this by
+drink," says he. "Where are all the friends? Gone, hey? Ay, Sir Condy
+has been a fool all his days," said he, and died. He had but a very poor
+funeral, after all.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+GEORGE ELIOT
+
+
+Adam Bede
+
+
+     Mary Ann Evans ("George Eliot") was born Nov. 22, 1819, at
+     South Farm, Arbury, Warwickshire, England, where her father
+     was agent on the Newdigate estate. In her youth, she was adept
+     at butter-making and similar rural work, but she found time to
+     master Italian and German. Her first important literary work
+     was the translation of Strauss's "Life of Jesus" in 1844, and
+     shortly after her father's death in 1849 she was writing in
+     the "Westminster Review." It was not until 1856 that George
+     Eliot settled down to the writing of novels. "Scenes from
+     Clerical Life" first appeared serially in "Blackwood's
+     Magazine" during 1857 and 1858; "Adam Bede," the first and
+     most popular of her long stories, in 1859. In May, 1880,
+     eighteen months after the death of her friend George Henry
+     Lewes (see PHILOSOPHY, Vol. XIV), George Eliot married Mr. J.
+     W. Cross. She died on December 22 in the same year. With all
+     her sense of humour there is a note of sadness in George
+     Eliot's novels. She deals with ordinary, everyday people, and
+     describes their joys and sorrows. In "Adam Bede," as in most
+     of her work, the novelist drew from the ample stores of her
+     early life in the Midlands, while the plot is unfolded with
+     singular simplicity, purity, and power.
+
+
+_I.--The Two Brothers_
+
+
+In the roomy workshop of Mr. Jonathan Burge, carpenter and builder, in
+the village of Hayslope, on the eighteenth of June, 1799, five workmen
+were busy upon doors and window-frames.
+
+The tallest of the five was a large-boned, muscular man, nearly six feet
+high. The sleeve rolled up above the elbow showed an arm that was likely
+to win the prize for feats of strength; yet the long, supple hand, with
+its broad finger tips, looked ready for works of skill. In his tall
+stalwartness Adam Bede was a Saxon, and justified his name. The face was
+large and roughly hewn, and when in repose had no other beauty than such
+as belongs to an expression of good-humoured, honest intelligence.
+
+It is clear at a glance that the next workman is Adam's brother. He is
+nearly as tall; he has the same type of features. But Seth's broad
+shoulders have a slight stoop, and his glance, instead of being keen, is
+confiding and benignant.
+
+The idle tramps always felt sure they could get a copper from Seth; they
+scarcely ever spoke to Adam.
+
+At six o'clock the men stopped working, and went out. Seth lingered, and
+looked wistfully at Adam, as if he expected him to say something.
+
+"Shalt go home before thee go'st to the preaching?" Adam asked.
+
+"Nay, I shan't be home before going for ten. I'll happen see Dinah
+Morris safe home, if she's willing. There's nobody comes with her from
+Poyser's, thee know'st."
+
+Adam set off home, and at a quarter to seven Seth was on the village
+green where the Methodists were preaching. The people drew nearer when
+Dinah Morris mounted the cart which served as a pulpit. There was a
+total absence of self-consciousness in her demeanour; she walked to the
+cart as simply as if she were going to market. There was no keenness in
+the eyes; they seemed rather to be shedding love than making
+observations. When Dinah spoke it was with a clear but not loud voice,
+and her sincere, unpremeditated eloquence held the attention of her
+audience without interruption.
+
+When the service was over, Seth Bede walked by Dinah's side along the
+hedgerow path that skirted the pastures and corn-fields which lay
+between the village and the Hall Farm.
+
+Seth could see an expression of unconscious placid gravity on her
+face--an expression that is most discouraging to a lover. He was timidly
+revolving something he wanted to say, and it was only when they were
+close to the yard-gates of the Hall Farm he had the courage to speak.
+
+"It may happen you'll think me overbold to speak to you again after what
+you told me o' your thoughts. But it seems to me there's more texts for
+your marrying than ever you can find against it. St. Paul says, 'Two are
+better than one,' and that holds good with marriage as well as with
+other things. For we should be o' one heart and o' one mind, Dinah. I'd
+never be the husband to make a claim on you as could interfere with your
+doing the work God has fitted you for. I'd make a shift, and fend indoor
+and out, to give you more liberty--more than you can have now; for
+you've got to get your own living now, and I'm strong enough to work for
+us both."
+
+When Seth had once begun to urge his suit, he went on earnestly and
+almost hurriedly. His voice trembled at the last sentence.
+
+They had reached one of those narrow passes between two tall stones,
+which performed the office of a stile in Loamshire. And Dinah paused,
+and said, in her tender but calm notes, "Seth Bede, I thank you for your
+love towards me, and if I could think of any man as more than a
+Christian brother, I think it would be you. But my heart is not free to
+marry, or to think of making a home for myself in this world. God has
+called me to speak His word, and He has greatly owned my work."
+
+They said farewell at the yard-gate, for Seth wouldn't enter the
+farmhouse, choosing rather to turn back along the fields through which
+he and Dinah had already passed. It was ten o'clock when he reached
+home, and he heard the sound of tools as he lifted the latch.
+
+"Why, mother," said Seth, "how is it as father's working so late?"
+
+"It's none o' thy feyther as is a-workin'; it's thy brother as does
+iverything, for there's niver nobody else i' th' way to do nothin'."
+
+Lisbeth Bede was going on, for she was not at all afraid of Seth--who
+had never in his life spoken a harsh word to his mother--and usually
+poured into his ears all the querulousness which was repressed by the
+awe which mingled itself with her idolatrous love of Adam.
+
+But Seth, with an anxious look, had passed into the workshop, and said,
+"Addy, how's this? What! Father's forgot the coffin?"
+
+"Ay, lad, th' old tale; but I shall get it done," said Adam, looking up.
+"Why, what's the matter with thee--thee'st in trouble?"
+
+Seth's eyes were red, and there was a look of deep depression on his
+mild face.
+
+"Yes, Addy, but it's what must be borne, and can't be helped. Let me
+take my turn now, and do thee go to bed."
+
+"No, lad; I'd rather go on, now I'm in harness. The coffin's promised to
+be ready at Brox'on by seven o'clock to-morrow morning. I'll call thee
+up at sunrise, to help me to carry it when it's done. Go and eat thy
+supper and shut the door, so as I mayn't hear mother's talk."
+
+Adam worked throughout the night, thinking of his childhood and its
+happy days, and then of the days of sadness that came later when his
+father began to loiter at public-houses, and Lisbeth began to cry at
+home. He remembered well the night of shame and anguish when he first
+saw his father quite wild and foolish.
+
+The two brothers set off in the early sunlight, carrying the long coffin
+on their shoulders. By six o'clock they had reached Broxton, and were on
+their way home.
+
+When they were coming across the valley, and had entered the pasture
+through which the brook ran, Seth said suddenly, beginning to walk
+faster, "Why, what's that sticking against the willow?"
+
+They both ran forward, and dragged the tall, heavy body out of the
+water; and then looked with mute awe at the glazed eyes--forgetting
+everything but that their father lay dead before them.
+
+Adam's mind rushed back over the past in a flood of relenting and pity.
+Only a few hours ago, and the gray-haired father, of whom he had been
+thinking with a sort of hardness as certain to live to be a thorn in his
+side, was perhaps even then struggling with that watery death!
+
+
+_II.--The Hall Farm_
+
+
+It is a very fine old place of red brick, the Hall Farm--once the
+residence of a country squire, and the Hall.
+
+Plenty of life there, though this is the drowsiest time of the year,
+just before hay-harvest; and it is the drowsiest time of the day, too,
+for it is half-past three by Mrs. Poyser's handsome eight-day clock.
+
+Mrs. Poyser, a good-looking woman, not more than eight-and-thirty, of
+fair complexion and sandy hair, well shaped, light-footed, had just
+taken up her knitting, and was seated with her niece, Dinah Morris.
+Another motherless niece, Hetty Sorrel, a distractingly pretty girl of
+seventeen, was busy in the adjoining dairy.
+
+"You look the image o' your aunt Judith, Dinah, when you sit a-sewing,"
+said Mrs. Poyser. "I allays said that o' Judith, as she'd bear a pound
+weight any day to save anybody else carrying a ounce. And it made no
+difference in her, as I could see, when she took to the Methodists; only
+she talked a bit different, and wore a different sort o' cap. If you'd
+only come and live i' this country you might get married to some decent
+man, and there'd be plenty ready to have you, if you'd only leave off
+that preaching, as is ten times worse than anything your Aunt Judith
+ever did. And even if you'd marry Seth Bede, as is a poor,
+wool-gathering Methodist, and's never like to have a penny beforehand, I
+know your uncle 'ud help you with a pig, and very like a cow, for he's
+allays been good-natur'd to my kin, for all they're poor, and made 'em
+welcome to the house; and 'ud do for you, I'll be bound, as much as ever
+he'd do for Hetty, though she's his own niece."
+
+The arrival of Mr. Irwine, the rector of Hayslope, and Captain
+Donnithorne, Squire Donnithorne's grandson and heir, interrupted Mrs.
+Poyser's flow of talk.
+
+"I'll lay my life they're come to speak about your preaching on the
+Green, Dinah. It's you must answer 'em, for I'm dumb. I've said enough
+a'ready about your bringing such disgrace upo' your uncle's family. I
+wouldn't ha' minded if you'd been Mr. Poyser's own niece. Folks must put
+up wi' their own kin as they put up wi' their own noses; it's their own
+flesh and blood."
+
+Mr. Irwine, however, was the last man to feel any annoyance at the
+Methodist preaching, and young Arthur Donnithorne's visit was merely an
+excuse for exchanging a few words with Hetty Sorrel.
+
+The rector mentioned before he left that Thias Bede had been found
+drowned in the Willow Brook; and Dinah Morris at once decided that she
+might be of some comfort to the widow, and set out for the village.
+
+As for Hetty Sorrel, she was thinking more of the looks Captain
+Donnithorne had cast at her than of Adam and his troubles. Bright,
+admiring glances from a handsome young gentleman--those were the warm
+rays that set poor Hetty's heart vibrating.
+
+Hetty was quite used to the thought that people liked to look at her.
+She was aware that Mr. Craig, the gardener at Squire Donnithorne's, was
+over head-and-ears in love with her. She knew still better that Adam
+Bede--tall, upright, clever, brave Adam Bede--who carried such authority
+with all the people round about, and whom her uncle was always delighted
+to see of an evening, saying that "Adam knew a fine sight more o' the
+natur o' things than those as thought themselves his betters"--she knew
+that this Adam, who was often rather stern to other people, and not much
+given to run after the lassies, could be made to turn pale or red any
+day by a word or a look from her. Hetty's sphere of comparison was not
+large, but she couldn't help perceiving that Adam was "something like" a
+man; always knew what to say about things; knew, with only looking at
+it, the value of a chestnut-tree that was blown down, and why the damp
+came in the walls, and what they must do to stop the rats; and wrote a
+beautiful hand that you could read, and could do figures in his head--a
+degree of accomplishment totally unknown among the richest farmers of
+that country-side.
+
+Hetty was quite certain her uncle wanted her to encourage Adam, and
+would be pleased for her to marry him. For the last three years--ever
+since he had superintended the building of the new barn--Adam had always
+been made welcome at the Hall Farm, and for the last two years at least
+Hetty had been in the habit of hearing her uncle say, "Adam Bede may be
+working for a wage now, but he'll be a master-man some day, as sure as I
+sit in this chair. Master Burge is in the right on't to want him to go
+partners and marry his daughter, if it's true what they say. The woman
+as marries him 'ull have a good take, be't Lady Day or Michaelmas," a
+remark which Mrs. Poyser always followed up with her cordial assent.
+
+"Ah," she would say, "it's all very fine having a ready-made rich man,
+but may happen he'll be a ready-made fool; and it's no use filling your
+pocket full of money if you've got a hole in the corner. It'll do you no
+good to sit in a spring-cart o' your own if you've got a soft to drive
+you; he'll soon turn you over into the ditch."
+
+But Hetty had never given Adam any steady encouragement. She liked to
+feel that this strong, keen-eyed man was in her power; but as to
+marrying Adam, that was a very different affair.
+
+Hetty's dreams were all of luxuries. She thought if Adam had been rich,
+and could have given the things of her dreams--large, beautiful earrings
+and Nottingham lace and a carpeted parlour--she loved him well enough to
+marry him.
+
+The last few weeks a new influence had come over Hetty; she had become
+aware that Mr. Arthur Donnithorne would take a good deal of trouble for
+the chance of seeing her. And Dinah Morris was away, preaching and
+working in a manufacturing town.
+
+
+_III.--Adam's First Love_
+
+
+Adam Bede, like many other men, thought the signs of love for another
+were signs of love towards himself. The time had come to him that
+summer, as he helped Hetty pick currants in the orchard of the Hall
+Farm, that a man can least forget in after-life--the time when he
+believes that the first woman he has ever loved is, at least, beginning
+to love him in return.
+
+He was not wrong in thinking that a change had come over Hetty; the
+anxieties and fears of a first passion with which she was trembling had
+become stronger than vanity, and while Adam drew near to her she was
+absorbed in thinking and wondering about Arthur Donnithorne's possible
+return.
+
+For the first time Hetty felt that there was something soothing to her
+in Adam's timid yet manly tenderness; she wanted to be treated lovingly.
+And Arthur was away from home; and, oh, it was very hard to bear the
+blank of absence. She was not afraid that Adam would tease her with
+love-making and flattering speeches; he had always been so reserved to
+her. She could enjoy without any fear the sense that this strong, brave
+man loved her and was near her. It never entered into her mind that Adam
+was pitiable, too, that Adam, too, must suffer one day.
+
+It was from Adam that she found out that Captain Donnithorne would be
+back in a day or two, and this knowledge made her the more kindly
+disposed towards him. But for all the world Adam would not have spoken
+of his love to Hetty yet, till this commencing kindness towards him
+should have grown into unmistakable love. He did no more than pluck a
+rose for her, and walk back to the farm with her arm in his.
+
+When Adam, after stopping a while to chat with the Poysers, had said
+good-night, Mr. Poyser remarked, "If you can catch Adam for a husband,
+Hetty, you'll ride i' your own spring-cart some day, I'll be your
+warrant."
+
+Her uncle did not see the little toss of the head with which Hetty
+answered him. To ride in a spring-cart seemed a very miserable lot
+indeed to her now.
+
+It was on August 18, when Adam, going home from some work he had been
+doing at one of the farms, passed through a grove of beeches, and saw,
+at the end of the avenue, about twenty yards before him, two figures.
+They were standing opposite to each other with clasped hands, and they
+separated with a start at a sharp bark from Adam Bede's dog. One hurried
+away through a gate out of the grove; the other, Arthur Donnithorne,
+looking flushed and excited, sauntered towards Adam. The young squire
+had been home for some weeks celebrating his twenty-first birthday, and
+he was leaving on the morrow to rejoin his regiment.
+
+Hitherto there had been a cordial and sincere liking and a mutual esteem
+between the two young men; but now Adam stood as if petrified, and his
+amazement turned quickly to fierceness.
+
+Arthur tried to pass the matter off lightly, as if it had been a chance
+meeting with Hetty; but Adam, who felt that he had been robbed
+treacherously by the man in whom he had trusted, would not so easily let
+him off. It came to blows, and Arthur sank under a well-planted blow of
+Adam's, as a steel rod is broken by an iron bar.
+
+Before they separated, Arthur promised that he would write and tell
+Hetty there could be no further communication between them. And this
+promise he kept. Adam rested content with the assurance that nothing but
+an innocent flirtation had been stopped. As the days went by he found
+that the calm patience with which he had waited for Hetty's love had
+forsaken him since that night in the beech-grove. The agitations of
+jealousy had given a new restlessness to his passion.
+
+Hetty, for her part, after the first misery caused by Arthur's letter,
+had turned into a mood of dull despair, and sought only for change. Why
+should she not marry Adam? She did not care what she did so that it made
+some change in her life.
+
+So, in November, when Mr. Burge offered Adam a share in his business,
+Adam not only accepted it, but decided that the time had come to ask
+Hetty to marry him.
+
+Hetty did not speak when Adam got out the question, but his face was
+very close to hers, and she put up her round cheek against his, like a
+kitten. She wanted to be caressed--she wanted to feel as if Arthur were
+with her again.
+
+Adam only said after that, "I may tell your uncle and aunt, mayn't I,
+Hetty?" And she said "Yes."
+
+The red firelight on the hearth at the Hall Farm shone on joyful faces
+that evening when Adam took the opportunity of telling Mr. and Mrs.
+Poyser that he saw his way to maintaining a wife now, and that Hetty had
+consented to have him.
+
+There was a great deal of discussion before Adam went away about the
+possibility of his finding a house that would do for him to settle in.
+
+"Well, well," said Mr. Poyser at last, "we needna fix everything
+to-night. You canna think o' getting married afore Easter. I'm not for
+long courtships, but there must be a bit o' time to make things
+comfortable."
+
+This was in November.
+
+Then in February came the full tragedy of Hetty Sorrel's life. She left
+home, and in a strange village, a child--Arthur Donnithorne's child--was
+born. Hetty left the baby in a wood, and returned to find it dead.
+Arrest and trial followed, and only at the last moment was the capital
+sentence commuted to transportation.
+
+She died a few years later on her way home.
+
+
+_IV.--The Wife of Adam Bede_
+
+
+It was the autumn of 1801, and Dinah Morris was once more at the Hall
+Farm, only to leave it again for her work in the town. Mrs. Poyser
+noticed that Dinah, who never used to change colour, flushed when Adam
+said, "Why, I hoped Dinah was settled among us for life. I thought she'd
+given up the notion o' going back to her old country."
+
+"Thought! Yes," said Mrs. Poyser; "and so would anybody else ha' thought
+as had got their right ends up'ards. But I suppose you must be a
+Methodist to know what a Methodist 'ull do. It's all guessing what the
+bats are flying after."
+
+"Why, what have we done to you, Dinah, as you must go away from us?"
+said Mr. Poyser. "It's like breaking your word; for your aunt never had
+no thought but you'd make this your home."
+
+"Nay, uncle," said Dinah, trying to be quite calm. "When I first came I
+said it was only for a time, as long as I could be of any comfort to my
+aunt."
+
+"Well, an' who said you'd ever left off being a comfort to me?" said
+Mrs. Poyser. "If you didna mean to stay wi' me, you'd better never ha'
+come. Them as ha' never had a cushion don't miss it."
+
+Dinah set off with Adam, for Lisbeth was ailing and wanted Dinah to sit
+with her a bit. On the way he reverted to her leaving the Hall Farm.
+"You know best, Dinah, but if it had been ordered so that you could ha'
+been my sister, and lived wi' us all our lives, I should ha' counted it
+the greatest blessing as could happen to us now."
+
+Dinah made no answer, and they walked on in silence, until presently,
+crossing the stone stile, Adam saw her face, flushed, and with a look of
+suppressed agitation.
+
+It struck him with surprise, and then he said, "I hope I've not hurt or
+displeased you by what I've said, Dinah; perhaps I was making too free.
+I've no wish different from what you see to be best; and I'm satisfied
+for you to live thirty miles off if you think it right."
+
+Poor Adam! Thus do men blunder.
+
+Lisbeth opened his eyes on the Sunday morning when Adam sat at home and
+read from his large pictured Bible.
+
+For a long time his mother talked on about Dinah, and about how they
+were losing her when they might keep her, and Adam at last told her she
+must make up her mind that she would have to do without Dinah.
+
+"Nay, but I canna ma' up my mind, when she's just cut out for thee; an'
+nought shall ma' me believe as God didna make her and send her here o'
+purpose for thee. What's it sinnify about her being a Methody? It 'ud
+happen wear out on her wi' marryin'."
+
+Adam threw himself back in his chair and looked at his mother. He
+understood now what her talk had been aiming at, and tried to chase away
+the notion from her mind.
+
+He was amazed at the way in which this new thought of Dinah's love had
+taken possession of him with an overmastering power that made all other
+feelings give way before the impetuous desire to know that the thought
+was true. He spoke to Seth, who said quite simply that he had long given
+up all thoughts of Dinah ever being his wife, and would rejoice in his
+brother's joy. But he could not tell whether Dinah was for marrying.
+
+"Thee might'st ask her," Seth said presently. "She took no offence at
+_me_ for asking, and thee'st more right than I had."
+
+When Adam did ask, Dinah answered that her heart was strongly drawn
+towards him, but that she must wait for divine guidance. So she left the
+Hall Farm and went back to the town, and Adam waited,--and then went
+after her to get his answer.
+
+"Adam," she said when they had met and walked some distance together,
+"it is the divine will. My soul is so knit to yours that it is but a
+divided life I live without you. And this moment, now you are with me,
+and I feel that our hearts are filled with the same love, I have a
+fullness of strength to bear and do our Heavenly Father's will that I
+had lost before."
+
+Adam paused and looked into her sincere eyes.
+
+"Then we'll never part any more, Dinah, till death parts us."
+
+And they kissed each other with deep joy.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+Felix Holt, the Radical
+
+
+     "Felix Holt, the Radical," was published in 1866. It has never
+     been one of George Eliot's very popular books. There is less
+     in it of her own life and experience than in most of her
+     novels, less of the homely wit of agricultural England. The
+     real value of the book is the picture it gives of the social
+     and political life, and for this reason, it will always be
+     read by those who want to know what English political methods
+     and customs were like at the time of the passing of the Reform
+     Bill of 1832. The character of Mr. Rufus Lyon, the independent
+     minister, is an admirable study of the non-conformist of that
+     period. Esther's renunciation of a brilliant fortune for a
+     humbler lot with the man she loved and admired, was quite in
+     accord with the teaching George Eliot inculcated all her life.
+     The scene of the story is laid in the Midlands, and the
+     action, covering about nine months, begins in 1832.
+
+
+_I.--The Minister's Daughter_
+
+
+The Rev. Rufus Lyon, Minister of the Independent Chapel, in the
+old-fashioned market town of Treby Magna, in the County of Loumshire,
+lived in a small house, adjoining the entry which led to the Chapel
+Yard.
+
+He sat this morning, as usual, in a low upstairs room, called his study,
+which served also as a sleeping-room, and from time to time got up to
+walk about between the piles of old books which lay around him on the
+floor. His face looked old and worn, yet the curtain of hair that fell
+from his bald crown and hung about his neck retained much of its
+original auburn tint, and his large, brown short-sighted eyes were still
+clear and bright. At the first glance, everyone thought him a very
+odd-looking, rusty old man, and the free-school boys often hooted after
+him, and called him "Revelations." But he was too short-sighted and too
+absent from the world of small facts and petty impulses to notice those
+who tittered at him.
+
+He was meditating on the text for his Sunday morning sermon, when old
+Lyddy, the minister's servant, opened the door to tell him that Mrs.
+Holt was wanting to see him. "She says she comes out of season, but
+she's in trouble."
+
+The minister bade her send Mistress Holt up, and a tall elderly woman
+dressed in black entered.
+
+Mrs. Holt, Mr. Lyon said to himself, is a woman who darkens counsel by
+words without knowledge, and angers the reason of the natural man; and
+he prayed for patience while his visitor rambled on concerning her late
+husband and her son Felix.
+
+The minister made out that Felix objected to the sale of his father's
+quack medicines, Holt's Elixir and Cancer Cure, and wanted Mr. Lyon to
+talk to him.
+
+"For after we'd been to chapel, he spoke better of you than he does of
+most: he said you was a fine old fellow, and an old-fashioned Puritan--
+he uses dreadful language, Mr. Lyon; but I saw he didn't mean you ill,
+for all that; he calls most folks' religion rottenness."
+
+Mrs. Holt departed, and in the evening, when Mr. Lyon was in the
+sitting-room, Felix Holt knocked at the door.
+
+The minister, accustomed to the respectable air of provincial townsmen,
+felt a slight shock, when his spectacles made clear to him the shaggy-
+headed, large-eyed, strong-limbed person of this questionable young man,
+without waistcoat or cravat.
+
+Felix spoke loudly and brusquely when the minister mentioned the subject
+of Mrs. Holt's visit.
+
+"As to those absurd medicines and gulling advertisements that my mother
+has been talking of to you, I've no more doubt about _them_ than I have
+about pocket-picking. If I allowed the sale of those medicines to go on,
+and my mother to live out of the proceeds when I can keep her by the
+honest labour of hands, I've not the least doubt that I should be a
+rascal."
+
+"I would fain inquire more particularly into your objection to these
+medicines," said Mr. Lyon gravely.
+
+"My father was ignorant," said Felix, bluntly. "I know something about
+these things. I was 'prentice for five miserable years to a stupid brute
+of a country apothecary--my poor father left money for that--he thought
+nothing could be finer for me. No matter: I know that the Cathartic
+Pills may be as bad as poison to half the people who swallow them, and
+that the cancer cure might as well be bottled ditch-water. I can keep my
+mother, as well, nay, better, than she keeps herself. With my watch and
+clock cleaning, and teaching one or two little chaps that I've got to
+come to me, I can earn enough."
+
+Mr. Lyon's suggestion that some situation might be obtained as clerk or
+assistant was brushed aside.
+
+"Why should I want to get into the middle class because I have some
+learning? The most of the middle class are as ignorant as the working
+people about everything that doesn't belong to their own Brummagem
+life."
+
+The entrance of Lyddy with the tea tray disturbed the conversation, but
+the minister, interested in his visitor, asked Felix to stay for a dish
+of tea, and Felix accepted.
+
+"My daughter, who has been detained in giving a lesson in the French
+tongue, has doubtless returned now," said the minister. On the entrance
+of the young lady, Felix was conscious she was not the sort of person he
+had expected the minister's daughter to be, and the incongruity repelled
+him. There were things about her, her walk, the long neck and high crown
+of shining brown hair, that suggested a fine lady to him. A fine lady
+was always a sort of spun glass affair; but a fine lady as the daughter
+of this rusty old Puritan was especially offensive.
+
+The discovery that Miss Lyon read Byron set Felix off on a tirade
+against the poet, and his works, and throughout the meal no agreement on
+any topic seemed possible between Esther and the guest.
+
+Felix noted that Mr. Lyon was devoted to his daughter and stood in some
+fear of her.
+
+"That is a singular young man, Esther," said the minister, when Felix
+had gone. "I discern in him a love for whatever things are honest and
+true, and I feel a great enlargement in his presence."
+
+"I think he is very coarse and rude," said Esther, with a touch of
+temper. "But he speaks better English than most of our visitors. What is
+his occupation?"
+
+"Watch and clock making, my dear."
+
+Esther was disappointed, she thought he was something higher than that.
+
+Felix on his side wondered how the queer old minister had a daughter so
+little in his own likeness. He decided that nothing should make him
+marry.
+
+
+_II.--The Election Riot_
+
+
+The return of Mr. Harold Transome, to Transome Court, after fifteen
+years' absence, and his adoption as Radical Candidate for the county
+created no little stir and excitement in Treby. It also assisted the
+growing intimacy between Mr. Lyon and Felix Holt, for though neither
+possessed votes in that memorable year 1832, they shared the same
+liberal sympathies. Perhaps the most delightful friendships are those in
+which there is much agreement, much disputation, and yet more personal
+liking; and the advent of the public-spirited, contradictory, yet
+affectionate Felix, into Treby life had made a welcome epoch to the
+minister.
+
+Esther had not seen so much of their new acquaintance as her father had.
+But she had begun to find him amusing, though he always opposed and
+criticised her, and looked at her as if he never saw a single detail
+about her person. It seemed to Esther that he thought slightly of her.
+"But, rude and queer as he is, I cannot say there is anything vulgar
+about him," she said to herself.
+
+One Sunday afternoon Felix Holt rapped at the door of Mr. Lyon's house,
+although he could hear the voice of the minister in the chapel.
+
+Esther was in the kitchen alone, reading a French romance, and she
+opened the door and invited him in.
+
+He scoffed at her book, and as the talk went on, upbraided her for her
+vanity. Finally he told her that he wanted her to change. "Of course, I
+am a brute to say so," he added. "I ought to say you are perfect.
+Another man would, perhaps; I can't bear to see you going the way of the
+foolish women who spoil men's lives."
+
+Mortification and anger filled Esther's mind, and when Felix got up to
+say he was going, she returned his "good-bye" without even looking at
+him.
+
+Only, when the door closed she burst into tears. She revolted against
+his assumption of superiority.... Did he love her one little bit, and
+was that the reason why he wanted her to change? But Esther was quite
+sure she could never love anyone who was so much of a pedagogue and a
+master.
+
+Yet, a few weeks later, and Esther accepted willingly when Felix
+proposed a walk for the first time together. That same afternoon he told
+her that she was very beautiful, and that he would never be rich: he
+intended going away to some manufacturing town to lead the people to
+better things and this meant a life of poverty.
+
+Something Esther said made Felix ask suddenly, "Can you imagine yourself
+choosing hardship as the better lot?"
+
+"Yes, I can," she answered, flushing over neck and brow. They walked
+home very silently after that. Felix struggling as a firm man struggles
+with a temptation, Esther struggling as a woman struggles with the
+yearning for some expression of love.
+
+On the day of the election a mob of miners, primed with liquor by an
+unscrupulous agent of Transome's, came into the town to hoot the Tory
+voters; and as the disturbance increased, Felix knowing that Mr. Lyon
+was away preaching went round to the minister's house to reassure
+Esther.
+
+"I am so thankful to see you," she said eagerly. He mentioned that the
+magistrates and constables were coming and that the town would be
+quieter. His only fear was that drinking might inflame the mob again.
+
+Again Felix told her of his renunciation of the ordinary hopes and
+ambitions of men, and at the same time tried to prove that he thought
+very highly of her. He wanted her to know that her love was dear to him,
+and he felt that they must not marry--to do so would be to ruin each
+other's lives.
+
+When Felix went out into the streets in the afternoon, the crowd was
+larger and more mischievous. The constables were quite unable to cope
+with the mob, the polling booth was closed for the day, and the
+magistrates had sent to the neighbouring town of Duffield for the
+military.
+
+There were proofs that the predominant will of the crowd was in favour
+of Transome for several shops were attacked and they were all of them
+"Tory shops."
+
+Felix was soon hotly occupied trying to save a wretched publican named
+Spratt from the fury of the crowd. The man had been dragged out into the
+streets, and Felix had got as near him as he could when a young
+constable armed with a sabre rushed upon him. It was a choice of two
+evils, and quick as lightning Felix frustrated him, the constable fell
+undermost and Felix got his weapon. Tucker did not rise immediately, but
+Felix did not imagine that he was much hurt, and bidding the crowd
+follow him tried to lead them away from the town. He hoped that the
+soldiers would soon arrive, and felt confident that there would be no
+resistance to a military force.
+
+Suddenly a cry was raised, "Let us go to Treby Manor," the residence of
+Sir Maximus Debarry, whose son was the Tory candidate.
+
+From that moment Felix was powerless, and was carried along with the
+rush. All he could hope to do was to get to the front terrace of the
+house, and assure the inmates that the soldiers would arrive quickly.
+Just as he approached a large window he heard the horses of the
+troopers, and then came the words, "Halt! Fire!" Before he had time to
+move a bullet whizzed, and passed through Felix Holt's shoulder--the
+shoulder of the arm that bore the sabre.
+
+Felix fell. The rioters ran confusedly, like terrified sheep.
+
+It was a weary night for Felix, and the next day his wound was declared
+trivial, and he was lodged in Loumford Jail. There were three charges
+against him; that he had assaulted a constable, that he had committed
+manslaughter (Tucker was dead from spinal concussion), and that he had
+led a riotous onslaught on a dwelling house.
+
+Four other men were arrested, one for theft, and three others for riot
+and assault.
+
+
+_III.--The Trial_
+
+
+A great change took place in the fortunes of Esther in the interval
+between the riot and the opening of the assizes. It was found that she,
+and not Harold Transome, was the rightful owner of the Transome estates.
+For Esther's real name was Bycliffe and not Lyon, and she was the
+step-daughter only of the minister. Mr. Lyon had found Esther's mother,
+a French woman of great beauty, in destitution--her husband, an
+Englishman, lying in some unknown prison. This Englishman was a
+Bycliffe--and heir to the Transome property, and on the proof of his
+death Mr. Lyon, knowing nothing of Bycliffe's family, married his widow,
+who, however, died while Esther was still a tiny child. Not till the
+time of the election did Esther learn that her real father was dead.
+
+Mr. Transome's lawyer--Jermyn--was fully aware of the claim of the
+Bycliffes, but knew they were powerless without money to enforce the
+claim, and that Esther and her step-father alike were ignorant of all
+the facts. It was only when Harold Transome, on his return, quarrelled
+with Jermyn on the management of the estates, and, after the Election
+(which Transome lost) threatened him with a law-suit, that Jermyn turned
+round and told Harold the truth. At the same time, another lawyer,
+formerly in Jermyn's confidence, thought the more profitable course
+could be found in throwing Jermyn over, and wrote to Esther informing
+her of her inheritance.
+
+Harold Transome decided to act openly. With his mother, he drove to the
+minister's house and Mrs. Transome persuaded Esther to come and stay at
+Transome Court. Both mother and son found Esther to their liking, and it
+appeared to Harold that marriage with Esther would be a happy conclusion
+to the divided claim to the property. He was rich, and the Transome (or
+Bycliffe) property was heavily encumbered.
+
+The Transomes, Esther and Mr. Lyon all agreed that no law-suit over the
+property should take place.
+
+But while Esther stayed at Transome Court she never forgot her friend in
+prison. Mr. Lyon had visited Felix, and Esther herself obtained an
+interview with him just before the assizes began.
+
+She had grown conscious that Harold Transome was making love to her,
+that Mrs. Transome really desired her for a daughter-in-law, and it
+seemed to her as she waited with the minister in the cheerless prison
+room, that she stood at the first and last parting of the ways.
+
+Soon the door opened, and Felix Holt entered.
+
+"Miss Lyon--Esther!" and her hand was in his grasp. He was just the
+same--no, something inexpressibly better, because of the distance and
+separation, which made him like the return of morning.
+
+"Take no heed of me, children," said Mr. Lyon. "I have some notes to
+make." And the old man sat down at a window with his back to them,
+writing with his head bent close to the paper.
+
+Felix had heard of Esther's change of fortune and felt sure she would
+marry Harold Transome. It was only when the time for parting came that
+he could bring himself to say:
+
+"I had a horrible struggle, Esther. But you see I was right. There was a
+fitting lot in reserve for you." Esther felt too miserable for tears to
+come. She looked helplessly at Felix for a moment, then took her hands
+from his, and turning away mutely, said, "Father, I am ready--there is
+no more to say."
+
+"Esther."
+
+She heard Felix say the word, with an entreating cry, and went towards
+him swiftly. He clasped her, and they kissed each other.
+
+When the trial came on Esther went under Mrs. Transome's protection to
+the court.
+
+The case against Felix looked very black when the prosecution closed.
+Various respectable witnesses swore to the prisoner's leadership of the
+mob, to his fatal assault on Tucker, and to his attitude in front of the
+drawing-room window at the Manor.
+
+Felix then gave a concise narrative of his motives and conduct on the
+day of the riot, and explained that in throwing the constable down he
+had not foreseen the possibility of death ensuing. It was a good,
+straightforward speech, not without a touch of defiant independence,
+which did the prisoner little good with judge or jury.
+
+Mr. Lyon and Harold Transome both gave evidence in favour of Felix,
+stating that the prisoner had often expressed his hatred of rioting, and
+had protested with indignation against the treating that went on during
+the election by some of the Radical agents.
+
+One or two witnesses were called who swore that Felix had tried to lead
+the mob in the opposite direction to Treby Manor, and it was understood
+that the case for the defence was closed.
+
+Then it came to Esther that she must speak if Felix was to be saved.
+There had been no witness to tell what had been his behaviour just
+before the riot. There was time, but not too much time.
+
+Before Harold Transome was aware of Esther's intention she was on her
+way to the witness-box.
+
+A sort of gleam shot across the face of Felix Holt, and anyone close to
+the prisoner would have seen that his hand trembled, for the first time,
+at Esther's beautiful aspect. There was no blush on her face: she stood,
+divested of all personal consideration whether of vanity or shyness, and
+gave her story as if she had been making a confession of faith.
+
+She knew Felix Holt well, she said. He came to see her on the day of the
+election, and told her he feared the men might collect again after
+drinking. "It was the last thing he would have done to join in riot or
+to hurt any man, if he could have helped it. He could never have had any
+intention that was not brave and good."
+
+When she was back in her place Felix could not help looking towards her,
+and their eyes met in one solemn glance.
+
+Esther stayed in court till the end. She heard the verdict, "Guilty of
+Manslaughter," followed by the judge's sentence, "Imprisonment for four
+years." But so great was the impression made by Esther's speech that a
+petition to the Home Secretary was at once set on foot by the leading
+men of the county.
+
+
+_IV.--Felix and Esther_
+
+
+One April day, when the sun shone on the lingering raindrops, Lyddy was
+gone out, and Esther chose to sit in the kitchen. She was not reading,
+but stitching, and as her fingers moved nimbly, something played about
+her lips like a ray.
+
+A loud rap came at the door.
+
+"Mr. Lyon at home?" said Felix in his firm tones. "No, sir," said
+Esther: "but Miss Lyon is, if you'll please to walk in."
+
+"Esther!" exclaimed Felix, amazed.
+
+They held each other by both hands, and looked into each other's faces
+with delight.
+
+"You are out of prison?"
+
+"Yes, till I do something bad again. But you--how is it all? Are you
+come back to live here then?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"You are not going to be married to Harold Transome, or to be rich?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Why?" said Felix in rather a low tone, leaning his elbow on the table,
+and resting his head on his hand while he looked at her.
+
+"I did not wish to marry him, or to be rich."
+
+"You have given it all up?" said Felix, leaning forward a little and
+speaking in a still lower tone. "Could you share the life of a poor man,
+then, Esther?"
+
+"If I thought well enough of him," she said, with a smile, and a pretty
+movement of her head.
+
+"Have you considered well what it would be?--that it would be a very
+bare and simple life? and the people I shall live among, Esther? They
+have not just the same follies and vices as the rich, but they have
+their own forms of folly and vice. It is very serious, Esther."
+
+"I know it is serious," said Esther, looking up at him. "Since I have
+been at Transome Court I have seen many things very seriously. If I had
+not, I should not have left what I did leave. I made a deliberate
+choice."
+
+She could not tell him that at Transome Court, all that finally seemed
+balanced against her love for him, was the offer of a silken bondage
+that arrested all motive, and was nothing better than a well-cushioned
+despair. A vision of being restless amidst ease, of being languid among
+all appliances had quickened her resignation of the Transome estates.
+
+Esther explained, however, that she thought of retaining a little of the
+wealth.
+
+"How?" said Felix, anxiously. "What do you mean?"
+
+"I think even of two pounds a week: one needn't live up to the splendour
+of all that, you know: we might live as simply as you liked. And then I
+think of a little income for your mother, and a little income for my
+father, to save him from being dependent when he is no longer able to
+preach!"
+
+Felix put his hand on her shoulder, said, lifting up his eyes with a
+smile:
+
+"Why, I shall be able to set up a great library, and lend the books!"
+
+They laughed merrily, each holding the other's arms, like girl and boy.
+There was the ineffable sense of youth in common.
+
+Then Felix leaned forward, that their lips might meet, and after that
+his eyes roved tenderly over her face and curls.
+
+"I'm a rough, severe fellow, Esther. Shall you never repent?--never be
+inwardly reproaching me that I was not a man who could have shared your
+wealth? Are you quite sure?"
+
+The very next May, Felix and Esther were married. Everyone in those days
+was married at the parish church; but Mr. Lyon was not satisfied without
+an additional private solemnity, "so that he might have a more enlarged
+utterance of joy and supplication."
+
+It was a very simple wedding; but no wedding, even the gayest, ever
+raised so much interest and debate in Treby Magna. Even the very great
+people of the county went to the church to look at this bride, who had
+renounced wealth, and chosen to be the wife of a man who said he would
+always be poor.
+
+Some few shook their heads; could not quite believe it; and thought
+there was more behind. But the majority of honest Trebians were affected
+somewhat in the same way as Mr. Wall, the brewer of the town, who
+observed to his wife as they walked home, "I feel somehow as if I
+believed more in everything that's good."
+
+Felix and Esther did not take up their abode in Treby Magna; and after
+awhile Mr. Lyon left the town too, and joined them where they dwelt.
+
+As to the town in which Felix Holt now resides I will keep that a
+secret.
+
+I will only say that Esther has never repented. Felix, however, grumbles
+a little that she has made his life too easy.
+
+There is a young Felix, who has a great deal more science than his
+father, but not much more money.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+Romola
+
+
+     "Romola" was George Eliot's fifth book, and followed "Silas
+     Marner," which was published in 1861. It is a story of
+     Florence in the days of Savonarola, and was largely the
+     outcome of a visit the novelist paid to Italy with her
+     life-long friend, George Henry Lewes. With dim ideas for the
+     story in her mind, she made exhaustive researches in the
+     Florentine libraries, gathering historical and topographical
+     details of the city and its life as they were in the mediæval
+     period which she was setting herself to re-create. After much
+     study there and at home, and after one false start, she made a
+     serious beginning in January, 1862. She was engaged upon it
+     for eighteen months, always in doubt and sometimes in despair
+     of her ability to accomplish the task, and by June of the
+     following year she had thankfully written the last words of
+     what is regarded by some as her greatest book. Meanwhile, the
+     romance had begun to appear serially in the "Cornhill" in
+     July, 1862. The writing of "Romola" is said to have "ploughed
+     into her" more than any of her other books.
+
+
+_I.--Tito and Little Tessa_
+
+
+Under the Loggia de Cerchi, in the heart of old Florence, in the early
+morning of April 9, 1492, two men had their eyes fixed on each other.
+One was looking downward with the scrutiny of curiosity; the other,
+lying on the pavement, was looking upward with the startled gaze of a
+suddenly awakened dreamer.
+
+"Young man," said the standing figure, pointing to a ring on the finger
+of the other, "when your chin has got a stiffer crop on it you'll know
+better than to take your nap in street corners with a ring like that on
+your forefinger. By the holy 'vangels, if it had been anybody but me
+standing over you--but Bratti Ferravecchi is not the man to steal! Three
+years ago, one San Giovanni, the saint, sent a dead body in my way--a
+blind beggar, with his cap well lined with pieces. But how comes a young
+man like you, with the face of Messer San Michele, to be sleeping on a
+stone bed? Your tunic and hose match ill with that jewel, young man.
+Anybody might say the saints had sent you a dead body; but if you took
+the jewels, I hope you buried him--and you can afford a mass or two for
+him into the bargain!"
+
+Something like a painful thrill appeared to dart through the frame of
+the listener, and arrest the careless stretching of his arms. But he
+immediately recovered an air of indifference, took off the red Levantine
+cap which hung like a great purse over his left ear, and pushing back
+his long, dark brown curls, said smiling, "The fact is, I'm a stranger
+in Florence, and when I came in footsore last night, I preferred
+flinging myself in the corner of this hospitable porch to hunting for a
+chance hostelry, which might turn out to be a nest of bloodsuckers. Can
+you show me the way to a more lively quarter, where I can get a meal and
+a lodging?"
+
+"That I can," said Bratti.
+
+And, talking volubly as they went, Bratti led the way to the Mercato
+Vecchio, or the Old Market, promising to conduct him to the prettiest
+damsel in the Mercato for a cup of milk.
+
+But as soon as they emerged from the narrow streets into the Old Market,
+they found the place packed with excited groups of men and women humming
+with gossip.
+
+"Diavolo!" said Bratti. "The Mercato has gone as mad as if the Holy
+Father had excommunicated us again! I must know what this is."
+
+He pushed about among the crowd, inquiring and disputing, and was
+presently absorbed in discussing the newest development of Florentine
+politics, the death of Lorenzo de Medici, and whether or not this death
+was the beginning of the time of tribulation that Savonarola had been
+seeing in visions and foretelling in sermons.
+
+Indifferent to this general agitation, the young stranger became tired
+of waiting for Bratti's escort, and strolling on round the piazza, felt,
+on a sudden thought, in the wallet that hung at his waist.
+
+"Not an obolus, by Jupiter!" he murmured, in a language that was not
+Tuscan or even Italian. "I must get my breakfast for love, then!"
+
+In a corner, away from any group of talkers, two mules were standing.
+One carried wooden milk vessels, the other a pair of panniers filled
+with herbs and salads. Resting her elbow on the mule that carried the
+milk, there leaned a young girl, apparently not more than sixteen, with
+a red hood surrounding her face, which was all the more baby-like in its
+prettiness from the entire concealment of her hair. The poor child was
+weary, and it seemed to have gone to sleep in that half-standing,
+half-leaning posture. Nevertheless, our stranger had no compunction in
+awaking her. She opened her baby-blue eyes, and stared up with
+astonishment and confusion.
+
+"Forgive me, pretty one, for awaking you," he said. "I'm dying with
+hunger, and the scent of milk makes breakfast seem more desirable than
+ever."
+
+She bestirred herself, and in a few moments a large cup of fragrant milk
+was held out to him; and by the time he set the cup down she had brought
+bread from a bag which hung by the side of the mule, and shyly and
+mutely insisted on his taking it, even though he told her he had nothing
+to pay her with; and just as he was leaning down to kiss her he was
+harshly interrupted by Monna Ghita, Tessa's mother, who had come upon
+them unobserved.
+
+The handsome presence of the stranger and his charm of manner were of no
+avail with Monna Ghita; her noisy rating of him drew Bratti and the
+barber, Nello, to the spot, and with these he was glad to make good his
+escape, having waived a furtive adieu to the pretty Tessa.
+
+It was not until after Bratti, having business at home, had handed the
+young stranger over to Nello, and in the barber's shop he had been
+shaved and trimmed, and made to look presentable, that Tito Melema
+became more confidential, and explained that he was a Greek; that he was
+returning from adventures abroad, had suffered shipwreck, and found
+himself in Florence with nothing saved from the disaster but some few
+rare old gems for which he was anxious to obtain a purchaser.
+
+"Let us see, let us see," said Nello, walking up and down his shop.
+"What you want is a man of wealth and influence and scholarly tastes;
+and that man is Bartolommeo Scala, the Secretary of our Republic. He
+came to Florence as a poor adventurer himself, a miller's son; and that
+may be a reason why he may be the more ready to do a good turn to a
+strange scholar. I could take you to a man who, if he has a mind, can
+help you to a chance of a favourable interview with Scala--a man worth
+seeing for his own sake, too, to say nothing of his collections, or of
+his daughter Romola, who is as fair as the Florentine lily before it got
+quarrelsome and turned red."
+
+"But if the father of this beautiful Romola makes collections, why
+should he not like to buy some of my gems himself?"
+
+Nello shrugged his shoulders. "For two good reasons--want of sight to
+look at the gems and want of money to pay for them."
+
+
+_II.--"More than a Man's Ransom"_
+
+
+He was a moneyless, blind old scholar, the Bardo de Bardi, to whom Nello
+introduced Tito Melema; a man who came of a proud, energetic stock,
+whose ancestors had loved to play the signor, had been merchants and
+usurers of keen daring, and conspicuous among those who clutched the
+sword in the earliest world-famous quarrels of Florentine with
+Florentine. The family passions lived on in Bardo under altered
+conditions; he was a man with a deep-veined hand cramped by much copying
+of manuscripts, who ate sparing dinners, and wore threadbare clothes, at
+first from choice, and at last from necessity; who sat among his books
+and manuscripts, and saw them only by the light of those far-off younger
+days which still shone in his memory.
+
+And among his books and antiquities and rare marble fragments, in a
+spacious room surrounded with laden shelves, Romola was his daily
+companion and assistant. There was a time when he had hoped that his
+son, Dino, would have followed in his steps, to be the prop of his age,
+and to take up and continue his scholarly labours after he was dead. But
+Dino had failed him; Dino had given himself up to religion and entered
+the priesthood, and the passion of Bardo's resentment had flamed into
+fierce hatred towards this recreant son of his, and none dared so much
+as to name him within his hearing.
+
+Maso, the old serving-man ushered in the two visitors he had announced a
+few minutes previously, and Nello introduced Tito to Bardo and his
+daughter as a scholar of considerable learning.
+
+Romola's astonishment could hardly have been greater if the stranger had
+worn a panther-skin and carried a thyrsus, for the cunning barber had
+said nothing of the Greeks age or appearance, and among her father's
+scholarly visitors she had hardly ever seen any but gray-headed men.
+
+Nevertheless, she returned Tito's bow with the same pale, proud face as
+ever; but as he approached the snow melted, and when he ventured to look
+towards her again a pink flush overspread her face, to vanish again
+almost immediately, as if her imperious will had recalled it. Tito's
+glance, on the other hand, as he looked at this tall maiden of seventeen
+or eighteen, as she stood at the reading-desk with one hand on the back
+of her father's chair, had that gentle, beseeching admiration in it
+which is the most propitiating of appeals to a proud, shy woman, and is
+perhaps the only atonement a man can make for being too handsome.
+
+"Messere, I give you welcome," said Bardo with some condescension;
+"misfortune wedded to learning, and especially to Greek learning, is a
+letter of credit that should win the ear of every instructed
+Florentine."
+
+He proceeded to question Tito as to what part of Greece he came from,
+learned that he was a young man of unusual scholastic attainments, and
+that he had a father who was himself a scholar.
+
+"At least," said Tito, "a father by adoption. He was a Neapolitan, but,"
+he added, after another slight pause, "he is lost to me--was lost on a
+voyage he too rashly undertook to Delos."
+
+Bardo forbore to speak further on so painful a topic; he discoursed
+freely upon his own studies, his past hopes, and the one great ambition
+that remained to him--that his library and his magnificent collection of
+treasures should not be dissipated on his death, but should become the
+property of the public, and be honourably housed in Florence for all
+time, with his name over the door.
+
+In his eagerness he made passing reference to his son, of how Romola had
+been filling his place to the best of her power, and plainly hinted--and
+Tito was not slow to profit by the opportunity--that if he could have
+the young Greek scholar to work with him instead of her, he might yet
+look to fulfill some of the notable designs he had abandoned when his
+blindness came upon him.
+
+"But," he resumed, in his original tone of condescension, "we are
+departing from what I believe is your most important business. Nello
+informed me that you had certain gems which you would fain dispose of."
+
+"I have one or two intagli of much beauty," said Tito. "But they are now
+in the keeping of Messer Domenico Cennini, who has a strong and safe
+place for such things. He estimates them as worth at least five hundred
+ducats."
+
+"Ah, then, they are fine intagli!" said Bardo. "Five hundred ducats! Ah,
+more than a man's ransom!"
+
+Tito gave a slight, almost imperceptible start, and opened his long,
+dark eyes with questioning surprise at Bardo's blind face, as if his
+words--a mere phrase of common parlance at a time when men were often
+being ransomed from slavery or imprisonment--had some special meaning
+for him.
+
+But Bardo had used the words in all innocence, and went on to talk of
+superstitions that attached to certain gems, and to undertake that he
+would use his influence with the Secretary of the Republic in Tito's
+behalf. Both Romola and her father were attracted by the charm and
+freshness and apparent simplicity of the young man; but just as he was
+making ready to depart they were interrupted by the entrance of Bernardo
+del Nero, one of the chief citizens of Florence, Bardo's oldest friend,
+and Romola's godfather; and Bernardo felt an instant, instinctive
+distrust of the handsome, ingratiating stranger, and did not hesitate to
+say so after Tito had left them.
+
+"Remember, Bardo," he said at length, "thou hast a rare gem of thy own;
+take care no one gets it who is not like to pay a worthy price. That
+pretty Greek has a sleekness about him that seems marvelously fitted for
+slipping into any nest he fixes his mind on."
+
+
+_III.--The Man who was Wronged_
+
+
+It was undeniable that Tito's coming had been the dawn of a new life for
+both father and daughter, and he grew to care for Romola supremely--to
+wish to have her for his beautiful and loving wife.
+
+He took her place as Bardo's assistant, and served him with an easy
+efficiency that had been beyond her; and she, happier in her father's
+happiness, had given her love to Tito even before he ventured to offer
+her his own. He was thus sailing under the fairest breeze, and besides
+convincing fair judges that his talents squared with his good fortune,
+he wore that fortune so unpretentiously that no one seemed to be
+offended by it.
+
+And that was not the whole of Tito's good fortune, for he had sold his
+jewels, and was master of full five hundred gold florins. Yet the moment
+when he first had this sum in his possession was the crisis of the first
+serious struggle his facile, good-humoured nature had known.
+
+"A man's ransom!" Who was it that had said five hundred florins was more
+than a man's ransom? If, now, under this mid-day sun, on some hot coast
+far away, a man somewhat stricken in years--a man not without high
+thoughts, and with the most passionate heart--a man who long years ago
+had rescued a little boy from a life of beggary, filth, and cruel wrong,
+and had reared him tenderly, if that man were now, under this summer
+sun, toiling as a slave, hewing wood and drawing water? If he were
+saying to himself, "Tito will find me. He had but to carry our gems to
+Venice; he will have raised money, and will never rest till he finds me
+out?" If that were certain, could he--Tito--see the price of the gems
+lying before him, and say, "I will stay at Florence, where I am fanned
+by soft airs of love and prosperity; I will not risk myself for his
+sake?" No, surely not _if it were certain_. But the galley had been
+taken by a Turkish vessel; that was known by the report of the companion
+galley which had escaped; and there had been resistance and probable
+bloodshed, a man had been seen falling overboard.
+
+He quieted his conscience with such reasonings as these, and when
+definite tidings reached him that his father was still a prisoner, he
+contrived to keep the knowledge to himself, and still did nothing. The
+death of the exhausted, emaciated monk who had brought these tidings
+freed him of one fear; but this monk was Romola's brother, Dino, and
+obeying his summons she had been in secret to see him as he lay dying.
+
+"Romola," her brother began to speak, "in the deep night, as I lay
+awake, I saw my father's room, and I saw you ... And at the _leggio_
+where I used to stand stood a man whose face I could not see. I saw him
+move and take thee, Romola, by the hand, and then I saw thee take my
+father by the hand, and you all three went down the stone steps into the
+streets, the man, whose face was a blank to me, leading the way. And you
+stood at the altar of Santa Croce, and the priest who married you had
+the face of death; and the graves opened and the dead in their shrouds
+followed you like a bridal train. And it seemed to me that at last you
+came to a stony place where there was no water, and no trees or herbage;
+but instead of water I saw written parchment unrolling itself
+everywhere, and instead of trees and herbage I saw men of bronze and
+marble springing up and crowding round you. And my father was faint, and
+fell to the ground; and the man loosed thy hand and departed; and as he
+went I could see his face, and it was the face of the Great Tempter....
+Thrice have I had that vision, Romola. I believe it is a revelation
+meant for thee--to warn thee against marriage as a temptation of the
+enemy...."
+
+The words died away.
+
+"Frate," said the dying voice. "Give her----"
+
+"The crucifix," said the voice of Fra Girolamo Savonarola, who was
+standing in the shadows behind her.
+
+"Dino!" said Romola, with a low but piercing cry.
+
+"Take the crucifix, my daughter," said Fra Girolamo, after a few
+minutes. "His eyes behold it no more."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+But, heedless of the distrust and opposition of Messer Bernardo del
+Nero, and with this vision of Dino's menacing his highest hope, Tito
+went gaily on his triumphant way.
+
+Also he had renewed acquaintance with the little Tessa. He came upon her
+in the thronged streets during carnival time, and seeing her, a
+timorous, tearful little _contadin_, terrified by the burlesque threats
+of a boisterous conjurer, took her under his protection.
+
+Thereafter, he met her again at intervals, finding her naive love and
+humble adoration and obedience very pleasant; and, meeting her once at a
+peasant's fair, he jestingly yielded to the burlesque solicitations of a
+mountebank in a white mitre, paid a small fee, and went through an
+absurd ceremony of mock-marriage with her.
+
+Tessa herself believed the marriage to be real enough, and he would not
+mar her delight by undeceiving her. Later, since she was wretched at
+home with her scolding mother and a brutal step-father, and there were
+dangers in allowing her to go on waylaying him in streets when too long
+a period elapsed between his visits to her, he quietly took her away and
+established her in a small house on the outskirts of the city, with the
+deaf, discreet old Monna Lisa as her servant and companion.
+
+Neither this nor the darker secret of his treachery to his adoptive
+father cast any cloud over his habitual cheerfulness. His love for
+Romola was a higher and deeper passion than anything he felt for the
+child-like, submissive little Tessa, and when she told him frankly of
+her brother's warning vision, he set himself to convince her it was the
+mere nightmare of a diseased imagination, and the perfect love and trust
+she had for him made the task easy.
+
+For a while after their marriage she was ideally happy; she was not even
+separated from her father, for Tito came to live with them, and was to
+Bardo, in his scholastic labours, all that he had wished his own son to
+be. Then came the first cloud.
+
+On November 17, 1494, more than eighteen months after the marriage of
+Tito and Romola, the King of France marched his army into Florence on
+his way to take possession of Naples and impose peace on the warring
+little states into which Italy was divided. There were those in Florence
+who were prepared to welcome the invaders, but the majority, the common
+people in particular, resented their coming.
+
+With the soldiery came three wretched prisoners; they were led in ropes
+by their captors, and with blows from knotted cords were stimulated to
+beg. Two, as they passed, held out their hands, crying piteously, "For
+the love of God and the Holy Madonna, give us something towards our
+ransom!"
+
+But the third remained obstinately silent. He was old, white-haired,
+emaciated, with a thick-set figure that seemed to express energy in
+spite of age; yet there was something fitful in his eyes.
+
+This sight was witnessed by the Florentines with growing exasperation,
+and presently from jeering at the French soldiers and hustling them,
+they became bent upon rescuing this third prisoner from his tormentors;
+one venturesome youth suddenly dashed in, cut the old man's bonds and
+urged him to run; and the next moment he had plunged into the crowd,
+which closed behind him and hampered the pursuit.
+
+With one soldier struggling desperately on his track, the fugitive sped
+towards the Duomo, to seek refuge in that sanctuary, but in mounting the
+steps his foot slipped, he was precipitated towards a group of signori
+who stood there with their backs to him, and clutched one to save
+himself.
+
+It was Tito Melema who felt the clutch. He turned, and saw the face of
+his adoptive father, Baldassarre Calvo, close to his own. The two men
+looked at each other silent as death; Tito with cheeks and lips all
+bloodless, fascinated by terror. The next instant the grasp on his arm
+relaxed, and Baldassarre disappeared within the church.
+
+
+_IV.--Romola's Ordeal_
+
+
+With Baldassarre lurking in Florence, Tito went in hourly fear. At any
+moment the story of his baseness might be blown abroad; at any moment,
+worse still, he might be struck down by the old man, in whose wild eyes
+he had read only a fierce yearning for vengeance.
+
+As a precaution, Tito took to wearing a coat of fine chain-mail under
+his doublet, and the discovery of this alarmed Romola for his safety,
+and shocked her with a suspicion that he was something of a coward.
+
+But by now Tito was deeply involved in Florentine politics, and easily
+persuaded her that it was against secret political intriguers that he
+thus shielded himself. He went on to confess that his life was no longer
+safe in Florence, and he was resolved to leave the city for good. But to
+this she demurred; her father had died and left his library and his
+collection as a sacred trust to her and Tito, and until they had carried
+out his wish and made them over to the city authorities, she felt she
+could not go.
+
+Tito made light of her scruples. Her father's wish, he said, had been a
+mere foolish vanity; they had need of money, and he intended to sell
+both the library and collection, and when, for the first time in her
+life, she spoke bitterly, in scorn and anger of his faithlessness, he
+told her flatly it was useless to bandy words for he had sold them
+already, and they were to be removed that day.
+
+Frantic with grief and resentment, she thought of desperate ways of
+preventing the accomplishment of his heartless plans, even to borrowing
+of her godfather and buying back the treasures, so that Tito might keep
+his ill-gotten gain and her father's last wish still be fulfilled; but
+he convinced her that all interference was too late, for the things had
+been purchased by the Count di San Severino and the Seneschal de
+Beaucaire, who were already on their way with the French king to Sienna.
+
+Latterly, in many ways, Romola had been disappointed in her husband's
+character; she had found that his handsome face and gay air masked a
+cowardice, a cunning meanness, a sordid selfishness of disposition that
+were all at variance with her high ideal of him; but that final
+unspeakable treachery of the dead man who had trusted him so implicitly
+shattered her love for Tito utterly.
+
+As soon as her father's library was dismantled and his treasures taken
+away, Romola went from the house with the old man-servant, Maso, and
+would never have looked upon Tito's face again, but that Fra Girolamo
+intercepted her.
+
+"I have a command to call you back," he said. "My daughter, you must
+return to your place. You are flying from your debts; the debt of a
+Florentine woman to her fellow citizens; the debt of a wife. You are
+turning your back on the lot that has been appointed for you--you are
+going to choose another. My daughter, you are fleeing from the presence
+of God into the wilderness. My daughter, if the cross comes to you as a
+wife, you must carry it as a wife. You may say, 'I will forsake my
+husband,' but you cannot cease to be a wife."
+
+There was hunger and misery in the streets, and he urged upon her that
+if she had no other purpose in life she could stay, and help the poor of
+her own city. Her pride was broken, and she yielded.
+
+
+_V.--Baldassarre is Avenged_
+
+
+Meanwhile, Baldassarre, lurking about Florence, had armed himself with a
+knife, and was ravenous for revenge. Being homeless, he called by chance
+at Tessa's little house, and she, not knowing who he was, took pity on
+his age and misery, gave him shelter in a shed, and food and drink.
+
+Whilst he was there, Tito came, and, too frankly simple to keep anything
+from him, Tessa confessed that she had disobeyed his injunctions against
+holding converse with strangers, and was sheltering a strange, weary old
+man in the shed without. Her description of this guest left Tito in no
+doubt as to his identity, and, subduing his first perturbation, he
+conceived that he might turn the situation to his own advantage. He went
+out to the shed, and looking down upon Baldassarre in the moonlight,
+sought to propitiate him with honeyed words, specious explanations, and
+a plea for pardon. But the old man answered nothing, till his
+smouldering fury burst into a flame, then he precipitated himself upon
+the intruder and struck with all his force; but the blade of the knife
+broke off short against the hidden coat of mail.
+
+Tito insisted that he was welcome to remain there, and said what he
+could to soothe him, but Baldassarre would stay no longer when he knew
+whose roof covered him. Presently, he armed himself anew, and waited for
+another opportunity. He learned all that was to be known of Tito's
+career since his arrival in Florence; ascertained that he was married,
+and had thoughts of winning his wife's sympathy and telling her of
+Tessa. Then one night he contrived to get into the Rucellai Gardens,
+where Tito was at supper with a gathering of Florentine notabilities,
+and, seized in time and held back from assassinating him, he
+passionately denounced him before the company as a scoundrel, a liar,
+and a robber.
+
+There were those present who had been on the church steps that day when
+Baldassarre had clutched Tito by the arm, and Tito had then explained
+away his momentary panic. Questioned now by one of these, he declared
+that though when first he encountered his accuser he did not recognise
+him, he now saw that he was the servant who years ago accompanied him
+and his adoptive father to Greece, and was dismissed on account of
+misdemeanours, and that the story of his being rescued from beggary was
+the vision of a disordered brain.
+
+Baldassarre was given a chance to prove that he was not the servant, but
+the great scholar to whom Tito was indebted for his learning.
+
+"The ring I possess," said Rucellai, "is a fine sard that I myself
+purchased from Messer Tito. It is engraved with a subject from Homer.
+Will you turn to the passage in Homer from which that subject was
+taken?"
+
+But sitting to look over the book, Baldassarre realised that the
+sufferings through which he had passed had unhinged his mind and his
+memory; the words he stared at had no meaning for him, and he lifted his
+hands to his head in despair.
+
+The consequence of this fresh failure was that Baldassarre was cast into
+prison, and Tito was at liberty to pursue his political ambitions
+unhaunted by that dogging shadow that was to him as the shadow of death.
+He managed his affairs so cleverly that whichever party came uppermost
+he was secure of favour and money.
+
+But by-and-by the tide began to turn against him. Baldassarre was at
+large again, and met Romola and told her not only of his own wrongs, but
+of Tessa. She saw Tessa and her two children, and befriended them, and
+was so far from blaming that innocent little creature that she did not
+even disclose the truth to her; but she was importunate with Tito that
+he should make atonement to the man who had been a father to him. Then
+came a day when Tito's treacheries were discovered by the party he was
+supposed to serve, and he had to flee for his life through Florence.
+Scattering jewels and gold to delay his pursuers, he leaped from the
+bridge into the river, and swam in the darkness, leaving the bellowing
+mob to think he was drowned.
+
+But far down the stream there were certain eyes that saw him from the
+banks of the river, and when he landed and fell, faint and helpless,
+Baldassarre's hands closed on his throat; and next evening a passer-by
+found the two dead bodies there.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+Silas Marner
+
+
+     "Silas Marner, the Weaver of Raveloe," begun about November,
+     1860, and published early in 1861, is in many respects the
+     most admirable of all George Eliot's works. It is not a long
+     story, but it is a most carefully finished novel--"a perfect
+     gem, a pure work of art," Mr. Oscar Browning describes it. Mr.
+     Blackwood, the publisher, found it rather sombre, and George
+     Eliot replied to him, "I hope you will not find it at all a
+     sad story as a whole, since it sets--or is intended to set--in
+     a strong light the remedial influences of pure, natural, human
+     relations. I have felt all through as if the story would have
+     lent itself best to metrical rather than to prose fiction,
+     especially in all that relates to the psychology of Silas;
+     except that, under that treatment, there could not be an equal
+     play of humour." No novel of George Eliot's has received more
+     praise from men of letters than "Silas Marner."
+
+
+_I.--Why Silas Came to Raveloe_
+
+
+In the early years of the nineteenth century a linen-weaver named Silas
+Marner worked at his vocation in a stone cottage that stood among the
+nutty hedgerows near the village of Raveloe, and not far from the edge
+of a deserted stone-pit.
+
+It was fifteen years since Silas Marner had first come to Raveloe; he
+was then simply a pallid young man with prominent, short-sighted brown
+eyes. To the villagers among whom he had come to settle he seemed to
+have mysterious peculiarities, chiefly owing to his advent from an
+unknown region called "North'ard." He invited no comer to step across
+his door-sill, and he never strolled into the village to drink a pint at
+the Rainbow, or to gossip at the wheel-wrights'; he sought no man or
+woman, save for the purposes of his calling, or in order to supply
+himself with necessaries.
+
+At the end of fifteen years the Raveloe men said just the same things
+about Silas Marner as at the beginning. There was only one important
+addition which the years had brought; it was that Master Marner had laid
+by a fine sight of money somewhere, and that he could buy up "bigger men
+than himself."
+
+But while his daily habits presented scarcely any visible change,
+Marner's inward life had been a history and a metamorphosis as that of
+every fervid nature must be when it has been condemned to solitude. His
+life, before he came to Raveloe, had been filled with the close
+fellowship of a narrow religious sect, where the poorest layman had the
+chance of distinguishing himself by gifts of speech; and Marner was
+highly thought of in that little hidden world, known to itself as the
+church assembling in Lantern Yard. He was believed to be a young man of
+exemplary life and ardent faith, and a peculiar interest had been
+centred in him ever since he had fallen at a prayer-meeting into a
+trance or cataleptic fit, which lasted for an hour.
+
+Among the members of his church there was one young man, named William
+Dane, with whom he lived in close friendship; and it seemed to the
+unsuspecting Silas that the friendship suffered no chill, even after he
+had formed a closer attachment, and had become engaged to a young
+servant-woman.
+
+At this time the senior deacon was taken dangerously ill, and Silas and
+William, with others of the brethren, took turns at night-watching. On
+the night the old man died, Silas fell into one of his trances, and when
+he awoke at four o'clock in the morning death had come, and, further, a
+little bag of money had been stolen from the deacon's bureau, and
+Silas's pocket-knife was found inside the bureau. For some time Silas
+was mute with astonishment, then he said, "God will clear me; I know
+nothing about the knife being there, or the money being gone. Search me
+and my dwelling."
+
+The search was made, and it ended in William Dane finding the deacon's
+bag, empty, tucked behind the chest of drawers in Silas's chamber.
+
+According to the principles of the church in Lantern Yard prosecution
+was forbidden to Christians. But the members were bound to take other
+measures for finding out the truth, and they resolved on praying and
+drawing lots; there was nothing unusual about such proceedings a hundred
+years ago. Silas knelt with his brethren, relying on his own innocence
+being certified by immediate Divine interference. _The lots declared
+that Silas Marner was guilty_. He was solemnly suspended from church-
+membership, and called upon to render up the stolen money; only on
+confession and repentance could he be received once more within the fold
+of the church. Marner listened in silence. At last, when everyone rose
+to depart, he went towards William Dane and said, in a voice shaken by
+agitation, "The last time I remember using my knife was when I took it
+out to cut a strap for you. I don't remember putting it in my pocket
+again. _You_ stole the money, and you have woven a plot to lay the sin
+at my door. But you may prosper for all that; there is no just God, but
+a God of lies, that bears witness against the innocent!"
+
+There was a general shudder at this blasphemy. Poor Marner went out with
+that despair in his soul--that shaken trust in God and man which is
+little short of madness to a loving nature. In the bitterness of his
+wounded spirit, he said to himself, "_She_ will cast me off, too!" and
+for a whole day he sat alone, stunned by despair.
+
+The second day he took refuge from benumbing unbelief by getting into
+his loom and working away as usual, and, before many hours were past,
+the minister and one of the deacons came to him with a message from
+Sarah, the young woman to whom he had been engaged, that she held her
+engagement at an end. In little more than a month from that time Sarah
+was married to William Dane, and not long afterwards it was known to the
+brethren in Lantern Yard that Silas Marner had departed from the town.
+
+
+_II.--The Second Blow_
+
+
+When Silas Marner first came to Raveloe he seemed to weave like a
+spider, from pure impulse, without reflection. Then there were the calls
+of hunger, and Silas, in his solitude, had to provide his own breakfast,
+dinner, and supper, to fetch his own water from the well, and put his
+own kettle on the fire; and all these immediate promptings helped to
+reduce his life to the unquestioning activity of a spinning insect. He
+hated the thought of the past; there was nothing that called out his
+love and fellowship towards the strangers he had come amongst; and the
+future was all dark, for there was no Unseen Love that cared for him.
+
+It was then, when all purpose of life was gone, that Silas got into the
+habit of looking towards the money he received for his weaving, and
+grasping it with a sense of fulfilled effort. Gradually, the guineas,
+the crowns, and the half-crowns, grew to a heap, and Marner drew less
+and less for his own wants, trying to solve the problem of keeping
+himself strong enough to work sixteen hours a day on as small an outlay
+as possible. He handled his coins, he counted them, till their form and
+colour were like the satisfaction of a thirst to him; but it was only in
+the night, when his work was done, that he drew them out, to enjoy their
+companionship. He had taken up some bricks in his floor underneath his
+loom, and here he had made a hole in which he set the iron pot that
+contained his guineas and silver coins, covering the bricks with sand
+whenever he replaced them.
+
+So, year after year, Silas Marner lived in this solitude, his guineas
+rising in the iron pot, and his life narrowing and hardening itself more
+and more as it became reduced to the functions of weaving and hoarding.
+
+This is the history of Silas Marner until the fifteenth year after he
+came to Raveloe. Then, about the Christmas of that year, a second great
+change came over his life.
+
+It was a raw, foggy night, with rain, and Silas was returning from the
+village, plodding along, with a sack thrown round his shoulders, and
+with a horn lantern in his hand. His legs were weary, but his mind was
+at ease with the sense of security that springs from habit. Supper was
+his favourite meal, because it was his time of revelry, when his heart
+warmed over his gold.
+
+He reached his door in much satisfaction that his errand was done; he
+opened it, and to his short-sighted eyes everything remained as he had
+left it, except that the fire sent out a welcome increase of heat.
+
+As soon as he was warm he began to think it would be a long while to
+wait till after supper before he drew out his guineas, and it would be
+pleasant to see them on the table before him as he ate his food.
+
+He rose and placed his candle unsuspectingly on the floor near his loom,
+swept away the sand, without noticing any change, and removed the
+bricks. The sight of the empty hole made his heart leap violently, but
+the belief that his gold was gone could not come at once--only terror,
+and the eager effort to put an end to the terror. He passed his
+trembling hand all about the hole, then he held the candle and examined
+it curiously, trembling more and more. He searched in every corner, he
+turned his bed over, and shook it, and kneaded it; he looked in his
+brick oven; and when there was no other place to be searched, he felt
+once more all round the hole.
+
+He could see every object in his cottage, and his gold was not there. He
+put his trembling hands to his head, and gave a wild, ringing scream--
+the cry of desolation. Then the idea of a thief began to present itself,
+and he entertained it eagerly, because a thief might be caught and made
+to restore the gold. The robber must be laid hold of. Marner's ideas of
+legal authority were confused, but he felt that he must go and proclaim
+his loss; and the great people in the village--the clergyman, the
+constable, and Squire Cass--would make the thief deliver up the stolen
+money.
+
+It was to the village inn Silas Marner went, where the parish clerk and
+a select company were assembled, and told the story of his loss--£272
+12s. 6d. in all. The machinery of the law was set in motion, but no
+thief was ever captured, nor could grounds be found for suspicion
+against any persons.
+
+What had really happened was that Dunsey Cass, Squire Cass's second
+son--a mean, boastful rascal--on his way home on foot from hunting, saw
+the light in the weaver's cottage, and knocked, hoping to borrow a
+lantern, for the lane was unpleasantly slippery, and the night dark. But
+all was silence in the cottage, for the weaver at that moment had not
+yet reached home. For a minute Dunsey thought that old Marner might be
+dead, fallen over into the stone pits. And from that came the decision
+that he must be dead. If so, the question arose, what would become of
+the money that everybody said the old miser had put by?
+
+Dunstan Cass was in difficulties for want of money, and he had killed
+his brother's horse that day on the hunting-field. Who would know, if
+Marner was dead, that anybody had come to take his hoard of money away?
+
+There were only three hiding-places where he had heard of cottagers'
+hoards being found: the thatch, the bed, and a hole in the floor. His
+eyes travelling eagerly over the floor, noted a spot where the sand had
+been more carefully spread.
+
+Dunstan found the hole and the money, now hidden in two leathern bags.
+From their weight he judged they must be filled with guineas. Quickly he
+hastened out into the darkness with the bags, and Dunstan Cass was seen
+no more alive.
+
+At the very moment when he turned his back on the cottage Silas Marner
+was not more than a hundred yards away.
+
+
+_III.--Silas Marner's Visitor_
+
+
+It was New Year's Eve, and Squire Cass was giving a dance to the
+neighbouring gentry of Raveloe. There had been snow in the afternoon,
+but at seven o'clock it had ceased, and a freezing wind had sprung up.
+
+A woman, shabbily dressed, with a child in her arms, was making her way
+towards Raveloe, seeking the Red House, where Squire Cass lived. It was
+not the squire she wanted, but his eldest son, Godfrey, to whom she was
+secretly married. The marriage--the result of rash impulse--had been an
+unhappy one from the first, for Godfrey's wife was the slave of opium.
+The squire had long desired that his son should marry Miss Nancy
+Lammeter, and would have turned him out of house and home had he known
+of the unfortunate marriage already contracted. Cold and weariness drove
+the woman, even while she walked, to the only comfort she knew. She
+raised the black remnant to her lips, and then flung the empty phial
+away. Now she walked, always more and more drowsily, and clutched more
+and more automatically the sleeping child at her bosom. Soon she felt
+nothing but a supreme longing to lie down and sleep; and so sank down
+against a straggling furze-bush, an easy pillow enough; and the bed of
+snow, too, was soft. The cold was no longer felt, but her arms did not
+at once relax their instinctive clutch, and the little one slumbered on.
+
+The complete torpor came at last; the fingers lost their tension, the
+arms unbent; then the little head fell away from the bosom, and the blue
+eyes of the child opened wide on the cold starlight. At first there was
+a little peevish cry of "Mammy," as the child rolled downward; and then,
+suddenly, its eyes were caught by a bright gleaming light on the white
+ground, and with the ready transition of infancy it decided the light
+must be caught.
+
+In an instant the child had slipped on all fours, and, after making out
+that the cunning gleam came from a very bright place, the little one,
+rising on its legs, toddled through the snow--toddled on to the open
+door of Silas Marner's cottage, and right up to the warm hearth, where
+was a bright fire.
+
+The little one, accustomed to be left to itself for long hours without
+notice, squatted down on the old sack spread out before the fire, in
+perfect contentment. Presently the little golden head sank down, and the
+blue eyes were veiled by their delicate half-transparent lids.
+
+But where was Silas Marner while this strange visitor had come to his
+hearth? He was in the cottage, but he did not see the child. Since he
+had lost his money he had contracted the habit of opening his door, and
+looking out from time to time, as if he thought that his money might,
+somehow, be coming back to him.
+
+That morning he had been told by some of his neighbours that it was New
+Year's Eve, and that he must sit up and hear the old year rung out, and
+the new rung in, because that was good luck, and might bring his money
+back again. Perhaps this friendly Raveloe way of jesting had helped to
+throw Silas into a more than usually excited state. Certainly he opened
+his door again and again that night, and the last time, just as he put
+out his hand to close it, the invisible wand of catalepsy arrested him,
+and there he stood like a graven image, powerless to resist either the
+good or evil that might enter.
+
+When Marner's sensibility returned he was unaware of the break in his
+consciousness, and only noticed that he was chilled and faint.
+
+Turning towards the hearth it seemed to his blurred vision as if there
+was a heap of gold on the floor; but instead of hard coin his fingers
+encountered soft, warm curls. In utter amazement, Silas fell on his
+knees to examine the marvel: it was a sleeping child, a round, fair
+thing, with soft, yellow rings all over its head. Could this be the
+little sister come back to him in a dream--his little sister whom he had
+carried about in his arms for a year before she died? That was the first
+thought. _Was_ it a dream? It was very much like his little sister. How
+and when had the child come in without his knowledge?
+
+But there was a cry on the hearth; the child had awakened, and Marner
+stooped to lift it on to his knee. He had plenty to do through the next
+hour. The porridge, sweetened with some dry brown sugar, stopped the
+cries of the little one for "mammy." Then it occurred to Silas's dull
+bachelor mind that the child wanted its wet boots off, and this having
+been done, the wet boots suggested that the child had been walking on
+the snow.
+
+He made out the marks of the little feet in the snow, and, holding the
+child in his arms, followed their track to the furze-bush. Then he
+became aware that there was something more than the bush before
+him--that there was a human body, half covered with the shifting snow.
+
+With the child in his arms, Silas at once went for the doctor, who was
+spending the evening at the Red House. And Godfrey Cass recognised that
+it was his own child he saw in Marner's arms.
+
+The woman was dead--had been dead for some hours, the doctor said; and
+Godfrey, who had accompanied him to Marner's cottage, understood that he
+was free to marry Nancy Lammeter.
+
+"You'll take the child to the parish to-morrow?" Godfrey asked, speaking
+as indifferently as he could.
+
+"Who says so?" said Marner sharply. "Will they make me take her? I shall
+keep her till anybody shows they've a right to take her away from me.
+The mother's dead, and I reckon it's got no father. It's a lone thing,
+and I'm a lone thing. My money's gone--I don't know where, and this is
+come from I don't know where."
+
+Godfrey returned to the Red House with a sense of relief and gladness,
+and Silas kept the child. There had been a softening of feeling to him
+in the village since the day of his robbery, and now an active sympathy
+was aroused amongst the women. The child was christened Hephzibah, after
+Marner's mother, and was called Eppie for short.
+
+
+_IV--Eppie's Decision_
+
+
+Eppie had come to link Silas Marner once more with the whole world. The
+disposition to hoard had utterly gone, and there was no longer any
+repulsion around to him.
+
+As the child grew up, one person watched with keener, though more
+hidden, interest than any other the prosperous growth of Eppie under the
+weaver's care. The squire was dead, and Godfrey Cass was married to
+Nancy Lammeter. He had no child of his own save the one that knew him
+not. No Dunsey had ever turned up, and people had ceased to think of
+him.
+
+Sixteen years had passed, and now Aaron Winthrop, a well-behaved young
+gardener, is wanting to marry Eppie, and Eppie is willing to have him
+"some time."
+
+"'Everybody's married some time,' Aaron says," said Eppie. "But I told
+him that wasn't true, for I said look at father--he's never been
+married."
+
+"No, child," said Silas, "your father was a lone man till you was sent
+to him."
+
+"But you'll never be lone again, father," said Eppie tenderly. "That was
+what Aaron said--'I could never think o' taking you away from Master
+Marner, Eppie.' And I said, 'It 'ud be no use if you did, Aaron.' And he
+wants us all to live together, so as you needn't work a bit, father,
+only what's for your own pleasure, and he'd be as good as a son to
+you--that was what he said."
+
+The proposal to separate Eppie from her foster-father came from Godfrey
+Cass.
+
+When the old stone-pit by Marner's cottage went dry, owing to drainage
+operations, the skeleton of Dunstan Cass was found, wedged between two
+great stones. The watch and seals were recognised, and all the weaver's
+money was at the bottom of the pit. The shock of this discovery moved
+Godfrey to tell Nancy the secret of his earlier marriage.
+
+"Everything comes to light, Nancy, sooner or later," he said. "That
+woman Marner found dead in the snow--Eppie's mother--was my wife. Eppie
+is my child. I oughtn't to have left the child unowned. I oughtn't to
+have kept it from you."
+
+"It's but little wrong to me, Godfrey," Nancy answered sadly. "You've
+made it up to me--you've been good to me for fifteen years. It'll be a
+different coming to us, now she's grown up."
+
+They were childless, and it hadn't occurred to them as they approached
+Silas Marner's cottage that Godfrey's offer might be declined. At first
+Godfrey explained that he and his wife wanted to adopt Eppie in place of
+a daughter.
+
+"Eppie, my child, speak," said old Marner faintly. "I won't stand in
+your way. Thank Mr. and Mrs. Cass."
+
+"Thank you, ma'am--thank you, sir," said Eppie dropping a curtsy; "but I
+can't leave my father, nor own anybody nearer than him."
+
+Godfrey Cass was irritated at this obstacle.
+
+"But I've a claim on you, Eppie," he returned. "It's my duty, Marner, to
+own Eppie as my child, and provide for her. She's my own child. Her
+mother was my wife. I've a natural claim on her."
+
+"Then, sir, why didn't you say so sixteen years ago, and claim her
+before I'd come to love her, i'stead o' coming to take her from me now,
+when you might as well take the heart out o' my body? When a man turns a
+blessing from his door, it falls to them as take it in. But let it be as
+you will. Speak to the child. I'll hinder nothing."
+
+"Eppie, my dear," said Godfrey, looking at his daughter not without some
+embarrassment, "it'll always be our wish that you should show your love
+and gratitude to one who's been a father to you so many years; but we
+hope you'll come to love us as well, and though I haven't been what a
+father should ha' been to you all these years, I wish to do the utmost
+in my power for you now, and provide for you as my only child. And
+you'll have the best of mothers in my wife."
+
+Eppie did not come forward and curtsy as she had done before, but she
+held Silas's hand in hers and grasped it firmly.
+
+"Thank you, ma'am--thank you, sir, for your offers--they're very great
+and far above my wish. For I should have no delight in life any more if
+I was forced to go away from my father."
+
+In vain Nancy expostulated mildly.
+
+"I can't feel as I've got any father but one," said Eppie. "I've always
+thought of a little home where he'd sit i' the corner, and I should fend
+and do everything for him. I can't think o' no other home. I wasn't
+brought up to be a lady, and," she ended passionately, "I'm promised to
+marry a working man, as'll live with father and help me to take care of
+him."
+
+Godfrey Cass and his wife went out.
+
+A year later Eppie was married, and Mrs. Godfrey Cass provided the
+wedding dress, and Mr. Cass made some necessary alterations to suit
+Silas's larger family.
+
+"Oh, father," said Eppie, when the bridal party returned from the
+church, "what a pretty home ours is! I think nobody could be happier
+than we are!"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+The Mill on the Floss
+
+
+     In "The Mill on the Floss," published in 1860, George Eliot
+     went to her own early life for the chief characters in the
+     story, and in the relations of Tom and Maggie Tulliver we get
+     a picture of the youth of Mary Ann Evans and her brother
+     Isaac. Lord Lytton objected that Maggie was too passive in the
+     scene at Red Deeps, and that the tragedy of the flood was not
+     adequately prepared. To this criticism George Eliot answered,
+     "Now that the defect is suggested to me, if the book were
+     still in manuscript I should alter, or rather expand, that
+     scene at Red Deeps." She also admitted that there was "a want
+     of proportionate fulness" in the conclusion. But, with all its
+     faults, "The Mill on the Floss" deserves the reputation it has
+     won. The reception of the story at first was disappointing,
+     and we find the authoress telling her publisher that "she does
+     not want to see any newspaper articles." But the book made its
+     way, and prepared an ever-growing public for "Silas Marner."
+
+
+_I.--The Tullivers of Dorlcote Mill_
+
+
+"What I want, you know," said Mr. Tulliver, "what I want is to give Tom
+a good eddication--an eddication as'll be a bread to him. I mean to put
+him to a downright good school at midsummer. The two years at th'
+academy 'ud ha' done well enough if I'd meant to make a miller and
+farmer of him, but I should like Tom to be a bit of a scholard. It 'ud
+be a help to me wi' these lawsuits, and arbitrations, and things. I
+wouldn't make a downright lawyer o' the lad--I should be sorry for him
+to be a raskill--but a sort of engineer, or a surveyor, or an auctioneer
+and vallyer, like Riley, or one o' them smartish businesses as are all
+profits and no outlay, only for a big watch-chain and a high stool.
+They're pretty nigh all one, and they're not far off being even wi' the
+law, I believe; for Riley looks Lawyer Wakem i' the face as hard as one
+cat looks another. _He's_ none frightened at him."
+
+Mr. Tulliver was speaking to his wife, a blonde, comely woman, nearly
+forty years old.
+
+"Well, Mr. Tulliver, you know best. _I've_ no objections. But if Tom's
+to go to a new school, I should like him to go where I can wash him and
+mend him, else he might as well have calico as linen. And then, when the
+box is goin' backwards and forwards, I could send the lad a cake, or a
+pork-pie, or an apple."
+
+"Well, well, we won't send him out o' reach o' the carrier's cart, if
+other things fit in," said Mr. Tulliver. "Riley's as likely a man as any
+to know o' some school; he's had schooling himself, an' goes about to
+all sorts o' places--arbitratin' and vallyin', and that."
+
+So a day or two later Mr. Riley, the auctioneer, came to Dorlcote Mill,
+and stayed the night, the better that Mr. Tulliver, who was slow at
+coming to a point, might consult him on the all-important subject of his
+boy.
+
+"You see, I want to put him to a new school at midsummer," said Mr.
+Tulliver, when the topic had been reached. "I want to send him to a
+downright good school, where they'll make a scholard of him. I don't
+mean Tom to be a miller an' farmer. I see no fun i' that. I shall give
+Tom an eddication and put him to a business as he may make a nest for
+himself, an' not want to push me out o' mine."
+
+At the sound of her brother's name, Maggie, the second and only other
+child of the Tullivers, who was seated on a low stool close by the fire,
+with a large book open on her lap, looked up eagerly. Tom, it appeared,
+was supposed capable of turning his father out of doors. This was not to
+be borne, and Maggie jumped up from her stool, and going up between her
+father's knees, said, in a half-crying, half-indignant voice, "Father,
+Tom wouldn't be naughty to you ever; I know he wouldn't."
+
+Mr. Tulliver's heart was touched.
+
+"What! They mustn't say any harm o' Tom, eh?" he said, looking at Maggie
+with a twinkling eye. Then, in a lower voice, turning to Mr. Riley, "She
+understands what one's talking about so as never was. And you should
+hear her read--straight off, as if she knowed it all beforehand. But
+it's bad--it's bad. A woman's no business wi' being so clever; it'll
+turn to trouble, I doubt. It's a pity, but what she'd been the
+lad--she'd ha' been a match for the lawyers, she would."
+
+Mr. Riley took a pinch of snuff before he said, "But your lad's not
+stupid, is he? I saw him, when I was here last, busy making
+fishing-tackle; he seemed quite up to it."
+
+"Well, he isn't not to say stupid; he's got a notion o' things out o'
+door, an' a sort o' commonsense, as he'd lay hold o' things by the right
+handle. But he's slow with his tongue, you see, and reads but poorly,
+and can't abide the books, and spells all wrong, they tell me, an' as
+shy as can be wi' strangers. Now, what I want is to send him to a school
+where they'll make him a bit nimble with his tongue and his pen, to make
+a smart chap of him. I want my son to be even wi' these fellows as have
+got the start o' me with schooling."
+
+The talk ended in Mr. Riley recommending a country parson named Stelling
+as a suitable tutor for Tom, and Mr. Tulliver decided that his son
+should go to Mr. Stelling at King's Lorton, fifteen miles from Dorlcote
+Mill.
+
+
+_II.--School-Time_
+
+
+Tom Tulliver's sufferings during the first quarter he was at King's
+Lorton, under the distinguished care of the Rev. Walter Stelling, were
+rather severe. It had been very difficult for him to reconcile himself
+to the idea that his school-time was to be prolonged, and that he was
+not to be brought up to his father's business, which he had always
+thought extremely pleasant, for it was nothing but riding about, giving
+orders, and going to market.
+
+Mr. Stelling was not a harsh-tempered or unkind man--quite the contrary,
+but he thought Tom a stupid boy, and determined to develop his powers
+through Latin grammar and Euclid to the best of his ability.
+
+As for Tom, he had no distinct idea how there came to be such a thing as
+Latin on this earth. It would have taken a long while to make it
+conceivable to him that there ever existed a people who bought and sold
+sheep and oxen, and transacted the everyday affairs of life through the
+medium of this language, or why he should be called upon to learn it,
+when its connection with those affairs had become entirely latent. He
+was of a very firm, not to say obstinate disposition, but there was no
+brute-like rebellion or recklessness in his nature; the human
+sensibilities predominated, and he was anxious to acquire Mr. Stelling's
+approbation by showing some quickness at his lessons, if he had known
+how to accomplish it.
+
+In his secret heart Tom yearned to have Maggie with him, and, before the
+first dreary half-year was ended, Maggie actually came. Mrs. Stelling
+had given a general invitation for the little girl to come and stay with
+her brother; so when Mr. Tulliver drove over to King's Lorton late in
+October, Maggie came too, with the sense that she was taking a great
+journey, and beginning to see the world.
+
+"Well, my lad," Mr. Tulliver said, "you look rarely! School agrees with
+you!"
+
+"I don't think I _am_ well, father," said Tom; "I wish you'd ask Mr.
+Stelling not to let me do Euclid--it brings on the toothache, I think."
+
+"Euclid, my lad--why, what's that?" said Mr. Tulliver.
+
+"Oh, I don't know! It's definitions and axioms and triangles and things.
+It's a book I've got to learn in--there's no sense in it."
+
+"Go, go!" said Mr. Tulliver reprovingly. "You mustn't say so. You must
+learn what your master tells you. He knows what it's right for you to
+learn."
+
+In the second term Mr. Stelling had a second pupil--Philip, the son of
+Lawyer Wakem, Mr. Tulliver's standing enemy.
+
+Philip was a very old-looking boy, Tom thought. His spine had been
+deformed through an accident in infancy, and to Tom he was simply a
+humpback. He had a vague notion that the deformity of Wakem's son had
+some relation to the lawyer's rascality, of which he had so often heard
+his father talk with hot emphasis.
+
+There was a natural antipathy of temperament between the two boys; for
+Tom was an excellent bovine lad, and Philip was sensitive, and suffered
+acute pain when the other blurted out offensive things.
+
+Maggie, on her second visit to King's Lorton, pronounced Philip to be "a
+nice boy."
+
+"He couldn't choose his father, you know," she said to Tom. "And I've
+read of very bad men who had good sons, as well as good parents who had
+bad children."
+
+"Oh, he's a queer fellow," said Tom curtly, "and he's as sulky as can be
+with me because I told him his father was a rogue. And I'd a right to
+tell him so, for it was true--and he began it with calling me names."
+
+An accident to Tom's foot brought the two boys nearer again, and also
+threw Philip and Maggie together.
+
+"Maggie," said Philip one day, "if you had had a brother like me, do you
+think you should have loved him as well as Tom?"
+
+"Oh, yes, better," she answered immediately. "No, not better; because I
+don't think I could love you better than Tom. But I should be so
+sorry--so sorry for you."
+
+Philip coloured. He had meant to imply, would she love him as well in
+spite of his deformity, and yet when she alluded to it so plainly he
+winced under her pity. Maggie, young as she was, felt her mistake.
+
+"But you are so very clever, Philip, and you can play and sing," she
+added quickly. "I wish you were my brother. I'm very fond of you."
+
+"But you'll go away soon, and go to school, Maggie, and then you'll
+forget all about me, and not care for me any more."
+
+"Oh, no, I shan't forget you, I'm sure." And Maggie put her arm round
+his neck, and kissed him quite earnestly.
+
+
+_III.--The Downfall_
+
+
+When Tom had turned sixteen, and Maggie, three years younger, was at
+boarding school, came the downfall of the Tullivers. A long and
+expensive law-suit concerning rights of water, brought by Mr. Tulliver,
+ended in defeat. Wakem was his opponent's lawyer.
+
+Maggie broke the news to Tom. Not only would mill and lands and
+everything be lost, and nothing left, but their father had fallen off
+his horse, and knew nobody, and seemed to have lost his senses.
+
+"They say Mr. Wakem has got a mortgage or something on the land, Tom,"
+said Maggie, on their way home from King's Lorton. "It was the letter
+with that news in it that made father ill, they think."
+
+"I believe that scoundrel's been planning all along to ruin my father,"
+said Tom, leaping from the vaguest impressions to a definite conclusion.
+"I'll make him feel for it when I'm a man. Mind you never speak to
+Philip again!"
+
+For more than two months Mr. Tulliver lay ill in his room, oblivious to
+all that was taking place around him. From time to time recognition came
+to him of his wife and family, but there was no remembrance of recent
+events.
+
+The mill and land of the Tullivers were sold to Wakem the lawyer, and
+the bulk of their household goods were disposed of by public auction;
+but the Tullivers were not turned out of Dorlcote Mill. And, indeed,
+when Mr. Tulliver, known to be a man of proud honesty, was once more
+able to be up and about, it was proposed that he should remain and
+accept employment as manager of the mill for Mr. Wakem.
+
+It was with difficulty that poor Tulliver could bring himself to accept
+the situation, but he saw the possibility, by much pinching, of saving
+money out of the thirty shillings a week salary promised by Wakem, and
+paying a second dividend to his creditors. The strongest influence of
+all was the love of the old premises where he had run about when he was
+a boy, just as Tom had done after him.
+
+Tom, who had at once applied to his Uncle Deane, partner in a wealthy
+merchant's business, for work, and was now earning a pound a week, had
+protested against entertaining the proposition; he shouldn't like his
+father to be under Wakem; he thought it would look nothing but mean
+spirited.
+
+But Mr. Tulliver had come to a decision. The first evening of his new
+life downstairs, he called his family round him, and began to speak,
+looking first at his wife.
+
+"I've made up my mind, Bessy. I'll stop in the old place, and I'll serve
+under Wakem, and I'll serve him like an honest man; there's no Tulliver
+but what's honest, mind that, Tom. They'll have it to throw up against
+me as I paid a dividend--but it wasn't my fault--it was because there's
+raskills in the world. They've been too many for me, and I must give in.
+But I'll serve him as honest as if he was no raskill. I'm an honest man,
+though I shall never hold my head up no more! I'm a tree as is broke--a
+tree as is broke."
+
+He paused, and looked on the ground. Then suddenly raising his head, he
+said, in a louder yet deeper tone, "But I won't forgive him! I know what
+they say--he never meant me any harm! I shouldn't ha' gone to law they
+say. But who made it so as there was no arbitrating and no justice to be
+got? It signifies nothing to him--I know that he's one o' them fine
+gentlemen as get money by doing business for poorer folks, and when he's
+made beggars of 'em he'll give 'em charity. I won't forgive him! I wish
+he might be punished with shame till his own son 'ud like to forget him.
+And you mind this, Tom--you never forgive him, neither, if you mean to
+be my son. Now write--write it i' the Bible!"
+
+"Oh, father, what?" said Maggie. "It's wicked to curse and bear malice."
+
+"It isn't wicked, I tell you," said her father, fiercely. "It's wicked
+as the raskills should prosper--it's the devil's doing. Do as I tell
+you, Tom! Write."
+
+The big Bible was open at the beginning, where many family entries were
+put down.
+
+"What am I to write, father?" said Tom, with gloomy submission.
+
+"Write as your father, Edward Tulliver, took service under John Wakem,
+the man as had helped to ruin him, because I'd promised my wife to make
+her what amends I could, and because I wanted to die in th' old place
+where I was born, and my father was born. Put that i' the right
+words--you know how--and then write as I don't forgive Wakem for all
+that; and for all I'll serve him honest, I wish evil may befall him.
+Write that."
+
+There was a dead silence as Tom's pen moved along the paper.
+
+"Now let me hear what you've wrote," said Mr. Tulliver; and Tom read
+aloud, slowly.
+
+"Now, write--write as you'll remember what Wakem's done to your father,
+and you'll make him and his feel it, if ever the day comes. And sign
+your name--Thomas Tulliver!"
+
+"Oh, no, father, dear father!" said Maggie, trembling like a leaf. "You
+shouldn't make Tom write that!"
+
+"Be quiet, Maggie!" said Tom, impatiently, "I shall write it!"
+
+
+_IV.--In Death They Were Not Divided_
+
+
+The Red Deeps was always a favourite place to Maggie to walk in. An old
+stone quarry, so long exhausted that both mounds and hollows were now
+clothed with brambles and trees, and with here and there a stretch of
+grass which a few sheep kept close nibbled. This was the Red Deeps, and
+it was here in June that Maggie once more met Philip Wakem, five years
+after their first meeting at Mr. Stelling's. He told her that she was
+much more beautiful than he had thought she would be, and assured her,
+in answer to the difficulties she raised as to their meeting, that there
+was no enmity in his father's mind.
+
+And Maggie went home with an inward conflict already begun, and Philip
+went home to do nothing but remember and hope.
+
+In the following April they met again, after Philip had been abroad.
+
+And now he took her hand, and asked her the simple question, "_Do_ you
+love me?"
+
+"I think I could hardly love anyone better; there is nothing but what I
+love you for," Maggie answered. But she pointed out how impossible even
+their friendship was, if it were discovered.
+
+Philip, on his side, refused to give up hope, and before they parted
+that day she had kissed him.
+
+Tom intervened before the next visit to the Red Deeps. He had heard that
+Philip Wakem had been seen there with his sister, and Maggie admitted,
+on his questioning her, that she had told Philip that she loved him.
+
+"Now, then, Maggie," Tom said coldly, "there are but two courses for you
+to take. Either you vow solemnly to me, with your hand on father's
+Bible, that you will never have another meeting or speak another word in
+private to Philip Wakem, or you refuse and I tell my father everything!"
+
+In vain Maggie pleaded. Tom was obdurate, and she repeated the words of
+renunciation.
+
+But that was not enough for Tom Tulliver; he accompanied Maggie to Red
+Deeps, and in a voice of harsh scorn told Philip that he had been taking
+a mean, unmanly advantage.
+
+"It was for my father's sake, Philip," said Maggie, imploringly. "Tom
+threatens to tell my father--and he couldn't bear it. I have promised, I
+have vowed solemnly, that we will not have any intercourse without my
+brother's knowledge."
+
+"It is enough, Maggie. _I_ shall not change, but I wish you to hold
+yourself entirely free. But trust me--remember that I can never seek for
+anything but good to what belongs to you."
+
+Tom only replied with angry contempt, and led Maggie away. All his
+sister's remonstrances he answered with cold obstinacy.
+
+For his character in its strength was hard. Tom had laboured to one end
+in these years: to pay off his father's creditors, and regain Dorlcote
+Mill. By his industry, and by some successful private ventures in trade,
+the day came when the first of the objects was realised, and Mr.
+Tulliver lived to see himself free of debt.
+
+But Mr. Tulliver's satisfaction was short-lived. Excited by the dinner
+given to celebrate the payment of his creditors, he met Mr. Wakem near
+the mill. From angry words it came to blows, and Tulliver fell on the
+lawyer furiously, only ceasing from attack when Maggie and Mrs. Tulliver
+appeared. Wakem went off without serious injury, but Tulliver only lived
+through the night; the excitement had killed him.
+
+"You must take care of her, Tom," said the dying man, turning to his
+daughter. "You'll manage to pay for a brick grave, Tom, so as your
+mother and me can lie together? This world's...too many...honest man..."
+
+At last there was total stillness, and poor Tulliver's dimly lighted
+soul had ceased to be vexed with the painful riddle of this world.
+
+Tom and Maggie went downstairs together, and Maggie spoke. "Tom, forgive
+me; let us always love each other"--and they clung and wept together.
+
+But they were not to be always united.
+
+Tom lived in lodgings in the town, and was anxious to provide for his
+sister, but Maggie preferred to take up teaching in her old boarding-
+school. She met Philip Wakem again, and though Tom released her from her
+old promise, he could not regard Philip with any feelings of friendship.
+
+It was when Tom had, by years of steady work, fulfilled his father's
+wishes and become once more master of Dorlcote Mill that Maggie
+returned--to be no more separated from her brother. She was staying in
+the town near the river on the night when the flood came, and the river
+rose beyond its banks. Her first thought, as the water entered the lower
+part of the house, was of the mill, where Tom was. There was no time to
+get assistance; she must go herself, and alone. Hastily she procured a
+boat, and at last reached the mill. The water was up to the first story,
+but still the mill stood firm.
+
+"Tom, where are you? Here is Maggie!" she called out, in a loud,
+piercing voice. Tom opened the middle window, and got into the boat. Tom
+rowed with vigour, but a new danger was before them in the river.
+
+"Get out of the current!" was shouted at them, but it could not be done
+at once. Huge fragments of machinery, swept off one of the wharves,
+blocked the stream in one wide mass, and the current swept the boat
+swiftly on to its doom.
+
+"It is coming, Maggie!" Tom said, in a deep, hoarse voice, loosing the
+oars and clasping her.
+
+The next instant the boat was no longer seen upon the water, and brother
+and sister had gone down in an embrace never to be parted; living
+through again in one supreme moment the days when they had clasped their
+little hands in love.
+
+"In their death they were not divided."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+ERCKMANN-CHATRIAN
+
+
+Waterloo
+
+
+     Emile Erckmann was born at Phalsbourg, in Alsace, on May 20,
+     1822, and Alexandre Chatrian, at Soldatenthal, on December 18,
+     1826. Erckmann, the son of a bookseller, became a law student,
+     and was admitted to the Bar in 1858. But the law studies were
+     always uncongenial, and Erckmann meeting Chatrian as a fellow
+     student in the gymnasium at Phalsbourg, the two young men
+     decided to join forces in authorship. The Erckmann-Chatrian
+     partnership lasted from 1860 to 1885, and resulted in a
+     remarkable series of novels, short stories, plays, and operas.
+     "Waterloo" was published in 1865, and has enjoyed a wide
+     popularity in many languages. Like "The Conscript," its
+     predecessor, the charm of "Waterloo" consists largely in the
+     character of Joseph Bertha, the young clockmaker of
+     Phalsbourg, who tells the story. Bertha is a peaceful citizen
+     who hates war and has no taste for glory. Yet he is nothing of
+     a coward, and behaves like a man when he is forced to fight.
+     To the student of history, the light thrown on the rise and
+     fall of the Bourbon popularity in France, 1813-14, in this
+     novel, will always be of interest. Chatrian died in Paris on
+     September 4, 1890, and Erckmann at Luneville, on March 14,
+     1899.
+
+
+_I.--Napoleon Returns_
+
+
+Never was anything so joyous as the spring of 1814 Louis XVIII. was
+king, and the war was over. All except the old soldiers were content;
+and only when the nobles, who had fled at the Revolution, returned, and
+it was said that they were going to bring back all their old ideas, did
+M. Goulden express any dissatisfaction. There were great religious
+processions everywhere and expiatory services, and talk of rebuilding
+all the convents, and setting up the nobles again in their castles. But
+these things did not trouble me, because I was married to Catherine, and
+knew nothing about politics.
+
+The treatment of the old soldiers enraged me. On the day of the
+religious procession at Phalsbourg, half a dozen old veterans, restored
+prisoners, were set upon in our town by that rascal Pinacle and the
+people of Baraques, and knocked about. Pinacle did this to curry favour
+with Louis XVIII., and M. Goulden warned us that if ruffians like
+Pinacle got the upper hand it would open people's eyes.
+
+Sure enough, Pinacle received the cross of honour in the autumn when the
+Duc de Berry came to review the troops at Phalsbourg, and even Aunt
+Grédel, who was fond of abusing Napoleon and the Jacobins, and
+applauding the king and the clergy, thought this a shameful thing.
+
+It really was scandalous the way titles and honours were given to
+worthless people who shouted for the king. Worse than this was the way
+Napoleon's old officers were treated. Men who had fought and bled for
+France for twenty years were now well-nigh starving, driven out of the
+army to make room for the king's favourites.
+
+We read all this in the "Gazette," and Zébédé, who had come back alive
+and in time for my wedding, and was still in the army, would often come
+in and tell us of the growing indignation of the soldiers. The whole of
+that winter the indignation was spreading in the town at the sight of so
+many brave officers, the heroes of Marengo, Austerlitz, and Wagram,
+wandering forlornly about, starving on half-pay, and deprived of their
+posts.
+
+How well I remember one day in January, 1815, two of these officers,
+pale and gaunt, coming into the workshop to sell a watch.
+
+M. Goulden examined the watch with great care and said, "Do not be
+offended, gentlemen; I, too, served France under the Republic, and I
+know it must cut to the heart to be forced to sell something which
+recalls sacred memories."
+
+"It was given me by Prince Eugène," said one of the officers, Commandant
+Margarot, a hussar.
+
+"It is worth more than 1,000 francs," said M. Goulden, "and I cannot
+afford to buy it. But I will advance you 200 francs, and the watch shall
+remain here if you like, and shall be yours whenever you come to reclaim
+it."
+
+The old hussar broke down at this, and though his comrade, Colonel
+Falconette, tried to restrain him, he poured forth thanks and bitter
+words against the government.
+
+From that time it always seemed to me that things would end badly, and
+that the nobles had gone too far. The old commandant had said that the
+government behaved like Cossacks to the army, and this was horrible.
+
+M. Goulden read the "Gazette" aloud to us every day, and both Catherine
+and I were pleased to find there were men in Paris maintaining the very
+things we thought ourselves.
+
+All this time the clergy were going on with their processions, and
+sermons were being preached about the rebellion of 1790, the restitution
+of property to the landowners, and the re-establishment of convents, and
+the need for missionaries for the conversion of France. From such ideas
+what good could come?
+
+It is no wonder that when a report came early in March that Napoleon had
+landed at Cannes and was marching on Paris we were all very agitated at
+Phalsbourg.
+
+"It is plain," said M. Goulden, "that the emperor will reach Paris. The
+soldiers are for him; so are the peasantry, whose property is
+threatened; and so are the middle classes, provided he will make
+treaties of peace."
+
+
+_II.--"Vive l'Empereur!"_
+
+
+For some days, though all knew Napoleon had set foot in France, no one
+dared talk of it aloud. Only the looks of the half-pay officers betrayed
+their anxiety. If they had possessed horses and arms I am sure they
+would have set out to meet their emperor.
+
+On March 8, Zébédé entered our house and said abruptly, "The two first
+batallions are starting."
+
+"They are going to stop him?" said M. Goulden.
+
+"Yes, they'll stop him, that is very likely," Zébédé answered, winking.
+At the foot of the stairs he drew me aside and whispered, "Look inside
+my cap, Joseph; all the soldiers have got it, too."
+
+Sure enough it was the old tricolour cockade, which had been removed on
+the return of Louis XVIII.
+
+At last the papers had to admit that Buonaparte had escaped from Elba.
+What a scene it was in the café the night the papers arrived! M. Goulden
+and I were hardly seated before the place was filled with people, and it
+was so close the windows had to be opened.
+
+Commandant Margarot mounted on a table with other officers all around
+him, and began to read the "Gazette" aloud. It took a long time, the
+reading, and the people laughed and jeered at the passages that said the
+troops were faithful to the king, that Buonaparte was surrounded and
+would soon be taken, and that the illustrious Ney and the other marshals
+had hastened to place their swords at the service of the king. The
+commandant read on firmly in that distinct voice of his until he came to
+the order calling upon the French to seize Buonaparte and give him up
+dead or alive.
+
+Then his whole face changed and his eyes glittered. He took the
+"Gazette" up and tore it into little pieces, and, drawing himself up,
+his long arms stretched out, cried, "Vive l'Empereur!" with all his
+might. Immediately all the half-pay officers took up the cry, and "Vive
+l'Empereur!" was repeated again by the very soldiers posted outside the
+town hall when they heard the shout.
+
+The commandant was carried shoulder high round the café, and everyone
+was now calling out, "Vive l'Empereur!" I saw the tears in the eyes of
+the commandant, tears at hearing the name he loved best acclaimed once
+more.
+
+As for me, I felt as if cold water was being forced down my back. "It's
+all over," I said to myself. "It's no good talking about peace."
+
+But M. Goulden was more hopeful, and after we got home spoke cheerfully
+of the blessings of liberty and a good constitution.
+
+Aunt Grédel did not take this view. She came to see us the morning after
+the scene in the café, when all the town was discussing the great news,
+and began at once, "So it seems the villain has run away from his
+island?"
+
+Both M. Goulden and I were anxious to avoid a dispute, for Aunt Grédel
+was really angry, and she couldn't leave the subject.
+
+M. Goulden admitted that he preferred Napoleon to the Bourbons, with
+their nobles and missionary priests, because the emperor was bound to
+respect the national property, whereas the later would have destroyed
+all that the Revolution had accomplished. "Still, I am now, and always
+shall be till death, for the Republic and the rights of man," M. Goulden
+concluded.
+
+The old gentleman took his hat and went out to escape further argument,
+and Aunt Grédel turned to me and told me that M. Goulden was an old fool
+and always had been, and that I should have to go to Switzerland now,
+unless Buonaparte was taken before he reached Paris.
+
+In the evening, however, when Aunt Grédel had gone, and we three were
+together, Catherine said quietly, "M. Goulden is right; he knows more
+about these things than my mother does, and we will always listen to his
+advice."
+
+I thought to myself, "Yes, that's all very well; but it will be a
+horrible thing to have to put on one's knapsack again and be off. I
+would rather be in Switzerland than in Leipzig."
+
+Each day now brought news of Napoleon's advance, from Grenoble to Lyons,
+from Lyons to Macon and Auxerre. There was no opposition anywhere to his
+progress, and the only question that troubled M. Goulden's mind was the
+attitude of Ney to the emperor. Could Ney, an old soldier of the
+Revolution, though he had kissed the hand of Louis XVIII., betray the
+country to please the king? The uneasiness disappeared when we learnt
+that Ney had followed the example of the army, the citizens, and of all
+who did not wish to go back to the customs and laws of twenty-five years
+earlier.
+
+On March 21, just as it was getting dark, we knew that something
+decisive must have happened at Paris. The drums were calling to arms in
+the market-place, and a great crowd soon assembled.
+
+The soldiers fell into their ranks, Commandant Gémeau, who had only just
+recovered from his wounds, drew his sword, and gave the order to form
+square.
+
+M. Goulden and I got on a bench to listen; we knew that the fate of
+France depended on the message we were to hear.
+
+"Present arms!" called out the commandant in the same clear voice which
+had bidden us at Lützen and Leipzig, "Close up your ranks!"
+
+Then came the news we had been waiting for.
+
+"Soldiers, his Majesty Louis XVIII. left Paris on March 20, and the
+Emperor Napoleon entered the capital the same day."
+
+For a second there was a dead silence, and then the commandant spoke of
+the banner of France, the banner of Marengo, Austerlitz, and Jena,
+stained with our blood; and the old sergeant drew out the tattered
+tricolour flag from its case.
+
+"I know no other flag!" cried the commandant, raising his sword. "Vive
+la France! Vive l'Empereur!"
+
+What a shout there was of "Vive l'Empereur! Vive la France!" at this.
+The people and the soldiers embraced one another, and that night and for
+the next five or six days there was, if anything, even more rejoicing
+than there had been on the return of Louis XVIII. We still hoped for the
+continuance of peace, but who could say how long the peace would last?
+
+Phalsbourg was ordered to put itself into a state of defence, a large
+workshop was set up at the arsenal for the repairing of arms, and
+engineers and artillerymen came over from Metz to make earthworks in the
+fortifications. It seemed to me that a large number of men would be
+required for all the guns and forts, and that my watchmaking days would
+soon be exchanged for active service. I began to think that, after all,
+religious processions were better than being sent to fight against
+people one knew nothing about.
+
+
+_III.--On the Road to Waterloo_
+
+
+Aunt Grédel had not been to see us for a month, and it was a great
+comfort to Catherine and me when one Sunday M. Goulden proposed that we
+should all three pay her a visit at Quatre Vents. As soon as she saw us,
+Aunt Grédel rushed to kiss her daughter, and called out, "You are a good
+man, M. Goulden, better a thousand times than I am. How glad I am to see
+you! It doesn't matter about being a Jacobin or anything else; the main
+thing is to have a good heart."
+
+It was not until the afternoon that M. Goulden explained that he had
+known for some days that I should be called up to rejoin my old
+regiment, and that he had arranged with the commandant of artillery that
+I should be received at the arsenal as a workman. What relief this was
+to us, for I could not bear the thought of separation from Catherine. So
+from that day I went to work at the arsenal, and Aunt Grédel came to see
+us again as she had been accustomed to do.
+
+It can be guessed with what spirit I worked at the arsenal, and how
+pleased I was when the commandant expressed satisfaction at my work. But
+I was not allowed to stop at Phalsbourg.
+
+On May 23 the commandant told me that I must go to Metz with the 3rd
+battalion, to which I belonged. He assured me, however, that I should be
+kept at Metz in the workshops, and we all did our best to believe that I
+was fortunate in my destination. M. Goulden, however, warned me before I
+left that France was threatened by her enemies, that the allies would
+make no peace with the emperor, but were determined to set Louis XVIII.
+once more on the throne, and that now the question was not of invading
+other countries, but of defending our own.
+
+Catherine was asleep when the morning came for my departure, and I was
+glad to escape the pain of saying "good-bye." At the barracks, Zébédé,
+who was now a sergeant, led me into the soldiers' room, and I put on my
+uniform. Then the battalion defiled through the gates, the soldiers at
+the outworks presented arms, and we were on the way to Waterloo.
+
+It was useless to think of stopping in Metz. We arrived in that city of
+Jews and soldiers after five days' march, and were at once, after our
+night's rest, supplied with ammunition. I saw that my only chance of
+staying at the workshops of Metz would be after the campaign was over,
+for we were on the march the very next morning. Zébédé was not always
+with me now, and my closest comrade was Jean Buche, the son of a
+sledge-maker at Harberg, who had never eaten anything better than
+potatoes before he became a conscript. Buche turned in his feet in
+walking, but he never seemed to know the meaning of being tired, and in
+his own fashion was a wonderful pedestrian.
+
+From Metz we marched through Thionville, Châtelet, Etain, Dannevoux,
+Yong, Vivier, and Cul-de-Sard. All our troops were pouring into
+Belgium--cavalry, infantry, and artillery--and though there were no
+signs of the enemy, it was reported that we were to attack the English.
+I thought as well English as Prussians, Austrians, or Russians, since we
+were to kill each other.
+
+On the night of June 14 we bivouacked outside the village of Roly, and
+General Pécheux read a proclamation by the emperor, reminding us that
+this was the anniversary of Marengo, that the powers were in coalition
+against France, and that the hour had come for France to conquer or
+perish.
+
+It is impossible to describe the enthusiasm at this message from the
+emperor; our courage was stronger, and the conscripts were even more
+anxious than the veterans for the fighting to begin.
+
+We were up at daybreak next day and on the march, eager to get a sight
+of the Prussians, who had been repulsed from Charleroi by the emperor,
+we were told. At the village of Châtelet we halted, and heard the noise
+of firing away across the River Sambre, in the direction of Gilly. An
+old bald peasant told us that evening that the Prussians had men in the
+villages of Fleurus and Lambusart, that the English and Belgians were on
+the great Brussels road, and that the causeway through Quatre Bras and
+Ligny enabled the Prussians and English to communicate freely with each
+other. He also told us that the Prussians said insulting things of the
+French army, and were generally hated by the people. When I heard of the
+way the Prussians boasted, my blood boiled, and I said to myself, "There
+shall be no more compassion. Either they or we must be utterly
+destroyed."
+
+I can recall with what splendour the sun rose next morning above a
+cornfield--it was the morning of the battle of Ligny. Zébédé and one or
+two comrades whom I had known in 1813 came and chattered while we lit
+our fires. We could see the Prussians before us, posting themselves
+behind hedges and walls, and preparing to defend the villages, and all
+the time we were kept roasting in the corn, waiting for the signal to
+attack. The emperor arrived, and held a short conference with the
+superior officers, and I saw him at close quarters before he rode off
+again to the village of Fleurus, already vacated by the Prussians.
+
+And still we waited, though we knew the attack on St. Amand had begun.
+
+At last came our turn to advance on Ligny. "Forward! Forward!" cried the
+officers. "Vive l'Empereur!" we shouted. The Prussian bullets whizzed
+like hail upon us, and then we could see or hear nothing till we were in
+the village.
+
+No quarter was given that day; we fought in houses and gardens, in barns
+and lanes, with muskets and bayonets. Those who fell were lost. At one
+time fifteen of us were in possession of a barn, and the Prussians, for
+a time outnumbering us, drove us up a ladder. They fired up at our
+floor, and finally, when it seemed we were lost, and were all to be
+massacred we heard the shout of "Vive l'Empereur!" and the Prussians
+fled. Out of that fifteen only six were left alive, but Zébédé and Buche
+were among the survivors.
+
+The battle still raged in the village streets, dead and dying were
+everywhere. Towards nightfall it was plain we were the victors; Ligny
+and St. Amand were in our hands, and the Prussians had moved away. On
+the plateau behind Ligny, where our cavalry had been at work, the
+slaughter had been terrible.
+
+The dozen or so remaining of our company rested for a few hours that
+night in the ruins of a farmhouse, and next day came the roll-call of
+our battalion, and the sending off of the wounded. More than 360 of our
+men, including Commandant Gémeau and Captain Vidal, were disabled, and
+we were busy all day over the wounded.
+
+It was wet and muddy that evening, and we were hungry and dispirited
+when we reached Quatre Bras, about eight o'clock. We were not allowed to
+halt here, but marched on to a village called Jemappes, and at midnight
+we settled down in a furrow to wait for morning.
+
+The red coats of the English were visible before us when we awoke next
+morning; behind their lines was the village of Mont St. Jean, and they
+had also the farmhouses of La Haie-Sainte and Hougomont. At six o'clock
+I looked at their position, with Zébédé, Captain Florentin, and Buche,
+and it seemed to me it was a difficult task before us. It was Sunday,
+and I could hear the bells of villages, recalling Phalsbourg. But in a
+very little while we heard no more bells, for at half-past eight our
+battalion was on its way to the high road in front, and the battle of
+Waterloo had begun.
+
+
+_IV.--The Hour of Disaster_
+
+
+I have often heard veterans describe the order of battle given by the
+emperor. But all I remember of that terrible day is that we marched out
+with the bands playing, that we got to close quarters with the English,
+were repulsed, and were assisted by regiments of cuirassiers, that we
+carried La Haie-Sainte with terrible slaughter at Ney's command.
+Hougomont we could not carry. When we thought we were winning, the news
+was spread that Blücher, with 60,000 men, was advancing on our flank,
+and that unless Grouchy, with his 30,000, arrived in time to reinforce
+us the day might be lost.
+
+All the world knows now that Grouchy did not arrive, that we threw
+ourselves again and again upon the English squares, and that at last,
+when regiment after regiment had tried in vain to break the enemy's
+line, the Old Guard were called up by the emperor. It was the last
+chance of retrieving the day, the grand stroke--and it failed.
+
+The four battalions of the Guards, reduced from 3,000 to 1,200 men, were
+assailed by so fierce a fire that they were compelled to retire. They
+retired slowly, defending themselves with muskets and bayonets, but with
+their retirement, and the approach of night, the battle ended for us in
+the confusion of a rout. It was like a flood. We were surrounded on all
+sides when Blücher arrived. The Old Guard formed a square for the
+emperor and his officers, and the rest of us simply straggled away, back
+to France. The most awful thing of all was the beating of the drum of
+the Old Guard in that hour of disaster. It was like a fire-bell, the
+last appeal of a burning nation.
+
+Buche was by my side in the retreat. Several times the Prussians
+attacked us. We heard that the emperor had departed for Paris, and we
+struggled on, only hoping to escape with our lives. At Charleroi the
+inhabitants shut the city gates in our face, and Buche shared in the
+general rage, and proposed to destroy the town. But I thought we had had
+enough massacres, and that it was not right we should be killing our own
+countrymen, and I persuaded Buche to come on with me.
+
+In a few days we felt ourselves safe from pursuing Prussians, and at the
+village of Bouvigny I wrote a letter to Catherine, telling her I was
+safe. In this village some officers of our regiment, the 6th of the
+Line, found us, and we had to rejoin. Presently we saw all that was left
+of Grouchy's army corps in retreat, and a day or two later we heard of
+the emperor's abdication. On July 1, we reached Paris, and outside the
+city, near the village of Issy, we once more fell in with the Prussians;
+for two days we fought them with fury, and then some generals announced
+that peace had been made.
+
+We believed that this truce was to give the enemy time to leave the
+country, and that otherwise France would rise, as it rose in '92, and
+drive them out.
+
+Unhappily, we soon learnt that the Prussians and English were to occupy
+Paris, and that the remains of the French army were to be kept beyond
+the Loire. We all felt that we had been betrayed, and the old officers,
+pale with anger, wept in their misery. Paris in the hands of the
+Prussians! Besides, were we to go to the other side of the Loire at the
+command of Blücher?
+
+Desertions began that very day, and I said to Buche, "Let us return to
+Phalsbourg and Harberg, and take up our work, and live like honest men."
+About fifty of us from Alsace-Lorraine were in the battalion, and we set
+off together on the road to Strasbourg.
+
+On July 8 we heard that Louis XVIII. was to come back, and already the
+white banner of the Bourbons was being displayed in the villages.
+
+In some places there were rascals who called us Buonapartists, and
+gendarmes who took us to the town hall and made us shout "Vive le Roi!"
+Buche and some of the old soldiers hated this; but what did it matter
+who was king, and what these fools wanted us to shout?
+
+Our little company got smaller and smaller as men halted in their own
+villages, and when, on July 16, we reached Phalsbourg, Buche and I were
+alone.
+
+Buche went on to break the news of my return, but I could not wait, and
+ran after him.
+
+I heard people saying, "There's Joseph, Bertha," and in a moment I was
+in the house, and in Catherine's arms. Then I embraced M. Goulden, and
+an hour later Aunt Grédel arrived.
+
+Jean Buche would not stay and dine with us, but hurried home to Harberg.
+I have often seen him since; and Zébédé, too, who remained in the army.
+
+Many insulting things were said about us by the Pinacles, but I had
+happiness in my family circle, especially when Catherine presented me
+with a little Joseph.
+
+I am an old man now, but M. Goulden always said the principles of
+freedom and liberty would triumph, and I have lived long enough to see
+his words come true.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+OCTAVE FEUILLET
+
+
+Romance of a Poor Young Man
+
+     Octave Feuillet, born at Saint Lô, in France, on August 11,
+     1821, was the son of a Norman gentleman who regarded
+     literature as an ignoble profession. When Octave ran away to
+     Paris in order to pursue a literary career, his father refused
+     to help him, and for some years the young writer had a very
+     hard struggle. But on taking to novel-writing, Feuillet
+     quickly acquired fame and fortune. His "Romance of a Poor
+     Young Man" ("Le Roman d'un Jeune Homme Pauvre"), which
+     appeared in 1858, made him the most popular author of the day.
+     Standing midway between the novelists of the romantic school
+     and the writers of the realistic movement, he combined a sense
+     of the poetry of life with a gift for analysing the finer
+     shades of feeling. The plot of the "Romance of a Poor Young
+     Man" is certainly extraordinary; but in the present case some
+     allowance must be made for the fact that the hero is induced
+     to accept the humble position in which he finds himself by his
+     old family lawyer, who secretly designs to marry him to the
+     daughter of his new employers. A scheme of this sort would not
+     Strike a French reader as improbable, for marriage in France
+     is often more a business arrangement than a love affair.
+     Feuillet spent the latter part of his life in retirement, and
+     died on December 29, 1890.
+
+
+_I.--A Nobleman in Difficulties_
+
+
+Here I am, then, in the situation that Lawyer Laubépin obtained for me.
+I am alone at last, thank goodness, sitting in a gloomy room in this old
+Breton castle, in which the former steward to the Laroque family used to
+live. My position is certainly very strange, but as Laubépin was
+discreet, and did not tell his clients that he was sending them a new
+steward in the person of the young Marquis of Champcey, perhaps I shall
+not find my post very difficult. I was afraid that the Laroques were a
+family of the vulgarly rich sort, like the dreadful persons who have
+bought my father's lands. Laroque is a picturesque figure in his old
+age, and though his widowed daughter-in-law is rather more commonplace,
+his grand-daughter, Marguerite Laroque, is a nobly beautiful girl.
+
+If it were not for my accursed pride, I should now feel happier than I
+have ever felt since that day of disaster, misery, and shame when
+Laubépin told me that my poor dead father had lost his fortune in
+speculations, and left nothing but his title and his debts. Well, I have
+paid the debts, and if I can now only earn enough money to keep my
+little sister Hélène at school, I shall not grumble at my lot. I feel
+the loss of my friends, it is true. There is not a soul I can confide
+in, and I must find some outlet for the thoughts and feelings that
+oppress me; so I will keep this diary.
+
+It will be at least a silent confidant, and perhaps when I am older I
+shall be able to read with a certain pleasurable interest its record of
+my singular adventures. No other man in France, on May 1, 1857, can have
+been transformed so suddenly, as by the wand of a witch, from a powerful
+and wealthy young nobleman of ancient lineage into a humble and despised
+domestic servant. Perhaps a good fairy will appear and restore me to my
+proper shape; but I wish she had appeared at dinner this evening. There
+were twenty guests, and it was the first time since the change of my
+fortunes that I took part in a society affair. Nobody spoke to me,
+except the pretty little governess of the family, Mlle. Hélouin; and we
+were placed at the end of the table. The position of honour was given to
+a young and brilliant nobleman, M. de Bévallan, whose estate joined that
+of the Laroque family. I gathered from Mlle. Hélouin that it was his
+ambition to unite the two estates by marrying Mlle. Marguerite Laroque.
+I was, therefore, surprised when the lovely heiress led her grandfather
+into the room when everybody was seated, placed him in a chair by
+Bévallan, and came and sat by my side.
+
+"She can't," I thought to myself, "be much in love with her wooer," and
+I began to study her with a certain curiosity. Her fine, clear-cut
+features and large dark eyes attracted me; and by way of opening the
+conversation I spoke of the wildly beautiful scenery through which I had
+passed on my way to the castle. It was a bad beginning.
+
+"I see," she said, with a singular expression of irony, "that you are a
+poet. You must talk about the forests and moorlands with Mlle. Hélouin,
+who also adores these things. For my part I do not love them."
+
+"What is it, then, that you really love?" I said.
+
+She gave me a supercilious look and said, in a hard voice, "Nothing,
+sir."
+
+I must confess I was hurt. I could not see that I had done anything to
+lay myself open to so harsh an answer. No doubt I was only a servant.
+But why had she come and sat beside me if she did not want to talk? I
+was glad when the dinner was over and we went into the drawing-room.
+Madame Laroque, the widowed mother of Marguerite, began to ask M.
+Bévallan about the new opera in Paris; he was unable to reply, so, as I
+had seen the work in Italy before it was produced in France, I gave her
+a description of it. I am afraid I forgot myself with Madame Laroque--a
+fine-looking, cultivated woman of forty years of age. Flattered by the
+way in which she treated me entirely as her equal, I insensibly glided
+from theatrical topics to fashionable gossip, and just stopped in time
+in an anecdote about my tour in Russia. A few more words and she would
+have learnt that her humble steward, Maxime Odiot--as I am now called--
+was a man with very aristocratic connections.
+
+In order to hide my embarrassment, I moved towards the table where some
+of the guests were playing whist. This led to my committing a blunder
+which, I fear, may make my position a difficult one. Among the whist-
+players was a Mlle. de Porhoet-Gael, eighty-eight years of age and full
+of strange crotchets. The last descendant of the noblest of Breton
+families, she lived, so Madame Laroque told me, on an income of forty
+pounds a year, her fortune having been spent in vainly fighting for the
+succession to a great estate in Spain. She was talking about it to her
+partner when I came up.
+
+"The estate belongs to me," she was saying. "My father told me so a
+hundred times, and the persons who are trying to take it from me have no
+more connection with my family than this handsome young gentleman has."
+
+And she designated me with a look and a movement of her head. No doubt
+she did not mean to imply that because I was a steward I was of mean
+birth; but I was stung by her remark, and forgetting myself, I replied
+rather sharply, "You are mistaken, madam, in thinking that I am
+unrelated to your family."
+
+"You will have to prove that to me, young man."
+
+Confused and ashamed, I withdrew into the corner and tried to talk to
+Mlle. Hélouin about poetry and art, but at last, upset and distracted, I
+arose and walked out of the room. Mlle. de Porhoet followed me.
+
+"Monsieur Odiot," she said, "would you mind seeing me home? My servant
+has not arrived, and I am growing too feeble now to walk without help."
+
+Naturally, I went with her.
+
+"What did you mean," she said, as we walked on together, "by claiming to
+be a relation of mine?"
+
+"I hope," I replied very humbly, "that you will pardon a jest that--"
+
+"A jest!" she interrupted. "Is a matter touching my honour a jest? I
+see; a remark which would be an insult if addressed to a man becomes
+only a jest when it is levelled at an old, unprotected woman."
+
+After that, nothing was left to me, as a man of honour, but to entrust
+her with my secret. There had been several marriages between our
+families, and after listening with great interest to the story of my
+troubles, she became wonderfully kind in her manner to me.
+
+"You must come and see me to-morrow, cousin," she said, when we parted.
+"My law-suit is going very badly and I should like you to go through all
+my papers, and see if you can discover any new documents in support of
+my claim. Do not despair, my dear, over your own misfortunes. I think I
+shall be able to help you."
+
+
+_II.--Love and Jealousy_
+
+
+I am afraid I lack the industry necessary for keeping a diary. It is now
+two months since I wrote the last entry. If I had made every night a
+brief note of the events of the day, I should now have a better view of
+my position. Has Mlle. de Porhoet betrayed my secret? There has
+certainly been a curious change in my relations with the Laroques. I
+fancy it began on the day when Marguerite and I met at last on an equal
+footing at Mlle. de Porhoet's house. The document which I had just then
+found may not be as important as we thought, but our common joy in what
+we considered was a discovery of tremendous value brought us closer
+together.
+
+But I cannot understand Marguerite. Sometimes she still goes out of her
+way to be insulting towards me, and sometimes she treats me with a sweet
+frankness which has something sisterly in it. One day, for instance, she
+came to my window and asked me if I would go for a walk with her. "Bring
+your sketch-book, Monsieur Odiot," she called out gaily, "and I will
+take you to Merlin's Tomb in the Enchanted Valley."
+
+As a matter of fact, the woods around the castle of the Laroques were
+the remains of the famous forest of Broceliande, and I had always been
+promising myself a long ramble through this region of romance, but I had
+never found time to explore it. I was now glad I had waited, for
+Marguerite was a charming guide. Never had I seen her so light-hearted.
+When we reached a great block of stone in the depth of the wood, under
+which the wizard Merlin is said to be imprisoned by Vivien, Marguerite
+made herself a garland of oak-leaves, and standing like a lovely
+priestess clad all in white against the Druidic monument, she asked me
+to make a sketch of her. With what joy did I paint the poetic vision
+before me! I think she was pleased with the drawing, but on our way back
+to the castle a foolish word of mine brought our friendship to an end.
+We came to a picturesque little lake, at the end of which was a
+waterfall, overgrown with brambles. In order to show what a good swimmer
+her dog was, Marguerite threw something in the current and told him to
+fetch it, but he got carried over the waterfall and caught in the
+whirlpool below.
+
+"Come away! He is drowning--come away! I can't bear to see it!" cried
+Marguerite, seizing me by the arm. "No, do not attempt to save him. The
+pool is very dangerous."
+
+I am a good swimmer, however, and with a little trouble I managed to
+rescue the dog.
+
+"What madness!" she murmured. "You might have been drowned, and just for
+a dog!"
+
+"It was yours," I answered in a low voice.
+
+Her manner at once changed.
+
+"You had better run home, Monsieur Odiot," she said very coldly, "or you
+will get a chill. Do not wait for me."
+
+So I returned alone, and for some days Marguerite never spoke a word to
+me. What was still worse, M. Bévallan appeared at the castle, and she
+went for walks with him, leaving me in the company of Mlle. Hélouin. I
+am afraid that I became very friendly with the pretty governess.
+Nothing, however, that I ever said to her, or that she said to me,
+prepared me for the strange scene that happened to-night. As I was
+walking along the terrace, she came up and took my arm, and said, "Are
+you really my friend, Maxime?"
+
+"Yes," I said.
+
+"Then tell me the truth," she exclaimed. "Do you love me, or do you love
+Mademoiselle Marguerite?"
+
+"Why do you bring in her name?" I said.
+
+"Ah, you love her!" she cried fiercely; "or, rather, you love her
+fortune. But you shall never have it, Monsieur de Champcey. I know why
+you came here under a false name, and so shall she."
+
+With a movement of anger she departed. I cannot continue here under
+suspicion of being a fortune-hunter, so I have written to Laubépin to
+obtain another situation for me.
+
+
+_III.--Two on a Tower_
+
+
+It is all over. Was it because she still only half believed the slanders
+spread against me that Marguerite again asked me to go for a walk with
+her? Oh, what an unfortunate wretch I am! We rode through the forest
+together to one of the most magnificent monuments in Brittany, the
+Castle of Elven. Finding the door unlocked, we tethered our horses in
+the deserted courtyard, and climbed up the narrow, winding staircase to
+the battlements. The sea of autumnal foliage below was bathed in the
+light of the setting sun, and for a long time we sat side by side in
+silence, gazing at the infinite distances.
+
+"Come!" she said at last, in a low whisper, as the light died out of the
+sky. "It is finished!"
+
+But on descending the dark staircase we found that the door of the keep
+was locked. No doubt the shepherd boy who looked after the castle had
+come and shut up the place while we were sitting, watching the sunset.
+
+"Monsieur de Champcey," she said, in a cold, hard voice, "were there any
+scoundrels in your family before you?"
+
+"Marguerite!" I cried.
+
+"You paid that boy to lock us in," she exclaimed. "You think you will
+force me to marry you by compromising me in this manner. Do you think
+you will win my hand--and, what is more important to you still, my
+wretched wealth--by this trick? Rather than marry a scoundrel like you,
+I will shut myself up in a convent!"
+
+Carried away by my feelings, I seized her two hands, and said, "Now
+listen, Marguerite. I love you, it is true. Never did man love more
+devotedly, yes, and more disinterestedly, than I do. But I swear that if
+I get out of this place alive I will never marry you until you are as
+poor as I am, or I as rich as you are. If you love me, as I think you
+do, fall on your knees and pray, for unless a miracle happens you will
+never see me again alive."
+
+But a miracle did happen. I threw myself out of the window, and fell
+upon a branch of an oak-tree. It bent beneath my weight, and then broke;
+but it came so near the earth before breaking that if my left arm had
+not struck against the masonry I should have escaped uninjured. As it
+was, my arm was smashed, and I swooned away with the pain. When I came
+to, Marguerite was leaning out of the window, calling, "Maxime, speak to
+me! For the love of heaven, speak to me, and say you pardon me!"
+
+I arose, saying, "I am not hurt. If you will only wait another hour, I
+will go home and get some one to let you out. Believe me, I will save
+your honour as I have saved my own."
+
+Binding up my arm, I got on my horse, and galloped back to Laroque
+Castle. On the way I met Bévallan.
+
+"Have you seen Mlle. Marguerite?" he said. "We are afraid she has got
+lost."
+
+"I met her this afternoon," I replied. "She told me she was going for a
+ride to Elven Castle."
+
+He rode off in the direction from which I had come, and when I returned
+from the doctor with my broken arm set and bandaged, Marguerite and
+Bévallan entered.
+
+Hearing that I had had an accident, Madame Laroque came up late to-night
+to see me. Old Laroque has had a stroke of paralysis, she tells me, and
+she wishes to get the marriage contract between her daughter and
+Bévallan signed to-morrow. Laubépin is bringing the document.
+
+
+_IV.---A Test Case_
+
+
+I don't know why I take the trouble to go on with this diary, but having
+begun it I may as well finish it. Laubépin wanted me to go into the
+drawing-room to witness the signing of the marriage contract, but
+happily I was too ill to leave my bed; not only was my arm very painful,
+but I was suffering from the shock of the fall. What an hour of misery I
+passed before Mlle. de Porhoet-Gael appeared with the news of what had
+happened! Her sweet, kind old eyes were bright with joy.
+
+"It is all over," she said. "Bévallan has gone, and young Hélouin has
+also been turned out of the house."
+
+I started up with surprise.
+
+"Yes," she continued, with a smile, "the contract has not been signed.
+Our friend Laubépin drew it up in such a way that the husband was not
+able to touch a penny of the wife's money. M. Bévallan objected to this;
+while he and his lawyer were arguing the matter with Laubépin,
+Marguerite rose up.
+
+"'Throw the contract in the fire,' she said, 'and, mother, give this
+gentleman back the presents he sent to me.'
+
+"Laubépin threw the deed in the flames, and Marguerite and her mother
+walked out of the room.
+
+"'What is the meaning of this?' cried Bévallan.
+
+"'I will tell you,' I answered. 'A certain young lady was afraid that
+you were merely a fortune-hunter. She wanted to be certain of it, and
+now she is so.'
+
+"Thereupon I, too, left the room.
+
+"But what is the matter with you, my dear boy? You are as pale as a
+corpse."
+
+The fact was that the unexpected news aroused in me such a mixture of
+joyful and painful feelings that I fell back in a swoon. When I
+recovered, dear old Laubépin was standing by my bed.
+
+"Will you not confide in me, my boy?" he said rather sadly. "Something,
+I can see, has happened which has made you miserable on the very day on
+which you should be full of joy. What is it?"
+
+Moved by his sympathy, I gave him this diary to read, and poured out my
+very soul to him.
+
+"It is useless for me," he said at last, "to conceal from you the fact
+that I sent you here with the design to marry you to Marguerite.
+Everything at first went as well as I could wish, and Madame Laroque was
+delighted with the match. You and Marguerite were made for each other,
+and you fell in love almost at first sight. But this affair at the
+Castle of Elven is something I had not reckoned on. To leap out of the
+window at the risk of breaking your neck was, my romantic young friend,
+a sufficient demonstration of your disinterestedness. You need not have
+taken a solemn oath never to marry Marguerite until you were as rich as
+she is. What can you do now? You cannot forswear yourself, and you
+cannot suddenly make an immense fortune."
+
+"I must depart with you," I said very sorrowfully. "There is no other
+way."
+
+"No, Maxime," he replied, "you are too unwell to move. Remain here for
+one month longer; then, if you do not hear from me, return to Paris."
+
+It is now a week since he left me, and I have seen no one for the last
+seven days but the servant who waits upon me. He tells me that Laroque
+has died, and that Marguerite and her mother, who have been tending him
+night and day, have worn themselves out, and are now laid up with some
+sort of fever. Mlle. de Porhoet is also very ill, and not expected to
+live. Since I am well enough to walk over to Mlle. de Porhoet. I am told
+that she keeps asking to see me.
+
+
+_V.--Two in a Garden_
+
+
+The little maid who came to open the door was weeping, and as I came in
+I was surprised to hear the voice of Laubépin.
+
+"It is Maxime, Marguerite," he said.
+
+Had Marguerite also risen up from a bed of sickness to see Mlle. de
+Porhoet? I sprang up the stairs, and entered the room.
+
+"My poor, dear boy!" said Mlle. de Porhoet, in a strange, broken voice.
+
+She was lying in bed. Laubépin, a priest, and a doctor were standing on
+one side, and Marguerite and her mother were kneeling down in prayer on
+the other. I saw at once that she was at the point of death, and knelt
+down beside Marguerite. The poor dying woman smiled faintly, and groped
+for my hand and put it in Marguerite's, and then fell back on the
+pillow. She was dead.
+
+Laubépin led me out of the room, and put a document in my hand. It was a
+will, and the ink on it was hardly dry. Mlle. de Porhoet had made me her
+heir.
+
+"How good of her!" I said to Laubépin. "I shall treasure her testament
+as a mark of her love for me. I will settle her little estate on my
+sister. It will at least keep Hélène from having to go out into the
+world as a governess."
+
+"And it will keep you, my friend, from having to go out into the world
+as a steward," said Laubépin, with a smile. "Don't you remember that
+document about the Spanish succession which you discovered and sent to
+me? We have won the law-suit, and you are the heir to an estate in Spain
+which will make you one of the richest men in France."
+
+I went into the garden to think over my strange fortune. How long I sat
+there in the darkness I do not know. On rising up, I heard a faint sound
+beneath one of the trees, and a beloved form emerged from the foliage,
+and stood against the starry sky.
+
+"Marguerite!" I cried, running up to her with outstretched arm.
+
+She murmured my name, and as I clasped her her lips sought mine, and we
+poured our souls out in a kiss.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+I have given Hélène half of my fortune. Marguerite is my wife, and I
+close these pages for ever, having nothing more to confide to them. It
+can be said of men, as it has been said of nations, "Happy are those
+that have no story."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+HENRY FIELDING
+
+
+Amelia
+
+     Henry Fielding was born at Sharpham Park, near Glastonbury,
+     England, April 12, 1707. His father, a grandson of the Earl of
+     Desmond, and great-grandson of the first Earl of Denbigh,
+     settled in England shortly after the battle of Ramillies as a
+     country squire. In due course, Fielding was sent to Eton, and
+     afterwards to Leyden, where he remained for two years studying
+     civil law. Financial difficulties, however, put a temporary
+     end to his intention of entering the Bar, and in 1727 he
+     solved the problem of a career by beginning to write for the
+     stage. During the next nine years some eighteen of his plays
+     were produced. In 1748 he was appointed a justice of peace for
+     Westminster, and his writings on police and crime are of
+     interest to this day. "Amelia" was published in 1751, when its
+     author was a magistrate at Bow Street. In a dedicatory letter,
+     Fielding explained that the book was "sincerely designed to
+     promote the cause of virtue, and to expose some of the most
+     glaring evils, as well public as private, which at present
+     infest the country." The licentiousness of wealthy "men about
+     town," the corruption of justice, the abuses of the prison
+     system, the lack of honour concerning marriage--these are some
+     of the "glaring evils" exposed with all the great novelist's
+     power in "Amelia." In the characters of Dr. Harrison and
+     Amelia herself, the virtuous man and woman are drawn so
+     clearly that they inevitably win the reader's sympathy.
+     "Amelia" does not equal the genius of "Tom Jones," but it is
+     remarkable for being so largely devoted to the adventures of a
+     married couple, instead of ending at marriage. Fielding died
+     on October 8, 1754.
+
+
+_I.--The Inside of a Prison_
+
+
+On the first of April, in the year--, the watchmen of a certain parish
+in Westminster brought several persons, whom they had apprehended the
+preceding night, before Jonathan Thrasher, Esq., one of the justices of
+the peace for that city.
+
+Among the prisoners a young fellow, whose name was Booth, was charged
+with beating the watchman in the execution of his office, and breaking
+his lantern. The justice perceiving the criminal to be but shabbily
+dressed, was going to commit him without asking any further questions,
+but at the earnest request of the accused the worthy magistrate
+submitted to hear his defence.
+
+The young man then alleged that as he was walking home to his lodgings
+he saw two men in the street cruelly beating a third, upon which he had
+stopped and endeavoured to assist the person who was so unequally
+attacked; that the watch came up during the affray, and took them all
+four into custody; that they were immediately carried to the
+round-house, where the two original assailants found means to make up
+the matter, and were discharged by the constable, a favour which he
+himself, having no money in his pocket, was unable to obtain. He utterly
+denied having assaulted any of the watchmen, and solemnly declared that
+he was offered his liberty at the price of half a crown.
+
+Though the bare word of an offender can never be taken against the oath
+of his accuser, yet the magistrate might have employed some labour in
+cross-examining the watchman, or at least have given the defendant time
+to send for the other persons who were present at the affray; neither of
+which he did.
+
+Booth and the poor man in whose defence he had been engaged were both
+dispatched to prison under a guard of watchmen.
+
+Mr. Booth was no sooner arrived in the prison than a number of persons
+gathered around him, all demanding garnish. The master or keeper of the
+prison then acquainted him that it was the custom of the place for every
+prisoner, upon his first arrival there, to give something to the former
+prisoners to make them drink. This was what they called garnish. Mr.
+Booth answered that he would readily comply with this laudable custom,
+were it in his power; but that in reality he had not a shilling in his
+pocket, and, what was worse, he had not a shilling in the world. Upon
+which the keeper departed, and left poor Booth to the mercy of his
+companions, who, without loss of time, stripped him of his coat and hid
+it.
+
+Mr. Booth was too weak to resist and too wise to complain of his usage.
+He summoned his philosophy to his assistance, and resolved to make
+himself as easy as possible under his present circumstances.
+
+On the following day, Miss Matthews, an old acquaintance whom he had not
+seen for some years, was brought into the prison, and Booth was shortly
+afterwards invited to the room this lady had engaged. Miss Matthews,
+having told her story, requested Booth to do the same, and to this he
+acceded.
+
+
+_II.--Captain Booth Tells His Story_
+
+
+"From the first I was in love with Amelia; but my own fortune was so
+desperate, and hers was entirely dependent on her mother, a woman of
+violent passions, and very unlikely to consent to a match so highly
+contrary to the interest of her daughter, that I endeavoured to refrain
+from any proposal of love. I had nothing more than the poor provision of
+an ensign's commission to depend on, and the thought of leaving my
+Amelia to starve alone, deprived of her mother's help, was intolerable
+to me.
+
+"In spite of this I could not keep from telling Amelia the state of my
+heart, and I soon found all that return of my affection which the
+tenderest lover can require. Against the opposition of Amelia's mother,
+Mrs. Harris, to our engagement, we had the support of that good man, Dr.
+Harrison, the rector; and at last Mrs. Harris yielded to the doctor, and
+we were married. There was an agreement that I should settle all my
+Amelia's fortune on her, except a certain sum, which was to be laid out
+in my advancement in the army, and shortly afterwards I was preferred to
+the rank of a lieutenant in my regiment, and ordered to Gibraltar. I
+noticed that Amelia's sister, Miss Betty, who had said many ill-natured
+things of our marriage, now again became my friend.
+
+"At the siege of Gibraltar I was very badly wounded, and in this
+situation the image of my Amelia haunted me day and night. Two months
+and more I continued in a state of uncertainty; when one afternoon poor
+Atkinson, my servant, came running to my room. I asked him what was the
+matter, when Amelia herself rushed into the room, and ran hastily to me.
+She gently chided me for concealing my illness from her, saying, 'Oh,
+Mr. Booth! And do you think so little of your Amelia as to think I could
+or would survive you?' Amelia then informed me that she had received a
+letter from an unknown hand, acquainting her with my misfortune, and
+advising her, if she desired to see me more, to come directly to
+Gibraltar.
+
+"From the time of Amelia's arrival nothing remarkable happened till my
+perfect recovery; and then the siege being at an end, and Amelia being
+in some sort of fever, the governor gave me leave to attend my wife to
+Montpelier, the air of which was judged to be most likely to restore her
+to health.
+
+"A fellow-officer, Captain James, willingly lent me money, and, after an
+ample recovery at Montpelier, and a stay in Paris, we returned to
+England. It was in Paris we received a long letter from Dr. Harrison,
+enclosing £100, and containing the news that Mrs. Harris was dead, and
+had left her whole fortune to Miss Betty. So now it was that I was a
+married man with children, and the half-pay of a lieutenant.
+
+"Dr. Harrison, at whose rectory we were staying, came to our assistance.
+He asked me if I had any prospect of going again into the army; if not,
+what scheme of life I proposed to myself.
+
+"I told him that as I had no powerful friends, I could have but little
+expectations in a military way; that I was incapable of thinking of any
+other scheme, for I was without the necessary knowledge or experience,
+and was likewise destitute of money to set up with.
+
+"The doctor, after a little hesitation, said he had been thinking on
+this subject, and proposed to me to turn farmer. At the same time he
+offered to let me his parsonage, which was then become vacant; he said
+it was a farm which required but little stock, and that little should
+not be wanting.
+
+"I embraced this offer very eagerly, and Amelia received the news with
+the highest transports of joy. Thus, you see me degraded from my former
+rank in life; no longer Captain Booth, but Farmer Booth.
+
+"For a year all went well; love, health, and tranquillity filled our
+lives. Then a heavy blow befell us, and we were robbed of our dear
+friend the doctor, who was chosen to attend the young lord, the son of
+the patron of the living, in his travels as a tutor.
+
+"By this means I was bereft not only of the best companion in the world,
+but of the best counsellor, and in consequence of this loss I fell into
+many errors.
+
+"The first of these was in enlarging my business by adding a farm of one
+hundred a year to the parsonage, in renting which I had also as bad a
+bargain as the doctor had before given me a good one. The consequence of
+which was that whereas at the end of the first year I was £80 to the
+good, at the end of the second I was nearly £40 to the bad.
+
+"A second folly I was guilty of was in uniting families with the curate
+of the parish, who had just married. We had not, however, lived one
+month together before I plainly perceived the curate's wife had taken a
+great prejudice against my wife, though my Amelia had treated her with
+nothing but kindness, and, with the mischievous nature of envy, spread
+dislike against us.
+
+"My greatest folly, however, was the purchase of an old coach. The
+farmers and their wives considered that the setting up of a coach was
+the elevating ourselves above them, and immediately began to declare war
+against us. The neighbouring little squires, too, were uneasy to see a
+poor renter become their equal in a matter in which they placed so much
+dignity, and began to hate me likewise.
+
+"My neighbours now began to conspire against me. Whatever I bought, I
+was sure to buy dearer, and when I sold, I was obliged to sell cheaper
+than any other. In fact, they were all united; and while they every day
+committed trespasses on my lands with impunity, if any of my cattle
+escaped into their fields I was either forced to enter into a law-suit
+or to make amends for the damage sustained.
+
+"The consequence of all this could be no other than ruin. Before the end
+of four years I became involved in debt to the extent of £300. My
+landlord seized my stock for rent, and, to avoid immediate confinement
+in prison, I was forced to leave the country.
+
+"In this condition I arrived in town a week ago. I had just taken a
+lodging, and had written my dear Amelia word where she might find me;
+and that very evening, as I was returning from a coffee-house, because I
+endeavoured to assist the injured party in an affray, I was seized by
+the watch and committed here by a justice of the peace."
+
+
+_III.--Amelia in London_
+
+
+Miss Matthews, being greatly drawn to Captain Booth, procured his
+discharge by the expenditure of £20, and obtained her own release at the
+same time.
+
+Amelia arrived in London to receive her husband in her arms. "For," said
+she, "your confinement was known all over the county, my sister having
+spread the news with a malicious joy; and so, not hearing from you, I
+hastened to town with our children."
+
+Poor Booth, in spite of his release, was very cast down. Seeing tears in
+his eyes at the sight of his children, Amelia, embracing him with
+rapturous fondness, cried out, "My dear Billy, let nothing make you
+uneasy. Heaven will provide for us and these poor babes. Great fortunes
+are not necessary to happiness. Make yourself easy, my dear love, for
+you have a wife who will think herself happy with you, and endeavour to
+make you so, in any situation. Fear nothing, Billy; industry will always
+provide us a wholesome meal."
+
+Booth, who was naturally of a sanguine temper, took the cue she had
+given him, but he could not help reproaching himself as the cause of all
+her wretchedness. This it was that enervated his heart and threw him
+into agonies, which all that profusion of heroic tenderness that the
+most excellent of women intended for his comfort served only to heighten
+and aggravate: as the more she rose in his admiration, the more she
+quickened the sense of his unworthiness.
+
+His affairs did not prosper; in vain he solicited a commission in the
+army. With no great man to back him, and with his friend, Captain James
+(now a colonel, and in London), too taken up with his own affairs to
+exert any influence on behalf of Booth, it seemed as though no escape
+from misery was possible. The beautiful Amelia, always patient and
+cheerful, remained his comforter. And Atkinson, now a sergeant in the
+guards, was the devoted servant of both Amelia and her husband.
+
+Then one morning, when Amelia was out, Booth was arrested for debt and
+carried to the bailiff's house in Gray's Inn Lane.
+
+"Who has done this barbarous action?" cries Amelia, when the news is
+told her by Sergeant Atkinson.
+
+"One I am ashamed to name," cries the sergeant; "indeed, I had always a
+very different opinion of him; but Dr. Harrison is the man who has done
+the deed."
+
+"Dr. Harrison!" cries Amelia. "Well, then, there is an end of all
+goodness in the world. I will never have a good opinion of any human
+being more!"
+
+The fact was that while the doctor was abroad he had received from the
+curate, and from a gentleman of the neighbourhood, accounts of Booth's
+doings very much to his disadvantage. On his return to the parish these
+accusations were confirmed by many witnesses, and the whole
+neighbourhood rang with several gross and scandalous lies, which were
+merely the inventions of Booth's enemies. Poisoned with all this malice,
+the doctor came to London, and calling at Booth's lodgings, when both
+the captain and Amelia were out, learnt from the servant-maid that the
+children had got a gold watch and several fine trinkets. These presents,
+indeed, had come from a certain noble lord, who hoped by these means to
+win Amelia's affection; but no suspicion of his evil desire had entered
+the innocent mind of Amelia.
+
+The doctor had no doubt that these trinkets had been purchased by
+Amelia; and this account tallied so well with the ideas he had imbibed
+of Booth's extravagance in the country, that he firmly believed both the
+husband and wife to be the vainest, silliest and most unjust people
+alive.
+
+But no sooner did the doctor hear that Booth was arrested than the
+wretched condition of his wife and children began to affect his mind. In
+this temper of mind he resolved to pay Amelia a second visit, and was on
+his way thither when Sergeant Atkinson met him, and made himself known
+to him.
+
+The doctor received from Atkinson such an account of Booth and his
+family that he hastened at once to Amelia, and soon became satisfied
+concerning the trinkets which had given him so much uneasiness. Amelia
+likewise gave the doctor some satisfaction as to what he had heard of
+her husband's behaviour In the country, and assured him, upon her
+honour, that Booth could answer every complaint against his conduct, so
+that the doctor would find him an innocent, unfortunate man, the object
+of a good man's compassion, not of his anger or resentment.
+
+This worthy clergyman, who was not desirous of finding proofs to condemn
+the captain, rejoiced heartily in every piece of evidence which tended
+to clear up the character of his friend, and gave a ready ear to all
+which Amelia said.
+
+Induced, indeed, by the love he always had for that lady, whom he was
+wont to call his daughter, as well as by pity for her present condition,
+the doctor immediately endeavoured to comfort the afflicted, and then
+proceeded to accomplish the captain's release.
+
+"So, captain," says the doctor, on arrival at the bailiff's house, "when
+last we met I believe that we neither of us expected to meet in such a
+place as this."
+
+"Indeed, doctor," cries Booth, "I did not expect to have been sent
+hither by the gentleman who did me this favour."
+
+"How so, sir!" said the doctor. "You were sent hither by some person, I
+suppose, to whom you were indebted. But you ought to be more surprised
+that the gentleman who sent you thither is come to release you."
+
+
+_IV.--Fortune Smiles on Amelia_
+
+
+Booth was again arrested some months later, and lodged in the bailiff's
+house. This time his creditor was a Captain Trent, who had lent him
+money, and promised him assistance in getting returned to the army. In
+reality, Trent was only seeking to ingratiate himself with Amelia, and
+meeting with no encouragement, took his revenge accordingly.
+
+Amelia at once sought out Dr. Harrison, and told him what had occurred
+to her husband; and the doctor set forwards to the bailiff's to see what
+he could do for Booth.
+
+The doctor had not got so much money in town as Booth's debt amounted
+to, and therefore he was forced to give bail to the action.
+
+While the necessary forms were being made out, the bailiff, addressing
+himself to the doctor, said, "Sir, there is a man above in a dying
+condition that desires the favour of speaking to you. I believe he wants
+you to pray by him."
+
+Without making any further inquiry, the doctor immediately went
+upstairs.
+
+The sick man mentioned his name, and explained that he lived for many
+years in the town where the doctor resided, and that he used to write
+for the attorneys in those parts. He was anxious, he said, as he hoped
+for forgiveness, to make all the amends he could to some one he had
+injured, and to undo, if possible, the injury he had done.
+
+The doctor commended this as a sincere repentance.
+
+"You know, good doctor," the sick man resumed, "that Mrs. Harris, of our
+town, had two daughters--one now Mrs. Booth, and another. Before Mrs.
+Harris died, she made a will, and left all her fortune, except £1,000,
+to Mrs. Booth, to which will Mr. Murphy, the lawyer, myself, and another
+were witnesses. Mrs. Harris afterwards died suddenly, upon which it was
+contrived, by her other daughter and Mr. Murphy, to make a new will, in
+which Mrs. Booth had a legacy of £10, and all the rest was given to the
+other."
+
+"Good heaven, how wonderful is thy providence!" cries the doctor.
+"Murphy, say you? Why, this Murphy is still my attorney."
+
+Within a short time Murphy was arrested, and the sick man's depositions
+taken. Booth was released on the doctor's bail, and on the following
+morning Amelia learnt of the change in fortune that had befallen them.
+
+Dr. Harrison himself broke the good news by reading the following
+paragraph from the newspaper.
+
+"Yesterday, one Murphy, an eminent attorney-at-law, was committed to
+Newgate for the forgery of a will, under which an estate has been for
+many years detained from the right owner."
+
+"Now," said the doctor, "in this paragraph there is something very
+remarkable, and that is that it is true. But now let us read the
+following note upon the words 'right owner.' 'The right owner of this
+estate is a young lady of the highest merit, whose maiden name was
+Harris, and who some time since was married to an idle fellow, one
+Lieutenant Booth; and the best historians assure us that letters from
+the elder sister of this lady, which manifestly prove the forgery and
+clear up the whole affair, are in the hands of an old parson, called Dr.
+Harrison.'"
+
+"And is this really true?" cries Amelia.
+
+"Yes, really and sincerely," cries the doctor, "the whole estate--for
+your mother left it you all; and it is as surely yours as if you were
+already in possession."
+
+"Gracious heaven!" cries she, falling on her knees, "I thank you!" And
+then, starting up, she ran to her husband, and embracing him, cried, "My
+dear love, I wish you joy! It is upon yours and my children's account
+that I principally rejoice."
+
+She then desired her children to be brought to her, whom she immediately
+caught in her arms; and having profusely cried over them, soon regained
+her usual temper and complexion.
+
+Miss Harris, having received a letter from Amelia, informing her of the
+discovery and the danger in which she stood, immediately set out for
+France, carrying with her all her money, most of her clothes, and some
+few jewels.
+
+About a week afterwards, Booth and Amelia, with their children, and
+Atkinson and his wife, all set forward together for Amelia's house,
+where they arrived amidst the acclamations of all the neighbours, and
+every public demonstration of joy.
+
+Miss Harris lived for three years with a broken heart at Boulogne, where
+she received annually £50 from her sister; and then died in a most
+miserable manner.
+
+Dr. Harrison is grown old in years and in honour, beloved and respected
+by all his parishioners and neighbours.
+
+As to Booth and Amelia, fortune seems to have made them large amends for
+the tricks she played them in their youth. They have continued to enjoy
+an uninterrupted course of health and happiness. In about six weeks
+after Booth's first coming into the country, he went to London and paid
+all his debts, after which, and a stay of two days only, he returned
+into the country, and has never since been thirty miles from home.
+
+Amelia is still the finest woman in England of her age; Booth himself
+often avers she is as handsome as ever. Nothing can equal the serenity
+of their lives.
+
+Amelia declared the other day that she did not remember to have seen her
+husband out of humour these ten years!
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+Jonathan Wild
+
+
+     "Jonathan Wild," published in 1743, is in many respects
+     Fielding's most powerful piece of satire, surpassed only,
+     perhaps, by Thackeray's "Barry Lyndon." It can hardly be
+     called a novel, and still less a serious biography, though it
+     is founded on the real history of a notorious highway robber
+     and thief. The author disclaimed in his preface any attempt on
+     his part at authentic history or faithful portraiture.
+     "Roguery, and not a rogue is my subject," he wrote; adding,
+     that the ideas of goodness and greatness are too often
+     confounded together. "A man may be great without being good,
+     or good without being great." The story of "Jonathan Wild" is
+     really a bitter, satirical attack on what Fielding called "the
+     greatness which is totally devoid of goodness." He avowed it
+     his intention "to expose the character of this bombast
+     greatness," and no one can deny the success of his
+     achievement. Surely no story was ever written under more
+     desperate circumstances. The evils of poverty, which at this
+     period were at their height, were aggravated by the serious
+     illness of his wife, and his own sufferings from attacks of
+     gout. These troubles and others may well increase our
+     admiration for the genius which, in the face of all
+     difficulties, is shown in "Jonathan Wild."
+
+
+_I.--Mr. Wild's Early Exploits_
+
+
+Mr. Jonathan Wild, who was descended from a long line of great men, was
+born in 1665. His father followed the fortunes of Mr. Snap, who enjoyed
+a reputable office under the sheriff of London and Middlesex; and his
+mother was the daughter of Scragg Hollow, Esq., of Hockley-in-the-Hole.
+He was scarce settled at school before he gave marks of his lofty and
+aspiring temper, and was regarded by his schoolfellows with that
+deference which men generally pay to those superior geniuses who will
+exact it of them. If an orchard was to be robbed, Wild was consulted;
+and though he was himself seldom concerned in the execution of the
+design, yet was he always concerter of it, and treasurer of the booty,
+some little part of which he would now and then, with wonderful
+generosity, bestow on those who took it. He was generally very secret on
+these occasions; but if any offered to plunder of his own head without
+acquainting Master Wild, and making a deposit of the booty, he was sure
+to have an information against him lodged with the schoolmaster, and to
+be severely punished for his pains.
+
+At the age of seventeen his father brought the young gentleman to town,
+where he resided with him till he was of an age to travel.
+
+Men of great genius as easily discover one another as Freemasons can. It
+was therefore no wonder that the Count la Ruse--who was confined in Mr.
+Snap's house until the day when he should appear in court to answer a
+certain creditor--soon conceived an inclination to an intimacy with our
+young hero, whose vast abilities could not be concealed from one of the
+count's discernment; for though the latter was exceedingly expert at his
+cards, he was no match for Master Wild, who never failed to send him
+away from the table with less in his pocket than he brought to it. With
+so much ingenuity, indeed, could our young hero extract a purse, that
+his hands made frequent visits to the count's pocket before the latter
+had entertained any suspicion of him. But one night, when Wild imagined
+the count asleep, he made so unguarded an attack upon him that the other
+caught him in the act. However, he did not think proper to acquaint him
+with the discovery he had made, but only took care for the future to
+button his pockets and to pack the cards with double industry.
+
+In reality, this detection recommended these two prigs to each other,
+for a wise man--that is to say, a rogue--considers a trick in life as a
+gamester doth a trick at play. It sets him on his guard, but he admires
+the dexterity of him who plays it.
+
+When our two friends met the next morning, the count began to bewail the
+misfortune of his captivity, and the backwardness of friends to assist
+each other in their necessities.
+
+Wild told him that bribery was the surest means of procuring his escape,
+and advised him to apply to the maid, telling him at the same time that
+as he had no money he must make it up with promises, which he would know
+how to put off.
+
+The maid only consented to leave the door open when Wild, depositing a
+guinea in the girl's hands, declared that he himself would swear that he
+saw the count descending from the window by a pair of sheets.
+
+Thus did our young hero not only lend his rhetoric, which few people
+care to do without a fee, but his money too, to procure liberty for his
+friend. At the same time it would be highly derogatory from the great
+character of Wild should the reader not understand that this was done
+because our hero had some interested view in the count's enlargement.
+
+Intimacy and friendship subsisted between the count and Mr. Wild, and
+the latter, now dressed in good clothes, was introduced into the best
+company. They constantly frequented the assemblies, auctions, gaming-
+tables, and play-houses, and Wild passed for a gentleman of great
+fortune.
+
+It was then that an accident occurred that obliged Wild to go abroad for
+seven years to his majesty's plantations in America; and there are such
+various accounts, one of which only can be true, of this accident that
+we shall pass them all over. It is enough that Wild went abroad, and
+stayed seven years.
+
+
+_II.--An Example of Wild's Greatness_
+
+
+The count was one night very successful at the gaming-table, where Wild,
+who was just returned from his travels, was then present; as was
+likewise a young gentleman whose name was Bob Bagshot, an acquaintance
+of Mr. Wild's. Taking, therefore, Mr. Bagshot aside, he advised him to
+provide himself with a case of pistols, and to attack the count on his
+way home.
+
+This was accordingly executed, and the count obliged to surrender to
+savage force what he had in so genteel a manner taken at play. As one
+misfortune never comes alone, the count had hardly passed the
+examination of Mr. Bagshot when he fell into the hands of Mr. Snap, who
+carried him to his house.
+
+Mr. Wild and Mr. Bagshot went together to the tavern, where Mr. Bagshot
+offered to share the booty. Having divided the money into two unequal
+heaps, and added a golden snuffbox to the lesser heap, he desired Mr.
+Wild to take his choice.
+
+Mr. Wild immediately conveyed the larger share of the ready into his
+pocket, according to an excellent maxim of his--"First secure what share
+you can before you wrangle for the rest"; and then, turning to his
+companion, he asked him whether he intended to keep all that sum
+himself. "I grant you took it," Wild said; "but, pray, who proposed or
+counselled the taking of it? Can you say that you have done more than
+execute my scheme? The ploughman, the shepherd, the weaver, the builder,
+and the soldier work not for themselves, but others; they are contented
+with a poor pittance--the labourer's hire--and permit us, the great, to
+enjoy the fruits of their labours. Why, then, should the state of a prig
+differ from all others? Or why should you, who are the labourer only,
+the executor of my scheme, expect a share in the profit? Be advised,
+therefore; deliver the whole booty to me, and trust to my bounty for
+your reward."
+
+Mr. Bagshot not being minded to yield to these arguments, Wild adopted a
+fiercer tone, and the other was glad to let him borrow a part of his
+share. So that Wild got three-fourths of the whole before taking leave
+of his companion.
+
+Wild then returned to visit his friend the count, now in captivity at
+Mr. Snap's; for our hero was none of those half-bred fellows who are
+ashamed to see their friends when they have plundered and betrayed them.
+
+The count, little suspecting that Wild had been the sole contriver of
+the misfortune which had befallen him, eagerly embraced him, and Wild
+returned his embrace with equal warmth.
+
+While they were discoursing, Mr. Snap introduced Mr. Bagshot; for Mr.
+Bagshot had lost what money he had from Mr. Wild at a gaming-table, and
+was directly afterwards arrested for debt. Mr. Wild no sooner saw his
+friend than he immediately presented him to the count, who received him
+with great civility. But no sooner was Mr. Bagshot out of the room than
+the count said to Wild, "I am very well convinced that Bagshot is the
+person who robbed me, and I will apply to a justice of the peace."
+
+Wild replied with indignation that Mr. Bagshot was a man of honour, but,
+as this had no weight with the count, he went on, more vehemently, "I am
+ashamed of my own discernment when I mistook you for a great man.
+Prosecute him, and you may promise yourself to be blown up at every
+gaming-house in the town. But leave the affair to me, and if I find he
+hath played you this trick, I will engage my own honour you shall in the
+end be no loser." The count answered, "If I was sure to be no loser, Mr.
+Wild, I apprehend you have a better opinion of my understanding than to
+imagine I would prosecute a gentleman for the sake of the public."
+
+Wild having determined to make use of Bagshot as long as he could, and
+then send him to be hanged, went to Bagshot next day and told him the
+count knew all, and intended to prosecute him, and the only thing to be
+done was to refund the money.
+
+"Refund the money!" cried Bagshot. "Why, you know what small part of it
+fell to my share!"
+
+"How?" replied Wild. "Is this your gratitude to me for saving your life?
+For your own conscience must convince you of your guilt."
+
+"Marry come up!" quoth Bagshot. "I believe my life alone will not be in
+danger. Can you deny your share?"
+
+"Yes, you rascal!" answered Wild. "I do deny everything, and do you find
+a witness to prove it. I will show you the difference between committing
+a robbery and conniving at it."
+
+So alarmed was Bagshot at the threats of Wild that he drew forth all he
+found in his pockets, to the amount of twenty-one guineas, which he had
+just gained at dice.
+
+Wild now returned to the count, and informed him that he had got ten
+guineas of Bagshot, and by these means the count was once more enlarged,
+and enabled to carry out a new plan of the great Wild.
+
+
+_III.--Mr. Heartfree's Weakness_
+
+
+By accident, Wild had met with a young fellow who had formerly been his
+companion at school.
+
+Mr. Thomas Heartfree (for that was his name) was of an honest and open
+disposition. He was possessed of several great weaknesses of mind, being
+good-natured, friendly, and generous to a great excess.
+
+This young man, who was about Wild's age, had some time before set up in
+the trade of a jeweller, in the materials for which he had laid out the
+greatest part of a little fortune.
+
+He no sooner recognised Wild than he accosted him in the most friendly
+manner, and invited him home with him to breakfast, which invitation our
+hero, with no great difficulty, consented to.
+
+Wild, after vehement professions of friendship, then told him he had an
+opportunity of recommending a gentleman, on the brink of marriage, to
+his custom, "and," says he, "I will endeavour to prevail on him to
+furnish his lady with jewels at your shop."
+
+Having parted from Heartfree, Wild sought out the count, who, in order
+to procure credit from tradesmen, had taken a handsome house,
+ready-furnished, in one of the new streets. He instructed the count to
+take only one of Heartfree's jewels at the first interview, to reject
+the rest as not fine enough, and order him to provide some richer. The
+count was then to dispose of the jewel, and by means of that money, and
+his great abilities at cards and dice, to get together as large a sum as
+possible, which he was to pay down to Heartfree at the delivery of the
+set of jewels.
+
+This method was immediately put in execution; and the count, the first
+day, took only a single brilliant, worth about £300, and ordered a
+necklace and earrings, of the value of £3,000 more, to be prepared by
+that day week.
+
+This interval was employed by Wild in raising a gang, and within a few
+days he had levied several bold and resolute fellows, fit for any
+enterprise, how dangerous or great soever.
+
+The count disposed of his jewel for its full value, and by his dexterity
+raised £1,000. This sum he paid down to Heartfree at the end of the
+week, and promised him the rest within a month. Heartfree did not in the
+least scruple giving him credit, but as he had in reality procured those
+jewels of another, his own little stock not being able to furnish
+anything so valuable. The count, in addition to the £1,000 in gold, gave
+him his note for £2,800 more.
+
+As soon as Heartfree was departed, Wild came in and received the casket
+from the count, and an appointment was made to meet the next morning to
+come to a division of its contents.
+
+Two gentlemen of resolution, in the meantime, attacked Heartfree on his
+way home, according to Wild's orders, and spoiled the enemy of the whole
+sum he had received from the count. According to agreement, Wild, who
+had made haste to overtake the conquerors, took nine-tenths of the
+booty, but was himself robbed of this £900 before nightfall.
+
+As for the casket, when he opened it, the stones were but paste. For the
+sagacious count had conveyed the jewels into his own pocket, and in
+their stead had placed artificial stones. On Wild's departure the count
+hastened out of London, and was well on his way to Dover when Wild
+knocked at his door.
+
+Heartfree, wounded and robbed, had only the count's note left, and this
+was returned to him as worthless, inquiries having proved that the count
+had run away. So confused was poor Heartfree at this that his creditor
+for the jewels was frightened, and at once had him arrested for the
+debt.
+
+Heartfree applied in vain for money to numerous customers who were
+indebted to him; they all replied with various excuses, and the unhappy
+wretch was soon taken to Newgate. He had been inclined to blame Wild for
+his misfortunes, but our hero boldly attacked him for giving credit to
+the count, and this degree of impudence convinced both Heartfree and his
+wife of Wild's innocence, the more so as the latter promised to procure
+bail for his friend. In this he was unsuccessful, and it was long before
+Heartfree was released and restored to happiness.
+
+
+_IV.--The Highest Pinnacle of Greatness_
+
+
+Wild was a living instance that human greatness and happiness are not
+always inseparable. He was under a continual alarm of frights and fears
+and jealousies, and was thoroughly convinced there was not a single man
+amongst his own gang who would not, for the value of five shillings,
+bring him to the gallows.
+
+A clause in an act of parliament procured by a learned judge entrapped
+Wild. Hitherto he had always employed less gifted men to carry out his
+plans. Now, by this law it was made capital in a prig to steal with the
+hands of other people, and it was impossible for our hero to avoid the
+destruction so plainly calculated for his greatness.
+
+Wild, having received from some dutiful members of his gang a valuable
+piece of goods, did, for a consideration, re-convey it to the right
+owner, for which fact, being ungratefully informed against by the said
+owner, he was surprised in his own house, and, being overpowered by
+numbers, was hurried before a magistrate, and by him committed to
+Newgate.
+
+When the day of his trial arrived, our hero was, notwithstanding his
+utmost caution and prudence, convicted and sentenced to be hanged by the
+neck. He now suspected that the malice of his enemies would overpower
+him, and therefore betook himself to that true support of greatness in
+affliction--a bottle, by means of which he was enabled to curse, swear,
+and bully, and brave his fate. Other comfort, indeed, he had not much,
+for not a single friend ever came near him.
+
+From the time our hero gave over all hopes of life, his conduct was
+truly great and admirable. Instead of showing any marks of contrition or
+dejection, he rather infused more confidence and assurance into his
+looks. He spent most of his hours in drinking with acquaintances, and
+with the good chaplain; and being asked whether he was afraid to die, he
+answered, "It's only a dance without music. A man can die but once.
+Zounds! Who's afraid?"
+
+At length the morning came which Fortune had resolutely ordained for the
+consummation of our hero's greatness; he had himself, indeed, modestly
+declined the public honour she intended him, and had taken a quantity of
+laudanum in order to retire quietly off the stage. But it is vain to
+struggle against the decrees of fortune, and the laudanum proved
+insufficient to stop his breath.
+
+At the usual hour he was acquainted that the cart was ready, and his
+fetters having been knocked off in a solemn and ceremonious manner,
+after drinking a bumper of brandy, he ascended the cart, where he was no
+sooner seated than he received the acclamations of the multitude, who
+were highly ravished with his greatness.
+
+The cart now moved slowly on, preceded by a troop of Horse Guards,
+bearing javelins in their hands, through the streets lined with crowds
+all admiring the great behaviour of our hero, who rode on, sometimes
+sighing, sometimes swearing, sometimes singing or whistling, as his
+humour varied.
+
+When he came to the tree of glory, he was welcomed with an universal
+shout of the people; but there were not wanting some who maligned this
+completion of glory, now about to be fulfilled by our hero, and
+endeavoured to prevent it by knocking him on the head as he stood under
+the tree, while the chaplain was performing his last office.
+
+They therefore began to batter the cart with stones, brick-bats, dirt,
+and all manner of mischievous weapons, so that the ecclesiastic ended
+almost in an instant, and conveyed himself into a place of safety in a
+hackney coach.
+
+One circumstance must not be omitted. Whilst the chaplain was busy in
+his ejaculations, Wild, in the midst of the shower of stones, etc.,
+which played upon him, true to his character, applied his hands to the
+parson's pocket, and emptied it of his bottle-screw, which he carried
+out of the world in his hand.
+
+The chaplain being now descended from the cart, Wild had just
+opportunity to cast his eyes around the crowd, and to give them a hearty
+curse, when immediately the horses moved on, and, with universal
+applause, our hero swung out of this world.
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+Joseph Andrews
+
+
+     "Joseph Andrews," Fielding's first novel, was published in
+     1742, and was intended to be a satire on Richardson's "Pamela"
+     (see Vol. VII), which appeared in 1740. He described it as
+     "written in the manner of Cervantes," and in Parson Adams
+     there is the same quaint blending of the humorous and the
+     pathetic as in the Knight of La Mancha. Although such
+     characters as Lady Booby and Mrs. Slipslop are admittedly
+     ridiculous, Parson Adams remains an admirable study of a
+     simple-minded clergyman of the eighteenth century.
+
+
+_I.--The Virtues of Joseph Andrews_
+
+
+Mr. Joseph Andrews was esteemed to be the only son of Gaffer and Gammer
+Andrews, and brother to the illustrious Pamela.
+
+At ten years old (by which time his education was advanced to writing
+and reading) he was bound an apprentice to Sir Thomas Booby, an uncle of
+Mr. Booby's by the father's side. From the stable of Sir Thomas he was
+preferred to attend as foot-boy on Lady Booby, to go on her errands,
+stand behind her chair, wait at her tea-table, and carry her prayer-book
+to church; at which place he behaved so well in every respect at divine
+service that it recommended him to the notice of Mr. Abraham Adams, the
+curate, who took an opportunity one day to ask the young man several
+questions concerning religion, with his answers to which he was
+wonderfully pleased.
+
+Mr. Abraham Adams was an excellent scholar, a man of good sense and good
+nature, but at the same time entirely ignorant of the ways of the world.
+At the age of fifty he was provided with a handsome income of twenty-
+three pounds a year, which, however, he could not make any great figure
+with, because he was a little encumbered with a wife and six children.
+
+Adams had no nearer access to Sir Thomas or my lady than through Mrs.
+Slipslop, the waiting-gentlewoman, for Sir Thomas was too apt to
+estimate men merely by their dress or fortune, and my lady was a woman
+of gaiety, who never spoke of any of her country neighbours by any other
+appellation than that of the brutes.
+
+Mrs. Slipslop, being herself the daughter of a curate, preserved some
+respect for Adams; she would frequently dispute with him, and was a
+mighty affecter of hard words, which she used in such a manner that the
+parson was frequently at some loss to guess her meaning.
+
+Adams was so much impressed by the industry and application he saw in
+young Andrews that one day he mentioned the case to Mrs. Slipslop,
+desiring her to recommend him to my lady as a youth very susceptible of
+learning, and one whose instruction in Latin he would himself undertake,
+by which means he might be qualified for a higher station than that of
+footman. He therefore desired that the boy might be left behind under
+his care when Sir Thomas and my lady went to London.
+
+"La, Mr. Adams," said Mrs. Slipslop, "do you think my lady will suffer
+any preambles about any such matter? She is going to London very
+concisely, and I am confidous would not leave Joey behind on any
+account, for he is one of the genteelest young fellows you may see in a
+summer's day; and I am confidous she would as soon think of parting with
+a pair of her grey mares, for she values herself on one as much as the
+other. And why is Latin more necessitous for a footman than a gentleman?
+I am confidous my lady would be angry with me for mentioning it, and I
+shall draw myself into no such delemy."
+
+So young Andrews went to London in attendance on Lady Booby, and became
+acquainted with the brethren of his profession. They could not, however,
+teach him to game, swear, drink, nor any other genteel vice the town
+abounded with. He applied most of his leisure hours to music, in which
+he greatly improved himself, so that he led the opinion of all the other
+footmen at an opera. Though his morals remain entirely uncorrupted, he
+was at the same time smarter and genteeler than any of the beaus in town
+either in or out of livery.
+
+At this time an accident happened, and this was no other than the death
+of Sir Thomas Booby, who left his disconsolate lady closely confined to
+her house. During the first six days the poor lady admitted none but
+Mrs. Slipslop and three female friends, who made a party at cards; but
+on the seventh she ordered Joey, whom we shall hereafter call Joseph, to
+bring up her teakettle.
+
+Lady Booby's affection for her footman had for some time been a matter
+of gossip in the town, but it is certain that her innocent freedoms had
+made no impression on young Andrews.
+
+Now, however, he thought my lady had become distracted with grief at her
+husband's death, so strange was her conduct, and wrote to his sister
+Pamela on the subject.
+
+     If madam be mad, I shall not care for staying long in the
+     family, so I heartily wish you could get me a place at some
+     neighbouring gentleman's. I fancy I shall be discharged very
+     soon, and the moment I am I shall return to my old master's
+     country seat, if it be only to see Parson Adams, who is the
+     best man in the world. London is a bad place, and there is so
+     little good fellowship that the next-door neighbours don't
+     know one another. Your loving brother,
+     JOSEPH ANDREWS.
+
+The sending of this letter was quickly followed by the discharge of the
+writer. To Lady Booby's open declarations of love, Joseph replied that a
+lady having no virtue was not a reason against his having any.
+
+"I am out of patience!" cries the lady, "did ever mortal hear of a man's
+virtue? Will magistrates who punish lewdness, or parsons who preach
+against it, make any scruple of committing it? And can a boy have the
+confidence to talk of his virtue?"
+
+"Madam," says Joseph, "that boy is the brother of Pamela, and would be
+ashamed that the chastity of his family, which is preserved in her,
+should be stained in him. If there are such men as your ladyship
+mentions, I am sorry for it, and I wish they had an opportunity of
+reading my sister Pamela's letters; nor do I doubt but such an example
+would amend them."
+
+"You impudent villain!" cries the lady in a rage. "Get out of my sight,
+and leave the house this night!"
+
+Joseph having received what wages were due, and having been stripped of
+his livery, took a melancholy leave of his fellow-servants and set out
+at seven in the evening.
+
+
+_II.--Adventures on the Road_
+
+
+It may be wondered why Joseph made such extraordinary haste to get out
+of London, and why, instead of proceeding to the habitation of his
+father and mother, or to his beloved sister Pamela, he chose rather to
+set out full speed to Lady Booby's country seat, which he had left on
+his journey to town.
+
+Be it known then, that in the same parish where this seat stood there
+lived a young girl whom Joseph longed more impatiently to see than his
+parents or his sister. She was a poor girl, formerly bred up in Sir
+Thomas's house, and, discarded by Mrs. Slipslop on account of her
+extraordinary beauty, was now a servant to a farmer in the parish.
+
+Fanny was two years younger than our hero, and had been always beloved
+by him, and returned his affection. They had been acquainted from their
+infancy, and Mr. Adams had, with much ado, prevented them from marrying,
+and persuaded them to wait till a few years' service and thrift had a
+little improved their experience, and enabled them to live comfortably
+together.
+
+They followed this good man's advice, as, indeed, his word was little
+less than a law in his parish, for during twenty-five years he had shown
+that he had the good of his parishioners entirely at heart, so that they
+consulted him on every occasion, and very seldom acted contrary to his
+opinion.
+
+Honest Joseph therefore set out on his travels without delay, in order
+that he might once more look upon his Fanny, from whom he had been
+absent for twelve months.
+
+But on the road he was attacked by robbers, and, having been left
+wounded in a ditch, was mercifully taken to an inn by some later
+travellers.
+
+It was at this same inn that, to the great surprise on both sides, Mr.
+Abraham Adams found Joseph.
+
+The parson informed his young friend, who was still sick in bed, that
+the occasion of the journey he was making to London was to publish three
+volumes of sermons, being encouraged, as he said, by an advertisement
+lately set forth by the Society of Booksellers; but, though he imagined
+he should get a considerable sum of money on this occasion, which his
+family were in urgent need of, he protested he would not leave Joseph in
+his present penniless condition. Finally, he told him he had nine
+shillings and threepence-halfpenny in his pocket, which he was welcome
+to use as he pleased.
+
+This goodness of Parson Adams brought tears into Joseph's eyes; he had
+now a second reason to desire life, that he might show his gratitude to
+such a friend.
+
+Before pursuing his journey Adams made the acquaintance of another
+clergyman named Barnabas at the inn, who in his turn, hearing that Adams
+was proposing to publish sermons, introduced him to a stranger who he
+said was a bookseller.
+
+Adams, saluting the stranger, answered Barnabas that he was very much
+obliged to him; that nothing could be more convenient, for he had no
+other business to the great city, and was heartily desirous of returning
+with the young man, who was just recovered of his misfortune. To induce
+the bookseller to be as expeditious as possible, he assured them their
+meeting was extremely lucky to himself, for that he had the most
+pressing occasion for money at that time, his own being almost spent.
+"So that nothing," says he, "could be so opportune as my making an
+immediate bargain with you."
+
+"Sir, sermons are mere drugs," said the stranger. "The trade is so
+vastly stocked with them that really, unless they come out with the name
+of Whitefield or Wesley, or some other such great man, as a bishop, or
+those sort of people, I don't care to touch. However, I will, if you
+please, take the manuscript with me to town, and send you my opinion of
+it in a very short time."
+
+When, however, Adams began to describe the nature of his sermons the
+bookseller drew back, on the ground that the clergy would be certain to
+cry down such a book.
+
+An accident prevented Mr. Adams from pursuing a market for his sermons
+any further, which he would have done in spite of the advice of Barnabas
+and the bookseller. This accident was, that those sermons which the
+parson was travelling to London to publish were left behind; what he had
+mistaken for them in the saddle-bags were three shirts, which Mrs.
+Adams, who thought her husband would need shirts rather than sermons on
+his journey, had carefully provided for him.
+
+Joseph, concerned at the disappointment to his friend, begged him to
+pursue his journey all the same, and promised he would himself return
+with the books to him with the utmost expedition.
+
+"No, thank you, child," answered Adams; "it shall not be so. What would
+it avail me to tarry in the great city unless I had my discourses with
+me? No; as this accident has happened, I am resolved to return back to
+my cure, together with you; which, indeed, my inclination sufficiently
+leads me to."
+
+Mr. Adams, whose credit was good wherever he was known, having borrowed
+a guinea from a servant belonging to a coach-and-six, who had been
+formerly one of his parishioners, discharged the bill for Joseph and
+himself, and the two travellers set off.
+
+
+_III.--More Adventures_
+
+
+Adams and Joseph Andrews being for a time separated on the road, through
+the former's absent-mindedness, it fell to the lot of the parson to
+hasten to the assistance of a damsel who in a lonely place was being
+attacked by some ruffian.
+
+Adams was as strong as he was brave, and having rescued the maiden, took
+her under his protection. It was too dark for either to identify the
+other, but on Mr. Adams ejaculating the name of Joseph Andrews, for
+whose safety he was anxious, his companion recognised his voice, and the
+parson was quickly informed that it was Fanny who was by his side.
+
+The fact was the poor girl had heard of Joseph's misfortune from the
+servants of a coach which had stopped at the inn while the poor youth
+was confined to his bed; and she had that instant abandoned the cow she
+was milking, and taking with her a little bundle of clothes under her
+arm, and all the money she was worth in her own purse, immediately set
+forward in pursuit of one whom she loved with inexpressible violence,
+though with the purest and most delicate passion.
+
+Fanny was now in the nineteenth year of her age; she was tall and
+delicately shaped. Her hair was a chestnut brown; her complexion was
+fair; and, to conclude all, she had a natural gentility which surprised
+all who beheld her.
+
+Can it be wondered that on the following day, when Adams and the damsel
+overtook Andrews at a wayside ale-house, the youth imprinted numberless
+kisses on her lips, while Parson Adams danced about the room in a
+rapture of joy?
+
+It was so late when our travellers left the ale-house that they had not
+travelled many miles before night overtook them. They moved forwards
+where the nearest light presented itself; and having crossed a common
+field, they came to a meadow where they seemed to be at a very little
+distance from the light, when, to their grief, they arrived at the banks
+of a river. Adams declared he could swim, but Joseph answered, if they
+walked along its banks they might be certain of soon finding a bridge,
+especially as, by the number of lights, they might be assured a parish
+was near.
+
+"That's true, indeed," said Adams. "I did not think of that."
+
+Accordingly, Joseph's advice being taken, they passed over two meadows,
+and came to a little orchard which led them to a house. Fanny begged of
+Joseph to knock at the door, assuring him she was so weary that she
+could hardly stand on her feet; and the door being immediately opened, a
+plain kind of man appeared at it. Adams acquainted him that they had a
+young woman with them, who was so tired with her journey that he should
+be much obliged to him if he would suffer her to come in and rest
+herself.
+
+The man, who saw Fanny by the light of the candle which he held in his
+hand, perceiving her innocent and modest look, and having no
+apprehensions from the civil behaviour of Adams, presently answered that
+the young woman was very welcome to rest herself in his house, and so
+were her company. He then ushered them into a very decent room, where
+his wife was sitting at a table; she immediately rose up, and assisted
+them in setting forth chairs, and desired them to sit down.
+
+They now sat cheerfully round the fire till the master of the house,
+having surveyed his guests, and conceiving that the cassock which
+appeared under Adams's greatcoat, and the shabby livery of Joseph
+Andrews, did not well suit the familiarity between them, began to
+entertain some suspicions not much to their advantage. Addressing
+himself, therefore, to Adams, he said he perceived he was a clergyman by
+his dress, and supposed that honest man was his footman.
+
+"Sir," answered Adams, "I am a clergyman, at your service; but as to
+that young man, whom you have rightly termed honest, he is at present in
+nobody's service; he never lived in any other family than that of Lady
+Booby, from whence he was discharged; I assure you, for no crime."
+
+The modest behaviour of Joseph, with the character which Adams gave of
+him, entirely cured a jealousy which had lately been in the gentleman's
+mind that Fanny was the daughter of some person of fashion and that
+Joseph had run away with her, and Adams was concerned in the plot.
+Having had a full account from Adams of Joseph's history he became
+enamoured of his guests, drank their healths with great cheerfulness;
+and, at the parson's request, told something of his own life.
+
+"Sir," says Adams, at the conclusion of the history, "fortune has, I
+think, paid you all her debts in this sweet retirement."
+
+"Sir," replied the gentleman, whose name was Wilson, "I have the best of
+wives and three pretty children; but within three years of my arrival
+here I lost my eldest son. If he had died I could have borne the loss
+with patience; but, alas, he was stolen away from my door by some wicked
+travelling people, whom they call gypsies; nor could I ever, with the
+most diligent search, recover him. Poor child, he had the sweetest look!
+The exact picture of his mother!" Mr. Wilson went on to say that he
+should know his son amongst ten thousand, for he had a mark on his
+breast of a strawberry.
+
+
+_IV.--Joseph Finds his Father_
+
+
+Our travellers, having well refreshed themselves at Mr. Wilson's house,
+renewed their journey next morning with great alacrity, and two days
+later reached the parish they were seeking.
+
+The people flocked about Parson Adams like children round a parent; and
+the parson, on his side, shook every one by the hand. Nor did Joseph and
+Fanny want a hearty welcome from all who saw them. Adams carried his
+fellow-travellers home to his house, where he insisted on their
+partaking whatever his wife could provide, and on the very next Sunday
+he published, for the first time, the banns of marriage between Joseph
+Andrews and Fanny Goodwill.
+
+Lady Booby, who was now at her country seat again, was furious when she
+heard in church these banns called, and at once sent for Mr. Adams, and
+rated him soundly.
+
+"It is my orders that you publish these banns no more, and if you dare,
+I will recommend it to your master, the rector, to discard you from his
+service," says my lady. "The fellow Andrews is a vagabond, and shall not
+settle here and bring a nest of beggars into the parish."
+
+"Madam," answered Adams, "I know not what your ladyship means by the
+terms 'master' and 'service.' I am in the service of a Master who will
+never discard me for doing my duty; and if the rector thinks proper to
+turn me from my cure, God will provide me, I hope, another."
+
+The malice of Lady Booby did not stop at this; she endeavoured to get
+Joseph and Fanny convicted on a trumped-up charge of trespass. In this
+base wickedness she was defeated by her nephew, young Squire Booby, who
+had married the virtuous Pamela, Joseph's sister; and at once stopped
+the proceedings. More than that, he carried off Andrews to Lady Booby's,
+and on his arrival, said, "Madam, as I have married a virtuous and
+worthy woman, I am resolved to own her relations, and show them all
+respect; I shall think myself, therefore, infinitely obliged to all mine
+who will do the same. It is true her brother has been your servant, but
+he has now become my brother."
+
+Lady Booby answered that she would be pleased to entertain Joseph
+Andrews; but when the squire went on to speak of Fanny, his aunt put her
+foot down resolutely against her civility to the young woman.
+
+And now both Pamela and her husband were inclined to urge Joseph to
+break off the engagement with Fanny, but the young man would not give
+way, and in this he was supported by Mr. Adams.
+
+The arrival of a peddler in the parish, who had shown some civility to
+Adams and Andrews when they were travelling on the road, threatened the
+marriage prospect much more dangerously for a time.
+
+According to the pedaler, who was a man of some education and birth,
+Fanny had been stolen away from her home when an infant, and sold for
+three guineas to Sir Thomas Booby; the name of her family was Andrews,
+and they had a daughter of a very strange name, Pamela. This story he
+had received from a dying woman when he had been a drummer in an Irish
+regiment.
+
+The only thing now to be done was to send for old Mr. Andrews and his
+wife; and, in the meantime, the pedal was bidden to Booby Hall to tell
+the whole story again. All who heard him were well satisfied of the
+truth, except Pamela, who imagined as neither of her parents had ever
+mentioned such an incident to her, it must be false; and except Lady
+Booby, who suspected the falsehood of the story from her ardent desire
+that it should be true; and Joseph, who feared its truth, from his
+earnest wishes that it might prove false.
+
+On the following morning news came of the arrival of old Mr. Andrews and
+his wife. Mr. Andrews assured Mr. Booby that he had never lost a
+daughter by gypsies, nor ever had any other children than Joseph and
+Pamela. But old Mrs. Andrews, running to Fanny, embraced her, crying
+out, "She is--she is my child!"
+
+The company were all amazed at this disagreement, until the old woman
+explained the mystery. During her husband's absence at Gibraltar, when
+he was a sergeant in the army, a party of gypsies had stolen the little
+girl who had been born to him, and left a small male child in her place.
+So she had brought up the boy as her own.
+
+"Well," says Gaffer Andrews, "you have proved, I think, very plainly,
+that this girl does not belong to us; I hope you are certain the boy is
+ours."
+
+Then it turned out that Joseph had a strawberry mark on his left breast,
+and this made the peddler, who knew all about Mr. Wilson's loss,
+satisfied that Joseph was no other than Mr. Wilson's son.
+
+So Mr. Wilson had to be sent for, who, on his arrival, no sooner saw the
+mark than he cried out with tears of joy, "I have discovered my son!"
+
+The banns having been duly called, there was now nothing to prevent the
+wedding, which, having taken place, Joseph and his wife settled down in
+Mr. Wilson's parish, Mr. Booby having given Fanny a fortune of £2,000.
+He also presented Mr. Adams with a living of £130 a year.
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+Tom Jones
+
+
+     "The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling," described in the
+     dedication as the "labour of some years of my life," appeared
+     in six volumes, on February 28, 1749, a short time after
+     Fielding's appointment as justice of peace for Westminster.
+     Though its broad humour and coarseness of expression are
+     perhaps hard to bear in these times, it is by common consent
+     Fielding's masterpiece, and by way of being one of the
+     greatest novels in the language. For experience of life,
+     observation of character, and sheer humanity, it is certainly
+     an outstanding specimen of the English novel and manners. Like
+     others of his books, "Tom Jones" was written during a period
+     of great mental strain. Ever haunted by poverty, Fielding
+     acknowledges his debt to his old schoolfellow Lyttelton, to
+     whom he owed his "existence during the composition of the
+     book." The story was popular from the first.
+
+
+_I.--Mr. Allworthy Makes a Discovery_
+
+
+In that part of the country which is commonly called Somersetshire there
+lately lived a gentleman whose name was Allworthy, and who might well be
+called the favourite of both nature and fortune. From the former of
+these he derived an agreeable person, a sound constitution, a solid
+understanding, and a benevolent heart; by the latter he was decreed to
+the inheritance of one of the largest estates in the country.
+
+Mr. Allworthy lived, for the most part, retired in the country, with one
+sister, for whom he had a very tender affection. This lady, Miss Bridget
+Allworthy, now somewhat past the age of thirty, was of that species of
+women whom you commend rather for good qualities than beauty.
+
+Mr. Allworthy had been absent a full quarter of a year in London on some
+very particular business, and having returned to his house very late in
+the evening, retired, much fatigued, to his chamber. Here, after he had
+spent some minutes on his knees--a custom which he never broke through
+on any account--he was preparing to step into bed, when, upon opening
+the clothes, to his great surprise, he beheld an infant wrapped up in
+some coarse linen, in a sweet and profound sleep, between his sheets. He
+stood for some time lost in astonishment at this sight; but soon began
+to be touched with sentiments of compassion for the little wretch before
+him. He then rang his bell, and ordered an elderly woman-servant to rise
+immediately and come to him.
+
+The consternation of Mrs. Deborah Wilkins at the finding of the little
+infant was rather greater than her master's had been; nor could she
+refrain from crying out, with great horror, "My good sir, what's to be
+done?"
+
+Mr. Allworthy answered she must take care of the child that evening, and
+in the morning he would give orders to provide it a nurse.
+
+"Yes, sir," says she, "and I hope your worship will send out your
+warrant to take up the hussy its mother. Indeed, such wicked sluts
+cannot be too severely punished for laying their sins at honest men's
+doors; and though your worship knows your own innocence, yet the world
+is censorious, and if your worship should provide for the child it may
+make the people after to believe. If I might be so bold as to give my
+advice, I would have it put in a basket, and sent out and laid at the
+churchwarden's door. It is a good night, only a little rainy and windy,
+and if it was well wrapped up and put in a warm basket, it is two to one
+but it lives till it is found in the morning. But if it should not, we
+have discharged our duty in taking care of it; and it is, perhaps,
+better for such creatures to die in a state of innocence than to grow up
+and imitate their mothers."
+
+But Mr. Allworthy had now got one of his fingers into the infant's hand,
+which, by its gentle pressure, seeming to implore his assistance,
+certainly outpleaded the eloquence of Mrs. Deborah. Mr. Allworthy gave
+positive orders for the child to be taken away and provided with pap and
+other things against it waked. He likewise ordered that proper clothes
+should be procured for it early in the morning, and that it should be
+brought to himself as soon as he was stirring.
+
+Such was the respect Mrs. Wilkins bore her master, under whom she
+enjoyed a most excellent place, that her scruples gave way to his
+peremptory commands, and, declaring the child was a sweet little infant,
+she walked off with it to her own chamber.
+
+Allworthy betook himself to those pleasing slumbers which a heart that
+hungers after goodness is apt to enjoy when thoroughly satisfied.
+
+In the morning Mr. Allworthy told his sister he had a present for her,
+and, when Mrs. Wilkins produced the little infant, told her the whole
+story of its appearance.
+
+Miss Bridget took the good-natured side of the question, intimated some
+compassion for the helpless little creature, and commended her brother's
+charity in what he had done. The good lady subsequently gave orders for
+providing all necessaries for the child, and her orders were indeed so
+liberal that had it been a child of her own she could not have exceeded
+them.
+
+
+_II.--The Foundling Achieves Manhood_
+
+
+Miss Bridget having been asked in marriage by one Captain Blifil, a
+half-pay officer, and the nuptials duly celebrated, Mrs. Blifil was in
+course of time delivered of a fine boy.
+
+Though the birth of an heir to his beloved sister was a circumstance of
+great joy to Mr. Allworthy, yet it did not alienate his affections from
+the little foundling to whom he had been godfather, and had given his
+own name of Thomas; the surname of Jones being added because it was
+believed that was the mother's name.
+
+He told his sister, if she pleased, the newborn infant should be bred up
+together with little Tommy, to which she consented, for she had truly a
+great complaisance for her brother.
+
+The captain, however, could not so easily bring himself to bear what he
+condemned as a fault in Mr. Allworthy; for his meditations being chiefly
+employed on Mr. Allworthy's fortune, and on his hopes of succession, he
+looked on all the instances of his brother-in-law's generosity as
+diminutions of his own wealth.
+
+But one day, while the captain was exulting in the happiness which would
+accrue to him by Mr. Allworthy's death, he himself died of apoplexy.
+
+So the two boys grew up together under the care of Mr. Allworthy and
+Mrs. Blifil, and by the time he was fourteen Tom Jones--who, according
+to universal opinion, was certainly born to be hanged--had been already
+convicted of three robberies--_viz._, of robbing an orchard, of stealing
+a duck out of a farmer's yard, and of picking Master Blifil's pocket of
+a ball.
+
+The vices of this young man were, moreover, heightened by the
+disadvantageous light in which they appeared when opposed to the virtues
+of Master Blifil, his companion. He was, indeed, a lad of remarkable
+disposition--sober, discreet, and pious beyond his age; and many
+expressed their wonder that Mr. Allworthy should suffer such a lad as
+Tom Jones to be educated with his nephew lest the morals of the latter
+should be corrupted by his example.
+
+To say the truth, the whole duck, and great part of the apples, were
+converted to the use of Tom's friend, the gamekeeper, and his family;
+though, as Jones alone was discovered, the poor lad bore not only the
+whole smart, but the whole blame.
+
+Mr. Allworthy had committed the instruction of the two boys to a learned
+divine, the Reverend Mr. Thwackum, who resided in the house; but though
+Mr. Allworthy had given him frequent orders to make no difference
+between the lads, yet was Thwackum altogether as kind and gentle to
+Master Blifil as he was harsh, nay, even barbarous, to the other. In
+truth, Blifil had greatly gained his master's affections; partly by the
+profound respect he always showed his person, but much more by the
+decent reverence with which he received his doctrine, for he had got by
+heart, and frequently repeated, his phrases, and maintained all his
+master's religious principles, with a zeal which was surprising in one
+so young.
+
+Tom Jones, on the other hand, was not only deficient in outward tokens
+of respect, often forgetting to pull off his cap at his master's
+approach, but was altogether unmindful both of his master's precepts and
+example.
+
+At the, age of twenty, however, Tom, for his love of hunting, had become
+a great favourite with Mr. Allworthy's neighbour, Squire Western; and
+Sophia, Mr. Western's only child, lost her heart irretrievably to him
+before she suspected it was in danger. On his side, Tom was truly
+sensible of the great worth of Sophia. He liked her person extremely, no
+less admired her accomplishments, and tenderly loved her goodness. In
+reality, as he had never once entertained any thoughts of possessing
+her, nor had ever given the least voluntary indulgence to his
+inclinations, he had a much stronger passion for her than he himself was
+acquainted with.
+
+An accident occurred on the hunting-field in saving Sophia from her too
+mettlesome horse kept Jones a prisoner for some time in Mr. Western's
+house, and during those weeks he not only found that he loved Sophia
+with an unbounded passion, but he plainly saw the tender sentiments she
+had for him; yet could not this assurance lessen his despair of
+obtaining the consent of her father, nor the horrors which attended his
+pursuit of her by any base or treacherous method.
+
+Hence, at the approach of the young lady, he grew pale; and, if this was
+sudden, started. If his eyes accidentally met hers, the blood rushed
+into his cheeks, and his countenance became all over scarlet. If he
+touched her, his hand, nay, his whole frame, trembled.
+
+All these symptoms escaped the notice of the squire, but not so of
+Sophia. She soon perceived these agitations of mind in Jones, and was at
+no loss to discover the cause; for, indeed, she recognised it in her own
+breast. In a word, she was in love with him to distraction. It was not
+long before Jones was able to attend her to the harpsichord, where she
+would kindly condescend for hours together to charm him with the most
+delicious music.
+
+The news that Mr. Allworthy was dangerously ill (for a servant had
+brought word that he was dying) broke off Tom's stay at Mr. Western's,
+and drove all the thoughts of love out of his head. He hurried instantly
+into the chariot which was sent for him, and ordered the coachman to
+drive with all imaginable haste; nor did the idea of Sophia once occur
+to him on the way.
+
+
+_III.--Tom Jones Falls into Disgrace_
+
+
+On the night when the physician announced that Mr. Allworthy was out of
+danger Jones was thrown into such immoderate excess of rapture by the
+news that he might be truly said to be drunk with joy--an intoxication
+which greatly forwards the effects of wine; and as he was very free,
+too, with the bottle, on this occasion he became very soon literally
+drunk.
+
+Jones had naturally violent animal spirits, and Thwackum, resenting his
+speeches, only the doctor's interposition prevented wrath kindling.
+After which, Jones gave loose to mirth, sang two or three amorous songs,
+and fell into every frantic disorder which unbridled joy is apt to
+inspire; but so far was he from any disposition to quarrel that he was
+ten times better-humoured, if possible, than when he was sober.
+
+Blifil, whose mother had died during her brother's illness, was highly
+offended at a behaviour which was so inconsistent with the sober and
+prudent reserve of his own temper. The recent death of his mother, he
+declared, made such conduct very indecent.
+
+"It would become them better," he said, "to express the exultations of
+their hearts at Mr. Allworthy's recovery in thanksgiving, than in
+drunkenness and riot."
+
+Wine had not so totally overpowered Jones as to prevent him recollecting
+Blifil's loss the moment it was mentioned. He at once offered to shake
+Mr. Blifil by the hand, and begged his pardon, saying his excessive joy
+for Mr. Allworthy's recovery had driven every other thought out of his
+mind.
+
+Blifil scornfully rejected his hand, and with an insulting illusion to
+the misfortune of Jones's birth provoked the latter to blows. The
+scuffle which ensued might have produced mischief had it not been for
+the interference of Thwackum and the physician.
+
+Blifil, however, only waited for an opportunity to be revenged on Jones,
+and the occasion was soon forthcoming when Mr. Allworthy was fully
+recovered from his illness.
+
+Mr. Western had found out that his daughter was in love with Tom Jones,
+and at once decided that she should marry Blifil, to whom Sophia
+professed great abhorrence.
+
+As for Blifil, the success of Jones was much more grievous to him than
+the loss of Sophia, whose estate, indeed, was dearer to him than her
+person.
+
+Mr. Western swore that his daughter shouldn't have a ha'penny, nor the
+twentieth part of a brass farthing, if she married Jones; and Blifil,
+with many sighs, professed to his uncle that he could not bear the
+thought of Sophia being ruined by her preference for Jones.
+
+"This lady, I am sure, will be undone in every sense; for, besides the
+loss of most part of her own fortune, she will be married to a beggar.
+Nay, that is a trifle; for I know him to be one of the worst men in the
+world."
+
+"How?" said Mr. All worthy. "I command you to tell me what you mean."
+
+"You know, sir," said Blifil, "I never disobeyed you. In the very day of
+your utmost danger, when myself and all the family were in tears, he
+filled the house with riot and debauchery. He drank, and sang, and
+roared; and when I gave him a gentle hint of the indecency of his
+actions, he fell into a violent passion, swore many oaths, called me
+rascal, and struck me. I am sure I have forgiven him that long ago. I
+wish I could so easily forget his ingratitude to the best of
+benefactors."
+
+Thwackum was now sent for, and corroborated every circumstance which the
+other had deposed.
+
+Poor Jones was too full of grief at the thought that Western had
+discovered the whole affair between him and Sophia to make any adequate
+defence. He could not deny the charge of drunkenness, and out of modesty
+sunk everything that related particularly to himself.
+
+Mr. Allworthy answered that he was now resolved to banish him from his
+sight for ever. "Your audacious attempt to steal away a young lady calls
+upon me to justify my own character in punishing you. And there is no
+part of your character which I resent more than your ill-treatment of
+that good young man (meaning Blifil), who hath behaved with so much
+tenderness and honour towards you."
+
+A flood of tears now gushed from the eyes of Jones, and every faculty of
+speech and motion seemed to have deserted him. It was some time before
+he was able to obey Allworthy's peremptory commands of departing, which
+he at length did, having first kissed his hands with a passion difficult
+to be affected, and as difficult to be described.
+
+Mr. Allworthy, however, did not permit him to leave the house penniless,
+but presented him with a note for £500. He then commanded him to go
+immediately, and told Jones that his clothes, and everything else,
+should be sent to him whithersoever he should order them.
+
+Jones had hardly set out, which he did with feelings of agony and
+despair, before Sophia Western decided that only in flight could she be
+saved from marriage with the detested Blifil.
+
+Mr. Western, in spite of tremendous love for his daughter, thought her
+inclinations of as little consequence as Blifil himself conceived them
+to be; and Mr. Allworthy, who said "he would on no account be accessory
+to forcing a young lady into a marriage contrary to her own will," was
+satisfied by his nephew's disingenuous statement that the young lady's
+behaviour to him was full as forward as he wished it.
+
+Sophia, having appointed her maid to meet her at a certain place not far
+from the house, exactly at the ghostly and dreadful hour of twelve,
+began to prepare for her own departure.
+
+But first she was obliged to give a painful audience to her father, and
+he treated her in so violent and outrageous a manner that he frightened
+her into an affected compliance with his will, which so highly pleased
+the good squire that he at once changed his frowns into smiles, and his
+menaces into promises.
+
+He vowed his whole soul was wrapped in hers, that her consent had made
+him the happiest of mankind.
+
+He then gave her a large bank-bill to dispose of in any trinkets she
+pleased, and kissed and embraced her in the fondest manner.
+
+Sophia reverenced her father piously and loved him passionately, but the
+thoughts of her beloved Jones quickly destroyed all the regretful
+promptings of filial love.
+
+
+_IV.--Tom Jones's Restoration_
+
+
+After many adventures on the road Mr. Jones reached London; and as he
+had often heard Mr. Allworthy mention the gentlewoman at whose house in
+Bond Street he used to lodge when he was in town, he sought the house,
+and was soon provided with a room there on the second floor. Mrs.
+Miller, the person who let these lodgings, was the widow of a clergyman,
+and Mr. Allworthy had settled an annuity of £50 a year on her, "in
+consideration of always having her first floor when he was in town."
+
+Tom Jones's fortunes were now very soon at the lowest. Having been
+forced into a quarrel in the streets with an acquaintance named
+Fitzpatrick, and having wounded him with his sword, a number of fellows
+rushed in and carried Jones off to the civil magistrate, who, being
+informed that the wound appeared to be mortal, straightway committed the
+prisoner to the Gatehouse.
+
+Sophia Western was also in London at the house of her aunt; and soon
+afterwards Mr. Western, Mr. Allworthy, and Blifil all reached the city.
+
+It was just at this time that Mr. Allworthy, consenting to his nephew
+once more offering himself to Sophia, came with Blifil to his accustomed
+lodgings in Bond Street. Mrs. Miller, to whom Jones had showed many
+kindnesses, at once put in a good word for the unfortunate young man;
+and, on Blifil exulting over the manslaughter Jones was alleged to have
+committed, declared that the wounded man, whoever he was, was in fault.
+This, indeed, was shortly afterwards corroborated by Fitzpatrick
+himself, who acknowledged his mistake.
+
+But it was not till Mr. Allworthy discovered that Blifil had been
+arranging with a lawyer to get the men who had arrested Jones to bear
+false witness, and learnt further that Tom Jones was his sister
+Bridget's child, and that on her death-bed Mrs. Blifil's message to her
+brother confessing the fact had been suppressed by her son, that his old
+feelings of affection for Tom Jones returned. Before setting out to
+visit Jones in the prison Mr. Allworthy called on Sophia to inform her
+that he regretted Blifil had ever been encouraged to give her annoyance,
+and that Mr. Jones was his nephew and his heir.
+
+Men over-violent in their dispositions are, for the most part, as
+changeable in them. No sooner was Western informed of Mr. Allworthy's
+intention to make Jones his heir than he joined heartily with the uncle
+in every commendation of the nephew, and became as eager for his
+daughter's marriage with Jones as he had before been to couple her to
+Blifil.
+
+Fitzpatrick being recovered of his wound, and admitting the aggression,
+Jones was released from custody and returned to his lodgings to meet Mr.
+Allworthy.
+
+It is impossible to conceive a more tender or moving scene than this
+meeting between the uncle and nephew. Allworthy received Jones into his
+arms. "O my child!" he cried, "how have I been to blame! How have I
+injured you! What amends can I ever make you for those unkind
+suspicions which I have entertained, and for all the sufferings they
+have occasioned you?"
+
+"Am I not now made amends?" cried Jones. "Would not my sufferings, had
+they been ten times greater, have been now richly repaid?"
+
+Here the conversation was interrupted by the arrival of Western, who
+could no longer be kept away even by the authority of Allworthy himself.
+Western immediately went up to Jones, crying out, "My old friend Tom, I
+am glad to see thee, with all my heart. All past must be forgotten. Come
+along with me; I'll carry thee to thy mistress this moment."
+
+Here Allworthy interposed; and the squire was obliged to consent to
+delay introducing Jones to Sophia till the afternoon.
+
+Blifil, now thoroughly exposed in his treachery, was at first sullen and
+silent, balancing in his mind whether he should yet deny all; but
+finding at last the evidence too strong against him, betook himself to
+confession, and was now as remarkably mean as he had been before
+remarkably wicked. Mr. Allworthy subsequently settled £200 a year upon
+him, to which Jones hath privately added a third. Upon this income
+Blifil lives in one of the northern counties. He is also lately turned
+Methodist, in hopes of marrying a very rich widow of that sect. Sophia
+would not at first permit any promise of an immediate engagement with
+Jones because of certain stories of his inconstancy, but Mr. Western
+refused to hear of any delay.
+
+"To-morrow or next day?" says Western, bursting into the room where
+Sophia and Jones were alone.
+
+"Indeed, sir," says she, "I have no such intention."
+
+"But I can tell thee," replied he, "why hast not; only because thou dost
+love to be disobedient, and to plague and vex thy father. When I forbid
+her, then it was all nothing but sighing and whining, and languishing
+and writing; now I am for thee--(this to Jones)--she is against thee.
+All the spirit of contrary, that's all. She is above being guided and
+governed by her father, that is the whole truth on't. It is only to
+disoblige and contradict me."
+
+"What would my papa have me do?" cries Sophia.
+
+"What would I ha' thee do?" says he, "why gee un thy hand this moment."
+
+"Well, sir," said Sophia, "I will obey you. There is my hand, Mr.
+Jones."
+
+"Well, and will you consent to ha' un to-morrow morning?" says Western.
+
+"I will be obedient to you, sir," cries she.
+
+"Why, then, to-morrow morning be the day," cries he.
+
+"Why, then, to-morrow morning shall be the day, papa, since you will
+have it so," said Sophia. Jones then fell upon his knees and kissed her
+hand in an agony of joy, while Western began to caper and dance about
+the room, presently crying out, "Where the devil is Allworthy?" He then
+sallied out in quest of him, and very opportunely left the lovers to
+enjoy a few tender minutes alone.
+
+But he soon returned with Allworthy, saying, "If you won't believe me,
+you may ask her yourself. Hast not gin thy consent, Sophy, to be married
+to-morrow?"
+
+"Such are your commands, sir," cries Sophia, "and I dare not be guilty
+of disobedience."
+
+"I hope there is not the least constraint," cries Allworthy.
+
+"Why, there," cried Western, "you may bid her unsay all again if you
+will. Dost repent heartily of thy promise, dost not, Sophy?"
+
+"Indeed, papa," cried she. "I do not repent, nor do I believe I ever
+shall, of any promise in favour of Mr. Jones."
+
+"Then, nephew," cries Allworthy, "I felicitate you most heartily, for I
+think you are the happiest of men."
+
+Mr. Allworthy, Mr. Western, and Mrs. Miller were the only persons
+present at the wedding, and within two days of that event Mr. Jones and
+Sophia attended Mr. Western and Mr. Allworthy into the country.
+
+There is not a neighbour or a servant, who doth not most gratefully
+bless the day when Mr. Jones was married to Sophia.
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+CAMILLE FLAMMARION
+
+
+Urania
+
+
+     Camille Flammarion is one of the most remarkable of modern
+     French scientists. Born on February 25, 1842, he was
+     apprenticed at an early age to an engraver, but, attracted by
+     astronomy, he studied so well that, when a lad of sixteen, he
+     was admitted as a pupil to the Paris Observatory. There is no
+     doubt that the great French mathematician, Le Verrier,
+     regarded Flammarion with a certain disdain as more of a poet
+     than an astronomer; but he soon vindicated, by several
+     important discoveries, his title to be regarded as a man of
+     science. "Urania," which appeared in 1889, is an excellent
+     example of his ability as a thinker, and of his charm as a
+     writer. The work is hardly a novel, though it is far more
+     popular than many books of fiction. It is really an essay in
+     philosophy dealing with the question of the immortality of the
+     soul; and it has an especial interest for English readers
+     owing to the fact that much in it that seems to be pure
+     fantasy is based on researches undertaken by the British
+     Society for Psychical Research. The plot and the characters
+     are of secondary importance; they are only used for the
+     purpose of illustrating certain ideas.
+
+
+_I.--The Muse of Astronomy_
+
+
+I was seventeen years old when I fell in love with Urania. Was she a
+fair, young, blue-eyed daughter of Eve? No; she was an exquisite statue
+of the Muse of Astronomy, chiselled by Pradier in the days of the
+Empire. She stood on the mantelpiece in the study of the famous
+mathematician, Le Verrier, who directed the Paris Observatory, where I
+was working. At four o'clock in the afternoon my illustrious chief used
+to depart, and I would then steal into his room and sit down before
+Urania and dream of lovelier worlds than ours, hidden in the infinite
+spaces of the starry sky. Sometimes my friend and companion in studies,
+Georges Spero, would come and sit beside me; and, inspired by the
+immortal beauty of Urania, we would let our young and ardent
+imaginations play over the glories and wonders of the heavens.
+
+"You will be too late for Jupiter," said Le Verrier, entering
+unexpectedly one evening, and catching me in an attitude of adoration
+before Urania. "I am afraid you are more of a poet than an astronomer."
+
+The great man of science himself certainly did not love beauty as much
+as he loved wisdom, for the next day he sold the lovely image of Urania
+in order to buy an old Chinese astronomical clock. I was almost
+heartbroken when I entered his room and found that Urania had
+disappeared. With her had gone the vivifying power of imagination which
+had transmuted the abstruse calculations on which I was engaged into
+glimpses of heavenly visions of infinite life. With what wild joy then
+did I see, when I returned home, Urania shining in all her loveliness on
+my own mantelpiece. Knowing my love for the beautiful figure of the
+muse, Georges Spero had bought it back from the watchmaker to whom Le
+Verrier had sent it, and placed it in my room as a gift.
+
+It was an extraordinary mark of friendship, for Georges loved Urania
+even more passionately than I did. To him she was the personification of
+everything in life that lifted man above the level of the brute.
+
+Possessing a nobler and finer intellect than mine, he had thrown himself
+into the study of the problems of the soul with a fury of passion and a
+concentration of thought that almost killed him. Are our souls immortal,
+or do they perish with our bodies? This was the question that tormented
+him to madness. One night I found him sitting in his room in the Place
+du Panthéon with a glass of poison in his hand.
+
+"This is the quickest road to the knowledge I want," he said, with a
+smile. "I shall soon know if the soul is immortal."
+
+He had been dissecting a skull; and by his side was a microscope with
+which he had been studying the grey matter of the brain. Convinced at
+last of the uncertainty of the positive sciences, he had fallen into
+violent despair. But Urania was at hand to comfort him, and his mind
+became calmer and clearer when we ceased to talk about earthly things,
+and ascended into high regions of philosophic speculation over which the
+muse of heaven presides.
+
+"Ah, Camille," he exclaimed, "the Uranian way is the best. It is only by
+studying the heavens that we shall be able to understand this little
+earth of ours, and the part we play in it. Look at the midnight sky,
+streaming with the light of infinite suns, and filled with an unending
+procession of worlds in which the spirit of life clothes itself in an
+unimaginable variety of forms. This clot of dust on which we live will
+grow cold, and break and scatter in the abysses of space. But it is not
+our home; we are only passengers, and when our journey here is done,
+fairer mansions are waiting for us in the depths of the sky. If I die
+before you, I will return and convince you of this truth."
+
+Returning to the study of astronomy, Spero built up a system of
+philosophy which made him, at the age of twenty-five, one of the most
+famous men in France.
+
+
+_II.--Love and Death_
+
+
+By way of relief from his severer work, Georges Spero resolved to go to
+Norway and study the wild and beautiful phenomena of the Aurora
+Borealis, and I went with him. One morning, as we were standing on a
+mountain looking at a magnificent sunrise, I saw a girl climbing a
+neighbouring peak. She did not perceive us; but when she reached the
+summit the image of Spero was thrown on a cloud in front of her, by one
+of those curious plays of sunlight and mist which sometimes occur in
+hazy, mountainous regions. His fine, austere features and graceful
+figure were enlarged into a vast, god-like apparition, with a halo of
+bright colours shining like a glory around his head, and a fainter
+circle of rainbow hues framing his whole form. It was the first anthelia
+that the lovely girl had seen, and it filled her with wonder and awe.
+
+Theirs was a strange courtship--Spero's and Iclea's. The lovely young
+Norwegian lady had recently lost her mother, and being, like many of the
+cultivated women of Northern Europe, somewhat dubious of the dogmas of
+religion, she had found death a terrible mystery when it was thus
+brought sharply home to her. She was wandering in the dreadful labyrinth
+of modern doubt, vainly seeking to forget her trouble in the excitements
+of mountaineering, when she saw the unearthly apparition of the young
+French philosopher. A study of his works heightened the feeling of awe
+with which she already regarded him. At first there was no room for love
+in the passionate desire after knowledge which drew her to him. She was
+merely a disciple sitting at the feet of the great master. Accompanied
+by her father, she continued her studies under him when he returned to
+Paris, and for three months they were bound together wholly by
+intellectual interest. For several hours every day they studied side by
+side, and much of Iclea's time was spent in translating papers in
+foreign languages, bearing on subjects in which Georges was interested.
+One morning he arrived earlier than usual, his eyes shining with joy.
+
+"I have settled the problem," he cried, leaning against the mantelpiece.
+"At least," he added, with his usual modesty, "I have settled it to my
+own satisfaction."
+
+Striding up and down the room, he rapidly sketched out a system of
+philosophy in which the ultimate truths of modern science were
+transformed into the bases of religion. Iclea listened to him in silence
+as he went on to explain the spiritual forces still dormant in the human
+soul.
+
+"We are still in our spiritual infancy," he said. "It is scarcely four
+thousand years since mankind began to manifest its higher powers. Our
+greatest conquests over nature are all of recent date, and they are the
+work of a few noble souls who have erected themselves above the animal
+conditions of life. The reign of brute force is over, and I am certain
+that as soon as we learn to exercise the powers of our soul we shall
+acquire transcendental faculties that will enable us to transport
+ourselves from one world to another."
+
+"That, too, is my belief," said Iclea.
+
+Georges bent over her and gazed into her eyes of heavenly blue through
+which her very soul was speaking. There was a strange silence, and then
+their lips met.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+For some months I lost sight of my two friends. In the ecstasy of their
+love they forgot for a while the problems of philosophy which had
+brought them together. The joys of intellectual communion were submerged
+and almost lost in the new, strange feeling which crowned and glorified
+their lives. Hand in hand the lovers wandered about Paris, which had now
+become to them a city in fairyland. Meeting them one evening on the
+banks of the Seine, I learned that they were returning to Norway with
+Iclea's father, and that they were to be married at Christiania on the
+anniversary of the mysterious apparition on the mountain which had
+brought them together. Georges was about to resume his interrupted
+studies of the Aurora Borealis, which he wished to trace to its source
+by means of a balloon ascent, and Iclea intended to accompany him in his
+voyage through the air.
+
+To my great regret I was unable to go with them to Norway, as my duties
+as an astronomer kept me in Paris. I anxiously awaited that
+extraordinary agitation of the magnetic needle which announces the
+existence of an Aurora Borealis in Northern Europe. When at last the
+magnetic perturbation occurred in the observatory, I rejoiced to think
+that Spero and his bride were floating high, feasting their eyes on the
+most gorgeous of spectacles.
+
+But suddenly an indefinable feeling of uneasiness came over me, which
+grew into a dreadful presentiment of disaster. Long before the telegram
+arrived from Christiania I knew what had happened. Georges and Iclea
+were dead!
+
+Every reader of the newspapers next morning knew as much as I did. An
+escape of gas which could not be stopped sent the balloon hurtling to
+the earth. Spero threw everything movable out of the car in a vain
+attempt to lighten it and break the force of the descent. The balloon
+still kept falling; then Iclea, with a wild courage born of love, saved
+Georges' life by leaping out of the car. Relieved of her weight, the
+balloon rose up, but Spero had now no wish to live. He jumped out with a
+wild cry, and his body crashed on the edge of the lake into which Iclea
+had fallen. There the mortal remains of the two lovers now lie, covered
+by a single stone. But where were their souls?
+
+One night Georges Spero remembered his promise to me, and returned to
+earth.
+
+
+_III.--A Soul from Mars_
+
+
+Sitting alone on the top of the ancient castle of Montlhéry, I was
+conducting an experiment in optics by means of electrical communications
+with two assistants at Paris and Juvisy. I was trying to find out if the
+rays of different colours in the spectrum travel at the same rate. It
+was just on midnight before I brought the experiment to a successful
+conclusion. As I covered up my instruments, some one said, "You would
+not have brought that off, Camille, if it had not been for me. I gave
+you the idea of comparing the violet vibrations with the red."
+
+I turned round with a cry of fear. Georges Spero was sitting in the
+moonlight on the parapet, looking at me with a smile.
+
+"Are you afraid of me, Camille?" he said.
+
+"You, Georges! You!" I stammered. "Is it really you? Keep still, and let
+me touch you."
+
+I put my hands on his face, and stroked his hair, and felt his body. I
+could no longer doubt that I had him before me in the actual flesh, but
+he read my thoughts.
+
+"You are mistaken, Camille," he said. "My real body is asleep on Mars."
+
+"So you still live?" I exclaimed. "You have solved the great problem.
+And Iclea?"
+
+"Let us sit here and talk," he replied. "There are many things I want to
+tell you."
+
+My fears had vanished, and I sat by my beloved friend.
+
+"It seemed to me," said Georges, "that my fall from the balloon knocked
+me senseless. When I came to, I was lying in the darkness with the
+ripple of lake-water breaking on my ear. What amazed me was a strange
+sense of lightness that made me feel I could rise up and float away if I
+wanted to. Thinking this was a disorder of the mind, I did not attempt
+to move, but watched with wondering eyes the sky above me. It was
+lighted by two strange moons. When the day broke, and showed around me a
+world of unimaginable splendour, I knew the meaning of the two moons and
+of my strange feeling of lightness. I was a disembodied spirit that had
+been transported to Mars.
+
+"Do you know, Camille, that the soul is able to choose its mortal
+covering? This is, at least, the case on Mars. For some time I wandered
+about in an invisible form, studying the conditions of life there.
+Animal strength, I found, counted for nothing. The Martians are an
+aerial race, with exquisite senses, which respond in a way unknown on
+earth to spiritual influences. Do you remember I read your thoughts when
+we first met, and answered them before you spoke? That is one of the
+Martians' gifts. Finding that these wonderful faculties were better
+developed in the women of Mars than in the men, I chose the feminine
+form for my reincarnation."
+
+"And Iclea?" I said.
+
+"Iclea," said Spero, "was re-born in a masculine shape. It was partly
+because of the mystic attraction that I felt for her that I chose the
+other form. Neither of us remembered our earthly existence, but a vague
+yet deep sentiment of our spiritual relationship made me seek her out
+and unite myself to her. It was your beloved muse Uriana," he added,
+"who revealed the ties that bound us in our former lives.
+
+"Owing to their superior faculties, the Martians have carried every
+science to a perfection undreamt of on this earth. In astronomical
+observations, for instance, they employ a system of telephotography. For
+thousands of years their instruments have been photographing, on an
+unending roll of paper, the wild spectacle of terrestrial life.
+
+"One day, as Iclea and I were examining recent photographs, we saw a
+picture of Paris during the Great Exhibition. Seizing a microscope, we
+looked at the figures, and recognised ourselves among them. Strange
+memories stirred within us, and we stared at each other in silent
+amazement. Suddenly I remembered the sacred words I learnt at my
+mother's knee. Yes, there were many mansions in our Father's house! The
+blood-stained planet from which we had escaped was neither the cradle
+nor the grave of His children.
+
+"Then we wept as we thought of the cruelty, ignorance, misery, and
+grossness of existence on earth. It was, dear Camille, with no joy that
+I recollected the promise I had made to you. But, you see, I have
+carried it out. I wish to convince you, and, through you, all the rest
+of mankind, that the soul is immortal, and that the earth is only a
+temporary stage of existence in a spiritual progress in which the whole
+universe is included."
+
+"But how is it possible for you, Georges," I interrupted, "to appear to
+me in the body you wore on earth?"
+
+"All this," said Spero, touching his body, "is an illusion. Do you not
+recollect my saying that only invisible things are real? You do not see
+me with your eyes, or feel me with your hands, as you think you do. The
+impression which you have of my presence is born of the influence which
+my mind is exerting in an invisible way on your mind. Can't you
+understand? It is a kind of hypnotism. At the present moment, as I have
+said, I am lying asleep on Mars, but my spirit is in direct
+communication with yours. The form you see sitting beside you on this
+parapet is only an illusion of your senses. My soul is speaking to your
+soul."
+
+"But could you not," I said, "give me some description of life on Mars?"
+
+"A dream," he replied, "would be more vivid than a mere description,
+though it would only be a shadow of the reality. For since you have not,
+my dear friend, our exquisite faculties of knowledge, your mind could
+not clearly mirror our life. Hark! Iclea is awake, and calling me. I
+cannot stay any longer. Shut your eyes, and I will send you a dream."
+
+I turned to say good-bye, but Spero had vanished. A deep drowsiness fell
+upon me, and just as I got off the parapet and found a safer position I
+fell asleep.
+
+
+_IV.--The Eternal Progress_
+
+
+I was sitting under a strange tree covered with gigantic red flowers. In
+the sky above me were two moons that shed a dim brightness on the lovely
+and fantastic scenery. A multitude of radiant shapes fluttered and
+darted through the air. They were Martians--exquisite, aerial, and
+divinely beautiful figures glowing with luminous tints. Airy gondolas,
+which seemed to be fashioned from phosphorescent flowers, passed above
+my head, and one of them floated down to the tree under which I was
+lying. In it were Iclea and Georges, but etherealised beyond the reach
+of human imagination.
+
+They took me in their flying chariot as day was breaking, and we
+coursed, with a strange silent interchange of thoughts, over the
+orange-coloured land of Mars. I could not understand everything which
+was communicated to me, now by Iclea and now by Georges; but I perceived
+that all manual labour on the planet was done by means of machines
+directed by animals whose intelligence was on a level with my own. The
+Martians themselves lived only for the things of the mind; they had
+twelve senses instead of five, and their bodies, in which electricity
+played the part that blood does in our systems, were so finely and yet
+so strongly organised that they possessed an extraordinary power over
+the forces of nature. Everything on their world, seas, mountains and
+rivers were like their wonderful canals, works of art and science.
+Nature was completely plastic in their hands. There was no poverty and
+no crime. Deriving their food from the air which they breathe, the
+Martians were liberated from material cares and immersed in the joys of
+intellectual pursuits.
+
+"You now see, Camille," said Spero, resorting at last to language which
+I could clearly understand, "that life on Mars has developed as
+peacefully and nobly as it began. There is no break between our
+vegetable kingdom and our animal kingdom. We are nourished, like your
+plants, trees, and herbs, by the air which we breathe. Ten million years
+ago your world was also a scene of innocence and tranquil felicity. The
+land was overgrown with a wildly beautiful vegetation that fed on the
+gentle winds of heaven, and primitive forms of animal life had spread
+from the depths of the sea along the shallow shores, and were there
+learning to extract from the air a nourishment similar to that which
+they obtained from the water. But by a woeful chance, one of your
+primitive animals--a deaf, blind, sexless clot of jelly--then had its
+body pierced by a drop of sea-water thicker than usual, and it found
+that this way of feeding was quicker than simple respiration. Such was
+the origin of the first digestive tube, which has exercised so baleful
+an influence on the course of terrestrial life, and turned the earth
+into a vast slaughterhouse."
+
+"Is there no hope for us?" I said.
+
+"No," he replied; "the earth is a shipwrecked planet. None of the higher
+organisms there will ever rise to our level. How can they alter the
+structure of their bodies, and empty their veins of blood, and fill them
+with the subtle electricity which serves us as a life force? And the
+grossness of their blood-fed senses! How can all the fine powers of the
+immortal soul ever develop along with such degraded instruments of
+knowledge?"
+
+"But even if our earth is a shipwrecked planet," I exclaimed, "there is
+at least some means of escaping from it. You and Iclea, for instance----"
+
+"Yes, there is a way of escape," said Spero, "the Uranian way. By
+soaring aloft into the serene region of spiritual ideas, a terrestrial
+soul can still free itself from its animality. Some save themselves by
+their high moral qualities, others are purified and uplifted by their
+imagination and intellect. Virtue and science are the wings that enable
+earth-born spirits to mount the skies. The destiny of a soul is
+determined by its works and aspirations. Lovers of knowledge sojourn
+awhile on Mars, which is only the first stage in the eternal progress.
+Spirits animated by divine feelings rise at once into high regions of
+starry splendour. The Uranian way is open to all, and the day will
+arrive when every inhabitant of your wild, dark planet will recognise
+that he, too, is a citizen of heaven. Then Urania will at last inspire
+and direct him, and point out the path by which he can ascend from the
+blood-stained earth to the fairer mansions prepared for him in the
+skies."
+
+As he was speaking our aerial chariot floated down to a fairy palace by
+the shore of an enchanted sea. I alighted; and a radiant, flower-like
+maiden, who was standing by the portal, unfolded her rainbow wings and
+shadowed me with them, and murmured, "Do you wish to return to earth?"
+
+"No," I cried, running up to clasp her in my arms.
+
+I awoke with a sudden shock. I was lying on the top of the tower of
+Montlhéry; the sun was rising, and the vast circle of country below me
+shone clear and distinct in the morning light.
+
+"Was it a dream?" I said to myself. "Surely not. The earth is not the
+only home of life in the universe. Urania, the celestial muse, is now
+unfolding before our astonished eyes the panoramas of infinity, and we
+know at last that we are not the children of the earth, but citizens of
+the heavens."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+DE LA MOTTE FOUQUÉ
+
+
+Undine
+
+
+     Friedrich Heinrich Karl Fouqué, Baron de la Motte, was born at
+     Brandenburg, in Prussia, Feb. 12, 1777, and died in Berlin
+     January 23, 1843. The mixed nationality indicated by his name
+     is accounted for by his descent from a French Huguenot family.
+     He served as a Prussian cavalryman in the two campaigns
+     against Napoleon of 1792 and 1813, but during the long
+     interval between devoted himself actively to intellectual
+     culture and literary pursuits. He began his career as an
+     author by translating the "Numancia" of Cervantes, but his
+     admiration of the ancient Norse sagas and the old German
+     legends led him into the composition of exquisitely beautiful
+     and tender, though exceedingly fantastic, romances which
+     speedily gained immense popularity. In these productions fairy
+     and magical elements predominate. His masterpiece is "Undine,"
+     published in 1814, the other best-known works being "Sintram,"
+     "Aslauga's Knight," and "The Two Captains." In all Fouqué's
+     stories the marks of genius appear in his brilliant
+     imagination and pure and fascinating diction.
+
+
+_I.--The Water Sprite_
+
+
+About a century ago an aged fisherman sat mending his nets by his
+cottage door, in front of a lovely lake. Behind his dwelling stretched a
+sombre forest, reputed to be haunted by goblin creatures. Through this
+gloomy solitude the pious old fisherman frequently passed, religiously
+dispelling all terrors by singing hymns as he went with his fish to a
+town near the border of the forest.
+
+One evening he heard the sound of a horse's hoofs, and presently
+appeared a knight riding on a splendid steed, and clad in resplendent
+armour. The stranger stopped, and besought shelter for the night, and
+the good old fisherman accorded him a most cheery welcome, taking him
+into the cottage, where sat his aged wife by a scanty fire. Soon the
+three were freely conversing. The knight told of his travels and
+revealed that he was Sir Huldbrand of Ringstetten, where he had a castle
+by the Rhine.
+
+A splash against the window surprising the guest he was informed by his
+host, with some little show of vexation, that little tricks were often
+played by a foster-child of the old couple, named Undine, a girl of
+eighteen.
+
+The door flew open, and a lovely girl glided, laughing, into the room.
+Without the slightest token of shyness she gazed at the knight for a few
+moments, then asked why he had come to the poor cottage.
+
+"Have you come through the wild forest?"
+
+He confessed that he had, and she instantly demanded a recital of his
+adventures. With a slight shudder at his own recollections of the
+strange creatures he had encountered, Huldbrand consented, but a reproof
+from the fisherman at her obtrusiveness angered Undine. The girl sprang
+up and rushed forth into the night, exclaiming, "Sleep alone in your
+smoky old hut!"
+
+In great alarm, the fisherman and Huldbrand rose to follow the girl, but
+she had vanished in the darkness. Remarking that she had acted so
+before, the old fisherman invited Huldbrand to sit by the fire and talk
+awhile, and began to relate how Undine had come to live with them.
+
+The couple had lost their only child, a wonderfully beautiful little
+girl. At the age of three, when sitting in her mother's lap at the edge
+of the lake, she seemed to be attracted by some lovely apparition in the
+water, for, suddenly stretching out her hands and laughing, she had in a
+moment sprung into the lake. No trace of the child could ever be found.
+But the same evening a lovely little girl, three or four years old, with
+water streaming from her golden tresses, suddenly entered the cottage,
+smiling sweetly at the fisherman and his wife. They hastily undressed
+the little stranger and put her to bed. She uttered not a word, but
+simply smiled. In the morning she talked a little, confusedly telling
+how she had been in a boat on the lake with her mother, and had fallen
+in, and could recollect nothing more. She could say nothing as to who
+she was or whence she came. But she talked often of golden castles and
+crystal domes.
+
+While the fisherman was talking thus to the knight, he was suddenly
+interrupted by the noise of rushing water. Floods seemed to be bursting
+forth, and he and his guest, going hastily to the door, saw by the
+moonlight that the brook which issued from the forest was surging in a
+wild torrent over its margin, while a roaring wind was lashing the lake.
+In great alarm both shouted, "Undine! Undine!" But there was no
+response, and the two ran off in different directions in search of the
+fugitive.
+
+It was Huldbrand who discovered the girl. Clambering down some rocks at
+the edge of the stream, thinking Undine might have fallen there, he was
+hailed by the sweet voice of the girl herself.
+
+"Venture not," she cried. "The old man of the stream is full of tricks."
+
+Looking across at a tiny isle in the stream, the knight saw her nestling
+in the grass, smiling, and in an instant he had crossed.
+
+"The fisherman is distressed at your absence," said he. "Let us go
+back."
+
+Looking at him with her beautiful blue eyes, the girl replied. "If you
+think so, well; whatever you think is right to me."
+
+Taking Undine in his arms, Huldbrand bore her over the stream to the
+cottage, where she was received with joy. Dawn was breaking, and
+breakfast was prepared under the trees. Undine flung herself on the
+grass at Huldbrand's feet, and at her renewed request the knight told
+the story of his forest adventures.
+
+"It is now about eight days since I rode into the city on the other side
+of the forest to join in a great tournament. In one of the intervals
+between the jousts I noticed a lovely lady among the spectators. I
+learned that she was Bertalda, foster-daughter of a great duke, and each
+evening I became her partner in the dances.
+
+"This Bertalda was a wayward girl, and each day pleased me less and
+less; but I continued in her company, and asked her jestingly to give me
+a glove. She said she would do so if I would explore alone the haunted
+forest. As an honourable knight I could not decline the challenge, and
+yesterday I set out on the enterprise. Before I had penetrated very far
+within the glades, I saw what looked like a bear in the branches of an
+oak; but the creature, in a harsh, human voice, growled that it was
+getting branches with which to roast me at night. My horse was scared at
+this, and other grim apparitions, but at last I emerged from the forest,
+and saw the lake and this cottage."
+
+When he had finished, the fisherman spoke of the best way by which the
+visitor could return to the city; but, with sly laughter, Undine
+declared that the knight could not depart, for if he attempted now to
+cross the deluged wood, he would be overwhelmed.
+
+
+_II.--"I Have No Soul!"_
+
+
+Huldbrand, detained at the cottage by the increasing overflow of the
+stream, enjoyed the most perfect satisfaction with his sojourn.
+
+The old folks with pleasure regarded the two young people as being
+betrothed, and Huldbrand assumed that he was accepted by the girl, whom
+he had come to look upon as not being in reality one of this poor
+household, but one of some illustrious family, and when, one evening, an
+aged priest appeared at the cottage, driven in by the storm, Huldbrand
+addressed to him a request that he should on the spot at once unite him
+and the maiden, as they were pledged to each other. A discussion arose,
+but matters were at length settled, and the old wife produced two
+consecrated tapers. Lighting these, the priest, with brief, solemn
+ceremony, celebrated the nuptials.
+
+Undine had been quiet and grave during these proceedings, but a singular
+change took place in her demeanour as soon as the rite had been
+performed. She began at intervals to indulge in wild freaks, teasing the
+priest, and indulging in a variety of silly tricks. At length the priest
+gently expostulated with Undine, exhorting her so to attune her soul
+that it might always be in concord with that of her husband.
+
+Her reply amazed the listeners, for she said, "If one has no soul, as I
+have none, what is there to harmonise?" Then she burst into a fit of
+passionate weeping, to the consternation of all the little company. As
+she again and again wept, the priest, fearing that she was possessed by
+some evil spirit, sought to exorcise it. The priest turned to the
+bridegroom with the assurance that he could discover nothing evil in the
+bride, mysterious though her behaviour was, and he commended him to be
+loving and true to her.
+
+The next morning Undine, when she and her husband made their appearance,
+responded gracefully to the paternal greeting of the priest, beseeching
+his pardon for her folly of the previous evening, and begging him to
+pray for the good of her soul. Through the whole day Undine behaved
+angelically. She was kind, quiet, and gentle. At eventide she led her
+husband out to the edge of the stream, which, to the wonder of
+Huldbrand, had subsided into gentle, rippling waves.
+
+She whispered, "Carry me across to that little isle, and we will decide
+there."
+
+Wondering, he carried her across, and, laying her on the turf, listened
+as she began.
+
+"My loved one, know that there are strange beings which, though seeming
+almost mortals, are rarely visible to human eyes--salamanders in the
+flames, gnomes down in the earth, spirits in the air. And in the water
+are myriads of spirits dwelling in crystal domes, in the coral-trees,
+and in the lovely shells. These are far more beautiful than the fairest
+of human beings, and sometimes a fisherman has seen a tender mermaid,
+and has listened to her song. Such wonderful creatures are called
+Undines, and one of these you see now before you!
+
+"We should be far superior to other beings--for we consider ourselves
+human--but for one defect. We have no souls, and nothing remains of us
+after this mortal life is over. Yet every being aspires to rise higher,
+and so my father, who is a great water prince in the Mediterranean Sea,
+desired that his only daughter should become possessed of a soul. But
+this can only come to pass with loving union with one of your race. Now,
+O my dearly beloved, I have to thank you that I am gifted with a soul,
+and it will be due to you should all my life be made wretched. For what
+will become of me if you forsake me? If you would do so, do it now! Then
+I will plunge into the stream--which is my uncle--and as he brought me
+here, so will he take me back to my parents, a loving, suffering woman
+with a soul."
+
+Undine would have said yet more, but Huldbrand, astonishing though the
+recital was, with tears and kisses vowed he would never leave his lovely
+wife; and with her leaning in loving trustfulness on his arm, they
+returned to the hut.
+
+The next day, at Undine's strange urgency, farewell was said with bitter
+tears and lamentations.
+
+Undine was placed on the beautiful horse, and Huldbrand and the priest
+walked on either side as the three passed through the solemn glades of
+the wood. A fourth soon joined them. He was dressed in a white robe,
+like that of the priest, and presently attempted to speak to Undine. But
+she shrank from him, declaring she wished to have nothing to do with
+him.
+
+"Oh, oh!" cried the stranger, with a laugh. "What kind of a marriage is
+this you have made, that you must not speak to your relative? Do you not
+know I am your uncle Kühleborn, who brought you to this region, and that
+I am here to protect you from goblins and sprites? So let me quietly
+accompany you."
+
+"We are near the end of the forest, and shall not need you further," was
+her rejoinder. But he grinned at her so frightfully that she shrieked
+for help, and the knight aimed at his head a blow from his sword.
+Instantly Kühleborn was transformed into a gushing waterfall, foaming
+over them from a rock near by and drenching all three.
+
+
+_III.--"Woe! Woe!"_
+
+
+The sudden disappearance of the young knight had caused a sensation in
+the city, for the duke and duchess, and the friends and servants of
+Huldbrand, feared he had perished in the forest during the terrible
+tempest When he suddenly reappeared, all rejoiced except Bertalda, who
+was profoundly vexed at seeing with him a beautiful bride. She so far
+reconciled herself to the conditions that a warm friendship sprang up
+between Undine and herself.
+
+It was agreed that Bertalda should accompany the wedded pair to
+Ringstetten, and with the consent of the noble foster-parents of
+Bertalda the three appointed a day for departure. One beautiful evening,
+as they walked about the market-place round the great fountain, suddenly
+a tall man emerged from among the people and stopped in front of Undine.
+He quickly whispered something in her ear, and though at first she
+seemed vexed at the intrusion, presently she clapped her hands and
+laughed joyously. Then the stranger mysteriously vanished, and seemed to
+disappear in the fountain.
+
+Huldbrand had suspected that he had seen the man before, and now felt
+assured that he was Kühleborn. Undine admitted the fact, and said that
+her uncle had told her a secret, which she was to reveal on the third
+day afterwards, which would be the anniversary of Bertalda's nameday.
+
+The anniversary came, and strange incidents happened. After the banquet
+given by the duke and duchess, Undine suddenly gave a signal, and from
+among the retainers at the door came forth the old fisherman and his
+wife, and Undine declared that in these Bertalda saw her real parents.
+The proud maiden instantly flew into a violent rage, weeping
+passionately, and utterly refused to acknowledge the old couple as her
+father and mother. She declared that Undine was an enchantress and a
+witch, sustaining intercourse with evil spirits.
+
+Undine, with great dignity, indignantly denied the accusation, while
+Bertalda's violent conduct created a feeling of disgust in the minds of
+all in the assembly. The matter was settled in a simple manner, for the
+duke commanded Bertalda to withdraw to a private apartment with the
+duchess and the two old folks from the hut, that an investigation might
+be made. It was soon over, for the noble lady was able presently to
+inform the company that Undine's story was absolutely true. The guests
+silently departed, and Undine sank sobbing into her husband's arms.
+
+Next day Bertalda, humbled by these events, sought pardon of Undine for
+her evil behaviour, and was instantly welcomed with loving assurances of
+forgiveness, moreover, she was cordially invited to go with the pair to
+Ringstetten.
+
+"We will share all things there as sisters," said Undine.
+
+The three journeyed to the distant castle, and took up their abode
+together. Soon Kühleborn appeared on the scene, but Undine at once
+repulsed him. Next, when her husband was one day hunting, she ordered
+the great well in the courtyard to be covered with a big stone, on which
+she cut some curious characters.
+
+Bertalda waywardly complained that this proceeding deprived her of water
+that was good for her complexion, but Undine privately explained to
+Huldbrand that she had caused the servants to seal up this spring
+because only by that way of access could her uncle Kühleborn come to
+disturb their peace.
+
+As time passed on, Huldbrand gradually cooled toward his wife and turned
+affectionately towards Bertalda. Undine bore patiently and silently the
+sorrow thus inflicted on her. But when her husband was impatient and
+angry she would plead with him never to speak to her in accents of
+unkindness when they happened to be on the water, for the water spirits
+had her completely in their power on their element, and would seek to
+protect her, and even seize her and take her down for ever to dwell in
+the crystal castles of the deep.
+
+After some estrangements, Undine and Bertalda had again become loving
+friends, and Huldbrand's affection for his wife had revived with its old
+and welcome warmth, while the attachment between him and Bertalda seemed
+forgotten.
+
+One day the three were enjoying a delightful excursion on the glorious
+Danube. Bertalda had taken off a beautiful coral necklace which
+Huldbrand had given her. She leaned over and drew the coral beads across
+the surface, enjoying the glitter thus caused, when suddenly a great
+hand from beneath seized the necklace and snatched it down. The maiden's
+scream of terror was answered by mocking laughter from the water.
+
+In an outburst of passion, Huldbrand started up and poured forth curses
+on the river and its denizens, whether spirits or sirens. With tears in
+her eyes, Undine besought him softly not to scold her there, and she
+took from her neck a beautiful necklace and offered it to Bertalda as a
+compensation.
+
+But the angry knight snatched it away, and hurled it into the river,
+exclaiming, "Are you still connected with them? In the name of all the
+witches, remain among them with your presents, and leave us mortals in
+peace, you sorceress!"
+
+Bitterly weeping and crying, "Woe! Woe!" she vanished over the side of
+the vessel. Her last words were, "Remain true! Woe! Woe!" Huldbrand lay
+swooning on the deck, and little waves seemed to be sobbing on the
+surface of the Danube, "Woe! Woe! Remain true!"
+
+
+_IV.--The White Stranger_
+
+
+For a time deep sorrow fell on the lord of Ringstetten and Bertalda.
+They lived long in the castle quietly, often weeping for Undine,
+tenderly cherishing her memory. Undine often visited Huldbrand in his
+dreams, caressing him and weeping silently so that his cheeks were wet
+when he awoke. But these visions grew less frequent, and the knight's
+grief diminished by degrees. At length he and Bertalda were married, but
+it was in spite of a grave warning from Father Heilmann, who declared
+that Undine had appeared to him in visions, beseeching him to warn
+Huldbrand and Bertalda to leave each other. They were too infatuated to
+heed the admonition, and a priest from a neighbouring monastery promised
+to perform the ceremony in a few days.
+
+Meantime, when lying between sleeping and waking, the knight seemed
+fanned by the wings of a swan, and, as he fell asleep, seemed borne
+along on the wings of swans which sang their sweetest music. All at once
+he seemed to be hovering over the Mediterranean Sea. Its waters were so
+crystalline that he could see through them to the bottom, and there,
+under a crystal arch, sat Undine, weeping bitterly. She seemed not to
+perceive him. Kühleborn approached her, and told her that Huldbrand was
+to be wedded again, and that it would be her duty, from which nothing
+could release her, to end his life.
+
+"That I cannot do," said she. "I have sealed up the fountain against my
+race."
+
+Huldbrand felt as if he were soaring back again over the sea, and at
+length he seemed to reach his castle. He awoke on his couch, but he
+could not bring himself to break off the arrangements that had been
+made.
+
+The marriage feast at Ringstetten was not as bright and happy as such
+occasions usually are, for a veil of gloom seemed to rest over the
+company. Even the bride affected a happy and thoughtless demeanour which
+she did not really feel. The company dispersed early, Bertalda retiring
+with her maidens, and Huldbrand with his attendants.
+
+In her apartment Bertalda, with a sigh, noticed how freckled was her
+neck, and a remark she made to her maidens as she gazed in the mirror
+excited the eager attention of one of them. She heard her fair mistress
+say, "Oh, that I had a flask of the purifying water from the closed
+fountain!" Presently the officious waiting-woman was seen leading men to
+the fountain. With levers they quickly lifted the stone, for some
+mysterious force within seemed to aid them.
+
+Then from the fountain solemnly rose a white column of water. It was
+presently perceived that it was a pale female figure, veiled in white.
+She was weeping bitterly as she walked slowly to the building, while
+Bertalda and her attendants, pale with terror, watched from the window.
+The figure passed on, and at the door of Huldbrand's room, where the
+knight was partly undressed, was heard a gentle tap. The white figure
+slowly entered. It was Undine, who softly said, "They have opened the
+spring, and now I am here and you must die." Said the knight, "It must
+be so! But let me die in your embrace."
+
+"Most gladly, my loved one," said she, throwing back her veil and
+disclosing her face divinely smiling. Imprinting on his lips a sacred
+kiss, Undine clasped the knight in her arms, weeping as if she would
+weep her very soul away. Huldbrand fell softly back on the pillows of
+his couch, a corpse.
+
+At the funeral of Huldbrand the veiled figure appeared when the
+procession formed a circle round the grave. All knelt in mute devotion
+at a signal from Father Heilmann. When they rose again the white
+stranger had vanished, and on the spot where she had knelt a silvery
+little fountain gushed forth, which almost encircled the grave and then
+ran on till it reached a lake near by. And to this day the inhabitants
+cherish the tradition that thus the poor rejected Undine still lovingly
+embraces her husband.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+ÉMILE GABORIAU
+
+
+"File No. 113"
+
+
+     Émile Gaboriau, one of the best-known exponents of the "police
+     story," was born at Saujon, in France, on November 9, 1833. He
+     began life in a lawyer's office, became a volunteer in a
+     cavalry regiment, and, later, secretary to Paul Feval, the
+     novelist and dramatist. In the meantime, Gaboriau had
+     contributed a number of sketches dealing with military and
+     fashionable life to various minor Parisian journals, but it
+     was not until 1866, with the publication of "L'Affaire
+     Lerouge," that he suddenly sprang into fame. From that time
+     until his death, on September 28, 1873, story after story
+     appeared rapidly from his pen. "File No. 113" ("Le Dossier
+     113") was published in 1867, and was the first of a remarkable
+     series of detective tales introducing the figure of Lecoq.
+     "File No. 113" is perhaps the most characteristic specimen of
+     his work, exhibiting as it does a careful study of the Paris
+     police system, and a thorough acquaintance with all phases of
+     criminal life.
+
+
+_I.--The Robbery and a Clue_
+
+
+The first mention of the celebrated robbery which took place at M.
+Fauvel's bank in Paris--the _dossier_ of the case is numbered 113 in the
+police files--appeared in the evening papers, February 28, 1866.
+
+On the previous day a certain Count Louis de Clameran sent word to M.
+Fauvel that he wished to withdraw the following morning at ten o'clock
+the sum of £12,000 which had been deposited in the bank by his brother,
+an ironmaster from the south of France who had recently died.
+
+M. Fauvel made it a rule never to keep any large sums of money on the
+premises, but to deposit all such amounts in the keeping of the Bank of
+France. As this sum, however, had to be paid the first thing in the
+morning, the chief cashier, M. Prosper Bertomy, thought he was justified
+in obtaining the amount from the Bank of France on the evening of the
+27th, and in locking it up in the bank safe against the morning.
+
+The safe was a formidable-looking affair constructed entirely of wrought
+iron of treble thickness. An ingenious device regulated its opening. On
+the massive door were five movable steel buttons engraved with the
+letters of the alphabet. Before the key could be inserted in the lock,
+these buttons had to be manipulated in the same order in which they had
+been used when the safe was last shut. The buttons were arranged so that
+the letters on them formed some word, which was changed from time to
+time. This word was known only to M. Fauvel and his cashier, each of
+whom possessed a key of the safe.
+
+As soon as the bank opened on the morning of February 28, the count put
+in an appearance, and Prosper Bertomy went to the safe to obtain the
+money. When, a second later, he reappeared, his face was ashy pale, and
+his steps tottered as he walked. The £12,000 had disappeared from within
+the safe. What made the affair all the more mysterious was that the safe
+was locked just as the cashier had left it the night before.
+
+The room in which the safe was situated communicated with the bank by
+another room in which every night a tried servant of the establishment
+slept. By a second door admittance was obtained to the private
+apartments of M. and Madame Fauvel and their niece Madeline.
+
+As soon as M. Fauvel had heard the startling news, he first obtained the
+necessary money from the Bank of France, settled the business with the
+count, and then turned his attention to the elucidation of the robbery.
+He summoned the cashier to his presence.
+
+Bertomy was a young man of thirty to whom M. Fauvel had shown great
+kindness, advancing his interests wherever possible until, though very
+young for the position, he was his most important and most confidential
+employee. Besides the paternal affection with which the bank manager
+regarded his cashier, another tie tended to make their relations all the
+stronger and more personal. Bertomy loved M. Fauvel's niece Madeline,
+and though a curious estrangement had sprung up between them during the
+previous nine or ten months, the banker always regarded their marriage
+as practically arranged.
+
+The interview between the two men was a curious one. To each it appeared
+that the other must be the thief. They alone had the keys of the safe;
+they alone knew the magic word which could open the massive door. The
+banker urged Bertomy to confess, promising him forgiveness; the other
+haughtily rejected the suggestion, and hinted that his employer had
+converted the £12,000 to his own use. In the end M. Fauvel lost his
+temper, sent for the police, and before twenty-four hours were up,
+Prosper Bertomy, who but the day before had held one of the most
+important and envied positions in the financial world of Paris, was
+charged before a magistrate as being a common thief.
+
+Investigation of the case was at first entrusted to a detective named
+Fanferlot, nicknamed by his comrades the "Squirrel." Fanferlot's
+examination of the premises resulted in little. All he discovered was a
+scratch upon the door of the safe, but certain words that passed between
+M. Fauvel and his niece, which seemed to indicate that the former was
+secretly opposed to the marriage of Madeline with Bertomy, caused him to
+jump to the conclusion that the banker had robbed his own safe in order
+to bring disgrace upon his cashier. He connived, however, at the arrest
+of Bertomy, hoping that later on he might obtain great kudos for himself
+by unmasking the banker. What might have been the result of his improper
+and unofficial methods will never be known, but in all probability great
+inconvenience would have been caused to a number of innocent persons and
+the whole course of justice thwarted had it not been for the
+intervention of the great and famous M. Lecoq.
+
+M. Lecoq's interest in the bank robbery case was largely a personal one.
+Even detectives have hearts, and M. Lecoq had loved with heart and soul
+a charming young girl named Nina Gipsy. Under the name of Caldas in one
+of his innumerable disguises, he had wooed her for many months. When he
+thought at last that he had won her affections, she had fled to the
+protection of no less a person than Prosper Bertomy himself. The cashier
+cared nothing for her, but embittered by an estrangement that had sprung
+up between Madeline and himself, he had sought forgetfulness in her
+society. Bertomy's arrest gave Lecoq an opportunity for a noble revenge.
+He determined to prove to the woman he loved his superiority over his
+rival by saving the cashier from disgrace.
+
+Though the case looked black against Bertomy, for it was shown that he
+was heavily in debt, and living far beyond his means, Lecoq was
+satisfied that he had not committed the crime. When Fanferlot,
+hopelessly befogged, called for his advice at his house in the Rue
+Montmartre, the great detective deigned to explain the preliminary data
+and the deductions from the data he had made.
+
+The scratch on the safe door, slight and minute as it was, was his
+starting-point. How had it been made? He had found by experiment that it
+was impossible to make such a scratch upon the varnish without the
+exercise of considerable force. It was clear, therefore, that the
+scratch by the keyhole could not have been made by the thief in his
+trembling anxiety to get the business he had undertaken accomplished.
+But why was such force used?
+
+For a long time Lecoq puzzled over this problem. Then, with Fanferlot,
+he tried an experiment. In his room was an iron box varnished like the
+safe. Taking the key of this box from his pocket, he ordered Fanferlot
+to seize his arm just as he put it near the lock. The key slipped,
+pulled away from the lock, and sliding along the surface of the door,
+left upon it a diagonal scratch, almost an exact reproduction of the one
+on the safe.
+
+From this simple experiment Lecoq deduced that two people were present
+when the safe was robbed; one wanted to take the money, the other wanted
+to prevent it being taken. This was the basis of the case which he set
+out to draw up against some person or persons unknown. He argued, with
+his usual clear logic, that neither Fauvel nor Bertomy could have robbed
+the safe. Both of them had keys; both of them knew the secret word and
+could have robbed the safe whenever they pleased. Therefore, neither of
+them would have committed the theft in the presence of somebody else.
+
+
+_II.--A Mysterious Journey_
+
+
+Lecoq's first steps after establishing these preliminary deductions was
+to secure the release of Bertomy on the grounds of insufficient
+evidence.
+
+On the very morning of his release, Bertomy had received a mysterious
+letter composed of printed words cut out letter by letter from a book
+and pasted on paper.
+
+"My dear Prosper," so the epistle ran, "a friend who knows the horror of
+your situation sends you this help. There is one heart at least which
+feels for you. Leave France; you are yourself. The future is before you.
+Go, and may this money be of use."
+
+Enclosed with this note were banknotes for £400. Lecoq, disguised as a
+M. Verduret, a country merchant, a friend of Bertomy's father, secured
+this epistle and studied it carefully. His knowledge of the various
+types used by the printers in Paris showed him that the letters had been
+taken from a book printed by a well-known firm who published volumes of
+devotion. The correctness of this conclusion was established by the
+discovery on the back of one of the small cuttings the word "Deus." The
+words had been cut from a Catholic prayer-book. To find that prayer-book
+was his next business.
+
+In another disguise he sought out Nina Gipsy, and, by asking her
+assistance to clear Prosper, induced her to take up the position of
+lady's-maid in the Fauvel family, for it was there, he conceived, the
+mutilated book of devotion would be found. Again his wonderful instinct
+proved right. In a few days Nina brought him the very book--a prayer-
+book, belonging to Madeline, which had been given her by Bertomy.
+
+Why had Madeline sent the cashier this elaborately disguised letter? Why
+had she wished him to leave France, confident as she was, so she told
+him, of his innocence?
+
+To find an answer to these important queries, Lecoq closely questioned
+Bertomy. He learnt that the night before the robbery the cashier had
+dined with his friend Raoul de Lagors, the wealthy, dissolute young
+nephew of M. Fauvel's wife. This Lagors was the friend of Count Louis de
+Clameran, whose demand for the £12,000 left him by his dead brother had
+resulted in the discovery of the mysterious robbery.
+
+Bertomy had nothing but the highest praise for Lagors, but, on the other
+hand, spoke most disparagingly of the count. The count, it appeared, had
+proposed for the hand of Madeline, and had pressed his suit with great
+determination. And Madeline--and this was what provided a new problem
+for Lecoq's consideration--had tacitly accepted his attention.
+
+Through Nina, Lecoq had arranged a meeting between Bertomy and Madeline,
+and satisfied himself that the girl was whole-heartedly and devotedly
+attached to her uncle's cashier. Then why was she favouring the suit of
+the count? Lecoq at once made it his business to inquire into the
+count's past.
+
+He was the second son of an old and noble family. His elder brother,
+Gaston, having to fly the country in consequence of causing the death of
+several men, he had inherited the property. A life of dissolute
+pleasures had soon exhausted his patrimony and he was reduced to living
+by his wits. Some weeks before the robbery, he had discovered that his
+brother Gaston was alive and was living on a large estate in the south
+of France, which he had purchased with the wealth he had accumulated in
+business. Six weeks after the two brothers met again, the elder died and
+the younger inherited his vast fortune.
+
+Raoul de Lagors was the next character in the drama whose past the
+detective made it his business to expose. Lagors, it has been said, was
+the nephew of Madame Fauvel. To his surprise, Lecoq discovered, by
+inquiries in her native place, that the banker's wife had never had any
+brothers or sisters. Lagors, therefore, was not her nephew.
+
+Fanferlot, acting on instructions, had kept a strict watch on the
+movements of Madeline, and by this means Lecoq received timely warning
+of a mysterious excursion which the girl made one night. He followed her
+to a lonely house on the outskirts of the city. When she had gained
+admittance, the appearance of a light in one of the windows on the first
+floor seemed to indicate the room to which she had been taken. By the
+aid of a ladder, Lecoq was able to watch what was going on within
+through the shutters.
+
+He saw Madeline standing opposite Lagors, evidently, from her attitude,
+pleading with him. For some time he listened to her, with a cynical
+smile upon his face, but after an hour he seemed to decide, with evident
+reluctance, to comply with her request. Going to a cabinet, he took out
+a bundle of pawn tickets and flung them on the table. Hastily going
+through the collection, she selected three, and concealing them in her
+dress, left the house.
+
+By following her to a pawnshop, Lecoq discovered that she had redeemed
+certain valuable articles of jewelry belonging to Madame Fauvel. Lecoq
+knew, through Nina Gipsy, who still filled the part of lady's-maid in
+the Fauvel family, that M. Fauvel had insisted on his wife accompanying
+him on the following evening to a great fancy-dress ball which was to be
+given by one of the wealthiest families in the capital. Obviously, then,
+the jewelry that Madeline had redeemed was required by Madame Fauvel for
+the occasion. Why had she pawned it for Lagors?
+
+A theory had half formed itself in Lecoq's brain. He determined to prove
+its truth. Disguised as a clown, he attended the fancy-dress ball, and
+in the character of a mountebank collected a group of ladies and
+gentlemen around him while he related with the inimitable skill of a
+buffoon a romantic narrative. To most of the people present it was
+simply an amusing story, but to the count and Lagors and Madame Fauvel,
+who were among the listeners, it seemed something much more, for Lecoq
+dressed out his theory of the robbery in the trappings of romance. Just
+as he reached the climax of the story there was a cry, and Madame Fauvel
+almost fell fainting on the floor. The count and Lagors rushed up
+furiously to Lecoq.
+
+"Master Clown," said Lagors, "your tongue is too long."
+
+"Perhaps, my pretty boy," retorted Lecoq, "perhaps it is. But it is, I
+can assure you, not so long as my arm."
+
+"Who are you, M. le Clown?" the count exclaimed angrily.
+
+"I am," replied Lecoq, "the best friend your brother Gaston had. I was
+his counsellor. I am the confidant of his last wishes."
+
+Though the solution of the problem seemed so tantalisingly near, there
+were still some threads in the tangle which required sorting out before
+Lecoq could say that the case was complete. Among other matters he
+inquired of Bertomy the word which had been used to lock the safe on,
+the night of the robbery. The word had been "gipsy." Bertomy was
+confident that he had not mentioned it to anybody, but Nina Gipsy was
+able to throw light on this part of the problem. She recollected a
+chance remark of Bertomy's while sitting at dinner with herself and
+Lagors on the night of the robbery. She had reproached Bertomy with
+neglecting her.
+
+"It's too bad for you to reproach me," cried the cashier, "for it is
+your name which at this very moment guards the safe of M. Fauvel."
+
+Lagors, therefore, had known the password. What did this new discovery
+imply? How did it fit in with the rest of the data which Lecoq had so
+brilliantly collected?
+
+After his custom, he marshalled once more in his mind all the facts at
+his disposal, but they were like so many loose links in a chain. They
+required the connecting link to make the chain complete. To find that
+link Lecoq spent a month in visiting the old home of the De Clamerans,
+the estate formerly occupied by Gaston de Clameron, who had died a few
+days before the robbery, and also in a trip to England. When he returned
+to Paris, _dossier_ No. 113 was complete.
+
+
+_III.--The Dossier_
+
+
+In her extreme youth, Madame Fauvel had been secretly loved by Gaston de
+Clameron. It was a result of certain contemptuous words spoken of the
+girl he loved that Gaston had committed those deeds which had compelled
+him to fly the country. Shortly after his flight, the girl, finding that
+she was about to give birth to a child, imparted the secret to her
+mother. Fearing a scandal, the mother, accompanied by a faithful nurse,
+took her daughter over to England. There, near London, a child was born,
+who was immediately handed over to some simple country people to adopt.
+The unhappy girl returned to France, and shortly after married M.
+Fauvel, the banker.
+
+Years after, the Count Louis de Clameron, who had inherited and ruined
+the estates of which his brother Gaston had been deprived, discovered
+this secret from the nurse, and finding on inquiries in London that the
+child had died, persuaded a young ne'er-do-well Englishman to play the
+_rôle_ of his brother's son. He secretly introduced him to Madame
+Fauvel, and through this means obtained what money he required from the
+unhappy woman, who feared the discovery of her past secret by her
+husband. The situation was complicated by the count falling in love with
+Madeline and the sudden appearance of Gaston de Clameron, who was
+thought to be dead.
+
+The count poisoned his brother, and then, finding that Madeline refused
+to give up Bertomy, determined to accomplish the cashier's ruin, and at
+the same time obtain an amount of money large enough to buy off his
+fellow-conspirator Lagors. Lagors, having learnt by chance the password
+that guarded the safe, was sent to Madame Fauvel late at night with a
+request for money.
+
+At this time Madame Fauvel was at the end of her resources. Lagors
+suggested taking the money from the safe. Tom between a desire to help
+her supposed son and the risk of discovery, she at last consented.
+Taking M. Fauvel's key, they descended silently to the safe-room. At the
+last moment, just as the key was in the lock, Madame Fauvel attempted to
+deter Lagors from his purpose. In the struggle that scratch was made on
+the door which formed the basis of Lecoq's inquiries and enabled the
+great detective to unravel the mystery.
+
+Madeline, who all the while half guessed at the truth, and perceived
+without being told that Madame Fauvel was at the mercy of the count, had
+been prepared to sacrifice her future happiness in order to prevent the
+scandal being made public.
+
+M. Lecoq, armed with these facts, sought out Lagors. He arrived only in
+time to prevent a tragedy. Warned by an anonymous letter that his wife
+had pawned her diamonds for the benefit of Lagors, the banker came upon
+them when they were together in Lagor's rooms. Imagining the young man
+was his wife's lover, the banker drew a revolver and fired four times.
+Fortunately, none of the shots took effect, and before he could fire
+again Lecoq had rushed into the room and torn the weapon from his grasp.
+It was the moment of the great detective's triumph. With the dramatic
+skill of which he was a master, he laid bare the whole story and
+disclosed the true identity of Raoul Lagors. Before he left he compelled
+Lagors to refund the £12,000 he had stolen, and in order to avoid a
+scandal allowed the young man to go free. Then, that nothing should be
+wanting to his triumph, he obtained the consent of the banker to
+Bertomy's marriage with Madeline.
+
+Hurrying from the banker's house, Lecoq hastened to effect the arrest of
+the count. He arrived too late. Realising that he was hopelessly in the
+toils, the count was bereft of his senses and become a hopeless maniac.
+
+Four days later M. Lecoq, the official M. Lecoq, awaited the arrival of
+Nina Gipsy and Prosper Bertomy. They declared that they had come to meet
+M. Verduret, who had saved Prosper Bertomy. The detective retired,
+promising to summon the man they had come to see. A quarter of an hour
+later M. Verduret entered the room. Facing them, he told them how a
+friend of his named Caldas had fallen in love with a girl, and how that
+girl had been won from him by a man who cared nothing for her.
+
+"Caldas determined to revenge himself in his own way. It was his hand
+that saved the man on the very verge of disgrace. I see you know that
+you, Nina, are the woman, and you, Prosper, the man; while Caldas
+is...."
+
+With a quick gesture he removed his wig and whiskers, and the true Lecoq
+appeared.
+
+"Caldas!" cried Nina.
+
+"No, not Caldas, not Verduret, but Lecoq, the detective."
+
+After the moments of amazement had passed, Lecoq turned to leave the
+room, but Nina barred the way.
+
+"Caldas," she cried, "have you not punished me enough? Caldas...."
+
+Prosper went from the office alone.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+JOHN GALT
+
+
+Annals of the Parish
+
+
+     John Gait, poet, dramatist, historian, and novelist, was born
+     at Irvine, Ayrshire, Scotland, on May 2, 1779. He was trained
+     for a commercial career in the Greenock Custom House, and in
+     the office of a merchant in that seaport. Removing to London,
+     Gait engaged in business and afterwards travelled extensively
+     to forward mercantile enterprises in all the countries
+     bordering on the Mediterranean and the Near East, where he
+     repeatedly met Lord Byron. His first work of fiction was a
+     Sicilian story, published in 1816, but it was not until 1820
+     that he found his true literary expression, when the "Ayrshire
+     Legatees" appeared in "Blackwood's Magazine." The success of
+     this tale was so great that Gait finished the "Annals of the
+     Parish; or the Chronicle of Dalmailing, during the Ministry of
+     the Rev. Micah Balwhidder," which he had really begun in 1813,
+     and they were published in 1821. The "Annals" contain a lively
+     and humorous picture of Scottish character, manners, and
+     feeling during the era described. In the latter part of his
+     life Gait wrote several novels, a life of Byron, an
+     autobiography, and his "Literary Life and Miscellanies." He
+     died on April 11, 1838.
+
+
+_I.--The Placing of Mr. Balwhidder_
+
+
+The year A.D. 1760 was remarkable for three things in the parish of
+Dalmailing. First and foremost, there was my placing, then the coming of
+Mrs. Malcolm with her five children to settle among us, and next my
+marriage with my own cousin, Miss Betty Lanshaw. The placing was a great
+affair, for I was put in by the patron, and the people knew nothing of
+me whatsoever. They were really mad and vicious, insomuch that there was
+obliged to be a guard of soldiers to protect the presbytery. Dirt was
+flung upon us as we passed, and the finger of scorn held out to me. But
+I endured it with a resigned spirit, compassionating their wilfulness
+and blindness.
+
+The kirk door was nailed up and we were obligated to go in by the
+window, making the Lord's house like an inn on a fair-day with their
+grievous yelly hooing. Thomas Thorl, the weaver, a pious zealot, got up
+at the time of the induction and protested, and said, "Verily, verily, I
+say unto you, he that entereth not by the door of the sheepfold, but
+climbeth up some other way, the same is a thief and a robber."
+
+When the laying on of the hands upon me was adoing, Mr. Given, minister
+of Lugton, a jocose man, who could not get near, stretched out his staff
+and touched my head, saying, to the great diversion of the rest, "This
+will do well enough--timber to timber."
+
+After the ceremony we went to the manse, and there had an excellent
+dinner. Although my people received me in this unruly manner, I was
+resolved to cultivate civility among them; and next morning I began a
+round of visitations. But, oh! it was a steep brae to climb. The doors
+in some places were barred against me; in others the bairns ran crying
+to their mothers, "Here's the feckless Mess-John." But Thomas Thorl
+received me kindly, and said that this early visitation was a symptom of
+grace, and that not to condemn me without trial he and some neighbours
+would be at the kirk at the next Lord's day, so that I would not have to
+preach just to the bare walls and the laird's family.
+
+As to Mrs. Malcolm, she was the widow of a Clyde shipmaster that was
+lost at sea with his vessel. A genty body, she never changed her widow's
+weeds, and span frae morning tae nicht to keep her bairns and herself.
+When her daughter Effie was ill, I called on her in a sympathising way,
+and offered her some assistance frae the Session, but she refused help
+out of the poor's-box, as it might be hereafter cast up to her bairns.
+
+It was in the year 1761 that the great smuggling trade corrupted the
+west coast. Tea was going like chaff, and brandy like well-water. There
+was nothing minded but the riding of cadgers by day and excisemen by
+night, and battles between the smugglers and the king's men, both by sea
+and land; continual drunkenness and debauchery, and our Session had an
+awful time o't.
+
+I did all that was in my power to keep my people from the contagion. I
+preached sixteen times from the text, "Render to Caesar the things that
+are Caesar's." I visited, exhorted, warned, and prophesied, but the evil
+got in among us. The third year of my ministry was long held in
+remembrance. The small-pox came in among the poor bits o' weans of the
+parish, and the smashing it made among them was woeful. When the
+pestilence was raging, I preached a sermon about Rachel weeping for her
+children, which Thomas Thorl, a great judge of good preaching, said,
+"was a monument of divinity whilk searched the heart of many a parent
+that day"--a thing I was well pleased to hear, and was minded to make
+him an elder the next vacancy. But, worthy man, it was not permitted him
+to arrive at that honour; for that fall it pleased Him that alone can
+give and take to pluck him from this life.
+
+In this year Charlie Malcolm, Mrs. Malcolm's eldest son, was sent to sea
+in a tobacco-trader that sailed between Port Glasgow and Virginia.
+Tea-drinking was beginning to spread more openly, in so much that by the
+advice of the first Mrs. Balwhidder, Mrs. Malcolm took in tea to sell to
+eke out something to the small profits of her wheel. I lost some of my
+dislike to the tea after that, and we had it for breakfast at the manse
+as well as in the afternoon. But what I thought most of it for was that
+it did no harm to the head of the drinkers, which was not always the
+case with the possets in fashion before, when I remember decent ladies
+coming home with red faces from a posset-masking. So I refrained from
+preaching against tea henceforth, but I never lifted the weight of my
+displeasure from off the smuggling trade, until it was utterly put down
+by the strong hand of government.
+
+
+_II.--The Minister's Second Marriage_
+
+
+A memorable year, both in public and private, was 1763. The king granted
+peace to the French. Lady Macadam, widow of General Macadam, who lived
+in her jointure-house, took Kate Malcolm to live with her as companion,
+and she took pleasure in teaching Kate all her accomplishments and how
+to behave herself like a lady. The lint-mill on Lugton Water was burned
+to the ground, with not a little of the year's crop of lint in our
+parish. The first Mrs. Balwhidder lost upwards of twelve stone, which
+was intended for sarking to ourselves and sheets and napery. A great
+loss indeed it was, and the vexation thereof had a visible effect on her
+health, which from the spring had been in a dwining way. But for it, I
+think she might have wrestled through the winter. However, it was
+ordered otherwise, and she was removed from mine to Abraham's bosom on
+Christmas Day, and buried on Hogmanay, for it was thought uncanny to
+have a dead corpse in the house on the New Year's Day.
+
+Just by way of diversion in my heavy sorrow, I got a well-shapen
+headstone made for her; but a headstone without a epitaph being no
+better than a body without the breath of life in't, I made a poesy for
+the monument, not in the Latin tongue, which Mrs. Balwhidder, worthy
+woman as she was, did not understand, but in sedate language, which was
+greatly thought of at the time. My servant lassies, having no eye of a
+mistress over them, wasted everything at such a rate that, long before
+the end of the year, the year's stipend was all spent, and I did not
+know what to do. At lang and length I sent for Mr. Auld, a douce and
+discreet elder, and told him how I was situated. He advised me, for my
+own sake, to look out for another wife, as soon as decency would allow.
+
+In the following spring I placed my affections, with due consideration,
+on Miss Lizzy Kibbock, the well-brought-up daughter of Mr. Joseph
+Kibbock, of the Gorbyholm, farmer; and we were married on the 29th day
+of April, on account of the dread we had of being married in May, for it
+is said, "Of the marriages in May, the bairns die of a decay." The
+second Mrs. Balwhidder had a genius for management, and started a dairy,
+and set the servant lassies to spin wool for making blankets and lint
+for sheets and napery. She sent the butter on market days to Irville,
+her cheese and huxtry to Glasgow. We were just coining money, in so much
+that, after the first year, we had the whole tot of stipend to put into
+the bank.
+
+The opening of coal-pits in Douray Moor brought great prosperity to the
+parish, but the coal-carts cut up the roads, especially the Vennel, a
+narrow and crooked street in the clachan. Lord Eglesham came down from
+London in the spring of 1767 to see the new lands he had bought in our
+parish. His coach couped in the Vennel, and his lordship was thrown head
+foremost into the mud. He swore like a trooper, and said he would get an
+act of parliament to put down the nuisance. His lordship came to the
+manse, and, being in a woeful plight, he got the loan of my best suit of
+clothes. This made him wonderful jocose both with Mrs. Balwhidder and
+me, for he was a portly man, and I but a thin body, and it was really
+droll to see his lordship clad in my garments. Out of this accident grew
+a sort of neighbourliness between Lord Eglesham and me.
+
+
+_III.--A Runaway Match_
+
+
+About Christmas, Lady Macadam's son, having been perfected in the art of
+war at a school in France, had, with the help of his mother's friends
+and his father's fame, got a stand of colours in the Royal Scots
+Regiment. He came to show himself in his regimentals to his lady mother,
+and during the visit he fell in love and entered into correspondence
+with Kate Malcolm. A while after, her ladyship's flunkey came to the
+manse and begged me to go to her. So I went; and there she was, with
+gum-flowers on her head, sitting on a settee, for she was lame, and in
+her hand she held a letter.
+
+"Sir," she said, as I came into the room, "I want you to go instantly to
+your clerk," meaning Mr. Lorimore, the schoolmaster, "and tell him I
+will give him a couple of hundred pounds to marry Miss Malcolm without
+delay."
+
+"Softly, my lady; you must first tell me the meaning of all this haste
+of kindness," said I, in my calm, methodical manner. At which she began
+to sob, and bewail her ruin and the dishonour of her family. I was
+confounded, but at length it came out that she had accidentally opened a
+letter that had come from London for Kate, that she had read it, by
+which she came to know that Kate and her darling son were trysted, and
+that this was not the first love-letter which had passed between them.
+Mr. Lorimore promptly declined her ladyship's proposal, as he was
+engaged to be married to his present worthy helpmate. Although her
+ladyship was so overcome with passion, she would not part with Kate, nor
+allow her to quit the house.
+
+Three years later the young Laird Macadam, being ordered with his
+regiment for America, got leave from the king to come and see his lady
+mother before his departure. But it was not to see her only. He arrived
+at a late hour unwarned, lest his mother would send Kate out of the way;
+but no sooner did her ladyship behold his face than she kindled upon
+both him and Kate, and ordered them out of her sight and house. The
+young folk had discretion. Kate went home to her mother, and the laird
+came to the manse and begged us to take him in.
+
+He asked me to perform the ceremony, as he was resolved to marry Kate.
+We stepped over to Mrs. Malcolm's house, where we found the saintly
+woman with Kate and Erne and Willie, preparing to read their Bible for
+the night. After speaking to Mrs. Malcolm for a time, she consented to
+the marriage. It was sanctified by me before we left Mrs. Malcolm's, the
+young couple setting off in the laird's chaise to Glasgow, and
+authorising me to break the matter to Lady Macadam. I was spared this
+performance, for the servants jealoused what had been done, and told her
+ladyship. When I entered the room she was like a mad woman in Bedlam.
+She sent her coachman on horseback to overtake them, which he did at
+Kilmarnock, and they returned in the morning, when her ladyship was as
+cagey and meikle taken up with them as if they had gotten her full
+consent and privilege from the first. Captain Macadam afterwards bought
+a house at the Braehead, and gave it, with a judicious income, to Mrs.
+Malcolm, telling her it was not becoming that she should any longer be
+dependent upon her own industry. For this the young man got a name like
+a sweet odour in all the country-side.
+
+It will be remembered that Charlie Malcolm went a-sailing in a
+tobacco-trader to America. When his ship was lying in the harbour of
+Virginia, a press-gang, that was in need of men for the Avenger,
+man-of-war, came on board and pressed poor Charles. I wrote to Lord
+Eglesham anent the matter, and his lordship's brother being connected
+with the Admiralty, the captain of the man-of-war was instructed to make
+a midshipman of Charles. This was done, and Mrs. Malcolm heard from time
+to time from her son, saying that he had found a friend in the captain,
+that was just a father to him.
+
+In the latter end of 1776, the man-of-war, with Charles Malcolm in her,
+came to the Tail of the Bank at Greenock, and Charles got leave from his
+captain to come and see his mother. He brought with him Mr. Howard,
+another midshipman, the son of a great Parliament man in London. They
+were dressed in their fine gold-laced garbs. When Charles had seen his
+mother and his sister, Effie, he came with his friend to see me at the
+manse, and got Mrs. Balwhidder to ask his friend to sleep there. In
+short, we had a ploy the whole two days they stayed with us, Lady
+Macadam made for them at a ball, and it was a delight to see how old and
+young of all degrees made much of Charles.
+
+
+_IV.--Years of Lamentation_
+
+
+I was named in the year 1779 for the General Assembly, and Mrs.
+Balwhidder, by her continual thrift, having made our purse able to stand
+a shake against the wind, we resolved to go into Edinburgh in a
+creditable manner. We put up at Widow M'Vicar's, a relation to my first
+wife, a gawsy, furthy woman, taking great pleasure in hospitality. In
+short, everybody in Edinburgh was in a manner wearisome kind.
+
+I was delighted and surprised to find Lord Eglesham at the levee, and he
+introduced me to his grace the Commissioner, who required me to preach
+before him. Fain would I have eschewed the honour that was thus thrust
+upon me; but both my wife and Mrs. M'Vicar were just lifted out of
+themselves at the thought. After the sermon the Commissioner
+complimented me on my apostolic earnestness, and Mrs. M'Vicar said I had
+surprised everybody; but I was fearful there was something of jocularity
+at the bottom of all this.
+
+The year 1781 was one of dolour and tribulation, for Lord Eglesham was
+shot dead by a poaching exciseman, and Lady Macadam died of paralysis;
+but the year after was one of greater lamentation. Three brave young
+fellows belonging to the clachan, who had gone as soldiers in America,
+were killed in battle with the rebels, for which there was great grief.
+Shortly after this the news came of a victory over the French fleet, and
+by the same post I got a letter from Mr. Howard, the midshipman, telling
+me that poor Charles had been mortally wounded in the action, and had
+afterwards died of his wounds.
+
+Mrs. Malcolm heard the news of the victory through the steeple bell
+being set a-ringing, and she came over to the manse in great anxiety.
+When I saw her I could not speak, but looked at her in pity, and, the
+tears fleeing into my eyes, she guessed what had happened. After giving
+a deep and sore sigh, she inquired, "How did he behave? I hope well, for
+he was aye a gallant laddie!" And then she wept very bitterly. I gave
+her the letter, which she begged me to give to her to keep, saying,
+"It's all that I have left now of my pretty boy; but it is mair precious
+to me than the wealth of the Indies!"
+
+
+_V.--Death of the Second Mrs. Balwhidder_
+
+
+Some time after this a Mr. Cayenne, a man of crusty temper but good
+heart, and his family, American loyalists, settled among us. In the year
+1788, a proposal came from Glasgow to build a cotton mill on the banks
+of the Brawl burn, a rapid stream which ran through the parish. Mr.
+Cayenne took a part in the profit or loss of the concern, and the cotton
+mill and a new town was built, and the whole called Cayenneville.
+Weavers of muslin were brought to the mill, and women to teach the
+lassie bairns in our old clachan tambouring instead of hand-spinning.
+
+Prosperity of fortune is like the golden hue of the evening cloud that
+delighteth the spirit and passeth away. In the month of February 1796,
+my second wife was gathered to the Lord. Her death was to me a great
+sorrow, for she was a most excellent wife, industrious to a degree. With
+her I had grown richer than any other minister in the presbytery.
+
+I laid her by the side of my first love, Betty Lanshaw, and I inscribed
+her name upon the same headstone. Time had drained my poetical vein, and
+I have not yet been able to indite an epithet on her merits and virtues,
+for she had an eminent share of both. Above all, she was the mother of
+my children. She was not long deposited in her place of rest until
+things fell into amazing confusion, and I saw it would be necessary, as
+soon as decency would allow, for me to take another wife, both for a
+helpmate, and to tend me in my approaching infirmities.
+
+I saw it would not do for me to look out for an overly young woman, nor
+yet would it do for one of my way to take an elderly maiden, ladies of
+that sort being liable to possess strong-set particularities. I
+therefore resolved that my choice should lie among widows of a discreet
+age, and I fixed my purpose on Mrs. Nugent, the relict of a professor in
+the University of Glasgow, both because she was a well-bred woman
+without any children, and because she was held in great estimation as a
+lady of Christian principle. And so we were married as soon as a
+twelve-month and a day had passed from the death of the second Mrs.
+Balwhidder; and neither of us have had occasion to rue the bargain.
+
+
+_VI.--The Last Sermon_
+
+
+Two things made 1799 a memorable year; the marriage of my daughter Janet
+with the Rev. Dr. Kittleword of Swappington, a match in every way
+commendable; and the death of Mrs. Malcolm. If ever there was a saint on
+earth she was surely one. She bore adversity with an honest pride; she
+toiled in the day of penury and affliction with thankfulness for her
+little earnings.
+
+The year 1803 saw tempestuous times. Bonaparte gathered his host fornent
+the English coast, and the government at London were in terror of their
+lives for an invasion. All in the country saw that there was danger, and
+I was not backward in sounding the trumpet to battle. I delivered on
+Lord's Day a religious and political exhortation on the present posture
+of public affairs before a vast congregation of all ranks. The week
+following there were meetings of weavers and others, and volunteers were
+enrolled in defence of king and country.
+
+In the course of the next four or five years many changes took place in
+the parish. The weavers and cotton-mill folk and seceders from my own
+kirk built a meeting-house in Cayenneville, where there had been for a
+while great suffering on account of the failure of the cotton-mill
+company. In the year 1809 the elders came in a body to the manse, and
+said that, seeing that I was now growing old, they thought they could
+not testify their respect for me in a better manner than by agreeing to
+get me a helper; and the next year several young ministers spared me
+from the necessity of preaching.
+
+When it was known that I was to preach my last sermon on the last
+sabbath of 1810, everyone, including the seceders to the meeting-house,
+made it a point to be in the parish kirk, or to stand in the crowd that
+made a lane of reverence for me to pass from the kirk door to the
+back-yett of the manse. It was a moving discourse, and there were few
+dry eyes in the kirk that day; for my bidding them farewell was as when
+of old among the heathen an idol was taken away by the hand of the
+enemy. Shortly after, a deputation of the seceders, with their minister
+at their head, came to me and presented a server of silver in token of
+their esteem of my blameless life, and the charity I had practised
+towards the poor.
+
+I am thankful that I have been spared with a sound mind to write this
+book to the end, having really no more to say, saving only to wish a
+blessing on all people from on high, where I soon hope to be, and to
+meet there all the old and long-departed sheep of my flock, especially
+the first and second Mrs. Balwhidders.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+ELIZABETH CLEGHORN GASKELL
+
+
+Cranford
+
+
+     Mrs. Gaskell, whose maiden name was Elizabeth C. Stevenson,
+     was born in Chelsea, London, Sept. 29, 1810. She married a
+     Unitarian clergyman in Manchester. Her first literary work was
+     published anonymously, and met with a storm of mingled
+     approval and disapproval. Charles Dickens invited her to
+     contribute to his "Household Words," and it was in the pages
+     of that famous periodical, at intervals between December 13,
+     1851, and May 21, 1853, that her charming sketches of social
+     life in a little country town first appeared. In June, 1853,
+     they were grouped together under the title of "Cranford,"
+     meeting with wide approval, and have long taken rank as one of
+     the accepted English classics. The town which figures here as
+     Cranford is understood to have been Knutsford, in Cheshire,
+     which still retains something of that old-world feeling and
+     restfulness which Mrs. Gaskell embodied in the pages of her
+     most engaging book. "Cranford" is probably the direct
+     progenitor of many latter-day books of the class to which the
+     word "idyll" has been somewhat loosely applied. Its charm and
+     freshness are unfading; it remains unique and unrivalled as a
+     sympathetic and kindly humorous description of English
+     provincial life. Mrs. Gaskell died in November, 1865.
+
+
+_I.--Our Society_
+
+
+On the first visit I paid to Cranford, after I had left it as a
+residence, I was astonished to find a man had settled there--a Captain
+Brown. In my time Cranford was in possession of the Amazons. If a
+married couple came to settle there, somehow the man always disappeared.
+Either he was fairly frightened to death by being the only man at the
+evening parties, or he was accounted for by being with his regiment, his
+ship, or closely connected in business all the week in the great
+neighbouring commercial town of Drumble, distant only twenty miles on
+the railroad.
+
+I was naturally interested to learn what opinions Captain Brown had
+managed to win for himself in Cranford. So, with all the delicacy which
+the subject demanded, I made inquiries of my hostess, Miss Jenkyns. I
+was surprised to learn that Captain Brown not only was respected, but
+had even gained an extraordinary place of authority among the Cranford
+ladies. Of course, he had been forced to overcome great difficulties.
+
+In the first place, the ladies of Cranford had moaned over the invasion
+of their territories by a man and a gentleman. Then Captain Brown had
+started badly, very badly, by openly referring to his poverty. If he had
+whispered it to an intimate friend, the doors and windows being
+previously closed, his vulgarity--a tremendous word in Cranford--might
+have been forgiven. But he had published his poverty in the public
+street, in a loud military voice, alleging it as a reason for not taking
+a particular house.
+
+In Cranford, too, where it was tacitly agreed to ignore that anyone with
+whom we associated on terms of equality could ever be prevented by
+poverty from doing anything they wished. Where, if we walked to and from
+a party, it was because the night was _so_ fine or the air _so_
+refreshing, not because sedan-chairs were so expensive.
+
+So the poor captain had been sent to Coventry. The ladies of Cranford
+had frozen him out, until the day when the cow, an Alderney cow, had
+broken the ice.
+
+It happened like this. Miss Betsy Barker had an Alderney cow, which she
+looked upon as a daughter. You could not pay the regulation short
+quarter of an hour's call--to stay longer was a breach of
+manners--without being told of the wonderful milk or wonderful
+intelligence of this animal. The whole town knew and kindly regarded
+Miss Betsy Barker's Alderney.
+
+One day the cow fell into a lime-pit, and Cranford grieved over the
+spectacle of the poor beast being drawn out, having lost most of her
+hair, and looking naked, cold and miserable, in a bare skin. Miss Betsy
+Barker absolutely cried with sorrow and dismay, and was about to prepare
+a bath of oil for the sufferer, when Captain Brown called out: "Get her
+a flannel waistcoat and flannel drawers, ma'am, if you wish to keep her
+alive. But my advice is, 'kill the poor creature at once.'" Miss Betsy
+Barker dried her eyes, and in a few hours the whole town turned out to
+see the Alderney meekly going to her pasture, clad in dark-gray flannel.
+Do you ever see cows dressed in gray flannel in London?
+
+On that day was born the respect of the Cranford ladies for Captain
+Brown.
+
+Soon after my arrival in Cranford, Miss Jenkyns gave a party in my
+honour, and recalling the old days when we had almost persuaded
+ourselves that to be a man was to be "vulgar," I was curious to see what
+the ladies would do with Captain Brown.
+
+The preparations were much as usual. Card-tables, with green baize tops,
+were set out by daylight, and towards four, when the evening closed in,
+we all stood dressed in our best, each with a candle-lighter in our
+hand, ready to dart at the candles as soon as the first knock came. The
+china was delicate egg-shell; the old-fashioned silver glittered with
+polishing; but the eatables were of the slightest description. While the
+trays were yet on the table, Captain Brown arrived with his two
+daughters, Miss Brown and Miss Jessie, the former with a sickly, pained,
+and careworn expression; the latter with a pretty, round, dimpled face,
+and the look of a child which will remain with her should she live to be
+a hundred.
+
+I could see that the captain was a favourite with all the ladies
+present. Ruffled brows were smoothed and sharp voices hushed at his
+approach. He immediately and quietly assumed the man's place in the
+room; attended to everyone's wants, lessened the pretty maidservant's
+labour by waiting on empty cups and bread-and-butterless ladies; and yet
+did it all in so easy and dignified a manner, and so much as if it were
+a matter of course for the strong to attend to the weak, that he was a
+true man throughout.
+
+The party passed off very well in spite of one or two little hitches.
+One was Miss Jessie Brown's unguarded admission--_à propos_ of Shetland
+wool--that she had an uncle, her mother's brother, who was a shopkeeper
+in Edinburgh. Miss Jenkyns tried to drown this confession by a terrible
+cough, for the honourable Mrs. Jamieson was sitting at the card-table
+nearest Miss Jessie, and what would she say or think if she found out
+she was in the same room with a shopkeeper's niece!
+
+Then there was a slight breeze between Miss Jenkyns and Captain Brown
+over the relative merits of Dr. Johnson and the author of "Pickwick
+Papers"--then being published in parts--as writers of light and
+agreeable fiction. Captain Brown read an account of the "Swarry" which
+Sam Weller gave at Bath. Some of us laughed very heartily. _I_ did not
+dare, because I was staying in the house. At the conclusion Miss Jenkyns
+said to me, with mild dignity, "Fetch me 'Rasselas,' my dear, out of the
+book-room."
+
+After delivering one of the conversations between Rasselas and Imlac in
+a majestic, high-pitched voice, Miss Jenkyns said, "I imagine I am now
+justified in my preference for Dr. Johnson over your Mr. Boz as a writer
+of fiction."
+
+The captain said nothing, merely screwed his lips up and drummed on the
+table; but when Miss Jenkyns returned later to the charge and
+recommended the doctor's style to Captain Brown's favourite, the captain
+replied, "I should be very sorry for him to exchange his style for any
+such pompous writing."
+
+Miss Jenkyns felt this as a personal affront in a way of which the
+captain had not dreamed. How could he know that she and her friends
+looked upon epistolary writing as their forte, and that when in a letter
+they "seized the half-hour just previous to post-time to assure" their
+friends of this and that, they were using the doctor as a model?
+
+As it was Miss Jenkyns refused to be mollified by Captain Brown's
+efforts later to beguile her into conversation on some more pleasing
+subject. She was inexorable.
+
+Captain Brown endeavoured to make peace after this memorable dispute by
+a present to Miss Jenkyns of a wooden fire-shovel (his own making),
+having heard her say how much the grating of an iron one annoyed her.
+She received the present with cool gratitude and thanked him formally.
+When he was gone she bade me put it in the lumber-room, feeling probably
+that no present from a man who preferred Mr. Boz to Dr. Johnson could be
+less jarring than an iron fire-shovel.
+
+Such was the state of affairs at the time when I left Cranford and went
+to Drumble. I had, however, several correspondents who kept me _au fait_
+as to the proceedings of the inhabitants of the dear little town.
+
+
+_II.--The Captain_
+
+
+My next visit to Cranford was in the summer. There had been neither
+births, deaths, nor marriages since I was there last. Everybody lived in
+the same house, and wore pretty near the same well-preserved,
+old-fashioned clothes. The greatest event was that the Misses Jenkyns
+had purchased a new carpet for the drawing-room. Oh, the busy work Miss
+Matty and I had in chasing the sunbeams as they fell in an afternoon
+right down on this carpet through the blindless windows! We spread our
+newspapers over the places and sat down to our book or our work; and,
+lo! in a quarter of an hour the sun had moved and was blazing away in a
+fresh spot; and down again we went on our knees to alter the position of
+the newspapers. One whole morning, too, we spent in cutting out and
+stitching together pieces of newspapers so as to form little paths to
+every chair, lest the shoes of visitors should defile the purity of the
+carpet. Do you make paper paths for every guest to walk upon in London?
+
+The literary dispute between Captain Brown and Miss Jenkyns continued.
+She had formed a habit of talking _at_ him. And he retaliated by
+drumming his fingers, which action Miss Jenkyns felt and resented as
+disparaging to Dr. Johnson.
+
+The poor captain! I noticed on this visit that he looked older and more
+worn, and his clothes were very threadbare. But he seemed as bright and
+cheerful as ever, unless he was asked about his daughter's health.
+
+One afternoon we perceived little groups in the street, all listening
+with faces aghast to some tale or other. It was some time before Miss
+Jenkyns took the undignified step of sending Jenny out to inquire.
+
+Jenny came back with a white face of terror.
+
+"Oh, ma'am! Oh, Miss Jenkyns, ma'am! Captain Brown is killed by them
+nasty cruel railroads." And she burst into tears.
+
+"How, where--where? Good God! Jenny, don't waste time in crying, but
+tell us something."
+
+Miss Matty rushed out into the street, and presently an affrighted
+carter appeared in the drawing-room and told the story.
+
+"'Tis true, mum, I seed it myself. The captain was a-readin' some book,
+waitin' for the down train, when a lass as gave its sister the slip came
+toddling across the line. He looked up sudden, see'd the child, darted
+on the line, cotched it up, and his foot slipped and the train came over
+him in no time. The child's safe. Poor captain would be glad of that,
+mum, wouldn't he? God bless him!"
+
+The great rough carter turned away to hide his tears. I turned to Miss
+Jenkyns. She looked very ill, as though she were going to faint, and
+signed to me to open a window.
+
+"Matilda, bring me my bonnet. I must go to those girls. God pardon me if
+ever I have spoken contemptuously to the captain."
+
+Miss Brown did not long survive her father. Her last words were a prayer
+for forgiveness for her selfishness in allowing her sister Jessie to
+sacrifice herself for her all her life.
+
+But Miss Jessie was not long left alone. Miss Jenkyns insisted she
+should come and stay with her, and would not hear of her going out into
+the world to earn her living as a saleswoman. "Some people have no idea
+of their rank as a captain's daughter," she related indignantly, and
+stumped out of the room. Presently she came back with a strange look on
+her face.
+
+"I have been much startled--no, I've not been startled--don't mind me,
+my dear Miss Jessie, only surprised--in fact, I've had a caller whom you
+once knew, my dear Miss Jessie."
+
+Miss Jessie went very white, then flushed scarlet.
+
+"Is it?--it is not----" stammered out Miss Jessie, and got no farther.
+
+"This is his card," said Miss Jenkyns, and went through a series of
+winks and odd faces at me, and formed a long sentence with her lips, of
+which I could not understand a word.
+
+Major Gordon was shown upstairs.
+
+While downstairs Miss Jenkyns told me what the major had told her. How
+he had served in the same regiment as Captain Brown and had fallen in
+love with Miss Jessie, then a sweet-looking, blooming girl of eighteen;
+how she had refused him, though obviously not indifferent to him; how he
+had discovered the obstacle to be the fell disease which had stricken
+her sister, whom there was no one to nurse and comfort but herself; how
+he had believed her cold and had left in anger; and finally how he had
+read of the death of Captain Brown in a foreign newspaper.
+
+Just then Miss Matty burst into the room.
+
+"Oh, Deborah," she said, "there's a gentleman sitting in the drawing-
+room with his arm round Miss Jessie's waist!"
+
+"The most proper place for his arm to be in. Go, Matilda, and mind your
+own business."
+
+Poor Miss Matty! This was a shock, coming from her decorous sister.
+
+Thus happiness, and with it some of her early bloom, returned to Miss
+Jessie, and as Mrs. Gordon her dimples were not out of place.
+
+
+_III.--Poor Peter_
+
+
+My visits to Cranford continued for many years, and did not cease even
+after the death of Miss Jenkyns.
+
+Miss Matty became my new hostess. At first I rather dreaded the changed
+aspect of things. Miss Matty, too, began to cry as soon as she saw me.
+She was evidently nervous from having anticipated my visit. I comforted
+her as well as I could, and I found the best consolation I could give
+was the honest praise that came from my heart as I spoke of the
+deceased.
+
+Miss Matty made me her confidante in many matters, and one evening she
+sent Martha to go for eggs at a farm at the other end of the town and
+told me the story of her brother.
+
+"Poor Peter! The sole honour he brought from Shrewsbury was the
+reputation of being captain of the school in the art of practical
+joking. He even thought that the people of Cranford might be hoaxed.
+'Hoaxing' is not a pretty word, my dear, and I hope you won't tell your
+father I used it, for I should not like him to think I was not choice in
+my language, after living with such a woman as Deborah. I don't know how
+it slipped out of my mouth, except it was that I was thinking of poor
+Peter, and it was always his expression.
+
+"One day my father had gone to see some sick people in the village.
+Deborah, too, was away from home for a fortnight or so. I don't know
+what possessed poor Peter, but he went to her room and dressed himself
+in her old gown and shawl and bonnet. And he made the pillow into a
+little--you are sure you locked the door, my dear?--into--into a little
+baby with white long clothes. And he went and walked up and down in the
+Filbert Walk--just half hidden by the rails and half seen; and he
+cuddled the pillow just like a baby and talked to it all the nonsense
+people do. Oh, dear, and my father came stepping stately up the street,
+as he always did, and pushing past the crowd saw--I don't know what he
+saw--but old Clare said his face went grey-white with anger. He seized
+hold of poor Peter, tore the clothes off his back--bonnet, shawl, gown,
+and all--threw them among the crowd, and before all the people lifted up
+his cane and flogged Peter.
+
+"My dear, that boy's trick on that sunny day, when all promised so well,
+broke my mother's heart and changed my father for life. Old Clare said
+Peter looked as white as my father and stood still as a statue to be
+flogged.
+
+"'Have you done enough, sir?' he asked hoarsely, when my father stopped.
+Then Peter bowed grandly to the people outside the railing and walked
+slowly home. He went straight to his mother, looking as haughty as any
+man, and not like a boy.
+
+"'Mother,' he said, 'I am come to say "God bless you for ever."'
+
+"He would say no more, and by the time my mother had found out what had
+happened from my father, and had gone to her boy's room to comfort him,
+he had gone, and did not come back. That spring day was the last time he
+ever saw his mother's face. He wrote a passionate entreaty to her to
+come and see him before his ship left the Mersey for the war, but the
+letter was delayed, and when she arrived it was too late. It killed my
+mother. And think, my dear, the day after her death--for she did not
+live a twelve-month after Peter left--came a parcel from India from her
+poor boy. It was a large, soft white India shawl. Just what my mother
+would have liked.
+
+"We took it to my father in the hopes it would rouse him, for he had sat
+with her hand in his all night long. At first he took no notice of it.
+Then suddenly he got up and spoke. 'She shall be buried in it,' he said.
+'Peter shall have that comfort; and she would have liked it.'"
+
+"Did Mr. Peter ever come home?"
+
+"Yes, once. He came home a lieutenant. And he and my father were such
+friends. My father was so proud to show him to all the neighbours. He
+never walked out without Peter's arm to lean on. And then Peter went to
+sea again, and by-and-by my father died, blessing us both and thanking
+Deborah for all she had been to him. And our circumstances were changed,
+and from a big rectory with three servants we had come down to a small
+house with a servant-of-all-work. But, as Deborah used to say, we have
+always lived genteelly, even if circumstances have compelled us to
+simplicity. Poor Deborah!"
+
+"And Mr. Peter?" I asked.
+
+"Oh, there was some great war in India, and we have never heard of Peter
+since then. I believe he is dead myself. Sometimes when I sit by myself
+and the house is quiet, I think I hear his step coming up the street,
+and my heart begins to flutter and beat; but the sound goes, and Peter
+never comes back."
+
+
+_IV.--Friends in Need_
+
+
+The years rolled on. I spent my time between Drumble and Cranford. I was
+thankful that I happened to be staying with Miss Matty when the Town and
+County Bank failed, which had such a disastrous effect on her little
+fortune.
+
+It was an example to me, and I fancy it might be to many others, to see
+how immediately Miss Matty set about the retrenchment she knew to be
+right under her altered circumstances. I did the little I could. Some
+months back a conjuror had given a performance in the Cranford Assembly
+Rooms. By a strange set of circumstances the identity of Signor Brunoni
+was revealed. He was plain Samuel Brown, who had fallen out of his cart
+and had to be attended by our doctor. I went to visit the patient and
+his wife, and learned that she had been India. She told me a long story
+about being befriended, after a perilous journey, by a kind Englishman
+who lived right in the midst of the natives. It was his name which
+astonished me. Agra Jenkyns.
+
+Could Agra Jenkyns be the long lost Peter? I resolved to say nothing to
+Miss Matty, but got the address from the signor (as we still called him
+from habit), spelt by sound, and very queer it looked, and posted a
+letter to him.
+
+All sorts of plans were discussed for Miss Matty's future. I thought of
+all the things by which a woman, past middle age, and with the education
+common to ladies fifty years ago, could earn or add to a living without
+materially losing caste; but at length I put even this last clause on
+one side, and wondered what in the world Miss Matty could do. Even
+teaching was out of the question, for, reckoning over her
+accomplishments, I had to come down to reading, writing, and
+arithmetic--and in reading the chapter every morning she always coughed
+before coming to long words.
+
+I was still in a quandary the next morning, when I received a letter
+from Miss Pole, so mysteriously wrapped up and with so many seals on it
+to secure secrecy that I had to tear the paper before I could unfold it.
+
+It summoned me to go to Miss Pole at 11 a.m., the a.m. twice dashed
+under as if I were likely to come at eleven at night, when all Cranford
+was usually abed and asleep by ten. I went and found Miss Pole dressed
+in solemn array, though there were only Mrs. Forrester, crying quietly
+and sadly, and Mrs. FitzAdam present. Miss Pole was armed with a card,
+on which I imagine she had written some notes.
+
+"Miss Smith," she began, when I entered (I was familiarly known to all
+Cranford as Mary, but this was a state occasion), "I have conversed in
+private with these ladies on the misfortune which has happened to our
+friend, and one and all have agreed that while we have a superfluity, it
+is not only a duty but a pleasure--a true pleasure, Mary!"--her voice
+was rather choked just here, and she had to wipe her spectacles before
+she could go on--"to give what we can to assist her--Miss Matilda
+Jenkyns. Only in consideration of the feelings of delicate independence
+existing in the mind of every refined female"--I was sure she had got
+back to the card--"we wish to contribute our mites in a secret and
+concealed manner, so as not to hurt the feelings I have referred to."
+
+Well, the upshot of this solemn meeting was that each of those dear old
+ladies wrote down the sum she could afford annually, signed the paper
+and sealed it mysteriously, and I was commissioned to get my father to
+administer the fund in such a manner that Miss Jenkyns should imagine
+the money came from her own improved investments.
+
+As I was going, Mrs. Forrester took me aside, and in the manner of one
+confessing a great crime the poor old lady told me how very, very little
+she had to live on--a confession she was brought to make from a dread
+lest we should think that the small contribution named in her paper bore
+any proportion to her love and regard for Miss Mary. And yet that sum
+which she so eagerly relinquished was, in truth, more than a twentieth
+part of what she had to live on. And when the whole income does not
+nearly amount to a hundred pounds, to give up a twentieth of it will
+necessitate many careful economies and many pieces of self-denial--small
+and insignificant in the world's account, but bearing a different value
+in another account book that I have heard of.
+
+The upshot of it all was that dear Miss Matty was comfortably installed
+in her own house, and added to her slender income by selling tea! This
+last was my idea, and it was a proud moment for me when it realized. The
+small dining-room was converted into a shop, without any of its
+degrading characteristics, a table formed the counter, one window was
+retained unaltered and the other changed into a glass door, and there
+she was. Tea was certainly a happy commodity, as it was neither greasy
+nor sticky, grease and stickiness being two of the qualities which Miss
+Matty could not endure. Moreover, as Miss Matty said, one good thing
+about it was that men did not buy it, and it was of men particularly she
+was afraid. They had such sharp, loud ways with them, and did up
+accounts and counted their change so quickly.
+
+Very little remains to be told. The approval of the Honourable Mrs.
+Jamieson set the seal upon the successful career of Miss Matty as a
+purveyor of tea. Thus did she escape even the shadow of "vulgarity."
+
+One afternoon I was sitting in the shop parlour with Miss Matty, when we
+saw a gentleman go slowly past the window and then stand opposite to the
+door, as if looking out for the name which we had so carefully hidden.
+His clothes had an out-of-the-way foreign cut, and it flashed across me
+it was the Agra himself! He entered.
+
+Miss Matty looked at him, and something of tender relaxation in his face
+struck home to her heart. She said: "It is--oh, sir, can you be Peter?"
+and trembled from head to foot. In a moment he had her in his arms,
+sobbing the tearless cries of old age.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+Mary Barton
+
+
+     "Mary Barton," although not Mrs. Gaskell's first attempt at
+     authorship, was her first literary success; and although her
+     later writings revealed a gain in skill, subtlety and humour,
+     none of them equalled "Mary Barton" in dramatic intensity and
+     fervent sincerity. This passionate tale of the sorrows of the
+     Manchester poor, given to the world anonymously in the year
+     1848, was greeted with a storm of mingled approval and
+     disapproval. It was praised by Carlyle and Landor, but some
+     critics attacked it fiercely as a slander on the Manchester
+     manufacturers, and there were admirers who complained that it
+     was too heartrending. The controversy has long since died
+     down, but the book holds a permanent place in literature as a
+     vivid revelation of a dark and painful phase of English life
+     in the middle of the last century.
+
+
+_I.--Rich and Poor_
+
+
+"Mary," said John Barton to his daughter, "what's come o'er thee and Jem
+Wilson? You were great friends at one time."
+
+"Oh, folk say he is going to be married to Molly Gibson," answered Mary,
+as indifferently as she could.
+
+"Thou'st played thy cards badly, then," replied her father in a surly
+tone. "At one time he were much fonder o' thee than thou deservedst."
+
+"That's as people think," said Mary pertly, for she remembered that the
+very morning before, when on her way to her dressmaking work, she had
+met Mr. Harry Carson, who had sighed, and sworn and protested all manner
+of tender vows. Mr. Harry Carson was the son and the idol of old Mr.
+Carson, the wealthy mill-owner. Jem Wilson, her old playmate, and the
+son of her father's, closest friend, although he had earned a position
+of trust at the foundry where he worked, was but a mechanic after all!
+Mary was ambitious; she knew that she had beauty; she believed that when
+young Mr. Carson declared he meant to marry her he spoke the truth.
+
+It so happened that Jem, after much anxious thought, had determined that
+day to "put his fortune to the touch." Just after John Barton had gone
+out, Jem appeared at the door, looking more awkward and abashed than he
+had ever done before.
+
+He thought he had better begin at once.
+
+"Mary, it's no new story I'm going to speak about. Since we were boy and
+girl I ha' loved you above father and mother and all. And now, Mary, I'm
+foreman at the works, and I've a home to offer you, and a heart as true
+as ever man had to love you and cherish you. Darling, say that you'll be
+mine."
+
+Mary could not speak at once.
+
+"Mary, they say, silence gives consent," he whispered.
+
+"No, not with me! I can never be your wife."
+
+"Oh, Mary, think awhile!" he urged.
+
+"Jem, it cannot be," she said calmly, although she trembled from head to
+foot. "Once for all, I will never marry you."
+
+"And this is the end!" he cried passionately. "Mary, you'll hear, maybe,
+of me as a drunkard, and maybe as a thief, and maybe as a murderer.
+Remember! it's your cruelty that will have made me what I feel I shall
+become."
+
+He rushed out of the house.
+
+When he had gone, Mary lay half across the dresser, her head hidden in
+her hands, and her body shaken with violent sobs. For these few minutes
+had unveiled her heart to her; it had convinced her that she loved Jem
+above all persons or things. What were the wealth and prosperity that
+Mr. Harry Carson might bring to her now that she had suddenly discovered
+the passionate secret of her soul?
+
+Her first duty, she saw, was to reject the advances of her rich lover.
+She avoided him as far as possible, and slighted him when he forced his
+presence upon her. And how was she to redress the wrong she had done to
+Jem in denying him her heart? She took counsel with her friend,
+Margaret Legh. When Mary had first known Margaret and her grandfather,
+Job Legh--an old man who belonged to the class of Manchester workmen who
+are warm and devoted followers of science, a man whose home was like a
+wizard's dwelling, filled with impaled insects and books and
+instruments--Margaret had a secret fear of blindness. The fear had since
+been realised, but she remained the quiet, sensible, tender-hearted girl
+she had been before her great deprivation. She opposed Mary's notion of
+writing a letter to Jem.
+
+"You must just wait and be patient," she advised; "being patient is the
+hardest work we have to do through life, I take it. Waiting is far more
+difficult than doing; but it's one of God's lessons we must learn, one
+way or another."
+
+So Mary waited. But Jem took his disappointment as final, and her hopes
+of seeing him were always baffled.
+
+John Barton, on the night of Jem's proposal, had gone to his union. The
+members of the union were all desperate men, ready for anything; made
+ready by want. Barton himself was out of work. He had seen much of the
+bitterness of poverty in Manchester; now he was feeling the pinch of it
+himself.
+
+Ever since the death of his wife, whose end had been hastened by the
+sudden and complete disappearance of her darling sister Esther, the wan
+colourlessness of his face had been intensified; his stern enthusiasm,
+once latent, had become visible; his heart, tenderer than ever towards
+the victims of the misery around him, grew harder towards the employers,
+whom he believed to be the cause of that misery. Trade grew worse, but
+there was no sign that the masters were suffering; they still had their
+carriages and their comforts; the woe in these terrible years 1839,
+1840, and 1841 seemed to fall wholly upon the poor. It is impossible
+even faintly to picture the state of distress which prevailed in
+Manchester at that time. Whole families went through a gradual
+starvation; John Barton saw them starve, saw fathers and mothers and
+children die of low, putrid fever in foetid cellars, and cursed the rich
+men who never extended a helping hand to the sufferers.
+
+"Working folk won't be ground to the dust much longer," he declared.
+"We'n ha' had as much to bear as human nature can bear."
+
+Fiercer grew he, and more sullen. Darker and darker were the schemes he
+brooded over in his desolate home, or discussed with others at the
+meetings of the union. Even Mary did not escape his ill-temper. Once he
+struck her. And yet Mary was the one being on earth he devotedly loved.
+What would he have thought had he known that his daughter had listened
+to the voice of an employer's son? But he did not know.
+
+
+_II.--The Rivals_
+
+
+One night, as Jem was leaving the foundry, a woman laid her hand upon
+his arm. A momentary glance at the faded finery she wore told him the
+class to which she belonged, and he made an effort to pass on. But she
+grasped him firmly.
+
+"You must listen to me, Jem Wilson," she said, "for Mary Barton's sake."
+
+"And who can you be to know Mary Barton?" he exclaimed.
+
+"Do you remember Esther, Mary's aunt?"
+
+'"Yes, I mind her well." He looked into her face. "Why, Esther! Where
+have ye been this many a year?"
+
+She answered with fierce earnestness, "Where have I been? What have I
+been doing? Can you not guess? See after Mary, and take care she does
+not become like me. As she is loving now, so did I love once--one above
+me, far."
+
+Jem cut her short with his hoarse, stern inquiry, "Who is this spark
+that Mary loves?"
+
+"It's old Carson's son." Then, after a pause, she continued, "Oh, Jem, I
+charge you with the care of her! Her father won't listen to me." She
+cried a little at the recollection of John Barton's harsh words when she
+had timidly tried to approach him. "It would be better for her to die
+than to live to lead such a life as I do!"
+
+"It would be better," said Jem, as if thinking aloud. Then he went on.
+"Esther, you may trust to my doing all I can for Mary. And now, listen.
+Come home with me. Come to my mother."
+
+"God bless you, Jem!" she replied. "But it is too late now--too late!"
+
+She rapidly turned away. Jem felt that the great thing was to reach home
+and solitude. His heart was filled with jealous anguish. Mary loved
+another! She was lost to him for evermore. A frenzied longing for blood
+entered his mind as he brooded that night over his loss. But at last the
+thought of duty brought peace to his soul. If Carson loved Mary, Carson
+must marry her. It was Jem's part to speak straightforwardly to Carson,
+to be unto Mary as a brother.
+
+Four days later his opportunity came. He met Carson in an unfrequented
+lane.
+
+"May I speak a word wi' you, sir?" said Jem respectfully.
+
+"Certainly, my good man," replied Harry Carson.
+
+"I think, sir, you're keeping company wi' Mary Barton?"
+
+"Mary Barton! Ay, that is her name. An arrant flirt the little hussy is,
+but very pretty."
+
+"I will tell you in plain words," said Jem, angered, "what I have got to
+say to you. I'm an old friend of Mary's and her father's, and I want to
+know if you mean fair by Mary or not."
+
+"You will have the kindness to leave us to ourselves," answered Carson
+contemptuously. "No one shall interfere between my little girl and me.
+Get out of my way! Won't you? Then I'll make you!"
+
+He raised his cane, and smote the mechanic on his face. An instant
+afterwards he lay stretched in the muddy road, Jem standing over him,
+panting with rage. Just then a policeman, who had been watching them
+unobserved, interfered with expostulations and warnings.
+
+"If you dare to injure her," shouted Jem, as he was dragged away, "I
+will wait you where no policeman can step in between. And God shall
+judge between us two!"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The mill-workers had struck against low wages. Five haggard, earnest-
+looking men had presented the workpeople's demands to the assembled
+mill-owners, and the demands had been rejected. None had been fiercer in
+opposing the delegates, none more bitter in mockery of their rags and
+leanness, than the son of old Mr. Carson.
+
+That evening, starved, irritated, despairing men gathered to hear the
+delegates tell of their failure.
+
+"It's the masters as has wrought this woe," said John Barton in a low
+voice. "It's the masters as should pay for it. Set me to serve out the
+masters, and see if there's aught I'll stick at!"
+
+Deeper and darker grew the import of the speeches as the men stood
+hoarsely muttering their meaning out with set teeth and livid looks.
+After a fierce and terrible oath had been sworn, a number of pieces of
+paper, one of them marked, were shuffled in a hat. The gas was
+extinguished; each drew a paper. The gas was re-lighted. Each examined
+his paper, with a countenance as immovable as he could make it. Then
+they went every one his own way.
+
+He who had drawn the marked paper had drawn the lot of the assassin. And
+no one, save God and his own conscience, knew who was the appointed
+murderer.
+
+
+_III.--Murder_
+
+
+Two nights later, Barton was to leave for Glasgow, whither he was to
+travel as delegate to entreat assistance for the strikers. "What could
+be the matter with him?" thought Mary. He was so restless; he seemed so
+fierce, too.
+
+Presently he rose, and in a short, cold manner bade her farewell. She
+stood at the door, looking after him, her eyes blinded with tears. He
+was so strange, so cold, so hard. Suddenly he came back, and took her in
+his arms.
+
+"God in heaven bless thee, Mary!"
+
+She threw her arms round his neck. He kissed her, unlaced her soft,
+twining arms, and set off on his errand.
+
+When Mary reached the dressmaker's next morning, she noticed that the
+girls stopped talking. They eyed her! then they began to whisper. At
+last one of them asked her if she had heard the news.
+
+"No! What news?" she answered.
+
+"Have you not heard that young Mr. Carson was murdered last night?"
+
+Mary could not speak, but no one who looked at her pale and
+terror-stricken face could have doubted that she had not heard before of
+the fearful occurrence.
+
+She felt throughout the day as if the haunting horror were a nightmare
+from which awakening would relieve her. Everybody was full of the one
+subject.
+
+In the evening she went to Mrs. Wilson's, hoping that at last she might
+see Jem. But here a new and terrible shock awaited her.
+
+Mrs. Wilson turned fiercely upon her.
+
+"And is it thee that dares set foot in this house, after what has come
+to pass? Dost thou know where my son is, all through thee?"
+
+"No," quivered out poor Mary.
+
+"He's lying in prison, waiting to take his trial for murdering young Mr.
+Carson."
+
+So, indeed, it was. At the inquest the policeman who had witnessed the
+quarrel between the rivals testified to the threats uttered by Jem; and
+the gun used by the murderer, and thrown away by him in his haste to
+escape, had been proved to be Jem's property.
+
+Jem an assassin, and because of her! In the agony of that night Mary saw
+the gallows standing black against the burning light which dazzled her
+shut eyes, press on them as she would. She thought she was going mad;
+then Heaven blessed her unawares, and she sank to sleep.
+
+She was awakened by the coming of a visitor. It was her long-lost,
+unrecognised aunt Esther, who had come to her niece bringing her a
+little piece of paper compressed into a round shape. It was the paper
+that had served as wadding for the murderer's gun. Esther had picked it
+up while wandering in curiosity about the scene of the murder. There was
+writing on the paper, and she had brought it to Mary, fearing that if it
+fell into the hands of the police it would provide more evidence against
+Jem.
+
+The paper told Mary everything. It had belonged to John Barton. Jem was
+innocent, and her own father was the murderer! Jem must be saved, and
+she must do it; for was she not the sole repository of the terrible
+secret? And how could she prove Jem's innocence without admitting her
+father's guilt?
+
+When she could think calmly, she realised that she must discover where
+Jem had been on the Thursday night when the murder had been committed.
+Tremblingly she went to Mrs. Wilson, and learnt what she wanted to know.
+Jem had walked towards Liverpool with his cousin Will, a sailor who had
+spent all his money in Manchester, and could not afford railway-fare.
+Will's ship was to sail on Tuesday, and on Tuesday Jem was to be tried
+at the Liverpool assizes.
+
+Job Legh engaged a lawyer to defend Jem, and Mary prepared to go to
+Liverpool to find the one man whose evidence could save her lover. Ere
+she left, a policeman brought her a bit of parchment. Her heart misgave
+her as she took it; she guessed its purport. It was a summons to bear
+witness against Jem Wilson at the assizes.
+
+
+_IV.--"Not Guilty_"
+
+
+Arrived at Liverpool on Monday, after the bewilderment of a railway
+journey--the first she had ever made--Mary found her way to the little
+court, not far from the docks, were Jem's sailor cousin lodged.
+
+"Is Will Wilson here?" she asked the landlady.
+
+"No, he is not," replied the woman, curtly.
+
+"Tell me--where he is?" asked Mary, sickening.
+
+"He's gone this very morning, my poor dear," answered the landlady,
+relenting at the sight of Mary's obvious distress. "He's sailed, my
+dear--sailed in the John Cropper this very blessed morning!"
+
+Mary staggered into the house, stricken into hopelessness. Yet hope was
+not dead. The landlady's son told her that the John Cropper would be
+waiting for high-water to cross the sandbanks at the river's mouth, and
+that there was a chance that a sailing-boat might overtake the vessel.
+
+Mary hurried down to the docks, spent every penny she had in hiring a
+boat, and presently was tossing on the water for the first time in her
+life, alone with two rough men.
+
+The boatmen hailed the John Cropper just as the crew were heaving
+anchor, and told their errand. The captain refused with a dreadful oath
+to stop his ship for anyone, whoever swung for it. But Will Wilson,
+standing at the stern, shouted through his hands, "So help me God, Mary
+Barton, I'll come back in the pilot-boat time enough to save his life!"
+
+As the ship receded in the distance, Mary asked anxiously when the
+pilot-boat would be back. The boatmen did not know; it might be twelve
+hours, it might be two days. A chance yet remained, but she could no
+longer hope. When she reached the landing-place, faint and penniless,
+one of the boatmen took her to his home, and there she sat sleeplessly
+awaiting the dawn of the day of trial.
+
+When she entered the witness-box next day, the whole court reeled before
+her, save two figures only--that of the judge and that of the prisoner.
+Jem sat silent--he had held his peace ever since his arrest--with his
+face bowed on his hands.
+
+Mary answered a few questions with a sort of wonder at the reality of
+the terrible circumstances in which she was placed.
+
+"And pray, may I ask, which was the favoured lover?" went on the
+barrister.
+
+A look of indignation for an instant contracted Mary's brow. She was
+aware that Jem had raised his head and was gazing at her. Turning
+towards the judge, she said steadily, "Perhaps I liked Mr. Harry Carson
+once; but I loved James Wilson beyond what tongue can tell. When he
+asked me to marry him, I was very hard in my answer; but he'd not been
+gone out of my sight above a minute before I knew I loved him--far above
+my life."
+
+After these words the prisoner's head was no longer bowed. He stood
+erect and firm, with self-respect in his attitude; yet he seemed lost in
+thought.
+
+But Will Wilson did not come, and the evidence against Jem grew stronger
+and stronger. Mary was flushed and anxious, muttering to herself in a
+wild, restless manner. Job Legh heard her repeat again and again, "I
+must not go mad; I must not!"
+
+Suddenly she threw up her arms and shrieked aloud: "Oh, Jem! Jem! You're
+saved! and I am mad!" and was carried out of court stiff and convulsed.
+And as they bore her off, a sailor forced his way over rails and seats,
+through turnkeys and policemen. Will Wilson had come in time.
+
+He told his tale clearly and distinctly; the efforts of the prosecution
+to shake him were useless. "Not guilty" was the verdict that thrilled
+through the breathless court. One man sank back in his seat in sickening
+despair. The vengeance that old Mr. Carson had longed to compass for the
+murder of his beloved boy was thwarted; he had been cheated of the
+desire that now ruled his life--the desire of blood for blood.
+
+
+_V.--"Forgive Us Our Trespasses_"
+
+
+For many days Mary hovered between life and death, and it was long ere
+she could make the journey back to Manchester under the tender care of
+the man who now knew she loved him. Not until she had recovered did he
+tell her that he had lost his situation at the foundry--the men refused
+to work under one who had been tried for murder--and that he was looking
+for work elsewhere.
+
+"Mary," he asked, "art thou much bound to Manchester? Would it grieve
+thee sore to quit the old smoke-jack?"
+
+"With thee?" was her quiet response.
+
+"I've heard fine things of Canada. Thou knowest where Canada is, Mary?"
+
+"Not rightly--but with thee, Jem"--her voice sank to a
+whisper--"anywhere." Then, after a pause, she added, "But father!"
+
+John Barton was smitten, helpless, very near to death. His face was sunk
+and worn--like a skull, with yet a suffering expression that skulls have
+not! Crime and all had been forgotten by his daughter when she saw him;
+fondly did she serve him in every way that heart could devise.
+
+Jem had known from the first that Barton was the murderer of Harry
+Carson. Several days before the murder Barton had borrowed Jem's gun,
+and Jem had seen the truth at the moment of his arrest. When Mary came
+to tell him that her father wished to speak to him, Jem could not guess
+what was before him, and did not try to guess.
+
+When they entered the room, Mary saw all at a glance. Her father stood
+holding on to a chair as if for support. Behind him sat Job Legh,
+listening; before him stood the stern figure of Mr. Carson.
+
+"Don't dare to think that I shall be merciful; you shall be
+hanged--hanged--man!" said Mr. Carson, with slow, emphasis.
+
+"I've had far, far worse misery than hanging!" cried Barton. "Sir, one
+word! My hairs are grey with suffering."
+
+"And have I had no suffering?" interrupted Mr. Carson. "Is not my boy
+gone--killed--out of my sight for ever? He was my sunshine, and now it
+is night! Oh, my God! comfort me, comfort me!" cried the old man aloud.
+
+Barton lay across the table broken-hearted. "God knows I didn't know
+what I was doing," he whispered. "Oh, sir," he said wildly, "say you
+forgive me?"
+
+"Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive them that trespass against us,"
+said Job solemnly.
+
+Mr. Carson took his hands from his face.
+
+"Let my trespasses be unforgiven, so that I may have vengeance for my
+son's murder."
+
+John Barton lay on the ground as one dead.
+
+When Mr. Carson had left the house, he leant against a railing to steady
+himself, for he was dizzy with agitation. He looked up to the calm,
+majestic depths of the heavens, and by-and-by the last words he had
+spoken returned upon him, as if they were being echoed through all that
+infinite space in tones of unutterable sorrow. He went homewards; not to
+the police-office. All night long, the archangel combated with the demon
+in his soul.
+
+All night long, others watched by the bed of death. As morning dawned,
+Barton grew worse; his breathing seemed almost stopped. Jem had gone to
+the druggist's, and Mary cried out for assistance to raise her father.
+
+A step, which was not Jem's, came up the stairs. Mr. Carson stood in the
+doorway. He raised up the powerless frame, and the departing soul looked
+out of the eyes with gratitude.
+
+"Pray for us!" cried Mary, sinking on her knees.
+
+"God be merciful to us sinners," was Mr. Carson's prayer. "Forgive us
+our trespasses as we forgive them that trespass against us."
+
+And when the words were said, John Barton lay a corpse in Mr. Carson's
+arms.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+At the door of a long, low wooden house stands Mary, watching the return
+of her husband from his work.
+
+Her baby boy, in his grandmother's arms, sees him come with a crow of
+delight.
+
+"English letters!" cries Jem. "Guess the good news!"
+
+"Oh, tell me!" says Mary.
+
+"Margaret has recovered her sight. She and Will are to be married, and
+he's bringing her out here to Canada; and Job Legh talks of coming,
+too--not to see you, Mary, but to try and pick up a few specimens of
+Canadian insects."
+
+"Dear Job Legh!" said Mary, softly.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+WILLIAM GODWIN
+
+
+Caleb Williams
+
+
+     William Godwin, the son of a dissenting parson, was a man of
+     remarkable gifts and the father of the poet Shelley's second
+     wife, Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley (see Vol. VII). Born at
+     Wisbeach, England, March 3, 1756, he served for five years,
+     1778-83, as a Nonconformist minister, and then going to
+     London, joined the leading Whig circle of the day, and turned
+     his attention to political writings. His "Political Justice,"
+     though little read to-day, had a great number of readers and
+     considerable influence a hundred years ago. "Things as They
+     Are, or the Adventures of Caleb Williams," published in 1794,
+     has a philosophical significance, suggested by the falseness
+     of the common code of morality, which is apt to be overlooked
+     by many readers in the strong interest of the tale. It is one
+     of the few books of that period which may still be said to
+     live. It is quite the best of his novels. "It raised Godwin's
+     reputation to a pinnacle," according to contemporary
+     criticism, though some of his other novels, notably
+     "Fleetwood," have been preferred for their descriptive
+     writing. He was an exceedingly industrious writer; essays,
+     biography, political philosophy, and history all coming from
+     his pen; but in spite of this and of his many distinguished
+     friendships, Godwin was always in difficulties, which he bore
+     with the becoming grace of a philosopher. He died on April 7,
+     1836.
+
+
+_I.--Mr. Falkland's Secret_
+
+
+My life has for several years been a theatre of calamity. My fairest
+prospects have been blasted. My enemy has shown himself inaccessible to
+entreaties and untired in persecution. I was born of humble parents, in
+a remote county of England. Their occupations were such as usually fall
+to the lot of peasants, and they had no portion to give me. I was taught
+the rudiments of no science, except reading, writing, and arithmetic.
+But I had an inquisitive mind, and neglected no means of information
+from conversation or books.
+
+The residence of my parents was within the manor of Ferdinando Falkland,
+a country squire of considerable opulence. At an early age I attracted
+the favourable notice of Mr. Collins, this gentleman's steward, who used
+to call in occasionally at my father's.
+
+In the summer of the year----, Mr. Falkland visited his estate in our
+county after an absence of several months. This was a period of
+misfortune to me. I was then eighteen years of age. My father lay dead
+in our cottage, and I had lost my mother some years before. In this
+forlorn situation I received a message from the squire, ordering me to
+repair to the manor house.
+
+My reception was as gracious and encouraging as I could possibly desire.
+Mr. Falkland questioned me respecting my learning, and my conceptions of
+men and things, and listened to my answers with condescension and
+approbation. He then informed me that he was in want of a secretary, and
+that if I approved of the employment he would take me into his house.
+
+I felt highly flattered by the proposal, and found my employment--which
+included the duties of librarian as well as those of a secretary--easy
+and agreeable.
+
+Mr. Falkland's mode of living was in the utmost degree recluse and
+solitary. His features were scarcely ever relaxed in a smile, and the
+distemper which afflicted him with incessant gloom had its paroxysms.
+None of the domestics, except myself and Mr. Collins approached Mr.
+Falkland but at stated seasons and then only for a very short interval.
+
+Once after I had seen my patron in a strange fit of intolerable anguish,
+I could not help confiding in Mr. Collins that I feared Mr. Falkland had
+some secret trouble, and in answer to my communication Mr. Collins told
+me the story of Tyrrel's murder.
+
+Barnabas Tyrrel had been a neighbouring squire insupportably brutish and
+arrogant, tyrannical to his inferiors, and insolent to his equals. From
+the first he hated Falkland, whose dignity and courtesy were a constant
+rebuke to the other's boorish ill-humours, and rejected with scorn all
+proposals for civil intercourse.
+
+The crisis came when Tyrrel, who had been expelled from the rural
+assembly which met every week at the market-town, forced his way in. He
+was intoxicated, and at once attacked Falkland, knocking him down, and
+then kicking his prostrate enemy before anyone had time to interfere.
+
+To Mr. Falkland disgrace was worse than death. This complication of
+ignominy, base, humiliating, and public, stung him to the very soul, and
+filled his mind with horror and uproar. One other event closed that
+memorable evening. Mr. Tyrrel was found dead in the street, having been
+murdered a few yards from the assembly-house.
+
+From that day Falkland was a changed man. His cheerfulness and
+tranquillity gave way to gloomy and unsociable melancholy, and, filled
+with the ideas of chivalry, the humiliating and dishonourable situation
+in which he had been placed could never be forgotten. To add to his
+misfortunes, it was presently whispered that he was no other than the
+murderer of his antagonist, and even the magistrates at length decided
+that the matter must be investigated, and requested Falkland to appear
+before them.
+
+Mr. Falkland attended, and easily convinced the magistrates of his
+innocence, pointing out that his one desire was to have called out the
+man who had insulted him so horribly, and to have fought him to the
+death. He was not only acquitted, but a public demonstration of sympathy
+was arranged at once to show the esteem in which he was held.
+
+A few weeks, and the real murderer was discovered. This was a man named
+Hawkins, who, with his son, had been reduced from an honest livelihood
+to beggary and ruin by Tyrrel. On circumstantial evidence, Hawkins and
+his son were condemned and executed.
+
+This was the story Mr. Collins told me in order that I might understand
+Mr. Falkland's unhappy state. In reality it only added to my
+embarrassment.
+
+Was it possible, after all, that Mr. Falkland should be the murderer? It
+was but a passing thought, and yet what was the meaning of Mr.
+Falkland's agonies of mind? I could not accept Mr. Collins's view that
+Mr. Falkland was so much the slave and fool of honour that the shame of
+Tyrrel's savage assault alone had driven him to this melancholy and
+solitude, and compelled the violent outbursts of passion.
+
+
+_II.--I Learn the Secret_
+
+
+My suspicions would not be set at rest. No spark of malignity was
+harboured in my soul. I reverenced the sublime mind of Mr. Falkland, but
+I had a mistaken curiosity to find out the truth of Tyrrel's murder.
+Often it seemed that Mr. Falkland was about to speak to me, but the
+movement always ended in silence.
+
+At last one day he sent for me to his room, and after making me swear
+never to disclose his confidence, and warning me that he had observed my
+suspicions, told me that he was the murderer of Tyrrel and the assassin
+of the two Hawkins.
+
+"This it is to be a gentleman, a man of honour!" Falkland went on, in
+extreme distress. "My virtue, my honesty, my everlasting peace of mind,
+all sacrificed that I may preserve my good name. And I am as much the
+fool of fame as ever. Though I be the blackest of villains, I will leave
+behind me a spotless and illustrious name. Why is it that I am compelled
+to this confidence? From the love of fame. I had no alternative but to
+make you my confidant or my victim, and perhaps my next murder would not
+have been so fortunate. I do not want to shed more blood. It is better
+to trust you with the whole truth, under every seal of secrecy, than to
+live in perpetual fear of your penetration. But look what you have done
+with your foolishly inquisitive humour. You shall continue in my
+service, and I will benefit you in respect of fortune; but I shall
+always hate you. If ever an unguarded word escape from your lips, you
+may expect to pay for it with your death, or worse. By everything that
+is sacred, preserve your faith!"
+
+Such was the secret I had been so desirous to know.
+
+"It is a wretched prospect," I said to myself, "that he holds up to me.
+But I will never become an informer. I will never injure my patron; and
+therefore he will not be my enemy."
+
+It was no long time after this that Mr. Forester--Mr. Falkland's
+half-brother--came to stay in the house while his own residence was
+being got ready for him, and there being little in common between the
+two, Mr. Forester being of a peculiarly sociable disposition, our
+visitor chose to make me his companion. No sooner was this growing
+intimacy observed than Mr. Falkland warned me that it was not agreeable
+to him, and that he would not have it.
+
+"Young man, take warning!" he said to me one day when we were alone.
+"You little suspect the extent of my power. You might as well think of
+escaping from the power of the omnipresent God as from mine."
+
+My whole soul now revolted against the treatment I endured, and yet I
+could not utter a word. I resolved to quit Mr. Falkland's service, and
+when Mr. Forester had retired to his own house, I wrote a letter to Mr.
+Falkland to that effect.
+
+"You shall never quit it with your life," was his reply. "If you attempt
+it, you shall never cease to rue your folly as long as you exist. Do not
+imagine I am afraid of you! I wear an armour against which all your
+weapons are impotent. Do you not know, miserable wretch, that I have
+sworn to preserve my reputation, whatever it cost? I have dug a pit for
+you, and whichever way you move it is ready to swallow you."
+
+This speech was the dictate of frenzy, and it created in me a similar
+frenzy. It determined me to do the very thing against which I was thus
+solemnly warned, and fly from my patron's house.
+
+No sooner, however, had I set off, and travelled some miles, than a
+horseman overtook me, and handed me a letter from Mr. Forester. I opened
+the letter, and read as follows:
+
+"Williams:--My brother Falkland has sent the bearer in pursuit of you.
+He expects that, if found, you will return with him. I expect it, too.
+If you are a villain and a rascal, you will perhaps endeavour to fly; if
+your conscience tells you you are innocent, you will, out of all doubt,
+come back. If you come, I pledge myself that if you clear your
+reputation, you shall not only be free to go wherever you please, but
+shall receive every assistance in my power to give.
+
+"Valentine Forester."
+
+To a mind like mine, such a letter was enough to draw me from one end of
+the earth to the other. I could not recall anything out of which the
+shadow of a criminal accusation could be extorted, and I returned with
+willingness and impatience. I knew the stern inflexibility of Mr.
+Falkland's mind, but I also knew his virtuous and magnanimous
+principles. I could not believe my innocence could be confounded with
+guilt.
+
+
+_III.--My Persecutions and Sufferings_
+
+
+Mr. Falkland accused me of having stolen money and jewels from him, and
+when my boxes, which I had left behind, were opened, a watch and certain
+jewels were found in one of them.
+
+My amazement yielded to indignation and horror. I protested my innocence
+I declared that Mr. Falkland knew I was innocent, and that while I was
+wholly unable to account for the articles found in my possession, I
+firmly believed that their being there was of Mr. Falkland's
+contrivance.
+
+Mr. Falkland now expressed his willingness to proceed no further against
+me, and, since I had been brought to public shame, to let me depart
+wherever I pleased. I was unworthy of his resentment, he said, and he
+could afford to smile at my malice.
+
+Mr. Forester, however, said this was impossible, and, as a magistrate,
+he thereupon committed me to prison to await my trial. Not one of the
+servants who had been present at my examination expressed any compassion
+for me. The robbery appeared to them atrocious, and they were indignant
+at my recrimination on their excellent master.
+
+When I had been about a month in prison the assizes were held, but my
+case was not brought forward, and I was suffered to stand over six
+months longer.
+
+I noticed a change in my jailer's behaviour at this time. He offered to
+make better provision for my comfort, and as I had no doubt he was
+instigated by Mr. Falkland, I answered that he might tell his employer I
+would accept no favours from a man that held a halter about my neck.
+Then the idea of an escape occurred to me, and as I had some proficiency
+in carpentry, I decided to obtain tools by proposing to make some chairs
+for the jailer. My offer was accepted, and I gradually accumulated tools
+of various sorts--gimlets, chisels, etc.
+
+In the middle of the night, my plans being now thoroughly digested, I
+set about making my escape. I had to get the first door from its hinges,
+and though this was attended with considerable difficulty, I was
+successful. The second door being fastened on the inside, all I had to
+do was to push back the bolts and unscrew the box of the lock.
+
+Thus far I had proceeded with the happiest success; but close on the
+other side there was a kennel with a large mastiff dog, of which I had
+not the smallest previous knowledge. However, I managed to soothe the
+animal, and go to the wall. Before I had gained half the ascent, a voice
+at the garden door cried out, "Halloa! Who is there?" At this the dog
+began to bark violently, and a second man came out. Alarmed at my
+situation, I descended on the other side too quickly, and in my fall
+nearly dislocated my ankle.
+
+In the meantime, the two warders came through a door in the wall, of
+which I had not been aware, and were at the place where I had descended,
+in no time. The pain in my ankle was so intense that I could scarcely
+stand, and I suffered myself to be retaken.
+
+The condition in which I was now placed was totally different from that
+which had preceded this attempt. I was chained all day in my dungeon, my
+manual labors were at an end, my cell was searched every night, and
+every kind of tool carefully kept from me.
+
+Nevertheless, an active mind, which has once been forced into any
+particular train, can scarcely give it up as hopeless. One day I chanced
+to observe a nail trodden into the mud floor at no great distance from
+me. I seized upon this new treasure, and found that I could unlock with
+it the padlock that fastened me to the staple in the floor. By this
+means I had the pitiful consolation of being able to range, without
+constraint, the miserable coop in which I was confined. It became my
+constant practice to liberate myself at night; but security breeds
+negligence. One morning I overslept myself, and the turnkey, to his
+surprise, found me disengaged.
+
+Again my apartment was changed. I was now put in the strong-room, an
+underground dungeon, and handcuffs were added to my fetters.
+
+It was at this time that Thomas, Mr. Falkland's footman, and an old
+acquaintance of mine, visited me. He was of the better order of
+servants, and my condition shocked him. He returned again in the
+afternoon.
+
+"Well, Master Williams," he said, "you have been very wicked, to be
+sure, and I thought it would have done me good to see you hanged. I know
+I am doing wrong; but if they hang me, too, I cannot help it. For
+Christ's sake, get out of this place; I cannot bear the thought of it."
+
+With that, he slipped into my hand a chisel, a file, and a saw. I
+received the implements with great joy, and thrust them into my bosom.
+
+I waited for bright moonlight; it was necessary that I should work in
+the night, and between nine and seven.
+
+It was ten o'clock when I first took off my handcuffs. I then filed
+through my fetters, and next performed the same service to the three
+iron bars that secured my window. All this was the work of more than two
+hours. But, even with the bars removed, the space was by no means wide
+enough to admit the passing of my body. Therefore, I had to loosen the
+brickwork, and this I did partly with the chisel, and partly with one of
+the iron bars. When the space was sufficient for my purpose, I crept
+through the opening and stepped upon a shed outside.
+
+The prison wall, which now had to be scaled, was of considerable height,
+and there was no resource for me but that of making a breach in its
+lower part. For six hours I worked at this with incredible labour, and
+at last I had made a passage. But the day was breaking, and in ten
+minutes' time the keepers would probably enter my apartment and see the
+devastation I had left.
+
+I decided to avoid the town as much as possible, and depended upon the
+open country for protection; and so I passed along the lane beyond the
+wall.
+
+I was free of my prison, but I was destitute, and had not a shilling in
+the world.
+
+
+_IV.--The Doom of Falkland_
+
+
+Mr. Falkland's implacable animosity pursued me beyond the prison. A
+hundred guineas was at once offered for my recapture, and though I
+evaded arrest for some months, a man named Gines, who had at one time
+been a member of a gang of robbers, undertook to lay hold of me, and
+tracked me to my place of hiding in London. By this time the hawkers
+were actually selling papers in the streets containing "The most
+Wonderful and Surprising History and Miraculous Adventures of Caleb
+Williams," for a halfpenny, and I had the temerity to purchase one. In
+this I was informed how I, Caleb Williams, "first robbed, and then
+brought false accusations against my master"; how I attempted at divers
+times to break out of prison, and at last succeeded "in the most
+wonderful and incredible manner"; and how I had travelled the kingdom in
+disguise, and was now lying concealed in London, with a hundred guineas
+reward for my discovery.
+
+It seemed then that there was no end to my persecution, and I thought of
+death as my only release. That very night the landlord of my humble
+lodgings brought Gines to the house, and gave me up to the authorities.
+
+And now the result of all my labour to get out of prison and evade my
+pursuers had brought me back to my starting-place! Never was a human
+creature so hunted by enemies. What hope was there they would ever cease
+their persecution.
+
+My long-cherished reverence for Mr. Falkland was changed to something
+like abhorrence. I determined to bring the real criminal to justice.
+
+Accordingly, when I was taken before the magistrates at Bow Street, I
+declared that Mr. Falkland was a murderer, and that I was entirely
+innocent.
+
+But the magistrates simply told me they had nothing to do with such
+statements, and that I seemed a most impudent rascal to trump up such
+things against my master.
+
+I was conducted back to the very prison from which I had escaped, and my
+situation seemed more irremediable than ever. How great, therefore, was
+my astonishment, at the assizes when my case was called, to find neither
+Mr. Falkland, nor Mr. Forester, nor any individual to appear against me.
+I, who had come to the bar with the sentence of death already ringing in
+my ears, to be told I was free to go whithersoever I pleased!
+
+I was not, however, yet free of Mr. Falkland. I was kidnapped by Gines
+and an accomplice, and carried to an inn, and here Mr. Falkland
+commanded me to sign a paper declaring that the charge I had alleged
+against him at Bow Street was false, malicious, and groundless. On my
+refusal, he told me that he would exercise a power that should grind me
+to atoms.
+
+The impression of that memorable meeting on my understanding is
+indelible. The deathlike weakness and decay of Mr. Falkland, his misery
+and rage, his haggard, emaciated, and fleshless visage, are still before
+me.
+
+There was to be no peace or happiness for me. Wherever I went, sooner or
+later, Gines found me, and any new acquaintances turned from me with
+loathing after they had read the handbills containing my "Wonderful and
+Surprising History." This man followed me from place to place, blasting
+my reputation.
+
+I now formed my resolution and carried it into execution. At all costs I
+would free myself from this overpowering tyranny.
+
+I set out for the chief town of the county in which Mr. Falkland lived,
+and there laid a formal charge of murder before the principal
+magistrate.
+
+After an interval of three days, I met Mr. Falkland in the presence of
+the magistrate. It was now the appearance of a ghost before me. He was
+brought in in a chair, unable to stand, fatigued and almost destroyed by
+the journey he had just taken.
+
+Until that moment my breast was steeled to pity; it was now too late to
+draw back.
+
+I told my story plainly, declared the nobility of Mr. Falkland's
+character, and admitted that my own proceedings now seemed to me a
+dreadful mistake.
+
+When I had finished, Mr. Falkland rose from his seat, and, to my
+infinite astonishment, threw himself into my arms.
+
+"Williams," said he, "you have conquered. All that I most ardently
+desired is for ever frustrated. I have spent a life of the basest
+cruelty to cover one act of momentary passion. And now"--turning to the
+magistrate--"do with me as you please. I am prepared to suffer all the
+vengeance of the law."
+
+He survived this dreadful scene but three days, and I feel, and always
+shall feel, that I have been his murderer. I began these memoirs to
+vindicate my character. I have now no character that I wish to
+vindicate.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+JOHANN WOLFGANG VON GOETHE
+
+
+The Sorrows of Young Werther
+
+
+     Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, the greatest of German poets, and
+     one of the most highly gifted men of the eighteenth century,
+     was born in 1749 at Frankfort-on-the-Main. He received his
+     early education from his father, who was an imperial
+     councillor, and in the year 1765 he went to the University of
+     Leipzig. Goethe's first great work was "Goetz von
+     Berlichingen" (see Vol. XVII). which was translated into
+     English by Sir Walter Scott. "The Sorrows of Young Werther"
+     ("Die Leiden des jungen Werthers") was begun in 1772, when
+     Goethe was twenty-three years old, and was published
+     anonymously two years later. It immediately created an immense
+     sensation, made a round of the world, and was everywhere
+     either enthusiastically praised or severely condemned. It
+     became the fashion of young men to dress themselves in blue
+     coats and yellow breeches in imitation of the hero, and many
+     of them were moved to follow Werther's example as the simplest
+     way of settling their love affairs. Nevertheless, "Werther"
+     formed the real basis of Goethe's fame. It was the first
+     revelation to the world of the genius, which, a quarter of a
+     century later, was to give it "Faust" (Vol. XVI). The story is
+     frankly sentimental, but as such it is easily the best of the
+     sentimental novels of the eighteenth century. When, many years
+     later, Goethe was invited to an audience with Napoleon, the
+     emperor volunteered the information that he had read "Werther"
+     through six times. Goethe died in March, 1832, in his
+     eighty-fourth year.
+
+
+_I.--"I Have Found an Angel"_
+
+
+_May 4_. What a strange thing is the heart of man. To leave my dearest
+friend, and yet to feel happy! I know you will forgive me, and I in
+return will promise that I will no longer worry myself over every petty
+stab of fortune. Poor Leonora! And yet I was not to blame. Was I in
+fault that, while I was pleasantly entertained by the charms of her
+sister, her feeble heart conceived a passion for me? And yet I am not
+wholly blameless. Did I not encourage her emotion? Did I not--but what
+is man that he dares so to accuse himself? Beyond doubt, the sufferings
+of mankind would be far less did they but endure the present with
+equanimity, instead of raking up the past for memories of sorrow.
+
+A wonderful calm has come over me; I am alone, and feel that a spot like
+this was created for the happiness of souls like mine. You ask if you
+shall send me books; I pray you spare me. My heart craves for no
+excitement; I need strains to soothe me, and I find them to perfection
+in my Homer.
+
+_May 17_. I have formed many acquaintances, but as yet have found no
+friends. If you inquire what sort of people are here, I answer "the same
+as everywhere." The human race is a monotonous affair. The majority
+labours nearly all its time for mere subsistence, and is then so
+distressed to have a small portion of freedom still unemployed that it
+exerts even greater efforts to get rid of it.
+
+I have just become acquainted with a very worthy person, the district
+judge. They tell me how charming it is to see him in the midst of his
+family of nine. His eldest daughter is much spoken of. He has invited me
+to go and see him.
+
+_June 16_. Why do I not write to you? You should have guessed that I was
+pre-occupied; that, in a word, that I have made a friend who has won my
+heart. I have found--I know not what. An angel? Nonsense! Everyone so
+describes his mistress. And yet I cannot tell you how perfect she is, or
+why so perfect. Between ourselves, I have been three times on the point
+of throwing down my pen, ordering my horse, and riding out. And yet this
+morning I determined not to ride to-day; and I keep running to the
+window to see how high the sun is.
+
+I could not restrain myself; go to her I must. I have just returned,
+Wilhelm, and while I eat my supper I will write to you. I had already
+made the acquaintance of her aunt, the judge's sister, and with her I
+was going to accompany Charlotte to a ball given by some young people in
+the neighbourhood. While we were on our way to fetch her, my companion
+was loud in her praises of her niece's beauty and charm. "Take care,
+however," she added, "that you do not lose your heart." "Why?" I asked.
+"Because she is already betrothed to a most excellent man."
+
+As the door opened, I saw before me the most charming sight that I have
+ever beheld. Six children, of various ages, were running about the hall
+and surrounding a lady of medium height, with a lovely figure, dressed
+in a robe of simple white, trimmed with pink ribbons. She held a loaf of
+brown bread, and was cutting slices for the little ones all round. She
+apologised for not being quite ready, explaining that household duties
+had made her forget the children's supper, which they always preferred
+to take from her. I uttered some unmeaning compliment, but my whole soul
+was absorbed by her air, her voice, her manner. You who know me can
+imagine how I gazed upon her rich, dark eyes; how my soul gloated over
+her warm lips and fresh glowing cheeks.
+
+Never did I dance more lightly; I felt myself more than mortal, holding
+this loveliest of creatures in my arms, flying with her as rapidly as
+the wind, till I lost sight of every other object. And, oh, Wilhelm, I
+vowed at that moment that no maiden whom I loved should ever waltz with
+another than myself, if I went to perdition for it.
+
+Returning from the ball, there was a most magnificent sunrise. Our
+companions were asleep. Charlotte asked me if I did not wish to sleep
+too, and begged me not to stand on ceremony. Looking deep into her eyes,
+I answered, "As long as those eyes remain open, there is no fear for
+mine." We continued awake until we reached her door. I left her, asking
+her permission to call in the course of the day. She consented, and I
+went Since then, sun, moon, and stars may pursue their course; I know
+not whether it is day or night; the whole world is nothing to me.
+
+_June 21_. My days are as happy as those reserved by God for His elect,
+and whatever be my fate hereafter, I can never say that I have not
+tasted joy--the purest joy of life. Little did I think when I selected
+this spot for my home that all heaven lay within half a league of it.
+
+How childish is man. To be disturbed about a mere look. We had been to
+Walheim, but during our walk I thought I saw in Charlotte's eyes--I am a
+fool, but forgive me. You should see her eyes. However, to be brief, as
+the ladies were preparing to drive away I watched her eyes; they
+wandered from one to another, but they did not alight on me--on me who
+saw nothing but her. She noticed me not. The carriage drove off, and my
+eyes filled with tears. Suddenly I saw Charlotte's bonnet leaning out of
+the window, and she turned to look back--was it at me? I know not, and
+in uncertainty is my consolation. Perhaps she turned to look at me.
+Perhaps. Good-night. What a child I am!
+
+_July 10_. Someone asked me the other day how I like her. How I _like_
+her! What sort of creature must he be who merely likes Charlotte? Whose
+entire being were not absolutely filled with her? Like her! One might as
+well ask if I like Ossian.
+
+_July 13_. No, I am not deceived. In her dark eyes I read a real
+interest in me. Yes, I feel it, and I believe my own heart which tells
+me--dare I say it?--that she loves me. How the idea exalts me in my own
+eyes. And as you can understand my feelings, I may say to you, how I
+honour myself because she loves me.
+
+I do not know a man able to take my place in her heart; yet when she
+speaks of Albert with so much warmth and affection, I feel like a
+soldier who has been stripped of all his honours. Sometimes when we are
+talking, in the eagerness of conversation she comes closer to me, and
+her balmy breath reaches my lips, I feel that I could sink into the
+earth for very joy. And yet, Wilhelm, if I know myself, and should ever
+dare--you understand me--No, no; my heart is not so corrupt; it is weak,
+but is not that a degree of corruption?
+
+She is to me a sacred being; how her simplest song enchants me.
+Sometimes, when I am ready to commit suicide, she sings some favourite
+air, and instantly the gloom and madness are dispersed.
+
+_July 24_. Yes, dear Charlotte. I will arrange everything. Only give me
+more commissions; the more the better. One thing, however, I must
+request you--use no more writing-sand with the letters you send me!
+Today, I raised your letter to my lips, and it set my teeth on edge.
+
+
+_II.--Bereft of Comfort_
+
+
+_July 30_. Albert is arrived, and I must take my departure. Were he the
+best of men, and I absolutely beneath him, I could not endure to see him
+in possession of my perfect being. Enough! her betrothed is here. A fine
+fellow, whom I cannot help liking. And he is so considerate; he has not
+given Charlotte one kiss in my presence. Heaven reward him for it. He is
+free from ill-humour, which you know is the fault I detest most. I do
+not ask whether he may not now and then tease her with some little
+jealousies, as I know that in his place I should not be entirely free
+from such feelings.
+
+_August 8_. I am amazed to see from my diary, which I have somewhat
+neglected of late, how deliberately I have entangled myself, step by
+step. But even though I see the result plainly, I have no thought of
+acting with any greater prudence. And yet I feel that if only I knew
+where to go, I would abandon everything and fly from this place.
+
+And yet I feel that, if I were not a fool, I could enjoy life here most
+delightfully. Admitted into this charming family, loved by the father as
+a son, by his children as a second father, and by Charlotte!
+Furthermore, Albert welcomes me with the heartiest affection, and loves
+me, next to Charlotte, more than all the world.
+
+_August 21_. In vain do I stretch out my arms towards her when I wake in
+the morning. In vain do I seek for her when some innocent dream has
+happily deceived me, and placed me near her in the fields when I have
+seized her hand and covered it with kisses. Tears flow from my oppressed
+heart; and, bereft of all comfort, I weep over my future woes.
+
+_August 28_. This is my birthday, and early in the morning I received a
+packet from Albert. I found within one of the pink ribbons which
+Charlotte wore in her dress the first time I saw her, and which I had
+often asked her to give me. With it were two volumes of Wetstein's
+Homer, a book I had often wished for. How well they understood those
+little attentions of friendship, so superior to costly presents, unhappy
+being that I am. Why do I thus deceive myself? What is to be the outcome
+of all this wild, aimless, endless passion? I cannot pray except to her.
+Oh, Wilhelm, the hermit's cell, his sackcloth and girdle of thorns,
+would be luxury and indulgence compared with what I have to suffer.
+
+_October 20_. I have taken the plunge, and following your repeated
+advice, I have taken a post with the ambassador. We arrived here
+yesterday. If he were less peevish and morose all would be well. As it
+is, he occasions me continual annoyance; he is the most punctilious
+blockhead in the world. He does everything step by step, with the paltry
+fussiness of an old woman; and he is a man whom it is impossible to
+please, because he is never pleased with himself.
+
+_January 20_. I have but one being here to interest me, my dear
+Charlotte--a Miss B----. She resembles you, if indeed anyone can
+possibly resemble you. "Ah," you will say, "he has learnt to pay fine
+compliments." And this is partly true; I have been very agreeable
+lately, as it was not in my power to be otherwise. But I must tell you
+of Miss B----. She has abundance of soul, which flashes from her deep
+blue eyes. Her rank is a torment to her, and satisfies no single desire
+of her heart. She knows you, my dear Charlotte, as I have told her all
+about you, and renders homage to your merits; but her homage is not
+exacted, but voluntary--she loves you, and delights to hear you made the
+subject of conversation. Adieu! Is Albert with you, and what is he to
+you? Forgive the question.
+
+_February 20_. I thank you, Albert, for having deceived me. I waited for
+the news that your wedding-day was fixed, and I meant on that day to
+remove Charlotte's picture from the wall, and bury it with some old
+papers that I wish destroyed. You are now united, and the picture
+remains. Well, let it remain. Why should it not?
+
+
+_III.--"I Can Remain No Longer"_
+
+
+_June 11_. Say what you will, I can remain here no longer. Why should I
+remain? The prince is as gracious to me as anyone could be, and yet I am
+not at my ease. There is, indeed, nothing in common between us; he is a
+man of understanding, but quite of the ordinary kind. His conversation
+gives me no more amusement than I should derive from an ordinary
+well-written book. Whither am I going? I think it would be better for me
+to visit the mines in----. But I am only deluding myself thus. You know
+that I only want to be near my dear Charlotte once more. I smile at the
+suggestion of my heart, but I obey its dictates.
+
+_July 29_. Dear Wilhelm, my whole frame feels convulsed when I see
+Albert put his arms round that slender waist. Oh, the very thought of
+folding that dearest of heaven's creatures in one's arms.
+
+And--shall I avow it? Why should I not?--she would have been happier
+with me than with him. Albert is not the man to satisfy the wishes of
+such a heart. He wants a certain sensibility; he wants--in short, their
+hearts do not beat in unison. But, Wilhelm, he loves her with his whole
+heart, and what does not such a love deserve?
+
+_September 5_. Charlotte had written a letter to her husband in the
+country, where he was detained on business. It began: "My dearest love,
+return as soon as possible. I await you with a thousand raptures!"
+
+A friend who arrived brought word that he could not return immediately.
+Her letter fell into my hands. I read it, and smiled. She asked the
+reason. "What a heavenly treasure is imagination," I exclaimed. "I
+fancied for a moment that this was written to me." She paused, and
+seemed displeased. I was silent.
+
+_October 10_. Only to gaze into her dark eyes is to me a source of
+happiness. And what grieves me is that Albert does not seem so happy as
+he--as I--as he hoped to be--as I should have been--if--. I am no friend
+to these pauses, but here I cannot express myself otherwise; and
+probably I am explicit enough.
+
+_October 19_. Alas the void--the fearful void which I feel in my bosom!
+Sometimes I think, if I could only once press her to my heart, this
+dreadful void would be filled.
+
+_October 30_. A hundred times I have been on the point of embracing her.
+Heavens! what a torment it is to see so much loveliness passing and
+repassing before us, and yet not dare to touch it. And to touch is the
+most natural of human instincts. Do not children touch everything that
+they see?
+
+_November 8_. Charlotte reproves me for my excesses with so much
+tenderness and goodness. I have lately drunk more wine than usual.
+"Don't do it," she said; "think of Charlotte." "Think of you," I
+answered; "can such advice be necessary? Do I not ever think of you?"
+She immediately changed the subject to prevent me pursuing it further.
+My dear friend, my energies are all prostrated; she can do with me what
+she pleases. Yesterday, when I took leave, she seized me by the hand,
+and said, "Adieu, dear Werther!" It was the first time she had ever
+called me "dear." I have repeated it a hundred times.
+
+
+_IV.--"I am Resolved to Die"_
+
+
+_November 24_. She is sensible of my sufferings. This morning her look
+pierced my soul. I found her alone; she was silent, and only gazed
+steadfastly at me. Oh, who can express my emotions? I was quite
+overcome, and bending down, pronounced this vow to myself, "Beautiful
+lips, which angels guard, never will I seek to profane your purity with
+a kiss." And yet, oh, I wish--But, alas, my heart is darkened by doubt
+and indecision. Could I but taste felicity, and then die to expiate the
+sin. What sin?
+
+_December 21_. I am lost. My senses are bewildered, my recollection is
+confused, my eyes are bathed in tears. I am ill, and yet am well. I wish
+for nothing; I have no desires; it were better I were gone. I saw
+Charlotte to-day; she was busy preparing some little gifts for her
+brothers and sisters, to be given to them on Christmas Day. "You shall
+have a gift too," she said, "if you behave well." "And what do you call
+behaving well?" I asked. "What should I do; what can I do?" "Thursday
+night," she answered, "is Christmas Eve; the children are all to be
+here, and my father too; there is a present for each of them. Do you
+come likewise, but do not come before that time!"
+
+I started. She must have seen my emotion, for she continued, hastily "I
+desire that you will not. It must be so; I ask it of you as a favour,
+for my own peace and tranquillity. We cannot go on in this manner any
+longer!" It were idle to attempt to describe my emotions I was as if
+paralysed; it was as if the sun had suddenly gone out. When I
+recollected myself, Charlotte was trying to speak on some indifferent
+topic. "No, Charlotte," I explained, "I understand you perfectly. I will
+never see you again!"
+
+_December 22_. It is all over, Charlotte; I am resolved to die. I make
+this declaration deliberately and coolly, without any romantic passion,
+on the morning of the day when I am to see you for the last time. At the
+moment that you read these lines the cold grave will hold the remains of
+that restless and unhappy being who, in his last moments of existence,
+knew no pleasure so great as that of conversing with you.
+
+When I tore myself from you yesterday my senses were in tumult and
+disorder. I could scarcely reach my room. A thousand ideas floated
+through my mind. At last one fixed, final thought took possession of my
+heart. It was to die. Oh, beloved Charlotte, this heart, excited by rage
+and fury, has often conceived the horrid idea of murdering your
+husband--you--myself.
+
+What do they mean by saying that Albert is your husband? He may be so
+for this world, and in this world it is a sin to love you--to wish to
+tear you from his embrace. Yes, it is a crime, and I suffer the
+punishment--but I have enjoyed the full delight of my sin. I have
+inhaled a balm that has revived my soul; from this hour you are mine;
+yes, Charlotte, you are mine. I do not dream, I do not rave. Drawing
+nearer to the grave my perceptions become clearer. We shall exist; we
+shall see each other again.
+
+I wish to be buried in the dress I wear at present; it has been made
+sacred by your touch. How warmly I have loved you, Charlotte. Since the
+first hour I saw you, how impossible have I found it to leave you. This
+ribbon must be buried with me; it was a present from you on my birthday.
+How confused it all appears. Little did I think then that I should
+journey on this road. But peace, I pray you, peace.
+
+Both my pistols are loaded. The clock strikes twelve. I say Amen.
+Charlotte! Charlotte! Farewell! Farewell!
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+Wilhelm Meister's Apprenticeship
+
+
+     Goethe's prestige was enormously increased by the publication
+     in 1796 of "Wilhelm Meister's Apprenticeship" ("Wilhelm
+     Meisters Lehrjahre"). Representing the fruit of twenty years'
+     labour, it was, like "Faust," written in fragments during the
+     ripest period of his intellectual activity. The story of
+     "Wilhelm Meister" is by no means exciting, but, as a gallery
+     of portraits and repository of wise observation, it is more
+     characteristic of the genius of its author than any other of
+     his prose works. It is more mellow than "Werther," and the
+     action moves slower. Incident follows incident in a leisurely
+     fashion. The keen psychological analysis in the story is
+     assumed to have been derived from Goethe's own experience.
+     "Wilhelm Meister" was dramatised and produced at Leipzig a few
+     years ago, but with no marked success.
+
+
+_I.--On the Road_
+
+
+The moment was now at hand to which poor Mariana had been looking
+forward as to the last of her life. Wilhelm Meister, the man she loved,
+was departing on a long journey in connection with his father's
+business; a disagreeable lover was threatening to come.
+
+"I am miserable," she exclaimed, "miserable for life! I love him, and he
+loves me; yet I see that we must part, and know not how I shall survive
+it. Wilhelm is poor, and can do nothing for me--"
+
+Darkness had scarcely come on when Wilhelm glided forth to her house; he
+carried with him a letter in which he entreated her to marry him
+forthwith, saying that he would abandon his father's business, and earn
+his living on the stage, to which he had always been strongly drawn.
+This he could do with certainty, as he was well acquainted with Serlo,
+manager of a theatre in a town at some distance.
+
+His plan was to leave the letter with her, and return a little later for
+her answer. The vehemence of his emotion at first prevented him from
+noticing that she did not greet him with her wonted heartiness; she
+complained of a headache, and would not hear of his coming back later
+that evening. Suspecting nothing wrong, he ceased to urge her, but he
+felt that this was not the moment for delivering his letter. He retained
+it, therefore, and, in a tumult of insatiable love, as he tore himself
+away from her he snatched one of her neckerchiefs, and, after pressing
+it madly to his lips, crushed it into his pocket.
+
+His whole being was in a ferment of excitement as he walked aimlessly
+about the streets. Midnight found him again in the neighbourhood of
+Mariana's house; consciousness of the fact brought him to himself. He
+went slowly away, set himself for home, and constantly turned round
+again; at last, with an effort, he constrained himself, and actually
+departed. At the corner of the street, looking back yet once more, he
+imagined that he saw Mariana's door open, and a dark figure issue from
+it. He was too distant to see clearly, and in a moment the appearance
+was lost in the night.
+
+On his way, he had almost effaced the unexpected delusion from his mind
+by the most sufficient reasons. To soothe his heart, and put the last
+seal on his returning belief, ere he disrobed for the night, he took her
+kerchief from his pocket. The rustle of a letter which fell from it took
+the kerchief from his lips; he lifted it, and read a passionate letter
+from another man, railing at her for her coldness on the preceding
+night, making an appointment for that same night, and breathing a spirit
+of intimate familiarity.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+A violent fever, with its train of consequences, besides the unwearied
+attentions of his family, were so many fresh occupations for his mind,
+and formed a kind of painful entertainment. On his recovery, he
+determined to abandon for ever his former leaning towards the stage, and
+to apply himself with greater diligence to business, and, to the great
+contentment of his father, no one was now more diligent in the
+counting-house. For a long time he continued to show exemplary attention
+to his duties, and was then thought sufficiently master of his business
+to be sent on a long expedition on behalf of the firm.
+
+The first part of his business successfully accomplished, Wilhelm found
+himself at a little mountain town called Hochdorf. A troupe of actors
+had got stranded there, their exchequer empty, their properties seized
+as security for debts. Wilhelm recognised among them an old man whom he
+recollected as having seen on the stage with Mariana. After some
+hesitation, he hazarded a question concerning her. "Do not speak to me
+of that baggage!" cried the old man. "I am ashamed that I felt such a
+friendship for her. Yet, had you known the girl better, you would excuse
+me. I loved her as my own daughter; indeed, I had formed a resolution to
+take the creature into my own house, and save her from the hands of that
+old crone Barbara, her confidante; but my wife died, and so the project
+came to nothing. At the end of our stay in your native town, I noticed a
+visible sadness about her. I questioned her, but she evaded me. At last
+we set out on our journey. She travelled in the same coach with me, and
+I soon observed what she could not deny, that she was about to become a
+mother. In a short time the manager made the same discovery; he paid her
+off at once and left her behind at the village inn."
+
+Wilhelm's old wounds were all torn open afresh by the old man's story;
+the thought that perhaps Mariana was not wholly unworthy of his love was
+again brought to life. Nay, even the bitter accusations brought against
+her could not lower her in his estimation; for he, as well as she, was
+guilty in all her aberrations. He saw her as a frail, ill-succoured
+mother, wandering helplessly about the world.
+
+The old longing for the stage came back to him with redoubled force; he
+determined to give it vent, for a time at least, and to this end he
+advanced to Melina, the manager of the actors, a sum of money sufficient
+to redeem their properties, and accompanied the troupe until such time
+as it should be repaid.
+
+A profitable engagement soon came their way. A wealthy count, who
+happened to pass through the town, required their services to entertain
+the prince, whom he was shortly expecting as a guest. For several weeks
+they stayed at his castle, and when, on the prince's departure, their
+engagement came to an end, they were all weightier in purse than they
+had been for many a long day. Melina was now in hopes to get established
+with his company in a thriving town at some distance. To get there it
+was necessary to take a considerable journey by unfrequented roads.
+
+Accordingly, conveyances were hired, and a start was made. Towards
+evening, they began to pitch their camp in the midst of a beech wood;
+all were busily engaged about the task allotted to each--the women to
+prepare the evening meal, the men to attend to everything necessary for
+their comfort for the night. All at once, a shot went off; immediately
+another; the party flew asunder in terror. Next moment armed men were to
+be seen pressing forward to the spot where the coaches, packed with
+luggage, stood.
+
+The men all rushed at the intruders. Wilhelm fired his pistol at one who
+was already on the top of the coach cutting the cords of the packages.
+The scoundrel fell, but several of his friends rushed to his aid; our
+hero fell, stunned by a shot-wound and by a sword-stroke that almost
+penetrated to his brain.
+
+When he recovered his senses, it was to find himself deserted by all his
+companions except two of the girls. His head was lying in Phillina's
+lap, while Mignon, the child whom he had rescued from a brutal circus
+master who was ill-treating her, was vainly trying to staunch his wounds
+with her hair. For some time they continued in this position, no one
+returning to their aid. At last, they heard a troop of horses coming up
+the road; a young lady emerged on horseback, accompanied by some
+cavaliers. Wilhelm fixed his eye on the soft, calm, sympathising
+features of the stranger; he thought he had never seen aught nobler or
+more lovely. In a few moments one of the party stepped to the side of
+our hero. He held in his hand some surgeon's instruments and bandages,
+with which he hastily attended to his wounds. The lady asked several
+questions, and then, turning to the old gentleman, said, "Dear uncle,
+may I be generous at your expense?" taking off the coat that she was
+wearing as she spoke, and laying it softly above him. As he tried to
+open his mouth to stammer out some words of gratitude to the beautiful
+Amazon, the impression of her presence worked so strongly on his senses
+that all at once it seemed to him that her head was encircled with rays,
+and a glancing light seemed by degrees to spread itself all over her
+form. At this moment the surgeon gave him a sharper twinge; he lost
+consciousness; and on returning to himself the horsemen and coaches, the
+fair one and her attendants, had vanished like a dream.
+
+
+_II.--A Message from the Dead_
+
+
+Wilhelm's wounds were slow to heal, and it was long before he was able
+to move about freely again. When he fully recovered he went to his old
+friend, Serlo, and obtained a position in his company, both for himself,
+and also for many of his companions in misfortune.
+
+With Serlo he remained for a considerable period, until an untoward
+event led to his leaving him. Aurelia, Serlo's sister, had long
+entertained an affection for a nobleman, whom she knew by the name of
+Lothario; though at one time much attached to her, his affection had
+cooled off, and for a long time now he had not had any communication
+with her. Heartbroken at this treatment, though still devotedly attached
+to him, she gradually pined away, and complete neglect of her health
+finally brought her to her death-bed. Before she died, however, she
+wrote a letter of farewell to him, which she entrusted to Wilhelm to
+deliver as soon after her death as possible.
+
+Arrived at the castle where the baron lived, he found his lordship
+unable to give him any attention that day, as he was engaged to fight a
+duel, and was busy settling up his affairs in preparation. Wilhelm was
+requested to remain until a more convenient season. On the following
+morning, while the company were seated at breakfast, the baron was
+brought back in a carriage, seriously wounded.
+
+As the surgeon came out from attending him, the band hanging from his
+pouch caught Wilhelm's eye; he fancied that he knew it. He was convinced
+that he beheld the very pouch of the surgeon who had dressed his wounds
+in the forest, and the hope, so long deferred, of again finding his
+lovely Amazon struck like a flame through his soul.
+
+The abbé entered from Lothario's chamber, and said to Wilhelm, "The
+baron bids me ask you to remain here to share his hospitality, and, in
+the present circumstances, to contribute to his solacement."
+
+From this hour our friend was treated in the house as if he belonged to
+it.
+
+"We have a kindness to ask of you," said Jarno, the baron's confidential
+companion, to Wilhelm one morning. "The violent, unreasonable love and
+passionateness of the Lady Lydia only hinder the baron's recovery. She
+must be removed by some means. His wound requires rest and calmness; you
+see how she tortures him with her tempestuous anxieties, her
+ungovernable terrors, her never-drying tears. Enough! Our doctor
+expressly requires that she should quit us for a while; we have
+persuaded her to pay a visit to a lady, an old friend of hers; it will
+be your task to escort her, as you can best be spared."
+
+"I willingly undertake the charge," said Wilhelm, "though it is easy to
+foresee the pain I shall have to suffer from the tears, the despair, of
+Lydia."
+
+"And for this no small reward awaits you," said Jarno. "Fraulein
+Theresa, with whom you will get acquainted, is a lady such as you will
+rarely see. Indeed, were it not for an unfortunate passage between her
+mother and the baron, she would long since have been married to his
+lordship."
+
+When they returned from their visit, Lothario was in the way of full
+recovery. He was now for the first time able to talk with Wilhelm about
+the sad cause that had brought him to the castle. "You may, however,
+well forgive me," he said, with a smile, "that I forsook Aurelia for
+Theresa; with the one I could expect a calm and cheerful life, with the
+other not a happy hour."
+
+"I confess," said Wilhelm, "that in coming hither I had no small anger
+in my heart against you, that I proposed to censure with severity your
+conduct towards Aurelia. But, at the grave in which the hapless mother
+sleeps, let me ask you why you acknowledge not the child--a son in whom
+any father might rejoice and whom you appear entirely to overlook. With
+your tender nature, how can you altogether cast away the instinct of a
+parent?"
+
+"Of whom do you speak?" said Lothario. "I do not understand you."
+
+"Of whom but your son, Aurelia's son, the lovely child to whose good
+fortune there is nothing wanting but that a tender father should
+acknowledge and receive him."
+
+"You mistake, my friend," said Lothario; "Aurelia never had a son. I
+know of no child, or I would gladly acknowledge it. But did she ever
+give you to believe that the boy was hers--was mine?"
+
+"I cannot recollect that I ever heard a word from her expressly on the
+subject, but we took it so, and I never for a moment doubted it."
+
+"I can give you a clue to this perplexity," interposed Jarno. "An old
+woman, whom Wilhelm must have noticed, gave Aurelia the child, telling
+her that it was yours. She accepted it eagerly, hoping to alleviate her
+sorrows by its presence; and, in truth, it gave her many a comfortable
+hour."
+
+This discovery awoke anxieties in Wilhelm. He thought of the beautiful
+child Felix with the liveliest apprehension, and expressed his wish to
+remove him from the state in which he was.
+
+"We can soon arrange that," said Lothario. "I think you ought yourself
+to take charge of him; what in us the women leave uncultivated, children
+cultivate when we retain them near us."
+
+It was agreed to lose no time in putting this plan into execution, and
+Wilhelm departed forthwith to fetch the child.
+
+Passing through the house, he found Aurelia's old serving-maid, whom he
+had never seen at close quarters before, employed in sewing. Felix and
+Mignon were sitting by her on the floor.
+
+"Art thou the person," he demanded earnestly, "from whom Aurelia
+received this child?"
+
+She looked up, and turned her face to him; he saw her in full light, and
+started back in terror. It was old Barbara!
+
+"Where is Mariana?" cried he.
+
+"Far from here."
+
+"And Felix?"
+
+"Is the son of that unhappy and too tender-hearted girl. Here are
+Mariana's last words," she added, handing him a letter.
+
+"She is dead?" cried he.
+
+"Dead," said the old woman.
+
+A bitter grief took hold of Wilhelm; he could scarcely read the words
+that Barbara placed before him.
+
+"If this should reach thee, then lament thine ill-starred friend. The
+boy, whose birth I survived but a few days, is thine. I die faithful to
+thee, much as appearances may be against me; with thee I lost everything
+that bound me to life. This will be my only comfort, that though I
+cannot call myself blameless, towards thee I am free from blame."
+
+Wilhelm was stupified by this news. He removed the children from
+Barbara's care, and took them both back with him to Lothario's castle.
+Felix he kept with him, while Mignon, who was not in the best of health,
+was sent by the baron to the house of his sister, at some distance.
+
+
+_III.--Wilhelm's Apprenticeship_
+
+
+One evening Jarno said to Wilhelm, "We can now consider you as one of
+ourselves with such security that it were unjust not to introduce you
+deeper into our mysteries. You shall see what a curious little world is
+at your very hand, and how well you are known in it." He led our friend
+through certain unknown chambers and galleries of the castle to a door,
+strongly framed with iron. Jarno knocked; the door opened a little, so
+as to admit one person. Jarno introduced our friend, but did not follow
+him.
+
+Within was complete darkness. A voice cried "Enter"; he pressed forward
+and found that only tapestry was hemming him in. Raising this, he
+entered. Within, he found a man, who said, in a tone of dignity, "To
+guard from error is not the instructor's duty, but to lead the erring
+pupil; nay, let him quaff his error in deep, satiating draughts; he who
+only tastes his error will long dwell with it; he who drains it to the
+dregs will, if he be not crazy, find it out."
+
+A curtain closed before the figure, whom Wilhelm vaguely recollected as
+having seen at some time previously; possibly on the night when he had
+parted from Mariana. Then the curtain opened again; another figure
+advanced, "Learn to know the men who may be trusted," he said, and again
+the curtain closed. "Dispute not with us," cried a voice; "thou art
+saved, thou art on the way to the goal. None of thy follies wilt thou
+repent; none wilt thou wish to repeat."
+
+The curtain opened; the abbé came into view. "Come hither," he cried to
+his marvelling friend. Wilhelm mounted the steps. On the table lay a
+little roll.
+
+"Here is your indenture," said the abbé. "Take it to heart; it is of
+weighty import." Wilhelm opened it, and read:
+
+     "_INDENTURE_.
+
+     "_Art is long, life short, judgment difficult, opportunity
+     transient. To act is easy, to think is hard, to act according
+     to our thought is troublesome. It is but a part of art that
+     can be taught; the artist needs it all. Who knows it half,
+     speaks much, and is always wrong; who knows it all, speaks
+     seldom, and is inclined to act. No one knows what he is doing
+     while he acts aright; but of wrong-doing we are always
+     conscious. The instruction which the true artist gives us
+     opens the mind, for where words fail him, deeds speak. The
+     true scholar learns from the known to unfold the unknown, and
+     approaches more and more to being a master_----"
+
+"Enough," cried the abbé; "the rest in due time. Now look round you
+among these cases." With astonishment Wilhelm found, among others,
+"_Lothario's Apprenticeship," "Jarno's Apprenticeship_," and his own
+"_Apprenticeship_" placed there. "May I hope to look into these rolls?"
+
+"In this chamber nothing is now hid from you."
+
+Wilhelm heard a noise behind him, and saw a child's face peeping through
+the tapestry at the end of the room. It was Felix. His father rushed
+towards him, took him in his arms, and pressed him to his heart.
+
+"Yes, I feel it," cried he. "Thou art mine. For what a gift of Heaven
+have I to thank my friends! How comest thou, my child, at this important
+moment?"
+
+"Ask not," said the abbé. "Hail, young man! Thy apprenticeship is done;
+nature has pronounced thee free."
+
+After sorrow, often and in vain repeated, for the loss of Mariana,
+Wilhelm felt that he must find a mother for the boy; and also, that he
+could not find one equal to Theresa. With this gifted lady he was now
+thoroughly acquainted. Such a spouse and helpmate seemed the only one to
+trust to in such circumstances. Her affection for Lothario did not make
+him hesitate; she looked on herself as free; she had even spoken of
+marrying, with indifference, indeed, but as a matter understood.
+
+Before Theresa's answer came to hand, Lothario sent for our friend. "My
+sister Natalia bids me beg of you to go to her as soon as possible. Poor
+Mignon seems to be getting steadily worse, and it is thought that your
+presence might allay the malady." Wilhelm agreed, and proceeded on the
+journey.
+
+
+_IV.--Heart Against Reason_
+
+
+Behind a light screen, which threw a shadow on her, sat a young lady,
+reading; she rose and came to him. It was the Amazon! Unable to restrain
+himself, he fell on his knee and cried "It is she!" He seized her hand,
+and kissed it with unbounded rapture.
+
+A day or two later, the following letter from Theresa was handed to
+Wilhelm.
+
+"I am yours, as I am, and as you know me. I call you mine, as you are,
+and as I know you. As it is no passion, but trust and inclination for
+each other, that leads us together, we run less risk than thousands of
+others. You will forgive me, will you not, if I still think often and
+kindly of my former friend; in return, I will press Felix to my heart,
+as if I were his mother. Adieu, dear friend! Theresa clasps you to her
+breast with hope and joy."
+
+Natalia wrote a letter to her brother; she invited Wilhelm to add a word
+or two. They were just about to seal it, when Jarno unexpectedly came
+in.
+
+"I am come," he said, "to give you very curious and pleasing tidings
+about Theresa; now guess."
+
+"We are more skilful than you think," said Natalia, smiling. "Before you
+asked, we had the answer down in black and white," handing him as she
+spoke the letter she had just written. Jarno read the sheet hastily.
+"What shall I say?" cried he. "Surprise against surprise! I came to tell
+you that Theresa is not the daughter of her reputed mother. There is no
+obstacle to her marriage with Lothario: _I came to ask you to prepare
+her for it_."
+
+"And what," said Lothario, taking Wilhelm by the hand, "what if your
+alliance with my sister were the secret article on which depended my
+alliance with Theresa? These amends the noble maiden has appointed for
+you; she has vowed that we two pairs should appear together at the
+altar. 'His reason has made choice of me,' she said; 'his heart demands
+Natalia: my reason shall assist his heart.'"
+
+Lothario embraced his friend, and led him to Natalia, who, with Theresa,
+came to meet them. "To my mind, thou resemblest Saul, the son of Kish,
+who went out to seek his father's asses, and found a kingdom."
+
+"I know not the worth of a kingdom," said Wilhelm, "but I know that I
+have attained a happiness undeserved, which I would not change for
+anything in life."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+OLIVER GOLDSMITH
+
+
+The Vicar of Wakefield
+
+
+     Oliver Goldsmith, the most versatile and perhaps the most
+     unstable of eighteenth century men of letters, was born in
+     Ireland on November 10, 1728. At Trinity College, Dublin, he
+     revealed three characteristics that clung to him throughout
+     his career--high spirits, conversational brilliance, and
+     inability to keep money in his pocket. After a spell of
+     "philosophic vagabondage" on the Continent, he settled in
+     London in 1756, earned money in various ways, and spent it
+     all. "The Vicar of Wakefield," perhaps the greatest of all
+     Goldsmith's works, was published on March 27, 1766, after Dr.
+     Johnson had raised £60 for him on the manuscript of it. The
+     liveliness and grace of Goldsmith's style were never more
+     plainly manifested than in this delightful story; and its
+     faults--it contains many coincidences and improbabilities--are
+     far more than atoned for by the masterly portrait of the
+     simple, manly, generous, and wholly lovable vicar who is the
+     central figure of the story. "It has," says Mitford, "the
+     truth of Richardson, without his minuteness, and the humour of
+     Fielding, without his grossness; if it yields to LeSage in the
+     diversified variety of his views of life, it far excels him in
+     the description of domestic virtues and the pleasing moral of
+     the tale." Goldsmith died on April 4, 1774. (See also Vol.
+     XVII.)
+
+
+_I.--Family Portraits_
+
+
+I was ever of opinion that the honest man who married and brought up a
+large family did more service than he who continued single and only
+talked of population. From this motive, I chose my wife, as she did her
+wedding-gown, not for a fine glossy surface, but such qualities as would
+wear well. There was nothing that could make us angry with the world or
+each other. We had no revolutions to fear, nor fatigues to undergo; all
+our adventures were by the fireside, and all our migrations from the
+blue bed to the brown.
+
+My children, as they were educated without softness, so they were at
+once well-formed and healthy; my four sons hardy and active, my two
+daughters beautiful and blooming. Olivia, the elder daughter, was open,
+sprightly, and commanding; Sophia's features were not so striking at
+first, but often did more certain execution, for they were soft, modest,
+and alluring.
+
+The profits of my living I made over to the orphans and widows of the
+clergy of our diocese; for, having a sufficient fortune of my own, I was
+careless of temporalities, and felt a secret pleasure in doing my duty
+without reward.
+
+My eldest son, George, just upon leaving college, fixed his affections
+upon Miss Arabella Wilmot, the daughter of a neighbouring clergyman, who
+was in circumstances to give her a large fortune. Mr. Wilmot was not
+averse to the match, but after the day for the nuptials had been fixed,
+I engaged in a dispute with him which threatened to interrupt our
+intended alliance. I have always maintained that it is unlawful for a
+priest of the Church of England, after the death of his first wife, to
+take a second; and I showed Mr. Wilmot a tract which I had written in
+defence of this principle. It was not till too late I discovered that he
+was violently attached to the contrary opinion, and with good reason;
+for he was at that time actually courting a fourth wife.
+
+While the controversy was hottest, a relation, with a face of concern,
+called me out.
+
+"The merchant in town," he said, "in whose hands your money was lodged
+has gone off, to avoid a statute of bankruptcy. Your fortune is now
+almost nothing."
+
+It would be useless to describe the sensations of my family when I
+divulged the news. Near a fortnight had passed before I attempted to
+restrain their affliction; for premature consolation is but the
+remembrance of sorrow. During this interval I determined to send my
+eldest son to London, and I accepted a small cure of fifteen pounds a
+year in a distant neighbourhood.
+
+The first day's journey brought us within thirty miles of our future
+retreat, and we put up at an obscure inn in a village by the way. At the
+inn was a gentleman who, the landlord told me, had been so liberal in
+his charity that he had no money left to pay his reckoning. I could not
+avoid expressing my concern at seeing a gentleman in such circumstances,
+and offered the stranger my purse. "I take it with all my heart, sir,"
+replied he, "and am glad that my late oversight has shown me that there
+are still some men like you." The stranger's conversation was so
+pleasing and instructive that we were rejoiced to hear that he was going
+the same way as ourselves.
+
+The next morning we all set forward together. Mr. Burchell and I
+lightened the fatigues of the road with philosophical disputes, and he
+also informed me to whom the different seats belonged that lay in our
+view.
+
+"That, Dr. Primrose," he said to me, pointing to a very magnificent
+house, "belongs to Mr. Thornhill, a young gentleman who enjoys a large
+fortune, though entirely dependent upon the will of his uncle, Sir
+William Thornhill."
+
+"What!" cried I, "is my young landlord, then, the nephew of one who is
+represented as a man of consummate benevolence?"
+
+At this point we were alarmed by the cries of my family, and I perceived
+my youngest daughter in the midst of a rapid stream, and struggling with
+the torrent; she must have certainly perished had not my companion
+instantly plunged in to her relief. Her gratitude may be more readily
+imagined than described; she thanked her deliverer more with looks than
+words. Soon afterwards Mr. Burchell took leave of us, and we pursued our
+journey to the place of our retreat.
+
+
+_II.--The Squire_
+
+
+At a small distance from our habitation was a seat overshaded by a hedge
+of hawthorn and honeysuckle. Here, when the weather was fine, and our
+labour soon finished, we usually sat together to enjoy an extensive
+landscape in the calm of the evening. On an afternoon about the
+beginning of autumn, when I had drawn out my family to the seat, dogs
+and horsemen swept past us with great swiftness. After them a young
+gentleman, of a more genteel appearance than the rest, came forward,
+and, instead of pursuing the chase, stopped short, and approached us
+with a careless, superior air. He let us know that his name was
+Thornhill, and that he was the owner of the estate that lay around us.
+As his address, though confident, was easy, we soon became more
+familiar; and the whole family seemed earnest to please him.
+
+As soon as he was gone, my wife gave the opinion that it was a most
+fortunate hit, and hoped again to see the day in which we might hold up
+our heads with the best of them.
+
+"For my part," cried Olivia, "I don't like him, he is so extremely
+impudent and familiar." I interpreted this speech by contrary, and found
+that Olivia secretly admired him.
+
+"To confess the truth," said I, "he has not prepossessed me in his
+favour. I had heard that he was particularly remarkable for
+faithlessness to the fair sex."
+
+A few days afterwards we entertained our young landlord at dinner, and
+it may be easily supposed what provisions were exhausted to make an
+appearance. As he directed his looks and conversation to Olivia, it was
+no longer doubted but that she was the object that induced him to be our
+visitor; and my wife exulted in her daughter's victory as if it were her
+own.
+
+On one evening Mr. Thornhill came with two young ladies, richly dressed,
+whom he introduced as women of very great distinction and fashion from
+town. The two ladies threw my girls quite into the shade, for they would
+talk of nothing but high life and high-lived company. 'Tis true, they
+once or twice mortified us sensibly by slipping out an oath; their
+finery, however, threw a veil over any grossness in their conversation.
+
+I now began to find that all my long and painful lectures upon
+temperance, simplicity, and contentment were entirely disregarded. The
+distinctions lately paid us by our betters awakened that pride which I
+had laid asleep, but not removed. When the two ladies of quality showed
+a willingness to take our girls to town with them as companions, my wife
+was overjoyed at our good fortune. But Mr. Burchell, who had at first
+been a welcome guest at our house, but had become less welcome since we
+had been favoured with the company of persons of superior station,
+dissuaded her with great ardour, and so angered her that she ended by
+asking him to stay away.
+
+Returning home one day, I found my wife and girls all in tears, Mr.
+Thornhill having been there to inform them that their journey to town
+was entirely over. The two ladies, having heard reports of us from some
+malicious person, were that day set out for London. We were not long in
+finding who it was that had been so base as to asperse the character of
+a family so harmless as ours. One of our boys found a letter-case which
+we knew to belong to Mr. Burchell. Within it was a sealed note,
+superscribed, "The copy of a letter to be sent to the two ladies at
+Thornhill Castle." At the joint solicitation of the family, I opened it,
+and read as follows:
+
+"Ladies,--I am informed that you have some intention of bringing two
+young ladies to town, whom I have some knowledge of, under the character
+of companions. As I would neither have simplicity imposed upon nor
+virtue contaminated, I must offer it as my opinion that the impropriety
+of such a step will be attended with dangerous consequences. Take
+therefore, the admonition of a friend, and seriously reflect on the
+consequences of introducing infamy and vice into retreats where peace
+and innocence have hitherto resided."
+
+Our doubts were now at an end. It appeared to me one of the vilest
+instances of unprovoked ingratitude I had ever met with. As we set
+ruminating upon schemes of vengeance, Mr. Burchell himself entered and
+sat down.
+
+"Do you know this, sir--this pocket-book?" said I.
+
+"Yes, sir," returned he, with a face of impenetrable assurance.
+
+"And do you know this letter?"
+
+"Yes; it was I that wrote that letter."
+
+"And how could you so basely presume to write this letter?"
+
+"And how came you," replied he, with looks of unparalleled effrontery,
+"so basely to presume to open this letter?"
+
+I could scarcely govern my passion. "Ungrateful wretch!" I cried.
+"Begone, and no longer pollute my dwelling with thy baseness!"
+
+So saying, I threw him his pocket-book, which he took up with a smile,
+and left us astonished at the serenity of his assurance.
+
+
+_III.--The Elopement_
+
+
+The visits of Mr. Thornhill now became more frequent and longer; but all
+the schemes of Olivia and her mother to bring him to a declaration came
+to nothing. And although Olivia considered his fine sentiments as
+instances of the most exalted passion, it seemed to me plain that they
+had more of love than matrimony in them.
+
+One evening as I sat by the fireside, thanking Heaven for tranquillity,
+health, and competence, and thinking myself happier than the greatest
+monarch upon earth, I noticed that Olivia was absent.
+
+"Where is my darling Olivia?" I asked. Just as I spoke, my boy Dick came
+running in.
+
+"Oh, papa, papa, she is gone from us; she is gone from us for ever!"
+
+"Gone, child?"
+
+"Yes; she is gone off with two gentlemen in a postchaise, and one of
+them kissed her. And she cried very much, but he persuaded her, and she
+went into the chaise."
+
+"Now, then," cried I, "may Heaven's everlasting fury light upon him and
+his! Thus to rob me of my child! Bring me my pistols; I'll pursue the
+traitor. Old as I am, he shall find I can sting him yet--the perfidious
+villain!"
+
+My poor wife caught me in her arms.
+
+"Indeed, sir," said my son Moses, "your rage is too violent."
+
+"I did not curse him, child, did I?"
+
+"Indeed, sir, you did."
+
+"Then may Heaven forgive me and him. But it is not--it is not a small
+distress that can wring tears from these old eyes. My child--to undo my
+darling! May confusion seize--Heaven forgive me! What am I about to say?
+Had she but died! My son, bring hither my Bible and my staff. I will
+pursue her; and though I cannot save her from shame, I may prevent the
+continuance of her iniquity."
+
+My suspicions fell entirely upon our young landlord, whose character for
+such intrigues was but too well known. I therefore directed my steps
+towards Thornhill Castle. He soon appeared, with the most open, familiar
+air, and seemed perfectly amazed at my daughter's elopement, protesting
+upon his honour that he was quite a stranger to it. A man, however,
+averred that my daughter and Mr. Burchell had been seen driving very
+fast towards the Wells, about thirty miles distant.
+
+I walked towards the Wells with earnestness, and on entering the town I
+was met by a person on horseback, whom I remembered to have seen at the
+squire's, and he assured me that if I followed them to the races, which
+were but thirty miles further, I might depend upon overtaking them.
+
+Early the next day I walked forward to the races, but saw nothing of my
+daughter or of Mr. Burchell.
+
+The agitations of my mind, and the fatigues I had undergone, now threw
+me into a fever. I retired to a little ale-house by the roadside, and
+here I languished for nearly three weeks.
+
+The night coming on as I was twenty miles from home on my return
+journey, I put up at a little public-house, and asked for the landlord's
+company over a pint of wine. I could hear the landlady upstairs bitterly
+reproaching a lodger who could not pay.
+
+"Out, I say," she cried; "pack out this moment!"
+
+"Oh, dear madame," replied the stranger, "pity a poor, abandoned
+creature for one night and death will soon do the rest!"
+
+I instantly knew the voice of my poor ruined child, Olivia, and flew to
+her rescue.
+
+"Welcome, anyway welcome, my dearest lost one, to your poor old father's
+bosom!"
+
+"Oh, my own dear"--for minutes she could say no more--"my own dearest,
+good papa! You can't forgive me--I know you cannot!"
+
+"Yes, my child, from my heart I do forgive thee." After we had talked
+ourselves into some tranquillity, I said, "It surprises me how a person
+of Mr. Burchell's seeming honour could be guilty of such deliberate
+baseness."
+
+"My dear papa," returned my daughter, "you labour under a strange
+mistake. It is Mr. Thornhill who has ruined me; who employed the two
+ladies, as he called them, but who, in fact, were abandoned women of the
+town, to decoy us up to London. Their artifices would certainly have
+succeeded but for Mr. Burchell's letter, who directed those reproaches
+at them which we all applied to ourselves."
+
+"You amaze me, my dear!" cried I. "But tell me, what temptation was it
+that could thus obliterate your virtue?"
+
+"He offered me marriage," replied she. "We were indeed married secretly
+by a popish priest, whose name I was sworn to conceal."
+
+"What!" interrupted I. "And were you indeed married?"
+
+"Alas!" she said, "he has been married already by the same priest to six
+or eight wives more, whom, like me, he has deceived and abandoned."
+
+"Have patience, my child," cried I, "and I hope things will yet be
+better. To-morrow I'll carry you home to your mother. Poor woman, this
+has gone to her heart; but she loves you still, Olivia, and will forget
+it."
+
+
+_IV.--Fresh Calamities_
+
+
+It was late the next night when I approached my own home. I had left
+Olivia at an inn five miles away, intending to prepare my family for her
+reception. To my amazement, I saw the house bursting out into a blaze of
+fire, and every aperture red with conflagration! I gave a loud
+convulsive outcry, which alarmed my son, and all my family ran out, wild
+with apprehension. Our neighbours came running to our assistance; but
+the flames had taken too strong a hold to be extinguished, and all the
+neighbours could do was to stand spectators of the calamity. They
+brought us clothes and furnished one of our outhouses with kitchen
+utensils; so that by daylight we had another, though a wretched,
+dwelling to retire to.
+
+In the midst of this affliction our poor lost one returned to us. "Ah,
+madam," cried her mother, "this is but a poor place to come to after so
+much finery! I can afford but little entertainment to persons who have
+kept company only with persons of distinction; but I hope Heaven will
+forgive you."
+
+The unhappy victim stood pale and trembling, unable to weep or to reply.
+
+"I entreat, woman," I said to my wife, with severity in my voice and
+manner, "that my words may be now marked once for all. I have here
+brought you back a poor deluded wanderer--her return to duty demands the
+revival of our tenderness. The real hardships of life are now coming
+fast upon us; let us not increase them by dissensions among each other.
+The kindness of Heaven is promised to the penitent, and let ours be
+directed by the example."
+
+My daughter's grief, however, seemed formed for continuing, and her
+wretchedness was increased by the news that Mr. Thornhill was going to
+be married to the rich Miss Wilmot, who had formerly been betrothed to
+my eldest son.
+
+On a morning of peculiar warmth for the season, when we were
+breakfasting out of doors, Mr. Thornhill drove up in his chariot,
+alighted, and inquired after my health with his usual air of
+familiarity.
+
+"Sir," replied I, "your present assurance only serves to aggravate your
+baseness."
+
+"My dear sir," returned he, "I cannot understand what this means!"
+
+"Go!" cried I. "Thou art a poor, pitiful wretch, and every way a liar;
+but your meanness secures you from my anger!"
+
+"I find," he said, "you are bent upon obliging me to talk in a harsher
+manner than I intended. My steward talks of driving for the rent, and it
+is certain he knows his duty. Yet, still, I could wish to serve you, and
+even to have you and your daughter present at my marriage."
+
+"Mr. Thornhill," replied I, "as to your marriage with any but my
+daughter, that I never will consent to! And though your friendship could
+raise me to a throne, or your resentment sink me to the grave, yet would
+I despise both."
+
+"Depend upon it," returned he, "you shall feel the effects of this
+insolence," and departed abruptly.
+
+On the very next morning his steward came to demand my annual rent,
+which, by reason of the accidents already related, I was unable to pay.
+On the following day two officers of justice took me to the county gaol.
+
+There is no situation, however wretched it seems, but has some sort of
+comfort attending it; and I found mine in the help and kindness of a
+fellow-prisoner, Mr. Jenkinson by name, who was awaiting trial for
+several acts of cheating and roguery. I myself, indeed, had been one of
+his victims.
+
+The fortune of my family, who were lodged in the town, was wholly and
+distressingly adverse. Olivia was ill, and longed for me to make my
+submission to Mr. Thornhill by approving his marriage with Miss Wilmot.
+When I had been confined a fortnight, Mr. Jenkinson brought me dreadful
+news--Olivia was dead! And while yet my grief was fresh upon me my wife
+came weeping to tell me that Sophia had been seized by ruffians and
+carried off.
+
+The sum of my miseries, thought, I, is now made up; nor is it in the
+power of anything on earth to give me another pang. Yet another awaited
+me. My eldest son, George, to whom I had written, went to Thornhill
+Castle to punish our betrayer; he was attacked by the coward's servants,
+injured one of them, and was brought into the very prison where I was
+confined.
+
+The enemy of my family had now triumphed completely. My only hope was in
+a letter I had written to Sir William Thornhill, telling him of the
+misdeeds of his nephew. I was by this time myself extremely ill. I
+sought to break from my heart all ties that bound it to earth, and to
+fit myself for eternity.
+
+
+_V.--The Rescue_
+
+
+On parting from my unhappy son, who was removed to a stronger cell, I
+laid me down in bed, when Mr. Jenkinson, entering, informed me that
+there was news of my daughter. He had scarcely delivered his message
+when my dearest girl entered with Mr. Burchell.
+
+"Here, papa," she cried, "here is the brave man to whom I owe my
+delivery; to this gentleman's intrepidity--"
+
+A kiss from Mr. Burchell interrupted what she was going to add.
+
+"Ah, Mr. Burchell," said I, "you were ever our friend. We have long
+discovered our errors with regard to you, and repented our ingratitude.
+And now, as you have delivered my girl, if you think her a recompense,
+she is yours."
+
+"But I suppose, sir," he replied, "you are apprised of my incapacity to
+support her as she deserves?"
+
+"I know no man," I returned, "so worthy to deserve her as you."
+
+Without the least reply to my offer, he ordered from the next inn the
+best dinner that could be provided. While we were at dinner, the gaoler
+brought a message from Mr. Thornhill, desiring permission to appear
+before his uncle in order to vindicate his innocence and honour. The
+poor, harmless Mr. Burchell, then, was in reality the celebrated Sir
+William Thornhill!
+
+Mr. Thornhill entered with a smile, and was going to embrace his uncle.
+
+"No fawning, sir, at present," cried the baronet. "The only way to my
+heart is by the road of honour; but here I only see complicated
+instances of falsehood, cowardice, and oppression."
+
+At this moment Jenkinson and the gaoler's two servants entered, hauling
+in a tall man very genteelly dressed. As soon as Mr. Thornhill perceived
+the prisoner and Mr. Jenkinson, he seemed to shrink backward with
+terror, for this was the man whom he had put upon the carrying off of
+Sophia.
+
+"Heavens," cried Sir William, "what a viper have I been fostering in my
+bosom!"
+
+"As Mr. Thornhill and I have been old fellow-sporters," said Jenkinson,
+"I have a friendship for him; and I hope he will show a proper return of
+friendship to his own honest Jenkinson, who brings him a wife."
+
+So saying, he went off and left us.
+
+"I am surprised," said the baronet, "what he can intend by this?"
+
+"When we reflect," I replied, "on the various schemes--Amazement! Do I
+see my lost daughter? It is--it is my Olivia!"
+
+"As for you, squire," said Jenkinson, "this young lady is your lawful
+wedded wife. Here is the licence to prove it. He commissioned me,
+gentlemen," he continued, "to procure him a false licence and a false
+priest in order to deceive this young lady. What did I do, but went and
+got a true licence and a true priest. To my shame, I confess it, my only
+design was to keep the licence and let the squire know that I could
+prove it upon him whenever I wanted money."
+
+"How could you," I cried, "add to my miseries by the story of her
+death?"
+
+"That," replied Jenkinson, "is easily answered. I thought the only
+probable means of freeing you from prison was by submitting to the
+squire, and consenting to his marriage with the other young lady. But
+this you had vowed never to grant while your daughter was living, so I
+had to join with your wife in persuading you that she was dead."
+
+Mr. Thornhill's assurance had now entirely forsaken him. He fell on his
+knees before his uncle, and implored compassion.
+
+"Thy vices, crimes, and ingratitude," said the baronet, "deserve no
+compassion; but a bare competence shall be supplied thee, and thy wife
+shall possess a third part of that fortune which once was thine." Then,
+turning to Sophia, he caught her to his breast with ardour. "I have
+sought," he cried, "for a woman who, a stranger to my fortune, could
+think I had merit as a man. How great must be my rapture to have made a
+conquest over such sense and such heavenly beauty!"
+
+On the next day Sophia was wedded to Sir William Thornhill; and my son
+George, now freed from justice, as the person supposed to be wounded by
+him was detected to be an impostor, led Miss Wilmot to the altar. As
+soon as I had awakened that morning, I had heard that my merchant had
+been arrested at Antwerp, and that my fortune had been restored to me.
+
+It may not be improper to observe, with respect to Mr. Thornhill, that
+he now resides as companion at a relation's house. My eldest daughter
+has told me that when he reforms she may be brought to relent.
+
+I had now nothing on this side of the grave to wish for. All my cares
+were over. It only remained that my gratitude in good fortune should
+exceed my submission in adversity.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+EDMOND AND JULES DE GONCOURT
+
+
+Renée Mauperin
+
+
+     Edmond de Goncourt, born at Nancy on May 26, 1822, and his
+     brother Jules, born in Paris on December 17, 1830, were
+     primarily artists, who, while wandering over France, knapsack
+     on back, discovered that their note-books also made them
+     writers. In 1850 they entered upon a literary partnership
+     which only finished with the death of the younger brother on
+     June 20, 1870. Their earliest literary endeavours consisted of
+     a series of historical studies dealing with the France of the
+     second half of the eighteenth century. It was not until 1860,
+     with the publication of their first novel, "Les Hommes de
+     Lettres," that they discovered their true bent lay in fiction.
+     "Renée Mauperin," which is, perhaps, the best known of their
+     books, was published in 1864. As a psychological analysis of
+     contemporaneous youth, it is probably without its equal in
+     French fiction. "The plot of the story," wrote Edmond de
+     Goncourt, "is secondary. The authors have rather preferred to
+     paint the modern young woman as she is: the product of the
+     artistic and masculine system of education in force during the
+     last thirty years. We have also attempted to portray the
+     modern young college man influenced by the republican ideas of
+     the time since Louis Philippe." Edmond de Goncourt died on
+     July 16, 1896.
+
+
+_I.--A Wayward Girl_
+
+
+"Yes, I love riding and hunting. I never miss a meet. The wind blowing
+through one's hair, the hounds, the horns, the trees flying past you--it
+is intoxicating! In those moments I feel brave. Life has few other
+pleasures for a well-brought-up girl like me. Everything is shocking! I
+dance, yes ... but do you think I am allowed to talk to my partner? Yes,
+no, no, yes--that's all! That's proper. And I am allowed to read if the
+books and articles are proper. I paint in oils, and that shocks my
+family; a young lady must not go beyond copying roses in water-colours.
+Isn't the current strong here?"
+
+Renée Mauperin and young Reverchon, her parent's guest, were swimming in
+the Seine.
+
+"How beautiful!" exclaimed the girl, as she noticed the evening sun
+gilding the river and the banks where country and suburb merged into
+each other.
+
+"You are an artist by nature, mademoiselle."
+
+"Ouf!" she exclaimed with a comic intonation.
+
+A boat approached.
+
+"Well, Renée, how is the water?" asked one of the rowers.
+
+"Splendid, thanks, Denoisel," she replied, as she mounted the steps
+lowered for her.
+
+"I was almost getting nervous for you. And Reverchon? Ah, there he is!"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Renée was the youngest daughter of a distinguished Napoleonic officer,
+who, at the time of the revolution of 1830, was elected deputy, and
+fought with all his ardour for the Liberal cause, but who subsequently,
+at the urging of his wife, a tyrannical conventional member of the
+_bourgeois_, retired from the world of politics and established a sugar
+refinery, so as to be able to provide suitably for his three children.
+
+The first two, a boy born in 1826 and a daughter in 1827, were a
+disappointment to the old soldier. They were too reasonable, too
+"grown-up" before they were children, but in Renée, who was born after
+an interval of eight years, M. Mauperin found ample consolation. His
+heart revelled in her pranks and merry laughter, and she grew up the pet
+of her father, whose affection she returned with all her heart. She was
+now twenty; her brother Henri, serious, studious, plodding and
+determined to make a career, was a lawyer, and had made some reputation
+by his articles on statistical subjects; and Henriette, her elder
+sister, had found a husband in M. Davarande, whose wealth and position
+allowed her to devote herself to the life of empty amusement, divided
+mainly between long rounds of calls, the opera, and the Bois, which
+filled the days of the moneyed Paris _bourgeoisie_ of that time.
+
+Madame Mauperin, delighted with Henriette's match, was anxious to find
+an equally suitable partner for Renée; but the high-spirited girl had a
+will of her own, and seemed to take almost a pleasure in crossing her
+mother's transparent matrimonial schemes. Quite a number of eligible
+young men had been introduced to the house at La Briche--and had left it
+without having furthered their suit. Reverchon had now been invited with
+similar intentions, and Renée was no more amenable than before. While
+her mother filled the young man's ears with praise of her
+accomplishments, the wayward girl, with her charming ingenuous talk, did
+her best to demonstrate her lack of those negative conventional virtues
+that were expected from a well-educated French girl in those days. She
+made Madame Mauperin turn first crimson, then pale, when she finally
+proceeded to cut Denoisel's hair in the drawing-room after dinner.
+
+Denoisel was the son of Mauperin's bosom friend, who had fought by his
+side in many battles, and who on his death-bed had made him his son's
+guardian. Mauperin became more than a guardian to the boy--he became his
+father. When Henri and Henriette were born, it seemed to Denoisel that
+he had been given a brother and sister; but he adored the baby Renée,
+and he alone succeeded in making her listen and obey.
+
+"Sometimes," said Henri to Denoisel as they travelled back to Paris, "my
+sister's follies are harmless enough; but to-night ... before that
+fellow ... I am sure the marriage will fall through. And such an
+excellent match!"
+
+"You think so? I began to fear for her. And that's why I lent myself to
+her prank. He is too hopelessly commonplace--a tailor's dummy! He would
+never have understood her. Your sister ought to marry a man of
+intelligence and character."
+
+And Madame Mauperin, as she prepared for bed, lectured her husband upon
+acceding to all his favourite's whims.
+
+"Another marriage missed! Henri spoke to me this evening. He is sure
+Reverchon will not have her."
+
+"Well, what of it?"
+
+"Why, he is the tenth! Renée will get an awful reputation. She will see
+when she is thirty ... and you too." Then, after a pause, "And now about
+your son. He is twenty-nine now. He, at any rate, has no objection to
+marriage. Have you ever thought of finding him a suitable wife?"
+
+She continued to talk and to grumble until Mauperin fell asleep.
+
+"Henri is reasonable enough, but he is a young man, and you know the
+danger. It's driving me mad! What do you think of trying Madame
+Rosiéres?"
+
+There was no reply. Madame Mauperin resigned herself to silence, and
+turned to find the sleep which only came with morning.
+
+
+_II.--Plots and Plays_
+
+
+Next morning Madame Mauperin proceeded to Paris, and drove to her son's
+apartments in the Rue Taitbout. She found him at work. After some
+beating about the bush she approached the object of her visit.
+
+"I fear," she began, "that you must have some reason for ..."
+
+"For not marrying, isn't it? My dear mother, you need not worry. I know
+that wealth is needed for a successful career, and that the best and
+most honourable way to obtain it is a good marriage. And I am determined
+to make a career. I shall get married soon enough... and better,
+perhaps, than you think."
+
+At La Briche, meanwhile, M. Mauperin vainly tried to be stern with his
+pet.
+
+"I have done it purposely," she said.
+
+"And why?"
+
+"Because I love you better than that young gentleman who was in no way
+sympathetic to me. You are ungrateful."
+
+"But listen, my dear child! Fathers are egotists, and would prefer to
+keep their children. But I am old, and I should not like to part without
+seeing you married, a mother, with affections that will replace mine."
+
+"Oh, this is wicked! Never, never!" she exclaimed; "let me cry alone for
+a minute." And she left the room hurriedly.
+
+When she returned after a while, she found Denoisel in the room.
+
+"You have been out? And where have you been?"
+
+"Well, if you want to know, I have been to church to pray that I may die
+before father. I knelt before a statue of the Virgin. And, you may
+laugh, but it seemed to me that she nodded at my request. And it made me
+quite happy."
+
+The conversation drifted to gayer topics, and the two soon fell into
+their wonted tone of banter. "Tell me, Renée," said Denoisel, "have you
+never felt, I won't say love, but some sentiment for anybody?"
+
+"Never. That sort of thing only occurs when the heart is empty. But when
+it is defended by the affection one feels for a father--as a child I
+felt perhaps the beginning of that emotion of which one reads in novels.
+And do you know for whom?"
+
+"No."
+
+"For you. Oh, only for a moment. I soon loved you differently for having
+corrected the spoilt child of its faults, for having directed my
+attention to noble and beautiful things. And I resolved to repay you by
+true friendship."
+
+M. Mauperin entered the room, and interrupted the confidences.
+
+A few days later, Renée having set her mind upon playing in private
+theatricals, a discussion arose about the filling of the second lady's
+part in the play that had been chosen. One by one the names suggested
+were dismissed, until Henri said, "Why not ask Mlle. Bourjot? They are
+just staying at Sannois."
+
+"Noémi?" replied Renée. "I'd love it. But she, was so cold towards me
+last winter. I don't know why."
+
+"She will have £12,000 a year," interrupted Denoisel, "and her mother
+knows that you have a brother. And they are not a little proud of their
+money."
+
+Twelve thousand a year! Madame Mauperin thought of her son's future, and
+supported his suggestion. It was decided that they would call on the
+Bourjots on Saturday.
+
+To Sannois they went as arranged on the Saturday. They were received
+with effusion, and had to put up for an hour or so with the unbearable
+arrogance of their hosts' display of wealth. Renée's warm advances to
+the playmate of her childhood were received by Noémi with coolness, not
+to say reluctance, but the request that Noémi should take part in the
+theatricals met with her mother's approval, the shy girl's objections--
+nervousness, lack of talent, and so forth--being overruled by Madame
+Bourjot. Before the two families parted it was arranged that Noémi
+should be taken by her governess to attend the rehearsals at the
+Mauperins' house.
+
+Renée's whole-hearted friendliness and sparkling humour soon overcame
+Noémi's reserve, and under Denoisel's direction the amateur actors made
+rapid progress. Madame Bourjot herself came to one of the rehearsals,
+and, after the first compliments, expressed her surprise that Henri, the
+principal actor, was absent. "Oh, he has a wonderful memory," said his
+proud mother; "two rehearsals will set him right."
+
+At last the great day arrived. A stage had been arranged in the large
+drawing-room, which was filled to its utmost capacity, the ladies being
+seated in the long rows of chairs, the men standing behind and
+overflowing through open doors into the adjoining rooms. The play chosen
+was "The Caprice." Henri, who revealed rare talent, took the part of the
+husband; Noémi of the neglected wife. The curtain fell upon enthusiastic
+applause, and Madame Bourjot, who had feared that her daughter would be
+a fiasco, was delighted with her success. Amid the hum of voices she
+heard the lady sitting next to her say to her neighbour, "His sister, I
+know ... but for the part he is not sufficiently in love with her ...
+and too much with his wife. Did you notice?" she continued, in a
+whisper.
+
+In the second piece Henri appeared as Pierrot, Renée as the forsaken
+wife, and Noémi as the beloved. Henri played with real passion. From
+time to time his eyes seemed to search for Madame Bourjot's. Her
+neighbour felt her leaning against her shoulder. The curtain fell.
+Madame Bourjot swayed, and fell back in a faint.
+
+She was carried to the garden.
+
+"Leave me now," she said, "I am all right now; it was the heat. I only
+want a little air ... Let M. Henri stay with me."
+
+They were left alone.
+
+"You love her?" said Madame Bourjot, clutching Henri's arm. "I know
+all.... Have you nothing to say?"
+
+"Nothing. I have struggled for a year. I will not excuse myself. I owe
+you the truth. I love your daughter, it is true."
+
+Finally, Madame Bourjot rose and walked towards the house. Henri
+followed.
+
+"I count upon never seeing you again, sir," she said, without looking
+round. With a mighty effort she regained her composure, and walked back
+to the house on Henri's arm.
+
+
+_III.--Stint to Death by his Sister_
+
+
+It was Madame Bourjot herself who insisted upon seeing Henri again, and,
+since he did not answer her letter, she went to his apartments. The
+interview was painful, but she gave her consent to Henri's marriage with
+Noémi, and undertook to overcome M. Bourjot's possible objections, on
+condition that Henri should humour her husband's vanity by adopting a
+title--an easy matter enough. The Mauperins had a farm called
+Villacourt. Mauperin de Villacourt would do very well. Henri promised to
+see what he could do.
+
+Madame Bourjot and her daughter called on the Mauperins next day. The
+two girls were asked to leave their mothers to their talk, and to take a
+walk in the garden.
+
+"A secret!" said Renée, as soon as they were alone. "Can you guess it? I
+can--my brother. ... But you are crying. What is it, my darling Noémi?"
+
+"Oh, you don't know!" her friend sobbed. "I cannot--if you only
+knew----Save me! If I could only die!"
+
+"Die! But why?"
+
+"Because your brother is----" She stopped in horror at what she was
+about to say, then whispered the rest of her sentence into her ear, and
+hid her face on her friend's bosom.
+
+"You lie!" Renée pushed her back.
+
+"I?" Renée did not reply, but looked sadly and gently into Noémi's eyes.
+
+Renée doubted no longer. She was silent for a moment; she felt almost
+the duties of a mother towards this child.
+
+In the evening Henri was surprised to find his sister waiting in his
+room. She approached the subject of his impending marriage, and implored
+him, by his love for her, not to give up his name, and to break off the
+match.
+
+"Are you mad? Enough of this!"
+
+Renée fixed her eyes upon her brother.
+
+"Noémi has told me--everything!"
+
+Her cheeks flushed, Henri turned deathly pale.
+
+"My dear," he said, with a shaky voice, "you interfere in things which
+do not concern you. A young girl--" Then seizing her hand, he pointed
+towards the door, and said, "Go!"
+
+Renée was ill for a week, and Henri, knowing the cause, did his best to
+alleviate her suffering. Still, a coldness remained between them. He
+understood that she had forgiven the brother, but not the man. One day
+she accompanied Henri to town and went with him to the Record Office,
+where he had to make some inquiries about the legality of adopting his
+own name. While he was questioning the keeper, she overheard two clerks
+discuss her brother and his claim. "He thinks the Villacourt family is
+extinct. But he is misinformed, although they have gone down in the
+world. In fact, I know the heir to the title--a M. Boisjorand with whom
+I once had a fight when we were boys. They lived in the forest of the
+Croix-du-Soldat, near St. Mihiel, at La Motte-Noire." Renée fixed these
+names in her mind.
+
+"I have got all I want," said Henri, gaily coming towards her. And they
+went out together.
+
+The Bourjots were giving a great ball to celebrate the public
+announcement of the engagement of their daughter to M. Mauperin de
+Villacourt.
+
+"You are enjoying yourself," said Renée to Noémi.
+
+"I have never danced so much, it is true." And Noémi took her arm and
+drew her into a small salon. "No, never." She kissed her. "Oh, what it
+is to be happy! She loves him no longer. I am sure of it--I can see it;
+I feel it."
+
+"And you love him now?"
+
+Noémi closed her mouth by pressing her lips upon Renée's. A young man
+came to claim Noémi for the dance, and Denoisel requested the same
+favour from Renée.
+
+Denoisel was with Henri Mauperin. They were smoking and talking
+peacefully, when the door was thrust open, and a man forced his way in,
+pushing aside the valet who wanted to prevent him from entering.
+
+"M. Mauperin de Villacourt?" he asked.
+
+"That is my name," said Henri, rising.
+
+"Good. My name is Boisjorand de Villacourt," retorted the stranger,
+striking him so violently on the cheek that his face was immediately
+covered with blood. Henri conquered his first impulse to throw himself
+upon the intruder, and said calmly, "You find that there is one
+Villacourt too many--so do I. Leave your card with my servant. I shall
+send to you to-morrow."
+
+It was from a marked number of the "Moniteur," which the impoverished
+heir of the glorious name of De Villacourt found on his return from a
+two years' sojourn in Africa, that M. Boisjorand had learned that Henri
+had taken from him this name, which was all that had come down to him
+from his famous ancestors. He immediately proceeded to Paris and sought
+legal advice, but found that his poverty rendered legal action
+impossible. After his interview with the solicitor, he went straight to
+Henri's apartment to obtain the only satisfaction that was in his power.
+
+Denoisel and another friend of Henri's arranged with Boisjorand's
+seconds next morning the details of the meeting. Henri, who was an
+excellent shot, had insisted on pistols at thirty-five paces, each
+combatant to have the right to advance ten steps. The duel was to take
+place at four o'clock the same afternoon near the ponds of Ville
+d'Avray.
+
+Neither of the two adversaries showed a trace of nervousness. The signal
+was given, M. De Villacourt advanced five steps, Henri remaining
+stationary. At the sixth step Henri fired, and his opponent fell. Henri
+hurried towards him.
+
+"Back to your place," shouted the wounded man. On his hands and knees he
+crawled forward to the limit of his advance leaving a trail of blood in
+the snow. Then he took careful aim--and Henri fell with arms extended
+and his face towards the ground.
+
+
+_IV.--Broken Wanderers_
+
+
+To Denoisel fell the painful duty of informing Mauperin of his son's
+death. The old man's grief was heartbreaking. When Denoisel was admitted
+to Renée, he found her sitting on a footstool, sobbing, with her
+handkerchief pressed to her mouth.
+
+"Renée," he said, taking her hands, "he has been killed--that man should
+never have known. He did not read, he saw nobody, he lived like a
+wolf--he was not a subscriber to the 'Moniteur.' Some enemy must have
+sent him that paper."
+
+Renée had risen; she moved her lips; she wanted to scream "It was I!"
+Then, suddenly pressing her hand against her heart, she fell senseless
+on the floor.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Renée did not seem to recover from her illness. Denoisel saw her daily,
+but a certain coldness had set in between them--he thought that Renée
+held him responsible for not having prevented the duel, while Renée
+vaguely feared that Denoisel had guessed her secret. He started upon a
+long journey.
+
+In those days of illness and anxiety the hearts of father and daughter
+seemed to come together more closely even than before. The heartbroken
+old man saw his beloved child wasting away. He called in the best
+specialist from Paris, who did not exactly give up all hope, but did not
+conceal that Renée's life was in danger. The poor girl, who could not
+bear to witness her father's misery, put on a gay air, assuring him
+again and again that she was recovering. Indeed, when, at her urging,
+the family removed to the country house where she had spent her
+childhood, there was a real and marked improvement, and for a while the
+roses seemed to return to her pale cheeks.
+
+But she soon fell back into her listless state. Thus she lingered on for
+several months, always cheering her father and speaking of her happy
+future, always fading away until she became a mere shadow of her former
+bright and healthy self. Only to Denoisel, when after a long absence he
+returned from the Pyrenees, she opened her heart. To him she confessed
+that she knew her days were counted.
+
+Those who travel far afield have perhaps met in foreign towns or among
+the ruins of dead places--now in Russia, now in Egypt--two aged people,
+a man and a woman, who seem to march along without looking and without
+seeing. They are the Mauperins--father and mother.
+
+They have sold everything and have gone. Thus they wander from land to
+land, from hotel to hotel. They wander, trying to lose their grief in
+the fatigue of the road, dragging their weary life to all the corners of
+the globe.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+JAMES GRANT
+
+
+Bothwell
+
+
+     The author of "Bothwell," and many other romantic tales, was a
+     Scotsman by birth, parentage, and perfervid sentiment. He was
+     born at Edinburgh on August 1, 1822. His father was a
+     distinguished Highland officer; by his mother he was related
+     to his illustrious literary exemplar, Sir Walter Scott. He was
+     only twenty-three years of age when "The Romance of War" made
+     him one of the most famous authors of his day. Other tales
+     quickly followed, including, in 1853, "Bothwell, or The Days
+     of Mary Queen of Scots," and it seemed as if readers could
+     not have too much of the lively adventure and vigorous
+     historical portraiture to which Grant unfailingly treated
+     them. Altogether he wrote more than fifty novels, many of them
+     involving considerable research. Grant outlived his
+     popularity; the public sought new writers, and when he died,
+     on May 5, 1887, he was penniless. For fertility of incident,
+     rapid change of scene, and skilful intermingling of historical
+     with imaginary people and events, "Bothwell" is not surpassed
+     by any of the romances that came from its author's fertile
+     pen.
+
+
+_I.--Anna of Bergen_
+
+
+Erick Rosenkrantz, Governor of Aggerhuis, in Norway, and castellan of
+Bergen, stood in the hall of his castle to welcome noble guests. It was
+a bleak and stormy day in September of 1565. Ill, indeed, would it have
+fared with the newcomers had not Konrad of the Salzberg, the young
+captain of the crossbowmen of Bergen, ventured forth on the raging sea
+at the peril of his life, and piloted their vessel into safety.
+
+The first of these was a tall and handsome man, about thirty years old,
+with a peculiar, dare-devil expression in his deep, dark eye, richly
+attired, and wearing a long sword and Scottish dagger. His companion,
+who deferentially remained a few paces behind, was a man of gigantic
+stature, swarthy and dark in complexion, with fierce and restless eyes.
+
+"Sir Erick," began the chamberlain, "allow me to introduce Sir James
+Hepburn, Earl of Bothwell, a noble peer, ambassador from Mary Queen of
+Scots to his Danish majesty."
+
+"We thank you for your gracious hospitality, fair sir," said Bothwell,
+with a profound courtesy; then, turning to Konrad, "And now, brave
+youth, by whose valour we have been saved, let me thank _you_."
+
+He warmly shook Konrad's hand, while the youth tried to catch the eye of
+Anna, the governor's fair-haired and lovely niece. But Anna was too
+intently regarding the strangers.
+
+Suddenly Bothwell perceived her; his colour heightened, his eyes
+sparkled.
+
+"Anna--Lady Anna," he exclaimed, "art _thou_ here? When we parted at the
+palace of King Frederick, I feared it was to meet no more."
+
+"Thou seest, my lord," she replied gaily, "that fate never meant to
+separate us altogether."
+
+It was Bothwell who sat by Anna's side at the banquet, not Konrad, her
+lover from childhood. Konrad was displaced and slighted; he left the
+hall with a heart full of jealous and bitter thoughts.
+
+"Dost thou not see the hand of fate in this meeting with Anna?" said
+Bothwell, when retiring, to his gigantic companion, Black Hob of
+Ormiston, the most merciless and ferocious of border barons.
+
+"Nay," said Hob; "I perceive only the finger of mischief!"
+
+"I own to thee," replied the earl, "that all my old passion is revived
+in full force. My whole heart and soul are hers," he went on
+passionately.
+
+"Remember your solemn plight to the Lady Jane Gordon. If that be broken,
+our doleful case will be worse than ever." For Bothwell was no
+ambassador, but an exile; and his real mission to King Frederick was in
+pursuit of a design to hand over the northern Scottish isles to Denmark,
+and become viceroy of them.
+
+"Hob, be not insolent," retorted Bothwell. "I love her a thousand times
+more than Huntly's sickly sister."
+
+It was always thus with this reckless noble--the passion of the moment
+was ever too strong for past pledges and future policy. While waiting at
+Bergen for the ship to be repaired, he wooed Anna with all the skill of
+an accomplished man of pleasure.
+
+Anna's heart was ready to be won, and it was not long ere Bothwell,
+having gained her love, asked Governor Rosenkrantz for her hand. To his
+mortification, he was refused. Anna, said the governor, had long been
+pledged to Konrad.
+
+But Konrad, meanwhile, was in despair. Anna no longer smiled upon him;
+he was lightly cast aside to make way for a more favoured lover. One
+evening he was missing. A day and a night passed, and Konrad was nowhere
+to be seen. Search for him was useless--he had disappeared.
+
+Two letters were brought to Bothwell by a king's messenger. One was from
+King Frederick, commanding him to desist from his mock embassy, and
+instantly leave the Danish seas; the other, from the Earl of Huntly,
+told him that his enemies in Scotland were banished, and his forfeiture
+reversed.
+
+Bothwell's thoughts instantly turned to Anna. He knew that she would not
+accompany him unless he married her, and policy now more than ever
+required that he should keep his troth to the sister of his friend, the
+Earl of Huntly. Then there occurred to him the sinister thought of a
+mock marriage.
+
+His actions were quick, and his persuasions, to the love-sick Anna,
+irresistible. That evening the two were wedded by a crazy hermit who
+dwelt among the rocks of the fjord, and Anna, without a word of farewell
+to her kin, left her native land, it might be for ever.
+
+A stormy voyage brought the ship to Westeray, in Shetland. Bothwell
+escorted Anna to the castle of Noltland; and as she landed at the pier,
+a young man sprang forward and helped her across the plank. She felt
+agitated, she knew not why; she looked at the man's face, but it was
+concealed. It was Konrad. He had fallen over a cliff, had been carried
+out to sea on a plank, had been picked up by a ship which had carried
+him to Shetland, and had taken service with the castellan of Noltland.
+The unexpected sight of Anna brought back his emotions to their
+starting-point, and recalled the poignancy of the hour in which he had
+realised that he had lost her.
+
+
+_II.--Bothwell Castle_
+
+
+"I have resolved!" exclaimed the earl, on the morning after their
+arrival at Noltland. "I would be worse than mad to forego the prospect
+of power by marring my union with the sister of Huntly."
+
+"Cock and pie! now thou speakest like a man of mettle!" growled Hob.
+
+"Anna is not my first love," mused the earl. "Have I not felt how feeble
+have been my sentiments for Anna, for Jane of Huntly, for all who have
+succeeded her whom I met in France long ago?"
+
+"Then thou wilt sail----"
+
+"Yes, like Æneas, leaving my Dido behind me."
+
+With a pretence of the love he felt no longer, Bothwell bade Anna
+farewell, and left her to doubts which, as the months went on and his
+promise to return was not fulfilled, gradually rose to despair.
+
+During the decline of a spring evening, as Anna wandered dejectedly on
+the battlements, Konrad stood before her for the first time since her
+arrival at Noltland.
+
+"Konrad," she faltered, "thou here!"
+
+"Anna--dear Anna!" exclaimed the unhappy young man. "I have tidings to
+tell thee. The false lord of Bothwell hath been espoused to the sister
+of Huntly!"
+
+"And I--" gasped Anna.
+
+"Thou art a captive for life in this island castle!"
+
+Anna would have fallen backwards had Konrad not sprung to her
+assistance.
+
+"Listen," he said, in a low voice. "If thou wouldst escape, an hour will
+set thee free."
+
+"Yes, land me once in Scotland, and I will make my way to Bothwell."
+
+That night Anna was on a Norwegian vessel bound for Glasgow, and Konrad
+was with her. She could not, he knew, be his bride, but he could at
+least protect and cherish her, and strive to redress the wrongs she had
+suffered.
+
+A storm was gathering above the lovely valley of the Clyde one June
+evening as two strangers--a man and a woman--plodded wearily towards
+Bothwell Castle. The woman became wholly exhausted; the man laid her
+gently down in shelter among the ruins of Blantyre Priory, and went on
+his errand alone. The storm had now burst, and the river was rising
+rapidly; but Konrad--for it was he--plunged into the raging waters, and
+strove to swim across. The current was too strong for him; he clung to
+an ash tree that projected over the stream, and was nearly exhausted
+when a man on the bank flung down his mantle and poniard, plunged in,
+and dragged him to the shore.
+
+Konrad, almost senseless, was carried within the castle. When he had
+revived and was dressed in dry garments, he was brought before his
+rescuer--it was Bothwell himself.
+
+"I thank thee," said Konrad proudly, "for saving my life."
+
+"Thou didst save mine. We are now equal," replied the earl.
+
+"'Tis well! I would not be _thy_ debtor for all the silver in the mines
+of Bergen! Lord of Bothwell, I tell thee in thine own hall that thou art
+a dishonoured villain!"
+
+"Thou art stark mad!" cried the earl. Then he went on, "Konrad, I have
+wronged thee deeply. In my youth I loved one who neglected me as cruelly
+as thou hast been neglected, and since then a mischievous spirit of
+vengeance, as it were, has led me to make women my playthings, to be won
+and thrown aside. I love thy spirit, Konrad. If I could be thy friend----"
+
+"Never!" cried Konrad. "I come not for friendship, but for justice to
+Anna! Hast thou not wedded another after thine espousal of her?"
+
+"Dost thou deem the mock blessing of yon mad hermit a spousal rite?"
+exclaimed the earl, laughing.
+
+Konrad repressed his passion.
+
+"I go to push my fortune with your turbulent border chiefs; and if, in
+the strife that will soon convulse this land, thou meetest Konrad of
+Salzberg, look well to thyself!"
+
+"Go thy way, and God be with thee!" replied the earl. "Thou art the
+first who hath bent a dark brow on a lord of Bothwell under his own
+roof-tree."
+
+Konrad returned to Anna, and in the ruined priory told her how Bothwell
+was false to her. Anna's grief was dreadful to behold.
+
+"Anna," said Konrad, after a pause, "Scotland hath a queen whose
+goodness of heart is revered in every land save her own."
+
+"True; and at her feet will I pour forth my sorrow and my tears
+together."
+
+So the two traversed the thickets around the priory, and reached the
+broad highway, which was to lead them at length to Edinburgh.
+
+
+_III.--Mary Queen of Scots_
+
+
+But it was long ere Anna looked upon the face of the queen. At the Red
+Lion Inn in Edinburgh her beauty struck the eye of the Earl of Morton,
+the factious, proud, and ferocious associate of Moray in all the dark
+intrigues of that craftiest of Scottish statesmen. Morton promised that
+Anna should be entrusted to a lady of fair repute, and soon presented to
+the queen. Konrad trusted him, little knowing that the repute of Dame
+Alison Craig, Anna's new guardian, was anything but fair, and set forth
+for the Border.
+
+It was to Sir John Elliot of Park that he offered the service of his
+sword, for it was against this turbulent borderer, who had just raided
+Northumberland, and threatened the peace of the two kingdoms, that
+Bothwell was advancing with the army of Queen Mary. Now garrisoning some
+solitary peel-tower, now hiding in some unfathomed cavern, now issuing
+with uplifted lance from the haggs of some deep moss, Konrad engaged
+with ardour in every desperate foray, and his daring made him the idol
+of the wild spirits around him. In every deed of arms one thought was in
+his mind--to come within a lance-length of Bothwell.
+
+Long and fierce was the struggle, but it ended as a fight so unequal was
+bound to end. John of Park was slain, refusing with his dying breath to
+surrender, and Konrad was carried, a half-senseless captive to
+Bothwell's castle of Hermitage. Even then the earl spared his life. He
+lay in a hideous den, in pitch darkness and dead silence broken only by
+the splash of drops of fetid water that fell from the slimy arch of the
+vault.
+
+No token reached him of what was happening above; and an event happened
+there that had vast influence on Bothwell's future. Across the hills to
+Hermitage rode the Queen of Scots herself. The sight of her stirred in
+Bothwell's heart an emotion he had never wholly conquered, for she, Mary
+herself, was his first love of the bygone days in France. He had begun
+to realise that he loved her still; he knew the coldness of her
+relations with the dissolute and unfaithful Darnley, her husband; now
+she had come to Hermitage.
+
+"Jesu Maria!" cried the queen, as Bothwell, with beating heart, paused
+in the conversation. "Have you lost your tongue?"
+
+"Nay, madame--my heart."
+
+"That is very serious; but search for another."
+
+"I want no other," replied the earl, in a trembling voice, "but
+_thine_!"
+
+"Lord Bothwell," she said, with a hauteur that froze her admirer, "thou
+art in a dream."
+
+"Pardon me, I pray you--"
+
+"I do pardon thee," replied the queen, with a calm smile; but added,
+significantly, "I think 'tis time I was riding from Hermitage."
+
+So ended the famous visit to Hermitage, which was interpreted throughout
+Scotland as a token of Mary's love for her favourite earl.
+
+Konrad, a month afterwards, was sent to Edinburgh and confined in the
+old tower of Holyrood, awaiting trial as a Border outlaw. Bothwell
+himself soon followed, and celebrated his return by a wild revel in
+company with Hob of Ormiston and other choice spirits.
+
+As the revellers wandered through the narrow streets at midnight,
+seeking a quarrel, they passed the house of Dame Alison Craig.
+
+"My page tells me," said Bothwell, "there is a famous foreign beauty
+concealed there. Ho! within!"
+
+A stoup of water, poured on them from an upper window, was the answer.
+They broke open the door, and forced the shrieking dame to lead them to
+the apartment where the foreign beauty was hidden.
+
+"Death and confusion!" muttered the earl when he saw who was within.
+
+"Cock and pie!" said Ormiston. "We have started the wrong game."
+
+Hastily they thrust back their companions. But Anna had recognised him.
+When Morton had made advances towards her, she had repulsed him
+scornfully, telling him she was the Countess of Bothwell. Morton had
+seized on this opportunity of injuring a man he hated, and resolved to
+bring Anna before the queen. Bothwell now knew the danger before him,
+and prepared for it.
+
+Next day, as the queen sat with her grim lords in council, Morton led in
+Anna.
+
+"I have the pleasure," said he, "to present a lady who accuseth the Earl
+of Bothwell of wedding and ignobly deserting her."
+
+"'Tis false, Lord Earl!" cried Bothwell.
+
+"Oh, madam, hear my story, and condemn me not unheard," pleaded Anna.
+
+"Let her speak for herself," said Mary.
+
+Thus encouraged, Anna, in moving accents, told her story.
+
+"A meloncholy tale, in sooth," said Mary; "but what proof is there?"
+
+"Your majesty," said Bothwell, "this is the invention of some unknown
+enemy"--he glanced at Morton--"to deprive me of your royal favour. Let
+this frantic damsel be removed to a Danish vessel now at Leith, and
+conveyed to her home."
+
+"Well, so be it!" replied the facile queen.
+
+Anna drew herself up to her full height.
+
+"Farewell, Bothwell," she cried. "In that dark time of ruin and regret
+that is coming upon thee, remember Anna!"
+
+And as she spoke they hurried her away.
+
+Bothwell henceforth was more than ever in the queen's favour. Only the
+life of Darnley intervened between him and the goal of his love and
+ambition; and the sinister promptings of Ormiston suggested that even
+that obstacle was not irremovable.
+
+
+_IV.--The Kirk of Field_
+
+
+On a dark winter night a conference of nobles was held at Whittinghame.
+Mary had been asked to divorce her husband, and had proudly and
+indignantly refused. Only one way remained. A solemn bond was drawn up
+among the assembled nobles, and the bond sealed the fate of Darnley. It
+was not without doubt and shrinking that Bothwell saw whither his
+schemes were leading him, but he would not, he could not, turn back.
+
+It was at Ormiston's suggestion that Konrad was employed as an
+unconscious tool in the affair. Ormiston hinted that with a little
+adroitness the whole blame might be laid on the unhappy prisoner. Konrad
+accordingly, on the night when the deed was to be done, was awakened
+from a reverie in his cell at Holyrood by the entry of a tall, masked
+figure.
+
+"If thou wouldst attain liberty, follow me!" said Ormiston, for it was
+he.
+
+He put a sword in Konrad's hand. Konrad as he grasped the weapon, felt
+his spirits rise again, and he followed.
+
+Presently they came to a group of masked men, and silently the party
+went through a private door in the city walls. Their destination, though
+Konrad knew it not, was the lonely house of the Kirk of Field, where
+Darnley was lying slowly recovering from small-pox--an illness through
+which the queen, forgetting her wrongs at his hands, had tenderly nursed
+him.
+
+Konrad, arrived at the house, helped to unload a horse of heavy packages
+which he conjectured to contain plunder; but it was gunpowder that he
+unwittingly handled.
+
+Suddenly a piercing cry came from above. A moment later the startled
+Konrad perceived Bothwell, his mask awry, his eyes glazed and haggard.
+
+"Thou hast done well!" said Ormiston grimly.
+
+"Well! My God!" groaned the earl.
+
+"Away while I fire the train!" shouted Ormiston.
+
+Like a fiery serpent the train glowed along the ground. Then, red and
+lurid in the shadowy night, there flashed a volume of dazzling light;
+then came a roar as if the earth was splitting.
+
+Konrad fled in bewildered terror, and wandered about the outskirts of
+the city until, in a little ruined chapel on the verge of a moor, he lay
+down exhausted and fell asleep.
+
+In the morning he was awakened by a rough grasp on his shoulder.
+
+"We have meshed one of the knaves at least," said a stern voice. Konrad
+found himself amidst knights and men-at-arms, and he was led back to the
+city.
+
+The citizens were in arms, furious at the outrage of the night before.
+The appearance of a suspected murderer aroused their passion to the
+utmost; Konrad's escort was overpowered and thrust aside. "Awa' wi' him
+to the Papist's pillar!" cried a voice. Down they went with him to the
+North Loch, and tied him there to an oaken stake about five feet deep in
+the water--a spot where many a luckless Catholic had perished. The mob
+retired, and Konrad was left alone, helpless, and to die.
+
+Bothwell sat by the fire in his apartments at Holyrood, with knit brows
+and muttering lips; the word he muttered was, "Murderer." The shriek of
+the man whose death-blow he had struck still echoed in his ears.
+
+Presently there entered the room one of his followers, Hepburn of
+Bolton.
+
+"The Norwegian hath been bound to the Papist's pillar," said he; "and by
+this time he must be dead, for it rains heavily, and the loch fills
+fast."
+
+"One other life!" said the earl gloomily. "By heaven, Bolton! if I can
+save him--come!"
+
+In the darkness and the rain, with the water rising around him, Konrad
+waited for death. A sound of oars roused him from the stupefaction into
+which he had fallen. "Here, here! His head is above water still," said a
+voice. The bonds were cut, Konrad was dragged into the boat and taken to
+land, and offered a draught that revived him.
+
+"Here we part," said the voice. "Give him dry garments, and take him to
+the Norwegian vessel, and bid him cross my path no more!"
+
+"Who art thou?" asked Konrad feebly.
+
+"Thy greatest enemy, James, Earl of Bothwell!"
+
+Slowly Konrad mounted the horse that had been brought for him, and with
+difficulty he rode; but the morning saw him on board a vessel of Bergen,
+in the hands of countrymen and friends.
+
+Bothwell was tried for the murder of Darnley, and triumphantly
+acquitted. He procured the secret assent of the nobles to his marriage
+with Mary; he divorced the Countess Jane; one more vigorous action, and
+the goal would be attained.
+
+On an April day, as Mary rode along the Stirling road towards Edinburgh,
+her way was barred by a thousand armed horsemen in close array; and
+Bothwell, riding up, requested that she should accompany him to his
+castle of Dunbar. It was useless to resist. Once in the castle, Bothwell
+offered her his hand, and was proudly refused.
+
+"Lord Earl," cried Mary, "thou mayest tremble when I leave Dunbar!"
+
+"Madame," he replied, "thou shalt never leave Dunbar but as the bride of
+Bothwell!"
+
+In May, Mary and Bothwell were married. A month later Bothwell fled
+before the wrath of an outraged nation, never to see Mary again; and
+within a week of their parting he roamed a pirate on the northern seas.
+
+
+_V.--Nemesis_
+
+
+A large Danish war vessel approached the port of Bergen, with prisoners
+to hand over to the castellan--the new castellan, for old Erick
+Rosenkrantz was dead. Chief of the captives was Bothwell, nonchalant but
+melancholy, pale, and more thoughtful than formerly; still, in pleasure
+and in sorrow, was he haunted by the shriek of the dying Darnley.
+
+Near him stood one who was not a captive, but a returning wanderer.
+Konrad had again crossed the path of the earl; his vessel, long detained
+in port, and afterwards delayed by storms, had been captured by the
+Scottish pirate ship, and he had been rescued from this new misfortune
+by the great Norwegian war vessel.
+
+The prisoners were escorted to the hall of the castle, and Bothwell
+assumed his most defiant look. The arras that concealed the daïs was
+withdrawn, and Bothwell looked upon the face of the hereditary castellan
+of Bergen, Anna Rosenkrantz!
+
+On seeing the earl, she turned pale as death. The earl recovered
+instantly from his surprise, and bowed smilingly.
+
+"Well, madam," said he, "we foresaw not this meeting!"
+
+"Dost thou know," replied Anna firmly, "that thy life and liberty are in
+my power?"
+
+"I am assured," he answered, "that they could not be in safer keeping."
+
+"Regicide and betrayer," return Anna, with flashing eyes, "from this
+hour thou shalt have meted out to thee the stern measures thou hast so
+ruthlessly dealt to others. This man," she went on, turning to the
+captain of the war ship, "is the king's prisoner; away with him to the
+Castle of Kiobenhafen--be under sail before sunset!"
+
+Red-bearded Danish bowmen crowded round the earl, who thus passed away
+to the wretched captivity that ended only with his death, ten years
+afterwards.
+
+Konrad, unnoticed and uncared for, stood alone in the hall where he had
+once been so welcome a guest. He had no intention of remaining in a
+place where all was so changed; but ere he turned to leave it for ever
+he paused a moment irresolutely. Once more the arras was withdrawn, and
+Anna stood before him.
+
+"I heard thou wert here, Konrad," she said, with a blushing cheek.
+"Wouldst thou go without one word to me?"
+
+She seated herself in the recess of a window. "I have long wished," she
+faltered, "to see thee once more. I have now seen the worth and faith of
+thy heart when contrasted with mine own, and I blush for my weakness--my
+wickedness--my folly. Thou mayest deem this unwomanly--indelicate; but
+in love we are equal, and why may not one make reparation as the other?"
+
+"Anna," said Konrad, in a choking voice, "though my heart be soured and
+saddened, my first sentiment for thee hath never altered. For all thou
+hast made me endure I forgive thee, and I pray that thou mayest be
+happy. Anna--dearest Anna--I am going far away, for I have doomed myself
+to exile, but I still regard thee as a sister--as a friend. All is
+forgotten and forgiven. And now, farewell!"
+
+He felt the hand of Anna in his; another moment, and she sank upon his
+breast.
+
+"Oh, Konrad," she whispered, "if my heart is still prized by thee, it is
+thine, as in the days of our first love."
+
+And, borne away by his passion, the forgiving Konrad pressed the woman
+he loved closer and closer to his breast.
+
+
+
+
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+<div style='text-align:center; font-size:1.2em; font-weight:bold'>The Project Gutenberg eBook of The World’s Greatest Books, Vol IV.</div>
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+<div style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:1em; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Title: The World’s Greatest Books, Vol IV.</div>
+<div style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:1em; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Editors: Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton</div>
+<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>Release Date: February 3, 2004 [eBook #10921]<br />
+[Most recently updated: April 29, 2022]</div>
+<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>Language: English</div>
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+<div style='display:block; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Produced by: John Hagerson, Kevin Handy and PG Distributed Proofreaders</div>
+<div style='margin-top:2em; margin-bottom:4em'>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE WORLD’S GREATEST BOOKS, VOL. IV. ***</div>
+
+<h1>THE WORLD'S GREATEST BOOKS</h1>
+
+<h2 class="no-break">JOINT EDITORS</h2>
+
+<h3>ARTHUR MEE</h3>
+
+<h4>Editor and Founder of the Book of Knowledge</h4>
+
+<h3>J. A. HAMMERTON</h3>
+
+<h4>Editor of Harmsworth's Universal Encyclopaedia</h4>
+
+<h3>VOL. IV</h3>
+
+<h3>FICTION</h3>
+
+<h4>COPYRIGHT, MCMX</h4>
+
+<hr />
+
+<h2>Table of Contents</h2>
+
+<p>
+<a href="#ebers">EBERS, GEORG</a><br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<a href="#ebers1">An Egyptian Princess</a><br /><br />
+<a href="#edgeworth">EDGEWORTH, MARIE</a><br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<a href="#edgeworth1">Belinda</a><br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<a href="#edgeworth2">Castle Rackrent</a><br /><br />
+<a href="#eliot">ELIOT, GEORGE</a><br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<a href="#eliot1">Adam Bede</a><br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<a href="#eliot2">Felix Holt</a><br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<a href="#eliot3">Romola</a><br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<a href="#eliot4">Silas Marner</a><br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<a href="#eliot5">The Mill on the Floss</a><br /><br />
+<a href="#erckmann">ERCKMANN-CHATRIAN</a><br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<a href="#erckmann1">Waterloo</a><br /><br />
+<a href="#feuillet">FEUILLET, OCTAVE</a><br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<a href="#feuillet1">Romance of a Poor Young Man</a><br /><br />
+<a href="#fielding">FIELDING, HENRY</a><br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<a href="#fielding1">Amelia</a><br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<a href="#fielding2">Jonathan Wild</a><br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<a href="#fielding3">Joseph Andrews</a><br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<a href="#fielding4">Tom Jones</a><br /><br />
+<a href="#flammarion">FLAMMARION, CAMILLE</a><br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<a href="#flammarion1">Urania</a><br /><br />
+<a href="#fouque">FOUQUÉ, DE LA MOTTE</a><br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<a href="#fouque1">Undine</a><br /><br />
+<a href="#gaboriau">GABORIAU, EMILE</a><br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<a href="#gaboriau1">File No. 113</a><br /><br />
+<a href="#galt">GALT, JOHN</a><br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<a href="#galt1">Annals of the Parish</a><br /><br />
+<a href="#gaskell">GASKELL, MRS.</a><br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<a href="#gaskell1">Cranford</a><br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<a href="#gaskell2">Mary Barton</a><br /><br />
+<a href="#godwin">GODWIN, WILLIAM</a><br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<a href="#godwin1">Caleb Williams</a><br /><br />
+<a href="#goethe">GOETHE</a><br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<a href="#goethe1">Sorrows of Young Werther</a><br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<a href="#goethe2">Wilhelm Meister</a><br /><br />
+<a href="#goldsmith">GOLDSMITH, OLIVER</a><br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<a href="#goldsmith1">Vicar of Wakefield</a><br /><br />
+<a href="#goncourt">GONCOURT, EDMOND AND JULES DE</a><br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<a href="#goncourt1">Renée Mauperin</a><br /><br />
+<a href="#grant">GRANT, JAMES</a><br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<a href="#grant1">Bothwell</a><br />
+</p>
+
+<p>A Complete Index of THE WORLD'S GREATEST BOOKS will be found at the end
+of Volume XX.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="ebers">GEORG EBERS</a></h2>
+
+
+<h3><a name="ebers1">An Egyptian Princess</a></h3>
+
+<p class="letter">
+Georg Moritz Ebers, a great Orientalist and Egyptologist, was
+born in Berlin on March 1, 1837, received his first instruction at Keilhau
+in Thuringen, then attended a college at Quedlinburg, and finally took up
+the study of law at G&ouml;ttingen University. In 1858, when his feet
+became lame, he abandoned this study, and took up philology and
+arch&aelig;ology. After 1859 he devoted himself almost exclusively to
+Egyptology. Having recovered from his long illness, he visited the most
+important European museums, and in 1869 he travelled to Egypt, Nubia, and
+Arabia. On his return he took the chair of Egyptology at Leipzig
+University. He went back to Egypt in 1872, and discovered, besides many
+other important inscriptions, the famous papyrus which bears his name. "An
+Egyptian Princess" is his first important novel, written during his
+illness, and published in 1864. It has gone through numerous editions, and
+has been translated into most European languages. It was followed by
+several other similar works of fiction, of which "Serapis" achieved wide
+popularity. Ebers died on August 7, 1898.
+</p>
+
+<h4><i>I.--The Royal Bride</i></h4>
+
+
+<p>A cavalcade of dazzling splendour was moving along the high road towards
+Babylon. The embassy sent by Cambyses, the mighty King of the East, had
+accomplished its mission, and now Nitetis, the daughter of Amasis, King of
+Egypt, was on the way to meet her future spouse. At the head of the
+sumptuous escort were Bartja, Cambyses' handsome golden-haired younger
+brother; his kinsman Darius; Croesus, the dethroned King of Lydia, and his
+son Gyges; Prexaspes, the king's ambassador, and Zopyrus, the son of
+Megabyzus, a Persian noble.</p>
+
+<p>A few miles before the gates of Babylon they perceived a troop of
+horsemen galloping towards them. Cambyses himself came to honour his bride.
+His pale face, framed by an immense black beard, expressed great power and
+unbounded pride. Deep pallor and bright colour flitted by turns across the
+face of Nitetis, as his fiery eyes fixed her with a piercing gaze. Then he
+waved a welcome, sprang from his horse, shook Croesus by the hand, and
+asked him to act as interpreter. "She is beautiful and pleases me well,"
+said the king. And Nitetis, who had begun to learn the language of her new
+home on the long journey, blushed deeply and began softly in broken
+Persian, "Blessed be the gods, who have caused me to find favour in thine
+eyes."</p>
+
+<p>Cambyses was delighted with her desire to win his approbation and with
+her industry and intellect, so different from the indolence and idleness of
+the Persian women in his harem. His wonder and satisfaction increased when,
+after recommending her to obey the orders of Boges, the eunuch, who was
+head over the house of women, she reminded him that she was a king's
+daughter, bound to obey the commands of her lord, but unable to bow to a
+venal servant.</p>
+
+<p>Her pride found an echo in his own haughty disposition. "You have spoken
+well. A separate dwelling shall be appointed you. I, and no one else, will
+prescribe your rules of life and conduct. Tell me now, how my messengers
+pleased you and your countrymen?"</p>
+
+<p>"Who could know the noble Croesus without loving him? Who could fail to
+admire the beauty of the young heroes, your friends, and especially of your
+handsome brother Bartja? The Egyptians have no love for strangers, but he
+won all hearts."</p>
+
+<p>At these words the king's brows darkened, he struck his horse so that
+the creature reared, and then, turning it quickly round, he galloped
+towards Babylon. He decided in his mind to give Bartja the command of an
+expedition against the Tapuri, and to make him marry Rosana, the daughter
+of a Persian noble. He also determined to make Nitetis his real queen and
+adviser. She was to be to him what his mother Kassandane had been to Cyrus,
+his great father. Not even Ph&aelig;dime, his favourite wife, had occupied
+such a position. And as for Bartja, "he had better take care," he murmured,
+"or he shall know the fate that awaits the man who dares to cross my
+path."</p>
+
+
+<h4><i>II.--The Plot</i></h4>
+
+
+<p>According to Persian custom a year had to pass before Nitetis could
+become Cambyses' lawful wife, but, conscious of his despotic power, he had
+decided to reduce this term to a few months. Meanwhile, he only saw the
+fair Egyptian in the presence of his blind mother or of his sister Atossa,
+both of whom became Nitetis' devoted friends. Meanwhile, Boges, the eunuch,
+sank in public estimation, since it was known that Cambyses had ceased to
+visit the harem, and he began to conspire with Ph&aelig;dime as to the best
+way of ruining Nitetis, who had come to love Cambyses with ever growing
+passion.</p>
+
+<p>The Egyptian princess's happiness was seriously disturbed by the arrival
+of a letter from her mother, which brought her naught but sad news. Her
+father, Amasis, had been struck with blindness on the very day she had
+reached Babylon; and her frail twin-sister Tachot, after falling into a
+violent fever, was wasting away for love of Bartja, whose beauty had
+captured her heart at the time of his mission in Sais. His name had been
+even on her lips in her delirium, and the only hope for her was to see him
+again.</p>
+
+<p>Nitetis' whole happiness was destroyed in one moment. She wept and
+sighed, until she fell asleep from sheer exhaustion. When her maid Mandane
+came to put a last touch to her dress for the banquet, she found her
+sleeping, and as there was ample time she went out into the garden, where
+she met the eunuch Boges. He was the bearer of good news. Mandane had been
+brought up with the children of a Magian, one of whom was now the
+high-priest Oropastes. Love had sprung up between her and his handsome
+brother Gaumata; and Oropastes, who had ambitious schemes, had sent his
+brother to Rhag&aelig; and procured her a situation at court, so that they
+might forget one another. And now Gaumata had come and begged her to meet
+him next evening in the hanging gardens. Mandane consented after a hard
+struggle.</p>
+
+<p>Boges hurried away with malicious pleasure in the near success of his
+scheme. He met one of the gardeners, whom he promised to bring some of the
+nobles to inspect a special kind of blue lily, in which the gardener took
+great pride. He then hurried to the harem, to make sure that the king's
+wives should look their best, and insisted upon Ph&aelig;dime painting her
+face white, and putting on a simple, dark dress without ornament, except
+the chain given her by Cambyses on her marriage, to arouse the pity of the
+Ach&aelig;menid&aelig;, to which family she herself belonged.</p>
+
+<p>The eunuch's cunning scheme succeeded but too well. At the end of the
+great banquet Bartja, to whom Cambyses had promised to grant a favour on
+his victorious return from the war, confessed to him his love for Sappho, a
+charming and cultured Greek maiden of noble descent, whom he wished to make
+his wife. Cambyses was delighted at this proof of the injustice of his
+jealous suspicions, and announced aloud that Bartja would in a few days
+depart to bring home a bride. At these words Nitetis, thinking of her poor
+sister's misery, fainted.</p>
+
+<p>Cambyses sprang up pale as death; his lips trembled and his fist was
+clenched. Nitetis looked at him imploringly, but he commanded Boges to take
+the women back to their apartments. "Sleep well, Egyptian, and pray to the
+gods to give you the power of dissembling your feelings. Here, give me
+wine; but taste it well, for to-day, for the first time, I fear poison. Do
+you hear, Egyptian? Yes, all the poison, as well as the medicine, comes
+from Egypt."</p>
+
+<p>Boges gave strict orders that nobody--not even the queen-mother or
+Croesus--was to have access to the hanging gardens, whither he had
+conducted Nitetis. Cambyses, meanwhile, continued the drinking bout,
+thinking the while of punishment for the false woman. Bartja could have had
+no share in her perfidy, or he would have killed him on the spot; but he
+would send him away. And Nitetis should be handed to Boges, to be made the
+servant of his concubines and thus to atone for her crimes.</p>
+
+<p>When the king left the hall, Boges, who had slipped out before him,
+intercepted one of the gardener's boys with a letter for Prince Bartja. The
+boy refused to hand it over, as Nitetis had instructed him to hand it only
+to the prince; and on Cambyses' approach the boy fell on his knees,
+touching the ground with his forehead. Cambyses snatched the papyrus roll
+from his hand, and stamped furiously on the ground at seeing that the
+letter was written in Greek, which he could not read. He went to his own
+apartments, followed by Boges, whom he instructed to keep a strict watch
+over the Egyptian and the hanging gardens. "If a single human being or a
+message reach her without my knowledge, your life will be the forfeit."</p>
+
+<p>Boges, pleading a burning fever, begged that Kandaules, the Lydian
+captain of eunuchs, who was true as gold and inflexibly severe, should
+relieve him on the morrow. On the king's consent, he begged furthermore
+that Oropastes, Croesus, and three other nobles should be allowed to
+witness the opening of the blue lily in the hanging gardens. Kandaules
+would see that they enter into no communication with the Egyptian.</p>
+
+<p>"Kandaules must keep his eyes open, if he values his own life--go!"</p>
+
+
+<h4><i>III.--Conflicting Evidence</i></h4>
+
+
+<p>The hunt was over, and Bartja, who had invited his bosom friends,
+Darius, Gyges, Zopyrus, and Croesus, to drink a parting-cup with him, sat
+with the first three in the bower of the royal gardens. They talked long of
+love, of their ambitions, of the influence of stars on human destinies,
+when Croesus rapidly approached the arbour. When he beheld Bartja, he stood
+transfixed, then whispered to him, "Unhappy boy, you are still here? Fly
+for your life! The whip-bearers are close on my heels."</p>
+
+<p>"What do you mean?"</p>
+
+<p>"Fly, I tell you, even if your visit to the hanging gardens was
+innocently meant. You know Cambyses' violent temper. You know his jealousy
+of you; and your visit to the Egyptian to-night...."</p>
+
+<p>"My visit? I have never left this garden!"</p>
+
+<p>"Don't add a lie to your offense. Save yourself, quickly."</p>
+
+<p>"I speak the truth, and I shall remain."</p>
+
+<p>"You are infatuated. We saw you in the hanging-gardens not an hour
+ago."</p>
+
+<p>Bartja appealed to his friends, who confirmed on oath the truth of his
+assertion; and before Croesus could arrive at a solution of the mystery,
+the soldiers had arrived, led by an officer who had served under Bartja. He
+had orders to arrest everybody found in the suspect's company, but at the
+risk of his life urged Bartja to escape the king's fury. His men would
+blindly follow his command. But Bartja steadfastly refused. He was
+innocent, and knew that Cambyses, though hasty, was not unjust.</p>
+
+<p>Two hours later Bartja and his friends stood before the king who had
+just recovered from an epileptic fit. A few hours earlier he would have
+killed Bartja with his own hands. Now he was ready to lend an ear to both
+sides. Boges first related that he was with the Ach&aelig;menid&aelig;,
+looking at the blue lily, and called Kandaules to inquire if everything was
+in order. On being told that Nitetis had not tasted food or drink all day,
+he sent Kandaules to fetch a physician. It was then that he saw Bartja by
+the princess's window. She herself came out of the sleep-room. Croesus
+called to Bartja, and the two figures disappeared behind a cypress. He went
+to search the house and found Nitetis lying unconscious on a couch.
+Hystaspes and the other nobles confirmed the eunuch's words, and even
+Croesus had to admit their substantial truth, but added that they must have
+been deceived by some remarkable likeness--at which Boges grew pale.</p>
+
+<p>Bartja's friends were equally definite in their evidence for the
+accused. Cambyses looked first on the one, then on the other party of these
+strange witnesses. Then Bartja begged permission to speak.</p>
+
+<p>"A son of Cyrus," he said, "would rather die than lie. I confess no
+judge was ever placed in so perplexing a position. But were the entire
+Persian nation to rise up against you, and swear that Cambyses had
+committed an evil deed, and you were to say, 'I did not commit it,' I,
+Bartja, would give all Persia the lie and exclaim, 'Ye are all false
+witnesses! A son of Cyrus cannot allow his mouth to deal in lies.' I swear
+to you that I am innocent. I have not once set foot in the hanging gardens
+since my return."</p>
+
+<p>Cambyses' looks grew milder on hearing these words, and when Oropastes
+suggested that an evil spirit must have taken Bartja's form to ruin him, he
+nodded assent and stretched out his hand towards Bartja. At this moment a
+staff-bearer came in and gave the king a dagger found by a eunuch under
+Nitetis' window. Cambyses examined it, dashed the dagger violently to the
+ground, and shrieked, "This is your dagger! At last you are convicted, you
+liar! Ah, you are feeling in your girdle! You may well turn pale, your
+dagger is gone! Seize him, put on his fetters! He shall be strangled
+to-morrow! Away with you, you perjured villains! They shall all die
+to-morrow! And the Egyptian--at noon she shall be flogged through the
+streets. Then I'll----"</p>
+
+<p>But here he was stopped by another fit of epilepsy, and sank down in
+convulsions.</p>
+
+<p>The fate of the unfortunates was sealed when, afterwards, Cambyses made
+Croesus read to him Nitetis' Greek letter to Bartja.</p>
+
+<p>"Nitetis, daughter of Amasis of Egypt, to Bartja, son of the great
+Cyrus.</p>
+
+<p>"I have something important to tell you; I can tell it to no one but
+yourself. To-morrow I hope to meet you in your mother's rooms. It lies in
+your power to comfort a sad and loving heart, and to give it one happy
+moment before death. I repeat that I must see you soon."</p>
+
+<p>Croesus, who tried to intercede on behalf of the condemned, was
+sentenced to share their fate. In his heart even he was now convinced of
+Bartja's guilt, and of the perjury of his own son and of Darius.</p>
+
+
+<h4><i>IV.--The Unexpected Witness</i></h4>
+
+
+<p>Nitetis had passed many a wretched hour since the great banquet. All day
+long she was kept in strict seclusion, and in the twilight Boges came to
+her to tell her jeeringly that her letter had fallen into the king's hand,
+and that its bearer had been executed. The princess swooned away, and Boges
+carried her to her sleeping-room, the door of which he barred carefully.
+When, later, Mandane left her lover Gaumata, the maid hurried into her
+mistress's room, found her in a faint, and used every remedy to restore her
+to consciousness.</p>
+
+<p>Then Boges came with two eunuchs, loaded the princess's arms with
+fetters, and gave vent to his long-nourished spite, telling her of the
+awful fate that was in store for her. Nitetis resolved to swallow a
+poisonous ointment for the complexion directly the executioner should draw
+near her. Then, in spite of her fetters, she managed to write to Cambyses,
+to assure him once more of her love and to explain her innocence. "I commit
+this crime against myself, Cambyses, to save you from doing a disgraceful
+deed."</p>
+
+<p>Meanwhile, Boges, after exciting Ph&aelig;dime's curiosity by many vague
+hints, divulged to her the nature of his infamous scheme. When Gaumata had
+come to Babylon for the New Year's festival, Boges had discovered his
+remarkable likeness to Bartja. He knew of his love for Mandane, gained his
+confidence, and arranged the nocturnal meeting under Nitetis' bedroom
+window. In return he exacted the promise of the lover's immediate departure
+after the meeting. He helped him to escape through a trap-door. To get
+Bartja out of the way, he had induced a Greek merchant to dispatch a letter
+to the prince, asking him, in the name of her he loved best, to come alone
+in the evening to the first station outside the Euphrates gate.
+Unfortunately, the messenger managed the matter clumsily, and apparently
+gave the letter to Gaumata. But to counteract Bartja's proof of innocence,
+Boges had managed to get hold of his dagger, which was conclusive evidence.
+And now Nitetis was sentenced to be set astride upon an ass and led through
+the streets of Babylon. As for Gaumata, three men were lying in wait for
+him to throw him into the Euphrates before he could get back to Rhagae.
+Ph&aelig;dime joined in Boges' laughter, and hung a heavy jewel-studded
+chain round his neck.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p>A few hours only were wanted for the time fixed for Nitetis' disgrace,
+and the streets of Babylon were thronged with a dense crowd of sightseers,
+when a small caravan approached the Bel gate. In the first carriage was a
+fine, handsome man of about fifty, of commanding aspect, and dressed as a
+Persian courtier. With difficulty the driver cleared a passage through the
+crowd. "Make way for us! The royal post has no time to lose, and I am
+driving some one who will make you repent every minute's delay." They
+arrived at the palace, and the stranger's insistence succeeded in gaining
+admission to the king. The Greek--for such the stranger had declared
+himself--affirmed that he could prove the condemned men's innocence.</p>
+
+<p>"Call him in!" exclaimed Cambyses. "But if he wants to deceive me, let
+him remember that where the head of a son of Cyrus is about to fall, a
+Greek head has but very little chance." The Greek's calm and noble manner
+impressed Cambyses favourably, and his hostility was entirely overcome when
+the stranger revealed to him that he was Phanes, the famous commander of
+the Greek mercenaries in Egypt, and that he had come to offer his service
+to Cambyses.</p>
+
+<p>Phanes now related how, on approaching Babylon by the royal post, just
+before midnight, they heard some cries of distress, and found three
+fierce-looking fellows dragging a youth towards the river; how with his
+Greek war-cry he had rushed on the murderers, slain one of them, and put
+the others to flight; and how he discovered--so he thought--the youth to be
+none other but Bartja, whom he had met at the Egyptian court.</p>
+
+<p>They took him to the nearest station, bled him, and bound up his wounds.
+When he regained consciousness, he told them his name was Gaumata. Then he
+was seized by fever, during which he constantly spoke of the hanging
+gardens and of his Mandane.</p>
+
+<p>"Set the prisoners free, my king. I will answer for it with my own head,
+that Bartja was not in the hanging gardens."</p>
+
+<p>The king was surprised at this speech, but not angry. Phanes then
+advised him to send for Oropastes and Mandane, whose examination elicited
+the full truth. Boges, who was also sent for, had disappeared. Cambyses had
+all the prisoners set free, gave Phanes his hand to kiss--a rare
+honour--and, greater honour still, invited him to eat at the king's table.
+Then he went to the rooms of his mother, who had sent for him.</p>
+
+<p>Nitetis had been carried insensible to the queen-mother's apartments.
+When she opened her eyes, her head was resting on the blind queen's lap,
+she felt Atossa's warm kisses on her forehead, and Cambyses was standing by
+her side. She gazed around, and smiled as she recognised them one by one.
+She raised herself with difficulty. "How could you believe such a thing of
+me, my king?" she asked. There was no reproach in her tone, but deep
+sadness; Cambyses replied, "Forgive me."</p>
+
+<p>Nitetis then gave them the letter she had received from her mother,
+which would explain all, and begged them not to scorn her poor sister.
+"When an Egyptian girl once loves, she cannot forget. But I feel so
+frightened. The end must be near. That horrible man, Boges, read me the
+fearful sentence, and it was that which forced the poison into my
+hand."</p>
+
+<p>The physician rushed forward. "I thought so! She has taken a poison
+which results in certain death. She is lost!"</p>
+
+<p>On hearing this, the king exclaimed in anguish, "She <i>shall</i> live;
+it is my will! Summon all the physicians in Babylon. Assemble the priests.
+She is not to die! She must live! I am the king, and I command it!"</p>
+
+<p>Nitetis opened her eyes as if endeavouring to obey her lord. She looked
+upon her lover, who was pressing his burning lips to her right hand. She
+murmured, with a smile, "Oh, this great happiness!" Then she closed her
+eyes and was seized with fever.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p>All efforts to save Nitetis' life were fruitless. Cambyses fell into the
+deepest gloom, and wanted action, war, to dispel his sad thoughts. Phanes
+gave him the pretext. As commander of the Greek mercenaries in Egypt, he
+had enjoyed Amasis' confidence. He alone, with the high-priest, shared
+Amasis' secret about the birth of Nitetus, who was not the daughter of
+Amasis, but of Hophra, his predecessor, whose throne Amasis had usurped.
+When, owing to the intrigues of Psamtik, Amasis' son, Phanes fell into
+disgrace and had to fly for his life, his little son was seized and cruelly
+murdered by his persecutors. Phanes had sworn revenge. He now persuaded
+Cambyses to wage war upon Egypt, and to claim Amasis' throne as the husband
+of Hophra's daughter.</p>
+
+<p>The rest is known to all students of history--how Cambyses, with the
+help of Phanes, defeated Psamtik's host at Pelusium and took possession of
+the whole Egyptian Empire; how, given more and more to drink and fearful
+excesses, he set up a rule of untold terror, had his brother Bartja
+murdered in another fit of jealousy, and finally suffered defeat at the
+hands of the Ethiopians. They will also know how, on his death, Gaumata,
+the "pseudo-Smerdis" of the Greeks, was urged by his ambitious brother,
+Oropastes, to seize the throne by impersonating the dead Bartja; how,
+finally, the pretender was defeated and had to pay for his attempt with his
+life; and how Persia rose again to unity and greatness under the rule of
+the noble Darius, Bartja's faithful kinsman and friend.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+
+
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="edgeworth">MARIA EDGEWORTH</a></h2>
+
+
+<h3><a name="edgeworth1">Belinda</a></h3>
+
+<p class="letter">
+Maria Edgeworth was born at Black Bourton, Oxfordshire,
+England, Jan. 1, 1767, and eleven years later her father removed to Ireland
+and settled on his own estate at Edgeworthstown. "Belinda," published in
+1801, is Maria Edgeworth's one early example of a novel not placed in Irish
+surroundings, but dealing with fashionable life. Issued just a year after
+the appearance of her first Irish tale, "Castle Rackrent," it betrays
+entirely the influence of the novelist's autocratic and eccentric father,
+Richard Lovell Edgeworth, with whom the daughter had been previously
+collaborating. No one could be less suited than he to advise about fiction,
+yet to his daughter his advice was almost the equivalent of a command. The
+story is interesting as an example of literary workmanship outside of the
+scenes in which special success had been achieved. Miss Edgeworth died at
+Edgeworthstown on May 22, 1849.
+</p>
+
+<h4><i>I.--A Match-Maker's Handicap</i></h4>
+
+
+<p>Mrs. Stanhope, a well-bred woman, accomplished in the art of rising in
+the world, had, with but a small fortune, contrived to live in the highest
+company. She prided herself upon having established half a dozen nieces
+most happily--that is to say, upon having married them to men of fortunes
+far superior to their own. One niece still remained unmarried, Belinda
+Portman, of whom she determined to get rid with all convenient expedition;
+but finding that, owing to declining health, she could not go out with her
+as much as she wished, she succeeded in fastening her upon the fashionable
+Lady Delacour for a winter in London.</p>
+
+<p>"Nothing, to my mind, can be more miserable than the situation of a poor
+girl who fails in her matrimonial expectations (as many do merely from not
+beginning to speculate in time)," she wrote from Bath. "She finds herself
+at five or six-and-thirty a burden to her friends, destitute of the means
+of rendering herself independent--for the girls I speak of never think of
+<i>learning</i> to play cards--<i>de trop</i> in society, yet obliged to
+hang upon all her acquaintances, who wish her in heaven, because she is
+unqualified to make the <i>expected</i> return for civilities, having no
+home--I mean no establishment, no house, etc.--fit for the reception of
+company of certain rank. My dearest Belinda, may this never be your case. I
+have sent your bracelet to you by Mr. Clarence Hervey, an acquaintance of
+Lady Delacour, an uncommonly pleasant young man, highly connected, a wit
+and a gallant, and having a fine independent fortune; so, my dear Belinda,
+I make it a point--look well when he is introduced to you, and remember
+that nobody <i>can</i> look well without taking some pains to please."</p>
+
+<p>Belinda had been charmed by Lady Delacour, who was the most agreeable,
+the most fascinating person she had ever beheld; and to be a visitor at her
+house was a delightful privilege. But, a short time after her arrival, she
+began to see through the thin veil with which politeness covers domestic
+misery. Abroad, Lady Delacour appeared all spirit, life, and good humour;
+at home, listless, fretful, and melancholy, a prey to thoughts, seemingly,
+of the most painful nature.</p>
+
+<p>The first time Belinda saw his lordship he was dead drunk in the arms of
+two footmen; his lady, who had just returned from Ranelagh, passed him on
+the stairs with the utmost contempt.</p>
+
+<p>"Don't look so shocked and amazed, Belinda. Don't look so <i>new</i>,
+child. This funeral of my lord's intellects is to me a nightly ceremony;
+or," said her ladyship, looking at her watch and yawning, "I believe I
+should say a daily ceremony--six o'clock, I protest!"</p>
+
+<p>The next morning Clarence Hervey called, and Belinda found him a most
+uncommonly pleasant young man. Lord Delacour was jealous of him; but
+although he would have started with horror at the idea of disturbing the
+peace of a family, in that family, he said, there was no peace to disturb.
+Consequently, he visited her ladyship every day, and every day viewed
+Belinda with increasing admiration, and with increasing dread of being
+taken in to marry a niece of that "catch-matchmaker," as Mrs. Stanhope was
+known amongst the men of his acquaintance.</p>
+
+<p>Under the guise of a tragic muse--in which character Lady Delacour had
+pretended she was going to a masquerade--Belinda heard his true sentiments
+with regard to her.</p>
+
+<p>"You don't believe I go to Lady Delacour's to look for a wife? Do you
+think I'm an idiot? Do you think I could be taken in by one of the Stanhope
+school?" he said to the facetious friends who rallied him on his
+attachment. "Do you think I don't see as plainly as any of you that Belinda
+Portman is a composition of art and affectation?"</p>
+
+<p>"Melpomene, hast thou forgot thyself to warble?" asked Lady Delacour,
+tripping towards them as the comic muse.</p>
+
+<p>"I am not very well," whispered Miss Portman. "Could we get away?"</p>
+
+<p>"Do see if you can find any of my people!" cried Lady Delacour to
+Clarence Hervey, who had followed them downstairs.</p>
+
+<p>"Lady Delacour, the comic muse!" exclaimed he. "I had thought----"</p>
+
+<p>"No matter what you thought!" interrupted her ladyship. "Let my carriage
+draw up, and put this lady into it!" And he obeyed without uttering a
+syllable.</p>
+
+<p>"Dry up your tears, <i>keep on your mask</i>, and elbow your way through
+the crowd," she said, when she had heard Belinda's story. "If you stop to
+be civil and 'hope I don't hurt ye,' you will be trod underfoot."</p>
+
+<p>She insisted on driving to the Panthéon instead of going home,
+but to Belinda the night seemed long and dull. The masquerade had no charm
+to keep her thoughts from the conversation that had given her so much
+pain.</p>
+
+
+<h4><i>II.--Fashion and Fortitude</i></h4>
+
+
+<p>"How happy you are, Lady Delacour!" she said, when they got into the
+carriage to go home. "How happy to have such an amazing flow of
+spirits!"</p>
+
+<p>And then she learnt the reason of her ladyship's strange unevenness of
+temper. She was dying of an incurable complaint, which she kept hidden from
+all the world except her maid, Marriott, who attended on her in a
+mysterious cabinet full of medicines and linen rags, the door of which she
+had hitherto kept locked.</p>
+
+<p>"You are shocked, Belinda," said she, "but as yet you have seen nothing.
+Look here!" And baring one half of her bosom, she revealed a hideous
+spectacle.</p>
+
+<p>"Am I humbled? Am I wretched enough?" she asked. "No matter. I will die
+as I have lived, the envy and admiration of the world. Promise--swear to me
+that you will never reveal what you have seen to-night!" And Belinda
+promised not only that, but to remain with her as long as ever she
+wished.</p>
+
+<p>Belinda's quiet avoidance of Clarence Hervey made him begin to believe
+that she might not be "a compound of art and affectation," and he was
+mortified to find that, though she joined with ease and dignity in the
+general conversation with the others, her manner to him was grave and
+reserved. To divert her, he declared he was convinced he was as well able
+to manage a hoop as any woman in England, except Lady Delacour; accordingly
+he was dressed by Marriott, and made his <i>entree</i> with very composed
+assurance and grace, being introduced as the Countess de Pomenars to the
+purblind dowager, Lady Boucher, who had come to call. He managed his part
+well, speaking French and broken English, until Lady Delacour dexterously
+let down Belinda's beautiful tresses, and, calling the French lady to
+admire <i>la belle chevelure,</i> artfully let fall her comb.</p>
+
+<p>Totally forgetting his hoop and his character, he stooped to pick it up,
+and lost his wager by knocking over a music-stand. He would have liked a
+lock of her hair, but she refused with a modest, graceful dignity; she was
+glad she had done so later when a tress of hair dropped from his
+pocket-book, and his confusion showed her he was extremely interested about
+the person to whom it belonged.</p>
+
+<p>During her absence from the room Clarence entreated Lady Delacour to
+make his peace with her. She consented on condition that he found her a
+pair of horses from Tattersall's, on which Belinda, she said, had secretly
+set her heart. He was vexed to find Belinda had so little delicacy, and
+relapsed into his former opinion of Mrs. Stanhope's niece, addressing her
+with the air of a man of gallantry, who thought his peace had been cheaply
+made.</p>
+
+<p>The horses ran away with Lady Delacour, injuring her ankle, and on her
+being brought home by Clarence, Lord Delacour wished to enter the locked
+cabinet for <i>arque-busade.</i> On being denied entrance, he seized the
+key, believing a lover of hers was concealed there, until Belinda sprang
+forward and took it from him, leaving them to believe what they would.</p>
+
+<p>This circumstance was afterwards explained by Dr. X----, a mutual
+friend, and Hervey was so much charmed with Belinda that he would have gone
+to her at once--only that he had undertaken the reformation of Lady
+Delacour.</p>
+
+
+<h4><i>III.--An Unexpected Suitor</i></h4>
+
+
+<p>In the meantime, after spending a morning in tasting wines, and thinking
+that, although he had never learned to swim, some recollection he had of an
+essay on swimming would ensure his safety, he betted his friends a hundred
+guineas that he would swim to a certain point, and flinging himself into
+the Serpentine, would have drowned before their eyes but for the help of
+Mr. Percival. The breach caused by this affair induced Sir Philip Baddely,
+a gentleman who always supplied "each vacuity of sense" with an oath, to
+endeavour to cut him out by proposing to Belinda.</p>
+
+<p>"Damme, you're ten times handsomer than the finest woman I ever saw,
+for, damme, I didn't know what it was to be in love then," he said, heaving
+an audible sigh. "I'll trouble you for Mrs. Stanhope's direction, Miss
+Portman; I believe, to do the thing in style, I ought to write to her
+before I speak to you."</p>
+
+<p>Belinda looked at him in astonishment, and then, finding he was in
+earnest, assured him it was not in her power to encourage his addresses,
+although she was fully sensible of the honour he had done her.</p>
+
+<p>"Confusion seize me!" cried he, starting up, "if it isn't the most
+extraordinary thing I ever heard! Is it to Sir Philip Baddely's
+fortune--&pound;15,000 a year--you object, or to his family, or to his
+person? Oh, curse it!" said he, changing his tone, "you're only quizzing me
+to see how I should look--you do it too well, you little coquette!"</p>
+
+<p>Belinda again assured him she was entirely in earnest, and that she was
+incapable of the sort of coquetry which he ascribed to her. To punish her
+for this rejection he spread the report of Hervey's entanglement with a
+beautiful girl named Virginia, whose picture he had sent to an exhibition.
+He also roused Lady Delacour's jealousy into the belief that Belinda meant
+to marry her husband, the viscount, after her death.</p>
+
+<p>In her efforts to bring husband and wife together, Belinda had forgotten
+that jealousy could exist without love, and a letter from Mrs. Stanhope,
+exaggerating the scandalous reports in the hope of forcing her niece to
+marry Sir Philip Baddely, shocked her so much that when Lady Delacour
+quarrelled with her, she accepted an invitation from Lady Anne Percival,
+and went there at once.</p>
+
+<p>There she became acquainted with Mr. Percival's ward, Augustus Vincent,
+a Creole, about two-and-twenty, tall and remarkably handsome, with striking
+manners and an engaging person, who fixed his favourable attention on her.
+The Percivals would have wished her to marry him, but she still thought too
+much of Clarence Hervey to consent, although she believed he had some
+engagement with the lovely Virginia.</p>
+
+
+<h4><i>IV.--Explanation and Reconciliation</i></h4>
+
+
+<p>Quite unexpectedly a summons came from Lady Delacour, and Belinda
+returned to her at once, to find her so seriously ill that she persuaded
+her at last to consent to an operation, and inform her husband of the
+dangerous disease from which she was suffering. He believed from her
+preamble that she was about to confess her love for another man; he tried
+to stop her with an emotion and energy he had never shown until now.</p>
+
+<p>"I am not sufficiently master of myself. I once loved you too well to
+hear such a stroke. Say no more--trust me with no such secret! you have
+said enough--too much. I forgive you, that is all I can do; but we must
+part, Lady Delacour!" said he, breaking from her with agony expressed in
+his countenance.</p>
+
+<p>"The man has a heart, a soul, I protest! You knew him better that I did,
+Miss Portman. Nay, you are not gone yet, my lord! You really love me, I
+find."</p>
+
+<p>"No, no, no!" cried he vehemently. "Weak as you take me to be, Lady
+Delacour, I am incapable of loving a woman who has disgraced me, disgraced
+herself, her--" His utterance failed.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, Lady Delacour," cried Belinda, "how can you trifle in this
+manner?"</p>
+
+<p>"I meant not," said her ladyship, "to trifle; I am satisfied. My lord, I
+can give you the most irrefragable proof that whatever may have been the
+apparent levity of my conduct, you have had no serious cause for jealousy.
+But the proof will shock, disgust you. Have you courage to know more? Then
+follow me."</p>
+
+<p>He followed her. Belinda heard the boudoir door unlocked. In a few
+minutes they returned. Grief and horror and pity were painted on Lord
+Delacour's countenance as he passed hastily out of the room.</p>
+
+<p>"My dearest friend, I have taken your advice; would to heaven I had
+taken it sooner!" said Lady Delacour. "I have revealed to Lord Delacour my
+real situation. Poor man, he was shocked beyond expression. The moment his
+foolish jealousy was extinguished, his love for me revived in full."</p>
+
+<p>Lady Delacour awaited the operation with the utmost fortitude; but, to
+everyone's joy, it was found there was no necessity for it; she had been
+deceived by a villainous quack, who knew too well how to make a wound
+hideous and painful, and had continued her delusion for his own
+advantage.</p>
+
+<p>Meanwhile, Belinda having permitted Mr. Vincent to address her, he was
+being given a fair trial whether he could win her love. They had heard
+reports of Clarence Hervey's speedy marriage with an heiress, Miss Hartley,
+and found them confirmed by a letter Lady Delacour received from him. Some
+years ago he had formed the romantic idea of educating a wife for himself,
+and having found a beautiful, artless girl in the New Forest, he had taken
+her under his care on the death of her grandmother.</p>
+
+<p>She felt herself bound in honour and gratitude to him when her fortune
+changed, and she was acknowledged by her father, Mr. Hartley, who had long
+been searching for her, and who had traced her at last by the picture
+Clarence Hervey had caused to be exhibited.</p>
+
+<p>With the utmost magnanimity, Hervey, although he saw a successful rival
+for Belinda's hand in Augustus Vincent, rescued him from ruin at the
+gaming-table, and induced him to promise never to gamble again.</p>
+
+<p>"I was determined Belinda's husband should be my friend. I have
+succeeded beyond my hopes," he said.</p>
+
+<p>But Vincent's love of play had decided Belinda at last. She refused him
+finally in a letter which she confessed she found difficult to write, but
+which she sent because she had promised she would not hold him in suspense
+once she had made her decision.</p>
+
+<p>After this Virginia Hartley confessed to her attachment for one Captain
+Sunderland, and Clarence was free to avow his passion for Belinda.</p>
+
+<p>"And what is Miss Portman to believe," cried one of Belinda's friends,
+"when she has seen you on the very eve of marriage with another lady?"</p>
+
+<p>"The strongest merit I can plead with such a woman as Miss Portman," he
+replied, "is that I was ready to sacrifice my own happiness to a sense of
+duty."</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+
+
+
+<h3><a name="edgeworth2">Castle Rackrent</a></h3>
+
+<p class="letter">
+"Castle Rackrent" was published anonymously in 1800. It was
+not only the first of Miss Edgeworth's novels,--it is in many respects her
+best work. Later came "The Absentee," "Belinda," "Helen," the "Tales of
+Fashionable Life," and the "Moral Tales." Sir Walter Scott wrote that
+reading these stories of Irish peasant life made him feel "that something
+might be tempted for my own country of the same kind as that which Miss
+Edgeworth so fortunately achieved for Ireland," something that would
+procure for his own countrymen "sympathy for their virtues and indulgence
+for their foibles." As a study of Irish fidelity in the person of Old
+Thady, the steward who tells the story of "Castle Rackrent," the book is a
+masterpiece.
+</p>
+
+<h4><i>I.--Sir Patrick and Sir Murtagh</i></h4>
+
+
+<p>Having, out of friendship for the family, undertaken to publish the
+memoirs of the Rackrent family, I think it my duty to say a few words
+concerning myself first. My real name is Thady Quirk, though in the family
+I've always been known as "Honest Thady"; afterwards, I remember to hear
+them calling me "Old Thady," and now I've come to "Poor Thady." To look at
+me you would hardly think poor Thady was the father of Attorney Quirk; he
+is a high gentleman, and having better than fifteen hundred a year, landed
+estate, looks down upon honest Thady. But I wash my hands of his doings,
+and as I lived so will I die, true and loyal to the family.</p>
+
+<p>I ought to bless that day when Sir Tallyhoo Rackrent lost a fine hunter
+and his life, all in one day's hunt, for the estate came straight into
+<i>the</i> family, upon one condition, that Sir Patrick O'Shaughlin (whose
+driver my grandfather was) should, by Act of Parliament, take the surname
+and arms of Rackrent.</p>
+
+<p>Now it was the world could see what was in Sir Patrick. He gave the
+finest entertainments ever was heard of in the country; not a man could
+stand after supper but Sir Patrick himself. He had his house, from one
+year's end to another, as full of company as it would hold; and this went
+on, I can't tell you how long.</p>
+
+<p>But one year, on his birthday, just as the company rose to drink his
+health, he fell down in a sort of fit, and in the morning it was all over
+with poor Sir Patrick.</p>
+
+<p>Never did any gentleman die more beloved by rich and poor. All the
+gentlemen in the three counties came to his funeral; and happy the man who
+could get but a sight of the hearse!</p>
+
+<p>Just as they were passing through his own town the body was seized for
+debt! Little gain had the creditors!</p>
+
+<p>First and foremost, they had the curses of the country, and Sir Murtagh,
+the new heir, refused to pay a shilling on account of the insult to his
+father's body; in which he was countenanced by all the gentlemen of
+property of his acquaintance. He did not take at all after the old
+gentleman. The cellars were never filled, and no open house; even the
+tenants were sent away without their whiskey. I was ashamed myself, but put
+it all down to my lady; she was of the family of the Skinflints. I must
+say, she made the best of wives, being a notable, stirring woman, and
+looking close to everything. 'Tis surprising how cheap my lady got things
+done! What with fear of driving for rent, and Sir Murtagh's lawsuits, the
+tenants were kept in such good order they never came near Castle Rackrent
+without a present of something or other--nothing too much or too little for
+my lady. And Sir Murtagh taught 'em all, as he said, the law of landlord
+and tenant. No man ever loved the law as he did.</p>
+
+<p>Out of the forty-nine suits he had, he never lost one, but
+seventeen.</p>
+
+<p>Though he and my lady were much of a mind in most things, there was a
+deal of sparring and jarring between them. In a dispute about an abatement
+one day, my lady would have the last word, and Sir Murtagh grew mad. I was
+within hearing--he spoke so loud, all the kitchen was out on the stairs.
+All on a sudden he stopped, and my lady, too. Sir Murtagh, in his passion,
+had broken a blood-vessel. My lady sent for five physicians; but Sir
+Murtagh died. She had a fine jointure settled upon her, and took herself
+away, to the great joy of the tenantry.</p>
+
+
+<h4><i>II.--Sir Kit and his Wife</i></h4>
+
+
+<p>Then the house was all hurry-scurry, preparing for my new master, Sir
+Murtagh's younger brother, a dashing young officer. He came before I knew
+where I was, with another spark with him, and horses and dogs, and
+servants, and harum-scarum called for everything, as if he were in a
+public-house. I walk slow, and hate a bustle, and if it had not been for my
+pipe and tobacco, should, I verily believe, have broke my heart for poor
+Sir Murtagh.</p>
+
+<p>But one morning my new master caught sight of me. "And is that Old
+Thady?" says he. I loved him from that day to this, his voice was so like
+the family, and I never saw a finer figure of a man.</p>
+
+<p>A fine life we should have led had he stayed among us, God bless him!
+But, the sporting season over, he grew tired of the place, and was off in a
+whirlwind to town. A circular letter came next post from the new agent to
+say he must remit &pound;500 to the master at Bath within a fortnight--bad
+news for the poor tenants. Sir Kit Rackrent, my new master, left it all to
+the agent, and now not a week without a call for money. Rents must be paid
+to the day, and afore--old tenants turned out, anything for the ready
+penny.</p>
+
+<p>The agent was always very civil to me, and took a deal of notice of my
+son Jason, who, though he be my son, was a good scholar from his birth, and
+a very cute lad. Seeing he was a good clerk, the agent gave him the rent
+accounts to copy, which he did for nothing at first, being always proud to
+serve the family.</p>
+
+<p>By-and-by, a good farm fell vacant, and my son put in a proposal for it.
+Why not? The master, knowing no more of the land than a child unborn, wrote
+over, leaving it to the agent, and he must send over &pound;200 by return
+post. So my son's proposal was just the thing, and he a good tenant, and he
+got a promise of abatement after the first year for advancing the
+half-year's rent to make up the &pound;200, and my master was satisfied.
+The agent told us then, as a great secret, that Sir Kit was a little too
+fond of play.</p>
+
+<p>At last, at Christmas, the agent wrote he could raise no more money,
+anyhow, and desired to resign the agency. My son, Jason, who had
+corresponded privately with Sir Kit, was requested to take over the
+accounts forthwith. His honour also condescended to tell us he was going to
+be married in a fortnight to the grandest heiress in England, and had
+immediate occasion for &pound;200 for travelling expenses home to Castle
+Rackrent, where he intended to be early next month. We soon saw his
+marriage in the paper, and news came of him and his bride being in Dublin
+on their way home. We had bonfires all over the country, expecting them all
+day, and were just thinking of giving them up for the night, when the
+carriage came thundering up. I got the first sight of the bride, and
+greatly shocked I was, for she was little better than a blackamoor. "You're
+kindly welcome, my lady," I says; but neither spoke a word, nor did he so
+much as hand her up the steps.</p>
+
+<p>I concluded she could not speak English, and was from foreign parts, so
+I left her to herself, and went down to the servants' hall to learn
+something about her. Sir Kit's own man told us, at last, that she might
+well be a great fortune, for she was a Jewess, by all accounts. I had never
+seen any of that tribe before, and could only gather that she could not
+abide pork nor sausages, and went neither to church nor mass. "Mercy upon
+his honour's poor soul," thought I. But when, after this, strange
+gentleman's servants came and began to talk about the bride, I took care to
+put the best foot foremost, and passed her for a nabob.</p>
+
+<p>I saw plain enough, next morning, how things were between Sir Kit and
+his lady, though they went arm-in-arm to look at the building.</p>
+
+<p>"Old Thady, how do you do?" says my master, just as he used to do, but I
+could see he was not well pleased, and my heart was in my mouth as I walked
+after them.</p>
+
+<p>There were no balls, no dinners, no doings. Sir Kit's gentleman told me
+it was all my lady's fault, because she was so obstinate about the
+cross.</p>
+
+<p>"What cross?" says I. "Is it about her being a heretic?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, no such matter," says he. "My master does not mind about her
+heresies, but her diamond cross. She's thousands of English pounds
+concealed in her diamonds, which she as good as promised to give to my
+master before they married; but now she won't part with any of them, and
+must take the consequences."</p>
+
+<p>One morning, his honour says to me, "Thady, buy me a pig," and that was
+the first breaking out of my lady's troubles when the sausages were
+ordered. My lady went down to the kitchen herself, and desired never more
+to see them on her table. The cook took her part, but the master made it a
+principle to have the sausages; so, for fear of her place, she gave in, and
+from that day forward, always sausages or pig-meat in one form or other
+went up to table; upon which my lady shut herself up in her own room, and
+my master turned the key in the door, and kept it ever after in his pocket.
+We none of us saw her, or heard her speak for seven years after; he carried
+her dinner in himself.</p>
+
+<p>Then his honour had a deal of company, and was as gay and gallant as
+before he was married. The country, to be sure, talked and wondered, but
+nobody cared to ask impertinent questions, my master being a famous shot.
+His character was so well known that he lived in peace and quiet ever
+after, and was a great favourite with the ladies; so that, when he gave out
+that my lady was now skin and bone, and could not live through the winter,
+there were no less than three ladies at daggers drawn, as his gentleman
+swore, at the balls, for Sir Kit for their partner. I could not but think
+them bewitched, but it was not known how my lady's fortune was settled, nor
+how the estate was all mortgaged, and bonds out against him, for he was
+never cured of his gaming tricks; but that was the only fault he had, God
+bless him!</p>
+
+<p>Then it was given out, by mistake, that my lady was dead, and the three
+ladies showed their brothers Sir Kit's letters, and claimed his promises.
+His honour said he was willing to meet any man who questioned his conduct,
+and the ladies must settle among themselves who was to be his second, while
+his first was alive, to his mortification and theirs. He met the first
+lady's brother, and shot him; next day called out the second, whose wooden
+leg stuck fast in the ploughed land, so Sir Kit, with great candour, fired
+over his head, whereupon they shook hands cordially, and went home together
+to dinner.</p>
+
+<p>To establish his sister's reputation this gentleman went out as Sir
+Kit's second next day, when he met the last of his adversaries. He had just
+hit the toothpick out of his enemy's hand, when he received a ball in a
+vital part, and was brought home speechless in a hand-barrow. We got the
+key out of his pocket at once, and my son Jason ran to release her
+ladyship. She would not believe but that it was some new trick till she saw
+the men bringing Sir Kit up the avenue. There was no life in him, and he
+was "waked" the same night.</p>
+
+<p>The country was all in an uproar about him, and his murderer would have
+been hanged surely, but he prudently withdrew to the Continent.</p>
+
+<p>My lady got surprisingly well, and no sooner was it known that Sir Kit
+was dead than all the country came round in a body, as it were, to set her
+free. But she had taken an unaccountable prejudice against the country, and
+was not easy, but when she was packing up to leave us, I considered her
+quite as a foreigner, and no longer part of the family. Her diamond cross
+was at the bottom of it all; and it was a shame for her, being his wife,
+not to have given it up to him when he condescended to ask for it so often,
+especially when he made it no secret he had married her for her money.</p>
+
+
+<h4><i>III.--Sir Condy</i></h4>
+
+
+<p>The new heir, Sir Conolly, commonly called Sir Condy, was the most
+universally beloved man I ever saw or heard of. He was ever my white-headed
+boy, when he used to live in a small but slated house at the end of the
+avenue, before he went to college. He had little fortune of his own, and a
+deal of money was spent on his education. Many of the tenants secretly
+advanced him cash upon his promising bargains of leases, and lawful
+interest should he ever come into the estate. So that when he did succeed,
+he could not command a penny of his first year's income. My son Jason, who
+was now agent, explained matters to Sir Condy, who, not willing to take his
+affairs in his own hands, or even to look them in the face, gave my son a
+bargain of some acres at a reasonable rent to pay him for his many years'
+service in the family gratis.</p>
+
+<p>There was a hunting-lodge convenient to my son's land that he had his
+eye upon, but Sir Condy talked of letting it to his friend Captain
+Moneygawl, with whom he had become very friendly, and whose sister, Miss
+Isabella, fell over head and ears in love with my master the first time he
+went there to dinner.</p>
+
+<p>But Sir Condy was at a terrible nonplus, for he had no liking for Miss
+Isabella. To his mind, little Judy McQuirk, daughter to a sister's son of
+mine, was worth twenty of her. But her father had locked her in her room
+and forbidden her to think of him, which raised his spirit; and I could see
+him growing more and more in the mind to carry Miss Isabella off to
+Scotland, as she desired. And I had wished her joy, a week after, on her
+return with my poor master. Lucky for her she had a few thousands of her
+own, for her father would not give her a farthing. My master and my lady
+set out in great style, and it was reported that her father had undertaken
+to pay all Sir Condy's debts; and, of course, all the tradesmen gave him
+fresh credit, and everything went on smack smooth. I was proud to see
+Castle Rackrent again in all its glory. She went on as if she had a mint of
+money; and all Sir Condy asked--God bless him!--was to live in peace and
+quiet, and have his whiskey punch at night. But my lady's few thousands
+could not last for ever. Things in a twelve-month or so came to such a pass
+that there was no going on any longer.</p>
+
+<p>Well, my son Jason put in a word about the lodge, and Sir Condy was fain
+to take the purchase-money to settle matters, for there were two writs come
+down against him to the sheriff, who was no friend of his. Then there came
+a general election, and Sir Condy was called upon by all his friends to
+stand candidate; they would do all the business, and it should not cost him
+a penny.</p>
+
+<p>There was open house then at Castle Rackrent, and grand dinners, and all
+the gentlemen drinking success to Sir Condy till they were carried off. The
+election day came, and a glorious day it was. I thought I should have died
+with joy in the street when I saw my poor master chaired, and the crowd
+following him up and down. But a stranger man in the crowd gets me to
+introduce him to my son Jason, and little did I guess his meaning. He gets
+a list of my master's debts from him, and goes round and buys them up, and
+so got to be sole creditor over all, and must needs have an execution
+against the master's goods and furniture.</p>
+
+<p>After the election shoals of people came from all parts, claiming to
+have obliged him with votes, and to remind him of promises he never made.
+Worst of all, the gentlemen who had managed everything and subscribed by
+hundreds very genteelly forgot to pay, and it was all left at my master's
+door. All he could do to content 'em was to take himself off to Dublin,
+where my lady had taken a house fitting for a member of parliament.</p>
+
+<p>Soon my son Jason said, "Sir Condy must look out for another agent. If
+my lady had the Bank of Ireland to spend, it would all go in one
+winter."</p>
+
+<p>I could scarcely believe my own old eyes when I saw my son's name joined
+in the <i>custodian</i>, that the villain who got the list of debts brought
+down in the spring; but he said it would make it easier for Sir Condy.</p>
+
+
+<h4><i>IV.--The Last of the Rackrents</i></h4>
+
+
+<p>When Sir Condy and his lady came down in June, he was pleased to take me
+aside to complain of my son and other matters; not one unkind word of my
+lady, but he wondered that her relations would do nothing for them in their
+great distress. He did not take anything long to heart; let it be as it
+might this night, it was all out of his head before he went to bed. Next
+morning my lady had a letter from her relations, and asked to be allowed to
+go back to them. He fell back as if he was shot, but after a minute said
+she had his full consent, for what could she do at Castle Rackrent with an
+execution coming down? Next morning she set off for Mount Juliet.</p>
+
+<p>Then everything was seized by the gripers, my son Jason, to his shame be
+it spoken, among them. On the evening Sir Condy had appointed to settle
+all, when he sees the sight of bills and loads of papers on the table, he
+says to Jason, "Can't you now just sit down here and give me a clear view
+of the balance, you know, which is all I need be talking about? Thady, do
+just step out, and see they are bringing the things for the punch." When I
+came back Jason was pointing to the balance, a terrible sight for my poor
+master.</p>
+
+<p>"A--h! Hold your hand!" cries my master. "Where in the wide world am I
+to find hundreds, let alone thousands?"</p>
+
+<p>"There's but one way," says Jason. "Sure, can't you sell, though at a
+loss? Sure, you can sell, and I've a purchaser ready for you."</p>
+
+<p>"Have you so?" says Sir Condy. Then, colouring up a good deal, he tells
+Jason of &pound;500 a year he had settled upon my lady, at which Jason was
+indeed mad; but, with much ado, agreed to a compromise. "And how much am I
+going to sell? The lands of O'Shaughlin's town, and the lands of"--just
+reading to himself--"oh, murder, Jason! Surely you won't put this
+in--castle, stables, and appurtenances of Castle Rackrent?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, murder!" says I. "This is too bad, Jason."</p>
+
+<p>"Why so?" says Jason. "When it's all mine, and a great deal more, all
+lawfully mine, was I to push for it?"</p>
+
+<p>But I took no heed, for I was grieved and sick at heart for my poor
+master, and couldn't but speak.</p>
+
+<p>"Here's the punch," says Jason, for the door opened.</p>
+
+<p>So my master starts up in his chair, and Jason uncorks the whiskey.
+Well, I was in great hopes when I saw him making the punch, and my master
+taking a glass; but Jason put it back when he saw him going to fill again,
+saying, "No, Sir Condy; let us settle all before we go deeper into the
+punch-bowl. You've only to sign," says Jason, putting the pen to him.</p>
+
+<p>"Take all, and be content," said my master. So he signed, and the man
+who brought the punch witnessed, for I was crying like a child.</p>
+
+<p>So I went out to the street door, and the neighbours' children left
+their play to come to see what ailed me; and I told them all. When they
+heard Sir Condy was going to leave Castle Rackrent for good and all, they
+set up such a whillaluh as brought all their parents round the doors in
+great anger against Jason. I was frightened, and went back to warn my son.
+He grew quite pale and asked Sir Condy what he'd best do.</p>
+
+<p>"I'll tell you," says Sir Condy, laughing to see his fright. "Finish
+your glass first, then let's go to the window, and I'll tell them--or you
+shall, if you please--that I'm going to the lodge for change of air for my
+health, and by my own desire, for the rest of my days."</p>
+
+<p>"Do so," says Jason, who never meant it to be so, but could not refuse
+at such a time.</p>
+
+<p>So the very next day he sets off to the lodge, and I along with him.
+There was great bemoaning all through the town, which I stayed to witness.
+He was in his bed, and very low, when I got there, and complained of a
+great pain about his heart; but I, knowing the nature of him from a boy,
+took my pipe and began telling him how he was beloved and regretted in the
+country. And it did him a great deal of good to hear it.</p>
+
+<p>There was a great horn at the lodge that used to belong to the
+celebrated Sir Patrick, who was reported to have drunk the full of it
+without stopping to draw breath, which no other man, afore or since, could
+do.</p>
+
+<p>One night Sir Condy was drinking with the excise-man and the gauger, and
+wagered that he could do it. Says he, "Your hand is steadier than mine, Old
+Thady; fill you the horn for me." And so, wishing his honour success, I
+did. He swallowed it down and dropped like one shot. We put him to bed, and
+for five days the fever came and went, and came and went. On the sixth he
+says, knowing me very well, "I'm in a burning pain all withinside of me,
+Thady." I could not speak. "Brought to this by drink," says he. "Where are
+all the friends? Gone, hey? Ay, Sir Condy has been a fool all his days,"
+said he, and died. He had but a very poor funeral, after all.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+
+
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="eliot">GEORGE ELIOT</a></h2>
+
+
+<h3><a name="eliot1">Adam Bede</a></h3>
+
+<p class="letter">
+Mary Ann Evans ("George Eliot") was born Nov. 22, 1819, at
+South Farm, Arbury, Warwickshire, England, where her father was agent on
+the Newdigate estate. In her youth, she was adept at butter-making and
+similar rural work, but she found time to master Italian and German. Her
+first important literary work was the translation of Strauss's "Life of
+Jesus" in 1844, and shortly after her father's death in 1849 she was
+writing in the "Westminster Review." It was not until 1856 that George
+Eliot settled down to the writing of novels. "Scenes from Clerical Life"
+first appeared serially in "Blackwood's Magazine" during 1857 and 1858;
+"Adam Bede," the first and most popular of her long stories, in 1859. In
+May, 1880, eighteen months after the death of her friend George Henry Lewes
+(see PHILOSOPHY, Vol. XIV), George Eliot married Mr. J. W. Cross. She died
+on December 22 in the same year. With all her sense of humour there is a
+note of sadness in George Eliot's novels. She deals with ordinary, everyday
+people, and describes their joys and sorrows. In "Adam Bede," as in most of
+her work, the novelist drew from the ample stores of her early life in the
+Midlands, while the plot is unfolded with singular simplicity, purity, and
+power.
+</p>
+
+<h4><i>I.--The Two Brothers</i></h4>
+
+
+<p>In the roomy workshop of Mr. Jonathan Burge, carpenter and builder, in
+the village of Hayslope, on the eighteenth of June, 1799, five workmen were
+busy upon doors and window-frames.</p>
+
+<p>The tallest of the five was a large-boned, muscular man, nearly six feet
+high. The sleeve rolled up above the elbow showed an arm that was likely to
+win the prize for feats of strength; yet the long, supple hand, with its
+broad finger tips, looked ready for works of skill. In his tall
+stalwartness Adam Bede was a Saxon, and justified his name. The face was
+large and roughly hewn, and when in repose had no other beauty than such as
+belongs to an expression of good-humoured, honest intelligence.</p>
+
+<p>It is clear at a glance that the next workman is Adam's brother. He is
+nearly as tall; he has the same type of features. But Seth's broad
+shoulders have a slight stoop, and his glance, instead of being keen, is
+confiding and benignant.</p>
+
+<p>The idle tramps always felt sure they could get a copper from Seth; they
+scarcely ever spoke to Adam.</p>
+
+<p>At six o'clock the men stopped working, and went out. Seth lingered, and
+looked wistfully at Adam, as if he expected him to say something.</p>
+
+<p>"Shalt go home before thee go'st to the preaching?" Adam asked.</p>
+
+<p>"Nay, I shan't be home before going for ten. I'll happen see Dinah
+Morris safe home, if she's willing. There's nobody comes with her from
+Poyser's, thee know'st."</p>
+
+<p>Adam set off home, and at a quarter to seven Seth was on the village
+green where the Methodists were preaching. The people drew nearer when
+Dinah Morris mounted the cart which served as a pulpit. There was a total
+absence of self-consciousness in her demeanour; she walked to the cart as
+simply as if she were going to market. There was no keenness in the eyes;
+they seemed rather to be shedding love than making observations. When Dinah
+spoke it was with a clear but not loud voice, and her sincere,
+unpremeditated eloquence held the attention of her audience without
+interruption.</p>
+
+<p>When the service was over, Seth Bede walked by Dinah's side along the
+hedgerow path that skirted the pastures and corn-fields which lay between
+the village and the Hall Farm.</p>
+
+<p>Seth could see an expression of unconscious placid gravity on her
+face--an expression that is most discouraging to a lover. He was timidly
+revolving something he wanted to say, and it was only when they were close
+to the yard-gates of the Hall Farm he had the courage to speak.</p>
+
+<p>"It may happen you'll think me overbold to speak to you again after what
+you told me o' your thoughts. But it seems to me there's more texts for
+your marrying than ever you can find against it. St. Paul says, 'Two are
+better than one,' and that holds good with marriage as well as with other
+things. For we should be o' one heart and o' one mind, Dinah. I'd never be
+the husband to make a claim on you as could interfere with your doing the
+work God has fitted you for. I'd make a shift, and fend indoor and out, to
+give you more liberty--more than you can have now; for you've got to get
+your own living now, and I'm strong enough to work for us both."</p>
+
+<p>When Seth had once begun to urge his suit, he went on earnestly and
+almost hurriedly. His voice trembled at the last sentence.</p>
+
+<p>They had reached one of those narrow passes between two tall stones,
+which performed the office of a stile in Loamshire. And Dinah paused, and
+said, in her tender but calm notes, "Seth Bede, I thank you for your love
+towards me, and if I could think of any man as more than a Christian
+brother, I think it would be you. But my heart is not free to marry, or to
+think of making a home for myself in this world. God has called me to speak
+His word, and He has greatly owned my work."</p>
+
+<p>They said farewell at the yard-gate, for Seth wouldn't enter the
+farmhouse, choosing rather to turn back along the fields through which he
+and Dinah had already passed. It was ten o'clock when he reached home, and
+he heard the sound of tools as he lifted the latch.</p>
+
+<p>"Why, mother," said Seth, "how is it as father's working so late?"</p>
+
+<p>"It's none o' thy feyther as is a-workin'; it's thy brother as does
+iverything, for there's niver nobody else i' th' way to do nothin'."</p>
+
+<p>Lisbeth Bede was going on, for she was not at all afraid of Seth--who
+had never in his life spoken a harsh word to his mother--and usually poured
+into his ears all the querulousness which was repressed by the awe which
+mingled itself with her idolatrous love of Adam.</p>
+
+<p>But Seth, with an anxious look, had passed into the workshop, and said,
+"Addy, how's this? What! Father's forgot the coffin?"</p>
+
+<p>"Ay, lad, th' old tale; but I shall get it done," said Adam, looking up.
+"Why, what's the matter with thee--thee'st in trouble?"</p>
+
+<p>Seth's eyes were red, and there was a look of deep depression on his
+mild face.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, Addy, but it's what must be borne, and can't be helped. Let me
+take my turn now, and do thee go to bed."</p>
+
+<p>"No, lad; I'd rather go on, now I'm in harness. The coffin's promised to
+be ready at Brox'on by seven o'clock to-morrow morning. I'll call thee up
+at sunrise, to help me to carry it when it's done. Go and eat thy supper
+and shut the door, so as I mayn't hear mother's talk."</p>
+
+<p>Adam worked throughout the night, thinking of his childhood and its
+happy days, and then of the days of sadness that came later when his father
+began to loiter at public-houses, and Lisbeth began to cry at home. He
+remembered well the night of shame and anguish when he first saw his father
+quite wild and foolish.</p>
+
+<p>The two brothers set off in the early sunlight, carrying the long coffin
+on their shoulders. By six o'clock they had reached Broxton, and were on
+their way home.</p>
+
+<p>When they were coming across the valley, and had entered the pasture
+through which the brook ran, Seth said suddenly, beginning to walk faster,
+"Why, what's that sticking against the willow?"</p>
+
+<p>They both ran forward, and dragged the tall, heavy body out of the
+water; and then looked with mute awe at the glazed eyes--forgetting
+everything but that their father lay dead before them.</p>
+
+<p>Adam's mind rushed back over the past in a flood of relenting and pity.
+Only a few hours ago, and the gray-haired father, of whom he had been
+thinking with a sort of hardness as certain to live to be a thorn in his
+side, was perhaps even then struggling with that watery death!</p>
+
+
+<h4><i>II.--The Hall Farm</i></h4>
+
+
+<p>It is a very fine old place of red brick, the Hall Farm--once the
+residence of a country squire, and the Hall.</p>
+
+<p>Plenty of life there, though this is the drowsiest time of the year,
+just before hay-harvest; and it is the drowsiest time of the day, too, for
+it is half-past three by Mrs. Poyser's handsome eight-day clock.</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Poyser, a good-looking woman, not more than eight-and-thirty, of
+fair complexion and sandy hair, well shaped, light-footed, had just taken
+up her knitting, and was seated with her niece, Dinah Morris. Another
+motherless niece, Hetty Sorrel, a distractingly pretty girl of seventeen,
+was busy in the adjoining dairy.</p>
+
+<p>"You look the image o' your aunt Judith, Dinah, when you sit a-sewing,"
+said Mrs. Poyser. "I allays said that o' Judith, as she'd bear a pound
+weight any day to save anybody else carrying a ounce. And it made no
+difference in her, as I could see, when she took to the Methodists; only
+she talked a bit different, and wore a different sort o' cap. If you'd only
+come and live i' this country you might get married to some decent man, and
+there'd be plenty ready to have you, if you'd only leave off that
+preaching, as is ten times worse than anything your Aunt Judith ever did.
+And even if you'd marry Seth Bede, as is a poor, wool-gathering Methodist,
+and's never like to have a penny beforehand, I know your uncle 'ud help you
+with a pig, and very like a cow, for he's allays been good-natur'd to my
+kin, for all they're poor, and made 'em welcome to the house; and 'ud do
+for you, I'll be bound, as much as ever he'd do for Hetty, though she's his
+own niece."</p>
+
+<p>The arrival of Mr. Irwine, the rector of Hayslope, and Captain
+Donnithorne, Squire Donnithorne's grandson and heir, interrupted Mrs.
+Poyser's flow of talk.</p>
+
+<p>"I'll lay my life they're come to speak about your preaching on the
+Green, Dinah. It's you must answer 'em, for I'm dumb. I've said enough
+a'ready about your bringing such disgrace upo' your uncle's family. I
+wouldn't ha' minded if you'd been Mr. Poyser's own niece. Folks must put up
+wi' their own kin as they put up wi' their own noses; it's their own flesh
+and blood."</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Irwine, however, was the last man to feel any annoyance at the
+Methodist preaching, and young Arthur Donnithorne's visit was merely an
+excuse for exchanging a few words with Hetty Sorrel.</p>
+
+<p>The rector mentioned before he left that Thias Bede had been found
+drowned in the Willow Brook; and Dinah Morris at once decided that she
+might be of some comfort to the widow, and set out for the village.</p>
+
+<p>As for Hetty Sorrel, she was thinking more of the looks Captain
+Donnithorne had cast at her than of Adam and his troubles. Bright, admiring
+glances from a handsome young gentleman--those were the warm rays that set
+poor Hetty's heart vibrating.</p>
+
+<p>Hetty was quite used to the thought that people liked to look at her.
+She was aware that Mr. Craig, the gardener at Squire Donnithorne's, was
+over head-and-ears in love with her. She knew still better that Adam
+Bede--tall, upright, clever, brave Adam Bede--who carried such authority
+with all the people round about, and whom her uncle was always delighted to
+see of an evening, saying that "Adam knew a fine sight more o' the natur o'
+things than those as thought themselves his betters"--she knew that this
+Adam, who was often rather stern to other people, and not much given to run
+after the lassies, could be made to turn pale or red any day by a word or a
+look from her. Hetty's sphere of comparison was not large, but she couldn't
+help perceiving that Adam was "something like" a man; always knew what to
+say about things; knew, with only looking at it, the value of a
+chestnut-tree that was blown down, and why the damp came in the walls, and
+what they must do to stop the rats; and wrote a beautiful hand that you
+could read, and could do figures in his head--a degree of accomplishment
+totally unknown among the richest farmers of that country-side.</p>
+
+<p>Hetty was quite certain her uncle wanted her to encourage Adam, and
+would be pleased for her to marry him. For the last three years--ever since
+he had superintended the building of the new barn--Adam had always been
+made welcome at the Hall Farm, and for the last two years at least Hetty
+had been in the habit of hearing her uncle say, "Adam Bede may be working
+for a wage now, but he'll be a master-man some day, as sure as I sit in
+this chair. Master Burge is in the right on't to want him to go partners
+and marry his daughter, if it's true what they say. The woman as marries
+him 'ull have a good take, be't Lady Day or Michaelmas," a remark which
+Mrs. Poyser always followed up with her cordial assent.</p>
+
+<p>"Ah," she would say, "it's all very fine having a ready-made rich man,
+but may happen he'll be a ready-made fool; and it's no use filling your
+pocket full of money if you've got a hole in the corner. It'll do you no
+good to sit in a spring-cart o' your own if you've got a soft to drive you;
+he'll soon turn you over into the ditch."</p>
+
+<p>But Hetty had never given Adam any steady encouragement. She liked to
+feel that this strong, keen-eyed man was in her power; but as to marrying
+Adam, that was a very different affair.</p>
+
+<p>Hetty's dreams were all of luxuries. She thought if Adam had been rich,
+and could have given the things of her dreams--large, beautiful earrings
+and Nottingham lace and a carpeted parlour--she loved him well enough to
+marry him.</p>
+
+<p>The last few weeks a new influence had come over Hetty; she had become
+aware that Mr. Arthur Donnithorne would take a good deal of trouble for the
+chance of seeing her. And Dinah Morris was away, preaching and working in a
+manufacturing town.</p>
+
+
+<h4><i>III.--Adam's First Love</i></h4>
+
+
+<p>Adam Bede, like many other men, thought the signs of love for another
+were signs of love towards himself. The time had come to him that summer,
+as he helped Hetty pick currants in the orchard of the Hall Farm, that a
+man can least forget in after-life--the time when he believes that the
+first woman he has ever loved is, at least, beginning to love him in
+return.</p>
+
+<p>He was not wrong in thinking that a change had come over Hetty; the
+anxieties and fears of a first passion with which she was trembling had
+become stronger than vanity, and while Adam drew near to her she was
+absorbed in thinking and wondering about Arthur Donnithorne's possible
+return.</p>
+
+<p>For the first time Hetty felt that there was something soothing to her
+in Adam's timid yet manly tenderness; she wanted to be treated lovingly.
+And Arthur was away from home; and, oh, it was very hard to bear the blank
+of absence. She was not afraid that Adam would tease her with love-making
+and flattering speeches; he had always been so reserved to her. She could
+enjoy without any fear the sense that this strong, brave man loved her and
+was near her. It never entered into her mind that Adam was pitiable, too,
+that Adam, too, must suffer one day.</p>
+
+<p>It was from Adam that she found out that Captain Donnithorne would be
+back in a day or two, and this knowledge made her the more kindly disposed
+towards him. But for all the world Adam would not have spoken of his love
+to Hetty yet, till this commencing kindness towards him should have grown
+into unmistakable love. He did no more than pluck a rose for her, and walk
+back to the farm with her arm in his.</p>
+
+<p>When Adam, after stopping a while to chat with the Poysers, had said
+good-night, Mr. Poyser remarked, "If you can catch Adam for a husband,
+Hetty, you'll ride i' your own spring-cart some day, I'll be your
+warrant."</p>
+
+<p>Her uncle did not see the little toss of the head with which Hetty
+answered him. To ride in a spring-cart seemed a very miserable lot indeed
+to her now.</p>
+
+<p>It was on August 18, when Adam, going home from some work he had been
+doing at one of the farms, passed through a grove of beeches, and saw, at
+the end of the avenue, about twenty yards before him, two figures. They
+were standing opposite to each other with clasped hands, and they separated
+with a start at a sharp bark from Adam Bede's dog. One hurried away through
+a gate out of the grove; the other, Arthur Donnithorne, looking flushed and
+excited, sauntered towards Adam. The young squire had been home for some
+weeks celebrating his twenty-first birthday, and he was leaving on the
+morrow to rejoin his regiment.</p>
+
+<p>Hitherto there had been a cordial and sincere liking and a mutual esteem
+between the two young men; but now Adam stood as if petrified, and his
+amazement turned quickly to fierceness.</p>
+
+<p>Arthur tried to pass the matter off lightly, as if it had been a chance
+meeting with Hetty; but Adam, who felt that he had been robbed
+treacherously by the man in whom he had trusted, would not so easily let
+him off. It came to blows, and Arthur sank under a well-planted blow of
+Adam's, as a steel rod is broken by an iron bar.</p>
+
+<p>Before they separated, Arthur promised that he would write and tell
+Hetty there could be no further communication between them. And this
+promise he kept. Adam rested content with the assurance that nothing but an
+innocent flirtation had been stopped. As the days went by he found that the
+calm patience with which he had waited for Hetty's love had forsaken him
+since that night in the beech-grove. The agitations of jealousy had given a
+new restlessness to his passion.</p>
+
+<p>Hetty, for her part, after the first misery caused by Arthur's letter,
+had turned into a mood of dull despair, and sought only for change. Why
+should she not marry Adam? She did not care what she did so that it made
+some change in her life.</p>
+
+<p>So, in November, when Mr. Burge offered Adam a share in his business,
+Adam not only accepted it, but decided that the time had come to ask Hetty
+to marry him.</p>
+
+<p>Hetty did not speak when Adam got out the question, but his face was
+very close to hers, and she put up her round cheek against his, like a
+kitten. She wanted to be caressed--she wanted to feel as if Arthur were
+with her again.</p>
+
+<p>Adam only said after that, "I may tell your uncle and aunt, mayn't I,
+Hetty?" And she said "Yes."</p>
+
+<p>The red firelight on the hearth at the Hall Farm shone on joyful faces
+that evening when Adam took the opportunity of telling Mr. and Mrs. Poyser
+that he saw his way to maintaining a wife now, and that Hetty had consented
+to have him.</p>
+
+<p>There was a great deal of discussion before Adam went away about the
+possibility of his finding a house that would do for him to settle in.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, well," said Mr. Poyser at last, "we needna fix everything
+to-night. You canna think o' getting married afore Easter. I'm not for long
+courtships, but there must be a bit o' time to make things
+comfortable."</p>
+
+<p>This was in November.</p>
+
+<p>Then in February came the full tragedy of Hetty Sorrel's life. She left
+home, and in a strange village, a child--Arthur Donnithorne's child--was
+born. Hetty left the baby in a wood, and returned to find it dead. Arrest
+and trial followed, and only at the last moment was the capital sentence
+commuted to transportation.</p>
+
+<p>She died a few years later on her way home.</p>
+
+
+<h4><i>IV.--The Wife of Adam Bede</i></h4>
+
+
+<p>It was the autumn of 1801, and Dinah Morris was once more at the Hall
+Farm, only to leave it again for her work in the town. Mrs. Poyser noticed
+that Dinah, who never used to change colour, flushed when Adam said, "Why,
+I hoped Dinah was settled among us for life. I thought she'd given up the
+notion o' going back to her old country."</p>
+
+<p>"Thought! Yes," said Mrs. Poyser; "and so would anybody else ha' thought
+as had got their right ends up'ards. But I suppose you must be a Methodist
+to know what a Methodist 'ull do. It's all guessing what the bats are
+flying after."</p>
+
+<p>"Why, what have we done to you, Dinah, as you must go away from us?"
+said Mr. Poyser. "It's like breaking your word; for your aunt never had no
+thought but you'd make this your home."</p>
+
+<p>"Nay, uncle," said Dinah, trying to be quite calm. "When I first came I
+said it was only for a time, as long as I could be of any comfort to my
+aunt."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, an' who said you'd ever left off being a comfort to me?" said
+Mrs. Poyser. "If you didna mean to stay wi' me, you'd better never ha'
+come. Them as ha' never had a cushion don't miss it."</p>
+
+<p>Dinah set off with Adam, for Lisbeth was ailing and wanted Dinah to sit
+with her a bit. On the way he reverted to her leaving the Hall Farm. "You
+know best, Dinah, but if it had been ordered so that you could ha' been my
+sister, and lived wi' us all our lives, I should ha' counted it the
+greatest blessing as could happen to us now."</p>
+
+<p>Dinah made no answer, and they walked on in silence, until presently,
+crossing the stone stile, Adam saw her face, flushed, and with a look of
+suppressed agitation.</p>
+
+<p>It struck him with surprise, and then he said, "I hope I've not hurt or
+displeased you by what I've said, Dinah; perhaps I was making too free.
+I've no wish different from what you see to be best; and I'm satisfied for
+you to live thirty miles off if you think it right."</p>
+
+<p>Poor Adam! Thus do men blunder.</p>
+
+<p>Lisbeth opened his eyes on the Sunday morning when Adam sat at home and
+read from his large pictured Bible.</p>
+
+<p>For a long time his mother talked on about Dinah, and about how they
+were losing her when they might keep her, and Adam at last told her she
+must make up her mind that she would have to do without Dinah.</p>
+
+<p>"Nay, but I canna ma' up my mind, when she's just cut out for thee; an'
+nought shall ma' me believe as God didna make her and send her here o'
+purpose for thee. What's it sinnify about her being a Methody? It 'ud
+happen wear out on her wi' marryin'."</p>
+
+<p>Adam threw himself back in his chair and looked at his mother. He
+understood now what her talk had been aiming at, and tried to chase away
+the notion from her mind.</p>
+
+<p>He was amazed at the way in which this new thought of Dinah's love had
+taken possession of him with an overmastering power that made all other
+feelings give way before the impetuous desire to know that the thought was
+true. He spoke to Seth, who said quite simply that he had long given up all
+thoughts of Dinah ever being his wife, and would rejoice in his brother's
+joy. But he could not tell whether Dinah was for marrying.</p>
+
+<p>"Thee might'st ask her," Seth said presently. "She took no offence at
+<i>me</i> for asking, and thee'st more right than I had."</p>
+
+<p>When Adam did ask, Dinah answered that her heart was strongly drawn
+towards him, but that she must wait for divine guidance. So she left the
+Hall Farm and went back to the town, and Adam waited,--and then went after
+her to get his answer.</p>
+
+<p>"Adam," she said when they had met and walked some distance together,
+"it is the divine will. My soul is so knit to yours that it is but a
+divided life I live without you. And this moment, now you are with me, and
+I feel that our hearts are filled with the same love, I have a fullness of
+strength to bear and do our Heavenly Father's will that I had lost
+before."</p>
+
+<p>Adam paused and looked into her sincere eyes.</p>
+
+<p>"Then we'll never part any more, Dinah, till death parts us."</p>
+
+<p>And they kissed each other with deep joy.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+
+
+
+<h3><a name="eliot2">Felix Holt, the Radical</a></h3>
+
+<p class="letter">
+"Felix Holt, the Radical," was published in 1866. It has never
+been one of George Eliot's very popular books. There is less in it of her
+own life and experience than in most of her novels, less of the homely wit
+of agricultural England. The real value of the book is the picture it gives
+of the social and political life, and for this reason, it will always be
+read by those who want to know what English political methods and customs
+were like at the time of the passing of the Reform Bill of 1832. The
+character of Mr. Rufus Lyon, the independent minister, is an admirable
+study of the non-conformist of that period. Esther's renunciation of a
+brilliant fortune for a humbler lot with the man she loved and admired, was
+quite in accord with the teaching George Eliot inculcated all her life. The
+scene of the story is laid in the Midlands, and the action, covering about
+nine months, begins in 1832.
+</p>
+
+<h4><i>I.--The Minister's Daughter</i></h4>
+
+
+<p>The Rev. Rufus Lyon, Minister of the Independent Chapel, in the
+old-fashioned market town of Treby Magna, in the County of Loumshire, lived
+in a small house, adjoining the entry which led to the Chapel Yard.</p>
+
+<p>He sat this morning, as usual, in a low upstairs room, called his study,
+which served also as a sleeping-room, and from time to time got up to walk
+about between the piles of old books which lay around him on the floor. His
+face looked old and worn, yet the curtain of hair that fell from his bald
+crown and hung about his neck retained much of its original auburn tint,
+and his large, brown short-sighted eyes were still clear and bright. At the
+first glance, everyone thought him a very odd-looking, rusty old man, and
+the free-school boys often hooted after him, and called him "Revelations."
+But he was too short-sighted and too absent from the world of small facts
+and petty impulses to notice those who tittered at him.</p>
+
+<p>He was meditating on the text for his Sunday morning sermon, when old
+Lyddy, the minister's servant, opened the door to tell him that Mrs. Holt
+was wanting to see him. "She says she comes out of season, but she's in
+trouble."</p>
+
+<p>The minister bade her send Mistress Holt up, and a tall elderly woman
+dressed in black entered.</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Holt, Mr. Lyon said to himself, is a woman who darkens counsel by
+words without knowledge, and angers the reason of the natural man; and he
+prayed for patience while his visitor rambled on concerning her late
+husband and her son Felix.</p>
+
+<p>The minister made out that Felix objected to the sale of his father's
+quack medicines, Holt's Elixir and Cancer Cure, and wanted Mr. Lyon to talk
+to him.</p>
+
+<p>"For after we'd been to chapel, he spoke better of you than he does of
+most: he said you was a fine old fellow, and an old-fashioned Puritan--he
+uses dreadful language, Mr. Lyon; but I saw he didn't mean you ill, for all
+that; he calls most folks' religion rottenness."</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Holt departed, and in the evening, when Mr. Lyon was in the
+sitting-room, Felix Holt knocked at the door.</p>
+
+<p>The minister, accustomed to the respectable air of provincial townsmen,
+felt a slight shock, when his spectacles made clear to him the
+shaggy-headed, large-eyed, strong-limbed person of this questionable young
+man, without waistcoat or cravat.</p>
+
+<p>Felix spoke loudly and brusquely when the minister mentioned the subject
+of Mrs. Holt's visit.</p>
+
+<p>"As to those absurd medicines and gulling advertisements that my mother
+has been talking of to you, I've no more doubt about <i>them</i> than I
+have about pocket-picking. If I allowed the sale of those medicines to go
+on, and my mother to live out of the proceeds when I can keep her by the
+honest labour of hands, I've not the least doubt that I should be a
+rascal."</p>
+
+<p>"I would fain inquire more particularly into your objection to these
+medicines," said Mr. Lyon gravely.</p>
+
+<p>"My father was ignorant," said Felix, bluntly. "I know something about
+these things. I was 'prentice for five miserable years to a stupid brute of
+a country apothecary--my poor father left money for that--he thought
+nothing could be finer for me. No matter: I know that the Cathartic Pills
+may be as bad as poison to half the people who swallow them, and that the
+cancer cure might as well be bottled ditch-water. I can keep my mother, as
+well, nay, better, than she keeps herself. With my watch and clock
+cleaning, and teaching one or two little chaps that I've got to come to me,
+I can earn enough."</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Lyon's suggestion that some situation might be obtained as clerk or
+assistant was brushed aside.</p>
+
+<p>"Why should I want to get into the middle class because I have some
+learning? The most of the middle class are as ignorant as the working
+people about everything that doesn't belong to their own Brummagem
+life."</p>
+
+<p>The entrance of Lyddy with the tea tray disturbed the conversation, but
+the minister, interested in his visitor, asked Felix to stay for a dish of
+tea, and Felix accepted.</p>
+
+<p>"My daughter, who has been detained in giving a lesson in the French
+tongue, has doubtless returned now," said the minister. On the entrance of
+the young lady, Felix was conscious she was not the sort of person he had
+expected the minister's daughter to be, and the incongruity repelled him.
+There were things about her, her walk, the long neck and high crown of
+shining brown hair, that suggested a fine lady to him. A fine lady was
+always a sort of spun glass affair; but a fine lady as the daughter of this
+rusty old Puritan was especially offensive.</p>
+
+<p>The discovery that Miss Lyon read Byron set Felix off on a tirade
+against the poet, and his works, and throughout the meal no agreement on
+any topic seemed possible between Esther and the guest.</p>
+
+<p>Felix noted that Mr. Lyon was devoted to his daughter and stood in some
+fear of her.</p>
+
+<p>"That is a singular young man, Esther," said the minister, when Felix
+had gone. "I discern in him a love for whatever things are honest and true,
+and I feel a great enlargement in his presence."</p>
+
+<p>"I think he is very coarse and rude," said Esther, with a touch of
+temper. "But he speaks better English than most of our visitors. What is
+his occupation?"</p>
+
+<p>"Watch and clock making, my dear."</p>
+
+<p>Esther was disappointed, she thought he was something higher than
+that.</p>
+
+<p>Felix on his side wondered how the queer old minister had a daughter so
+little in his own likeness. He decided that nothing should make him
+marry.</p>
+
+
+<h4><i>II.--The Election Riot</i></h4>
+
+
+<p>The return of Mr. Harold Transome, to Transome Court, after fifteen
+years' absence, and his adoption as Radical Candidate for the county
+created no little stir and excitement in Treby. It also assisted the
+growing intimacy between Mr. Lyon and Felix Holt, for though neither
+possessed votes in that memorable year 1832, they shared the same liberal
+sympathies. Perhaps the most delightful friendships are those in which
+there is much agreement, much disputation, and yet more personal liking;
+and the advent of the public-spirited, contradictory, yet affectionate
+Felix, into Treby life had made a welcome epoch to the minister.</p>
+
+<p>Esther had not seen so much of their new acquaintance as her father had.
+But she had begun to find him amusing, though he always opposed and
+criticised her, and looked at her as if he never saw a single detail about
+her person. It seemed to Esther that he thought slightly of her. "But, rude
+and queer as he is, I cannot say there is anything vulgar about him," she
+said to herself.</p>
+
+<p>One Sunday afternoon Felix Holt rapped at the door of Mr. Lyon's house,
+although he could hear the voice of the minister in the chapel.</p>
+
+<p>Esther was in the kitchen alone, reading a French romance, and she
+opened the door and invited him in.</p>
+
+<p>He scoffed at her book, and as the talk went on, upbraided her for her
+vanity. Finally he told her that he wanted her to change. "Of course, I am
+a brute to say so," he added. "I ought to say you are perfect. Another man
+would, perhaps; I can't bear to see you going the way of the foolish women
+who spoil men's lives."</p>
+
+<p>Mortification and anger filled Esther's mind, and when Felix got up to
+say he was going, she returned his "good-bye" without even looking at
+him.</p>
+
+<p>Only, when the door closed she burst into tears. She revolted against
+his assumption of superiority.... Did he love her one little bit, and was
+that the reason why he wanted her to change? But Esther was quite sure she
+could never love anyone who was so much of a pedagogue and a master.</p>
+
+<p>Yet, a few weeks later, and Esther accepted willingly when Felix
+proposed a walk for the first time together. That same afternoon he told
+her that she was very beautiful, and that he would never be rich: he
+intended going away to some manufacturing town to lead the people to better
+things and this meant a life of poverty.</p>
+
+<p>Something Esther said made Felix ask suddenly, "Can you imagine yourself
+choosing hardship as the better lot?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, I can," she answered, flushing over neck and brow. They walked
+home very silently after that. Felix struggling as a firm man struggles
+with a temptation, Esther struggling as a woman struggles with the yearning
+for some expression of love.</p>
+
+<p>On the day of the election a mob of miners, primed with liquor by an
+unscrupulous agent of Transome's, came into the town to hoot the Tory
+voters; and as the disturbance increased, Felix knowing that Mr. Lyon was
+away preaching went round to the minister's house to reassure Esther.</p>
+
+<p>"I am so thankful to see you," she said eagerly. He mentioned that the
+magistrates and constables were coming and that the town would be quieter.
+His only fear was that drinking might inflame the mob again.</p>
+
+<p>Again Felix told her of his renunciation of the ordinary hopes and
+ambitions of men, and at the same time tried to prove that he thought very
+highly of her. He wanted her to know that her love was dear to him, and he
+felt that they must not marry--to do so would be to ruin each other's
+lives.</p>
+
+<p>When Felix went out into the streets in the afternoon, the crowd was
+larger and more mischievous. The constables were quite unable to cope with
+the mob, the polling booth was closed for the day, and the magistrates had
+sent to the neighbouring town of Duffield for the military.</p>
+
+<p>There were proofs that the predominant will of the crowd was in favour
+of Transome for several shops were attacked and they were all of them "Tory
+shops."</p>
+
+<p>Felix was soon hotly occupied trying to save a wretched publican named
+Spratt from the fury of the crowd. The man had been dragged out into the
+streets, and Felix had got as near him as he could when a young constable
+armed with a sabre rushed upon him. It was a choice of two evils, and quick
+as lightning Felix frustrated him, the constable fell undermost and Felix
+got his weapon. Tucker did not rise immediately, but Felix did not imagine
+that he was much hurt, and bidding the crowd follow him tried to lead them
+away from the town. He hoped that the soldiers would soon arrive, and felt
+confident that there would be no resistance to a military force.</p>
+
+<p>Suddenly a cry was raised, "Let us go to Treby Manor," the residence of
+Sir Maximus Debarry, whose son was the Tory candidate.</p>
+
+<p>From that moment Felix was powerless, and was carried along with the
+rush. All he could hope to do was to get to the front terrace of the house,
+and assure the inmates that the soldiers would arrive quickly. Just as he
+approached a large window he heard the horses of the troopers, and then
+came the words, "Halt! Fire!" Before he had time to move a bullet whizzed,
+and passed through Felix Holt's shoulder--the shoulder of the arm that bore
+the sabre.</p>
+
+<p>Felix fell. The rioters ran confusedly, like terrified sheep.</p>
+
+<p>It was a weary night for Felix, and the next day his wound was declared
+trivial, and he was lodged in Loumford Jail. There were three charges
+against him; that he had assaulted a constable, that he had committed
+manslaughter (Tucker was dead from spinal concussion), and that he had led
+a riotous onslaught on a dwelling house.</p>
+
+<p>Four other men were arrested, one for theft, and three others for riot
+and assault.</p>
+
+
+<h4><i>III.--The Trial</i></h4>
+
+
+<p>A great change took place in the fortunes of Esther in the interval
+between the riot and the opening of the assizes. It was found that she, and
+not Harold Transome, was the rightful owner of the Transome estates. For
+Esther's real name was Bycliffe and not Lyon, and she was the step-daughter
+only of the minister. Mr. Lyon had found Esther's mother, a French woman of
+great beauty, in destitution--her husband, an Englishman, lying in some
+unknown prison. This Englishman was a Bycliffe--and heir to the Transome
+property, and on the proof of his death Mr. Lyon, knowing nothing of
+Bycliffe's family, married his widow, who, however, died while Esther was
+still a tiny child. Not till the time of the election did Esther learn that
+her real father was dead.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Transome's lawyer--Jermyn--was fully aware of the claim of the
+Bycliffes, but knew they were powerless without money to enforce the claim,
+and that Esther and her step-father alike were ignorant of all the facts.
+It was only when Harold Transome, on his return, quarrelled with Jermyn on
+the management of the estates, and, after the Election (which Transome
+lost) threatened him with a law-suit, that Jermyn turned round and told
+Harold the truth. At the same time, another lawyer, formerly in Jermyn's
+confidence, thought the more profitable course could be found in throwing
+Jermyn over, and wrote to Esther informing her of her inheritance.</p>
+
+<p>Harold Transome decided to act openly. With his mother, he drove to the
+minister's house and Mrs. Transome persuaded Esther to come and stay at
+Transome Court. Both mother and son found Esther to their liking, and it
+appeared to Harold that marriage with Esther would be a happy conclusion to
+the divided claim to the property. He was rich, and the Transome (or
+Bycliffe) property was heavily encumbered.</p>
+
+<p>The Transomes, Esther and Mr. Lyon all agreed that no law-suit over the
+property should take place.</p>
+
+<p>But while Esther stayed at Transome Court she never forgot her friend in
+prison. Mr. Lyon had visited Felix, and Esther herself obtained an
+interview with him just before the assizes began.</p>
+
+<p>She had grown conscious that Harold Transome was making love to her,
+that Mrs. Transome really desired her for a daughter-in-law, and it seemed
+to her as she waited with the minister in the cheerless prison room, that
+she stood at the first and last parting of the ways.</p>
+
+<p>Soon the door opened, and Felix Holt entered.</p>
+
+<p>"Miss Lyon--Esther!" and her hand was in his grasp. He was just the
+same--no, something inexpressibly better, because of the distance and
+separation, which made him like the return of morning.</p>
+
+<p>"Take no heed of me, children," said Mr. Lyon. "I have some notes to
+make." And the old man sat down at a window with his back to them, writing
+with his head bent close to the paper.</p>
+
+<p>Felix had heard of Esther's change of fortune and felt sure she would
+marry Harold Transome. It was only when the time for parting came that he
+could bring himself to say:</p>
+
+<p>"I had a horrible struggle, Esther. But you see I was right. There was a
+fitting lot in reserve for you." Esther felt too miserable for tears to
+come. She looked helplessly at Felix for a moment, then took her hands from
+his, and turning away mutely, said, "Father, I am ready--there is no more
+to say."</p>
+
+<p>"Esther."</p>
+
+<p>She heard Felix say the word, with an entreating cry, and went towards
+him swiftly. He clasped her, and they kissed each other.</p>
+
+<p>When the trial came on Esther went under Mrs. Transome's protection to
+the court.</p>
+
+<p>The case against Felix looked very black when the prosecution closed.
+Various respectable witnesses swore to the prisoner's leadership of the
+mob, to his fatal assault on Tucker, and to his attitude in front of the
+drawing-room window at the Manor.</p>
+
+<p>Felix then gave a concise narrative of his motives and conduct on the
+day of the riot, and explained that in throwing the constable down he had
+not foreseen the possibility of death ensuing. It was a good,
+straightforward speech, not without a touch of defiant independence, which
+did the prisoner little good with judge or jury.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Lyon and Harold Transome both gave evidence in favour of Felix,
+stating that the prisoner had often expressed his hatred of rioting, and
+had protested with indignation against the treating that went on during the
+election by some of the Radical agents.</p>
+
+<p>One or two witnesses were called who swore that Felix had tried to lead
+the mob in the opposite direction to Treby Manor, and it was understood
+that the case for the defence was closed.</p>
+
+<p>Then it came to Esther that she must speak if Felix was to be saved.
+There had been no witness to tell what had been his behaviour just before
+the riot. There was time, but not too much time.</p>
+
+<p>Before Harold Transome was aware of Esther's intention she was on her
+way to the witness-box.</p>
+
+<p>A sort of gleam shot across the face of Felix Holt, and anyone close to
+the prisoner would have seen that his hand trembled, for the first time, at
+Esther's beautiful aspect. There was no blush on her face: she stood,
+divested of all personal consideration whether of vanity or shyness, and
+gave her story as if she had been making a confession of faith.</p>
+
+<p>She knew Felix Holt well, she said. He came to see her on the day of the
+election, and told her he feared the men might collect again after
+drinking. "It was the last thing he would have done to join in riot or to
+hurt any man, if he could have helped it. He could never have had any
+intention that was not brave and good."</p>
+
+<p>When she was back in her place Felix could not help looking towards her,
+and their eyes met in one solemn glance.</p>
+
+<p>Esther stayed in court till the end. She heard the verdict, "Guilty of
+Manslaughter," followed by the judge's sentence, "Imprisonment for four
+years." But so great was the impression made by Esther's speech that a
+petition to the Home Secretary was at once set on foot by the leading men
+of the county.</p>
+
+
+<h4><i>IV.--Felix and Esther</i></h4>
+
+
+<p>One April day, when the sun shone on the lingering raindrops, Lyddy was
+gone out, and Esther chose to sit in the kitchen. She was not reading, but
+stitching, and as her fingers moved nimbly, something played about her lips
+like a ray.</p>
+
+<p>A loud rap came at the door.</p>
+
+<p>"Mr. Lyon at home?" said Felix in his firm tones. "No, sir," said
+Esther: "but Miss Lyon is, if you'll please to walk in."</p>
+
+<p>"Esther!" exclaimed Felix, amazed.</p>
+
+<p>They held each other by both hands, and looked into each other's faces
+with delight.</p>
+
+<p>"You are out of prison?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, till I do something bad again. But you--how is it all? Are you
+come back to live here then?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes."</p>
+
+<p>"You are not going to be married to Harold Transome, or to be rich?"</p>
+
+<p>"No."</p>
+
+<p>"Why?" said Felix in rather a low tone, leaning his elbow on the table,
+and resting his head on his hand while he looked at her.</p>
+
+<p>"I did not wish to marry him, or to be rich."</p>
+
+<p>"You have given it all up?" said Felix, leaning forward a little and
+speaking in a still lower tone. "Could you share the life of a poor man,
+then, Esther?"</p>
+
+<p>"If I thought well enough of him," she said, with a smile, and a pretty
+movement of her head.</p>
+
+<p>"Have you considered well what it would be?--that it would be a very
+bare and simple life? and the people I shall live among, Esther? They have
+not just the same follies and vices as the rich, but they have their own
+forms of folly and vice. It is very serious, Esther."</p>
+
+<p>"I know it is serious," said Esther, looking up at him. "Since I have
+been at Transome Court I have seen many things very seriously. If I had
+not, I should not have left what I did leave. I made a deliberate
+choice."</p>
+
+<p>She could not tell him that at Transome Court, all that finally seemed
+balanced against her love for him, was the offer of a silken bondage that
+arrested all motive, and was nothing better than a well-cushioned despair.
+A vision of being restless amidst ease, of being languid among all
+appliances had quickened her resignation of the Transome estates.</p>
+
+<p>Esther explained, however, that she thought of retaining a little of the
+wealth.</p>
+
+<p>"How?" said Felix, anxiously. "What do you mean?"</p>
+
+<p>"I think even of two pounds a week: one needn't live up to the splendour
+of all that, you know: we might live as simply as you liked. And then I
+think of a little income for your mother, and a little income for my
+father, to save him from being dependent when he is no longer able to
+preach!"</p>
+
+<p>Felix put his hand on her shoulder, said, lifting up his eyes with a
+smile:</p>
+
+<p>"Why, I shall be able to set up a great library, and lend the
+books!"</p>
+
+<p>They laughed merrily, each holding the other's arms, like girl and boy.
+There was the ineffable sense of youth in common.</p>
+
+<p>Then Felix leaned forward, that their lips might meet, and after that
+his eyes roved tenderly over her face and curls.</p>
+
+<p>"I'm a rough, severe fellow, Esther. Shall you never repent?--never be
+inwardly reproaching me that I was not a man who could have shared your
+wealth? Are you quite sure?"</p>
+
+<p>The very next May, Felix and Esther were married. Everyone in those days
+was married at the parish church; but Mr. Lyon was not satisfied without an
+additional private solemnity, "so that he might have a more enlarged
+utterance of joy and supplication."</p>
+
+<p>It was a very simple wedding; but no wedding, even the gayest, ever
+raised so much interest and debate in Treby Magna. Even the very great
+people of the county went to the church to look at this bride, who had
+renounced wealth, and chosen to be the wife of a man who said he would
+always be poor.</p>
+
+<p>Some few shook their heads; could not quite believe it; and thought
+there was more behind. But the majority of honest Trebians were affected
+somewhat in the same way as Mr. Wall, the brewer of the town, who observed
+to his wife as they walked home, "I feel somehow as if I believed more in
+everything that's good."</p>
+
+<p>Felix and Esther did not take up their abode in Treby Magna; and after
+awhile Mr. Lyon left the town too, and joined them where they dwelt.</p>
+
+<p>As to the town in which Felix Holt now resides I will keep that a
+secret.</p>
+
+<p>I will only say that Esther has never repented. Felix, however, grumbles
+a little that she has made his life too easy.</p>
+
+<p>There is a young Felix, who has a great deal more science than his
+father, but not much more money.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+
+
+
+<h3><a name="eliot3">Romola</a></h3>
+
+<p class="letter">
+"Romola" was George Eliot's fifth book, and followed "Silas
+Marner," which was published in 1861. It is a story of Florence in the days
+of Savonarola, and was largely the outcome of a visit the novelist paid to
+Italy with her life-long friend, George Henry Lewes. With dim ideas for the
+story in her mind, she made exhaustive researches in the Florentine
+libraries, gathering historical and topographical details of the city and
+its life as they were in the medi&aelig;val period which she was setting
+herself to re-create. After much study there and at home, and after one
+false start, she made a serious beginning in January, 1862. She was engaged
+upon it for eighteen months, always in doubt and sometimes in despair of
+her ability to accomplish the task, and by June of the following year she
+had thankfully written the last words of what is regarded by some as her
+greatest book. Meanwhile, the romance had begun to appear serially in the
+"Cornhill" in July, 1862. The writing of "Romola" is said to have "ploughed
+into her" more than any of her other books.
+</p>
+
+<h4><i>I.--Tito and Little Tessa</i></h4>
+
+
+<p>Under the Loggia de Cerchi, in the heart of old Florence, in the early
+morning of April 9, 1492, two men had their eyes fixed on each other. One
+was looking downward with the scrutiny of curiosity; the other, lying on
+the pavement, was looking upward with the startled gaze of a suddenly
+awakened dreamer.</p>
+
+<p>"Young man," said the standing figure, pointing to a ring on the finger
+of the other, "when your chin has got a stiffer crop on it you'll know
+better than to take your nap in street corners with a ring like that on
+your forefinger. By the holy 'vangels, if it had been anybody but me
+standing over you--but Bratti Ferravecchi is not the man to steal! Three
+years ago, one San Giovanni, the saint, sent a dead body in my way--a blind
+beggar, with his cap well lined with pieces. But how comes a young man like
+you, with the face of Messer San Michele, to be sleeping on a stone bed?
+Your tunic and hose match ill with that jewel, young man. Anybody might say
+the saints had sent you a dead body; but if you took the jewels, I hope you
+buried him--and you can afford a mass or two for him into the bargain!"</p>
+
+<p>Something like a painful thrill appeared to dart through the frame of
+the listener, and arrest the careless stretching of his arms. But he
+immediately recovered an air of indifference, took off the red Levantine
+cap which hung like a great purse over his left ear, and pushing back his
+long, dark brown curls, said smiling, "The fact is, I'm a stranger in
+Florence, and when I came in footsore last night, I preferred flinging
+myself in the corner of this hospitable porch to hunting for a chance
+hostelry, which might turn out to be a nest of bloodsuckers. Can you show
+me the way to a more lively quarter, where I can get a meal and a
+lodging?"</p>
+
+<p>"That I can," said Bratti.</p>
+
+<p>And, talking volubly as they went, Bratti led the way to the Mercato
+Vecchio, or the Old Market, promising to conduct him to the prettiest
+damsel in the Mercato for a cup of milk.</p>
+
+<p>But as soon as they emerged from the narrow streets into the Old Market,
+they found the place packed with excited groups of men and women humming
+with gossip.</p>
+
+<p>"Diavolo!" said Bratti. "The Mercato has gone as mad as if the Holy
+Father had excommunicated us again! I must know what this is."</p>
+
+<p>He pushed about among the crowd, inquiring and disputing, and was
+presently absorbed in discussing the newest development of Florentine
+politics, the death of Lorenzo de Medici, and whether or not this death was
+the beginning of the time of tribulation that Savonarola had been seeing in
+visions and foretelling in sermons.</p>
+
+<p>Indifferent to this general agitation, the young stranger became tired
+of waiting for Bratti's escort, and strolling on round the piazza, felt, on
+a sudden thought, in the wallet that hung at his waist.</p>
+
+<p>"Not an obolus, by Jupiter!" he murmured, in a language that was not
+Tuscan or even Italian. "I must get my breakfast for love, then!"</p>
+
+<p>In a corner, away from any group of talkers, two mules were standing.
+One carried wooden milk vessels, the other a pair of panniers filled with
+herbs and salads. Resting her elbow on the mule that carried the milk,
+there leaned a young girl, apparently not more than sixteen, with a red
+hood surrounding her face, which was all the more baby-like in its
+prettiness from the entire concealment of her hair. The poor child was
+weary, and it seemed to have gone to sleep in that half-standing,
+half-leaning posture. Nevertheless, our stranger had no compunction in
+awaking her. She opened her baby-blue eyes, and stared up with astonishment
+and confusion.</p>
+
+<p>"Forgive me, pretty one, for awaking you," he said. "I'm dying with
+hunger, and the scent of milk makes breakfast seem more desirable than
+ever."</p>
+
+<p>She bestirred herself, and in a few moments a large cup of fragrant milk
+was held out to him; and by the time he set the cup down she had brought
+bread from a bag which hung by the side of the mule, and shyly and mutely
+insisted on his taking it, even though he told her he had nothing to pay
+her with; and just as he was leaning down to kiss her he was harshly
+interrupted by Monna Ghita, Tessa's mother, who had come upon them
+unobserved.</p>
+
+<p>The handsome presence of the stranger and his charm of manner were of no
+avail with Monna Ghita; her noisy rating of him drew Bratti and the barber,
+Nello, to the spot, and with these he was glad to make good his escape,
+having waived a furtive adieu to the pretty Tessa.</p>
+
+<p>It was not until after Bratti, having business at home, had handed the
+young stranger over to Nello, and in the barber's shop he had been shaved
+and trimmed, and made to look presentable, that Tito Melema became more
+confidential, and explained that he was a Greek; that he was returning from
+adventures abroad, had suffered shipwreck, and found himself in Florence
+with nothing saved from the disaster but some few rare old gems for which
+he was anxious to obtain a purchaser.</p>
+
+<p>"Let us see, let us see," said Nello, walking up and down his shop.
+"What you want is a man of wealth and influence and scholarly tastes; and
+that man is Bartolommeo Scala, the Secretary of our Republic. He came to
+Florence as a poor adventurer himself, a miller's son; and that may be a
+reason why he may be the more ready to do a good turn to a strange scholar.
+I could take you to a man who, if he has a mind, can help you to a chance
+of a favourable interview with Scala--a man worth seeing for his own sake,
+too, to say nothing of his collections, or of his daughter Romola, who is
+as fair as the Florentine lily before it got quarrelsome and turned
+red."</p>
+
+<p>"But if the father of this beautiful Romola makes collections, why
+should he not like to buy some of my gems himself?"</p>
+
+<p>Nello shrugged his shoulders. "For two good reasons--want of sight to
+look at the gems and want of money to pay for them."</p>
+
+
+<h4><i>II.--"More than a Man's Ransom"</i></h4>
+
+
+<p>He was a moneyless, blind old scholar, the Bardo de Bardi, to whom Nello
+introduced Tito Melema; a man who came of a proud, energetic stock, whose
+ancestors had loved to play the signor, had been merchants and usurers of
+keen daring, and conspicuous among those who clutched the sword in the
+earliest world-famous quarrels of Florentine with Florentine. The family
+passions lived on in Bardo under altered conditions; he was a man with a
+deep-veined hand cramped by much copying of manuscripts, who ate sparing
+dinners, and wore threadbare clothes, at first from choice, and at last
+from necessity; who sat among his books and manuscripts, and saw them only
+by the light of those far-off younger days which still shone in his
+memory.</p>
+
+<p>And among his books and antiquities and rare marble fragments, in a
+spacious room surrounded with laden shelves, Romola was his daily companion
+and assistant. There was a time when he had hoped that his son, Dino, would
+have followed in his steps, to be the prop of his age, and to take up and
+continue his scholarly labours after he was dead. But Dino had failed him;
+Dino had given himself up to religion and entered the priesthood, and the
+passion of Bardo's resentment had flamed into fierce hatred towards this
+recreant son of his, and none dared so much as to name him within his
+hearing.</p>
+
+<p>Maso, the old serving-man ushered in the two visitors he had announced a
+few minutes previously, and Nello introduced Tito to Bardo and his daughter
+as a scholar of considerable learning.</p>
+
+<p>Romola's astonishment could hardly have been greater if the stranger had
+worn a panther-skin and carried a thyrsus, for the cunning barber had said
+nothing of the Greeks age or appearance, and among her father's scholarly
+visitors she had hardly ever seen any but gray-headed men.</p>
+
+<p>Nevertheless, she returned Tito's bow with the same pale, proud face as
+ever; but as he approached the snow melted, and when he ventured to look
+towards her again a pink flush overspread her face, to vanish again almost
+immediately, as if her imperious will had recalled it. Tito's glance, on
+the other hand, as he looked at this tall maiden of seventeen or eighteen,
+as she stood at the reading-desk with one hand on the back of her father's
+chair, had that gentle, beseeching admiration in it which is the most
+propitiating of appeals to a proud, shy woman, and is perhaps the only
+atonement a man can make for being too handsome.</p>
+
+<p>"Messere, I give you welcome," said Bardo with some condescension;
+"misfortune wedded to learning, and especially to Greek learning, is a
+letter of credit that should win the ear of every instructed
+Florentine."</p>
+
+<p>He proceeded to question Tito as to what part of Greece he came from,
+learned that he was a young man of unusual scholastic attainments, and that
+he had a father who was himself a scholar.</p>
+
+<p>"At least," said Tito, "a father by adoption. He was a Neapolitan, but,"
+he added, after another slight pause, "he is lost to me--was lost on a
+voyage he too rashly undertook to Delos."</p>
+
+<p>Bardo forbore to speak further on so painful a topic; he discoursed
+freely upon his own studies, his past hopes, and the one great ambition
+that remained to him--that his library and his magnificent collection of
+treasures should not be dissipated on his death, but should become the
+property of the public, and be honourably housed in Florence for all time,
+with his name over the door.</p>
+
+<p>In his eagerness he made passing reference to his son, of how Romola had
+been filling his place to the best of her power, and plainly hinted--and
+Tito was not slow to profit by the opportunity--that if he could have the
+young Greek scholar to work with him instead of her, he might yet look to
+fulfill some of the notable designs he had abandoned when his blindness
+came upon him.</p>
+
+<p>"But," he resumed, in his original tone of condescension, "we are
+departing from what I believe is your most important business. Nello
+informed me that you had certain gems which you would fain dispose of."</p>
+
+<p>"I have one or two intagli of much beauty," said Tito. "But they are now
+in the keeping of Messer Domenico Cennini, who has a strong and safe place
+for such things. He estimates them as worth at least five hundred
+ducats."</p>
+
+<p>"Ah, then, they are fine intagli!" said Bardo. "Five hundred ducats! Ah,
+more than a man's ransom!"</p>
+
+<p>Tito gave a slight, almost imperceptible start, and opened his long,
+dark eyes with questioning surprise at Bardo's blind face, as if his
+words--a mere phrase of common parlance at a time when men were often being
+ransomed from slavery or imprisonment--had some special meaning for
+him.</p>
+
+<p>But Bardo had used the words in all innocence, and went on to talk of
+superstitions that attached to certain gems, and to undertake that he would
+use his influence with the Secretary of the Republic in Tito's behalf. Both
+Romola and her father were attracted by the charm and freshness and
+apparent simplicity of the young man; but just as he was making ready to
+depart they were interrupted by the entrance of Bernardo del Nero, one of
+the chief citizens of Florence, Bardo's oldest friend, and Romola's
+godfather; and Bernardo felt an instant, instinctive distrust of the
+handsome, ingratiating stranger, and did not hesitate to say so after Tito
+had left them.</p>
+
+<p>"Remember, Bardo," he said at length, "thou hast a rare gem of thy own;
+take care no one gets it who is not like to pay a worthy price. That pretty
+Greek has a sleekness about him that seems marvelously fitted for slipping
+into any nest he fixes his mind on."</p>
+
+
+<h4><i>III.--The Man who was Wronged</i></h4>
+
+
+<p>It was undeniable that Tito's coming had been the dawn of a new life for
+both father and daughter, and he grew to care for Romola supremely--to wish
+to have her for his beautiful and loving wife.</p>
+
+<p>He took her place as Bardo's assistant, and served him with an easy
+efficiency that had been beyond her; and she, happier in her father's
+happiness, had given her love to Tito even before he ventured to offer her
+his own. He was thus sailing under the fairest breeze, and besides
+convincing fair judges that his talents squared with his good fortune, he
+wore that fortune so unpretentiously that no one seemed to be offended by
+it.</p>
+
+<p>And that was not the whole of Tito's good fortune, for he had sold his
+jewels, and was master of full five hundred gold florins. Yet the moment
+when he first had this sum in his possession was the crisis of the first
+serious struggle his facile, good-humoured nature had known.</p>
+
+<p>"A man's ransom!" Who was it that had said five hundred florins was more
+than a man's ransom? If, now, under this mid-day sun, on some hot coast far
+away, a man somewhat stricken in years--a man not without high thoughts,
+and with the most passionate heart--a man who long years ago had rescued a
+little boy from a life of beggary, filth, and cruel wrong, and had reared
+him tenderly, if that man were now, under this summer sun, toiling as a
+slave, hewing wood and drawing water? If he were saying to himself, "Tito
+will find me. He had but to carry our gems to Venice; he will have raised
+money, and will never rest till he finds me out?" If that were certain,
+could he--Tito--see the price of the gems lying before him, and say, "I
+will stay at Florence, where I am fanned by soft airs of love and
+prosperity; I will not risk myself for his sake?" No, surely not <i>if it
+were certain</i>. But the galley had been taken by a Turkish vessel; that
+was known by the report of the companion galley which had escaped; and
+there had been resistance and probable bloodshed, a man had been seen
+falling overboard.</p>
+
+<p>He quieted his conscience with such reasonings as these, and when
+definite tidings reached him that his father was still a prisoner, he
+contrived to keep the knowledge to himself, and still did nothing. The
+death of the exhausted, emaciated monk who had brought these tidings freed
+him of one fear; but this monk was Romola's brother, Dino, and obeying his
+summons she had been in secret to see him as he lay dying.</p>
+
+<p>"Romola," her brother began to speak, "in the deep night, as I lay
+awake, I saw my father's room, and I saw you ... And at the <i>leggio</i>
+where I used to stand stood a man whose face I could not see. I saw him
+move and take thee, Romola, by the hand, and then I saw thee take my father
+by the hand, and you all three went down the stone steps into the streets,
+the man, whose face was a blank to me, leading the way. And you stood at
+the altar of Santa Croce, and the priest who married you had the face of
+death; and the graves opened and the dead in their shrouds followed you
+like a bridal train. And it seemed to me that at last you came to a stony
+place where there was no water, and no trees or herbage; but instead of
+water I saw written parchment unrolling itself everywhere, and instead of
+trees and herbage I saw men of bronze and marble springing up and crowding
+round you. And my father was faint, and fell to the ground; and the man
+loosed thy hand and departed; and as he went I could see his face, and it
+was the face of the Great Tempter.... Thrice have I had that vision,
+Romola. I believe it is a revelation meant for thee--to warn thee against
+marriage as a temptation of the enemy...."</p>
+
+<p>The words died away.</p>
+
+<p>"Frate," said the dying voice. "Give her----"</p>
+
+<p>"The crucifix," said the voice of Fra Girolamo Savonarola, who was
+standing in the shadows behind her.</p>
+
+<p>"Dino!" said Romola, with a low but piercing cry.</p>
+
+<p>"Take the crucifix, my daughter," said Fra Girolamo, after a few
+minutes. "His eyes behold it no more."</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p>But, heedless of the distrust and opposition of Messer Bernardo del
+Nero, and with this vision of Dino's menacing his highest hope, Tito went
+gaily on his triumphant way.</p>
+
+<p>Also he had renewed acquaintance with the little Tessa. He came upon her
+in the thronged streets during carnival time, and seeing her, a timorous,
+tearful little <i>contadin</i>, terrified by the burlesque threats of a
+boisterous conjurer, took her under his protection.</p>
+
+<p>Thereafter, he met her again at intervals, finding her naive love and
+humble adoration and obedience very pleasant; and, meeting her once at a
+peasant's fair, he jestingly yielded to the burlesque solicitations of a
+mountebank in a white mitre, paid a small fee, and went through an absurd
+ceremony of mock-marriage with her.</p>
+
+<p>Tessa herself believed the marriage to be real enough, and he would not
+mar her delight by undeceiving her. Later, since she was wretched at home
+with her scolding mother and a brutal step-father, and there were dangers
+in allowing her to go on waylaying him in streets when too long a period
+elapsed between his visits to her, he quietly took her away and established
+her in a small house on the outskirts of the city, with the deaf, discreet
+old Monna Lisa as her servant and companion.</p>
+
+<p>Neither this nor the darker secret of his treachery to his adoptive
+father cast any cloud over his habitual cheerfulness. His love for Romola
+was a higher and deeper passion than anything he felt for the child-like,
+submissive little Tessa, and when she told him frankly of her brother's
+warning vision, he set himself to convince her it was the mere nightmare of
+a diseased imagination, and the perfect love and trust she had for him made
+the task easy.</p>
+
+<p>For a while after their marriage she was ideally happy; she was not even
+separated from her father, for Tito came to live with them, and was to
+Bardo, in his scholastic labours, all that he had wished his own son to be.
+Then came the first cloud.</p>
+
+<p>On November 17, 1494, more than eighteen months after the marriage of
+Tito and Romola, the King of France marched his army into Florence on his
+way to take possession of Naples and impose peace on the warring little
+states into which Italy was divided. There were those in Florence who were
+prepared to welcome the invaders, but the majority, the common people in
+particular, resented their coming.</p>
+
+<p>With the soldiery came three wretched prisoners; they were led in ropes
+by their captors, and with blows from knotted cords were stimulated to beg.
+Two, as they passed, held out their hands, crying piteously, "For the love
+of God and the Holy Madonna, give us something towards our ransom!"</p>
+
+<p>But the third remained obstinately silent. He was old, white-haired,
+emaciated, with a thick-set figure that seemed to express energy in spite
+of age; yet there was something fitful in his eyes.</p>
+
+<p>This sight was witnessed by the Florentines with growing exasperation,
+and presently from jeering at the French soldiers and hustling them, they
+became bent upon rescuing this third prisoner from his tormentors; one
+venturesome youth suddenly dashed in, cut the old man's bonds and urged him
+to run; and the next moment he had plunged into the crowd, which closed
+behind him and hampered the pursuit.</p>
+
+<p>With one soldier struggling desperately on his track, the fugitive sped
+towards the Duomo, to seek refuge in that sanctuary, but in mounting the
+steps his foot slipped, he was precipitated towards a group of signori who
+stood there with their backs to him, and clutched one to save himself.</p>
+
+<p>It was Tito Melema who felt the clutch. He turned, and saw the face of
+his adoptive father, Baldassarre Calvo, close to his own. The two men
+looked at each other silent as death; Tito with cheeks and lips all
+bloodless, fascinated by terror. The next instant the grasp on his arm
+relaxed, and Baldassarre disappeared within the church.</p>
+
+
+<h4><i>IV.--Romola's Ordeal</i></h4>
+
+
+<p>With Baldassarre lurking in Florence, Tito went in hourly fear. At any
+moment the story of his baseness might be blown abroad; at any moment,
+worse still, he might be struck down by the old man, in whose wild eyes he
+had read only a fierce yearning for vengeance.</p>
+
+<p>As a precaution, Tito took to wearing a coat of fine chain-mail under
+his doublet, and the discovery of this alarmed Romola for his safety, and
+shocked her with a suspicion that he was something of a coward.</p>
+
+<p>But by now Tito was deeply involved in Florentine politics, and easily
+persuaded her that it was against secret political intriguers that he thus
+shielded himself. He went on to confess that his life was no longer safe in
+Florence, and he was resolved to leave the city for good. But to this she
+demurred; her father had died and left his library and his collection as a
+sacred trust to her and Tito, and until they had carried out his wish and
+made them over to the city authorities, she felt she could not go.</p>
+
+<p>Tito made light of her scruples. Her father's wish, he said, had been a
+mere foolish vanity; they had need of money, and he intended to sell both
+the library and collection, and when, for the first time in her life, she
+spoke bitterly, in scorn and anger of his faithlessness, he told her flatly
+it was useless to bandy words for he had sold them already, and they were
+to be removed that day.</p>
+
+<p>Frantic with grief and resentment, she thought of desperate ways of
+preventing the accomplishment of his heartless plans, even to borrowing of
+her godfather and buying back the treasures, so that Tito might keep his
+ill-gotten gain and her father's last wish still be fulfilled; but he
+convinced her that all interference was too late, for the things had been
+purchased by the Count di San Severino and the Seneschal de Beaucaire, who
+were already on their way with the French king to Sienna.</p>
+
+<p>Latterly, in many ways, Romola had been disappointed in her husband's
+character; she had found that his handsome face and gay air masked a
+cowardice, a cunning meanness, a sordid selfishness of disposition that
+were all at variance with her high ideal of him; but that final unspeakable
+treachery of the dead man who had trusted him so implicitly shattered her
+love for Tito utterly.</p>
+
+<p>As soon as her father's library was dismantled and his treasures taken
+away, Romola went from the house with the old man-servant, Maso, and would
+never have looked upon Tito's face again, but that Fra Girolamo intercepted
+her.</p>
+
+<p>"I have a command to call you back," he said. "My daughter, you must
+return to your place. You are flying from your debts; the debt of a
+Florentine woman to her fellow citizens; the debt of a wife. You are
+turning your back on the lot that has been appointed for you--you are going
+to choose another. My daughter, you are fleeing from the presence of God
+into the wilderness. My daughter, if the cross comes to you as a wife, you
+must carry it as a wife. You may say, 'I will forsake my husband,' but you
+cannot cease to be a wife."</p>
+
+<p>There was hunger and misery in the streets, and he urged upon her that
+if she had no other purpose in life she could stay, and help the poor of
+her own city. Her pride was broken, and she yielded.</p>
+
+
+<h4><i>V.--Baldassarre is Avenged</i></h4>
+
+
+<p>Meanwhile, Baldassarre, lurking about Florence, had armed himself with a
+knife, and was ravenous for revenge. Being homeless, he called by chance at
+Tessa's little house, and she, not knowing who he was, took pity on his age
+and misery, gave him shelter in a shed, and food and drink.</p>
+
+<p>Whilst he was there, Tito came, and, too frankly simple to keep anything
+from him, Tessa confessed that she had disobeyed his injunctions against
+holding converse with strangers, and was sheltering a strange, weary old
+man in the shed without. Her description of this guest left Tito in no
+doubt as to his identity, and, subduing his first perturbation, he
+conceived that he might turn the situation to his own advantage. He went
+out to the shed, and looking down upon Baldassarre in the moonlight, sought
+to propitiate him with honeyed words, specious explanations, and a plea for
+pardon. But the old man answered nothing, till his smouldering fury burst
+into a flame, then he precipitated himself upon the intruder and struck
+with all his force; but the blade of the knife broke off short against the
+hidden coat of mail.</p>
+
+<p>Tito insisted that he was welcome to remain there, and said what he
+could to soothe him, but Baldassarre would stay no longer when he knew
+whose roof covered him. Presently, he armed himself anew, and waited for
+another opportunity. He learned all that was to be known of Tito's career
+since his arrival in Florence; ascertained that he was married, and had
+thoughts of winning his wife's sympathy and telling her of Tessa. Then one
+night he contrived to get into the Rucellai Gardens, where Tito was at
+supper with a gathering of Florentine notabilities, and, seized in time and
+held back from assassinating him, he passionately denounced him before the
+company as a scoundrel, a liar, and a robber.</p>
+
+<p>There were those present who had been on the church steps that day when
+Baldassarre had clutched Tito by the arm, and Tito had then explained away
+his momentary panic. Questioned now by one of these, he declared that
+though when first he encountered his accuser he did not recognise him, he
+now saw that he was the servant who years ago accompanied him and his
+adoptive father to Greece, and was dismissed on account of misdemeanours,
+and that the story of his being rescued from beggary was the vision of a
+disordered brain.</p>
+
+<p>Baldassarre was given a chance to prove that he was not the servant, but
+the great scholar to whom Tito was indebted for his learning.</p>
+
+<p>"The ring I possess," said Rucellai, "is a fine sard that I myself
+purchased from Messer Tito. It is engraved with a subject from Homer. Will
+you turn to the passage in Homer from which that subject was taken?"</p>
+
+<p>But sitting to look over the book, Baldassarre realised that the
+sufferings through which he had passed had unhinged his mind and his
+memory; the words he stared at had no meaning for him, and he lifted his
+hands to his head in despair.</p>
+
+<p>The consequence of this fresh failure was that Baldassarre was cast into
+prison, and Tito was at liberty to pursue his political ambitions unhaunted
+by that dogging shadow that was to him as the shadow of death. He managed
+his affairs so cleverly that whichever party came uppermost he was secure
+of favour and money.</p>
+
+<p>But by-and-by the tide began to turn against him. Baldassarre was at
+large again, and met Romola and told her not only of his own wrongs, but of
+Tessa. She saw Tessa and her two children, and befriended them, and was so
+far from blaming that innocent little creature that she did not even
+disclose the truth to her; but she was importunate with Tito that he should
+make atonement to the man who had been a father to him. Then came a day
+when Tito's treacheries were discovered by the party he was supposed to
+serve, and he had to flee for his life through Florence. Scattering jewels
+and gold to delay his pursuers, he leaped from the bridge into the river,
+and swam in the darkness, leaving the bellowing mob to think he was
+drowned.</p>
+
+<p>But far down the stream there were certain eyes that saw him from the
+banks of the river, and when he landed and fell, faint and helpless,
+Baldassarre's hands closed on his throat; and next evening a passer-by
+found the two dead bodies there.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+
+
+
+<h3><a name="eliot4">Silas Marner</a></h3>
+
+<p class="letter">
+"Silas Marner, the Weaver of Raveloe," begun about November,
+1860, and published early in 1861, is in many respects the most admirable
+of all George Eliot's works. It is not a long story, but it is a most
+carefully finished novel--"a perfect gem, a pure work of art," Mr. Oscar
+Browning describes it. Mr. Blackwood, the publisher, found it rather
+sombre, and George Eliot replied to him, "I hope you will not find it at
+all a sad story as a whole, since it sets--or is intended to set--in a
+strong light the remedial influences of pure, natural, human relations. I
+have felt all through as if the story would have lent itself best to
+metrical rather than to prose fiction, especially in all that relates to
+the psychology of Silas; except that, under that treatment, there could not
+be an equal play of humour." No novel of George Eliot's has received more
+praise from men of letters than "Silas Marner."
+</p>
+
+<h4><i>I.--Why Silas Came to Raveloe</i></h4>
+
+
+<p>In the early years of the nineteenth century a linen-weaver named Silas
+Marner worked at his vocation in a stone cottage that stood among the nutty
+hedgerows near the village of Raveloe, and not far from the edge of a
+deserted stone-pit.</p>
+
+<p>It was fifteen years since Silas Marner had first come to Raveloe; he
+was then simply a pallid young man with prominent, short-sighted brown
+eyes. To the villagers among whom he had come to settle he seemed to have
+mysterious peculiarities, chiefly owing to his advent from an unknown
+region called "North'ard." He invited no comer to step across his
+door-sill, and he never strolled into the village to drink a pint at the
+Rainbow, or to gossip at the wheel-wrights'; he sought no man or woman,
+save for the purposes of his calling, or in order to supply himself with
+necessaries.</p>
+
+<p>At the end of fifteen years the Raveloe men said just the same things
+about Silas Marner as at the beginning. There was only one important
+addition which the years had brought; it was that Master Marner had laid by
+a fine sight of money somewhere, and that he could buy up "bigger men than
+himself."</p>
+
+<p>But while his daily habits presented scarcely any visible change,
+Marner's inward life had been a history and a metamorphosis as that of
+every fervid nature must be when it has been condemned to solitude. His
+life, before he came to Raveloe, had been filled with the close fellowship
+of a narrow religious sect, where the poorest layman had the chance of
+distinguishing himself by gifts of speech; and Marner was highly thought of
+in that little hidden world, known to itself as the church assembling in
+Lantern Yard. He was believed to be a young man of exemplary life and
+ardent faith, and a peculiar interest had been centred in him ever since he
+had fallen at a prayer-meeting into a trance or cataleptic fit, which
+lasted for an hour.</p>
+
+<p>Among the members of his church there was one young man, named William
+Dane, with whom he lived in close friendship; and it seemed to the
+unsuspecting Silas that the friendship suffered no chill, even after he had
+formed a closer attachment, and had become engaged to a young
+servant-woman.</p>
+
+<p>At this time the senior deacon was taken dangerously ill, and Silas and
+William, with others of the brethren, took turns at night-watching. On the
+night the old man died, Silas fell into one of his trances, and when he
+awoke at four o'clock in the morning death had come, and, further, a little
+bag of money had been stolen from the deacon's bureau, and Silas's
+pocket-knife was found inside the bureau. For some time Silas was mute with
+astonishment, then he said, "God will clear me; I know nothing about the
+knife being there, or the money being gone. Search me and my dwelling."</p>
+
+<p>The search was made, and it ended in William Dane finding the deacon's
+bag, empty, tucked behind the chest of drawers in Silas's chamber.</p>
+
+<p>According to the principles of the church in Lantern Yard prosecution
+was forbidden to Christians. But the members were bound to take other
+measures for finding out the truth, and they resolved on praying and
+drawing lots; there was nothing unusual about such proceedings a hundred
+years ago. Silas knelt with his brethren, relying on his own innocence
+being certified by immediate Divine interference. <i>The lots declared that
+Silas Marner was guilty</i>. He was solemnly suspended from
+church-membership, and called upon to render up the stolen money; only on
+confession and repentance could he be received once more within the fold of
+the church. Marner listened in silence. At last, when everyone rose to
+depart, he went towards William Dane and said, in a voice shaken by
+agitation, "The last time I remember using my knife was when I took it out
+to cut a strap for you. I don't remember putting it in my pocket again.
+<i>You</i> stole the money, and you have woven a plot to lay the sin at my
+door. But you may prosper for all that; there is no just God, but a God of
+lies, that bears witness against the innocent!"</p>
+
+<p>There was a general shudder at this blasphemy. Poor Marner went out with
+that despair in his soul--that shaken trust in God and man which is little
+short of madness to a loving nature. In the bitterness of his wounded
+spirit, he said to himself, "<i>She</i> will cast me off, too!" and for a
+whole day he sat alone, stunned by despair.</p>
+
+<p>The second day he took refuge from benumbing unbelief by getting into
+his loom and working away as usual, and, before many hours were past, the
+minister and one of the deacons came to him with a message from Sarah, the
+young woman to whom he had been engaged, that she held her engagement at an
+end. In little more than a month from that time Sarah was married to
+William Dane, and not long afterwards it was known to the brethren in
+Lantern Yard that Silas Marner had departed from the town.</p>
+
+
+<h4><i>II.--The Second Blow</i></h4>
+
+
+<p>When Silas Marner first came to Raveloe he seemed to weave like a
+spider, from pure impulse, without reflection. Then there were the calls of
+hunger, and Silas, in his solitude, had to provide his own breakfast,
+dinner, and supper, to fetch his own water from the well, and put his own
+kettle on the fire; and all these immediate promptings helped to reduce his
+life to the unquestioning activity of a spinning insect. He hated the
+thought of the past; there was nothing that called out his love and
+fellowship towards the strangers he had come amongst; and the future was
+all dark, for there was no Unseen Love that cared for him.</p>
+
+<p>It was then, when all purpose of life was gone, that Silas got into the
+habit of looking towards the money he received for his weaving, and
+grasping it with a sense of fulfilled effort. Gradually, the guineas, the
+crowns, and the half-crowns, grew to a heap, and Marner drew less and less
+for his own wants, trying to solve the problem of keeping himself strong
+enough to work sixteen hours a day on as small an outlay as possible. He
+handled his coins, he counted them, till their form and colour were like
+the satisfaction of a thirst to him; but it was only in the night, when his
+work was done, that he drew them out, to enjoy their companionship. He had
+taken up some bricks in his floor underneath his loom, and here he had made
+a hole in which he set the iron pot that contained his guineas and silver
+coins, covering the bricks with sand whenever he replaced them.</p>
+
+<p>So, year after year, Silas Marner lived in this solitude, his guineas
+rising in the iron pot, and his life narrowing and hardening itself more
+and more as it became reduced to the functions of weaving and hoarding.</p>
+
+<p>This is the history of Silas Marner until the fifteenth year after he
+came to Raveloe. Then, about the Christmas of that year, a second great
+change came over his life.</p>
+
+<p>It was a raw, foggy night, with rain, and Silas was returning from the
+village, plodding along, with a sack thrown round his shoulders, and with a
+horn lantern in his hand. His legs were weary, but his mind was at ease
+with the sense of security that springs from habit. Supper was his
+favourite meal, because it was his time of revelry, when his heart warmed
+over his gold.</p>
+
+<p>He reached his door in much satisfaction that his errand was done; he
+opened it, and to his short-sighted eyes everything remained as he had left
+it, except that the fire sent out a welcome increase of heat.</p>
+
+<p>As soon as he was warm he began to think it would be a long while to
+wait till after supper before he drew out his guineas, and it would be
+pleasant to see them on the table before him as he ate his food.</p>
+
+<p>He rose and placed his candle unsuspectingly on the floor near his loom,
+swept away the sand, without noticing any change, and removed the bricks.
+The sight of the empty hole made his heart leap violently, but the belief
+that his gold was gone could not come at once--only terror, and the eager
+effort to put an end to the terror. He passed his trembling hand all about
+the hole, then he held the candle and examined it curiously, trembling more
+and more. He searched in every corner, he turned his bed over, and shook
+it, and kneaded it; he looked in his brick oven; and when there was no
+other place to be searched, he felt once more all round the hole.</p>
+
+<p>He could see every object in his cottage, and his gold was not there. He
+put his trembling hands to his head, and gave a wild, ringing scream--the
+cry of desolation. Then the idea of a thief began to present itself, and he
+entertained it eagerly, because a thief might be caught and made to restore
+the gold. The robber must be laid hold of. Marner's ideas of legal
+authority were confused, but he felt that he must go and proclaim his loss;
+and the great people in the village--the clergyman, the constable, and
+Squire Cass--would make the thief deliver up the stolen money.</p>
+
+<p>It was to the village inn Silas Marner went, where the parish clerk and
+a select company were assembled, and told the story of his loss--&pound;272
+12s. 6d. in all. The machinery of the law was set in motion, but no thief
+was ever captured, nor could grounds be found for suspicion against any
+persons.</p>
+
+<p>What had really happened was that Dunsey Cass, Squire Cass's second
+son--a mean, boastful rascal--on his way home on foot from hunting, saw the
+light in the weaver's cottage, and knocked, hoping to borrow a lantern, for
+the lane was unpleasantly slippery, and the night dark. But all was silence
+in the cottage, for the weaver at that moment had not yet reached home. For
+a minute Dunsey thought that old Marner might be dead, fallen over into the
+stone pits. And from that came the decision that he must be dead. If so,
+the question arose, what would become of the money that everybody said the
+old miser had put by?</p>
+
+<p>Dunstan Cass was in difficulties for want of money, and he had killed
+his brother's horse that day on the hunting-field. Who would know, if
+Marner was dead, that anybody had come to take his hoard of money away?</p>
+
+<p>There were only three hiding-places where he had heard of cottagers'
+hoards being found: the thatch, the bed, and a hole in the floor. His eyes
+travelling eagerly over the floor, noted a spot where the sand had been
+more carefully spread.</p>
+
+<p>Dunstan found the hole and the money, now hidden in two leathern bags.
+From their weight he judged they must be filled with guineas. Quickly he
+hastened out into the darkness with the bags, and Dunstan Cass was seen no
+more alive.</p>
+
+<p>At the very moment when he turned his back on the cottage Silas Marner
+was not more than a hundred yards away.</p>
+
+
+<h4><i>III.--Silas Marner's Visitor</i></h4>
+
+
+<p>It was New Year's Eve, and Squire Cass was giving a dance to the
+neighbouring gentry of Raveloe. There had been snow in the afternoon, but
+at seven o'clock it had ceased, and a freezing wind had sprung up.</p>
+
+<p>A woman, shabbily dressed, with a child in her arms, was making her way
+towards Raveloe, seeking the Red House, where Squire Cass lived. It was not
+the squire she wanted, but his eldest son, Godfrey, to whom she was
+secretly married. The marriage--the result of rash impulse--had been an
+unhappy one from the first, for Godfrey's wife was the slave of opium. The
+squire had long desired that his son should marry Miss Nancy Lammeter, and
+would have turned him out of house and home had he known of the unfortunate
+marriage already contracted. Cold and weariness drove the woman, even while
+she walked, to the only comfort she knew. She raised the black remnant to
+her lips, and then flung the empty phial away. Now she walked, always more
+and more drowsily, and clutched more and more automatically the sleeping
+child at her bosom. Soon she felt nothing but a supreme longing to lie down
+and sleep; and so sank down against a straggling furze-bush, an easy pillow
+enough; and the bed of snow, too, was soft. The cold was no longer felt,
+but her arms did not at once relax their instinctive clutch, and the little
+one slumbered on.</p>
+
+<p>The complete torpor came at last; the fingers lost their tension, the
+arms unbent; then the little head fell away from the bosom, and the blue
+eyes of the child opened wide on the cold starlight. At first there was a
+little peevish cry of "Mammy," as the child rolled downward; and then,
+suddenly, its eyes were caught by a bright gleaming light on the white
+ground, and with the ready transition of infancy it decided the light must
+be caught.</p>
+
+<p>In an instant the child had slipped on all fours, and, after making out
+that the cunning gleam came from a very bright place, the little one,
+rising on its legs, toddled through the snow--toddled on to the open door
+of Silas Marner's cottage, and right up to the warm hearth, where was a
+bright fire.</p>
+
+<p>The little one, accustomed to be left to itself for long hours without
+notice, squatted down on the old sack spread out before the fire, in
+perfect contentment. Presently the little golden head sank down, and the
+blue eyes were veiled by their delicate half-transparent lids.</p>
+
+<p>But where was Silas Marner while this strange visitor had come to his
+hearth? He was in the cottage, but he did not see the child. Since he had
+lost his money he had contracted the habit of opening his door, and looking
+out from time to time, as if he thought that his money might, somehow, be
+coming back to him.</p>
+
+<p>That morning he had been told by some of his neighbours that it was New
+Year's Eve, and that he must sit up and hear the old year rung out, and the
+new rung in, because that was good luck, and might bring his money back
+again. Perhaps this friendly Raveloe way of jesting had helped to throw
+Silas into a more than usually excited state. Certainly he opened his door
+again and again that night, and the last time, just as he put out his hand
+to close it, the invisible wand of catalepsy arrested him, and there he
+stood like a graven image, powerless to resist either the good or evil that
+might enter.</p>
+
+<p>When Marner's sensibility returned he was unaware of the break in his
+consciousness, and only noticed that he was chilled and faint.</p>
+
+<p>Turning towards the hearth it seemed to his blurred vision as if there
+was a heap of gold on the floor; but instead of hard coin his fingers
+encountered soft, warm curls. In utter amazement, Silas fell on his knees
+to examine the marvel: it was a sleeping child, a round, fair thing, with
+soft, yellow rings all over its head. Could this be the little sister come
+back to him in a dream--his little sister whom he had carried about in his
+arms for a year before she died? That was the first thought. <i>Was</i> it
+a dream? It was very much like his little sister. How and when had the
+child come in without his knowledge?</p>
+
+<p>But there was a cry on the hearth; the child had awakened, and Marner
+stooped to lift it on to his knee. He had plenty to do through the next
+hour. The porridge, sweetened with some dry brown sugar, stopped the cries
+of the little one for "mammy." Then it occurred to Silas's dull bachelor
+mind that the child wanted its wet boots off, and this having been done,
+the wet boots suggested that the child had been walking on the snow.</p>
+
+<p>He made out the marks of the little feet in the snow, and, holding the
+child in his arms, followed their track to the furze-bush. Then he became
+aware that there was something more than the bush before him--that there
+was a human body, half covered with the shifting snow.</p>
+
+<p>With the child in his arms, Silas at once went for the doctor, who was
+spending the evening at the Red House. And Godfrey Cass recognised that it
+was his own child he saw in Marner's arms.</p>
+
+<p>The woman was dead--had been dead for some hours, the doctor said; and
+Godfrey, who had accompanied him to Marner's cottage, understood that he
+was free to marry Nancy Lammeter.</p>
+
+<p>"You'll take the child to the parish to-morrow?" Godfrey asked, speaking
+as indifferently as he could.</p>
+
+<p>"Who says so?" said Marner sharply. "Will they make me take her? I shall
+keep her till anybody shows they've a right to take her away from me. The
+mother's dead, and I reckon it's got no father. It's a lone thing, and I'm
+a lone thing. My money's gone--I don't know where, and this is come from I
+don't know where."</p>
+
+<p>Godfrey returned to the Red House with a sense of relief and gladness,
+and Silas kept the child. There had been a softening of feeling to him in
+the village since the day of his robbery, and now an active sympathy was
+aroused amongst the women. The child was christened Hephzibah, after
+Marner's mother, and was called Eppie for short.</p>
+
+
+<h4><i>IV--Eppie's Decision</i></h4>
+
+
+<p>Eppie had come to link Silas Marner once more with the whole world. The
+disposition to hoard had utterly gone, and there was no longer any
+repulsion around to him.</p>
+
+<p>As the child grew up, one person watched with keener, though more
+hidden, interest than any other the prosperous growth of Eppie under the
+weaver's care. The squire was dead, and Godfrey Cass was married to Nancy
+Lammeter. He had no child of his own save the one that knew him not. No
+Dunsey had ever turned up, and people had ceased to think of him.</p>
+
+<p>Sixteen years had passed, and now Aaron Winthrop, a well-behaved young
+gardener, is wanting to marry Eppie, and Eppie is willing to have him "some
+time."</p>
+
+<p>"'Everybody's married some time,' Aaron says," said Eppie. "But I told
+him that wasn't true, for I said look at father--he's never been
+married."</p>
+
+<p>"No, child," said Silas, "your father was a lone man till you was sent
+to him."</p>
+
+<p>"But you'll never be lone again, father," said Eppie tenderly. "That was
+what Aaron said--'I could never think o' taking you away from Master
+Marner, Eppie.' And I said, 'It 'ud be no use if you did, Aaron.' And he
+wants us all to live together, so as you needn't work a bit, father, only
+what's for your own pleasure, and he'd be as good as a son to you--that was
+what he said."</p>
+
+<p>The proposal to separate Eppie from her foster-father came from Godfrey
+Cass.</p>
+
+<p>When the old stone-pit by Marner's cottage went dry, owing to drainage
+operations, the skeleton of Dunstan Cass was found, wedged between two
+great stones. The watch and seals were recognised, and all the weaver's
+money was at the bottom of the pit. The shock of this discovery moved
+Godfrey to tell Nancy the secret of his earlier marriage.</p>
+
+<p>"Everything comes to light, Nancy, sooner or later," he said. "That
+woman Marner found dead in the snow--Eppie's mother--was my wife. Eppie is
+my child. I oughtn't to have left the child unowned. I oughtn't to have
+kept it from you."</p>
+
+<p>"It's but little wrong to me, Godfrey," Nancy answered sadly. "You've
+made it up to me--you've been good to me for fifteen years. It'll be a
+different coming to us, now she's grown up."</p>
+
+<p>They were childless, and it hadn't occurred to them as they approached
+Silas Marner's cottage that Godfrey's offer might be declined. At first
+Godfrey explained that he and his wife wanted to adopt Eppie in place of a
+daughter.</p>
+
+<p>"Eppie, my child, speak," said old Marner faintly. "I won't stand in
+your way. Thank Mr. and Mrs. Cass."</p>
+
+<p>"Thank you, ma'am--thank you, sir," said Eppie dropping a curtsy; "but I
+can't leave my father, nor own anybody nearer than him."</p>
+
+<p>Godfrey Cass was irritated at this obstacle.</p>
+
+<p>"But I've a claim on you, Eppie," he returned. "It's my duty, Marner, to
+own Eppie as my child, and provide for her. She's my own child. Her mother
+was my wife. I've a natural claim on her."</p>
+
+<p>"Then, sir, why didn't you say so sixteen years ago, and claim her
+before I'd come to love her, i'stead o' coming to take her from me now,
+when you might as well take the heart out o' my body? When a man turns a
+blessing from his door, it falls to them as take it in. But let it be as
+you will. Speak to the child. I'll hinder nothing."</p>
+
+<p>"Eppie, my dear," said Godfrey, looking at his daughter not without some
+embarrassment, "it'll always be our wish that you should show your love and
+gratitude to one who's been a father to you so many years; but we hope
+you'll come to love us as well, and though I haven't been what a father
+should ha' been to you all these years, I wish to do the utmost in my power
+for you now, and provide for you as my only child. And you'll have the best
+of mothers in my wife."</p>
+
+<p>Eppie did not come forward and curtsy as she had done before, but she
+held Silas's hand in hers and grasped it firmly.</p>
+
+<p>"Thank you, ma'am--thank you, sir, for your offers--they're very great
+and far above my wish. For I should have no delight in life any more if I
+was forced to go away from my father."</p>
+
+<p>In vain Nancy expostulated mildly.</p>
+
+<p>"I can't feel as I've got any father but one," said Eppie. "I've always
+thought of a little home where he'd sit i' the corner, and I should fend
+and do everything for him. I can't think o' no other home. I wasn't brought
+up to be a lady, and," she ended passionately, "I'm promised to marry a
+working man, as'll live with father and help me to take care of him."</p>
+
+<p>Godfrey Cass and his wife went out.</p>
+
+<p>A year later Eppie was married, and Mrs. Godfrey Cass provided the
+wedding dress, and Mr. Cass made some necessary alterations to suit Silas's
+larger family.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, father," said Eppie, when the bridal party returned from the
+church, "what a pretty home ours is! I think nobody could be happier than
+we are!"</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+
+
+
+<h3><a name="eliot5">The Mill on the Floss</a></h3>
+
+<p class="letter">
+In "The Mill on the Floss," published in 1860, George Eliot
+went to her own early life for the chief characters in the story, and in
+the relations of Tom and Maggie Tulliver we get a picture of the youth of
+Mary Ann Evans and her brother Isaac. Lord Lytton objected that Maggie was
+too passive in the scene at Red Deeps, and that the tragedy of the flood
+was not adequately prepared. To this criticism George Eliot answered, "Now
+that the defect is suggested to me, if the book were still in manuscript I
+should alter, or rather expand, that scene at Red Deeps." She also admitted
+that there was "a want of proportionate fulness" in the conclusion. But,
+with all its faults, "The Mill on the Floss" deserves the reputation it has
+won. The reception of the story at first was disappointing, and we find the
+authoress telling her publisher that "she does not want to see any
+newspaper articles." But the book made its way, and prepared an
+ever-growing public for "Silas Marner."
+</p>
+
+<h4><i>I.--The Tullivers of Dorlcote Mill</i></h4>
+
+
+<p>"What I want, you know," said Mr. Tulliver, "what I want is to give Tom
+a good eddication--an eddication as'll be a bread to him. I mean to put him
+to a downright good school at midsummer. The two years at th' academy 'ud
+ha' done well enough if I'd meant to make a miller and farmer of him, but I
+should like Tom to be a bit of a scholard. It 'ud be a help to me wi' these
+lawsuits, and arbitrations, and things. I wouldn't make a downright lawyer
+o' the lad--I should be sorry for him to be a raskill--but a sort of
+engineer, or a surveyor, or an auctioneer and vallyer, like Riley, or one
+o' them smartish businesses as are all profits and no outlay, only for a
+big watch-chain and a high stool. They're pretty nigh all one, and they're
+not far off being even wi' the law, I believe; for Riley looks Lawyer Wakem
+i' the face as hard as one cat looks another. <i>He's</i> none frightened
+at him."</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Tulliver was speaking to his wife, a blonde, comely woman, nearly
+forty years old.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, Mr. Tulliver, you know best. <i>I've</i> no objections. But if
+Tom's to go to a new school, I should like him to go where I can wash him
+and mend him, else he might as well have calico as linen. And then, when
+the box is goin' backwards and forwards, I could send the lad a cake, or a
+pork-pie, or an apple."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, well, we won't send him out o' reach o' the carrier's cart, if
+other things fit in," said Mr. Tulliver. "Riley's as likely a man as any to
+know o' some school; he's had schooling himself, an' goes about to all
+sorts o' places--arbitratin' and vallyin', and that."</p>
+
+<p>So a day or two later Mr. Riley, the auctioneer, came to Dorlcote Mill,
+and stayed the night, the better that Mr. Tulliver, who was slow at coming
+to a point, might consult him on the all-important subject of his boy.</p>
+
+<p>"You see, I want to put him to a new school at midsummer," said Mr.
+Tulliver, when the topic had been reached. "I want to send him to a
+downright good school, where they'll make a scholard of him. I don't mean
+Tom to be a miller an' farmer. I see no fun i' that. I shall give Tom an
+eddication and put him to a business as he may make a nest for himself, an'
+not want to push me out o' mine."</p>
+
+<p>At the sound of her brother's name, Maggie, the second and only other
+child of the Tullivers, who was seated on a low stool close by the fire,
+with a large book open on her lap, looked up eagerly. Tom, it appeared, was
+supposed capable of turning his father out of doors. This was not to be
+borne, and Maggie jumped up from her stool, and going up between her
+father's knees, said, in a half-crying, half-indignant voice, "Father, Tom
+wouldn't be naughty to you ever; I know he wouldn't."</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Tulliver's heart was touched.</p>
+
+<p>"What! They mustn't say any harm o' Tom, eh?" he said, looking at Maggie
+with a twinkling eye. Then, in a lower voice, turning to Mr. Riley, "She
+understands what one's talking about so as never was. And you should hear
+her read--straight off, as if she knowed it all beforehand. But it's
+bad--it's bad. A woman's no business wi' being so clever; it'll turn to
+trouble, I doubt. It's a pity, but what she'd been the lad--she'd ha' been
+a match for the lawyers, she would."</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Riley took a pinch of snuff before he said, "But your lad's not
+stupid, is he? I saw him, when I was here last, busy making fishing-tackle;
+he seemed quite up to it."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, he isn't not to say stupid; he's got a notion o' things out o'
+door, an' a sort o' commonsense, as he'd lay hold o' things by the right
+handle. But he's slow with his tongue, you see, and reads but poorly, and
+can't abide the books, and spells all wrong, they tell me, an' as shy as
+can be wi' strangers. Now, what I want is to send him to a school where
+they'll make him a bit nimble with his tongue and his pen, to make a smart
+chap of him. I want my son to be even wi' these fellows as have got the
+start o' me with schooling."</p>
+
+<p>The talk ended in Mr. Riley recommending a country parson named Stelling
+as a suitable tutor for Tom, and Mr. Tulliver decided that his son should
+go to Mr. Stelling at King's Lorton, fifteen miles from Dorlcote Mill.</p>
+
+
+<h4><i>II.--School-Time</i></h4>
+
+
+<p>Tom Tulliver's sufferings during the first quarter he was at King's
+Lorton, under the distinguished care of the Rev. Walter Stelling, were
+rather severe. It had been very difficult for him to reconcile himself to
+the idea that his school-time was to be prolonged, and that he was not to
+be brought up to his father's business, which he had always thought
+extremely pleasant, for it was nothing but riding about, giving orders, and
+going to market.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Stelling was not a harsh-tempered or unkind man--quite the contrary,
+but he thought Tom a stupid boy, and determined to develop his powers
+through Latin grammar and Euclid to the best of his ability.</p>
+
+<p>As for Tom, he had no distinct idea how there came to be such a thing as
+Latin on this earth. It would have taken a long while to make it
+conceivable to him that there ever existed a people who bought and sold
+sheep and oxen, and transacted the everyday affairs of life through the
+medium of this language, or why he should be called upon to learn it, when
+its connection with those affairs had become entirely latent. He was of a
+very firm, not to say obstinate disposition, but there was no brute-like
+rebellion or recklessness in his nature; the human sensibilities
+predominated, and he was anxious to acquire Mr. Stelling's approbation by
+showing some quickness at his lessons, if he had known how to accomplish
+it.</p>
+
+<p>In his secret heart Tom yearned to have Maggie with him, and, before the
+first dreary half-year was ended, Maggie actually came. Mrs. Stelling had
+given a general invitation for the little girl to come and stay with her
+brother; so when Mr. Tulliver drove over to King's Lorton late in October,
+Maggie came too, with the sense that she was taking a great journey, and
+beginning to see the world.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, my lad," Mr. Tulliver said, "you look rarely! School agrees with
+you!"</p>
+
+<p>"I don't think I <i>am</i> well, father," said Tom; "I wish you'd ask
+Mr. Stelling not to let me do Euclid--it brings on the toothache, I
+think."</p>
+
+<p>"Euclid, my lad--why, what's that?" said Mr. Tulliver.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, I don't know! It's definitions and axioms and triangles and things.
+It's a book I've got to learn in--there's no sense in it."</p>
+
+<p>"Go, go!" said Mr. Tulliver reprovingly. "You mustn't say so. You must
+learn what your master tells you. He knows what it's right for you to
+learn."</p>
+
+<p>In the second term Mr. Stelling had a second pupil--Philip, the son of
+Lawyer Wakem, Mr. Tulliver's standing enemy.</p>
+
+<p>Philip was a very old-looking boy, Tom thought. His spine had been
+deformed through an accident in infancy, and to Tom he was simply a
+humpback. He had a vague notion that the deformity of Wakem's son had some
+relation to the lawyer's rascality, of which he had so often heard his
+father talk with hot emphasis.</p>
+
+<p>There was a natural antipathy of temperament between the two boys; for
+Tom was an excellent bovine lad, and Philip was sensitive, and suffered
+acute pain when the other blurted out offensive things.</p>
+
+<p>Maggie, on her second visit to King's Lorton, pronounced Philip to be "a
+nice boy."</p>
+
+<p>"He couldn't choose his father, you know," she said to Tom. "And I've
+read of very bad men who had good sons, as well as good parents who had bad
+children."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, he's a queer fellow," said Tom curtly, "and he's as sulky as can be
+with me because I told him his father was a rogue. And I'd a right to tell
+him so, for it was true--and he began it with calling me names."</p>
+
+<p>An accident to Tom's foot brought the two boys nearer again, and also
+threw Philip and Maggie together.</p>
+
+<p>"Maggie," said Philip one day, "if you had had a brother like me, do you
+think you should have loved him as well as Tom?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, yes, better," she answered immediately. "No, not better; because I
+don't think I could love you better than Tom. But I should be so sorry--so
+sorry for you."</p>
+
+<p>Philip coloured. He had meant to imply, would she love him as well in
+spite of his deformity, and yet when she alluded to it so plainly he winced
+under her pity. Maggie, young as she was, felt her mistake.</p>
+
+<p>"But you are so very clever, Philip, and you can play and sing," she
+added quickly. "I wish you were my brother. I'm very fond of you."</p>
+
+<p>"But you'll go away soon, and go to school, Maggie, and then you'll
+forget all about me, and not care for me any more."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, no, I shan't forget you, I'm sure." And Maggie put her arm round
+his neck, and kissed him quite earnestly.</p>
+
+
+<h4><i>III.--The Downfall</i></h4>
+
+
+<p>When Tom had turned sixteen, and Maggie, three years younger, was at
+boarding school, came the downfall of the Tullivers. A long and expensive
+law-suit concerning rights of water, brought by Mr. Tulliver, ended in
+defeat. Wakem was his opponent's lawyer.</p>
+
+<p>Maggie broke the news to Tom. Not only would mill and lands and
+everything be lost, and nothing left, but their father had fallen off his
+horse, and knew nobody, and seemed to have lost his senses.</p>
+
+<p>"They say Mr. Wakem has got a mortgage or something on the land, Tom,"
+said Maggie, on their way home from King's Lorton. "It was the letter with
+that news in it that made father ill, they think."</p>
+
+<p>"I believe that scoundrel's been planning all along to ruin my father,"
+said Tom, leaping from the vaguest impressions to a definite conclusion.
+"I'll make him feel for it when I'm a man. Mind you never speak to Philip
+again!"</p>
+
+<p>For more than two months Mr. Tulliver lay ill in his room, oblivious to
+all that was taking place around him. From time to time recognition came to
+him of his wife and family, but there was no remembrance of recent
+events.</p>
+
+<p>The mill and land of the Tullivers were sold to Wakem the lawyer, and
+the bulk of their household goods were disposed of by public auction; but
+the Tullivers were not turned out of Dorlcote Mill. And, indeed, when Mr.
+Tulliver, known to be a man of proud honesty, was once more able to be up
+and about, it was proposed that he should remain and accept employment as
+manager of the mill for Mr. Wakem.</p>
+
+<p>It was with difficulty that poor Tulliver could bring himself to accept
+the situation, but he saw the possibility, by much pinching, of saving
+money out of the thirty shillings a week salary promised by Wakem, and
+paying a second dividend to his creditors. The strongest influence of all
+was the love of the old premises where he had run about when he was a boy,
+just as Tom had done after him.</p>
+
+<p>Tom, who had at once applied to his Uncle Deane, partner in a wealthy
+merchant's business, for work, and was now earning a pound a week, had
+protested against entertaining the proposition; he shouldn't like his
+father to be under Wakem; he thought it would look nothing but mean
+spirited.</p>
+
+<p>But Mr. Tulliver had come to a decision. The first evening of his new
+life downstairs, he called his family round him, and began to speak,
+looking first at his wife.</p>
+
+<p>"I've made up my mind, Bessy. I'll stop in the old place, and I'll serve
+under Wakem, and I'll serve him like an honest man; there's no Tulliver but
+what's honest, mind that, Tom. They'll have it to throw up against me as I
+paid a dividend--but it wasn't my fault--it was because there's raskills in
+the world. They've been too many for me, and I must give in. But I'll serve
+him as honest as if he was no raskill. I'm an honest man, though I shall
+never hold my head up no more! I'm a tree as is broke--a tree as is
+broke."</p>
+
+<p>He paused, and looked on the ground. Then suddenly raising his head, he
+said, in a louder yet deeper tone, "But I won't forgive him! I know what
+they say--he never meant me any harm! I shouldn't ha' gone to law they say.
+But who made it so as there was no arbitrating and no justice to be got? It
+signifies nothing to him--I know that he's one o' them fine gentlemen as
+get money by doing business for poorer folks, and when he's made beggars of
+'em he'll give 'em charity. I won't forgive him! I wish he might be
+punished with shame till his own son 'ud like to forget him. And you mind
+this, Tom--you never forgive him, neither, if you mean to be my son. Now
+write--write it i' the Bible!"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, father, what?" said Maggie. "It's wicked to curse and bear
+malice."</p>
+
+<p>"It isn't wicked, I tell you," said her father, fiercely. "It's wicked
+as the raskills should prosper--it's the devil's doing. Do as I tell you,
+Tom! Write."</p>
+
+<p>The big Bible was open at the beginning, where many family entries were
+put down.</p>
+
+<p>"What am I to write, father?" said Tom, with gloomy submission.</p>
+
+<p>"Write as your father, Edward Tulliver, took service under John Wakem,
+the man as had helped to ruin him, because I'd promised my wife to make her
+what amends I could, and because I wanted to die in th' old place where I
+was born, and my father was born. Put that i' the right words--you know
+how--and then write as I don't forgive Wakem for all that; and for all I'll
+serve him honest, I wish evil may befall him. Write that."</p>
+
+<p>There was a dead silence as Tom's pen moved along the paper.</p>
+
+<p>"Now let me hear what you've wrote," said Mr. Tulliver; and Tom read
+aloud, slowly.</p>
+
+<p>"Now, write--write as you'll remember what Wakem's done to your father,
+and you'll make him and his feel it, if ever the day comes. And sign your
+name--Thomas Tulliver!"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, no, father, dear father!" said Maggie, trembling like a leaf. "You
+shouldn't make Tom write that!"</p>
+
+<p>"Be quiet, Maggie!" said Tom, impatiently, "I shall write it!"</p>
+
+
+<h4><i>IV.--In Death They Were Not Divided</i></h4>
+
+
+<p>The Red Deeps was always a favourite place to Maggie to walk in. An old
+stone quarry, so long exhausted that both mounds and hollows were now
+clothed with brambles and trees, and with here and there a stretch of grass
+which a few sheep kept close nibbled. This was the Red Deeps, and it was
+here in June that Maggie once more met Philip Wakem, five years after their
+first meeting at Mr. Stelling's. He told her that she was much more
+beautiful than he had thought she would be, and assured her, in answer to
+the difficulties she raised as to their meeting, that there was no enmity
+in his father's mind.</p>
+
+<p>And Maggie went home with an inward conflict already begun, and Philip
+went home to do nothing but remember and hope.</p>
+
+<p>In the following April they met again, after Philip had been abroad.</p>
+
+<p>And now he took her hand, and asked her the simple question, "<i>Do</i>
+you love me?"</p>
+
+<p>"I think I could hardly love anyone better; there is nothing but what I
+love you for," Maggie answered. But she pointed out how impossible even
+their friendship was, if it were discovered.</p>
+
+<p>Philip, on his side, refused to give up hope, and before they parted
+that day she had kissed him.</p>
+
+<p>Tom intervened before the next visit to the Red Deeps. He had heard that
+Philip Wakem had been seen there with his sister, and Maggie admitted, on
+his questioning her, that she had told Philip that she loved him.</p>
+
+<p>"Now, then, Maggie," Tom said coldly, "there are but two courses for you
+to take. Either you vow solemnly to me, with your hand on father's Bible,
+that you will never have another meeting or speak another word in private
+to Philip Wakem, or you refuse and I tell my father everything!"</p>
+
+<p>In vain Maggie pleaded. Tom was obdurate, and she repeated the words of
+renunciation.</p>
+
+<p>But that was not enough for Tom Tulliver; he accompanied Maggie to Red
+Deeps, and in a voice of harsh scorn told Philip that he had been taking a
+mean, unmanly advantage.</p>
+
+<p>"It was for my father's sake, Philip," said Maggie, imploringly. "Tom
+threatens to tell my father--and he couldn't bear it. I have promised, I
+have vowed solemnly, that we will not have any intercourse without my
+brother's knowledge."</p>
+
+<p>"It is enough, Maggie. <i>I</i> shall not change, but I wish you to hold
+yourself entirely free. But trust me--remember that I can never seek for
+anything but good to what belongs to you."</p>
+
+<p>Tom only replied with angry contempt, and led Maggie away. All his
+sister's remonstrances he answered with cold obstinacy.</p>
+
+<p>For his character in its strength was hard. Tom had laboured to one end
+in these years: to pay off his father's creditors, and regain Dorlcote
+Mill. By his industry, and by some successful private ventures in trade,
+the day came when the first of the objects was realised, and Mr. Tulliver
+lived to see himself free of debt.</p>
+
+<p>But Mr. Tulliver's satisfaction was short-lived. Excited by the dinner
+given to celebrate the payment of his creditors, he met Mr. Wakem near the
+mill. From angry words it came to blows, and Tulliver fell on the lawyer
+furiously, only ceasing from attack when Maggie and Mrs. Tulliver appeared.
+Wakem went off without serious injury, but Tulliver only lived through the
+night; the excitement had killed him.</p>
+
+<p>"You must take care of her, Tom," said the dying man, turning to his
+daughter. "You'll manage to pay for a brick grave, Tom, so as your mother
+and me can lie together? This world's...too many...honest man..."</p>
+
+<p>At last there was total stillness, and poor Tulliver's dimly lighted
+soul had ceased to be vexed with the painful riddle of this world.</p>
+
+<p>Tom and Maggie went downstairs together, and Maggie spoke. "Tom, forgive
+me; let us always love each other"--and they clung and wept together.</p>
+
+<p>But they were not to be always united.</p>
+
+<p>Tom lived in lodgings in the town, and was anxious to provide for his
+sister, but Maggie preferred to take up teaching in her old
+boarding-school. She met Philip Wakem again, and though Tom released her
+from her old promise, he could not regard Philip with any feelings of
+friendship.</p>
+
+<p>It was when Tom had, by years of steady work, fulfilled his father's
+wishes and become once more master of Dorlcote Mill that Maggie
+returned--to be no more separated from her brother. She was staying in the
+town near the river on the night when the flood came, and the river rose
+beyond its banks. Her first thought, as the water entered the lower part of
+the house, was of the mill, where Tom was. There was no time to get
+assistance; she must go herself, and alone. Hastily she procured a boat,
+and at last reached the mill. The water was up to the first story, but
+still the mill stood firm.</p>
+
+<p>"Tom, where are you? Here is Maggie!" she called out, in a loud,
+piercing voice. Tom opened the middle window, and got into the boat. Tom
+rowed with vigour, but a new danger was before them in the river.</p>
+
+<p>"Get out of the current!" was shouted at them, but it could not be done
+at once. Huge fragments of machinery, swept off one of the wharves, blocked
+the stream in one wide mass, and the current swept the boat swiftly on to
+its doom.</p>
+
+<p>"It is coming, Maggie!" Tom said, in a deep, hoarse voice, loosing the
+oars and clasping her.</p>
+
+<p>The next instant the boat was no longer seen upon the water, and brother
+and sister had gone down in an embrace never to be parted; living through
+again in one supreme moment the days when they had clasped their little
+hands in love.</p>
+
+<p>"In their death they were not divided."</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+
+
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="erckmann">ERCKMANN-CHATRIAN</a></h2>
+
+
+<h3><a name="erckmann1">Waterloo</a></h3>
+
+<p class="letter">
+Emile Erckmann was born at Phalsbourg, in Alsace, on May 20,
+1822, and Alexandre Chatrian, at Soldatenthal, on December 18, 1826.
+Erckmann, the son of a bookseller, became a law student, and was admitted
+to the Bar in 1858. But the law studies were always uncongenial, and
+Erckmann meeting Chatrian as a fellow student in the gymnasium at
+Phalsbourg, the two young men decided to join forces in authorship. The
+Erckmann-Chatrian partnership lasted from 1860 to 1885, and resulted in a
+remarkable series of novels, short stories, plays, and operas. "Waterloo"
+was published in 1865, and has enjoyed a wide popularity in many languages.
+Like "The Conscript," its predecessor, the charm of "Waterloo" consists
+largely in the character of Joseph Bertha, the young clockmaker of
+Phalsbourg, who tells the story. Bertha is a peaceful citizen who hates war
+and has no taste for glory. Yet he is nothing of a coward, and behaves like
+a man when he is forced to fight. To the student of history, the light
+thrown on the rise and fall of the Bourbon popularity in France, 1813-14,
+in this novel, will always be of interest. Chatrian died in Paris on
+September 4, 1890, and Erckmann at Luneville, on March 14, 1899.
+</p>
+
+<h4><i>I.--Napoleon Returns</i></h4>
+
+
+<p>Never was anything so joyous as the spring of 1814 Louis XVIII. was
+king, and the war was over. All except the old soldiers were content; and
+only when the nobles, who had fled at the Revolution, returned, and it was
+said that they were going to bring back all their old ideas, did M. Goulden
+express any dissatisfaction. There were great religious processions
+everywhere and expiatory services, and talk of rebuilding all the convents,
+and setting up the nobles again in their castles. But these things did not
+trouble me, because I was married to Catherine, and knew nothing about
+politics.</p>
+
+<p>The treatment of the old soldiers enraged me. On the day of the
+religious procession at Phalsbourg, half a dozen old veterans, restored
+prisoners, were set upon in our town by that rascal Pinacle and the people
+of Baraques, and knocked about. Pinacle did this to curry favour with Louis
+XVIII., and M. Goulden warned us that if ruffians like Pinacle got the
+upper hand it would open people's eyes.</p>
+
+<p>Sure enough, Pinacle received the cross of honour in the autumn when the
+Duc de Berry came to review the troops at Phalsbourg, and even Aunt
+Grédel, who was fond of abusing Napoleon and the Jacobins, and
+applauding the king and the clergy, thought this a shameful thing.</p>
+
+<p>It really was scandalous the way titles and honours were given to
+worthless people who shouted for the king. Worse than this was the way
+Napoleon's old officers were treated. Men who had fought and bled for
+France for twenty years were now well-nigh starving, driven out of the army
+to make room for the king's favourites.</p>
+
+<p>We read all this in the "Gazette," and Zébédé, who
+had come back alive and in time for my wedding, and was still in the army,
+would often come in and tell us of the growing indignation of the soldiers.
+The whole of that winter the indignation was spreading in the town at the
+sight of so many brave officers, the heroes of Marengo, Austerlitz, and
+Wagram, wandering forlornly about, starving on half-pay, and deprived of
+their posts.</p>
+
+<p>How well I remember one day in January, 1815, two of these officers,
+pale and gaunt, coming into the workshop to sell a watch.</p>
+
+<p>M. Goulden examined the watch with great care and said, "Do not be
+offended, gentlemen; I, too, served France under the Republic, and I know
+it must cut to the heart to be forced to sell something which recalls
+sacred memories."</p>
+
+<p>"It was given me by Prince Eug&egrave;ne," said one of the officers,
+Commandant Margarot, a hussar.</p>
+
+<p>"It is worth more than 1,000 francs," said M. Goulden, "and I cannot
+afford to buy it. But I will advance you 200 francs, and the watch shall
+remain here if you like, and shall be yours whenever you come to reclaim
+it."</p>
+
+<p>The old hussar broke down at this, and though his comrade, Colonel
+Falconette, tried to restrain him, he poured forth thanks and bitter words
+against the government.</p>
+
+<p>From that time it always seemed to me that things would end badly, and
+that the nobles had gone too far. The old commandant had said that the
+government behaved like Cossacks to the army, and this was horrible.</p>
+
+<p>M. Goulden read the "Gazette" aloud to us every day, and both Catherine
+and I were pleased to find there were men in Paris maintaining the very
+things we thought ourselves.</p>
+
+<p>All this time the clergy were going on with their processions, and
+sermons were being preached about the rebellion of 1790, the restitution of
+property to the landowners, and the re-establishment of convents, and the
+need for missionaries for the conversion of France. From such ideas what
+good could come?</p>
+
+<p>It is no wonder that when a report came early in March that Napoleon had
+landed at Cannes and was marching on Paris we were all very agitated at
+Phalsbourg.</p>
+
+<p>"It is plain," said M. Goulden, "that the emperor will reach Paris. The
+soldiers are for him; so are the peasantry, whose property is threatened;
+and so are the middle classes, provided he will make treaties of
+peace."</p>
+
+
+<h4><i>II.--"Vive l'Empereur!"</i></h4>
+
+
+<p>For some days, though all knew Napoleon had set foot in France, no one
+dared talk of it aloud. Only the looks of the half-pay officers betrayed
+their anxiety. If they had possessed horses and arms I am sure they would
+have set out to meet their emperor.</p>
+
+<p>On March 8, Zébédé entered our house and said
+abruptly, "The two first batallions are starting."</p>
+
+<p>"They are going to stop him?" said M. Goulden.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, they'll stop him, that is very likely,"
+Zébédé answered, winking. At the foot of the stairs he
+drew me aside and whispered, "Look inside my cap, Joseph; all the soldiers
+have got it, too."</p>
+
+<p>Sure enough it was the old tricolour cockade, which had been removed on
+the return of Louis XVIII.</p>
+
+<p>At last the papers had to admit that Buonaparte had escaped from Elba.
+What a scene it was in the café the night the papers arrived! M.
+Goulden and I were hardly seated before the place was filled with people,
+and it was so close the windows had to be opened.</p>
+
+<p>Commandant Margarot mounted on a table with other officers all around
+him, and began to read the "Gazette" aloud. It took a long time, the
+reading, and the people laughed and jeered at the passages that said the
+troops were faithful to the king, that Buonaparte was surrounded and would
+soon be taken, and that the illustrious Ney and the other marshals had
+hastened to place their swords at the service of the king. The commandant
+read on firmly in that distinct voice of his until he came to the order
+calling upon the French to seize Buonaparte and give him up dead or
+alive.</p>
+
+<p>Then his whole face changed and his eyes glittered. He took the
+"Gazette" up and tore it into little pieces, and, drawing himself up, his
+long arms stretched out, cried, "Vive l'Empereur!" with all his might.
+Immediately all the half-pay officers took up the cry, and "Vive
+l'Empereur!" was repeated again by the very soldiers posted outside the
+town hall when they heard the shout.</p>
+
+<p>The commandant was carried shoulder high round the café, and
+everyone was now calling out, "Vive l'Empereur!" I saw the tears in the
+eyes of the commandant, tears at hearing the name he loved best acclaimed
+once more.</p>
+
+<p>As for me, I felt as if cold water was being forced down my back. "It's
+all over," I said to myself. "It's no good talking about peace."</p>
+
+<p>But M. Goulden was more hopeful, and after we got home spoke cheerfully
+of the blessings of liberty and a good constitution.</p>
+
+<p>Aunt Grédel did not take this view. She came to see us the
+morning after the scene in the café, when all the town was
+discussing the great news, and began at once, "So it seems the villain has
+run away from his island?"</p>
+
+<p>Both M. Goulden and I were anxious to avoid a dispute, for Aunt
+Grédel was really angry, and she couldn't leave the subject.</p>
+
+<p>M. Goulden admitted that he preferred Napoleon to the Bourbons, with
+their nobles and missionary priests, because the emperor was bound to
+respect the national property, whereas the later would have destroyed all
+that the Revolution had accomplished. "Still, I am now, and always shall be
+till death, for the Republic and the rights of man," M. Goulden
+concluded.</p>
+
+<p>The old gentleman took his hat and went out to escape further argument,
+and Aunt Grédel turned to me and told me that M. Goulden was an old
+fool and always had been, and that I should have to go to Switzerland now,
+unless Buonaparte was taken before he reached Paris.</p>
+
+<p>In the evening, however, when Aunt Grédel had gone, and we three
+were together, Catherine said quietly, "M. Goulden is right; he knows more
+about these things than my mother does, and we will always listen to his
+advice."</p>
+
+<p>I thought to myself, "Yes, that's all very well; but it will be a
+horrible thing to have to put on one's knapsack again and be off. I would
+rather be in Switzerland than in Leipzig."</p>
+
+<p>Each day now brought news of Napoleon's advance, from Grenoble to Lyons,
+from Lyons to Macon and Auxerre. There was no opposition anywhere to his
+progress, and the only question that troubled M. Goulden's mind was the
+attitude of Ney to the emperor. Could Ney, an old soldier of the
+Revolution, though he had kissed the hand of Louis XVIII., betray the
+country to please the king? The uneasiness disappeared when we learnt that
+Ney had followed the example of the army, the citizens, and of all who did
+not wish to go back to the customs and laws of twenty-five years
+earlier.</p>
+
+<p>On March 21, just as it was getting dark, we knew that something
+decisive must have happened at Paris. The drums were calling to arms in the
+market-place, and a great crowd soon assembled.</p>
+
+<p>The soldiers fell into their ranks, Commandant Gémeau, who had
+only just recovered from his wounds, drew his sword, and gave the order to
+form square.</p>
+
+<p>M. Goulden and I got on a bench to listen; we knew that the fate of
+France depended on the message we were to hear.</p>
+
+<p>"Present arms!" called out the commandant in the same clear voice which
+had bidden us at L&uuml;tzen and Leipzig, "Close up your ranks!"</p>
+
+<p>Then came the news we had been waiting for.</p>
+
+<p>"Soldiers, his Majesty Louis XVIII. left Paris on March 20, and the
+Emperor Napoleon entered the capital the same day."</p>
+
+<p>For a second there was a dead silence, and then the commandant spoke of
+the banner of France, the banner of Marengo, Austerlitz, and Jena, stained
+with our blood; and the old sergeant drew out the tattered tricolour flag
+from its case.</p>
+
+<p>"I know no other flag!" cried the commandant, raising his sword. "Vive
+la France! Vive l'Empereur!"</p>
+
+<p>What a shout there was of "Vive l'Empereur! Vive la France!" at this.
+The people and the soldiers embraced one another, and that night and for
+the next five or six days there was, if anything, even more rejoicing than
+there had been on the return of Louis XVIII. We still hoped for the
+continuance of peace, but who could say how long the peace would last?</p>
+
+<p>Phalsbourg was ordered to put itself into a state of defence, a large
+workshop was set up at the arsenal for the repairing of arms, and engineers
+and artillerymen came over from Metz to make earthworks in the
+fortifications. It seemed to me that a large number of men would be
+required for all the guns and forts, and that my watchmaking days would
+soon be exchanged for active service. I began to think that, after all,
+religious processions were better than being sent to fight against people
+one knew nothing about.</p>
+
+
+<h4><i>III.--On the Road to Waterloo</i></h4>
+
+
+<p>Aunt Grédel had not been to see us for a month, and it was a
+great comfort to Catherine and me when one Sunday M. Goulden proposed that
+we should all three pay her a visit at Quatre Vents. As soon as she saw us,
+Aunt Grédel rushed to kiss her daughter, and called out, "You are a
+good man, M. Goulden, better a thousand times than I am. How glad I am to
+see you! It doesn't matter about being a Jacobin or anything else; the main
+thing is to have a good heart."</p>
+
+<p>It was not until the afternoon that M. Goulden explained that he had
+known for some days that I should be called up to rejoin my old regiment,
+and that he had arranged with the commandant of artillery that I should be
+received at the arsenal as a workman. What relief this was to us, for I
+could not bear the thought of separation from Catherine. So from that day I
+went to work at the arsenal, and Aunt Grédel came to see us again as
+she had been accustomed to do.</p>
+
+<p>It can be guessed with what spirit I worked at the arsenal, and how
+pleased I was when the commandant expressed satisfaction at my work. But I
+was not allowed to stop at Phalsbourg.</p>
+
+<p>On May 23 the commandant told me that I must go to Metz with the 3rd
+battalion, to which I belonged. He assured me, however, that I should be
+kept at Metz in the workshops, and we all did our best to believe that I
+was fortunate in my destination. M. Goulden, however, warned me before I
+left that France was threatened by her enemies, that the allies would make
+no peace with the emperor, but were determined to set Louis XVIII. once
+more on the throne, and that now the question was not of invading other
+countries, but of defending our own.</p>
+
+<p>Catherine was asleep when the morning came for my departure, and I was
+glad to escape the pain of saying "good-bye." At the barracks,
+Zébédé, who was now a sergeant, led me into the
+soldiers' room, and I put on my uniform. Then the battalion defiled through
+the gates, the soldiers at the outworks presented arms, and we were on the
+way to Waterloo.</p>
+
+<p>It was useless to think of stopping in Metz. We arrived in that city of
+Jews and soldiers after five days' march, and were at once, after our
+night's rest, supplied with ammunition. I saw that my only chance of
+staying at the workshops of Metz would be after the campaign was over, for
+we were on the march the very next morning. Zébédé was
+not always with me now, and my closest comrade was Jean Buche, the son of a
+sledge-maker at Harberg, who had never eaten anything better than potatoes
+before he became a conscript. Buche turned in his feet in walking, but he
+never seemed to know the meaning of being tired, and in his own fashion was
+a wonderful pedestrian.</p>
+
+<p>From Metz we marched through Thionville, Ch&acirc;telet, Etain, Dannevoux,
+Yong, Vivier, and Cul-de-Sard. All our troops were pouring into
+Belgium--cavalry, infantry, and artillery--and though there were no signs
+of the enemy, it was reported that we were to attack the English. I thought
+as well English as Prussians, Austrians, or Russians, since we were to kill
+each other.</p>
+
+<p>On the night of June 14 we bivouacked outside the village of Roly, and
+General Pécheux read a proclamation by the emperor, reminding us
+that this was the anniversary of Marengo, that the powers were in coalition
+against France, and that the hour had come for France to conquer or
+perish.</p>
+
+<p>It is impossible to describe the enthusiasm at this message from the
+emperor; our courage was stronger, and the conscripts were even more
+anxious than the veterans for the fighting to begin.</p>
+
+<p>We were up at daybreak next day and on the march, eager to get a sight
+of the Prussians, who had been repulsed from Charleroi by the emperor, we
+were told. At the village of Ch&acirc;telet we halted, and heard the noise of
+firing away across the River Sambre, in the direction of Gilly. An old bald
+peasant told us that evening that the Prussians had men in the villages of
+Fleurus and Lambusart, that the English and Belgians were on the great
+Brussels road, and that the causeway through Quatre Bras and Ligny enabled
+the Prussians and English to communicate freely with each other. He also
+told us that the Prussians said insulting things of the French army, and
+were generally hated by the people. When I heard of the way the Prussians
+boasted, my blood boiled, and I said to myself, "There shall be no more
+compassion. Either they or we must be utterly destroyed."</p>
+
+<p>I can recall with what splendour the sun rose next morning above a
+cornfield--it was the morning of the battle of Ligny.
+Zébédé and one or two comrades whom I had known in
+1813 came and chattered while we lit our fires. We could see the Prussians
+before us, posting themselves behind hedges and walls, and preparing to
+defend the villages, and all the time we were kept roasting in the corn,
+waiting for the signal to attack. The emperor arrived, and held a short
+conference with the superior officers, and I saw him at close quarters
+before he rode off again to the village of Fleurus, already vacated by the
+Prussians.</p>
+
+<p>And still we waited, though we knew the attack on St. Amand had
+begun.</p>
+
+<p>At last came our turn to advance on Ligny. "Forward! Forward!" cried the
+officers. "Vive l'Empereur!" we shouted. The Prussian bullets whizzed like
+hail upon us, and then we could see or hear nothing till we were in the
+village.</p>
+
+<p>No quarter was given that day; we fought in houses and gardens, in barns
+and lanes, with muskets and bayonets. Those who fell were lost. At one time
+fifteen of us were in possession of a barn, and the Prussians, for a time
+outnumbering us, drove us up a ladder. They fired up at our floor, and
+finally, when it seemed we were lost, and were all to be massacred we heard
+the shout of "Vive l'Empereur!" and the Prussians fled. Out of that fifteen
+only six were left alive, but Zébédé and Buche were
+among the survivors.</p>
+
+<p>The battle still raged in the village streets, dead and dying were
+everywhere. Towards nightfall it was plain we were the victors; Ligny and
+St. Amand were in our hands, and the Prussians had moved away. On the
+plateau behind Ligny, where our cavalry had been at work, the slaughter had
+been terrible.</p>
+
+<p>The dozen or so remaining of our company rested for a few hours that
+night in the ruins of a farmhouse, and next day came the roll-call of our
+battalion, and the sending off of the wounded. More than 360 of our men,
+including Commandant Gémeau and Captain Vidal, were disabled, and we
+were busy all day over the wounded.</p>
+
+<p>It was wet and muddy that evening, and we were hungry and dispirited
+when we reached Quatre Bras, about eight o'clock. We were not allowed to
+halt here, but marched on to a village called Jemappes, and at midnight we
+settled down in a furrow to wait for morning.</p>
+
+<p>The red coats of the English were visible before us when we awoke next
+morning; behind their lines was the village of Mont St. Jean, and they had
+also the farmhouses of La Haie-Sainte and Hougomont. At six o'clock I
+looked at their position, with Zébédé, Captain
+Florentin, and Buche, and it seemed to me it was a difficult task before
+us. It was Sunday, and I could hear the bells of villages, recalling
+Phalsbourg. But in a very little while we heard no more bells, for at
+half-past eight our battalion was on its way to the high road in front, and
+the battle of Waterloo had begun.</p>
+
+
+<h4><i>IV.--The Hour of Disaster</i></h4>
+
+
+<p>I have often heard veterans describe the order of battle given by the
+emperor. But all I remember of that terrible day is that we marched out
+with the bands playing, that we got to close quarters with the English,
+were repulsed, and were assisted by regiments of cuirassiers, that we
+carried La Haie-Sainte with terrible slaughter at Ney's command. Hougomont
+we could not carry. When we thought we were winning, the news was spread
+that Bl&uuml;cher, with 60,000 men, was advancing on our flank, and that unless
+Grouchy, with his 30,000, arrived in time to reinforce us the day might be
+lost.</p>
+
+<p>All the world knows now that Grouchy did not arrive, that we threw
+ourselves again and again upon the English squares, and that at last, when
+regiment after regiment had tried in vain to break the enemy's line, the
+Old Guard were called up by the emperor. It was the last chance of
+retrieving the day, the grand stroke--and it failed.</p>
+
+<p>The four battalions of the Guards, reduced from 3,000 to 1,200 men, were
+assailed by so fierce a fire that they were compelled to retire. They
+retired slowly, defending themselves with muskets and bayonets, but with
+their retirement, and the approach of night, the battle ended for us in the
+confusion of a rout. It was like a flood. We were surrounded on all sides
+when Bl&uuml;cher arrived. The Old Guard formed a square for the emperor and his
+officers, and the rest of us simply straggled away, back to France. The
+most awful thing of all was the beating of the drum of the Old Guard in
+that hour of disaster. It was like a fire-bell, the last appeal of a
+burning nation.</p>
+
+<p>Buche was by my side in the retreat. Several times the Prussians
+attacked us. We heard that the emperor had departed for Paris, and we
+struggled on, only hoping to escape with our lives. At Charleroi the
+inhabitants shut the city gates in our face, and Buche shared in the
+general rage, and proposed to destroy the town. But I thought we had had
+enough massacres, and that it was not right we should be killing our own
+countrymen, and I persuaded Buche to come on with me.</p>
+
+<p>In a few days we felt ourselves safe from pursuing Prussians, and at the
+village of Bouvigny I wrote a letter to Catherine, telling her I was safe.
+In this village some officers of our regiment, the 6th of the Line, found
+us, and we had to rejoin. Presently we saw all that was left of Grouchy's
+army corps in retreat, and a day or two later we heard of the emperor's
+abdication. On July 1, we reached Paris, and outside the city, near the
+village of Issy, we once more fell in with the Prussians; for two days we
+fought them with fury, and then some generals announced that peace had been
+made.</p>
+
+<p>We believed that this truce was to give the enemy time to leave the
+country, and that otherwise France would rise, as it rose in '92, and drive
+them out.</p>
+
+<p>Unhappily, we soon learnt that the Prussians and English were to occupy
+Paris, and that the remains of the French army were to be kept beyond the
+Loire. We all felt that we had been betrayed, and the old officers, pale
+with anger, wept in their misery. Paris in the hands of the Prussians!
+Besides, were we to go to the other side of the Loire at the command of
+Bl&uuml;cher?</p>
+
+<p>Desertions began that very day, and I said to Buche, "Let us return to
+Phalsbourg and Harberg, and take up our work, and live like honest men."
+About fifty of us from Alsace-Lorraine were in the battalion, and we set
+off together on the road to Strasbourg.</p>
+
+<p>On July 8 we heard that Louis XVIII. was to come back, and already the
+white banner of the Bourbons was being displayed in the villages.</p>
+
+<p>In some places there were rascals who called us Buonapartists, and
+gendarmes who took us to the town hall and made us shout "Vive le Roi!"
+Buche and some of the old soldiers hated this; but what did it matter who
+was king, and what these fools wanted us to shout?</p>
+
+<p>Our little company got smaller and smaller as men halted in their own
+villages, and when, on July 16, we reached Phalsbourg, Buche and I were
+alone.</p>
+
+<p>Buche went on to break the news of my return, but I could not wait, and
+ran after him.</p>
+
+<p>I heard people saying, "There's Joseph, Bertha," and in a moment I was
+in the house, and in Catherine's arms. Then I embraced M. Goulden, and an
+hour later Aunt Grédel arrived.</p>
+
+<p>Jean Buche would not stay and dine with us, but hurried home to Harberg.
+I have often seen him since; and Zébédé, too, who
+remained in the army.</p>
+
+<p>Many insulting things were said about us by the Pinacles, but I had
+happiness in my family circle, especially when Catherine presented me with
+a little Joseph.</p>
+
+<p>I am an old man now, but M. Goulden always said the principles of
+freedom and liberty would triumph, and I have lived long enough to see his
+words come true.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+
+
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="feuillet">OCTAVE FEUILLET</a></h2>
+
+
+<h3><a name="feuillet1">Romance of a Poor Young Man</a></h3>
+
+<p class="letter">
+Octave Feuillet, born at Saint L&ocirc;, in France, on August
+11, 1821, was the son of a Norman gentleman who regarded literature as an
+ignoble profession. When Octave ran away to Paris in order to pursue a
+literary career, his father refused to help him, and for some years the
+young writer had a very hard struggle. But on taking to novel-writing,
+Feuillet quickly acquired fame and fortune. His "Romance of a Poor Young
+Man" ("Le Roman d'un Jeune Homme Pauvre"), which appeared in 1858, made him
+the most popular author of the day. Standing midway between the novelists
+of the romantic school and the writers of the realistic movement, he
+combined a sense of the poetry of life with a gift for analysing the finer
+shades of feeling. The plot of the "Romance of a Poor Young Man" is
+certainly extraordinary; but in the present case some allowance must be
+made for the fact that the hero is induced to accept the humble position in
+which he finds himself by his old family lawyer, who secretly designs to
+marry him to the daughter of his new employers. A scheme of this sort would
+not Strike a French reader as improbable, for marriage in France is often
+more a business arrangement than a love affair. Feuillet spent the latter
+part of his life in retirement, and died on December 29, 1890.
+</p>
+
+<h4><i>I.--A Nobleman in Difficulties</i></h4>
+
+
+<p>Here I am, then, in the situation that Lawyer Laubépin obtained
+for me. I am alone at last, thank goodness, sitting in a gloomy room in
+this old Breton castle, in which the former steward to the Laroque family
+used to live. My position is certainly very strange, but as Laubépin
+was discreet, and did not tell his clients that he was sending them a new
+steward in the person of the young Marquis of Champcey, perhaps I shall not
+find my post very difficult. I was afraid that the Laroques were a family
+of the vulgarly rich sort, like the dreadful persons who have bought my
+father's lands. Laroque is a picturesque figure in his old age, and though
+his widowed daughter-in-law is rather more commonplace, his grand-daughter,
+Marguerite Laroque, is a nobly beautiful girl.</p>
+
+<p>If it were not for my accursed pride, I should now feel happier than I
+have ever felt since that day of disaster, misery, and shame when
+Laubépin told me that my poor dead father had lost his fortune in
+speculations, and left nothing but his title and his debts. Well, I have
+paid the debts, and if I can now only earn enough money to keep my little
+sister Hél&egrave;ne at school, I shall not grumble at my lot. I
+feel the loss of my friends, it is true. There is not a soul I can confide
+in, and I must find some outlet for the thoughts and feelings that oppress
+me; so I will keep this diary.</p>
+
+<p>It will be at least a silent confidant, and perhaps when I am older I
+shall be able to read with a certain pleasurable interest its record of my
+singular adventures. No other man in France, on May 1, 1857, can have been
+transformed so suddenly, as by the wand of a witch, from a powerful and
+wealthy young nobleman of ancient lineage into a humble and despised
+domestic servant. Perhaps a good fairy will appear and restore me to my
+proper shape; but I wish she had appeared at dinner this evening. There
+were twenty guests, and it was the first time since the change of my
+fortunes that I took part in a society affair. Nobody spoke to me, except
+the pretty little governess of the family, Mlle. Hélouin; and we
+were placed at the end of the table. The position of honour was given to a
+young and brilliant nobleman, M. de Bévallan, whose estate joined
+that of the Laroque family. I gathered from Mlle. Hélouin that it
+was his ambition to unite the two estates by marrying Mlle. Marguerite
+Laroque. I was, therefore, surprised when the lovely heiress led her
+grandfather into the room when everybody was seated, placed him in a chair
+by Bévallan, and came and sat by my side.</p>
+
+<p>"She can't," I thought to myself, "be much in love with her wooer," and
+I began to study her with a certain curiosity. Her fine, clear-cut features
+and large dark eyes attracted me; and by way of opening the conversation I
+spoke of the wildly beautiful scenery through which I had passed on my way
+to the castle. It was a bad beginning.</p>
+
+<p>"I see," she said, with a singular expression of irony, "that you are a
+poet. You must talk about the forests and moorlands with Mlle.
+Hélouin, who also adores these things. For my part I do not love
+them."</p>
+
+<p>"What is it, then, that you really love?" I said.</p>
+
+<p>She gave me a supercilious look and said, in a hard voice, "Nothing,
+sir."</p>
+
+<p>I must confess I was hurt. I could not see that I had done anything to
+lay myself open to so harsh an answer. No doubt I was only a servant. But
+why had she come and sat beside me if she did not want to talk? I was glad
+when the dinner was over and we went into the drawing-room. Madame Laroque,
+the widowed mother of Marguerite, began to ask M. Bévallan about the
+new opera in Paris; he was unable to reply, so, as I had seen the work in
+Italy before it was produced in France, I gave her a description of it. I
+am afraid I forgot myself with Madame Laroque--a fine-looking, cultivated
+woman of forty years of age. Flattered by the way in which she treated me
+entirely as her equal, I insensibly glided from theatrical topics to
+fashionable gossip, and just stopped in time in an anecdote about my tour
+in Russia. A few more words and she would have learnt that her humble
+steward, Maxime Odiot--as I am now called--was a man with very aristocratic
+connections.</p>
+
+<p>In order to hide my embarrassment, I moved towards the table where some
+of the guests were playing whist. This led to my committing a blunder
+which, I fear, may make my position a difficult one. Among the
+whist-players was a Mlle. de Porhoet-Gael, eighty-eight years of age and
+full of strange crotchets. The last descendant of the noblest of Breton
+families, she lived, so Madame Laroque told me, on an income of forty
+pounds a year, her fortune having been spent in vainly fighting for the
+succession to a great estate in Spain. She was talking about it to her
+partner when I came up.</p>
+
+<p>"The estate belongs to me," she was saying. "My father told me so a
+hundred times, and the persons who are trying to take it from me have no
+more connection with my family than this handsome young gentleman has."</p>
+
+<p>And she designated me with a look and a movement of her head. No doubt
+she did not mean to imply that because I was a steward I was of mean birth;
+but I was stung by her remark, and forgetting myself, I replied rather
+sharply, "You are mistaken, madam, in thinking that I am unrelated to your
+family."</p>
+
+<p>"You will have to prove that to me, young man."</p>
+
+<p>Confused and ashamed, I withdrew into the corner and tried to talk to
+Mlle. Hélouin about poetry and art, but at last, upset and
+distracted, I arose and walked out of the room. Mlle. de Porhoet followed
+me.</p>
+
+<p>"Monsieur Odiot," she said, "would you mind seeing me home? My servant
+has not arrived, and I am growing too feeble now to walk without help."</p>
+
+<p>Naturally, I went with her.</p>
+
+<p>"What did you mean," she said, as we walked on together, "by claiming to
+be a relation of mine?"</p>
+
+<p>"I hope," I replied very humbly, "that you will pardon a jest
+that--"</p>
+
+<p>"A jest!" she interrupted. "Is a matter touching my honour a jest? I
+see; a remark which would be an insult if addressed to a man becomes only a
+jest when it is levelled at an old, unprotected woman."</p>
+
+<p>After that, nothing was left to me, as a man of honour, but to entrust
+her with my secret. There had been several marriages between our families,
+and after listening with great interest to the story of my troubles, she
+became wonderfully kind in her manner to me.</p>
+
+<p>"You must come and see me to-morrow, cousin," she said, when we parted.
+"My law-suit is going very badly and I should like you to go through all my
+papers, and see if you can discover any new documents in support of my
+claim. Do not despair, my dear, over your own misfortunes. I think I shall
+be able to help you."</p>
+
+
+<h4><i>II.--Love and Jealousy</i></h4>
+
+
+<p>I am afraid I lack the industry necessary for keeping a diary. It is now
+two months since I wrote the last entry. If I had made every night a brief
+note of the events of the day, I should now have a better view of my
+position. Has Mlle. de Porhoet betrayed my secret? There has certainly been
+a curious change in my relations with the Laroques. I fancy it began on the
+day when Marguerite and I met at last on an equal footing at Mlle. de
+Porhoet's house. The document which I had just then found may not be as
+important as we thought, but our common joy in what we considered was a
+discovery of tremendous value brought us closer together.</p>
+
+<p>But I cannot understand Marguerite. Sometimes she still goes out of her
+way to be insulting towards me, and sometimes she treats me with a sweet
+frankness which has something sisterly in it. One day, for instance, she
+came to my window and asked me if I would go for a walk with her. "Bring
+your sketch-book, Monsieur Odiot," she called out gaily, "and I will take
+you to Merlin's Tomb in the Enchanted Valley."</p>
+
+<p>As a matter of fact, the woods around the castle of the Laroques were
+the remains of the famous forest of Broceliande, and I had always been
+promising myself a long ramble through this region of romance, but I had
+never found time to explore it. I was now glad I had waited, for Marguerite
+was a charming guide. Never had I seen her so light-hearted. When we
+reached a great block of stone in the depth of the wood, under which the
+wizard Merlin is said to be imprisoned by Vivien, Marguerite made herself a
+garland of oak-leaves, and standing like a lovely priestess clad all in
+white against the Druidic monument, she asked me to make a sketch of her.
+With what joy did I paint the poetic vision before me! I think she was
+pleased with the drawing, but on our way back to the castle a foolish word
+of mine brought our friendship to an end. We came to a picturesque little
+lake, at the end of which was a waterfall, overgrown with brambles. In
+order to show what a good swimmer her dog was, Marguerite threw something
+in the current and told him to fetch it, but he got carried over the
+waterfall and caught in the whirlpool below.</p>
+
+<p>"Come away! He is drowning--come away! I can't bear to see it!" cried
+Marguerite, seizing me by the arm. "No, do not attempt to save him. The
+pool is very dangerous."</p>
+
+<p>I am a good swimmer, however, and with a little trouble I managed to
+rescue the dog.</p>
+
+<p>"What madness!" she murmured. "You might have been drowned, and just for
+a dog!"</p>
+
+<p>"It was yours," I answered in a low voice.</p>
+
+<p>Her manner at once changed.</p>
+
+<p>"You had better run home, Monsieur Odiot," she said very coldly, "or you
+will get a chill. Do not wait for me."</p>
+
+<p>So I returned alone, and for some days Marguerite never spoke a word to
+me. What was still worse, M. Bévallan appeared at the castle, and
+she went for walks with him, leaving me in the company of Mlle.
+Hélouin. I am afraid that I became very friendly with the pretty
+governess. Nothing, however, that I ever said to her, or that she said to
+me, prepared me for the strange scene that happened to-night. As I was
+walking along the terrace, she came up and took my arm, and said, "Are you
+really my friend, Maxime?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," I said.</p>
+
+<p>"Then tell me the truth," she exclaimed. "Do you love me, or do you love
+Mademoiselle Marguerite?"</p>
+
+<p>"Why do you bring in her name?" I said.</p>
+
+<p>"Ah, you love her!" she cried fiercely; "or, rather, you love her
+fortune. But you shall never have it, Monsieur de Champcey. I know why you
+came here under a false name, and so shall she."</p>
+
+<p>With a movement of anger she departed. I cannot continue here under
+suspicion of being a fortune-hunter, so I have written to Laubépin
+to obtain another situation for me.</p>
+
+
+<h4><i>III.--Two on a Tower</i></h4>
+
+
+<p>It is all over. Was it because she still only half believed the slanders
+spread against me that Marguerite again asked me to go for a walk with her?
+Oh, what an unfortunate wretch I am! We rode through the forest together to
+one of the most magnificent monuments in Brittany, the Castle of Elven.
+Finding the door unlocked, we tethered our horses in the deserted
+courtyard, and climbed up the narrow, winding staircase to the battlements.
+The sea of autumnal foliage below was bathed in the light of the setting
+sun, and for a long time we sat side by side in silence, gazing at the
+infinite distances.</p>
+
+<p>"Come!" she said at last, in a low whisper, as the light died out of the
+sky. "It is finished!"</p>
+
+<p>But on descending the dark staircase we found that the door of the keep
+was locked. No doubt the shepherd boy who looked after the castle had come
+and shut up the place while we were sitting, watching the sunset.</p>
+
+<p>"Monsieur de Champcey," she said, in a cold, hard voice, "were there any
+scoundrels in your family before you?"</p>
+
+<p>"Marguerite!" I cried.</p>
+
+<p>"You paid that boy to lock us in," she exclaimed. "You think you will
+force me to marry you by compromising me in this manner. Do you think you
+will win my hand--and, what is more important to you still, my wretched
+wealth--by this trick? Rather than marry a scoundrel like you, I will shut
+myself up in a convent!"</p>
+
+<p>Carried away by my feelings, I seized her two hands, and said, "Now
+listen, Marguerite. I love you, it is true. Never did man love more
+devotedly, yes, and more disinterestedly, than I do. But I swear that if I
+get out of this place alive I will never marry you until you are as poor as
+I am, or I as rich as you are. If you love me, as I think you do, fall on
+your knees and pray, for unless a miracle happens you will never see me
+again alive."</p>
+
+<p>But a miracle did happen. I threw myself out of the window, and fell
+upon a branch of an oak-tree. It bent beneath my weight, and then broke;
+but it came so near the earth before breaking that if my left arm had not
+struck against the masonry I should have escaped uninjured. As it was, my
+arm was smashed, and I swooned away with the pain. When I came to,
+Marguerite was leaning out of the window, calling, "Maxime, speak to me!
+For the love of heaven, speak to me, and say you pardon me!"</p>
+
+<p>I arose, saying, "I am not hurt. If you will only wait another hour, I
+will go home and get some one to let you out. Believe me, I will save your
+honour as I have saved my own."</p>
+
+<p>Binding up my arm, I got on my horse, and galloped back to Laroque
+Castle. On the way I met Bévallan.</p>
+
+<p>"Have you seen Mlle. Marguerite?" he said. "We are afraid she has got
+lost."</p>
+
+<p>"I met her this afternoon," I replied. "She told me she was going for a
+ride to Elven Castle."</p>
+
+<p>He rode off in the direction from which I had come, and when I returned
+from the doctor with my broken arm set and bandaged, Marguerite and
+Bévallan entered.</p>
+
+<p>Hearing that I had had an accident, Madame Laroque came up late to-night
+to see me. Old Laroque has had a stroke of paralysis, she tells me, and she
+wishes to get the marriage contract between her daughter and
+Bévallan signed to-morrow. Laubépin is bringing the
+document.</p>
+
+
+<h4><i>IV.---A Test Case</i></h4>
+
+
+<p>I don't know why I take the trouble to go on with this diary, but having
+begun it I may as well finish it. Laubépin wanted me to go into the
+drawing-room to witness the signing of the marriage contract, but happily I
+was too ill to leave my bed; not only was my arm very painful, but I was
+suffering from the shock of the fall. What an hour of misery I passed
+before Mlle. de Porhoet-Gael appeared with the news of what had happened!
+Her sweet, kind old eyes were bright with joy.</p>
+
+<p>"It is all over," she said. "Bévallan has gone, and young
+Hélouin has also been turned out of the house."</p>
+
+<p>I started up with surprise.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," she continued, with a smile, "the contract has not been signed.
+Our friend Laubépin drew it up in such a way that the husband was
+not able to touch a penny of the wife's money. M. Bévallan objected
+to this; while he and his lawyer were arguing the matter with
+Laubépin, Marguerite rose up.</p>
+
+<p>"'Throw the contract in the fire,' she said, 'and, mother, give this
+gentleman back the presents he sent to me.'</p>
+
+<p>"Laubépin threw the deed in the flames, and Marguerite and her
+mother walked out of the room.</p>
+
+<p>"'What is the meaning of this?' cried Bévallan.</p>
+
+<p>"'I will tell you,' I answered. 'A certain young lady was afraid that
+you were merely a fortune-hunter. She wanted to be certain of it, and now
+she is so.'</p>
+
+<p>"Thereupon I, too, left the room.</p>
+
+<p>"But what is the matter with you, my dear boy? You are as pale as a
+corpse."</p>
+
+<p>The fact was that the unexpected news aroused in me such a mixture of
+joyful and painful feelings that I fell back in a swoon. When I recovered,
+dear old Laubépin was standing by my bed.</p>
+
+<p>"Will you not confide in me, my boy?" he said rather sadly. "Something,
+I can see, has happened which has made you miserable on the very day on
+which you should be full of joy. What is it?"</p>
+
+<p>Moved by his sympathy, I gave him this diary to read, and poured out my
+very soul to him.</p>
+
+<p>"It is useless for me," he said at last, "to conceal from you the fact
+that I sent you here with the design to marry you to Marguerite. Everything
+at first went as well as I could wish, and Madame Laroque was delighted
+with the match. You and Marguerite were made for each other, and you fell
+in love almost at first sight. But this affair at the Castle of Elven is
+something I had not reckoned on. To leap out of the window at the risk of
+breaking your neck was, my romantic young friend, a sufficient
+demonstration of your disinterestedness. You need not have taken a solemn
+oath never to marry Marguerite until you were as rich as she is. What can
+you do now? You cannot forswear yourself, and you cannot suddenly make an
+immense fortune."</p>
+
+<p>"I must depart with you," I said very sorrowfully. "There is no other
+way."</p>
+
+<p>"No, Maxime," he replied, "you are too unwell to move. Remain here for
+one month longer; then, if you do not hear from me, return to Paris."</p>
+
+<p>It is now a week since he left me, and I have seen no one for the last
+seven days but the servant who waits upon me. He tells me that Laroque has
+died, and that Marguerite and her mother, who have been tending him night
+and day, have worn themselves out, and are now laid up with some sort of
+fever. Mlle. de Porhoet is also very ill, and not expected to live. Since I
+am well enough to walk over to Mlle. de Porhoet. I am told that she keeps
+asking to see me.</p>
+
+
+<h4><i>V.--Two in a Garden</i></h4>
+
+
+<p>The little maid who came to open the door was weeping, and as I came in
+I was surprised to hear the voice of Laubépin.</p>
+
+<p>"It is Maxime, Marguerite," he said.</p>
+
+<p>Had Marguerite also risen up from a bed of sickness to see Mlle. de
+Porhoet? I sprang up the stairs, and entered the room.</p>
+
+<p>"My poor, dear boy!" said Mlle. de Porhoet, in a strange, broken
+voice.</p>
+
+<p>She was lying in bed. Laubépin, a priest, and a doctor were
+standing on one side, and Marguerite and her mother were kneeling down in
+prayer on the other. I saw at once that she was at the point of death, and
+knelt down beside Marguerite. The poor dying woman smiled faintly, and
+groped for my hand and put it in Marguerite's, and then fell back on the
+pillow. She was dead.</p>
+
+<p>Laubépin led me out of the room, and put a document in my hand.
+It was a will, and the ink on it was hardly dry. Mlle. de Porhoet had made
+me her heir.</p>
+
+<p>"How good of her!" I said to Laubépin. "I shall treasure her
+testament as a mark of her love for me. I will settle her little estate on
+my sister. It will at least keep Hél&egrave;ne from having to go out
+into the world as a governess."</p>
+
+<p>"And it will keep you, my friend, from having to go out into the world
+as a steward," said Laubépin, with a smile. "Don't you remember that
+document about the Spanish succession which you discovered and sent to me?
+We have won the law-suit, and you are the heir to an estate in Spain which
+will make you one of the richest men in France."</p>
+
+<p>I went into the garden to think over my strange fortune. How long I sat
+there in the darkness I do not know. On rising up, I heard a faint sound
+beneath one of the trees, and a beloved form emerged from the foliage, and
+stood against the starry sky.</p>
+
+<p>"Marguerite!" I cried, running up to her with outstretched arm.</p>
+
+<p>She murmured my name, and as I clasped her her lips sought mine, and we
+poured our souls out in a kiss.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p>I have given Hél&egrave;ne half of my fortune. Marguerite is my
+wife, and I close these pages for ever, having nothing more to confide to
+them. It can be said of men, as it has been said of nations, "Happy are
+those that have no story."</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+
+
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="fielding">HENRY FIELDING</a></h2>
+
+
+<h3><a name="fielding1">Amelia</a></h3>
+
+<p class="letter">
+Henry Fielding was born at Sharpham Park, near Glastonbury,
+England, April 12, 1707. His father, a grandson of the Earl of Desmond, and
+great-grandson of the first Earl of Denbigh, settled in England shortly
+after the battle of Ramillies as a country squire. In due course, Fielding
+was sent to Eton, and afterwards to Leyden, where he remained for two years
+studying civil law. Financial difficulties, however, put a temporary end to
+his intention of entering the Bar, and in 1727 he solved the problem of a
+career by beginning to write for the stage. During the next nine years some
+eighteen of his plays were produced. In 1748 he was appointed a justice of
+peace for Westminster, and his writings on police and crime are of interest
+to this day. "Amelia" was published in 1751, when its author was a
+magistrate at Bow Street. In a dedicatory letter, Fielding explained that
+the book was "sincerely designed to promote the cause of virtue, and to
+expose some of the most glaring evils, as well public as private, which at
+present infest the country." The licentiousness of wealthy "men about
+town," the corruption of justice, the abuses of the prison system, the lack
+of honour concerning marriage--these are some of the "glaring evils"
+exposed with all the great novelist's power in "Amelia." In the characters
+of Dr. Harrison and Amelia herself, the virtuous man and woman are drawn so
+clearly that they inevitably win the reader's sympathy. "Amelia" does not
+equal the genius of "Tom Jones," but it is remarkable for being so largely
+devoted to the adventures of a married couple, instead of ending at
+marriage. Fielding died on October 8, 1754.
+</p>
+
+<h4><i>I.--The Inside of a Prison</i></h4>
+
+
+<p>On the first of April, in the year--, the watchmen of a certain parish
+in Westminster brought several persons, whom they had apprehended the
+preceding night, before Jonathan Thrasher, Esq., one of the justices of the
+peace for that city.</p>
+
+<p>Among the prisoners a young fellow, whose name was Booth, was charged
+with beating the watchman in the execution of his office, and breaking his
+lantern. The justice perceiving the criminal to be but shabbily dressed,
+was going to commit him without asking any further questions, but at the
+earnest request of the accused the worthy magistrate submitted to hear his
+defence.</p>
+
+<p>The young man then alleged that as he was walking home to his lodgings
+he saw two men in the street cruelly beating a third, upon which he had
+stopped and endeavoured to assist the person who was so unequally attacked;
+that the watch came up during the affray, and took them all four into
+custody; that they were immediately carried to the round-house, where the
+two original assailants found means to make up the matter, and were
+discharged by the constable, a favour which he himself, having no money in
+his pocket, was unable to obtain. He utterly denied having assaulted any of
+the watchmen, and solemnly declared that he was offered his liberty at the
+price of half a crown.</p>
+
+<p>Though the bare word of an offender can never be taken against the oath
+of his accuser, yet the magistrate might have employed some labour in
+cross-examining the watchman, or at least have given the defendant time to
+send for the other persons who were present at the affray; neither of which
+he did.</p>
+
+<p>Booth and the poor man in whose defence he had been engaged were both
+dispatched to prison under a guard of watchmen.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Booth was no sooner arrived in the prison than a number of persons
+gathered around him, all demanding garnish. The master or keeper of the
+prison then acquainted him that it was the custom of the place for every
+prisoner, upon his first arrival there, to give something to the former
+prisoners to make them drink. This was what they called garnish. Mr. Booth
+answered that he would readily comply with this laudable custom, were it in
+his power; but that in reality he had not a shilling in his pocket, and,
+what was worse, he had not a shilling in the world. Upon which the keeper
+departed, and left poor Booth to the mercy of his companions, who, without
+loss of time, stripped him of his coat and hid it.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Booth was too weak to resist and too wise to complain of his usage.
+He summoned his philosophy to his assistance, and resolved to make himself
+as easy as possible under his present circumstances.</p>
+
+<p>On the following day, Miss Matthews, an old acquaintance whom he had not
+seen for some years, was brought into the prison, and Booth was shortly
+afterwards invited to the room this lady had engaged. Miss Matthews, having
+told her story, requested Booth to do the same, and to this he acceded.</p>
+
+
+<h4><i>II.--Captain Booth Tells His Story</i></h4>
+
+
+<p>"From the first I was in love with Amelia; but my own fortune was so
+desperate, and hers was entirely dependent on her mother, a woman of
+violent passions, and very unlikely to consent to a match so highly
+contrary to the interest of her daughter, that I endeavoured to refrain
+from any proposal of love. I had nothing more than the poor provision of an
+ensign's commission to depend on, and the thought of leaving my Amelia to
+starve alone, deprived of her mother's help, was intolerable to me.</p>
+
+<p>"In spite of this I could not keep from telling Amelia the state of my
+heart, and I soon found all that return of my affection which the tenderest
+lover can require. Against the opposition of Amelia's mother, Mrs. Harris,
+to our engagement, we had the support of that good man, Dr. Harrison, the
+rector; and at last Mrs. Harris yielded to the doctor, and we were married.
+There was an agreement that I should settle all my Amelia's fortune on her,
+except a certain sum, which was to be laid out in my advancement in the
+army, and shortly afterwards I was preferred to the rank of a lieutenant in
+my regiment, and ordered to Gibraltar. I noticed that Amelia's sister, Miss
+Betty, who had said many ill-natured things of our marriage, now again
+became my friend.</p>
+
+<p>"At the siege of Gibraltar I was very badly wounded, and in this
+situation the image of my Amelia haunted me day and night. Two months and
+more I continued in a state of uncertainty; when one afternoon poor
+Atkinson, my servant, came running to my room. I asked him what was the
+matter, when Amelia herself rushed into the room, and ran hastily to me.
+She gently chided me for concealing my illness from her, saying, 'Oh, Mr.
+Booth! And do you think so little of your Amelia as to think I could or
+would survive you?' Amelia then informed me that she had received a letter
+from an unknown hand, acquainting her with my misfortune, and advising her,
+if she desired to see me more, to come directly to Gibraltar.</p>
+
+<p>"From the time of Amelia's arrival nothing remarkable happened till my
+perfect recovery; and then the siege being at an end, and Amelia being in
+some sort of fever, the governor gave me leave to attend my wife to
+Montpelier, the air of which was judged to be most likely to restore her to
+health.</p>
+
+<p>"A fellow-officer, Captain James, willingly lent me money, and, after an
+ample recovery at Montpelier, and a stay in Paris, we returned to England.
+It was in Paris we received a long letter from Dr. Harrison, enclosing
+&pound;100, and containing the news that Mrs. Harris was dead, and had left
+her whole fortune to Miss Betty. So now it was that I was a married man
+with children, and the half-pay of a lieutenant.</p>
+
+<p>"Dr. Harrison, at whose rectory we were staying, came to our assistance.
+He asked me if I had any prospect of going again into the army; if not,
+what scheme of life I proposed to myself.</p>
+
+<p>"I told him that as I had no powerful friends, I could have but little
+expectations in a military way; that I was incapable of thinking of any
+other scheme, for I was without the necessary knowledge or experience, and
+was likewise destitute of money to set up with.</p>
+
+<p>"The doctor, after a little hesitation, said he had been thinking on
+this subject, and proposed to me to turn farmer. At the same time he
+offered to let me his parsonage, which was then become vacant; he said it
+was a farm which required but little stock, and that little should not be
+wanting.</p>
+
+<p>"I embraced this offer very eagerly, and Amelia received the news with
+the highest transports of joy. Thus, you see me degraded from my former
+rank in life; no longer Captain Booth, but Farmer Booth.</p>
+
+<p>"For a year all went well; love, health, and tranquillity filled our
+lives. Then a heavy blow befell us, and we were robbed of our dear friend
+the doctor, who was chosen to attend the young lord, the son of the patron
+of the living, in his travels as a tutor.</p>
+
+<p>"By this means I was bereft not only of the best companion in the world,
+but of the best counsellor, and in consequence of this loss I fell into
+many errors.</p>
+
+<p>"The first of these was in enlarging my business by adding a farm of one
+hundred a year to the parsonage, in renting which I had also as bad a
+bargain as the doctor had before given me a good one. The consequence of
+which was that whereas at the end of the first year I was &pound;80 to the
+good, at the end of the second I was nearly &pound;40 to the bad.</p>
+
+<p>"A second folly I was guilty of was in uniting families with the curate
+of the parish, who had just married. We had not, however, lived one month
+together before I plainly perceived the curate's wife had taken a great
+prejudice against my wife, though my Amelia had treated her with nothing
+but kindness, and, with the mischievous nature of envy, spread dislike
+against us.</p>
+
+<p>"My greatest folly, however, was the purchase of an old coach. The
+farmers and their wives considered that the setting up of a coach was the
+elevating ourselves above them, and immediately began to declare war
+against us. The neighbouring little squires, too, were uneasy to see a poor
+renter become their equal in a matter in which they placed so much dignity,
+and began to hate me likewise.</p>
+
+<p>"My neighbours now began to conspire against me. Whatever I bought, I
+was sure to buy dearer, and when I sold, I was obliged to sell cheaper than
+any other. In fact, they were all united; and while they every day
+committed trespasses on my lands with impunity, if any of my cattle escaped
+into their fields I was either forced to enter into a law-suit or to make
+amends for the damage sustained.</p>
+
+<p>"The consequence of all this could be no other than ruin. Before the end
+of four years I became involved in debt to the extent of &pound;300. My
+landlord seized my stock for rent, and, to avoid immediate confinement in
+prison, I was forced to leave the country.</p>
+
+<p>"In this condition I arrived in town a week ago. I had just taken a
+lodging, and had written my dear Amelia word where she might find me; and
+that very evening, as I was returning from a coffee-house, because I
+endeavoured to assist the injured party in an affray, I was seized by the
+watch and committed here by a justice of the peace."</p>
+
+
+<h4><i>III.--Amelia in London</i></h4>
+
+
+<p>Miss Matthews, being greatly drawn to Captain Booth, procured his
+discharge by the expenditure of &pound;20, and obtained her own release at
+the same time.</p>
+
+<p>Amelia arrived in London to receive her husband in her arms. "For," said
+she, "your confinement was known all over the county, my sister having
+spread the news with a malicious joy; and so, not hearing from you, I
+hastened to town with our children."</p>
+
+<p>Poor Booth, in spite of his release, was very cast down. Seeing tears in
+his eyes at the sight of his children, Amelia, embracing him with rapturous
+fondness, cried out, "My dear Billy, let nothing make you uneasy. Heaven
+will provide for us and these poor babes. Great fortunes are not necessary
+to happiness. Make yourself easy, my dear love, for you have a wife who
+will think herself happy with you, and endeavour to make you so, in any
+situation. Fear nothing, Billy; industry will always provide us a wholesome
+meal."</p>
+
+<p>Booth, who was naturally of a sanguine temper, took the cue she had
+given him, but he could not help reproaching himself as the cause of all
+her wretchedness. This it was that enervated his heart and threw him into
+agonies, which all that profusion of heroic tenderness that the most
+excellent of women intended for his comfort served only to heighten and
+aggravate: as the more she rose in his admiration, the more she quickened
+the sense of his unworthiness.</p>
+
+<p>His affairs did not prosper; in vain he solicited a commission in the
+army. With no great man to back him, and with his friend, Captain James
+(now a colonel, and in London), too taken up with his own affairs to exert
+any influence on behalf of Booth, it seemed as though no escape from misery
+was possible. The beautiful Amelia, always patient and cheerful, remained
+his comforter. And Atkinson, now a sergeant in the guards, was the devoted
+servant of both Amelia and her husband.</p>
+
+<p>Then one morning, when Amelia was out, Booth was arrested for debt and
+carried to the bailiff's house in Gray's Inn Lane.</p>
+
+<p>"Who has done this barbarous action?" cries Amelia, when the news is
+told her by Sergeant Atkinson.</p>
+
+<p>"One I am ashamed to name," cries the sergeant; "indeed, I had always a
+very different opinion of him; but Dr. Harrison is the man who has done the
+deed."</p>
+
+<p>"Dr. Harrison!" cries Amelia. "Well, then, there is an end of all
+goodness in the world. I will never have a good opinion of any human being
+more!"</p>
+
+<p>The fact was that while the doctor was abroad he had received from the
+curate, and from a gentleman of the neighbourhood, accounts of Booth's
+doings very much to his disadvantage. On his return to the parish these
+accusations were confirmed by many witnesses, and the whole neighbourhood
+rang with several gross and scandalous lies, which were merely the
+inventions of Booth's enemies. Poisoned with all this malice, the doctor
+came to London, and calling at Booth's lodgings, when both the captain and
+Amelia were out, learnt from the servant-maid that the children had got a
+gold watch and several fine trinkets. These presents, indeed, had come from
+a certain noble lord, who hoped by these means to win Amelia's affection;
+but no suspicion of his evil desire had entered the innocent mind of
+Amelia.</p>
+
+<p>The doctor had no doubt that these trinkets had been purchased by
+Amelia; and this account tallied so well with the ideas he had imbibed of
+Booth's extravagance in the country, that he firmly believed both the
+husband and wife to be the vainest, silliest and most unjust people
+alive.</p>
+
+<p>But no sooner did the doctor hear that Booth was arrested than the
+wretched condition of his wife and children began to affect his mind. In
+this temper of mind he resolved to pay Amelia a second visit, and was on
+his way thither when Sergeant Atkinson met him, and made himself known to
+him.</p>
+
+<p>The doctor received from Atkinson such an account of Booth and his
+family that he hastened at once to Amelia, and soon became satisfied
+concerning the trinkets which had given him so much uneasiness. Amelia
+likewise gave the doctor some satisfaction as to what he had heard of her
+husband's behaviour In the country, and assured him, upon her honour, that
+Booth could answer every complaint against his conduct, so that the doctor
+would find him an innocent, unfortunate man, the object of a good man's
+compassion, not of his anger or resentment.</p>
+
+<p>This worthy clergyman, who was not desirous of finding proofs to condemn
+the captain, rejoiced heartily in every piece of evidence which tended to
+clear up the character of his friend, and gave a ready ear to all which
+Amelia said.</p>
+
+<p>Induced, indeed, by the love he always had for that lady, whom he was
+wont to call his daughter, as well as by pity for her present condition,
+the doctor immediately endeavoured to comfort the afflicted, and then
+proceeded to accomplish the captain's release.</p>
+
+<p>"So, captain," says the doctor, on arrival at the bailiff's house, "when
+last we met I believe that we neither of us expected to meet in such a
+place as this."</p>
+
+<p>"Indeed, doctor," cries Booth, "I did not expect to have been sent
+hither by the gentleman who did me this favour."</p>
+
+<p>"How so, sir!" said the doctor. "You were sent hither by some person, I
+suppose, to whom you were indebted. But you ought to be more surprised that
+the gentleman who sent you thither is come to release you."</p>
+
+
+<h4><i>IV.--Fortune Smiles on Amelia</i></h4>
+
+
+<p>Booth was again arrested some months later, and lodged in the bailiff's
+house. This time his creditor was a Captain Trent, who had lent him money,
+and promised him assistance in getting returned to the army. In reality,
+Trent was only seeking to ingratiate himself with Amelia, and meeting with
+no encouragement, took his revenge accordingly.</p>
+
+<p>Amelia at once sought out Dr. Harrison, and told him what had occurred
+to her husband; and the doctor set forwards to the bailiff's to see what he
+could do for Booth.</p>
+
+<p>The doctor had not got so much money in town as Booth's debt amounted
+to, and therefore he was forced to give bail to the action.</p>
+
+<p>While the necessary forms were being made out, the bailiff, addressing
+himself to the doctor, said, "Sir, there is a man above in a dying
+condition that desires the favour of speaking to you. I believe he wants
+you to pray by him."</p>
+
+<p>Without making any further inquiry, the doctor immediately went
+upstairs.</p>
+
+<p>The sick man mentioned his name, and explained that he lived for many
+years in the town where the doctor resided, and that he used to write for
+the attorneys in those parts. He was anxious, he said, as he hoped for
+forgiveness, to make all the amends he could to some one he had injured,
+and to undo, if possible, the injury he had done.</p>
+
+<p>The doctor commended this as a sincere repentance.</p>
+
+<p>"You know, good doctor," the sick man resumed, "that Mrs. Harris, of our
+town, had two daughters--one now Mrs. Booth, and another. Before Mrs.
+Harris died, she made a will, and left all her fortune, except
+&pound;1,000, to Mrs. Booth, to which will Mr. Murphy, the lawyer, myself,
+and another were witnesses. Mrs. Harris afterwards died suddenly, upon
+which it was contrived, by her other daughter and Mr. Murphy, to make a new
+will, in which Mrs. Booth had a legacy of &pound;10, and all the rest was
+given to the other."</p>
+
+<p>"Good heaven, how wonderful is thy providence!" cries the doctor.
+"Murphy, say you? Why, this Murphy is still my attorney."</p>
+
+<p>Within a short time Murphy was arrested, and the sick man's depositions
+taken. Booth was released on the doctor's bail, and on the following
+morning Amelia learnt of the change in fortune that had befallen them.</p>
+
+<p>Dr. Harrison himself broke the good news by reading the following
+paragraph from the newspaper.</p>
+
+<p>"Yesterday, one Murphy, an eminent attorney-at-law, was committed to
+Newgate for the forgery of a will, under which an estate has been for many
+years detained from the right owner."</p>
+
+<p>"Now," said the doctor, "in this paragraph there is something very
+remarkable, and that is that it is true. But now let us read the following
+note upon the words 'right owner.' 'The right owner of this estate is a
+young lady of the highest merit, whose maiden name was Harris, and who some
+time since was married to an idle fellow, one Lieutenant Booth; and the
+best historians assure us that letters from the elder sister of this lady,
+which manifestly prove the forgery and clear up the whole affair, are in
+the hands of an old parson, called Dr. Harrison.'"</p>
+
+<p>"And is this really true?" cries Amelia.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, really and sincerely," cries the doctor, "the whole estate--for
+your mother left it you all; and it is as surely yours as if you were
+already in possession."</p>
+
+<p>"Gracious heaven!" cries she, falling on her knees, "I thank you!" And
+then, starting up, she ran to her husband, and embracing him, cried, "My
+dear love, I wish you joy! It is upon yours and my children's account that
+I principally rejoice."</p>
+
+<p>She then desired her children to be brought to her, whom she immediately
+caught in her arms; and having profusely cried over them, soon regained her
+usual temper and complexion.</p>
+
+<p>Miss Harris, having received a letter from Amelia, informing her of the
+discovery and the danger in which she stood, immediately set out for
+France, carrying with her all her money, most of her clothes, and some few
+jewels.</p>
+
+<p>About a week afterwards, Booth and Amelia, with their children, and
+Atkinson and his wife, all set forward together for Amelia's house, where
+they arrived amidst the acclamations of all the neighbours, and every
+public demonstration of joy.</p>
+
+<p>Miss Harris lived for three years with a broken heart at Boulogne, where
+she received annually &pound;50 from her sister; and then died in a most
+miserable manner.</p>
+
+<p>Dr. Harrison is grown old in years and in honour, beloved and respected
+by all his parishioners and neighbours.</p>
+
+<p>As to Booth and Amelia, fortune seems to have made them large amends for
+the tricks she played them in their youth. They have continued to enjoy an
+uninterrupted course of health and happiness. In about six weeks after
+Booth's first coming into the country, he went to London and paid all his
+debts, after which, and a stay of two days only, he returned into the
+country, and has never since been thirty miles from home.</p>
+
+<p>Amelia is still the finest woman in England of her age; Booth himself
+often avers she is as handsome as ever. Nothing can equal the serenity of
+their lives.</p>
+
+<p>Amelia declared the other day that she did not remember to have seen her
+husband out of humour these ten years!</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+
+
+
+<h3><a name="fielding2">Jonathan Wild</a></h3>
+
+<p class="letter">
+"Jonathan Wild," published in 1743, is in many respects
+Fielding's most powerful piece of satire, surpassed only, perhaps, by
+Thackeray's "Barry Lyndon." It can hardly be called a novel, and still less
+a serious biography, though it is founded on the real history of a
+notorious highway robber and thief. The author disclaimed in his preface
+any attempt on his part at authentic history or faithful portraiture.
+"Roguery, and not a rogue is my subject," he wrote; adding, that the ideas
+of goodness and greatness are too often confounded together. "A man may be
+great without being good, or good without being great." The story of
+"Jonathan Wild" is really a bitter, satirical attack on what Fielding
+called "the greatness which is totally devoid of goodness." He avowed it
+his intention "to expose the character of this bombast greatness," and no
+one can deny the success of his achievement. Surely no story was ever
+written under more desperate circumstances. The evils of poverty, which at
+this period were at their height, were aggravated by the serious illness of
+his wife, and his own sufferings from attacks of gout. These troubles and
+others may well increase our admiration for the genius which, in the face
+of all difficulties, is shown in "Jonathan Wild."
+</p>
+
+<h4><i>I.--Mr. Wild's Early Exploits</i></h4>
+
+
+<p>Mr. Jonathan Wild, who was descended from a long line of great men, was
+born in 1665. His father followed the fortunes of Mr. Snap, who enjoyed a
+reputable office under the sheriff of London and Middlesex; and his mother
+was the daughter of Scragg Hollow, Esq., of Hockley-in-the-Hole. He was
+scarce settled at school before he gave marks of his lofty and aspiring
+temper, and was regarded by his schoolfellows with that deference which men
+generally pay to those superior geniuses who will exact it of them. If an
+orchard was to be robbed, Wild was consulted; and though he was himself
+seldom concerned in the execution of the design, yet was he always
+concerter of it, and treasurer of the booty, some little part of which he
+would now and then, with wonderful generosity, bestow on those who took it.
+He was generally very secret on these occasions; but if any offered to
+plunder of his own head without acquainting Master Wild, and making a
+deposit of the booty, he was sure to have an information against him lodged
+with the schoolmaster, and to be severely punished for his pains.</p>
+
+<p>At the age of seventeen his father brought the young gentleman to town,
+where he resided with him till he was of an age to travel.</p>
+
+<p>Men of great genius as easily discover one another as Freemasons can. It
+was therefore no wonder that the Count la Ruse--who was confined in Mr.
+Snap's house until the day when he should appear in court to answer a
+certain creditor--soon conceived an inclination to an intimacy with our
+young hero, whose vast abilities could not be concealed from one of the
+count's discernment; for though the latter was exceedingly expert at his
+cards, he was no match for Master Wild, who never failed to send him away
+from the table with less in his pocket than he brought to it. With so much
+ingenuity, indeed, could our young hero extract a purse, that his hands
+made frequent visits to the count's pocket before the latter had
+entertained any suspicion of him. But one night, when Wild imagined the
+count asleep, he made so unguarded an attack upon him that the other caught
+him in the act. However, he did not think proper to acquaint him with the
+discovery he had made, but only took care for the future to button his
+pockets and to pack the cards with double industry.</p>
+
+<p>In reality, this detection recommended these two prigs to each other,
+for a wise man--that is to say, a rogue--considers a trick in life as a
+gamester doth a trick at play. It sets him on his guard, but he admires the
+dexterity of him who plays it.</p>
+
+<p>When our two friends met the next morning, the count began to bewail the
+misfortune of his captivity, and the backwardness of friends to assist each
+other in their necessities.</p>
+
+<p>Wild told him that bribery was the surest means of procuring his escape,
+and advised him to apply to the maid, telling him at the same time that as
+he had no money he must make it up with promises, which he would know how
+to put off.</p>
+
+<p>The maid only consented to leave the door open when Wild, depositing a
+guinea in the girl's hands, declared that he himself would swear that he
+saw the count descending from the window by a pair of sheets.</p>
+
+<p>Thus did our young hero not only lend his rhetoric, which few people
+care to do without a fee, but his money too, to procure liberty for his
+friend. At the same time it would be highly derogatory from the great
+character of Wild should the reader not understand that this was done
+because our hero had some interested view in the count's enlargement.</p>
+
+<p>Intimacy and friendship subsisted between the count and Mr. Wild, and
+the latter, now dressed in good clothes, was introduced into the best
+company. They constantly frequented the assemblies, auctions,
+gaming-tables, and play-houses, and Wild passed for a gentleman of great
+fortune.</p>
+
+<p>It was then that an accident occurred that obliged Wild to go abroad for
+seven years to his majesty's plantations in America; and there are such
+various accounts, one of which only can be true, of this accident that we
+shall pass them all over. It is enough that Wild went abroad, and stayed
+seven years.</p>
+
+
+<h4><i>II.--An Example of Wild's Greatness</i></h4>
+
+
+<p>The count was one night very successful at the gaming-table, where Wild,
+who was just returned from his travels, was then present; as was likewise a
+young gentleman whose name was Bob Bagshot, an acquaintance of Mr. Wild's.
+Taking, therefore, Mr. Bagshot aside, he advised him to provide himself
+with a case of pistols, and to attack the count on his way home.</p>
+
+<p>This was accordingly executed, and the count obliged to surrender to
+savage force what he had in so genteel a manner taken at play. As one
+misfortune never comes alone, the count had hardly passed the examination
+of Mr. Bagshot when he fell into the hands of Mr. Snap, who carried him to
+his house.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Wild and Mr. Bagshot went together to the tavern, where Mr. Bagshot
+offered to share the booty. Having divided the money into two unequal
+heaps, and added a golden snuffbox to the lesser heap, he desired Mr. Wild
+to take his choice.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Wild immediately conveyed the larger share of the ready into his
+pocket, according to an excellent maxim of his--"First secure what share
+you can before you wrangle for the rest"; and then, turning to his
+companion, he asked him whether he intended to keep all that sum himself.
+"I grant you took it," Wild said; "but, pray, who proposed or counselled
+the taking of it? Can you say that you have done more than execute my
+scheme? The ploughman, the shepherd, the weaver, the builder, and the
+soldier work not for themselves, but others; they are contented with a poor
+pittance--the labourer's hire--and permit us, the great, to enjoy the
+fruits of their labours. Why, then, should the state of a prig differ from
+all others? Or why should you, who are the labourer only, the executor of
+my scheme, expect a share in the profit? Be advised, therefore; deliver the
+whole booty to me, and trust to my bounty for your reward."</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Bagshot not being minded to yield to these arguments, Wild adopted a
+fiercer tone, and the other was glad to let him borrow a part of his share.
+So that Wild got three-fourths of the whole before taking leave of his
+companion.</p>
+
+<p>Wild then returned to visit his friend the count, now in captivity at
+Mr. Snap's; for our hero was none of those half-bred fellows who are
+ashamed to see their friends when they have plundered and betrayed
+them.</p>
+
+<p>The count, little suspecting that Wild had been the sole contriver of
+the misfortune which had befallen him, eagerly embraced him, and Wild
+returned his embrace with equal warmth.</p>
+
+<p>While they were discoursing, Mr. Snap introduced Mr. Bagshot; for Mr.
+Bagshot had lost what money he had from Mr. Wild at a gaming-table, and was
+directly afterwards arrested for debt. Mr. Wild no sooner saw his friend
+than he immediately presented him to the count, who received him with great
+civility. But no sooner was Mr. Bagshot out of the room than the count said
+to Wild, "I am very well convinced that Bagshot is the person who robbed
+me, and I will apply to a justice of the peace."</p>
+
+<p>Wild replied with indignation that Mr. Bagshot was a man of honour, but,
+as this had no weight with the count, he went on, more vehemently, "I am
+ashamed of my own discernment when I mistook you for a great man. Prosecute
+him, and you may promise yourself to be blown up at every gaming-house in
+the town. But leave the affair to me, and if I find he hath played you this
+trick, I will engage my own honour you shall in the end be no loser." The
+count answered, "If I was sure to be no loser, Mr. Wild, I apprehend you
+have a better opinion of my understanding than to imagine I would prosecute
+a gentleman for the sake of the public."</p>
+
+<p>Wild having determined to make use of Bagshot as long as he could, and
+then send him to be hanged, went to Bagshot next day and told him the count
+knew all, and intended to prosecute him, and the only thing to be done was
+to refund the money.</p>
+
+<p>"Refund the money!" cried Bagshot. "Why, you know what small part of it
+fell to my share!"</p>
+
+<p>"How?" replied Wild. "Is this your gratitude to me for saving your life?
+For your own conscience must convince you of your guilt."</p>
+
+<p>"Marry come up!" quoth Bagshot. "I believe my life alone will not be in
+danger. Can you deny your share?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, you rascal!" answered Wild. "I do deny everything, and do you find
+a witness to prove it. I will show you the difference between committing a
+robbery and conniving at it."</p>
+
+<p>So alarmed was Bagshot at the threats of Wild that he drew forth all he
+found in his pockets, to the amount of twenty-one guineas, which he had
+just gained at dice.</p>
+
+<p>Wild now returned to the count, and informed him that he had got ten
+guineas of Bagshot, and by these means the count was once more enlarged,
+and enabled to carry out a new plan of the great Wild.</p>
+
+
+<h4><i>III.--Mr. Heartfree's Weakness</i></h4>
+
+
+<p>By accident, Wild had met with a young fellow who had formerly been his
+companion at school.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Thomas Heartfree (for that was his name) was of an honest and open
+disposition. He was possessed of several great weaknesses of mind, being
+good-natured, friendly, and generous to a great excess.</p>
+
+<p>This young man, who was about Wild's age, had some time before set up in
+the trade of a jeweller, in the materials for which he had laid out the
+greatest part of a little fortune.</p>
+
+<p>He no sooner recognised Wild than he accosted him in the most friendly
+manner, and invited him home with him to breakfast, which invitation our
+hero, with no great difficulty, consented to.</p>
+
+<p>Wild, after vehement professions of friendship, then told him he had an
+opportunity of recommending a gentleman, on the brink of marriage, to his
+custom, "and," says he, "I will endeavour to prevail on him to furnish his
+lady with jewels at your shop."</p>
+
+<p>Having parted from Heartfree, Wild sought out the count, who, in order
+to procure credit from tradesmen, had taken a handsome house,
+ready-furnished, in one of the new streets. He instructed the count to take
+only one of Heartfree's jewels at the first interview, to reject the rest
+as not fine enough, and order him to provide some richer. The count was
+then to dispose of the jewel, and by means of that money, and his great
+abilities at cards and dice, to get together as large a sum as possible,
+which he was to pay down to Heartfree at the delivery of the set of
+jewels.</p>
+
+<p>This method was immediately put in execution; and the count, the first
+day, took only a single brilliant, worth about &pound;300, and ordered a
+necklace and earrings, of the value of &pound;3,000 more, to be prepared by
+that day week.</p>
+
+<p>This interval was employed by Wild in raising a gang, and within a few
+days he had levied several bold and resolute fellows, fit for any
+enterprise, how dangerous or great soever.</p>
+
+<p>The count disposed of his jewel for its full value, and by his dexterity
+raised &pound;1,000. This sum he paid down to Heartfree at the end of the
+week, and promised him the rest within a month. Heartfree did not in the
+least scruple giving him credit, but as he had in reality procured those
+jewels of another, his own little stock not being able to furnish anything
+so valuable. The count, in addition to the &pound;1,000 in gold, gave him
+his note for &pound;2,800 more.</p>
+
+<p>As soon as Heartfree was departed, Wild came in and received the casket
+from the count, and an appointment was made to meet the next morning to
+come to a division of its contents.</p>
+
+<p>Two gentlemen of resolution, in the meantime, attacked Heartfree on his
+way home, according to Wild's orders, and spoiled the enemy of the whole
+sum he had received from the count. According to agreement, Wild, who had
+made haste to overtake the conquerors, took nine-tenths of the booty, but
+was himself robbed of this &pound;900 before nightfall.</p>
+
+<p>As for the casket, when he opened it, the stones were but paste. For the
+sagacious count had conveyed the jewels into his own pocket, and in their
+stead had placed artificial stones. On Wild's departure the count hastened
+out of London, and was well on his way to Dover when Wild knocked at his
+door.</p>
+
+<p>Heartfree, wounded and robbed, had only the count's note left, and this
+was returned to him as worthless, inquiries having proved that the count
+had run away. So confused was poor Heartfree at this that his creditor for
+the jewels was frightened, and at once had him arrested for the debt.</p>
+
+<p>Heartfree applied in vain for money to numerous customers who were
+indebted to him; they all replied with various excuses, and the unhappy
+wretch was soon taken to Newgate. He had been inclined to blame Wild for
+his misfortunes, but our hero boldly attacked him for giving credit to the
+count, and this degree of impudence convinced both Heartfree and his wife
+of Wild's innocence, the more so as the latter promised to procure bail for
+his friend. In this he was unsuccessful, and it was long before Heartfree
+was released and restored to happiness.</p>
+
+
+<h4><i>IV.--The Highest Pinnacle of Greatness</i></h4>
+
+
+<p>Wild was a living instance that human greatness and happiness are not
+always inseparable. He was under a continual alarm of frights and fears and
+jealousies, and was thoroughly convinced there was not a single man amongst
+his own gang who would not, for the value of five shillings, bring him to
+the gallows.</p>
+
+<p>A clause in an act of parliament procured by a learned judge entrapped
+Wild. Hitherto he had always employed less gifted men to carry out his
+plans. Now, by this law it was made capital in a prig to steal with the
+hands of other people, and it was impossible for our hero to avoid the
+destruction so plainly calculated for his greatness.</p>
+
+<p>Wild, having received from some dutiful members of his gang a valuable
+piece of goods, did, for a consideration, re-convey it to the right owner,
+for which fact, being ungratefully informed against by the said owner, he
+was surprised in his own house, and, being overpowered by numbers, was
+hurried before a magistrate, and by him committed to Newgate.</p>
+
+<p>When the day of his trial arrived, our hero was, notwithstanding his
+utmost caution and prudence, convicted and sentenced to be hanged by the
+neck. He now suspected that the malice of his enemies would overpower him,
+and therefore betook himself to that true support of greatness in
+affliction--a bottle, by means of which he was enabled to curse, swear, and
+bully, and brave his fate. Other comfort, indeed, he had not much, for not
+a single friend ever came near him.</p>
+
+<p>From the time our hero gave over all hopes of life, his conduct was
+truly great and admirable. Instead of showing any marks of contrition or
+dejection, he rather infused more confidence and assurance into his looks.
+He spent most of his hours in drinking with acquaintances, and with the
+good chaplain; and being asked whether he was afraid to die, he answered,
+"It's only a dance without music. A man can die but once. Zounds! Who's
+afraid?"</p>
+
+<p>At length the morning came which Fortune had resolutely ordained for the
+consummation of our hero's greatness; he had himself, indeed, modestly
+declined the public honour she intended him, and had taken a quantity of
+laudanum in order to retire quietly off the stage. But it is vain to
+struggle against the decrees of fortune, and the laudanum proved
+insufficient to stop his breath.</p>
+
+<p>At the usual hour he was acquainted that the cart was ready, and his
+fetters having been knocked off in a solemn and ceremonious manner, after
+drinking a bumper of brandy, he ascended the cart, where he was no sooner
+seated than he received the acclamations of the multitude, who were highly
+ravished with his greatness.</p>
+
+<p>The cart now moved slowly on, preceded by a troop of Horse Guards,
+bearing javelins in their hands, through the streets lined with crowds all
+admiring the great behaviour of our hero, who rode on, sometimes sighing,
+sometimes swearing, sometimes singing or whistling, as his humour
+varied.</p>
+
+<p>When he came to the tree of glory, he was welcomed with an universal
+shout of the people; but there were not wanting some who maligned this
+completion of glory, now about to be fulfilled by our hero, and endeavoured
+to prevent it by knocking him on the head as he stood under the tree, while
+the chaplain was performing his last office.</p>
+
+<p>They therefore began to batter the cart with stones, brick-bats, dirt,
+and all manner of mischievous weapons, so that the ecclesiastic ended
+almost in an instant, and conveyed himself into a place of safety in a
+hackney coach.</p>
+
+<p>One circumstance must not be omitted. Whilst the chaplain was busy in
+his ejaculations, Wild, in the midst of the shower of stones, etc., which
+played upon him, true to his character, applied his hands to the parson's
+pocket, and emptied it of his bottle-screw, which he carried out of the
+world in his hand.</p>
+
+<p>The chaplain being now descended from the cart, Wild had just
+opportunity to cast his eyes around the crowd, and to give them a hearty
+curse, when immediately the horses moved on, and, with universal applause,
+our hero swung out of this world.</p>
+
+
+<hr />
+
+
+
+
+<h3><a name="fielding3">Joseph Andrews</a></h3>
+
+<p class="letter">
+"Joseph Andrews," Fielding's first novel, was published in
+1742, and was intended to be a satire on Richardson's "Pamela" (see Vol.
+VII), which appeared in 1740. He described it as "written in the manner of
+Cervantes," and in Parson Adams there is the same quaint blending of the
+humorous and the pathetic as in the Knight of La Mancha. Although such
+characters as Lady Booby and Mrs. Slipslop are admittedly ridiculous,
+Parson Adams remains an admirable study of a simple-minded clergyman of the
+eighteenth century.
+</p>
+
+<h4><i>I.--The Virtues of Joseph Andrews</i></h4>
+
+
+<p>Mr. Joseph Andrews was esteemed to be the only son of Gaffer and Gammer
+Andrews, and brother to the illustrious Pamela.</p>
+
+<p>At ten years old (by which time his education was advanced to writing
+and reading) he was bound an apprentice to Sir Thomas Booby, an uncle of
+Mr. Booby's by the father's side. From the stable of Sir Thomas he was
+preferred to attend as foot-boy on Lady Booby, to go on her errands, stand
+behind her chair, wait at her tea-table, and carry her prayer-book to
+church; at which place he behaved so well in every respect at divine
+service that it recommended him to the notice of Mr. Abraham Adams, the
+curate, who took an opportunity one day to ask the young man several
+questions concerning religion, with his answers to which he was wonderfully
+pleased.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Abraham Adams was an excellent scholar, a man of good sense and good
+nature, but at the same time entirely ignorant of the ways of the world. At
+the age of fifty he was provided with a handsome income of twenty-three
+pounds a year, which, however, he could not make any great figure with,
+because he was a little encumbered with a wife and six children.</p>
+
+<p>Adams had no nearer access to Sir Thomas or my lady than through Mrs.
+Slipslop, the waiting-gentlewoman, for Sir Thomas was too apt to estimate
+men merely by their dress or fortune, and my lady was a woman of gaiety,
+who never spoke of any of her country neighbours by any other appellation
+than that of the brutes.</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Slipslop, being herself the daughter of a curate, preserved some
+respect for Adams; she would frequently dispute with him, and was a mighty
+affecter of hard words, which she used in such a manner that the parson was
+frequently at some loss to guess her meaning.</p>
+
+<p>Adams was so much impressed by the industry and application he saw in
+young Andrews that one day he mentioned the case to Mrs. Slipslop, desiring
+her to recommend him to my lady as a youth very susceptible of learning,
+and one whose instruction in Latin he would himself undertake, by which
+means he might be qualified for a higher station than that of footman. He
+therefore desired that the boy might be left behind under his care when Sir
+Thomas and my lady went to London.</p>
+
+<p>"La, Mr. Adams," said Mrs. Slipslop, "do you think my lady will suffer
+any preambles about any such matter? She is going to London very concisely,
+and I am confidous would not leave Joey behind on any account, for he is
+one of the genteelest young fellows you may see in a summer's day; and I am
+confidous she would as soon think of parting with a pair of her grey mares,
+for she values herself on one as much as the other. And why is Latin more
+necessitous for a footman than a gentleman? I am confidous my lady would be
+angry with me for mentioning it, and I shall draw myself into no such
+delemy."</p>
+
+<p>So young Andrews went to London in attendance on Lady Booby, and became
+acquainted with the brethren of his profession. They could not, however,
+teach him to game, swear, drink, nor any other genteel vice the town
+abounded with. He applied most of his leisure hours to music, in which he
+greatly improved himself, so that he led the opinion of all the other
+footmen at an opera. Though his morals remain entirely uncorrupted, he was
+at the same time smarter and genteeler than any of the beaus in town either
+in or out of livery.</p>
+
+<p>At this time an accident happened, and this was no other than the death
+of Sir Thomas Booby, who left his disconsolate lady closely confined to her
+house. During the first six days the poor lady admitted none but Mrs.
+Slipslop and three female friends, who made a party at cards; but on the
+seventh she ordered Joey, whom we shall hereafter call Joseph, to bring up
+her teakettle.</p>
+
+<p>Lady Booby's affection for her footman had for some time been a matter
+of gossip in the town, but it is certain that her innocent freedoms had
+made no impression on young Andrews.</p>
+
+<p>Now, however, he thought my lady had become distracted with grief at her
+husband's death, so strange was her conduct, and wrote to his sister Pamela
+on the subject.</p>
+
+<p class="letter">
+If madam be mad, I shall not care for staying long in the
+family, so I heartily wish you could get me a place at some neighbouring
+gentleman's. I fancy I shall be discharged very soon, and the moment I am I
+shall return to my old master's country seat, if it be only to see Parson
+Adams, who is the best man in the world. London is a bad place, and there
+is so little good fellowship that the next-door neighbours don't know one
+another. Your loving brother,<br /> JOSEPH ANDREWS.
+</p>
+
+<p>The sending of this letter was quickly followed by the discharge of the
+writer. To Lady Booby's open declarations of love, Joseph replied that a
+lady having no virtue was not a reason against his having any.</p>
+
+<p>"I am out of patience!" cries the lady, "did ever mortal hear of a man's
+virtue? Will magistrates who punish lewdness, or parsons who preach against
+it, make any scruple of committing it? And can a boy have the confidence to
+talk of his virtue?"</p>
+
+<p>"Madam," says Joseph, "that boy is the brother of Pamela, and would be
+ashamed that the chastity of his family, which is preserved in her, should
+be stained in him. If there are such men as your ladyship mentions, I am
+sorry for it, and I wish they had an opportunity of reading my sister
+Pamela's letters; nor do I doubt but such an example would amend them."</p>
+
+<p>"You impudent villain!" cries the lady in a rage. "Get out of my sight,
+and leave the house this night!"</p>
+
+<p>Joseph having received what wages were due, and having been stripped of
+his livery, took a melancholy leave of his fellow-servants and set out at
+seven in the evening.</p>
+
+
+<h4><i>II.--Adventures on the Road</i></h4>
+
+
+<p>It may be wondered why Joseph made such extraordinary haste to get out
+of London, and why, instead of proceeding to the habitation of his father
+and mother, or to his beloved sister Pamela, he chose rather to set out
+full speed to Lady Booby's country seat, which he had left on his journey
+to town.</p>
+
+<p>Be it known then, that in the same parish where this seat stood there
+lived a young girl whom Joseph longed more impatiently to see than his
+parents or his sister. She was a poor girl, formerly bred up in Sir
+Thomas's house, and, discarded by Mrs. Slipslop on account of her
+extraordinary beauty, was now a servant to a farmer in the parish.</p>
+
+<p>Fanny was two years younger than our hero, and had been always beloved
+by him, and returned his affection. They had been acquainted from their
+infancy, and Mr. Adams had, with much ado, prevented them from marrying,
+and persuaded them to wait till a few years' service and thrift had a
+little improved their experience, and enabled them to live comfortably
+together.</p>
+
+<p>They followed this good man's advice, as, indeed, his word was little
+less than a law in his parish, for during twenty-five years he had shown
+that he had the good of his parishioners entirely at heart, so that they
+consulted him on every occasion, and very seldom acted contrary to his
+opinion.</p>
+
+<p>Honest Joseph therefore set out on his travels without delay, in order
+that he might once more look upon his Fanny, from whom he had been absent
+for twelve months.</p>
+
+<p>But on the road he was attacked by robbers, and, having been left
+wounded in a ditch, was mercifully taken to an inn by some later
+travellers.</p>
+
+<p>It was at this same inn that, to the great surprise on both sides, Mr.
+Abraham Adams found Joseph.</p>
+
+<p>The parson informed his young friend, who was still sick in bed, that
+the occasion of the journey he was making to London was to publish three
+volumes of sermons, being encouraged, as he said, by an advertisement
+lately set forth by the Society of Booksellers; but, though he imagined he
+should get a considerable sum of money on this occasion, which his family
+were in urgent need of, he protested he would not leave Joseph in his
+present penniless condition. Finally, he told him he had nine shillings and
+threepence-halfpenny in his pocket, which he was welcome to use as he
+pleased.</p>
+
+<p>This goodness of Parson Adams brought tears into Joseph's eyes; he had
+now a second reason to desire life, that he might show his gratitude to
+such a friend.</p>
+
+<p>Before pursuing his journey Adams made the acquaintance of another
+clergyman named Barnabas at the inn, who in his turn, hearing that Adams
+was proposing to publish sermons, introduced him to a stranger who he said
+was a bookseller.</p>
+
+<p>Adams, saluting the stranger, answered Barnabas that he was very much
+obliged to him; that nothing could be more convenient, for he had no other
+business to the great city, and was heartily desirous of returning with the
+young man, who was just recovered of his misfortune. To induce the
+bookseller to be as expeditious as possible, he assured them their meeting
+was extremely lucky to himself, for that he had the most pressing occasion
+for money at that time, his own being almost spent. "So that nothing," says
+he, "could be so opportune as my making an immediate bargain with you."</p>
+
+<p>"Sir, sermons are mere drugs," said the stranger. "The trade is so
+vastly stocked with them that really, unless they come out with the name of
+Whitefield or Wesley, or some other such great man, as a bishop, or those
+sort of people, I don't care to touch. However, I will, if you please, take
+the manuscript with me to town, and send you my opinion of it in a very
+short time."</p>
+
+<p>When, however, Adams began to describe the nature of his sermons the
+bookseller drew back, on the ground that the clergy would be certain to cry
+down such a book.</p>
+
+<p>An accident prevented Mr. Adams from pursuing a market for his sermons
+any further, which he would have done in spite of the advice of Barnabas
+and the bookseller. This accident was, that those sermons which the parson
+was travelling to London to publish were left behind; what he had mistaken
+for them in the saddle-bags were three shirts, which Mrs. Adams, who
+thought her husband would need shirts rather than sermons on his journey,
+had carefully provided for him.</p>
+
+<p>Joseph, concerned at the disappointment to his friend, begged him to
+pursue his journey all the same, and promised he would himself return with
+the books to him with the utmost expedition.</p>
+
+<p>"No, thank you, child," answered Adams; "it shall not be so. What would
+it avail me to tarry in the great city unless I had my discourses with me?
+No; as this accident has happened, I am resolved to return back to my cure,
+together with you; which, indeed, my inclination sufficiently leads me
+to."</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Adams, whose credit was good wherever he was known, having borrowed
+a guinea from a servant belonging to a coach-and-six, who had been formerly
+one of his parishioners, discharged the bill for Joseph and himself, and
+the two travellers set off.</p>
+
+
+<h4><i>III.--More Adventures</i></h4>
+
+
+<p>Adams and Joseph Andrews being for a time separated on the road, through
+the former's absent-mindedness, it fell to the lot of the parson to hasten
+to the assistance of a damsel who in a lonely place was being attacked by
+some ruffian.</p>
+
+<p>Adams was as strong as he was brave, and having rescued the maiden, took
+her under his protection. It was too dark for either to identify the other,
+but on Mr. Adams ejaculating the name of Joseph Andrews, for whose safety
+he was anxious, his companion recognised his voice, and the parson was
+quickly informed that it was Fanny who was by his side.</p>
+
+<p>The fact was the poor girl had heard of Joseph's misfortune from the
+servants of a coach which had stopped at the inn while the poor youth was
+confined to his bed; and she had that instant abandoned the cow she was
+milking, and taking with her a little bundle of clothes under her arm, and
+all the money she was worth in her own purse, immediately set forward in
+pursuit of one whom she loved with inexpressible violence, though with the
+purest and most delicate passion.</p>
+
+<p>Fanny was now in the nineteenth year of her age; she was tall and
+delicately shaped. Her hair was a chestnut brown; her complexion was fair;
+and, to conclude all, she had a natural gentility which surprised all who
+beheld her.</p>
+
+<p>Can it be wondered that on the following day, when Adams and the damsel
+overtook Andrews at a wayside ale-house, the youth imprinted numberless
+kisses on her lips, while Parson Adams danced about the room in a rapture
+of joy?</p>
+
+<p>It was so late when our travellers left the ale-house that they had not
+travelled many miles before night overtook them. They moved forwards where
+the nearest light presented itself; and having crossed a common field, they
+came to a meadow where they seemed to be at a very little distance from the
+light, when, to their grief, they arrived at the banks of a river. Adams
+declared he could swim, but Joseph answered, if they walked along its banks
+they might be certain of soon finding a bridge, especially as, by the
+number of lights, they might be assured a parish was near.</p>
+
+<p>"That's true, indeed," said Adams. "I did not think of that."</p>
+
+<p>Accordingly, Joseph's advice being taken, they passed over two meadows,
+and came to a little orchard which led them to a house. Fanny begged of
+Joseph to knock at the door, assuring him she was so weary that she could
+hardly stand on her feet; and the door being immediately opened, a plain
+kind of man appeared at it. Adams acquainted him that they had a young
+woman with them, who was so tired with her journey that he should be much
+obliged to him if he would suffer her to come in and rest herself.</p>
+
+<p>The man, who saw Fanny by the light of the candle which he held in his
+hand, perceiving her innocent and modest look, and having no apprehensions
+from the civil behaviour of Adams, presently answered that the young woman
+was very welcome to rest herself in his house, and so were her company. He
+then ushered them into a very decent room, where his wife was sitting at a
+table; she immediately rose up, and assisted them in setting forth chairs,
+and desired them to sit down.</p>
+
+<p>They now sat cheerfully round the fire till the master of the house,
+having surveyed his guests, and conceiving that the cassock which appeared
+under Adams's greatcoat, and the shabby livery of Joseph Andrews, did not
+well suit the familiarity between them, began to entertain some suspicions
+not much to their advantage. Addressing himself, therefore, to Adams, he
+said he perceived he was a clergyman by his dress, and supposed that honest
+man was his footman.</p>
+
+<p>"Sir," answered Adams, "I am a clergyman, at your service; but as to
+that young man, whom you have rightly termed honest, he is at present in
+nobody's service; he never lived in any other family than that of Lady
+Booby, from whence he was discharged; I assure you, for no crime."</p>
+
+<p>The modest behaviour of Joseph, with the character which Adams gave of
+him, entirely cured a jealousy which had lately been in the gentleman's
+mind that Fanny was the daughter of some person of fashion and that Joseph
+had run away with her, and Adams was concerned in the plot. Having had a
+full account from Adams of Joseph's history he became enamoured of his
+guests, drank their healths with great cheerfulness; and, at the parson's
+request, told something of his own life.</p>
+
+<p>"Sir," says Adams, at the conclusion of the history, "fortune has, I
+think, paid you all her debts in this sweet retirement."</p>
+
+<p>"Sir," replied the gentleman, whose name was Wilson, "I have the best of
+wives and three pretty children; but within three years of my arrival here
+I lost my eldest son. If he had died I could have borne the loss with
+patience; but, alas, he was stolen away from my door by some wicked
+travelling people, whom they call gypsies; nor could I ever, with the most
+diligent search, recover him. Poor child, he had the sweetest look! The
+exact picture of his mother!" Mr. Wilson went on to say that he should know
+his son amongst ten thousand, for he had a mark on his breast of a
+strawberry.</p>
+
+
+<h4><i>IV.--Joseph Finds his Father</i></h4>
+
+
+<p>Our travellers, having well refreshed themselves at Mr. Wilson's house,
+renewed their journey next morning with great alacrity, and two days later
+reached the parish they were seeking.</p>
+
+<p>The people flocked about Parson Adams like children round a parent; and
+the parson, on his side, shook every one by the hand. Nor did Joseph and
+Fanny want a hearty welcome from all who saw them. Adams carried his
+fellow-travellers home to his house, where he insisted on their partaking
+whatever his wife could provide, and on the very next Sunday he published,
+for the first time, the banns of marriage between Joseph Andrews and Fanny
+Goodwill.</p>
+
+<p>Lady Booby, who was now at her country seat again, was furious when she
+heard in church these banns called, and at once sent for Mr. Adams, and
+rated him soundly.</p>
+
+<p>"It is my orders that you publish these banns no more, and if you dare,
+I will recommend it to your master, the rector, to discard you from his
+service," says my lady. "The fellow Andrews is a vagabond, and shall not
+settle here and bring a nest of beggars into the parish."</p>
+
+<p>"Madam," answered Adams, "I know not what your ladyship means by the
+terms 'master' and 'service.' I am in the service of a Master who will
+never discard me for doing my duty; and if the rector thinks proper to turn
+me from my cure, God will provide me, I hope, another."</p>
+
+<p>The malice of Lady Booby did not stop at this; she endeavoured to get
+Joseph and Fanny convicted on a trumped-up charge of trespass. In this base
+wickedness she was defeated by her nephew, young Squire Booby, who had
+married the virtuous Pamela, Joseph's sister; and at once stopped the
+proceedings. More than that, he carried off Andrews to Lady Booby's, and on
+his arrival, said, "Madam, as I have married a virtuous and worthy woman, I
+am resolved to own her relations, and show them all respect; I shall think
+myself, therefore, infinitely obliged to all mine who will do the same. It
+is true her brother has been your servant, but he has now become my
+brother."</p>
+
+<p>Lady Booby answered that she would be pleased to entertain Joseph
+Andrews; but when the squire went on to speak of Fanny, his aunt put her
+foot down resolutely against her civility to the young woman.</p>
+
+<p>And now both Pamela and her husband were inclined to urge Joseph to
+break off the engagement with Fanny, but the young man would not give way,
+and in this he was supported by Mr. Adams.</p>
+
+<p>The arrival of a peddler in the parish, who had shown some civility to
+Adams and Andrews when they were travelling on the road, threatened the
+marriage prospect much more dangerously for a time.</p>
+
+<p>According to the pedaler, who was a man of some education and birth,
+Fanny had been stolen away from her home when an infant, and sold for three
+guineas to Sir Thomas Booby; the name of her family was Andrews, and they
+had a daughter of a very strange name, Pamela. This story he had received
+from a dying woman when he had been a drummer in an Irish regiment.</p>
+
+<p>The only thing now to be done was to send for old Mr. Andrews and his
+wife; and, in the meantime, the pedal was bidden to Booby Hall to tell the
+whole story again. All who heard him were well satisfied of the truth,
+except Pamela, who imagined as neither of her parents had ever mentioned
+such an incident to her, it must be false; and except Lady Booby, who
+suspected the falsehood of the story from her ardent desire that it should
+be true; and Joseph, who feared its truth, from his earnest wishes that it
+might prove false.</p>
+
+<p>On the following morning news came of the arrival of old Mr. Andrews and
+his wife. Mr. Andrews assured Mr. Booby that he had never lost a daughter
+by gypsies, nor ever had any other children than Joseph and Pamela. But old
+Mrs. Andrews, running to Fanny, embraced her, crying out, "She is--she is
+my child!"</p>
+
+<p>The company were all amazed at this disagreement, until the old woman
+explained the mystery. During her husband's absence at Gibraltar, when he
+was a sergeant in the army, a party of gypsies had stolen the little girl
+who had been born to him, and left a small male child in her place. So she
+had brought up the boy as her own.</p>
+
+<p>"Well," says Gaffer Andrews, "you have proved, I think, very plainly,
+that this girl does not belong to us; I hope you are certain the boy is
+ours."</p>
+
+<p>Then it turned out that Joseph had a strawberry mark on his left breast,
+and this made the peddler, who knew all about Mr. Wilson's loss, satisfied
+that Joseph was no other than Mr. Wilson's son.</p>
+
+<p>So Mr. Wilson had to be sent for, who, on his arrival, no sooner saw the
+mark than he cried out with tears of joy, "I have discovered my son!"</p>
+
+<p>The banns having been duly called, there was now nothing to prevent the
+wedding, which, having taken place, Joseph and his wife settled down in Mr.
+Wilson's parish, Mr. Booby having given Fanny a fortune of &pound;2,000. He
+also presented Mr. Adams with a living of &pound;130 a year.</p>
+
+
+<hr />
+
+
+
+
+<h3><a name="fielding4">Tom Jones</a></h3>
+
+<p class="letter">
+"The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling," described in the
+dedication as the "labour of some years of my life," appeared in six
+volumes, on February 28, 1749, a short time after Fielding's appointment as
+justice of peace for Westminster. Though its broad humour and coarseness of
+expression are perhaps hard to bear in these times, it is by common consent
+Fielding's masterpiece, and by way of being one of the greatest novels in
+the language. For experience of life, observation of character, and sheer
+humanity, it is certainly an outstanding specimen of the English novel and
+manners. Like others of his books, "Tom Jones" was written during a period
+of great mental strain. Ever haunted by poverty, Fielding acknowledges his
+debt to his old schoolfellow Lyttelton, to whom he owed his "existence
+during the composition of the book." The story was popular from the first.
+</p>
+
+<h4><i>I.--Mr. Allworthy Makes a Discovery</i></h4>
+
+
+<p>In that part of the country which is commonly called Somersetshire there
+lately lived a gentleman whose name was Allworthy, and who might well be
+called the favourite of both nature and fortune. From the former of these
+he derived an agreeable person, a sound constitution, a solid
+understanding, and a benevolent heart; by the latter he was decreed to the
+inheritance of one of the largest estates in the country.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Allworthy lived, for the most part, retired in the country, with one
+sister, for whom he had a very tender affection. This lady, Miss Bridget
+Allworthy, now somewhat past the age of thirty, was of that species of
+women whom you commend rather for good qualities than beauty.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Allworthy had been absent a full quarter of a year in London on some
+very particular business, and having returned to his house very late in the
+evening, retired, much fatigued, to his chamber. Here, after he had spent
+some minutes on his knees--a custom which he never broke through on any
+account--he was preparing to step into bed, when, upon opening the clothes,
+to his great surprise, he beheld an infant wrapped up in some coarse linen,
+in a sweet and profound sleep, between his sheets. He stood for some time
+lost in astonishment at this sight; but soon began to be touched with
+sentiments of compassion for the little wretch before him. He then rang his
+bell, and ordered an elderly woman-servant to rise immediately and come to
+him.</p>
+
+<p>The consternation of Mrs. Deborah Wilkins at the finding of the little
+infant was rather greater than her master's had been; nor could she refrain
+from crying out, with great horror, "My good sir, what's to be done?"</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Allworthy answered she must take care of the child that evening, and
+in the morning he would give orders to provide it a nurse.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, sir," says she, "and I hope your worship will send out your
+warrant to take up the hussy its mother. Indeed, such wicked sluts cannot
+be too severely punished for laying their sins at honest men's doors; and
+though your worship knows your own innocence, yet the world is censorious,
+and if your worship should provide for the child it may make the people
+after to believe. If I might be so bold as to give my advice, I would have
+it put in a basket, and sent out and laid at the churchwarden's door. It is
+a good night, only a little rainy and windy, and if it was well wrapped up
+and put in a warm basket, it is two to one but it lives till it is found in
+the morning. But if it should not, we have discharged our duty in taking
+care of it; and it is, perhaps, better for such creatures to die in a state
+of innocence than to grow up and imitate their mothers."</p>
+
+<p>But Mr. Allworthy had now got one of his fingers into the infant's hand,
+which, by its gentle pressure, seeming to implore his assistance, certainly
+outpleaded the eloquence of Mrs. Deborah. Mr. Allworthy gave positive
+orders for the child to be taken away and provided with pap and other
+things against it waked. He likewise ordered that proper clothes should be
+procured for it early in the morning, and that it should be brought to
+himself as soon as he was stirring.</p>
+
+<p>Such was the respect Mrs. Wilkins bore her master, under whom she
+enjoyed a most excellent place, that her scruples gave way to his
+peremptory commands, and, declaring the child was a sweet little infant,
+she walked off with it to her own chamber.</p>
+
+<p>Allworthy betook himself to those pleasing slumbers which a heart that
+hungers after goodness is apt to enjoy when thoroughly satisfied.</p>
+
+<p>In the morning Mr. Allworthy told his sister he had a present for her,
+and, when Mrs. Wilkins produced the little infant, told her the whole story
+of its appearance.</p>
+
+<p>Miss Bridget took the good-natured side of the question, intimated some
+compassion for the helpless little creature, and commended her brother's
+charity in what he had done. The good lady subsequently gave orders for
+providing all necessaries for the child, and her orders were indeed so
+liberal that had it been a child of her own she could not have exceeded
+them.</p>
+
+
+<h4><i>II.--The Foundling Achieves Manhood</i></h4>
+
+
+<p>Miss Bridget having been asked in marriage by one Captain Blifil, a
+half-pay officer, and the nuptials duly celebrated, Mrs. Blifil was in
+course of time delivered of a fine boy.</p>
+
+<p>Though the birth of an heir to his beloved sister was a circumstance of
+great joy to Mr. Allworthy, yet it did not alienate his affections from the
+little foundling to whom he had been godfather, and had given his own name
+of Thomas; the surname of Jones being added because it was believed that
+was the mother's name.</p>
+
+<p>He told his sister, if she pleased, the newborn infant should be bred up
+together with little Tommy, to which she consented, for she had truly a
+great complaisance for her brother.</p>
+
+<p>The captain, however, could not so easily bring himself to bear what he
+condemned as a fault in Mr. Allworthy; for his meditations being chiefly
+employed on Mr. Allworthy's fortune, and on his hopes of succession, he
+looked on all the instances of his brother-in-law's generosity as
+diminutions of his own wealth.</p>
+
+<p>But one day, while the captain was exulting in the happiness which would
+accrue to him by Mr. Allworthy's death, he himself died of apoplexy.</p>
+
+<p>So the two boys grew up together under the care of Mr. Allworthy and
+Mrs. Blifil, and by the time he was fourteen Tom Jones--who, according to
+universal opinion, was certainly born to be hanged--had been already
+convicted of three robberies--<i>viz</i>., of robbing an orchard, of
+stealing a duck out of a farmer's yard, and of picking Master Blifil's
+pocket of a ball.</p>
+
+<p>The vices of this young man were, moreover, heightened by the
+disadvantageous light in which they appeared when opposed to the virtues of
+Master Blifil, his companion. He was, indeed, a lad of remarkable
+disposition--sober, discreet, and pious beyond his age; and many expressed
+their wonder that Mr. Allworthy should suffer such a lad as Tom Jones to be
+educated with his nephew lest the morals of the latter should be corrupted
+by his example.</p>
+
+<p>To say the truth, the whole duck, and great part of the apples, were
+converted to the use of Tom's friend, the gamekeeper, and his family;
+though, as Jones alone was discovered, the poor lad bore not only the whole
+smart, but the whole blame.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Allworthy had committed the instruction of the two boys to a learned
+divine, the Reverend Mr. Thwackum, who resided in the house; but though Mr.
+Allworthy had given him frequent orders to make no difference between the
+lads, yet was Thwackum altogether as kind and gentle to Master Blifil as he
+was harsh, nay, even barbarous, to the other. In truth, Blifil had greatly
+gained his master's affections; partly by the profound respect he always
+showed his person, but much more by the decent reverence with which he
+received his doctrine, for he had got by heart, and frequently repeated,
+his phrases, and maintained all his master's religious principles, with a
+zeal which was surprising in one so young.</p>
+
+<p>Tom Jones, on the other hand, was not only deficient in outward tokens
+of respect, often forgetting to pull off his cap at his master's approach,
+but was altogether unmindful both of his master's precepts and example.</p>
+
+<p>At the, age of twenty, however, Tom, for his love of hunting, had become
+a great favourite with Mr. Allworthy's neighbour, Squire Western; and
+Sophia, Mr. Western's only child, lost her heart irretrievably to him
+before she suspected it was in danger. On his side, Tom was truly sensible
+of the great worth of Sophia. He liked her person extremely, no less
+admired her accomplishments, and tenderly loved her goodness. In reality,
+as he had never once entertained any thoughts of possessing her, nor had
+ever given the least voluntary indulgence to his inclinations, he had a
+much stronger passion for her than he himself was acquainted with.</p>
+
+<p>An accident occurred on the hunting-field in saving Sophia from her too
+mettlesome horse kept Jones a prisoner for some time in Mr. Western's
+house, and during those weeks he not only found that he loved Sophia with
+an unbounded passion, but he plainly saw the tender sentiments she had for
+him; yet could not this assurance lessen his despair of obtaining the
+consent of her father, nor the horrors which attended his pursuit of her by
+any base or treacherous method.</p>
+
+<p>Hence, at the approach of the young lady, he grew pale; and, if this was
+sudden, started. If his eyes accidentally met hers, the blood rushed into
+his cheeks, and his countenance became all over scarlet. If he touched her,
+his hand, nay, his whole frame, trembled.</p>
+
+<p>All these symptoms escaped the notice of the squire, but not so of
+Sophia. She soon perceived these agitations of mind in Jones, and was at no
+loss to discover the cause; for, indeed, she recognised it in her own
+breast. In a word, she was in love with him to distraction. It was not long
+before Jones was able to attend her to the harpsichord, where she would
+kindly condescend for hours together to charm him with the most delicious
+music.</p>
+
+<p>The news that Mr. Allworthy was dangerously ill (for a servant had
+brought word that he was dying) broke off Tom's stay at Mr. Western's, and
+drove all the thoughts of love out of his head. He hurried instantly into
+the chariot which was sent for him, and ordered the coachman to drive with
+all imaginable haste; nor did the idea of Sophia once occur to him on the
+way.</p>
+
+
+<h4><i>III.--Tom Jones Falls into Disgrace</i></h4>
+
+
+<p>On the night when the physician announced that Mr. Allworthy was out of
+danger Jones was thrown into such immoderate excess of rapture by the news
+that he might be truly said to be drunk with joy--an intoxication which
+greatly forwards the effects of wine; and as he was very free, too, with
+the bottle, on this occasion he became very soon literally drunk.</p>
+
+<p>Jones had naturally violent animal spirits, and Thwackum, resenting his
+speeches, only the doctor's interposition prevented wrath kindling. After
+which, Jones gave loose to mirth, sang two or three amorous songs, and fell
+into every frantic disorder which unbridled joy is apt to inspire; but so
+far was he from any disposition to quarrel that he was ten times
+better-humoured, if possible, than when he was sober.</p>
+
+<p>Blifil, whose mother had died during her brother's illness, was highly
+offended at a behaviour which was so inconsistent with the sober and
+prudent reserve of his own temper. The recent death of his mother, he
+declared, made such conduct very indecent.</p>
+
+<p>"It would become them better," he said, "to express the exultations of
+their hearts at Mr. Allworthy's recovery in thanksgiving, than in
+drunkenness and riot."</p>
+
+<p>Wine had not so totally overpowered Jones as to prevent him recollecting
+Blifil's loss the moment it was mentioned. He at once offered to shake Mr.
+Blifil by the hand, and begged his pardon, saying his excessive joy for Mr.
+Allworthy's recovery had driven every other thought out of his mind.</p>
+
+<p>Blifil scornfully rejected his hand, and with an insulting illusion to
+the misfortune of Jones's birth provoked the latter to blows. The scuffle
+which ensued might have produced mischief had it not been for the
+interference of Thwackum and the physician.</p>
+
+<p>Blifil, however, only waited for an opportunity to be revenged on Jones,
+and the occasion was soon forthcoming when Mr. Allworthy was fully
+recovered from his illness.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Western had found out that his daughter was in love with Tom Jones,
+and at once decided that she should marry Blifil, to whom Sophia professed
+great abhorrence.</p>
+
+<p>As for Blifil, the success of Jones was much more grievous to him than
+the loss of Sophia, whose estate, indeed, was dearer to him than her
+person.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Western swore that his daughter shouldn't have a ha'penny, nor the
+twentieth part of a brass farthing, if she married Jones; and Blifil, with
+many sighs, professed to his uncle that he could not bear the thought of
+Sophia being ruined by her preference for Jones.</p>
+
+<p>"This lady, I am sure, will be undone in every sense; for, besides the
+loss of most part of her own fortune, she will be married to a beggar. Nay,
+that is a trifle; for I know him to be one of the worst men in the
+world."</p>
+
+<p>"How?" said Mr. All worthy. "I command you to tell me what you
+mean."</p>
+
+<p>"You know, sir," said Blifil, "I never disobeyed you. In the very day of
+your utmost danger, when myself and all the family were in tears, he filled
+the house with riot and debauchery. He drank, and sang, and roared; and
+when I gave him a gentle hint of the indecency of his actions, he fell into
+a violent passion, swore many oaths, called me rascal, and struck me. I am
+sure I have forgiven him that long ago. I wish I could so easily forget his
+ingratitude to the best of benefactors."</p>
+
+<p>Thwackum was now sent for, and corroborated every circumstance which the
+other had deposed.</p>
+
+<p>Poor Jones was too full of grief at the thought that Western had
+discovered the whole affair between him and Sophia to make any adequate
+defence. He could not deny the charge of drunkenness, and out of modesty
+sunk everything that related particularly to himself.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Allworthy answered that he was now resolved to banish him from his
+sight for ever. "Your audacious attempt to steal away a young lady calls
+upon me to justify my own character in punishing you. And there is no part
+of your character which I resent more than your ill-treatment of that good
+young man (meaning Blifil), who hath behaved with so much tenderness and
+honour towards you."</p>
+
+<p>A flood of tears now gushed from the eyes of Jones, and every faculty of
+speech and motion seemed to have deserted him. It was some time before he
+was able to obey Allworthy's peremptory commands of departing, which he at
+length did, having first kissed his hands with a passion difficult to be
+affected, and as difficult to be described.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Allworthy, however, did not permit him to leave the house penniless,
+but presented him with a note for &pound;500. He then commanded him to go
+immediately, and told Jones that his clothes, and everything else, should
+be sent to him whithersoever he should order them.</p>
+
+<p>Jones had hardly set out, which he did with feelings of agony and
+despair, before Sophia Western decided that only in flight could she be
+saved from marriage with the detested Blifil.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Western, in spite of tremendous love for his daughter, thought her
+inclinations of as little consequence as Blifil himself conceived them to
+be; and Mr. Allworthy, who said "he would on no account be accessory to
+forcing a young lady into a marriage contrary to her own will," was
+satisfied by his nephew's disingenuous statement that the young lady's
+behaviour to him was full as forward as he wished it.</p>
+
+<p>Sophia, having appointed her maid to meet her at a certain place not far
+from the house, exactly at the ghostly and dreadful hour of twelve, began
+to prepare for her own departure.</p>
+
+<p>But first she was obliged to give a painful audience to her father, and
+he treated her in so violent and outrageous a manner that he frightened her
+into an affected compliance with his will, which so highly pleased the good
+squire that he at once changed his frowns into smiles, and his menaces into
+promises.</p>
+
+<p>He vowed his whole soul was wrapped in hers, that her consent had made
+him the happiest of mankind.</p>
+
+<p>He then gave her a large bank-bill to dispose of in any trinkets she
+pleased, and kissed and embraced her in the fondest manner.</p>
+
+<p>Sophia reverenced her father piously and loved him passionately, but the
+thoughts of her beloved Jones quickly destroyed all the regretful
+promptings of filial love.</p>
+
+
+<h4><i>IV.--Tom Jones's Restoration</i></h4>
+
+
+<p>After many adventures on the road Mr. Jones reached London; and as he
+had often heard Mr. Allworthy mention the gentlewoman at whose house in
+Bond Street he used to lodge when he was in town, he sought the house, and
+was soon provided with a room there on the second floor. Mrs. Miller, the
+person who let these lodgings, was the widow of a clergyman, and Mr.
+Allworthy had settled an annuity of &pound;50 a year on her, "in
+consideration of always having her first floor when he was in town."</p>
+
+<p>Tom Jones's fortunes were now very soon at the lowest. Having been
+forced into a quarrel in the streets with an acquaintance named
+Fitzpatrick, and having wounded him with his sword, a number of fellows
+rushed in and carried Jones off to the civil magistrate, who, being
+informed that the wound appeared to be mortal, straightway committed the
+prisoner to the Gatehouse.</p>
+
+<p>Sophia Western was also in London at the house of her aunt; and soon
+afterwards Mr. Western, Mr. Allworthy, and Blifil all reached the city.</p>
+
+<p>It was just at this time that Mr. Allworthy, consenting to his nephew
+once more offering himself to Sophia, came with Blifil to his accustomed
+lodgings in Bond Street. Mrs. Miller, to whom Jones had showed many
+kindnesses, at once put in a good word for the unfortunate young man; and,
+on Blifil exulting over the manslaughter Jones was alleged to have
+committed, declared that the wounded man, whoever he was, was in fault.
+This, indeed, was shortly afterwards corroborated by Fitzpatrick himself,
+who acknowledged his mistake.</p>
+
+<p>But it was not till Mr. Allworthy discovered that Blifil had been
+arranging with a lawyer to get the men who had arrested Jones to bear false
+witness, and learnt further that Tom Jones was his sister Bridget's child,
+and that on her death-bed Mrs. Blifil's message to her brother confessing
+the fact had been suppressed by her son, that his old feelings of affection
+for Tom Jones returned. Before setting out to visit Jones in the prison Mr.
+Allworthy called on Sophia to inform her that he regretted Blifil had ever
+been encouraged to give her annoyance, and that Mr. Jones was his nephew
+and his heir.</p>
+
+<p>Men over-violent in their dispositions are, for the most part, as
+changeable in them. No sooner was Western informed of Mr. Allworthy's
+intention to make Jones his heir than he joined heartily with the uncle in
+every commendation of the nephew, and became as eager for his daughter's
+marriage with Jones as he had before been to couple her to Blifil.</p>
+
+<p>Fitzpatrick being recovered of his wound, and admitting the aggression,
+Jones was released from custody and returned to his lodgings to meet Mr.
+Allworthy.</p>
+
+<p>It is impossible to conceive a more tender or moving scene than this
+meeting between the uncle and nephew. Allworthy received Jones into his
+arms. "O my child!" he cried, "how have I been to blame! How have I injured
+you! What amends can I ever make you for those unkind suspicions which
+I have entertained, and for all the sufferings they have occasioned
+you?"</p>
+
+<p>"Am I not now made amends?" cried Jones. "Would not my sufferings, had
+they been ten times greater, have been now richly repaid?"</p>
+
+<p>Here the conversation was interrupted by the arrival of Western, who
+could no longer be kept away even by the authority of Allworthy himself.
+Western immediately went up to Jones, crying out, "My old friend Tom, I am
+glad to see thee, with all my heart. All past must be forgotten. Come along
+with me; I'll carry thee to thy mistress this moment."</p>
+
+<p>Here Allworthy interposed; and the squire was obliged to consent to
+delay introducing Jones to Sophia till the afternoon.</p>
+
+<p>Blifil, now thoroughly exposed in his treachery, was at first sullen and
+silent, balancing in his mind whether he should yet deny all; but finding
+at last the evidence too strong against him, betook himself to confession,
+and was now as remarkably mean as he had been before remarkably wicked. Mr.
+Allworthy subsequently settled &pound;200 a year upon him, to which Jones
+hath privately added a third. Upon this income Blifil lives in one of the
+northern counties. He is also lately turned Methodist, in hopes of marrying
+a very rich widow of that sect. Sophia would not at first permit any
+promise of an immediate engagement with Jones because of certain stories of
+his inconstancy, but Mr. Western refused to hear of any delay.</p>
+
+<p>"To-morrow or next day?" says Western, bursting into the room where
+Sophia and Jones were alone.</p>
+
+<p>"Indeed, sir," says she, "I have no such intention."</p>
+
+<p>"But I can tell thee," replied he, "why hast not; only because thou dost
+love to be disobedient, and to plague and vex thy father. When I forbid
+her, then it was all nothing but sighing and whining, and languishing and
+writing; now I am for thee--(this to Jones)--she is against thee. All the
+spirit of contrary, that's all. She is above being guided and governed by
+her father, that is the whole truth on't. It is only to disoblige and
+contradict me."</p>
+
+<p>"What would my papa have me do?" cries Sophia.</p>
+
+<p>"What would I ha' thee do?" says he, "why gee un thy hand this
+moment."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, sir," said Sophia, "I will obey you. There is my hand, Mr.
+Jones."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, and will you consent to ha' un to-morrow morning?" says
+Western.</p>
+
+<p>"I will be obedient to you, sir," cries she.</p>
+
+<p>"Why, then, to-morrow morning be the day," cries he.</p>
+
+<p>"Why, then, to-morrow morning shall be the day, papa, since you will
+have it so," said Sophia. Jones then fell upon his knees and kissed her
+hand in an agony of joy, while Western began to caper and dance about the
+room, presently crying out, "Where the devil is Allworthy?" He then sallied
+out in quest of him, and very opportunely left the lovers to enjoy a few
+tender minutes alone.</p>
+
+<p>But he soon returned with Allworthy, saying, "If you won't believe me,
+you may ask her yourself. Hast not gin thy consent, Sophy, to be married
+to-morrow?"</p>
+
+<p>"Such are your commands, sir," cries Sophia, "and I dare not be guilty
+of disobedience."</p>
+
+<p>"I hope there is not the least constraint," cries Allworthy.</p>
+
+<p>"Why, there," cried Western, "you may bid her unsay all again if you
+will. Dost repent heartily of thy promise, dost not, Sophy?"</p>
+
+<p>"Indeed, papa," cried she. "I do not repent, nor do I believe I ever
+shall, of any promise in favour of Mr. Jones."</p>
+
+<p>"Then, nephew," cries Allworthy, "I felicitate you most heartily, for I
+think you are the happiest of men."</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Allworthy, Mr. Western, and Mrs. Miller were the only persons
+present at the wedding, and within two days of that event Mr. Jones and
+Sophia attended Mr. Western and Mr. Allworthy into the country.</p>
+
+<p>There is not a neighbour or a servant, who doth not most gratefully
+bless the day when Mr. Jones was married to Sophia.</p>
+
+
+<hr />
+
+
+
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="flammarion">CAMILLE FLAMMARION</a></h2>
+
+
+<h3><a name="flammarion1">Urania</a></h3>
+
+<p class="letter">
+Camille Flammarion is one of the most remarkable of modern
+French scientists. Born on February 25, 1842, he was apprenticed at an
+early age to an engraver, but, attracted by astronomy, he studied so well
+that, when a lad of sixteen, he was admitted as a pupil to the Paris
+Observatory. There is no doubt that the great French mathematician, Le
+Verrier, regarded Flammarion with a certain disdain as more of a poet than
+an astronomer; but he soon vindicated, by several important discoveries,
+his title to be regarded as a man of science. "Urania," which appeared in
+1889, is an excellent example of his ability as a thinker, and of his charm
+as a writer. The work is hardly a novel, though it is far more popular than
+many books of fiction. It is really an essay in philosophy dealing with the
+question of the immortality of the soul; and it has an especial interest
+for English readers owing to the fact that much in it that seems to be pure
+fantasy is based on researches undertaken by the British Society for
+Psychical Research. The plot and the characters are of secondary
+importance; they are only used for the purpose of illustrating certain
+ideas.
+</p>
+
+<h4><i>I.--The Muse of Astronomy</i></h4>
+
+
+<p>I was seventeen years old when I fell in love with Urania. Was she a
+fair, young, blue-eyed daughter of Eve? No; she was an exquisite statue of
+the Muse of Astronomy, chiselled by Pradier in the days of the Empire. She
+stood on the mantelpiece in the study of the famous mathematician, Le
+Verrier, who directed the Paris Observatory, where I was working. At four
+o'clock in the afternoon my illustrious chief used to depart, and I would
+then steal into his room and sit down before Urania and dream of lovelier
+worlds than ours, hidden in the infinite spaces of the starry sky.
+Sometimes my friend and companion in studies, Georges Spero, would come and
+sit beside me; and, inspired by the immortal beauty of Urania, we would let
+our young and ardent imaginations play over the glories and wonders of the
+heavens.</p>
+
+<p>"You will be too late for Jupiter," said Le Verrier, entering
+unexpectedly one evening, and catching me in an attitude of adoration
+before Urania. "I am afraid you are more of a poet than an astronomer."</p>
+
+<p>The great man of science himself certainly did not love beauty as much
+as he loved wisdom, for the next day he sold the lovely image of Urania in
+order to buy an old Chinese astronomical clock. I was almost heartbroken
+when I entered his room and found that Urania had disappeared. With her had
+gone the vivifying power of imagination which had transmuted the abstruse
+calculations on which I was engaged into glimpses of heavenly visions of
+infinite life. With what wild joy then did I see, when I returned home,
+Urania shining in all her loveliness on my own mantelpiece. Knowing my love
+for the beautiful figure of the muse, Georges Spero had bought it back from
+the watchmaker to whom Le Verrier had sent it, and placed it in my room as
+a gift.</p>
+
+<p>It was an extraordinary mark of friendship, for Georges loved Urania
+even more passionately than I did. To him she was the personification of
+everything in life that lifted man above the level of the brute.</p>
+
+<p>Possessing a nobler and finer intellect than mine, he had thrown himself
+into the study of the problems of the soul with a fury of passion and a
+concentration of thought that almost killed him. Are our souls immortal, or
+do they perish with our bodies? This was the question that tormented him to
+madness. One night I found him sitting in his room in the Place du
+Panthéon with a glass of poison in his hand.</p>
+
+<p>"This is the quickest road to the knowledge I want," he said, with a
+smile. "I shall soon know if the soul is immortal."</p>
+
+<p>He had been dissecting a skull; and by his side was a microscope with
+which he had been studying the grey matter of the brain. Convinced at last
+of the uncertainty of the positive sciences, he had fallen into violent
+despair. But Urania was at hand to comfort him, and his mind became calmer
+and clearer when we ceased to talk about earthly things, and ascended into
+high regions of philosophic speculation over which the muse of heaven
+presides.</p>
+
+<p>"Ah, Camille," he exclaimed, "the Uranian way is the best. It is only by
+studying the heavens that we shall be able to understand this little earth
+of ours, and the part we play in it. Look at the midnight sky, streaming
+with the light of infinite suns, and filled with an unending procession of
+worlds in which the spirit of life clothes itself in an unimaginable
+variety of forms. This clot of dust on which we live will grow cold, and
+break and scatter in the abysses of space. But it is not our home; we are
+only passengers, and when our journey here is done, fairer mansions are
+waiting for us in the depths of the sky. If I die before you, I will return
+and convince you of this truth."</p>
+
+<p>Returning to the study of astronomy, Spero built up a system of
+philosophy which made him, at the age of twenty-five, one of the most
+famous men in France.</p>
+
+
+<h4><i>II.--Love and Death</i></h4>
+
+
+<p>By way of relief from his severer work, Georges Spero resolved to go to
+Norway and study the wild and beautiful phenomena of the Aurora Borealis,
+and I went with him. One morning, as we were standing on a mountain looking
+at a magnificent sunrise, I saw a girl climbing a neighbouring peak. She
+did not perceive us; but when she reached the summit the image of Spero was
+thrown on a cloud in front of her, by one of those curious plays of
+sunlight and mist which sometimes occur in hazy, mountainous regions. His
+fine, austere features and graceful figure were enlarged into a vast,
+god-like apparition, with a halo of bright colours shining like a glory
+around his head, and a fainter circle of rainbow hues framing his whole
+form. It was the first anthelia that the lovely girl had seen, and it
+filled her with wonder and awe.</p>
+
+<p>Theirs was a strange courtship--Spero's and Iclea's. The lovely young
+Norwegian lady had recently lost her mother, and being, like many of the
+cultivated women of Northern Europe, somewhat dubious of the dogmas of
+religion, she had found death a terrible mystery when it was thus brought
+sharply home to her. She was wandering in the dreadful labyrinth of modern
+doubt, vainly seeking to forget her trouble in the excitements of
+mountaineering, when she saw the unearthly apparition of the young French
+philosopher. A study of his works heightened the feeling of awe with which
+she already regarded him. At first there was no room for love in the
+passionate desire after knowledge which drew her to him. She was merely a
+disciple sitting at the feet of the great master. Accompanied by her
+father, she continued her studies under him when he returned to Paris, and
+for three months they were bound together wholly by intellectual interest.
+For several hours every day they studied side by side, and much of Iclea's
+time was spent in translating papers in foreign languages, bearing on
+subjects in which Georges was interested. One morning he arrived earlier
+than usual, his eyes shining with joy.</p>
+
+<p>"I have settled the problem," he cried, leaning against the mantelpiece.
+"At least," he added, with his usual modesty, "I have settled it to my own
+satisfaction."</p>
+
+<p>Striding up and down the room, he rapidly sketched out a system of
+philosophy in which the ultimate truths of modern science were transformed
+into the bases of religion. Iclea listened to him in silence as he went on
+to explain the spiritual forces still dormant in the human soul.</p>
+
+<p>"We are still in our spiritual infancy," he said. "It is scarcely four
+thousand years since mankind began to manifest its higher powers. Our
+greatest conquests over nature are all of recent date, and they are the
+work of a few noble souls who have erected themselves above the animal
+conditions of life. The reign of brute force is over, and I am certain that
+as soon as we learn to exercise the powers of our soul we shall acquire
+transcendental faculties that will enable us to transport ourselves from
+one world to another."</p>
+
+<p>"That, too, is my belief," said Iclea.</p>
+
+<p>Georges bent over her and gazed into her eyes of heavenly blue through
+which her very soul was speaking. There was a strange silence, and then
+their lips met.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p>For some months I lost sight of my two friends. In the ecstasy of their
+love they forgot for a while the problems of philosophy which had brought
+them together. The joys of intellectual communion were submerged and almost
+lost in the new, strange feeling which crowned and glorified their lives.
+Hand in hand the lovers wandered about Paris, which had now become to them
+a city in fairyland. Meeting them one evening on the banks of the Seine, I
+learned that they were returning to Norway with Iclea's father, and that
+they were to be married at Christiania on the anniversary of the mysterious
+apparition on the mountain which had brought them together. Georges was
+about to resume his interrupted studies of the Aurora Borealis, which he
+wished to trace to its source by means of a balloon ascent, and Iclea
+intended to accompany him in his voyage through the air.</p>
+
+<p>To my great regret I was unable to go with them to Norway, as my duties
+as an astronomer kept me in Paris. I anxiously awaited that extraordinary
+agitation of the magnetic needle which announces the existence of an Aurora
+Borealis in Northern Europe. When at last the magnetic perturbation
+occurred in the observatory, I rejoiced to think that Spero and his bride
+were floating high, feasting their eyes on the most gorgeous of
+spectacles.</p>
+
+<p>But suddenly an indefinable feeling of uneasiness came over me, which
+grew into a dreadful presentiment of disaster. Long before the telegram
+arrived from Christiania I knew what had happened. Georges and Iclea were
+dead!</p>
+
+<p>Every reader of the newspapers next morning knew as much as I did. An
+escape of gas which could not be stopped sent the balloon hurtling to the
+earth. Spero threw everything movable out of the car in a vain attempt to
+lighten it and break the force of the descent. The balloon still kept
+falling; then Iclea, with a wild courage born of love, saved Georges' life
+by leaping out of the car. Relieved of her weight, the balloon rose up, but
+Spero had now no wish to live. He jumped out with a wild cry, and his body
+crashed on the edge of the lake into which Iclea had fallen. There the
+mortal remains of the two lovers now lie, covered by a single stone. But
+where were their souls?</p>
+
+<p>One night Georges Spero remembered his promise to me, and returned to
+earth.</p>
+
+
+<h4><i>III.--A Soul from Mars</i></h4>
+
+
+<p>Sitting alone on the top of the ancient castle of Montlhéry, I
+was conducting an experiment in optics by means of electrical
+communications with two assistants at Paris and Juvisy. I was trying to
+find out if the rays of different colours in the spectrum travel at the
+same rate. It was just on midnight before I brought the experiment to a
+successful conclusion. As I covered up my instruments, some one said, "You
+would not have brought that off, Camille, if it had not been for me. I gave
+you the idea of comparing the violet vibrations with the red."</p>
+
+<p>I turned round with a cry of fear. Georges Spero was sitting in the
+moonlight on the parapet, looking at me with a smile.</p>
+
+<p>"Are you afraid of me, Camille?" he said.</p>
+
+<p>"You, Georges! You!" I stammered. "Is it really you? Keep still, and let
+me touch you."</p>
+
+<p>I put my hands on his face, and stroked his hair, and felt his body. I
+could no longer doubt that I had him before me in the actual flesh, but he
+read my thoughts.</p>
+
+<p>"You are mistaken, Camille," he said. "My real body is asleep on
+Mars."</p>
+
+<p>"So you still live?" I exclaimed. "You have solved the great problem.
+And Iclea?"</p>
+
+<p>"Let us sit here and talk," he replied. "There are many things I want to
+tell you."</p>
+
+<p>My fears had vanished, and I sat by my beloved friend.</p>
+
+<p>"It seemed to me," said Georges, "that my fall from the balloon knocked
+me senseless. When I came to, I was lying in the darkness with the ripple
+of lake-water breaking on my ear. What amazed me was a strange sense of
+lightness that made me feel I could rise up and float away if I wanted to.
+Thinking this was a disorder of the mind, I did not attempt to move, but
+watched with wondering eyes the sky above me. It was lighted by two strange
+moons. When the day broke, and showed around me a world of unimaginable
+splendour, I knew the meaning of the two moons and of my strange feeling of
+lightness. I was a disembodied spirit that had been transported to
+Mars.</p>
+
+<p>"Do you know, Camille, that the soul is able to choose its mortal
+covering? This is, at least, the case on Mars. For some time I wandered
+about in an invisible form, studying the conditions of life there. Animal
+strength, I found, counted for nothing. The Martians are an aerial race,
+with exquisite senses, which respond in a way unknown on earth to spiritual
+influences. Do you remember I read your thoughts when we first met, and
+answered them before you spoke? That is one of the Martians' gifts. Finding
+that these wonderful faculties were better developed in the women of Mars
+than in the men, I chose the feminine form for my reincarnation."</p>
+
+<p>"And Iclea?" I said.</p>
+
+<p>"Iclea," said Spero, "was re-born in a masculine shape. It was partly
+because of the mystic attraction that I felt for her that I chose the other
+form. Neither of us remembered our earthly existence, but a vague yet deep
+sentiment of our spiritual relationship made me seek her out and unite
+myself to her. It was your beloved muse Uriana," he added, "who revealed
+the ties that bound us in our former lives.</p>
+
+<p>"Owing to their superior faculties, the Martians have carried every
+science to a perfection undreamt of on this earth. In astronomical
+observations, for instance, they employ a system of telephotography. For
+thousands of years their instruments have been photographing, on an
+unending roll of paper, the wild spectacle of terrestrial life.</p>
+
+<p>"One day, as Iclea and I were examining recent photographs, we saw a
+picture of Paris during the Great Exhibition. Seizing a microscope, we
+looked at the figures, and recognised ourselves among them. Strange
+memories stirred within us, and we stared at each other in silent
+amazement. Suddenly I remembered the sacred words I learnt at my mother's
+knee. Yes, there were many mansions in our Father's house! The
+blood-stained planet from which we had escaped was neither the cradle nor
+the grave of His children.</p>
+
+<p>"Then we wept as we thought of the cruelty, ignorance, misery, and
+grossness of existence on earth. It was, dear Camille, with no joy that I
+recollected the promise I had made to you. But, you see, I have carried it
+out. I wish to convince you, and, through you, all the rest of mankind,
+that the soul is immortal, and that the earth is only a temporary stage of
+existence in a spiritual progress in which the whole universe is
+included."</p>
+
+<p>"But how is it possible for you, Georges," I interrupted, "to appear to
+me in the body you wore on earth?"</p>
+
+<p>"All this," said Spero, touching his body, "is an illusion. Do you not
+recollect my saying that only invisible things are real? You do not see me
+with your eyes, or feel me with your hands, as you think you do. The
+impression which you have of my presence is born of the influence which my
+mind is exerting in an invisible way on your mind. Can't you understand? It
+is a kind of hypnotism. At the present moment, as I have said, I am lying
+asleep on Mars, but my spirit is in direct communication with yours. The
+form you see sitting beside you on this parapet is only an illusion of your
+senses. My soul is speaking to your soul."</p>
+
+<p>"But could you not," I said, "give me some description of life on
+Mars?"</p>
+
+<p>"A dream," he replied, "would be more vivid than a mere description,
+though it would only be a shadow of the reality. For since you have not, my
+dear friend, our exquisite faculties of knowledge, your mind could not
+clearly mirror our life. Hark! Iclea is awake, and calling me. I cannot
+stay any longer. Shut your eyes, and I will send you a dream."</p>
+
+<p>I turned to say good-bye, but Spero had vanished. A deep drowsiness fell
+upon me, and just as I got off the parapet and found a safer position I
+fell asleep.</p>
+
+
+<h4><i>IV.--The Eternal Progress</i></h4>
+
+
+<p>I was sitting under a strange tree covered with gigantic red flowers. In
+the sky above me were two moons that shed a dim brightness on the lovely
+and fantastic scenery. A multitude of radiant shapes fluttered and darted
+through the air. They were Martians--exquisite, aerial, and divinely
+beautiful figures glowing with luminous tints. Airy gondolas, which seemed
+to be fashioned from phosphorescent flowers, passed above my head, and one
+of them floated down to the tree under which I was lying. In it were Iclea
+and Georges, but etherealised beyond the reach of human imagination.</p>
+
+<p>They took me in their flying chariot as day was breaking, and we
+coursed, with a strange silent interchange of thoughts, over the
+orange-coloured land of Mars. I could not understand everything which was
+communicated to me, now by Iclea and now by Georges; but I perceived that
+all manual labour on the planet was done by means of machines directed by
+animals whose intelligence was on a level with my own. The Martians
+themselves lived only for the things of the mind; they had twelve senses
+instead of five, and their bodies, in which electricity played the part
+that blood does in our systems, were so finely and yet so strongly
+organised that they possessed an extraordinary power over the forces of
+nature. Everything on their world, seas, mountains and rivers were like
+their wonderful canals, works of art and science. Nature was completely
+plastic in their hands. There was no poverty and no crime. Deriving their
+food from the air which they breathe, the Martians were liberated from
+material cares and immersed in the joys of intellectual pursuits.</p>
+
+<p>"You now see, Camille," said Spero, resorting at last to language which
+I could clearly understand, "that life on Mars has developed as peacefully
+and nobly as it began. There is no break between our vegetable kingdom and
+our animal kingdom. We are nourished, like your plants, trees, and herbs,
+by the air which we breathe. Ten million years ago your world was also a
+scene of innocence and tranquil felicity. The land was overgrown with a
+wildly beautiful vegetation that fed on the gentle winds of heaven, and
+primitive forms of animal life had spread from the depths of the sea along
+the shallow shores, and were there learning to extract from the air a
+nourishment similar to that which they obtained from the water. But by a
+woeful chance, one of your primitive animals--a deaf, blind, sexless clot
+of jelly--then had its body pierced by a drop of sea-water thicker than
+usual, and it found that this way of feeding was quicker than simple
+respiration. Such was the origin of the first digestive tube, which has
+exercised so baleful an influence on the course of terrestrial life, and
+turned the earth into a vast slaughterhouse."</p>
+
+<p>"Is there no hope for us?" I said.</p>
+
+<p>"No," he replied; "the earth is a shipwrecked planet. None of the higher
+organisms there will ever rise to our level. How can they alter the
+structure of their bodies, and empty their veins of blood, and fill them
+with the subtle electricity which serves us as a life force? And the
+grossness of their blood-fed senses! How can all the fine powers of the
+immortal soul ever develop along with such degraded instruments of
+knowledge?"</p>
+
+<p>"But even if our earth is a shipwrecked planet," I exclaimed, "there is
+at least some means of escaping from it. You and Iclea, for
+instance----"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, there is a way of escape," said Spero, "the Uranian way. By
+soaring aloft into the serene region of spiritual ideas, a terrestrial soul
+can still free itself from its animality. Some save themselves by their
+high moral qualities, others are purified and uplifted by their imagination
+and intellect. Virtue and science are the wings that enable earth-born
+spirits to mount the skies. The destiny of a soul is determined by its
+works and aspirations. Lovers of knowledge sojourn awhile on Mars, which is
+only the first stage in the eternal progress. Spirits animated by divine
+feelings rise at once into high regions of starry splendour. The Uranian
+way is open to all, and the day will arrive when every inhabitant of your
+wild, dark planet will recognise that he, too, is a citizen of heaven. Then
+Urania will at last inspire and direct him, and point out the path by which
+he can ascend from the blood-stained earth to the fairer mansions prepared
+for him in the skies."</p>
+
+<p>As he was speaking our aerial chariot floated down to a fairy palace by
+the shore of an enchanted sea. I alighted; and a radiant, flower-like
+maiden, who was standing by the portal, unfolded her rainbow wings and
+shadowed me with them, and murmured, "Do you wish to return to earth?"</p>
+
+<p>"No," I cried, running up to clasp her in my arms.</p>
+
+<p>I awoke with a sudden shock. I was lying on the top of the tower of
+Montlhéry; the sun was rising, and the vast circle of country below
+me shone clear and distinct in the morning light.</p>
+
+<p>"Was it a dream?" I said to myself. "Surely not. The earth is not the
+only home of life in the universe. Urania, the celestial muse, is now
+unfolding before our astonished eyes the panoramas of infinity, and we know
+at last that we are not the children of the earth, but citizens of the
+heavens."</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+
+
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="fouque">DE LA MOTTE FOUQUÉ</a></h2>
+
+
+<h3><a name="fouque1">Undine</a></h3>
+
+<p class="letter">
+Friedrich Heinrich Karl Fouqué, Baron de la Motte, was
+born at Brandenburg, in Prussia, Feb. 12, 1777, and died in Berlin January
+23, 1843. The mixed nationality indicated by his name is accounted for by
+his descent from a French Huguenot family. He served as a Prussian
+cavalryman in the two campaigns against Napoleon of 1792 and 1813, but
+during the long interval between devoted himself actively to intellectual
+culture and literary pursuits. He began his career as an author by
+translating the "Numancia" of Cervantes, but his admiration of the ancient
+Norse sagas and the old German legends led him into the composition of
+exquisitely beautiful and tender, though exceedingly fantastic, romances
+which speedily gained immense popularity. In these productions fairy and
+magical elements predominate. His masterpiece is "Undine," published in
+1814, the other best-known works being "Sintram," "Aslauga's Knight," and
+"The Two Captains." In all Fouqué's stories the marks of genius
+appear in his brilliant imagination and pure and fascinating diction.
+</p>
+
+<h4><i>I.--The Water Sprite</i></h4>
+
+
+<p>About a century ago an aged fisherman sat mending his nets by his
+cottage door, in front of a lovely lake. Behind his dwelling stretched a
+sombre forest, reputed to be haunted by goblin creatures. Through this
+gloomy solitude the pious old fisherman frequently passed, religiously
+dispelling all terrors by singing hymns as he went with his fish to a town
+near the border of the forest.</p>
+
+<p>One evening he heard the sound of a horse's hoofs, and presently
+appeared a knight riding on a splendid steed, and clad in resplendent
+armour. The stranger stopped, and besought shelter for the night, and the
+good old fisherman accorded him a most cheery welcome, taking him into the
+cottage, where sat his aged wife by a scanty fire. Soon the three were
+freely conversing. The knight told of his travels and revealed that he was
+Sir Huldbrand of Ringstetten, where he had a castle by the Rhine.</p>
+
+<p>A splash against the window surprising the guest he was informed by his
+host, with some little show of vexation, that little tricks were often
+played by a foster-child of the old couple, named Undine, a girl of
+eighteen.</p>
+
+<p>The door flew open, and a lovely girl glided, laughing, into the room.
+Without the slightest token of shyness she gazed at the knight for a few
+moments, then asked why he had come to the poor cottage.</p>
+
+<p>"Have you come through the wild forest?"</p>
+
+<p>He confessed that he had, and she instantly demanded a recital of his
+adventures. With a slight shudder at his own recollections of the strange
+creatures he had encountered, Huldbrand consented, but a reproof from the
+fisherman at her obtrusiveness angered Undine. The girl sprang up and
+rushed forth into the night, exclaiming, "Sleep alone in your smoky old
+hut!"</p>
+
+<p>In great alarm, the fisherman and Huldbrand rose to follow the girl, but
+she had vanished in the darkness. Remarking that she had acted so before,
+the old fisherman invited Huldbrand to sit by the fire and talk awhile, and
+began to relate how Undine had come to live with them.</p>
+
+<p>The couple had lost their only child, a wonderfully beautiful little
+girl. At the age of three, when sitting in her mother's lap at the edge of
+the lake, she seemed to be attracted by some lovely apparition in the
+water, for, suddenly stretching out her hands and laughing, she had in a
+moment sprung into the lake. No trace of the child could ever be found. But
+the same evening a lovely little girl, three or four years old, with water
+streaming from her golden tresses, suddenly entered the cottage, smiling
+sweetly at the fisherman and his wife. They hastily undressed the little
+stranger and put her to bed. She uttered not a word, but simply smiled. In
+the morning she talked a little, confusedly telling how she had been in a
+boat on the lake with her mother, and had fallen in, and could recollect
+nothing more. She could say nothing as to who she was or whence she came.
+But she talked often of golden castles and crystal domes.</p>
+
+<p>While the fisherman was talking thus to the knight, he was suddenly
+interrupted by the noise of rushing water. Floods seemed to be bursting
+forth, and he and his guest, going hastily to the door, saw by the
+moonlight that the brook which issued from the forest was surging in a wild
+torrent over its margin, while a roaring wind was lashing the lake. In
+great alarm both shouted, "Undine! Undine!" But there was no response, and
+the two ran off in different directions in search of the fugitive.</p>
+
+<p>It was Huldbrand who discovered the girl. Clambering down some rocks at
+the edge of the stream, thinking Undine might have fallen there, he was
+hailed by the sweet voice of the girl herself.</p>
+
+<p>"Venture not," she cried. "The old man of the stream is full of
+tricks."</p>
+
+<p>Looking across at a tiny isle in the stream, the knight saw her nestling
+in the grass, smiling, and in an instant he had crossed.</p>
+
+<p>"The fisherman is distressed at your absence," said he. "Let us go
+back."</p>
+
+<p>Looking at him with her beautiful blue eyes, the girl replied. "If you
+think so, well; whatever you think is right to me."</p>
+
+<p>Taking Undine in his arms, Huldbrand bore her over the stream to the
+cottage, where she was received with joy. Dawn was breaking, and breakfast
+was prepared under the trees. Undine flung herself on the grass at
+Huldbrand's feet, and at her renewed request the knight told the story of
+his forest adventures.</p>
+
+<p>"It is now about eight days since I rode into the city on the other side
+of the forest to join in a great tournament. In one of the intervals
+between the jousts I noticed a lovely lady among the spectators. I learned
+that she was Bertalda, foster-daughter of a great duke, and each evening I
+became her partner in the dances.</p>
+
+<p>"This Bertalda was a wayward girl, and each day pleased me less and
+less; but I continued in her company, and asked her jestingly to give me a
+glove. She said she would do so if I would explore alone the haunted
+forest. As an honourable knight I could not decline the challenge, and
+yesterday I set out on the enterprise. Before I had penetrated very far
+within the glades, I saw what looked like a bear in the branches of an oak;
+but the creature, in a harsh, human voice, growled that it was getting
+branches with which to roast me at night. My horse was scared at this, and
+other grim apparitions, but at last I emerged from the forest, and saw the
+lake and this cottage."</p>
+
+<p>When he had finished, the fisherman spoke of the best way by which the
+visitor could return to the city; but, with sly laughter, Undine declared
+that the knight could not depart, for if he attempted now to cross the
+deluged wood, he would be overwhelmed.</p>
+
+
+<h4><i>II.--"I Have No Soul!"</i></h4>
+
+
+<p>Huldbrand, detained at the cottage by the increasing overflow of the
+stream, enjoyed the most perfect satisfaction with his sojourn.</p>
+
+<p>The old folks with pleasure regarded the two young people as being
+betrothed, and Huldbrand assumed that he was accepted by the girl, whom he
+had come to look upon as not being in reality one of this poor household,
+but one of some illustrious family, and when, one evening, an aged priest
+appeared at the cottage, driven in by the storm, Huldbrand addressed to him
+a request that he should on the spot at once unite him and the maiden, as
+they were pledged to each other. A discussion arose, but matters were at
+length settled, and the old wife produced two consecrated tapers. Lighting
+these, the priest, with brief, solemn ceremony, celebrated the
+nuptials.</p>
+
+<p>Undine had been quiet and grave during these proceedings, but a singular
+change took place in her demeanour as soon as the rite had been performed.
+She began at intervals to indulge in wild freaks, teasing the priest, and
+indulging in a variety of silly tricks. At length the priest gently
+expostulated with Undine, exhorting her so to attune her soul that it might
+always be in concord with that of her husband.</p>
+
+<p>Her reply amazed the listeners, for she said, "If one has no soul, as I
+have none, what is there to harmonise?" Then she burst into a fit of
+passionate weeping, to the consternation of all the little company. As she
+again and again wept, the priest, fearing that she was possessed by some
+evil spirit, sought to exorcise it. The priest turned to the bridegroom
+with the assurance that he could discover nothing evil in the bride,
+mysterious though her behaviour was, and he commended him to be loving and
+true to her.</p>
+
+<p>The next morning Undine, when she and her husband made their appearance,
+responded gracefully to the paternal greeting of the priest, beseeching his
+pardon for her folly of the previous evening, and begging him to pray for
+the good of her soul. Through the whole day Undine behaved angelically. She
+was kind, quiet, and gentle. At eventide she led her husband out to the
+edge of the stream, which, to the wonder of Huldbrand, had subsided into
+gentle, rippling waves.</p>
+
+<p>She whispered, "Carry me across to that little isle, and we will decide
+there."</p>
+
+<p>Wondering, he carried her across, and, laying her on the turf, listened
+as she began.</p>
+
+<p>"My loved one, know that there are strange beings which, though seeming
+almost mortals, are rarely visible to human eyes--salamanders in the
+flames, gnomes down in the earth, spirits in the air. And in the water are
+myriads of spirits dwelling in crystal domes, in the coral-trees, and in
+the lovely shells. These are far more beautiful than the fairest of human
+beings, and sometimes a fisherman has seen a tender mermaid, and has
+listened to her song. Such wonderful creatures are called Undines, and one
+of these you see now before you!</p>
+
+<p>"We should be far superior to other beings--for we consider ourselves
+human--but for one defect. We have no souls, and nothing remains of us
+after this mortal life is over. Yet every being aspires to rise higher, and
+so my father, who is a great water prince in the Mediterranean Sea, desired
+that his only daughter should become possessed of a soul. But this can only
+come to pass with loving union with one of your race. Now, O my dearly
+beloved, I have to thank you that I am gifted with a soul, and it will be
+due to you should all my life be made wretched. For what will become of me
+if you forsake me? If you would do so, do it now! Then I will plunge into
+the stream--which is my uncle--and as he brought me here, so will he take
+me back to my parents, a loving, suffering woman with a soul."</p>
+
+<p>Undine would have said yet more, but Huldbrand, astonishing though the
+recital was, with tears and kisses vowed he would never leave his lovely
+wife; and with her leaning in loving trustfulness on his arm, they returned
+to the hut.</p>
+
+<p>The next day, at Undine's strange urgency, farewell was said with bitter
+tears and lamentations.</p>
+
+<p>Undine was placed on the beautiful horse, and Huldbrand and the priest
+walked on either side as the three passed through the solemn glades of the
+wood. A fourth soon joined them. He was dressed in a white robe, like that
+of the priest, and presently attempted to speak to Undine. But she shrank
+from him, declaring she wished to have nothing to do with him.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, oh!" cried the stranger, with a laugh. "What kind of a marriage is
+this you have made, that you must not speak to your relative? Do you not
+know I am your uncle K&uuml;hleborn, who brought you to this region, and that I
+am here to protect you from goblins and sprites? So let me quietly
+accompany you."</p>
+
+<p>"We are near the end of the forest, and shall not need you further," was
+her rejoinder. But he grinned at her so frightfully that she shrieked for
+help, and the knight aimed at his head a blow from his sword. Instantly
+K&uuml;hleborn was transformed into a gushing waterfall, foaming over them from
+a rock near by and drenching all three.</p>
+
+
+<h4><i>III.--"Woe! Woe!"</i></h4>
+
+
+<p>The sudden disappearance of the young knight had caused a sensation in
+the city, for the duke and duchess, and the friends and servants of
+Huldbrand, feared he had perished in the forest during the terrible tempest
+When he suddenly reappeared, all rejoiced except Bertalda, who was
+profoundly vexed at seeing with him a beautiful bride. She so far
+reconciled herself to the conditions that a warm friendship sprang up
+between Undine and herself.</p>
+
+<p>It was agreed that Bertalda should accompany the wedded pair to
+Ringstetten, and with the consent of the noble foster-parents of Bertalda
+the three appointed a day for departure. One beautiful evening, as they
+walked about the market-place round the great fountain, suddenly a tall man
+emerged from among the people and stopped in front of Undine. He quickly
+whispered something in her ear, and though at first she seemed vexed at the
+intrusion, presently she clapped her hands and laughed joyously. Then the
+stranger mysteriously vanished, and seemed to disappear in the
+fountain.</p>
+
+<p>Huldbrand had suspected that he had seen the man before, and now felt
+assured that he was K&uuml;hleborn. Undine admitted the fact, and said that her
+uncle had told her a secret, which she was to reveal on the third day
+afterwards, which would be the anniversary of Bertalda's nameday.</p>
+
+<p>The anniversary came, and strange incidents happened. After the banquet
+given by the duke and duchess, Undine suddenly gave a signal, and from
+among the retainers at the door came forth the old fisherman and his wife,
+and Undine declared that in these Bertalda saw her real parents. The proud
+maiden instantly flew into a violent rage, weeping passionately, and
+utterly refused to acknowledge the old couple as her father and mother. She
+declared that Undine was an enchantress and a witch, sustaining intercourse
+with evil spirits.</p>
+
+<p>Undine, with great dignity, indignantly denied the accusation, while
+Bertalda's violent conduct created a feeling of disgust in the minds of all
+in the assembly. The matter was settled in a simple manner, for the duke
+commanded Bertalda to withdraw to a private apartment with the duchess and
+the two old folks from the hut, that an investigation might be made. It was
+soon over, for the noble lady was able presently to inform the company that
+Undine's story was absolutely true. The guests silently departed, and
+Undine sank sobbing into her husband's arms.</p>
+
+<p>Next day Bertalda, humbled by these events, sought pardon of Undine for
+her evil behaviour, and was instantly welcomed with loving assurances of
+forgiveness, moreover, she was cordially invited to go with the pair to
+Ringstetten.</p>
+
+<p>"We will share all things there as sisters," said Undine.</p>
+
+<p>The three journeyed to the distant castle, and took up their abode
+together. Soon K&uuml;hleborn appeared on the scene, but Undine at once repulsed
+him. Next, when her husband was one day hunting, she ordered the great well
+in the courtyard to be covered with a big stone, on which she cut some
+curious characters.</p>
+
+<p>Bertalda waywardly complained that this proceeding deprived her of water
+that was good for her complexion, but Undine privately explained to
+Huldbrand that she had caused the servants to seal up this spring because
+only by that way of access could her uncle K&uuml;hleborn come to disturb their
+peace.</p>
+
+<p>As time passed on, Huldbrand gradually cooled toward his wife and turned
+affectionately towards Bertalda. Undine bore patiently and silently the
+sorrow thus inflicted on her. But when her husband was impatient and angry
+she would plead with him never to speak to her in accents of unkindness
+when they happened to be on the water, for the water spirits had her
+completely in their power on their element, and would seek to protect her,
+and even seize her and take her down for ever to dwell in the crystal
+castles of the deep.</p>
+
+<p>After some estrangements, Undine and Bertalda had again become loving
+friends, and Huldbrand's affection for his wife had revived with its old
+and welcome warmth, while the attachment between him and Bertalda seemed
+forgotten.</p>
+
+<p>One day the three were enjoying a delightful excursion on the glorious
+Danube. Bertalda had taken off a beautiful coral necklace which Huldbrand
+had given her. She leaned over and drew the coral beads across the surface,
+enjoying the glitter thus caused, when suddenly a great hand from beneath
+seized the necklace and snatched it down. The maiden's scream of terror was
+answered by mocking laughter from the water.</p>
+
+<p>In an outburst of passion, Huldbrand started up and poured forth curses
+on the river and its denizens, whether spirits or sirens. With tears in her
+eyes, Undine besought him softly not to scold her there, and she took from
+her neck a beautiful necklace and offered it to Bertalda as a
+compensation.</p>
+
+<p>But the angry knight snatched it away, and hurled it into the river,
+exclaiming, "Are you still connected with them? In the name of all the
+witches, remain among them with your presents, and leave us mortals in
+peace, you sorceress!"</p>
+
+<p>Bitterly weeping and crying, "Woe! Woe!" she vanished over the side of
+the vessel. Her last words were, "Remain true! Woe! Woe!" Huldbrand lay
+swooning on the deck, and little waves seemed to be sobbing on the surface
+of the Danube, "Woe! Woe! Remain true!"</p>
+
+
+<h4><i>IV.--The White Stranger</i></h4>
+
+
+<p>For a time deep sorrow fell on the lord of Ringstetten and Bertalda.
+They lived long in the castle quietly, often weeping for Undine, tenderly
+cherishing her memory. Undine often visited Huldbrand in his dreams,
+caressing him and weeping silently so that his cheeks were wet when he
+awoke. But these visions grew less frequent, and the knight's grief
+diminished by degrees. At length he and Bertalda were married, but it was
+in spite of a grave warning from Father Heilmann, who declared that Undine
+had appeared to him in visions, beseeching him to warn Huldbrand and
+Bertalda to leave each other. They were too infatuated to heed the
+admonition, and a priest from a neighbouring monastery promised to perform
+the ceremony in a few days.</p>
+
+<p>Meantime, when lying between sleeping and waking, the knight seemed
+fanned by the wings of a swan, and, as he fell asleep, seemed borne along
+on the wings of swans which sang their sweetest music. All at once he
+seemed to be hovering over the Mediterranean Sea. Its waters were so
+crystalline that he could see through them to the bottom, and there, under
+a crystal arch, sat Undine, weeping bitterly. She seemed not to perceive
+him. K&uuml;hleborn approached her, and told her that Huldbrand was to be wedded
+again, and that it would be her duty, from which nothing could release her,
+to end his life.</p>
+
+<p>"That I cannot do," said she. "I have sealed up the fountain against my
+race."</p>
+
+<p>Huldbrand felt as if he were soaring back again over the sea, and at
+length he seemed to reach his castle. He awoke on his couch, but he could
+not bring himself to break off the arrangements that had been made.</p>
+
+<p>The marriage feast at Ringstetten was not as bright and happy as such
+occasions usually are, for a veil of gloom seemed to rest over the company.
+Even the bride affected a happy and thoughtless demeanour which she did not
+really feel. The company dispersed early, Bertalda retiring with her
+maidens, and Huldbrand with his attendants.</p>
+
+<p>In her apartment Bertalda, with a sigh, noticed how freckled was her
+neck, and a remark she made to her maidens as she gazed in the mirror
+excited the eager attention of one of them. She heard her fair mistress
+say, "Oh, that I had a flask of the purifying water from the closed
+fountain!" Presently the officious waiting-woman was seen leading men to
+the fountain. With levers they quickly lifted the stone, for some
+mysterious force within seemed to aid them.</p>
+
+<p>Then from the fountain solemnly rose a white column of water. It was
+presently perceived that it was a pale female figure, veiled in white. She
+was weeping bitterly as she walked slowly to the building, while Bertalda
+and her attendants, pale with terror, watched from the window. The figure
+passed on, and at the door of Huldbrand's room, where the knight was partly
+undressed, was heard a gentle tap. The white figure slowly entered. It was
+Undine, who softly said, "They have opened the spring, and now I am here
+and you must die." Said the knight, "It must be so! But let me die in your
+embrace."</p>
+
+<p>"Most gladly, my loved one," said she, throwing back her veil and
+disclosing her face divinely smiling. Imprinting on his lips a sacred kiss,
+Undine clasped the knight in her arms, weeping as if she would weep her
+very soul away. Huldbrand fell softly back on the pillows of his couch, a
+corpse.</p>
+
+<p>At the funeral of Huldbrand the veiled figure appeared when the
+procession formed a circle round the grave. All knelt in mute devotion at a
+signal from Father Heilmann. When they rose again the white stranger had
+vanished, and on the spot where she had knelt a silvery little fountain
+gushed forth, which almost encircled the grave and then ran on till it
+reached a lake near by. And to this day the inhabitants cherish the
+tradition that thus the poor rejected Undine still lovingly embraces her
+husband.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+
+
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="gaboriau">ÉMILE GABORIAU</a></h2>
+
+
+<h3><a name="gaboriau1">"File No. 113"</a></h3>
+
+<p class="letter">
+Émile Gaboriau, one of the best-known exponents of the
+"police story," was born at Saujon, in France, on November 9, 1833. He
+began life in a lawyer's office, became a volunteer in a cavalry regiment,
+and, later, secretary to Paul Feval, the novelist and dramatist. In the
+meantime, Gaboriau had contributed a number of sketches dealing with
+military and fashionable life to various minor Parisian journals, but it
+was not until 1866, with the publication of "L'Affaire Lerouge," that he
+suddenly sprang into fame. From that time until his death, on September 28,
+1873, story after story appeared rapidly from his pen. "File No. 113" ("Le
+Dossier 113") was published in 1867, and was the first of a remarkable
+series of detective tales introducing the figure of Lecoq. "File No. 113"
+is perhaps the most characteristic specimen of his work, exhibiting as it
+does a careful study of the Paris police system, and a thorough
+acquaintance with all phases of criminal life.
+</p>
+
+<h4><i>I.--The Robbery and a Clue</i></h4>
+
+
+<p>The first mention of the celebrated robbery which took place at M.
+Fauvel's bank in Paris--the <i>dossier</i> of the case is numbered 113 in
+the police files--appeared in the evening papers, February 28, 1866.</p>
+
+<p>On the previous day a certain Count Louis de Clameran sent word to M.
+Fauvel that he wished to withdraw the following morning at ten o'clock the
+sum of &pound;12,000 which had been deposited in the bank by his brother,
+an ironmaster from the south of France who had recently died.</p>
+
+<p>M. Fauvel made it a rule never to keep any large sums of money on the
+premises, but to deposit all such amounts in the keeping of the Bank of
+France. As this sum, however, had to be paid the first thing in the
+morning, the chief cashier, M. Prosper Bertomy, thought he was justified in
+obtaining the amount from the Bank of France on the evening of the 27th,
+and in locking it up in the bank safe against the morning.</p>
+
+<p>The safe was a formidable-looking affair constructed entirely of wrought
+iron of treble thickness. An ingenious device regulated its opening. On the
+massive door were five movable steel buttons engraved with the letters of
+the alphabet. Before the key could be inserted in the lock, these buttons
+had to be manipulated in the same order in which they had been used when
+the safe was last shut. The buttons were arranged so that the letters on
+them formed some word, which was changed from time to time. This word was
+known only to M. Fauvel and his cashier, each of whom possessed a key of
+the safe.</p>
+
+<p>As soon as the bank opened on the morning of February 28, the count put
+in an appearance, and Prosper Bertomy went to the safe to obtain the money.
+When, a second later, he reappeared, his face was ashy pale, and his steps
+tottered as he walked. The &pound;12,000 had disappeared from within the
+safe. What made the affair all the more mysterious was that the safe was
+locked just as the cashier had left it the night before.</p>
+
+<p>The room in which the safe was situated communicated with the bank by
+another room in which every night a tried servant of the establishment
+slept. By a second door admittance was obtained to the private apartments
+of M. and Madame Fauvel and their niece Madeline.</p>
+
+<p>As soon as M. Fauvel had heard the startling news, he first obtained the
+necessary money from the Bank of France, settled the business with the
+count, and then turned his attention to the elucidation of the robbery. He
+summoned the cashier to his presence.</p>
+
+<p>Bertomy was a young man of thirty to whom M. Fauvel had shown great
+kindness, advancing his interests wherever possible until, though very
+young for the position, he was his most important and most confidential
+employee. Besides the paternal affection with which the bank manager
+regarded his cashier, another tie tended to make their relations all the
+stronger and more personal. Bertomy loved M. Fauvel's niece Madeline, and
+though a curious estrangement had sprung up between them during the
+previous nine or ten months, the banker always regarded their marriage as
+practically arranged.</p>
+
+<p>The interview between the two men was a curious one. To each it appeared
+that the other must be the thief. They alone had the keys of the safe; they
+alone knew the magic word which could open the massive door. The banker
+urged Bertomy to confess, promising him forgiveness; the other haughtily
+rejected the suggestion, and hinted that his employer had converted the
+&pound;12,000 to his own use. In the end M. Fauvel lost his temper, sent
+for the police, and before twenty-four hours were up, Prosper Bertomy, who
+but the day before had held one of the most important and envied positions
+in the financial world of Paris, was charged before a magistrate as being a
+common thief.</p>
+
+<p>Investigation of the case was at first entrusted to a detective named
+Fanferlot, nicknamed by his comrades the "Squirrel." Fanferlot's
+examination of the premises resulted in little. All he discovered was a
+scratch upon the door of the safe, but certain words that passed between M.
+Fauvel and his niece, which seemed to indicate that the former was secretly
+opposed to the marriage of Madeline with Bertomy, caused him to jump to the
+conclusion that the banker had robbed his own safe in order to bring
+disgrace upon his cashier. He connived, however, at the arrest of Bertomy,
+hoping that later on he might obtain great kudos for himself by unmasking
+the banker. What might have been the result of his improper and unofficial
+methods will never be known, but in all probability great inconvenience
+would have been caused to a number of innocent persons and the whole course
+of justice thwarted had it not been for the intervention of the great and
+famous M. Lecoq.</p>
+
+<p>M. Lecoq's interest in the bank robbery case was largely a personal one.
+Even detectives have hearts, and M. Lecoq had loved with heart and soul a
+charming young girl named Nina Gipsy. Under the name of Caldas in one of
+his innumerable disguises, he had wooed her for many months. When he
+thought at last that he had won her affections, she had fled to the
+protection of no less a person than Prosper Bertomy himself. The cashier
+cared nothing for her, but embittered by an estrangement that had sprung up
+between Madeline and himself, he had sought forgetfulness in her society.
+Bertomy's arrest gave Lecoq an opportunity for a noble revenge. He
+determined to prove to the woman he loved his superiority over his rival by
+saving the cashier from disgrace.</p>
+
+<p>Though the case looked black against Bertomy, for it was shown that he
+was heavily in debt, and living far beyond his means, Lecoq was satisfied
+that he had not committed the crime. When Fanferlot, hopelessly befogged,
+called for his advice at his house in the Rue Montmartre, the great
+detective deigned to explain the preliminary data and the deductions from
+the data he had made.</p>
+
+<p>The scratch on the safe door, slight and minute as it was, was his
+starting-point. How had it been made? He had found by experiment that it
+was impossible to make such a scratch upon the varnish without the exercise
+of considerable force. It was clear, therefore, that the scratch by the
+keyhole could not have been made by the thief in his trembling anxiety to
+get the business he had undertaken accomplished. But why was such force
+used?</p>
+
+<p>For a long time Lecoq puzzled over this problem. Then, with Fanferlot,
+he tried an experiment. In his room was an iron box varnished like the
+safe. Taking the key of this box from his pocket, he ordered Fanferlot to
+seize his arm just as he put it near the lock. The key slipped, pulled away
+from the lock, and sliding along the surface of the door, left upon it a
+diagonal scratch, almost an exact reproduction of the one on the safe.</p>
+
+<p>From this simple experiment Lecoq deduced that two people were present
+when the safe was robbed; one wanted to take the money, the other wanted to
+prevent it being taken. This was the basis of the case which he set out to
+draw up against some person or persons unknown. He argued, with his usual
+clear logic, that neither Fauvel nor Bertomy could have robbed the safe.
+Both of them had keys; both of them knew the secret word and could have
+robbed the safe whenever they pleased. Therefore, neither of them would
+have committed the theft in the presence of somebody else.</p>
+
+
+<h4><i>II.--A Mysterious Journey</i></h4>
+
+
+<p>Lecoq's first steps after establishing these preliminary deductions was
+to secure the release of Bertomy on the grounds of insufficient
+evidence.</p>
+
+<p>On the very morning of his release, Bertomy had received a mysterious
+letter composed of printed words cut out letter by letter from a book and
+pasted on paper.</p>
+
+<p>"My dear Prosper," so the epistle ran, "a friend who knows the horror of
+your situation sends you this help. There is one heart at least which feels
+for you. Leave France; you are yourself. The future is before you. Go, and
+may this money be of use."</p>
+
+<p>Enclosed with this note were banknotes for &pound;400. Lecoq, disguised
+as a M. Verduret, a country merchant, a friend of Bertomy's father, secured
+this epistle and studied it carefully. His knowledge of the various types
+used by the printers in Paris showed him that the letters had been taken
+from a book printed by a well-known firm who published volumes of devotion.
+The correctness of this conclusion was established by the discovery on the
+back of one of the small cuttings the word "Deus." The words had been cut
+from a Catholic prayer-book. To find that prayer-book was his next
+business.</p>
+
+<p>In another disguise he sought out Nina Gipsy, and, by asking her
+assistance to clear Prosper, induced her to take up the position of
+lady's-maid in the Fauvel family, for it was there, he conceived, the
+mutilated book of devotion would be found. Again his wonderful instinct
+proved right. In a few days Nina brought him the very book--a prayer-book,
+belonging to Madeline, which had been given her by Bertomy.</p>
+
+<p>Why had Madeline sent the cashier this elaborately disguised letter? Why
+had she wished him to leave France, confident as she was, so she told him,
+of his innocence?</p>
+
+<p>To find an answer to these important queries, Lecoq closely questioned
+Bertomy. He learnt that the night before the robbery the cashier had dined
+with his friend Raoul de Lagors, the wealthy, dissolute young nephew of M.
+Fauvel's wife. This Lagors was the friend of Count Louis de Clameran, whose
+demand for the &pound;12,000 left him by his dead brother had resulted in
+the discovery of the mysterious robbery.</p>
+
+<p>Bertomy had nothing but the highest praise for Lagors, but, on the other
+hand, spoke most disparagingly of the count. The count, it appeared, had
+proposed for the hand of Madeline, and had pressed his suit with great
+determination. And Madeline--and this was what provided a new problem for
+Lecoq's consideration--had tacitly accepted his attention.</p>
+
+<p>Through Nina, Lecoq had arranged a meeting between Bertomy and Madeline,
+and satisfied himself that the girl was whole-heartedly and devotedly
+attached to her uncle's cashier. Then why was she favouring the suit of the
+count? Lecoq at once made it his business to inquire into the count's
+past.</p>
+
+<p>He was the second son of an old and noble family. His elder brother,
+Gaston, having to fly the country in consequence of causing the death of
+several men, he had inherited the property. A life of dissolute pleasures
+had soon exhausted his patrimony and he was reduced to living by his wits.
+Some weeks before the robbery, he had discovered that his brother Gaston
+was alive and was living on a large estate in the south of France, which he
+had purchased with the wealth he had accumulated in business. Six weeks
+after the two brothers met again, the elder died and the younger inherited
+his vast fortune.</p>
+
+<p>Raoul de Lagors was the next character in the drama whose past the
+detective made it his business to expose. Lagors, it has been said, was the
+nephew of Madame Fauvel. To his surprise, Lecoq discovered, by inquiries in
+her native place, that the banker's wife had never had any brothers or
+sisters. Lagors, therefore, was not her nephew.</p>
+
+<p>Fanferlot, acting on instructions, had kept a strict watch on the
+movements of Madeline, and by this means Lecoq received timely warning of a
+mysterious excursion which the girl made one night. He followed her to a
+lonely house on the outskirts of the city. When she had gained admittance,
+the appearance of a light in one of the windows on the first floor seemed
+to indicate the room to which she had been taken. By the aid of a ladder,
+Lecoq was able to watch what was going on within through the shutters.</p>
+
+<p>He saw Madeline standing opposite Lagors, evidently, from her attitude,
+pleading with him. For some time he listened to her, with a cynical smile
+upon his face, but after an hour he seemed to decide, with evident
+reluctance, to comply with her request. Going to a cabinet, he took out a
+bundle of pawn tickets and flung them on the table. Hastily going through
+the collection, she selected three, and concealing them in her dress, left
+the house.</p>
+
+<p>By following her to a pawnshop, Lecoq discovered that she had redeemed
+certain valuable articles of jewelry belonging to Madame Fauvel. Lecoq
+knew, through Nina Gipsy, who still filled the part of lady's-maid in the
+Fauvel family, that M. Fauvel had insisted on his wife accompanying him on
+the following evening to a great fancy-dress ball which was to be given by
+one of the wealthiest families in the capital. Obviously, then, the jewelry
+that Madeline had redeemed was required by Madame Fauvel for the occasion.
+Why had she pawned it for Lagors?</p>
+
+<p>A theory had half formed itself in Lecoq's brain. He determined to prove
+its truth. Disguised as a clown, he attended the fancy-dress ball, and in
+the character of a mountebank collected a group of ladies and gentlemen
+around him while he related with the inimitable skill of a buffoon a
+romantic narrative. To most of the people present it was simply an amusing
+story, but to the count and Lagors and Madame Fauvel, who were among the
+listeners, it seemed something much more, for Lecoq dressed out his theory
+of the robbery in the trappings of romance. Just as he reached the climax
+of the story there was a cry, and Madame Fauvel almost fell fainting on the
+floor. The count and Lagors rushed up furiously to Lecoq.</p>
+
+<p>"Master Clown," said Lagors, "your tongue is too long."</p>
+
+<p>"Perhaps, my pretty boy," retorted Lecoq, "perhaps it is. But it is, I
+can assure you, not so long as my arm."</p>
+
+<p>"Who are you, M. le Clown?" the count exclaimed angrily.</p>
+
+<p>"I am," replied Lecoq, "the best friend your brother Gaston had. I was
+his counsellor. I am the confidant of his last wishes."</p>
+
+<p>Though the solution of the problem seemed so tantalisingly near, there
+were still some threads in the tangle which required sorting out before
+Lecoq could say that the case was complete. Among other matters he inquired
+of Bertomy the word which had been used to lock the safe on, the night of
+the robbery. The word had been "gipsy." Bertomy was confident that he had
+not mentioned it to anybody, but Nina Gipsy was able to throw light on this
+part of the problem. She recollected a chance remark of Bertomy's while
+sitting at dinner with herself and Lagors on the night of the robbery. She
+had reproached Bertomy with neglecting her.</p>
+
+<p>"It's too bad for you to reproach me," cried the cashier, "for it is
+your name which at this very moment guards the safe of M. Fauvel."</p>
+
+<p>Lagors, therefore, had known the password. What did this new discovery
+imply? How did it fit in with the rest of the data which Lecoq had so
+brilliantly collected?</p>
+
+<p>After his custom, he marshalled once more in his mind all the facts at
+his disposal, but they were like so many loose links in a chain. They
+required the connecting link to make the chain complete. To find that link
+Lecoq spent a month in visiting the old home of the De Clamerans, the
+estate formerly occupied by Gaston de Clameron, who had died a few days
+before the robbery, and also in a trip to England. When he returned to
+Paris, <i>dossier</i> No. 113 was complete.</p>
+
+
+<h4><i>III.--The Dossier</i></h4>
+
+
+<p>In her extreme youth, Madame Fauvel had been secretly loved by Gaston de
+Clameron. It was a result of certain contemptuous words spoken of the girl
+he loved that Gaston had committed those deeds which had compelled him to
+fly the country. Shortly after his flight, the girl, finding that she was
+about to give birth to a child, imparted the secret to her mother. Fearing
+a scandal, the mother, accompanied by a faithful nurse, took her daughter
+over to England. There, near London, a child was born, who was immediately
+handed over to some simple country people to adopt. The unhappy girl
+returned to France, and shortly after married M. Fauvel, the banker.</p>
+
+<p>Years after, the Count Louis de Clameron, who had inherited and ruined
+the estates of which his brother Gaston had been deprived, discovered this
+secret from the nurse, and finding on inquiries in London that the child
+had died, persuaded a young ne'er-do-well Englishman to play the
+<i>r&ocirc;le</i> of his brother's son. He secretly introduced him to
+Madame Fauvel, and through this means obtained what money he required from
+the unhappy woman, who feared the discovery of her past secret by her
+husband. The situation was complicated by the count falling in love with
+Madeline and the sudden appearance of Gaston de Clameron, who was thought
+to be dead.</p>
+
+<p>The count poisoned his brother, and then, finding that Madeline refused
+to give up Bertomy, determined to accomplish the cashier's ruin, and at the
+same time obtain an amount of money large enough to buy off his
+fellow-conspirator Lagors. Lagors, having learnt by chance the password
+that guarded the safe, was sent to Madame Fauvel late at night with a
+request for money.</p>
+
+<p>At this time Madame Fauvel was at the end of her resources. Lagors
+suggested taking the money from the safe. Tom between a desire to help her
+supposed son and the risk of discovery, she at last consented. Taking M.
+Fauvel's key, they descended silently to the safe-room. At the last moment,
+just as the key was in the lock, Madame Fauvel attempted to deter Lagors
+from his purpose. In the struggle that scratch was made on the door which
+formed the basis of Lecoq's inquiries and enabled the great detective to
+unravel the mystery.</p>
+
+<p>Madeline, who all the while half guessed at the truth, and perceived
+without being told that Madame Fauvel was at the mercy of the count, had
+been prepared to sacrifice her future happiness in order to prevent the
+scandal being made public.</p>
+
+<p>M. Lecoq, armed with these facts, sought out Lagors. He arrived only in
+time to prevent a tragedy. Warned by an anonymous letter that his wife had
+pawned her diamonds for the benefit of Lagors, the banker came upon them
+when they were together in Lagor's rooms. Imagining the young man was his
+wife's lover, the banker drew a revolver and fired four times. Fortunately,
+none of the shots took effect, and before he could fire again Lecoq had
+rushed into the room and torn the weapon from his grasp. It was the moment
+of the great detective's triumph. With the dramatic skill of which he was a
+master, he laid bare the whole story and disclosed the true identity of
+Raoul Lagors. Before he left he compelled Lagors to refund the
+&pound;12,000 he had stolen, and in order to avoid a scandal allowed the
+young man to go free. Then, that nothing should be wanting to his triumph,
+he obtained the consent of the banker to Bertomy's marriage with
+Madeline.</p>
+
+<p>Hurrying from the banker's house, Lecoq hastened to effect the arrest of
+the count. He arrived too late. Realising that he was hopelessly in the
+toils, the count was bereft of his senses and become a hopeless maniac.</p>
+
+<p>Four days later M. Lecoq, the official M. Lecoq, awaited the arrival of
+Nina Gipsy and Prosper Bertomy. They declared that they had come to meet M.
+Verduret, who had saved Prosper Bertomy. The detective retired, promising
+to summon the man they had come to see. A quarter of an hour later M.
+Verduret entered the room. Facing them, he told them how a friend of his
+named Caldas had fallen in love with a girl, and how that girl had been won
+from him by a man who cared nothing for her.</p>
+
+<p>"Caldas determined to revenge himself in his own way. It was his hand
+that saved the man on the very verge of disgrace. I see you know that you,
+Nina, are the woman, and you, Prosper, the man; while Caldas is...."</p>
+
+<p>With a quick gesture he removed his wig and whiskers, and the true Lecoq
+appeared.</p>
+
+<p>"Caldas!" cried Nina.</p>
+
+<p>"No, not Caldas, not Verduret, but Lecoq, the detective."</p>
+
+<p>After the moments of amazement had passed, Lecoq turned to leave the
+room, but Nina barred the way.</p>
+
+<p>"Caldas," she cried, "have you not punished me enough? Caldas...."</p>
+
+<p>Prosper went from the office alone.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+
+
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="galt">JOHN GALT</a></h2>
+
+
+<h3><a name="galt1">Annals of the Parish</a></h3>
+
+<p class="letter">
+John Gait, poet, dramatist, historian, and novelist, was born
+at Irvine, Ayrshire, Scotland, on May 2, 1779. He was trained for a
+commercial career in the Greenock Custom House, and in the office of a
+merchant in that seaport. Removing to London, Gait engaged in business and
+afterwards travelled extensively to forward mercantile enterprises in all
+the countries bordering on the Mediterranean and the Near East, where he
+repeatedly met Lord Byron. His first work of fiction was a Sicilian story,
+published in 1816, but it was not until 1820 that he found his true
+literary expression, when the "Ayrshire Legatees" appeared in "Blackwood's
+Magazine." The success of this tale was so great that Gait finished the
+"Annals of the Parish; or the Chronicle of Dalmailing, during the Ministry
+of the Rev. Micah Balwhidder," which he had really begun in 1813, and they
+were published in 1821. The "Annals" contain a lively and humorous picture
+of Scottish character, manners, and feeling during the era described. In
+the latter part of his life Gait wrote several novels, a life of Byron, an
+autobiography, and his "Literary Life and Miscellanies." He died on April
+11, 1838.
+</p>
+
+<h4><i>I.--The Placing of Mr. Balwhidder</i></h4>
+
+
+<p>The year A.D. 1760 was remarkable for three things in the parish of
+Dalmailing. First and foremost, there was my placing, then the coming of
+Mrs. Malcolm with her five children to settle among us, and next my
+marriage with my own cousin, Miss Betty Lanshaw. The placing was a great
+affair, for I was put in by the patron, and the people knew nothing of me
+whatsoever. They were really mad and vicious, insomuch that there was
+obliged to be a guard of soldiers to protect the presbytery. Dirt was flung
+upon us as we passed, and the finger of scorn held out to me. But I endured
+it with a resigned spirit, compassionating their wilfulness and
+blindness.</p>
+
+<p>The kirk door was nailed up and we were obligated to go in by the
+window, making the Lord's house like an inn on a fair-day with their
+grievous yelly hooing. Thomas Thorl, the weaver, a pious zealot, got up at
+the time of the induction and protested, and said, "Verily, verily, I say
+unto you, he that entereth not by the door of the sheepfold, but climbeth
+up some other way, the same is a thief and a robber."</p>
+
+<p>When the laying on of the hands upon me was adoing, Mr. Given, minister
+of Lugton, a jocose man, who could not get near, stretched out his staff
+and touched my head, saying, to the great diversion of the rest, "This will
+do well enough--timber to timber."</p>
+
+<p>After the ceremony we went to the manse, and there had an excellent
+dinner. Although my people received me in this unruly manner, I was
+resolved to cultivate civility among them; and next morning I began a round
+of visitations. But, oh! it was a steep brae to climb. The doors in some
+places were barred against me; in others the bairns ran crying to their
+mothers, "Here's the feckless Mess-John." But Thomas Thorl received me
+kindly, and said that this early visitation was a symptom of grace, and
+that not to condemn me without trial he and some neighbours would be at the
+kirk at the next Lord's day, so that I would not have to preach just to the
+bare walls and the laird's family.</p>
+
+<p>As to Mrs. Malcolm, she was the widow of a Clyde shipmaster that was
+lost at sea with his vessel. A genty body, she never changed her widow's
+weeds, and span frae morning tae nicht to keep her bairns and herself. When
+her daughter Effie was ill, I called on her in a sympathising way, and
+offered her some assistance frae the Session, but she refused help out of
+the poor's-box, as it might be hereafter cast up to her bairns.</p>
+
+<p>It was in the year 1761 that the great smuggling trade corrupted the
+west coast. Tea was going like chaff, and brandy like well-water. There was
+nothing minded but the riding of cadgers by day and excisemen by night, and
+battles between the smugglers and the king's men, both by sea and land;
+continual drunkenness and debauchery, and our Session had an awful time
+o't.</p>
+
+<p>I did all that was in my power to keep my people from the contagion. I
+preached sixteen times from the text, "Render to Caesar the things that are
+Caesar's." I visited, exhorted, warned, and prophesied, but the evil got in
+among us. The third year of my ministry was long held in remembrance. The
+small-pox came in among the poor bits o' weans of the parish, and the
+smashing it made among them was woeful. When the pestilence was raging, I
+preached a sermon about Rachel weeping for her children, which Thomas
+Thorl, a great judge of good preaching, said, "was a monument of divinity
+whilk searched the heart of many a parent that day"--a thing I was well
+pleased to hear, and was minded to make him an elder the next vacancy. But,
+worthy man, it was not permitted him to arrive at that honour; for that
+fall it pleased Him that alone can give and take to pluck him from this
+life.</p>
+
+<p>In this year Charlie Malcolm, Mrs. Malcolm's eldest son, was sent to sea
+in a tobacco-trader that sailed between Port Glasgow and Virginia.
+Tea-drinking was beginning to spread more openly, in so much that by the
+advice of the first Mrs. Balwhidder, Mrs. Malcolm took in tea to sell to
+eke out something to the small profits of her wheel. I lost some of my
+dislike to the tea after that, and we had it for breakfast at the manse as
+well as in the afternoon. But what I thought most of it for was that it did
+no harm to the head of the drinkers, which was not always the case with the
+possets in fashion before, when I remember decent ladies coming home with
+red faces from a posset-masking. So I refrained from preaching against tea
+henceforth, but I never lifted the weight of my displeasure from off the
+smuggling trade, until it was utterly put down by the strong hand of
+government.</p>
+
+
+<h4><i>II.--The Minister's Second Marriage</i></h4>
+
+
+<p>A memorable year, both in public and private, was 1763. The king granted
+peace to the French. Lady Macadam, widow of General Macadam, who lived in
+her jointure-house, took Kate Malcolm to live with her as companion, and
+she took pleasure in teaching Kate all her accomplishments and how to
+behave herself like a lady. The lint-mill on Lugton Water was burned to the
+ground, with not a little of the year's crop of lint in our parish. The
+first Mrs. Balwhidder lost upwards of twelve stone, which was intended for
+sarking to ourselves and sheets and napery. A great loss indeed it was, and
+the vexation thereof had a visible effect on her health, which from the
+spring had been in a dwining way. But for it, I think she might have
+wrestled through the winter. However, it was ordered otherwise, and she was
+removed from mine to Abraham's bosom on Christmas Day, and buried on
+Hogmanay, for it was thought uncanny to have a dead corpse in the house on
+the New Year's Day.</p>
+
+<p>Just by way of diversion in my heavy sorrow, I got a well-shapen
+headstone made for her; but a headstone without a epitaph being no better
+than a body without the breath of life in't, I made a poesy for the
+monument, not in the Latin tongue, which Mrs. Balwhidder, worthy woman as
+she was, did not understand, but in sedate language, which was greatly
+thought of at the time. My servant lassies, having no eye of a mistress
+over them, wasted everything at such a rate that, long before the end of
+the year, the year's stipend was all spent, and I did not know what to do.
+At lang and length I sent for Mr. Auld, a douce and discreet elder, and
+told him how I was situated. He advised me, for my own sake, to look out
+for another wife, as soon as decency would allow.</p>
+
+<p>In the following spring I placed my affections, with due consideration,
+on Miss Lizzy Kibbock, the well-brought-up daughter of Mr. Joseph Kibbock,
+of the Gorbyholm, farmer; and we were married on the 29th day of April, on
+account of the dread we had of being married in May, for it is said, "Of
+the marriages in May, the bairns die of a decay." The second Mrs.
+Balwhidder had a genius for management, and started a dairy, and set the
+servant lassies to spin wool for making blankets and lint for sheets and
+napery. She sent the butter on market days to Irville, her cheese and
+huxtry to Glasgow. We were just coining money, in so much that, after the
+first year, we had the whole tot of stipend to put into the bank.</p>
+
+<p>The opening of coal-pits in Douray Moor brought great prosperity to the
+parish, but the coal-carts cut up the roads, especially the Vennel, a
+narrow and crooked street in the clachan. Lord Eglesham came down from
+London in the spring of 1767 to see the new lands he had bought in our
+parish. His coach couped in the Vennel, and his lordship was thrown head
+foremost into the mud. He swore like a trooper, and said he would get an
+act of parliament to put down the nuisance. His lordship came to the manse,
+and, being in a woeful plight, he got the loan of my best suit of clothes.
+This made him wonderful jocose both with Mrs. Balwhidder and me, for he was
+a portly man, and I but a thin body, and it was really droll to see his
+lordship clad in my garments. Out of this accident grew a sort of
+neighbourliness between Lord Eglesham and me.</p>
+
+
+<h4><i>III.--A Runaway Match</i></h4>
+
+
+<p>About Christmas, Lady Macadam's son, having been perfected in the art of
+war at a school in France, had, with the help of his mother's friends and
+his father's fame, got a stand of colours in the Royal Scots Regiment. He
+came to show himself in his regimentals to his lady mother, and during the
+visit he fell in love and entered into correspondence with Kate Malcolm. A
+while after, her ladyship's flunkey came to the manse and begged me to go
+to her. So I went; and there she was, with gum-flowers on her head, sitting
+on a settee, for she was lame, and in her hand she held a letter.</p>
+
+<p>"Sir," she said, as I came into the room, "I want you to go instantly to
+your clerk," meaning Mr. Lorimore, the schoolmaster, "and tell him I will
+give him a couple of hundred pounds to marry Miss Malcolm without
+delay."</p>
+
+<p>"Softly, my lady; you must first tell me the meaning of all this haste
+of kindness," said I, in my calm, methodical manner. At which she began to
+sob, and bewail her ruin and the dishonour of her family. I was confounded,
+but at length it came out that she had accidentally opened a letter that
+had come from London for Kate, that she had read it, by which she came to
+know that Kate and her darling son were trysted, and that this was not the
+first love-letter which had passed between them. Mr. Lorimore promptly
+declined her ladyship's proposal, as he was engaged to be married to his
+present worthy helpmate. Although her ladyship was so overcome with
+passion, she would not part with Kate, nor allow her to quit the house.</p>
+
+<p>Three years later the young Laird Macadam, being ordered with his
+regiment for America, got leave from the king to come and see his lady
+mother before his departure. But it was not to see her only. He arrived at
+a late hour unwarned, lest his mother would send Kate out of the way; but
+no sooner did her ladyship behold his face than she kindled upon both him
+and Kate, and ordered them out of her sight and house. The young folk had
+discretion. Kate went home to her mother, and the laird came to the manse
+and begged us to take him in.</p>
+
+<p>He asked me to perform the ceremony, as he was resolved to marry Kate.
+We stepped over to Mrs. Malcolm's house, where we found the saintly woman
+with Kate and Erne and Willie, preparing to read their Bible for the night.
+After speaking to Mrs. Malcolm for a time, she consented to the marriage.
+It was sanctified by me before we left Mrs. Malcolm's, the young couple
+setting off in the laird's chaise to Glasgow, and authorising me to break
+the matter to Lady Macadam. I was spared this performance, for the servants
+jealoused what had been done, and told her ladyship. When I entered the
+room she was like a mad woman in Bedlam. She sent her coachman on horseback
+to overtake them, which he did at Kilmarnock, and they returned in the
+morning, when her ladyship was as cagey and meikle taken up with them as if
+they had gotten her full consent and privilege from the first. Captain
+Macadam afterwards bought a house at the Braehead, and gave it, with a
+judicious income, to Mrs. Malcolm, telling her it was not becoming that she
+should any longer be dependent upon her own industry. For this the young
+man got a name like a sweet odour in all the country-side.</p>
+
+<p>It will be remembered that Charlie Malcolm went a-sailing in a
+tobacco-trader to America. When his ship was lying in the harbour of
+Virginia, a press-gang, that was in need of men for the Avenger,
+man-of-war, came on board and pressed poor Charles. I wrote to Lord
+Eglesham anent the matter, and his lordship's brother being connected with
+the Admiralty, the captain of the man-of-war was instructed to make a
+midshipman of Charles. This was done, and Mrs. Malcolm heard from time to
+time from her son, saying that he had found a friend in the captain, that
+was just a father to him.</p>
+
+<p>In the latter end of 1776, the man-of-war, with Charles Malcolm in her,
+came to the Tail of the Bank at Greenock, and Charles got leave from his
+captain to come and see his mother. He brought with him Mr. Howard, another
+midshipman, the son of a great Parliament man in London. They were dressed
+in their fine gold-laced garbs. When Charles had seen his mother and his
+sister, Effie, he came with his friend to see me at the manse, and got Mrs.
+Balwhidder to ask his friend to sleep there. In short, we had a ploy the
+whole two days they stayed with us, Lady Macadam made for them at a ball,
+and it was a delight to see how old and young of all degrees made much of
+Charles.</p>
+
+
+<h4><i>IV.--Years of Lamentation</i></h4>
+
+
+<p>I was named in the year 1779 for the General Assembly, and Mrs.
+Balwhidder, by her continual thrift, having made our purse able to stand a
+shake against the wind, we resolved to go into Edinburgh in a creditable
+manner. We put up at Widow M'Vicar's, a relation to my first wife, a gawsy,
+furthy woman, taking great pleasure in hospitality. In short, everybody in
+Edinburgh was in a manner wearisome kind.</p>
+
+<p>I was delighted and surprised to find Lord Eglesham at the levee, and he
+introduced me to his grace the Commissioner, who required me to preach
+before him. Fain would I have eschewed the honour that was thus thrust upon
+me; but both my wife and Mrs. M'Vicar were just lifted out of themselves at
+the thought. After the sermon the Commissioner complimented me on my
+apostolic earnestness, and Mrs. M'Vicar said I had surprised everybody; but
+I was fearful there was something of jocularity at the bottom of all
+this.</p>
+
+<p>The year 1781 was one of dolour and tribulation, for Lord Eglesham was
+shot dead by a poaching exciseman, and Lady Macadam died of paralysis; but
+the year after was one of greater lamentation. Three brave young fellows
+belonging to the clachan, who had gone as soldiers in America, were killed
+in battle with the rebels, for which there was great grief. Shortly after
+this the news came of a victory over the French fleet, and by the same post
+I got a letter from Mr. Howard, the midshipman, telling me that poor
+Charles had been mortally wounded in the action, and had afterwards died of
+his wounds.</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Malcolm heard the news of the victory through the steeple bell
+being set a-ringing, and she came over to the manse in great anxiety. When
+I saw her I could not speak, but looked at her in pity, and, the tears
+fleeing into my eyes, she guessed what had happened. After giving a deep
+and sore sigh, she inquired, "How did he behave? I hope well, for he was
+aye a gallant laddie!" And then she wept very bitterly. I gave her the
+letter, which she begged me to give to her to keep, saying, "It's all that
+I have left now of my pretty boy; but it is mair precious to me than the
+wealth of the Indies!"</p>
+
+
+<h4><i>V.--Death of the Second Mrs. Balwhidder</i></h4>
+
+
+<p>Some time after this a Mr. Cayenne, a man of crusty temper but good
+heart, and his family, American loyalists, settled among us. In the year
+1788, a proposal came from Glasgow to build a cotton mill on the banks of
+the Brawl burn, a rapid stream which ran through the parish. Mr. Cayenne
+took a part in the profit or loss of the concern, and the cotton mill and a
+new town was built, and the whole called Cayenneville. Weavers of muslin
+were brought to the mill, and women to teach the lassie bairns in our old
+clachan tambouring instead of hand-spinning.</p>
+
+<p>Prosperity of fortune is like the golden hue of the evening cloud that
+delighteth the spirit and passeth away. In the month of February 1796, my
+second wife was gathered to the Lord. Her death was to me a great sorrow,
+for she was a most excellent wife, industrious to a degree. With her I had
+grown richer than any other minister in the presbytery.</p>
+
+<p>I laid her by the side of my first love, Betty Lanshaw, and I inscribed
+her name upon the same headstone. Time had drained my poetical vein, and I
+have not yet been able to indite an epithet on her merits and virtues, for
+she had an eminent share of both. Above all, she was the mother of my
+children. She was not long deposited in her place of rest until things fell
+into amazing confusion, and I saw it would be necessary, as soon as decency
+would allow, for me to take another wife, both for a helpmate, and to tend
+me in my approaching infirmities.</p>
+
+<p>I saw it would not do for me to look out for an overly young woman, nor
+yet would it do for one of my way to take an elderly maiden, ladies of that
+sort being liable to possess strong-set particularities. I therefore
+resolved that my choice should lie among widows of a discreet age, and I
+fixed my purpose on Mrs. Nugent, the relict of a professor in the
+University of Glasgow, both because she was a well-bred woman without any
+children, and because she was held in great estimation as a lady of
+Christian principle. And so we were married as soon as a twelve-month and a
+day had passed from the death of the second Mrs. Balwhidder; and neither of
+us have had occasion to rue the bargain.</p>
+
+
+<h4><i>VI.--The Last Sermon</i></h4>
+
+
+<p>Two things made 1799 a memorable year; the marriage of my daughter Janet
+with the Rev. Dr. Kittleword of Swappington, a match in every way
+commendable; and the death of Mrs. Malcolm. If ever there was a saint on
+earth she was surely one. She bore adversity with an honest pride; she
+toiled in the day of penury and affliction with thankfulness for her little
+earnings.</p>
+
+<p>The year 1803 saw tempestuous times. Bonaparte gathered his host fornent
+the English coast, and the government at London were in terror of their
+lives for an invasion. All in the country saw that there was danger, and I
+was not backward in sounding the trumpet to battle. I delivered on Lord's
+Day a religious and political exhortation on the present posture of public
+affairs before a vast congregation of all ranks. The week following there
+were meetings of weavers and others, and volunteers were enrolled in
+defence of king and country.</p>
+
+<p>In the course of the next four or five years many changes took place in
+the parish. The weavers and cotton-mill folk and seceders from my own kirk
+built a meeting-house in Cayenneville, where there had been for a while
+great suffering on account of the failure of the cotton-mill company. In
+the year 1809 the elders came in a body to the manse, and said that, seeing
+that I was now growing old, they thought they could not testify their
+respect for me in a better manner than by agreeing to get me a helper; and
+the next year several young ministers spared me from the necessity of
+preaching.</p>
+
+<p>When it was known that I was to preach my last sermon on the last
+sabbath of 1810, everyone, including the seceders to the meeting-house,
+made it a point to be in the parish kirk, or to stand in the crowd that
+made a lane of reverence for me to pass from the kirk door to the back-yett
+of the manse. It was a moving discourse, and there were few dry eyes in the
+kirk that day; for my bidding them farewell was as when of old among the
+heathen an idol was taken away by the hand of the enemy. Shortly after, a
+deputation of the seceders, with their minister at their head, came to me
+and presented a server of silver in token of their esteem of my blameless
+life, and the charity I had practised towards the poor.</p>
+
+<p>I am thankful that I have been spared with a sound mind to write this
+book to the end, having really no more to say, saving only to wish a
+blessing on all people from on high, where I soon hope to be, and to meet
+there all the old and long-departed sheep of my flock, especially the first
+and second Mrs. Balwhidders.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+
+
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="gaskell">ELIZABETH CLEGHORN GASKELL</a></h2>
+
+
+<h3><a name="gaskell1">Cranford</a></h3>
+
+<p class="letter">
+Mrs. Gaskell, whose maiden name was Elizabeth C. Stevenson,
+was born in Chelsea, London, Sept. 29, 1810. She married a Unitarian
+clergyman in Manchester. Her first literary work was published anonymously,
+and met with a storm of mingled approval and disapproval. Charles Dickens
+invited her to contribute to his "Household Words," and it was in the pages
+of that famous periodical, at intervals between December 13, 1851, and May
+21, 1853, that her charming sketches of social life in a little country
+town first appeared. In June, 1853, they were grouped together under the
+title of "Cranford," meeting with wide approval, and have long taken rank
+as one of the accepted English classics. The town which figures here as
+Cranford is understood to have been Knutsford, in Cheshire, which still
+retains something of that old-world feeling and restfulness which Mrs.
+Gaskell embodied in the pages of her most engaging book. "Cranford" is
+probably the direct progenitor of many latter-day books of the class to
+which the word "idyll" has been somewhat loosely applied. Its charm and
+freshness are unfading; it remains unique and unrivalled as a sympathetic
+and kindly humorous description of English provincial life. Mrs. Gaskell
+died in November, 1865.
+</p>
+
+<h4><i>I.--Our Society</i></h4>
+
+
+<p>On the first visit I paid to Cranford, after I had left it as a
+residence, I was astonished to find a man had settled there--a Captain
+Brown. In my time Cranford was in possession of the Amazons. If a married
+couple came to settle there, somehow the man always disappeared. Either he
+was fairly frightened to death by being the only man at the evening
+parties, or he was accounted for by being with his regiment, his ship, or
+closely connected in business all the week in the great neighbouring
+commercial town of Drumble, distant only twenty miles on the railroad.</p>
+
+<p>I was naturally interested to learn what opinions Captain Brown had
+managed to win for himself in Cranford. So, with all the delicacy which the
+subject demanded, I made inquiries of my hostess, Miss Jenkyns. I was
+surprised to learn that Captain Brown not only was respected, but had even
+gained an extraordinary place of authority among the Cranford ladies. Of
+course, he had been forced to overcome great difficulties.</p>
+
+<p>In the first place, the ladies of Cranford had moaned over the invasion
+of their territories by a man and a gentleman. Then Captain Brown had
+started badly, very badly, by openly referring to his poverty. If he had
+whispered it to an intimate friend, the doors and windows being previously
+closed, his vulgarity--a tremendous word in Cranford--might have been
+forgiven. But he had published his poverty in the public street, in a loud
+military voice, alleging it as a reason for not taking a particular
+house.</p>
+
+<p>In Cranford, too, where it was tacitly agreed to ignore that anyone with
+whom we associated on terms of equality could ever be prevented by poverty
+from doing anything they wished. Where, if we walked to and from a party,
+it was because the night was <i>so</i> fine or the air <i>so</i>
+refreshing, not because sedan-chairs were so expensive.</p>
+
+<p>So the poor captain had been sent to Coventry. The ladies of Cranford
+had frozen him out, until the day when the cow, an Alderney cow, had broken
+the ice.</p>
+
+<p>It happened like this. Miss Betsy Barker had an Alderney cow, which she
+looked upon as a daughter. You could not pay the regulation short quarter
+of an hour's call--to stay longer was a breach of manners--without being
+told of the wonderful milk or wonderful intelligence of this animal. The
+whole town knew and kindly regarded Miss Betsy Barker's Alderney.</p>
+
+<p>One day the cow fell into a lime-pit, and Cranford grieved over the
+spectacle of the poor beast being drawn out, having lost most of her hair,
+and looking naked, cold and miserable, in a bare skin. Miss Betsy Barker
+absolutely cried with sorrow and dismay, and was about to prepare a bath of
+oil for the sufferer, when Captain Brown called out: "Get her a flannel
+waistcoat and flannel drawers, ma'am, if you wish to keep her alive. But my
+advice is, 'kill the poor creature at once.'" Miss Betsy Barker dried her
+eyes, and in a few hours the whole town turned out to see the Alderney
+meekly going to her pasture, clad in dark-gray flannel. Do you ever see
+cows dressed in gray flannel in London?</p>
+
+<p>On that day was born the respect of the Cranford ladies for Captain
+Brown.</p>
+
+<p>Soon after my arrival in Cranford, Miss Jenkyns gave a party in my
+honour, and recalling the old days when we had almost persuaded ourselves
+that to be a man was to be "vulgar," I was curious to see what the ladies
+would do with Captain Brown.</p>
+
+<p>The preparations were much as usual. Card-tables, with green baize tops,
+were set out by daylight, and towards four, when the evening closed in, we
+all stood dressed in our best, each with a candle-lighter in our hand,
+ready to dart at the candles as soon as the first knock came. The china was
+delicate egg-shell; the old-fashioned silver glittered with polishing; but
+the eatables were of the slightest description. While the trays were yet on
+the table, Captain Brown arrived with his two daughters, Miss Brown and
+Miss Jessie, the former with a sickly, pained, and careworn expression; the
+latter with a pretty, round, dimpled face, and the look of a child which
+will remain with her should she live to be a hundred.</p>
+
+<p>I could see that the captain was a favourite with all the ladies
+present. Ruffled brows were smoothed and sharp voices hushed at his
+approach. He immediately and quietly assumed the man's place in the room;
+attended to everyone's wants, lessened the pretty maidservant's labour by
+waiting on empty cups and bread-and-butterless ladies; and yet did it all
+in so easy and dignified a manner, and so much as if it were a matter of
+course for the strong to attend to the weak, that he was a true man
+throughout.</p>
+
+<p>The party passed off very well in spite of one or two little hitches.
+One was Miss Jessie Brown's unguarded admission--<i>à propos</i> of
+Shetland wool--that she had an uncle, her mother's brother, who was a
+shopkeeper in Edinburgh. Miss Jenkyns tried to drown this confession by a
+terrible cough, for the honourable Mrs. Jamieson was sitting at the
+card-table nearest Miss Jessie, and what would she say or think if she
+found out she was in the same room with a shopkeeper's niece!</p>
+
+<p>Then there was a slight breeze between Miss Jenkyns and Captain Brown
+over the relative merits of Dr. Johnson and the author of "Pickwick
+Papers"--then being published in parts--as writers of light and agreeable
+fiction. Captain Brown read an account of the "Swarry" which Sam Weller
+gave at Bath. Some of us laughed very heartily. <i>I</i> did not dare,
+because I was staying in the house. At the conclusion Miss Jenkyns said to
+me, with mild dignity, "Fetch me 'Rasselas,' my dear, out of the
+book-room."</p>
+
+<p>After delivering one of the conversations between Rasselas and Imlac in
+a majestic, high-pitched voice, Miss Jenkyns said, "I imagine I am now
+justified in my preference for Dr. Johnson over your Mr. Boz as a writer of
+fiction."</p>
+
+<p>The captain said nothing, merely screwed his lips up and drummed on the
+table; but when Miss Jenkyns returned later to the charge and recommended
+the doctor's style to Captain Brown's favourite, the captain replied, "I
+should be very sorry for him to exchange his style for any such pompous
+writing."</p>
+
+<p>Miss Jenkyns felt this as a personal affront in a way of which the
+captain had not dreamed. How could he know that she and her friends looked
+upon epistolary writing as their forte, and that when in a letter they
+"seized the half-hour just previous to post-time to assure" their friends
+of this and that, they were using the doctor as a model?</p>
+
+<p>As it was Miss Jenkyns refused to be mollified by Captain Brown's
+efforts later to beguile her into conversation on some more pleasing
+subject. She was inexorable.</p>
+
+<p>Captain Brown endeavoured to make peace after this memorable dispute by
+a present to Miss Jenkyns of a wooden fire-shovel (his own making), having
+heard her say how much the grating of an iron one annoyed her. She received
+the present with cool gratitude and thanked him formally. When he was gone
+she bade me put it in the lumber-room, feeling probably that no present
+from a man who preferred Mr. Boz to Dr. Johnson could be less jarring than
+an iron fire-shovel.</p>
+
+<p>Such was the state of affairs at the time when I left Cranford and went
+to Drumble. I had, however, several correspondents who kept me <i>au
+fait</i> as to the proceedings of the inhabitants of the dear little
+town.</p>
+
+
+<h4><i>II.--The Captain</i></h4>
+
+
+<p>My next visit to Cranford was in the summer. There had been neither
+births, deaths, nor marriages since I was there last. Everybody lived in
+the same house, and wore pretty near the same well-preserved, old-fashioned
+clothes. The greatest event was that the Misses Jenkyns had purchased a new
+carpet for the drawing-room. Oh, the busy work Miss Matty and I had in
+chasing the sunbeams as they fell in an afternoon right down on this carpet
+through the blindless windows! We spread our newspapers over the places and
+sat down to our book or our work; and, lo! in a quarter of an hour the sun
+had moved and was blazing away in a fresh spot; and down again we went on
+our knees to alter the position of the newspapers. One whole morning, too,
+we spent in cutting out and stitching together pieces of newspapers so as
+to form little paths to every chair, lest the shoes of visitors should
+defile the purity of the carpet. Do you make paper paths for every guest to
+walk upon in London?</p>
+
+<p>The literary dispute between Captain Brown and Miss Jenkyns continued.
+She had formed a habit of talking <i>at</i> him. And he retaliated by
+drumming his fingers, which action Miss Jenkyns felt and resented as
+disparaging to Dr. Johnson.</p>
+
+<p>The poor captain! I noticed on this visit that he looked older and more
+worn, and his clothes were very threadbare. But he seemed as bright and
+cheerful as ever, unless he was asked about his daughter's health.</p>
+
+<p>One afternoon we perceived little groups in the street, all listening
+with faces aghast to some tale or other. It was some time before Miss
+Jenkyns took the undignified step of sending Jenny out to inquire.</p>
+
+<p>Jenny came back with a white face of terror.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, ma'am! Oh, Miss Jenkyns, ma'am! Captain Brown is killed by them
+nasty cruel railroads." And she burst into tears.</p>
+
+<p>"How, where--where? Good God! Jenny, don't waste time in crying, but
+tell us something."</p>
+
+<p>Miss Matty rushed out into the street, and presently an affrighted
+carter appeared in the drawing-room and told the story.</p>
+
+<p>"'Tis true, mum, I seed it myself. The captain was a-readin' some book,
+waitin' for the down train, when a lass as gave its sister the slip came
+toddling across the line. He looked up sudden, see'd the child, darted on
+the line, cotched it up, and his foot slipped and the train came over him
+in no time. The child's safe. Poor captain would be glad of that, mum,
+wouldn't he? God bless him!"</p>
+
+<p>The great rough carter turned away to hide his tears. I turned to Miss
+Jenkyns. She looked very ill, as though she were going to faint, and signed
+to me to open a window.</p>
+
+<p>"Matilda, bring me my bonnet. I must go to those girls. God pardon me if
+ever I have spoken contemptuously to the captain."</p>
+
+<p>Miss Brown did not long survive her father. Her last words were a prayer
+for forgiveness for her selfishness in allowing her sister Jessie to
+sacrifice herself for her all her life.</p>
+
+<p>But Miss Jessie was not long left alone. Miss Jenkyns insisted she
+should come and stay with her, and would not hear of her going out into the
+world to earn her living as a saleswoman. "Some people have no idea of
+their rank as a captain's daughter," she related indignantly, and stumped
+out of the room. Presently she came back with a strange look on her
+face.</p>
+
+<p>"I have been much startled--no, I've not been startled--don't mind me,
+my dear Miss Jessie, only surprised--in fact, I've had a caller whom you
+once knew, my dear Miss Jessie."</p>
+
+<p>Miss Jessie went very white, then flushed scarlet.</p>
+
+<p>"Is it?--it is not----" stammered out Miss Jessie, and got no
+farther.</p>
+
+<p>"This is his card," said Miss Jenkyns, and went through a series of
+winks and odd faces at me, and formed a long sentence with her lips, of
+which I could not understand a word.</p>
+
+<p>Major Gordon was shown upstairs.</p>
+
+<p>While downstairs Miss Jenkyns told me what the major had told her. How
+he had served in the same regiment as Captain Brown and had fallen in love
+with Miss Jessie, then a sweet-looking, blooming girl of eighteen; how she
+had refused him, though obviously not indifferent to him; how he had
+discovered the obstacle to be the fell disease which had stricken her
+sister, whom there was no one to nurse and comfort but herself; how he had
+believed her cold and had left in anger; and finally how he had read of the
+death of Captain Brown in a foreign newspaper.</p>
+
+<p>Just then Miss Matty burst into the room.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, Deborah," she said, "there's a gentleman sitting in the
+drawing-room with his arm round Miss Jessie's waist!"</p>
+
+<p>"The most proper place for his arm to be in. Go, Matilda, and mind your
+own business."</p>
+
+<p>Poor Miss Matty! This was a shock, coming from her decorous sister.</p>
+
+<p>Thus happiness, and with it some of her early bloom, returned to Miss
+Jessie, and as Mrs. Gordon her dimples were not out of place.</p>
+
+
+<h4><i>III.--Poor Peter</i></h4>
+
+
+<p>My visits to Cranford continued for many years, and did not cease even
+after the death of Miss Jenkyns.</p>
+
+<p>Miss Matty became my new hostess. At first I rather dreaded the changed
+aspect of things. Miss Matty, too, began to cry as soon as she saw me. She
+was evidently nervous from having anticipated my visit. I comforted her as
+well as I could, and I found the best consolation I could give was the
+honest praise that came from my heart as I spoke of the deceased.</p>
+
+<p>Miss Matty made me her confidante in many matters, and one evening she
+sent Martha to go for eggs at a farm at the other end of the town and told
+me the story of her brother.</p>
+
+<p>"Poor Peter! The sole honour he brought from Shrewsbury was the
+reputation of being captain of the school in the art of practical joking.
+He even thought that the people of Cranford might be hoaxed. 'Hoaxing' is
+not a pretty word, my dear, and I hope you won't tell your father I used
+it, for I should not like him to think I was not choice in my language,
+after living with such a woman as Deborah. I don't know how it slipped out
+of my mouth, except it was that I was thinking of poor Peter, and it was
+always his expression.</p>
+
+<p>"One day my father had gone to see some sick people in the village.
+Deborah, too, was away from home for a fortnight or so. I don't know what
+possessed poor Peter, but he went to her room and dressed himself in her
+old gown and shawl and bonnet. And he made the pillow into a little--you
+are sure you locked the door, my dear?--into--into a little baby with white
+long clothes. And he went and walked up and down in the Filbert Walk--just
+half hidden by the rails and half seen; and he cuddled the pillow just like
+a baby and talked to it all the nonsense people do. Oh, dear, and my father
+came stepping stately up the street, as he always did, and pushing past the
+crowd saw--I don't know what he saw--but old Clare said his face went
+grey-white with anger. He seized hold of poor Peter, tore the clothes off
+his back--bonnet, shawl, gown, and all--threw them among the crowd, and
+before all the people lifted up his cane and flogged Peter.</p>
+
+<p>"My dear, that boy's trick on that sunny day, when all promised so well,
+broke my mother's heart and changed my father for life. Old Clare said
+Peter looked as white as my father and stood still as a statue to be
+flogged.</p>
+
+<p>"'Have you done enough, sir?' he asked hoarsely, when my father stopped.
+Then Peter bowed grandly to the people outside the railing and walked
+slowly home. He went straight to his mother, looking as haughty as any man,
+and not like a boy.</p>
+
+<p>"'Mother,' he said, 'I am come to say "God bless you for ever."'</p>
+
+<p>"He would say no more, and by the time my mother had found out what had
+happened from my father, and had gone to her boy's room to comfort him, he
+had gone, and did not come back. That spring day was the last time he ever
+saw his mother's face. He wrote a passionate entreaty to her to come and
+see him before his ship left the Mersey for the war, but the letter was
+delayed, and when she arrived it was too late. It killed my mother. And
+think, my dear, the day after her death--for she did not live a
+twelve-month after Peter left--came a parcel from India from her poor boy.
+It was a large, soft white India shawl. Just what my mother would have
+liked.</p>
+
+<p>"We took it to my father in the hopes it would rouse him, for he had sat
+with her hand in his all night long. At first he took no notice of it. Then
+suddenly he got up and spoke. 'She shall be buried in it,' he said. 'Peter
+shall have that comfort; and she would have liked it.'"</p>
+
+<p>"Did Mr. Peter ever come home?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, once. He came home a lieutenant. And he and my father were such
+friends. My father was so proud to show him to all the neighbours. He never
+walked out without Peter's arm to lean on. And then Peter went to sea
+again, and by-and-by my father died, blessing us both and thanking Deborah
+for all she had been to him. And our circumstances were changed, and from a
+big rectory with three servants we had come down to a small house with a
+servant-of-all-work. But, as Deborah used to say, we have always lived
+genteelly, even if circumstances have compelled us to simplicity. Poor
+Deborah!"</p>
+
+<p>"And Mr. Peter?" I asked.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, there was some great war in India, and we have never heard of Peter
+since then. I believe he is dead myself. Sometimes when I sit by myself and
+the house is quiet, I think I hear his step coming up the street, and my
+heart begins to flutter and beat; but the sound goes, and Peter never comes
+back."</p>
+
+
+<h4><i>IV.--Friends in Need</i></h4>
+
+
+<p>The years rolled on. I spent my time between Drumble and Cranford. I was
+thankful that I happened to be staying with Miss Matty when the Town and
+County Bank failed, which had such a disastrous effect on her little
+fortune.</p>
+
+<p>It was an example to me, and I fancy it might be to many others, to see
+how immediately Miss Matty set about the retrenchment she knew to be right
+under her altered circumstances. I did the little I could. Some months back
+a conjuror had given a performance in the Cranford Assembly Rooms. By a
+strange set of circumstances the identity of Signor Brunoni was revealed.
+He was plain Samuel Brown, who had fallen out of his cart and had to be
+attended by our doctor. I went to visit the patient and his wife, and
+learned that she had been India. She told me a long story about being
+befriended, after a perilous journey, by a kind Englishman who lived right
+in the midst of the natives. It was his name which astonished me. Agra
+Jenkyns.</p>
+
+<p>Could Agra Jenkyns be the long lost Peter? I resolved to say nothing to
+Miss Matty, but got the address from the signor (as we still called him
+from habit), spelt by sound, and very queer it looked, and posted a letter
+to him.</p>
+
+<p>All sorts of plans were discussed for Miss Matty's future. I thought of
+all the things by which a woman, past middle age, and with the education
+common to ladies fifty years ago, could earn or add to a living without
+materially losing caste; but at length I put even this last clause on one
+side, and wondered what in the world Miss Matty could do. Even teaching was
+out of the question, for, reckoning over her accomplishments, I had to come
+down to reading, writing, and arithmetic--and in reading the chapter every
+morning she always coughed before coming to long words.</p>
+
+<p>I was still in a quandary the next morning, when I received a letter
+from Miss Pole, so mysteriously wrapped up and with so many seals on it to
+secure secrecy that I had to tear the paper before I could unfold it.</p>
+
+<p>It summoned me to go to Miss Pole at 11 a.m., the a.m. twice dashed
+under as if I were likely to come at eleven at night, when all Cranford was
+usually abed and asleep by ten. I went and found Miss Pole dressed in
+solemn array, though there were only Mrs. Forrester, crying quietly and
+sadly, and Mrs. FitzAdam present. Miss Pole was armed with a card, on which
+I imagine she had written some notes.</p>
+
+<p>"Miss Smith," she began, when I entered (I was familiarly known to all
+Cranford as Mary, but this was a state occasion), "I have conversed in
+private with these ladies on the misfortune which has happened to our
+friend, and one and all have agreed that while we have a superfluity, it is
+not only a duty but a pleasure--a true pleasure, Mary!"--her voice was
+rather choked just here, and she had to wipe her spectacles before she
+could go on--"to give what we can to assist her--Miss Matilda Jenkyns. Only
+in consideration of the feelings of delicate independence existing in the
+mind of every refined female"--I was sure she had got back to the card--"we
+wish to contribute our mites in a secret and concealed manner, so as not to
+hurt the feelings I have referred to."</p>
+
+<p>Well, the upshot of this solemn meeting was that each of those dear old
+ladies wrote down the sum she could afford annually, signed the paper and
+sealed it mysteriously, and I was commissioned to get my father to
+administer the fund in such a manner that Miss Jenkyns should imagine the
+money came from her own improved investments.</p>
+
+<p>As I was going, Mrs. Forrester took me aside, and in the manner of one
+confessing a great crime the poor old lady told me how very, very little
+she had to live on--a confession she was brought to make from a dread lest
+we should think that the small contribution named in her paper bore any
+proportion to her love and regard for Miss Mary. And yet that sum which she
+so eagerly relinquished was, in truth, more than a twentieth part of what
+she had to live on. And when the whole income does not nearly amount to a
+hundred pounds, to give up a twentieth of it will necessitate many careful
+economies and many pieces of self-denial--small and insignificant in the
+world's account, but bearing a different value in another account book that
+I have heard of.</p>
+
+<p>The upshot of it all was that dear Miss Matty was comfortably installed
+in her own house, and added to her slender income by selling tea! This last
+was my idea, and it was a proud moment for me when it realized. The small
+dining-room was converted into a shop, without any of its degrading
+characteristics, a table formed the counter, one window was retained
+unaltered and the other changed into a glass door, and there she was. Tea
+was certainly a happy commodity, as it was neither greasy nor sticky,
+grease and stickiness being two of the qualities which Miss Matty could not
+endure. Moreover, as Miss Matty said, one good thing about it was that men
+did not buy it, and it was of men particularly she was afraid. They had
+such sharp, loud ways with them, and did up accounts and counted their
+change so quickly.</p>
+
+<p>Very little remains to be told. The approval of the Honourable Mrs.
+Jamieson set the seal upon the successful career of Miss Matty as a
+purveyor of tea. Thus did she escape even the shadow of "vulgarity."</p>
+
+<p>One afternoon I was sitting in the shop parlour with Miss Matty, when we
+saw a gentleman go slowly past the window and then stand opposite to the
+door, as if looking out for the name which we had so carefully hidden. His
+clothes had an out-of-the-way foreign cut, and it flashed across me it was
+the Agra himself! He entered.</p>
+
+<p>Miss Matty looked at him, and something of tender relaxation in his face
+struck home to her heart. She said: "It is--oh, sir, can you be Peter?" and
+trembled from head to foot. In a moment he had her in his arms, sobbing the
+tearless cries of old age.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<h3><a name="gaskell2">Mary Barton</a></h3>
+
+<p class="letter">
+"Mary Barton," although not Mrs. Gaskell's first attempt at
+authorship, was her first literary success; and although her later writings
+revealed a gain in skill, subtlety and humour, none of them equalled "Mary
+Barton" in dramatic intensity and fervent sincerity. This passionate tale
+of the sorrows of the Manchester poor, given to the world anonymously in
+the year 1848, was greeted with a storm of mingled approval and
+disapproval. It was praised by Carlyle and Landor, but some critics
+attacked it fiercely as a slander on the Manchester manufacturers, and
+there were admirers who complained that it was too heartrending. The
+controversy has long since died down, but the book holds a permanent place
+in literature as a vivid revelation of a dark and painful phase of English
+life in the middle of the last century.
+</p>
+
+<h4><i>I.--Rich and Poor</i></h4>
+
+<p>"Mary," said John Barton to his daughter, "what's come o'er thee and Jem
+Wilson? You were great friends at one time."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, folk say he is going to be married to Molly Gibson," answered Mary,
+as indifferently as she could.</p>
+
+<p>"Thou'st played thy cards badly, then," replied her father in a surly
+tone. "At one time he were much fonder o' thee than thou deservedst."</p>
+
+<p>"That's as people think," said Mary pertly, for she remembered that the
+very morning before, when on her way to her dressmaking work, she had met
+Mr. Harry Carson, who had sighed, and sworn and protested all manner of
+tender vows. Mr. Harry Carson was the son and the idol of old Mr. Carson,
+the wealthy mill-owner. Jem Wilson, her old playmate, and the son of her
+father's, closest friend, although he had earned a position of trust at the
+foundry where he worked, was but a mechanic after all! Mary was ambitious;
+she knew that she had beauty; she believed that when young Mr. Carson
+declared he meant to marry her he spoke the truth.</p>
+
+<p>It so happened that Jem, after much anxious thought, had determined that
+day to "put his fortune to the touch." Just after John Barton had gone out,
+Jem appeared at the door, looking more awkward and abashed than he had ever
+done before.</p>
+
+<p>He thought he had better begin at once.</p>
+
+<p>"Mary, it's no new story I'm going to speak about. Since we were boy and
+girl I ha' loved you above father and mother and all. And now, Mary, I'm
+foreman at the works, and I've a home to offer you, and a heart as true as
+ever man had to love you and cherish you. Darling, say that you'll be
+mine."</p>
+
+<p>Mary could not speak at once.</p>
+
+<p>"Mary, they say, silence gives consent," he whispered.</p>
+
+<p>"No, not with me! I can never be your wife."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, Mary, think awhile!" he urged.</p>
+
+<p>"Jem, it cannot be," she said calmly, although she trembled from head to
+foot. "Once for all, I will never marry you."</p>
+
+<p>"And this is the end!" he cried passionately. "Mary, you'll hear, maybe,
+of me as a drunkard, and maybe as a thief, and maybe as a murderer.
+Remember! it's your cruelty that will have made me what I feel I shall
+become."</p>
+
+<p>He rushed out of the house.</p>
+
+<p>When he had gone, Mary lay half across the dresser, her head hidden in
+her hands, and her body shaken with violent sobs. For these few minutes had
+unveiled her heart to her; it had convinced her that she loved Jem above
+all persons or things. What were the wealth and prosperity that Mr. Harry
+Carson might bring to her now that she had suddenly discovered the
+passionate secret of her soul?</p>
+
+<p>Her first duty, she saw, was to reject the advances of her rich lover.
+She avoided him as far as possible, and slighted him when he forced his
+presence upon her. And how was she to redress the wrong she had done to Jem
+in denying him her heart? She took counsel with her friend, Margaret Legh.
+When Mary had first known Margaret and her grandfather, Job Legh--an old
+man who belonged to the class of Manchester workmen who are warm and
+devoted followers of science, a man whose home was like a wizard's
+dwelling, filled with impaled insects and books and instruments--Margaret
+had a secret fear of blindness. The fear had since been realised, but she
+remained the quiet, sensible, tender-hearted girl she had been before her
+great deprivation. She opposed Mary's notion of writing a letter to
+Jem.</p>
+
+<p>"You must just wait and be patient," she advised; "being patient is the
+hardest work we have to do through life, I take it. Waiting is far more
+difficult than doing; but it's one of God's lessons we must learn, one way
+or another."</p>
+
+<p>So Mary waited. But Jem took his disappointment as final, and her hopes
+of seeing him were always baffled.</p>
+
+<p>John Barton, on the night of Jem's proposal, had gone to his union. The
+members of the union were all desperate men, ready for anything; made ready
+by want. Barton himself was out of work. He had seen much of the bitterness
+of poverty in Manchester; now he was feeling the pinch of it himself.</p>
+
+<p>Ever since the death of his wife, whose end had been hastened by the
+sudden and complete disappearance of her darling sister Esther, the wan
+colourlessness of his face had been intensified; his stern enthusiasm, once
+latent, had become visible; his heart, tenderer than ever towards the
+victims of the misery around him, grew harder towards the employers, whom
+he believed to be the cause of that misery. Trade grew worse, but there was
+no sign that the masters were suffering; they still had their carriages and
+their comforts; the woe in these terrible years 1839, 1840, and 1841 seemed
+to fall wholly upon the poor. It is impossible even faintly to picture the
+state of distress which prevailed in Manchester at that time. Whole
+families went through a gradual starvation; John Barton saw them starve,
+saw fathers and mothers and children die of low, putrid fever in foetid
+cellars, and cursed the rich men who never extended a helping hand to the
+sufferers.</p>
+
+<p>"Working folk won't be ground to the dust much longer," he declared.
+"We'n ha' had as much to bear as human nature can bear."</p>
+
+<p>Fiercer grew he, and more sullen. Darker and darker were the schemes he
+brooded over in his desolate home, or discussed with others at the meetings
+of the union. Even Mary did not escape his ill-temper. Once he struck her.
+And yet Mary was the one being on earth he devotedly loved. What would he
+have thought had he known that his daughter had listened to the voice of an
+employer's son? But he did not know.</p>
+
+
+<h4><i>II.--The Rivals</i></h4>
+
+
+<p>One night, as Jem was leaving the foundry, a woman laid her hand upon
+his arm. A momentary glance at the faded finery she wore told him the class
+to which she belonged, and he made an effort to pass on. But she grasped
+him firmly.</p>
+
+<p>"You must listen to me, Jem Wilson," she said, "for Mary Barton's
+sake."</p>
+
+<p>"And who can you be to know Mary Barton?" he exclaimed.</p>
+
+<p>"Do you remember Esther, Mary's aunt?"</p>
+
+<p>'"Yes, I mind her well." He looked into her face. "Why, Esther! Where
+have ye been this many a year?"</p>
+
+<p>She answered with fierce earnestness, "Where have I been? What have I
+been doing? Can you not guess? See after Mary, and take care she does not
+become like me. As she is loving now, so did I love once--one above me,
+far."</p>
+
+<p>Jem cut her short with his hoarse, stern inquiry, "Who is this spark
+that Mary loves?"</p>
+
+<p>"It's old Carson's son." Then, after a pause, she continued, "Oh, Jem, I
+charge you with the care of her! Her father won't listen to me." She cried
+a little at the recollection of John Barton's harsh words when she had
+timidly tried to approach him. "It would be better for her to die than to
+live to lead such a life as I do!"</p>
+
+<p>"It would be better," said Jem, as if thinking aloud. Then he went on.
+"Esther, you may trust to my doing all I can for Mary. And now, listen.
+Come home with me. Come to my mother."</p>
+
+<p>"God bless you, Jem!" she replied. "But it is too late now--too
+late!"</p>
+
+<p>She rapidly turned away. Jem felt that the great thing was to reach home
+and solitude. His heart was filled with jealous anguish. Mary loved
+another! She was lost to him for evermore. A frenzied longing for blood
+entered his mind as he brooded that night over his loss. But at last the
+thought of duty brought peace to his soul. If Carson loved Mary, Carson
+must marry her. It was Jem's part to speak straightforwardly to Carson, to
+be unto Mary as a brother.</p>
+
+<p>Four days later his opportunity came. He met Carson in an unfrequented
+lane.</p>
+
+<p>"May I speak a word wi' you, sir?" said Jem respectfully.</p>
+
+<p>"Certainly, my good man," replied Harry Carson.</p>
+
+<p>"I think, sir, you're keeping company wi' Mary Barton?"</p>
+
+<p>"Mary Barton! Ay, that is her name. An arrant flirt the little hussy is,
+but very pretty."</p>
+
+<p>"I will tell you in plain words," said Jem, angered, "what I have got to
+say to you. I'm an old friend of Mary's and her father's, and I want to
+know if you mean fair by Mary or not."</p>
+
+<p>"You will have the kindness to leave us to ourselves," answered Carson
+contemptuously. "No one shall interfere between my little girl and me. Get
+out of my way! Won't you? Then I'll make you!"</p>
+
+<p>He raised his cane, and smote the mechanic on his face. An instant
+afterwards he lay stretched in the muddy road, Jem standing over him,
+panting with rage. Just then a policeman, who had been watching them
+unobserved, interfered with expostulations and warnings.</p>
+
+<p>"If you dare to injure her," shouted Jem, as he was dragged away, "I
+will wait you where no policeman can step in between. And God shall judge
+between us two!"</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p>The mill-workers had struck against low wages. Five haggard,
+earnest-looking men had presented the workpeople's demands to the assembled
+mill-owners, and the demands had been rejected. None had been fiercer in
+opposing the delegates, none more bitter in mockery of their rags and
+leanness, than the son of old Mr. Carson.</p>
+
+<p>That evening, starved, irritated, despairing men gathered to hear the
+delegates tell of their failure.</p>
+
+<p>"It's the masters as has wrought this woe," said John Barton in a low
+voice. "It's the masters as should pay for it. Set me to serve out the
+masters, and see if there's aught I'll stick at!"</p>
+
+<p>Deeper and darker grew the import of the speeches as the men stood
+hoarsely muttering their meaning out with set teeth and livid looks. After
+a fierce and terrible oath had been sworn, a number of pieces of paper, one
+of them marked, were shuffled in a hat. The gas was extinguished; each drew
+a paper. The gas was re-lighted. Each examined his paper, with a
+countenance as immovable as he could make it. Then they went every one his
+own way.</p>
+
+<p>He who had drawn the marked paper had drawn the lot of the assassin. And
+no one, save God and his own conscience, knew who was the appointed
+murderer.</p>
+
+
+<h4><i>III.--Murder</i></h4>
+
+
+<p>Two nights later, Barton was to leave for Glasgow, whither he was to
+travel as delegate to entreat assistance for the strikers. "What could be
+the matter with him?" thought Mary. He was so restless; he seemed so
+fierce, too.</p>
+
+<p>Presently he rose, and in a short, cold manner bade her farewell. She
+stood at the door, looking after him, her eyes blinded with tears. He was
+so strange, so cold, so hard. Suddenly he came back, and took her in his
+arms.</p>
+
+<p>"God in heaven bless thee, Mary!"</p>
+
+<p>She threw her arms round his neck. He kissed her, unlaced her soft,
+twining arms, and set off on his errand.</p>
+
+<p>When Mary reached the dressmaker's next morning, she noticed that the
+girls stopped talking. They eyed her! then they began to whisper. At last
+one of them asked her if she had heard the news.</p>
+
+<p>"No! What news?" she answered.</p>
+
+<p>"Have you not heard that young Mr. Carson was murdered last night?"</p>
+
+<p>Mary could not speak, but no one who looked at her pale and
+terror-stricken face could have doubted that she had not heard before of
+the fearful occurrence.</p>
+
+<p>She felt throughout the day as if the haunting horror were a nightmare
+from which awakening would relieve her. Everybody was full of the one
+subject.</p>
+
+<p>In the evening she went to Mrs. Wilson's, hoping that at last she might
+see Jem. But here a new and terrible shock awaited her.</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Wilson turned fiercely upon her.</p>
+
+<p>"And is it thee that dares set foot in this house, after what has come
+to pass? Dost thou know where my son is, all through thee?"</p>
+
+<p>"No," quivered out poor Mary.</p>
+
+<p>"He's lying in prison, waiting to take his trial for murdering young Mr.
+Carson."</p>
+
+<p>So, indeed, it was. At the inquest the policeman who had witnessed the
+quarrel between the rivals testified to the threats uttered by Jem; and the
+gun used by the murderer, and thrown away by him in his haste to escape,
+had been proved to be Jem's property.</p>
+
+<p>Jem an assassin, and because of her! In the agony of that night Mary saw
+the gallows standing black against the burning light which dazzled her shut
+eyes, press on them as she would. She thought she was going mad; then
+Heaven blessed her unawares, and she sank to sleep.</p>
+
+<p>She was awakened by the coming of a visitor. It was her long-lost,
+unrecognised aunt Esther, who had come to her niece bringing her a little
+piece of paper compressed into a round shape. It was the paper that had
+served as wadding for the murderer's gun. Esther had picked it up while
+wandering in curiosity about the scene of the murder. There was writing on
+the paper, and she had brought it to Mary, fearing that if it fell into the
+hands of the police it would provide more evidence against Jem.</p>
+
+<p>The paper told Mary everything. It had belonged to John Barton. Jem was
+innocent, and her own father was the murderer! Jem must be saved, and she
+must do it; for was she not the sole repository of the terrible secret? And
+how could she prove Jem's innocence without admitting her father's
+guilt?</p>
+
+<p>When she could think calmly, she realised that she must discover where
+Jem had been on the Thursday night when the murder had been committed.
+Tremblingly she went to Mrs. Wilson, and learnt what she wanted to know.
+Jem had walked towards Liverpool with his cousin Will, a sailor who had
+spent all his money in Manchester, and could not afford railway-fare.
+Will's ship was to sail on Tuesday, and on Tuesday Jem was to be tried at
+the Liverpool assizes.</p>
+
+<p>Job Legh engaged a lawyer to defend Jem, and Mary prepared to go to
+Liverpool to find the one man whose evidence could save her lover. Ere she
+left, a policeman brought her a bit of parchment. Her heart misgave her as
+she took it; she guessed its purport. It was a summons to bear witness
+against Jem Wilson at the assizes.</p>
+
+
+<h4><i>IV.---"Not Guilty</i>"</h4>
+
+
+<p>Arrived at Liverpool on Monday, after the bewilderment of a railway
+journey--the first she had ever made--Mary found her way to the little
+court, not far from the docks, were Jem's sailor cousin lodged.</p>
+
+<p>"Is Will Wilson here?" she asked the landlady.</p>
+
+<p>"No, he is not," replied the woman, curtly.</p>
+
+<p>"Tell me--where he is?" asked Mary, sickening.</p>
+
+<p>"He's gone this very morning, my poor dear," answered the landlady,
+relenting at the sight of Mary's obvious distress. "He's sailed, my
+dear--sailed in the John Cropper this very blessed morning!"</p>
+
+<p>Mary staggered into the house, stricken into hopelessness. Yet hope was
+not dead. The landlady's son told her that the John Cropper would be
+waiting for high-water to cross the sandbanks at the river's mouth, and
+that there was a chance that a sailing-boat might overtake the vessel.</p>
+
+<p>Mary hurried down to the docks, spent every penny she had in hiring a
+boat, and presently was tossing on the water for the first time in her
+life, alone with two rough men.</p>
+
+<p>The boatmen hailed the John Cropper just as the crew were heaving
+anchor, and told their errand. The captain refused with a dreadful oath to
+stop his ship for anyone, whoever swung for it. But Will Wilson, standing
+at the stern, shouted through his hands, "So help me God, Mary Barton, I'll
+come back in the pilot-boat time enough to save his life!"</p>
+
+<p>As the ship receded in the distance, Mary asked anxiously when the
+pilot-boat would be back. The boatmen did not know; it might be twelve
+hours, it might be two days. A chance yet remained, but she could no longer
+hope. When she reached the landing-place, faint and penniless, one of the
+boatmen took her to his home, and there she sat sleeplessly awaiting the
+dawn of the day of trial.</p>
+
+<p>When she entered the witness-box next day, the whole court reeled before
+her, save two figures only--that of the judge and that of the prisoner. Jem
+sat silent--he had held his peace ever since his arrest--with his face
+bowed on his hands.</p>
+
+<p>Mary answered a few questions with a sort of wonder at the reality of
+the terrible circumstances in which she was placed.</p>
+
+<p>"And pray, may I ask, which was the favoured lover?" went on the
+barrister.</p>
+
+<p>A look of indignation for an instant contracted Mary's brow. She was
+aware that Jem had raised his head and was gazing at her. Turning towards
+the judge, she said steadily, "Perhaps I liked Mr. Harry Carson once; but I
+loved James Wilson beyond what tongue can tell. When he asked me to marry
+him, I was very hard in my answer; but he'd not been gone out of my sight
+above a minute before I knew I loved him--far above my life."</p>
+
+<p>After these words the prisoner's head was no longer bowed. He stood
+erect and firm, with self-respect in his attitude; yet he seemed lost in
+thought.</p>
+
+<p>But Will Wilson did not come, and the evidence against Jem grew stronger
+and stronger. Mary was flushed and anxious, muttering to herself in a wild,
+restless manner. Job Legh heard her repeat again and again, "I must not go
+mad; I must not!"</p>
+
+<p>Suddenly she threw up her arms and shrieked aloud: "Oh, Jem! Jem! You're
+saved! and I am mad!" and was carried out of court stiff and convulsed. And
+as they bore her off, a sailor forced his way over rails and seats, through
+turnkeys and policemen. Will Wilson had come in time.</p>
+
+<p>He told his tale clearly and distinctly; the efforts of the prosecution
+to shake him were useless. "Not guilty" was the verdict that thrilled
+through the breathless court. One man sank back in his seat in sickening
+despair. The vengeance that old Mr. Carson had longed to compass for the
+murder of his beloved boy was thwarted; he had been cheated of the desire
+that now ruled his life--the desire of blood for blood.</p>
+
+
+<h4><i>V.--"Forgive Us Our Trespasses</i>"</h4>
+
+
+<p>For many days Mary hovered between life and death, and it was long ere
+she could make the journey back to Manchester under the tender care of the
+man who now knew she loved him. Not until she had recovered did he tell her
+that he had lost his situation at the foundry--the men refused to work
+under one who had been tried for murder--and that he was looking for work
+elsewhere.</p>
+
+<p>"Mary," he asked, "art thou much bound to Manchester? Would it grieve
+thee sore to quit the old smoke-jack?"</p>
+
+<p>"With thee?" was her quiet response.</p>
+
+<p>"I've heard fine things of Canada. Thou knowest where Canada is,
+Mary?"</p>
+
+<p>"Not rightly--but with thee, Jem"--her voice sank to a
+whisper--"anywhere." Then, after a pause, she added, "But father!"</p>
+
+<p>John Barton was smitten, helpless, very near to death. His face was sunk
+and worn--like a skull, with yet a suffering expression that skulls have
+not! Crime and all had been forgotten by his daughter when she saw him;
+fondly did she serve him in every way that heart could devise.</p>
+
+<p>Jem had known from the first that Barton was the murderer of Harry
+Carson. Several days before the murder Barton had borrowed Jem's gun, and
+Jem had seen the truth at the moment of his arrest. When Mary came to tell
+him that her father wished to speak to him, Jem could not guess what was
+before him, and did not try to guess.</p>
+
+<p>When they entered the room, Mary saw all at a glance. Her father stood
+holding on to a chair as if for support. Behind him sat Job Legh,
+listening; before him stood the stern figure of Mr. Carson.</p>
+
+<p>"Don't dare to think that I shall be merciful; you shall be
+hanged--hanged--man!" said Mr. Carson, with slow, emphasis.</p>
+
+<p>"I've had far, far worse misery than hanging!" cried Barton. "Sir, one
+word! My hairs are grey with suffering."</p>
+
+<p>"And have I had no suffering?" interrupted Mr. Carson. "Is not my boy
+gone--killed--out of my sight for ever? He was my sunshine, and now it is
+night! Oh, my God! comfort me, comfort me!" cried the old man aloud.</p>
+
+<p>Barton lay across the table broken-hearted. "God knows I didn't know
+what I was doing," he whispered. "Oh, sir," he said wildly, "say you
+forgive me?"</p>
+
+<p>"Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive them that trespass against us,"
+said Job solemnly.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Carson took his hands from his face.</p>
+
+<p>"Let my trespasses be unforgiven, so that I may have vengeance for my
+son's murder."</p>
+
+<p>John Barton lay on the ground as one dead.</p>
+
+<p>When Mr. Carson had left the house, he leant against a railing to steady
+himself, for he was dizzy with agitation. He looked up to the calm,
+majestic depths of the heavens, and by-and-by the last words he had spoken
+returned upon him, as if they were being echoed through all that infinite
+space in tones of unutterable sorrow. He went homewards; not to the
+police-office. All night long, the archangel combated with the demon in his
+soul.</p>
+
+<p>All night long, others watched by the bed of death. As morning dawned,
+Barton grew worse; his breathing seemed almost stopped. Jem had gone to the
+druggist's, and Mary cried out for assistance to raise her father.</p>
+
+<p>A step, which was not Jem's, came up the stairs. Mr. Carson stood in the
+doorway. He raised up the powerless frame, and the departing soul looked
+out of the eyes with gratitude.</p>
+
+<p>"Pray for us!" cried Mary, sinking on her knees.</p>
+
+<p>"God be merciful to us sinners," was Mr. Carson's prayer. "Forgive us
+our trespasses as we forgive them that trespass against us."</p>
+
+<p>And when the words were said, John Barton lay a corpse in Mr. Carson's
+arms.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p>At the door of a long, low wooden house stands Mary, watching the return
+of her husband from his work.</p>
+
+<p>Her baby boy, in his grandmother's arms, sees him come with a crow of
+delight.</p>
+
+<p>"English letters!" cries Jem. "Guess the good news!"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, tell me!" says Mary.</p>
+
+<p>"Margaret has recovered her sight. She and Will are to be married, and
+he's bringing her out here to Canada; and Job Legh talks of coming,
+too--not to see you, Mary, but to try and pick up a few specimens of
+Canadian insects."</p>
+
+<p>"Dear Job Legh!" said Mary, softly.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+
+
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="godwin">WILLIAM GODWIN</a></h2>
+
+
+<h3><a name="godwin1">Caleb Williams</a></h3>
+
+<p class="letter">
+William Godwin, the son of a dissenting parson, was a man of
+remarkable gifts and the father of the poet Shelley's second wife, Mary
+Wollstonecraft Shelley (see Vol. VII). Born at Wisbeach, England, March 3,
+1756, he served for five years, 1778-83, as a Nonconformist minister, and
+then going to London, joined the leading Whig circle of the day, and turned
+his attention to political writings. His "Political Justice," though little
+read to-day, had a great number of readers and considerable influence a
+hundred years ago. "Things as They Are, or the Adventures of Caleb
+Williams," published in 1794, has a philosophical significance, suggested
+by the falseness of the common code of morality, which is apt to be
+overlooked by many readers in the strong interest of the tale. It is one of
+the few books of that period which may still be said to live. It is quite
+the best of his novels. "It raised Godwin's reputation to a pinnacle,"
+according to contemporary criticism, though some of his other novels,
+notably "Fleetwood," have been preferred for their descriptive writing. He
+was an exceedingly industrious writer; essays, biography, political
+philosophy, and history all coming from his pen; but in spite of this and
+of his many distinguished friendships, Godwin was always in difficulties,
+which he bore with the becoming grace of a philosopher. He died on April 7,
+1836.
+</p>
+
+<h4><i>I.--Mr. Falkland's Secret</i></h4>
+
+
+<p>My life has for several years been a theatre of calamity. My fairest
+prospects have been blasted. My enemy has shown himself inaccessible to
+entreaties and untired in persecution. I was born of humble parents, in a
+remote county of England. Their occupations were such as usually fall to
+the lot of peasants, and they had no portion to give me. I was taught the
+rudiments of no science, except reading, writing, and arithmetic. But I had
+an inquisitive mind, and neglected no means of information from
+conversation or books.</p>
+
+<p>The residence of my parents was within the manor of Ferdinando Falkland,
+a country squire of considerable opulence. At an early age I attracted the
+favourable notice of Mr. Collins, this gentleman's steward, who used to
+call in occasionally at my father's.</p>
+
+<p>In the summer of the year----, Mr. Falkland visited his estate in our
+county after an absence of several months. This was a period of misfortune
+to me. I was then eighteen years of age. My father lay dead in our cottage,
+and I had lost my mother some years before. In this forlorn situation I
+received a message from the squire, ordering me to repair to the manor
+house.</p>
+
+<p>My reception was as gracious and encouraging as I could possibly desire.
+Mr. Falkland questioned me respecting my learning, and my conceptions of
+men and things, and listened to my answers with condescension and
+approbation. He then informed me that he was in want of a secretary, and
+that if I approved of the employment he would take me into his house.</p>
+
+<p>I felt highly flattered by the proposal, and found my employment--which
+included the duties of librarian as well as those of a secretary--easy and
+agreeable.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Falkland's mode of living was in the utmost degree recluse and
+solitary. His features were scarcely ever relaxed in a smile, and the
+distemper which afflicted him with incessant gloom had its paroxysms. None
+of the domestics, except myself and Mr. Collins approached Mr. Falkland but
+at stated seasons and then only for a very short interval.</p>
+
+<p>Once after I had seen my patron in a strange fit of intolerable anguish,
+I could not help confiding in Mr. Collins that I feared Mr. Falkland had
+some secret trouble, and in answer to my communication Mr. Collins told me
+the story of Tyrrel's murder.</p>
+
+<p>Barnabas Tyrrel had been a neighbouring squire insupportably brutish and
+arrogant, tyrannical to his inferiors, and insolent to his equals. From the
+first he hated Falkland, whose dignity and courtesy were a constant rebuke
+to the other's boorish ill-humours, and rejected with scorn all proposals
+for civil intercourse.</p>
+
+<p>The crisis came when Tyrrel, who had been expelled from the rural
+assembly which met every week at the market-town, forced his way in. He was
+intoxicated, and at once attacked Falkland, knocking him down, and then
+kicking his prostrate enemy before anyone had time to interfere.</p>
+
+<p>To Mr. Falkland disgrace was worse than death. This complication of
+ignominy, base, humiliating, and public, stung him to the very soul, and
+filled his mind with horror and uproar. One other event closed that
+memorable evening. Mr. Tyrrel was found dead in the street, having been
+murdered a few yards from the assembly-house.</p>
+
+<p>From that day Falkland was a changed man. His cheerfulness and
+tranquillity gave way to gloomy and unsociable melancholy, and, filled with
+the ideas of chivalry, the humiliating and dishonourable situation in which
+he had been placed could never be forgotten. To add to his misfortunes, it
+was presently whispered that he was no other than the murderer of his
+antagonist, and even the magistrates at length decided that the matter must
+be investigated, and requested Falkland to appear before them.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Falkland attended, and easily convinced the magistrates of his
+innocence, pointing out that his one desire was to have called out the man
+who had insulted him so horribly, and to have fought him to the death. He
+was not only acquitted, but a public demonstration of sympathy was arranged
+at once to show the esteem in which he was held.</p>
+
+<p>A few weeks, and the real murderer was discovered. This was a man named
+Hawkins, who, with his son, had been reduced from an honest livelihood to
+beggary and ruin by Tyrrel. On circumstantial evidence, Hawkins and his son
+were condemned and executed.</p>
+
+<p>This was the story Mr. Collins told me in order that I might understand
+Mr. Falkland's unhappy state. In reality it only added to my
+embarrassment.</p>
+
+<p>Was it possible, after all, that Mr. Falkland should be the murderer? It
+was but a passing thought, and yet what was the meaning of Mr. Falkland's
+agonies of mind? I could not accept Mr. Collins's view that Mr. Falkland
+was so much the slave and fool of honour that the shame of Tyrrel's savage
+assault alone had driven him to this melancholy and solitude, and compelled
+the violent outbursts of passion.</p>
+
+
+<h4><i>II.--I Learn the Secret</i></h4>
+
+
+<p>My suspicions would not be set at rest. No spark of malignity was
+harboured in my soul. I reverenced the sublime mind of Mr. Falkland, but I
+had a mistaken curiosity to find out the truth of Tyrrel's murder. Often it
+seemed that Mr. Falkland was about to speak to me, but the movement always
+ended in silence.</p>
+
+<p>At last one day he sent for me to his room, and after making me swear
+never to disclose his confidence, and warning me that he had observed my
+suspicions, told me that he was the murderer of Tyrrel and the assassin of
+the two Hawkins.</p>
+
+<p>"This it is to be a gentleman, a man of honour!" Falkland went on, in
+extreme distress. "My virtue, my honesty, my everlasting peace of mind, all
+sacrificed that I may preserve my good name. And I am as much the fool of
+fame as ever. Though I be the blackest of villains, I will leave behind me
+a spotless and illustrious name. Why is it that I am compelled to this
+confidence? From the love of fame. I had no alternative but to make you my
+confidant or my victim, and perhaps my next murder would not have been so
+fortunate. I do not want to shed more blood. It is better to trust you with
+the whole truth, under every seal of secrecy, than to live in perpetual
+fear of your penetration. But look what you have done with your foolishly
+inquisitive humour. You shall continue in my service, and I will benefit
+you in respect of fortune; but I shall always hate you. If ever an
+unguarded word escape from your lips, you may expect to pay for it with
+your death, or worse. By everything that is sacred, preserve your
+faith!"</p>
+
+<p>Such was the secret I had been so desirous to know.</p>
+
+<p>"It is a wretched prospect," I said to myself, "that he holds up to me.
+But I will never become an informer. I will never injure my patron; and
+therefore he will not be my enemy."</p>
+
+<p>It was no long time after this that Mr. Forester--Mr. Falkland's
+half-brother--came to stay in the house while his own residence was being
+got ready for him, and there being little in common between the two, Mr.
+Forester being of a peculiarly sociable disposition, our visitor chose to
+make me his companion. No sooner was this growing intimacy observed than
+Mr. Falkland warned me that it was not agreeable to him, and that he would
+not have it.</p>
+
+<p>"Young man, take warning!" he said to me one day when we were alone.
+"You little suspect the extent of my power. You might as well think of
+escaping from the power of the omnipresent God as from mine."</p>
+
+<p>My whole soul now revolted against the treatment I endured, and yet I
+could not utter a word. I resolved to quit Mr. Falkland's service, and when
+Mr. Forester had retired to his own house, I wrote a letter to Mr. Falkland
+to that effect.</p>
+
+<p>"You shall never quit it with your life," was his reply. "If you attempt
+it, you shall never cease to rue your folly as long as you exist. Do not
+imagine I am afraid of you! I wear an armour against which all your weapons
+are impotent. Do you not know, miserable wretch, that I have sworn to
+preserve my reputation, whatever it cost? I have dug a pit for you, and
+whichever way you move it is ready to swallow you."</p>
+
+<p>This speech was the dictate of frenzy, and it created in me a similar
+frenzy. It determined me to do the very thing against which I was thus
+solemnly warned, and fly from my patron's house.</p>
+
+<p>No sooner, however, had I set off, and travelled some miles, than a
+horseman overtook me, and handed me a letter from Mr. Forester. I opened
+the letter, and read as follows:</p>
+
+<p>"Williams:--My brother Falkland has sent the bearer in pursuit of you.
+He expects that, if found, you will return with him. I expect it, too. If
+you are a villain and a rascal, you will perhaps endeavour to fly; if your
+conscience tells you you are innocent, you will, out of all doubt, come
+back. If you come, I pledge myself that if you clear your reputation, you
+shall not only be free to go wherever you please, but shall receive every
+assistance in my power to give.</p>
+
+<p>"Valentine Forester."</p>
+
+<p>To a mind like mine, such a letter was enough to draw me from one end of
+the earth to the other. I could not recall anything out of which the shadow
+of a criminal accusation could be extorted, and I returned with willingness
+and impatience. I knew the stern inflexibility of Mr. Falkland's mind, but
+I also knew his virtuous and magnanimous principles. I could not believe my
+innocence could be confounded with guilt.</p>
+
+
+<h4><i>III.--My Persecutions and Sufferings</i></h4>
+
+
+<p>Mr. Falkland accused me of having stolen money and jewels from him, and
+when my boxes, which I had left behind, were opened, a watch and certain
+jewels were found in one of them.</p>
+
+<p>My amazement yielded to indignation and horror. I protested my innocence
+I declared that Mr. Falkland knew I was innocent, and that while I was
+wholly unable to account for the articles found in my possession, I firmly
+believed that their being there was of Mr. Falkland's contrivance.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Falkland now expressed his willingness to proceed no further against
+me, and, since I had been brought to public shame, to let me depart
+wherever I pleased. I was unworthy of his resentment, he said, and he could
+afford to smile at my malice.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Forester, however, said this was impossible, and, as a magistrate,
+he thereupon committed me to prison to await my trial. Not one of the
+servants who had been present at my examination expressed any compassion
+for me. The robbery appeared to them atrocious, and they were indignant at
+my recrimination on their excellent master.</p>
+
+<p>When I had been about a month in prison the assizes were held, but my
+case was not brought forward, and I was suffered to stand over six months
+longer.</p>
+
+<p>I noticed a change in my jailer's behaviour at this time. He offered to
+make better provision for my comfort, and as I had no doubt he was
+instigated by Mr. Falkland, I answered that he might tell his employer I
+would accept no favours from a man that held a halter about my neck. Then
+the idea of an escape occurred to me, and as I had some proficiency in
+carpentry, I decided to obtain tools by proposing to make some chairs for
+the jailer. My offer was accepted, and I gradually accumulated tools of
+various sorts--gimlets, chisels, etc.</p>
+
+<p>In the middle of the night, my plans being now thoroughly digested, I
+set about making my escape. I had to get the first door from its hinges,
+and though this was attended with considerable difficulty, I was
+successful. The second door being fastened on the inside, all I had to do
+was to push back the bolts and unscrew the box of the lock.</p>
+
+<p>Thus far I had proceeded with the happiest success; but close on the
+other side there was a kennel with a large mastiff dog, of which I had not
+the smallest previous knowledge. However, I managed to soothe the animal,
+and go to the wall. Before I had gained half the ascent, a voice at the
+garden door cried out, "Halloa! Who is there?" At this the dog began to
+bark violently, and a second man came out. Alarmed at my situation, I
+descended on the other side too quickly, and in my fall nearly dislocated
+my ankle.</p>
+
+<p>In the meantime, the two warders came through a door in the wall, of
+which I had not been aware, and were at the place where I had descended, in
+no time. The pain in my ankle was so intense that I could scarcely stand,
+and I suffered myself to be retaken.</p>
+
+<p>The condition in which I was now placed was totally different from that
+which had preceded this attempt. I was chained all day in my dungeon, my
+manual labors were at an end, my cell was searched every night, and every
+kind of tool carefully kept from me.</p>
+
+<p>Nevertheless, an active mind, which has once been forced into any
+particular train, can scarcely give it up as hopeless. One day I chanced to
+observe a nail trodden into the mud floor at no great distance from me. I
+seized upon this new treasure, and found that I could unlock with it the
+padlock that fastened me to the staple in the floor. By this means I had
+the pitiful consolation of being able to range, without constraint, the
+miserable coop in which I was confined. It became my constant practice to
+liberate myself at night; but security breeds negligence. One morning I
+overslept myself, and the turnkey, to his surprise, found me
+disengaged.</p>
+
+<p>Again my apartment was changed. I was now put in the strong-room, an
+underground dungeon, and handcuffs were added to my fetters.</p>
+
+<p>It was at this time that Thomas, Mr. Falkland's footman, and an old
+acquaintance of mine, visited me. He was of the better order of servants,
+and my condition shocked him. He returned again in the afternoon.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, Master Williams," he said, "you have been very wicked, to be
+sure, and I thought it would have done me good to see you hanged. I know I
+am doing wrong; but if they hang me, too, I cannot help it. For Christ's
+sake, get out of this place; I cannot bear the thought of it."</p>
+
+<p>With that, he slipped into my hand a chisel, a file, and a saw. I
+received the implements with great joy, and thrust them into my bosom.</p>
+
+<p>I waited for bright moonlight; it was necessary that I should work in
+the night, and between nine and seven.</p>
+
+<p>It was ten o'clock when I first took off my handcuffs. I then filed
+through my fetters, and next performed the same service to the three iron
+bars that secured my window. All this was the work of more than two hours.
+But, even with the bars removed, the space was by no means wide enough to
+admit the passing of my body. Therefore, I had to loosen the brickwork, and
+this I did partly with the chisel, and partly with one of the iron bars.
+When the space was sufficient for my purpose, I crept through the opening
+and stepped upon a shed outside.</p>
+
+<p>The prison wall, which now had to be scaled, was of considerable height,
+and there was no resource for me but that of making a breach in its lower
+part. For six hours I worked at this with incredible labour, and at last I
+had made a passage. But the day was breaking, and in ten minutes' time the
+keepers would probably enter my apartment and see the devastation I had
+left.</p>
+
+<p>I decided to avoid the town as much as possible, and depended upon the
+open country for protection; and so I passed along the lane beyond the
+wall.</p>
+
+<p>I was free of my prison, but I was destitute, and had not a shilling in
+the world.</p>
+
+
+<h4><i>IV.--The Doom of Falkland</i></h4>
+
+
+<p>Mr. Falkland's implacable animosity pursued me beyond the prison. A
+hundred guineas was at once offered for my recapture, and though I evaded
+arrest for some months, a man named Gines, who had at one time been a
+member of a gang of robbers, undertook to lay hold of me, and tracked me to
+my place of hiding in London. By this time the hawkers were actually
+selling papers in the streets containing "The most Wonderful and Surprising
+History and Miraculous Adventures of Caleb Williams," for a halfpenny, and
+I had the temerity to purchase one. In this I was informed how I, Caleb
+Williams, "first robbed, and then brought false accusations against my
+master"; how I attempted at divers times to break out of prison, and at
+last succeeded "in the most wonderful and incredible manner"; and how I had
+travelled the kingdom in disguise, and was now lying concealed in London,
+with a hundred guineas reward for my discovery.</p>
+
+<p>It seemed then that there was no end to my persecution, and I thought of
+death as my only release. That very night the landlord of my humble
+lodgings brought Gines to the house, and gave me up to the authorities.</p>
+
+<p>And now the result of all my labour to get out of prison and evade my
+pursuers had brought me back to my starting-place! Never was a human
+creature so hunted by enemies. What hope was there they would ever cease
+their persecution.</p>
+
+<p>My long-cherished reverence for Mr. Falkland was changed to something
+like abhorrence. I determined to bring the real criminal to justice.</p>
+
+<p>Accordingly, when I was taken before the magistrates at Bow Street, I
+declared that Mr. Falkland was a murderer, and that I was entirely
+innocent.</p>
+
+<p>But the magistrates simply told me they had nothing to do with such
+statements, and that I seemed a most impudent rascal to trump up such
+things against my master.</p>
+
+<p>I was conducted back to the very prison from which I had escaped, and my
+situation seemed more irremediable than ever. How great, therefore, was my
+astonishment, at the assizes when my case was called, to find neither Mr.
+Falkland, nor Mr. Forester, nor any individual to appear against me. I, who
+had come to the bar with the sentence of death already ringing in my ears,
+to be told I was free to go whithersoever I pleased!</p>
+
+<p>I was not, however, yet free of Mr. Falkland. I was kidnapped by Gines
+and an accomplice, and carried to an inn, and here Mr. Falkland commanded
+me to sign a paper declaring that the charge I had alleged against him at
+Bow Street was false, malicious, and groundless. On my refusal, he told me
+that he would exercise a power that should grind me to atoms.</p>
+
+<p>The impression of that memorable meeting on my understanding is
+indelible. The deathlike weakness and decay of Mr. Falkland, his misery and
+rage, his haggard, emaciated, and fleshless visage, are still before
+me.</p>
+
+<p>There was to be no peace or happiness for me. Wherever I went, sooner or
+later, Gines found me, and any new acquaintances turned from me with
+loathing after they had read the handbills containing my "Wonderful and
+Surprising History." This man followed me from place to place, blasting my
+reputation.</p>
+
+<p>I now formed my resolution and carried it into execution. At all costs I
+would free myself from this overpowering tyranny.</p>
+
+<p>I set out for the chief town of the county in which Mr. Falkland lived,
+and there laid a formal charge of murder before the principal
+magistrate.</p>
+
+<p>After an interval of three days, I met Mr. Falkland in the presence of
+the magistrate. It was now the appearance of a ghost before me. He was
+brought in in a chair, unable to stand, fatigued and almost destroyed by
+the journey he had just taken.</p>
+
+<p>Until that moment my breast was steeled to pity; it was now too late to
+draw back.</p>
+
+<p>I told my story plainly, declared the nobility of Mr. Falkland's
+character, and admitted that my own proceedings now seemed to me a dreadful
+mistake.</p>
+
+<p>When I had finished, Mr. Falkland rose from his seat, and, to my
+infinite astonishment, threw himself into my arms.</p>
+
+<p>"Williams," said he, "you have conquered. All that I most ardently
+desired is for ever frustrated. I have spent a life of the basest cruelty
+to cover one act of momentary passion. And now"--turning to the
+magistrate--"do with me as you please. I am prepared to suffer all the
+vengeance of the law."</p>
+
+<p>He survived this dreadful scene but three days, and I feel, and always
+shall feel, that I have been his murderer. I began these memoirs to
+vindicate my character. I have now no character that I wish to
+vindicate.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+
+
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="goethe">JOHANN WOLFGANG VON GOETHE</a></h2>
+
+
+<h3><a name="goethe1">The Sorrows of Young Werther</a></h3>
+
+<p class="letter">
+Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, the greatest of German poets, and
+one of the most highly gifted men of the eighteenth century, was born in
+1749 at Frankfort-on-the-Main. He received his early education from his
+father, who was an imperial councillor, and in the year 1765 he went to the
+University of Leipzig. Goethe's first great work was "Goetz von
+Berlichingen" (see Vol. XVII). which was translated into English by Sir
+Walter Scott. "The Sorrows of Young Werther" ("Die Leiden des jungen
+Werthers") was begun in 1772, when Goethe was twenty-three years old, and
+was published anonymously two years later. It immediately created an
+immense sensation, made a round of the world, and was everywhere either
+enthusiastically praised or severely condemned. It became the fashion of
+young men to dress themselves in blue coats and yellow breeches in
+imitation of the hero, and many of them were moved to follow Werther's
+example as the simplest way of settling their love affairs. Nevertheless,
+"Werther" formed the real basis of Goethe's fame. It was the first
+revelation to the world of the genius, which, a quarter of a century later,
+was to give it "Faust" (Vol. XVI). The story is frankly sentimental, but as
+such it is easily the best of the sentimental novels of the eighteenth
+century. When, many years later, Goethe was invited to an audience with
+Napoleon, the emperor volunteered the information that he had read
+"Werther" through six times. Goethe died in March, 1832, in his
+eighty-fourth year.
+</p>
+
+<h4><i>I.--"I Have Found an Angel"</i></h4>
+
+
+<p><i>May 4</i>. What a strange thing is the heart of man. To leave my
+dearest friend, and yet to feel happy! I know you will forgive me, and I in
+return will promise that I will no longer worry myself over every petty
+stab of fortune. Poor Leonora! And yet I was not to blame. Was I in fault
+that, while I was pleasantly entertained by the charms of her sister, her
+feeble heart conceived a passion for me? And yet I am not wholly blameless.
+Did I not encourage her emotion? Did I not--but what is man that he dares
+so to accuse himself? Beyond doubt, the sufferings of mankind would be far
+less did they but endure the present with equanimity, instead of raking up
+the past for memories of sorrow.</p>
+
+<p>A wonderful calm has come over me; I am alone, and feel that a spot like
+this was created for the happiness of souls like mine. You ask if you shall
+send me books; I pray you spare me. My heart craves for no excitement; I
+need strains to soothe me, and I find them to perfection in my Homer.</p>
+
+<p><i>May 17</i>. I have formed many acquaintances, but as yet have found
+no friends. If you inquire what sort of people are here, I answer "the same
+as everywhere." The human race is a monotonous affair. The majority labours
+nearly all its time for mere subsistence, and is then so distressed to have
+a small portion of freedom still unemployed that it exerts even greater
+efforts to get rid of it.</p>
+
+<p>I have just become acquainted with a very worthy person, the district
+judge. They tell me how charming it is to see him in the midst of his
+family of nine. His eldest daughter is much spoken of. He has invited me to
+go and see him.</p>
+
+<p><i>June 16</i>. Why do I not write to you? You should have guessed that
+I was pre-occupied; that, in a word, that I have made a friend who has won
+my heart. I have found--I know not what. An angel? Nonsense! Everyone so
+describes his mistress. And yet I cannot tell you how perfect she is, or
+why so perfect. Between ourselves, I have been three times on the point of
+throwing down my pen, ordering my horse, and riding out. And yet this
+morning I determined not to ride to-day; and I keep running to the window
+to see how high the sun is.</p>
+
+<p>I could not restrain myself; go to her I must. I have just returned,
+Wilhelm, and while I eat my supper I will write to you. I had already made
+the acquaintance of her aunt, the judge's sister, and with her I was going
+to accompany Charlotte to a ball given by some young people in the
+neighbourhood. While we were on our way to fetch her, my companion was loud
+in her praises of her niece's beauty and charm. "Take care, however," she
+added, "that you do not lose your heart." "Why?" I asked. "Because she is
+already betrothed to a most excellent man."</p>
+
+<p>As the door opened, I saw before me the most charming sight that I have
+ever beheld. Six children, of various ages, were running about the hall and
+surrounding a lady of medium height, with a lovely figure, dressed in a
+robe of simple white, trimmed with pink ribbons. She held a loaf of brown
+bread, and was cutting slices for the little ones all round. She apologised
+for not being quite ready, explaining that household duties had made her
+forget the children's supper, which they always preferred to take from her.
+I uttered some unmeaning compliment, but my whole soul was absorbed by her
+air, her voice, her manner. You who know me can imagine how I gazed upon
+her rich, dark eyes; how my soul gloated over her warm lips and fresh
+glowing cheeks.</p>
+
+<p>Never did I dance more lightly; I felt myself more than mortal, holding
+this loveliest of creatures in my arms, flying with her as rapidly as the
+wind, till I lost sight of every other object. And, oh, Wilhelm, I vowed at
+that moment that no maiden whom I loved should ever waltz with another than
+myself, if I went to perdition for it.</p>
+
+<p>Returning from the ball, there was a most magnificent sunrise. Our
+companions were asleep. Charlotte asked me if I did not wish to sleep too,
+and begged me not to stand on ceremony. Looking deep into her eyes, I
+answered, "As long as those eyes remain open, there is no fear for mine."
+We continued awake until we reached her door. I left her, asking her
+permission to call in the course of the day. She consented, and I went
+Since then, sun, moon, and stars may pursue their course; I know not
+whether it is day or night; the whole world is nothing to me.</p>
+
+<p><i>June 21</i>. My days are as happy as those reserved by God for His
+elect, and whatever be my fate hereafter, I can never say that I have not
+tasted joy--the purest joy of life. Little did I think when I selected this
+spot for my home that all heaven lay within half a league of it.</p>
+
+<p>How childish is man. To be disturbed about a mere look. We had been to
+Walheim, but during our walk I thought I saw in Charlotte's eyes--I am a
+fool, but forgive me. You should see her eyes. However, to be brief, as the
+ladies were preparing to drive away I watched her eyes; they wandered from
+one to another, but they did not alight on me--on me who saw nothing but
+her. She noticed me not. The carriage drove off, and my eyes filled with
+tears. Suddenly I saw Charlotte's bonnet leaning out of the window, and she
+turned to look back--was it at me? I know not, and in uncertainty is my
+consolation. Perhaps she turned to look at me. Perhaps. Good-night. What a
+child I am!</p>
+
+<p><i>July 10</i>. Someone asked me the other day how I like her. How I
+<i>like</i> her! What sort of creature must he be who merely likes
+Charlotte? Whose entire being were not absolutely filled with her? Like
+her! One might as well ask if I like Ossian.</p>
+
+<p><i>July 13</i>. No, I am not deceived. In her dark eyes I read a real
+interest in me. Yes, I feel it, and I believe my own heart which tells
+me--dare I say it?--that she loves me. How the idea exalts me in my own
+eyes. And as you can understand my feelings, I may say to you, how I honour
+myself because she loves me.</p>
+
+<p>I do not know a man able to take my place in her heart; yet when she
+speaks of Albert with so much warmth and affection, I feel like a soldier
+who has been stripped of all his honours. Sometimes when we are talking, in
+the eagerness of conversation she comes closer to me, and her balmy breath
+reaches my lips, I feel that I could sink into the earth for very joy. And
+yet, Wilhelm, if I know myself, and should ever dare--you understand
+me--No, no; my heart is not so corrupt; it is weak, but is not that a
+degree of corruption?</p>
+
+<p>She is to me a sacred being; how her simplest song enchants me.
+Sometimes, when I am ready to commit suicide, she sings some favourite air,
+and instantly the gloom and madness are dispersed.</p>
+
+<p><i>July 24</i>. Yes, dear Charlotte. I will arrange everything. Only
+give me more commissions; the more the better. One thing, however, I must
+request you--use no more writing-sand with the letters you send me! Today,
+I raised your letter to my lips, and it set my teeth on edge.</p>
+
+
+<h4><i>II.--Bereft of Comfort</i></h4>
+
+
+<p><i>July 30</i>. Albert is arrived, and I must take my departure. Were he
+the best of men, and I absolutely beneath him, I could not endure to see
+him in possession of my perfect being. Enough! her betrothed is here. A
+fine fellow, whom I cannot help liking. And he is so considerate; he has
+not given Charlotte one kiss in my presence. Heaven reward him for it. He
+is free from ill-humour, which you know is the fault I detest most. I do
+not ask whether he may not now and then tease her with some little
+jealousies, as I know that in his place I should not be entirely free from
+such feelings.</p>
+
+<p><i>August 8</i>. I am amazed to see from my diary, which I have somewhat
+neglected of late, how deliberately I have entangled myself, step by step.
+But even though I see the result plainly, I have no thought of acting with
+any greater prudence. And yet I feel that if only I knew where to go, I
+would abandon everything and fly from this place.</p>
+
+<p>And yet I feel that, if I were not a fool, I could enjoy life here most
+delightfully. Admitted into this charming family, loved by the father as a
+son, by his children as a second father, and by Charlotte! Furthermore,
+Albert welcomes me with the heartiest affection, and loves me, next to
+Charlotte, more than all the world.</p>
+
+<p><i>August 21</i>. In vain do I stretch out my arms towards her when I
+wake in the morning. In vain do I seek for her when some innocent dream has
+happily deceived me, and placed me near her in the fields when I have
+seized her hand and covered it with kisses. Tears flow from my oppressed
+heart; and, bereft of all comfort, I weep over my future woes.</p>
+
+<p><i>August 28</i>. This is my birthday, and early in the morning I
+received a packet from Albert. I found within one of the pink ribbons which
+Charlotte wore in her dress the first time I saw her, and which I had often
+asked her to give me. With it were two volumes of Wetstein's Homer, a book
+I had often wished for. How well they understood those little attentions of
+friendship, so superior to costly presents, unhappy being that I am. Why do
+I thus deceive myself? What is to be the outcome of all this wild, aimless,
+endless passion? I cannot pray except to her. Oh, Wilhelm, the hermit's
+cell, his sackcloth and girdle of thorns, would be luxury and indulgence
+compared with what I have to suffer.</p>
+
+<p><i>October 20</i>. I have taken the plunge, and following your repeated
+advice, I have taken a post with the ambassador. We arrived here yesterday.
+If he were less peevish and morose all would be well. As it is, he
+occasions me continual annoyance; he is the most punctilious blockhead in
+the world. He does everything step by step, with the paltry fussiness of an
+old woman; and he is a man whom it is impossible to please, because he is
+never pleased with himself.</p>
+
+<p><i>January 20</i>. I have but one being here to interest me, my dear
+Charlotte--a Miss B----. She resembles you, if indeed anyone can possibly
+resemble you. "Ah," you will say, "he has learnt to pay fine compliments."
+And this is partly true; I have been very agreeable lately, as it was not
+in my power to be otherwise. But I must tell you of Miss B----. She has
+abundance of soul, which flashes from her deep blue eyes. Her rank is a
+torment to her, and satisfies no single desire of her heart. She knows you,
+my dear Charlotte, as I have told her all about you, and renders homage to
+your merits; but her homage is not exacted, but voluntary--she loves you,
+and delights to hear you made the subject of conversation. Adieu! Is Albert
+with you, and what is he to you? Forgive the question.</p>
+
+<p><i>February 20</i>. I thank you, Albert, for having deceived me. I
+waited for the news that your wedding-day was fixed, and I meant on that
+day to remove Charlotte's picture from the wall, and bury it with some old
+papers that I wish destroyed. You are now united, and the picture remains.
+Well, let it remain. Why should it not?</p>
+
+
+<h4><i>III.--"I Can Remain No Longer"</i></h4>
+
+
+<p><i>June 11</i>. Say what you will, I can remain here no longer. Why
+should I remain? The prince is as gracious to me as anyone could be, and
+yet I am not at my ease. There is, indeed, nothing in common between us; he
+is a man of understanding, but quite of the ordinary kind. His conversation
+gives me no more amusement than I should derive from an ordinary
+well-written book. Whither am I going? I think it would be better for me to
+visit the mines in----. But I am only deluding myself thus. You know that I
+only want to be near my dear Charlotte once more. I smile at the suggestion
+of my heart, but I obey its dictates.</p>
+
+<p><i>July 29</i>. Dear Wilhelm, my whole frame feels convulsed when I see
+Albert put his arms round that slender waist. Oh, the very thought of
+folding that dearest of heaven's creatures in one's arms.</p>
+
+<p>And--shall I avow it? Why should I not?--she would have been happier
+with me than with him. Albert is not the man to satisfy the wishes of such
+a heart. He wants a certain sensibility; he wants--in short, their hearts
+do not beat in unison. But, Wilhelm, he loves her with his whole heart, and
+what does not such a love deserve?</p>
+
+<p><i>September 5</i>. Charlotte had written a letter to her husband in the
+country, where he was detained on business. It began: "My dearest love,
+return as soon as possible. I await you with a thousand raptures!"</p>
+
+<p>A friend who arrived brought word that he could not return immediately.
+Her letter fell into my hands. I read it, and smiled. She asked the reason.
+"What a heavenly treasure is imagination," I exclaimed. "I fancied for a
+moment that this was written to me." She paused, and seemed displeased. I
+was silent.</p>
+
+<p><i>October 10</i>. Only to gaze into her dark eyes is to me a source of
+happiness. And what grieves me is that Albert does not seem so happy as
+he--as I--as he hoped to be--as I should have been--if--. I am no friend to
+these pauses, but here I cannot express myself otherwise; and probably I am
+explicit enough.</p>
+
+<p><i>October 19</i>. Alas the void--the fearful void which I feel in my
+bosom! Sometimes I think, if I could only once press her to my heart, this
+dreadful void would be filled.</p>
+
+<p><i>October 30</i>. A hundred times I have been on the point of embracing
+her. Heavens! what a torment it is to see so much loveliness passing and
+repassing before us, and yet not dare to touch it. And to touch is the most
+natural of human instincts. Do not children touch everything that they
+see?</p>
+
+<p><i>November 8</i>. Charlotte reproves me for my excesses with so much
+tenderness and goodness. I have lately drunk more wine than usual. "Don't
+do it," she said; "think of Charlotte." "Think of you," I answered; "can
+such advice be necessary? Do I not ever think of you?" She immediately
+changed the subject to prevent me pursuing it further. My dear friend, my
+energies are all prostrated; she can do with me what she pleases.
+Yesterday, when I took leave, she seized me by the hand, and said, "Adieu,
+dear Werther!" It was the first time she had ever called me "dear." I have
+repeated it a hundred times.</p>
+
+
+<h4><i>IV.--"I am Resolved to Die"</i></h4>
+
+
+<p><i>November 24</i>. She is sensible of my sufferings. This morning her
+look pierced my soul. I found her alone; she was silent, and only gazed
+steadfastly at me. Oh, who can express my emotions? I was quite overcome,
+and bending down, pronounced this vow to myself, "Beautiful lips, which
+angels guard, never will I seek to profane your purity with a kiss." And
+yet, oh, I wish--But, alas, my heart is darkened by doubt and indecision.
+Could I but taste felicity, and then die to expiate the sin. What sin?</p>
+
+<p><i>December 21</i>. I am lost. My senses are bewildered, my recollection
+is confused, my eyes are bathed in tears. I am ill, and yet am well. I wish
+for nothing; I have no desires; it were better I were gone. I saw Charlotte
+to-day; she was busy preparing some little gifts for her brothers and
+sisters, to be given to them on Christmas Day. "You shall have a gift too,"
+she said, "if you behave well." "And what do you call behaving well?" I
+asked. "What should I do; what can I do?" "Thursday night," she answered,
+"is Christmas Eve; the children are all to be here, and my father too;
+there is a present for each of them. Do you come likewise, but do not come
+before that time!"</p>
+
+<p>I started. She must have seen my emotion, for she continued, hastily "I
+desire that you will not. It must be so; I ask it of you as a favour, for
+my own peace and tranquillity. We cannot go on in this manner any longer!"
+It were idle to attempt to describe my emotions I was as if paralysed; it
+was as if the sun had suddenly gone out. When I recollected myself,
+Charlotte was trying to speak on some indifferent topic. "No, Charlotte," I
+explained, "I understand you perfectly. I will never see you again!"</p>
+
+<p><i>December 22</i>. It is all over, Charlotte; I am resolved to die. I
+make this declaration deliberately and coolly, without any romantic
+passion, on the morning of the day when I am to see you for the last time.
+At the moment that you read these lines the cold grave will hold the
+remains of that restless and unhappy being who, in his last moments of
+existence, knew no pleasure so great as that of conversing with you.</p>
+
+<p>When I tore myself from you yesterday my senses were in tumult and
+disorder. I could scarcely reach my room. A thousand ideas floated through
+my mind. At last one fixed, final thought took possession of my heart. It
+was to die. Oh, beloved Charlotte, this heart, excited by rage and fury,
+has often conceived the horrid idea of murdering your
+husband--you--myself.</p>
+
+<p>What do they mean by saying that Albert is your husband? He may be so
+for this world, and in this world it is a sin to love you--to wish to tear
+you from his embrace. Yes, it is a crime, and I suffer the punishment--but
+I have enjoyed the full delight of my sin. I have inhaled a balm that has
+revived my soul; from this hour you are mine; yes, Charlotte, you are mine.
+I do not dream, I do not rave. Drawing nearer to the grave my perceptions
+become clearer. We shall exist; we shall see each other again.</p>
+
+<p>I wish to be buried in the dress I wear at present; it has been made
+sacred by your touch. How warmly I have loved you, Charlotte. Since the
+first hour I saw you, how impossible have I found it to leave you. This
+ribbon must be buried with me; it was a present from you on my birthday.
+How confused it all appears. Little did I think then that I should journey
+on this road. But peace, I pray you, peace.</p>
+
+<p>Both my pistols are loaded. The clock strikes twelve. I say Amen.
+Charlotte! Charlotte! Farewell! Farewell!</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+
+
+
+<h3><a name="goethe2">Wilhelm Meister's Apprenticeship</a></h3>
+
+<p class="letter">
+Goethe's prestige was enormously increased by the publication
+in 1796 of "Wilhelm Meister's Apprenticeship" ("Wilhelm Meisters
+Lehrjahre"). Representing the fruit of twenty years' labour, it was, like
+"Faust," written in fragments during the ripest period of his intellectual
+activity. The story of "Wilhelm Meister" is by no means exciting, but, as a
+gallery of portraits and repository of wise observation, it is more
+characteristic of the genius of its author than any other of his prose
+works. It is more mellow than "Werther," and the action moves slower.
+Incident follows incident in a leisurely fashion. The keen psychological
+analysis in the story is assumed to have been derived from Goethe's own
+experience. "Wilhelm Meister" was dramatised and produced at Leipzig a few
+years ago, but with no marked success.
+</p>
+
+<h4><i>I.--On the Road</i></h4>
+
+
+<p>The moment was now at hand to which poor Mariana had been looking
+forward as to the last of her life. Wilhelm Meister, the man she loved, was
+departing on a long journey in connection with his father's business; a
+disagreeable lover was threatening to come.</p>
+
+<p>"I am miserable," she exclaimed, "miserable for life! I love him, and he
+loves me; yet I see that we must part, and know not how I shall survive it.
+Wilhelm is poor, and can do nothing for me--"</p>
+
+<p>Darkness had scarcely come on when Wilhelm glided forth to her house; he
+carried with him a letter in which he entreated her to marry him forthwith,
+saying that he would abandon his father's business, and earn his living on
+the stage, to which he had always been strongly drawn. This he could do
+with certainty, as he was well acquainted with Serlo, manager of a theatre
+in a town at some distance.</p>
+
+<p>His plan was to leave the letter with her, and return a little later for
+her answer. The vehemence of his emotion at first prevented him from
+noticing that she did not greet him with her wonted heartiness; she
+complained of a headache, and would not hear of his coming back later that
+evening. Suspecting nothing wrong, he ceased to urge her, but he felt that
+this was not the moment for delivering his letter. He retained it,
+therefore, and, in a tumult of insatiable love, as he tore himself away
+from her he snatched one of her neckerchiefs, and, after pressing it madly
+to his lips, crushed it into his pocket.</p>
+
+<p>His whole being was in a ferment of excitement as he walked aimlessly
+about the streets. Midnight found him again in the neighbourhood of
+Mariana's house; consciousness of the fact brought him to himself. He went
+slowly away, set himself for home, and constantly turned round again; at
+last, with an effort, he constrained himself, and actually departed. At the
+corner of the street, looking back yet once more, he imagined that he saw
+Mariana's door open, and a dark figure issue from it. He was too distant to
+see clearly, and in a moment the appearance was lost in the night.</p>
+
+<p>On his way, he had almost effaced the unexpected delusion from his mind
+by the most sufficient reasons. To soothe his heart, and put the last seal
+on his returning belief, ere he disrobed for the night, he took her
+kerchief from his pocket. The rustle of a letter which fell from it took
+the kerchief from his lips; he lifted it, and read a passionate letter from
+another man, railing at her for her coldness on the preceding night, making
+an appointment for that same night, and breathing a spirit of intimate
+familiarity.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p>A violent fever, with its train of consequences, besides the unwearied
+attentions of his family, were so many fresh occupations for his mind, and
+formed a kind of painful entertainment. On his recovery, he determined to
+abandon for ever his former leaning towards the stage, and to apply himself
+with greater diligence to business, and, to the great contentment of his
+father, no one was now more diligent in the counting-house. For a long time
+he continued to show exemplary attention to his duties, and was then
+thought sufficiently master of his business to be sent on a long expedition
+on behalf of the firm.</p>
+
+<p>The first part of his business successfully accomplished, Wilhelm found
+himself at a little mountain town called Hochdorf. A troupe of actors had
+got stranded there, their exchequer empty, their properties seized as
+security for debts. Wilhelm recognised among them an old man whom he
+recollected as having seen on the stage with Mariana. After some
+hesitation, he hazarded a question concerning her. "Do not speak to me of
+that baggage!" cried the old man. "I am ashamed that I felt such a
+friendship for her. Yet, had you known the girl better, you would excuse
+me. I loved her as my own daughter; indeed, I had formed a resolution to
+take the creature into my own house, and save her from the hands of that
+old crone Barbara, her confidante; but my wife died, and so the project
+came to nothing. At the end of our stay in your native town, I noticed a
+visible sadness about her. I questioned her, but she evaded me. At last we
+set out on our journey. She travelled in the same coach with me, and I soon
+observed what she could not deny, that she was about to become a mother. In
+a short time the manager made the same discovery; he paid her off at once
+and left her behind at the village inn."</p>
+
+<p>Wilhelm's old wounds were all torn open afresh by the old man's story;
+the thought that perhaps Mariana was not wholly unworthy of his love was
+again brought to life. Nay, even the bitter accusations brought against her
+could not lower her in his estimation; for he, as well as she, was guilty
+in all her aberrations. He saw her as a frail, ill-succoured mother,
+wandering helplessly about the world.</p>
+
+<p>The old longing for the stage came back to him with redoubled force; he
+determined to give it vent, for a time at least, and to this end he
+advanced to Melina, the manager of the actors, a sum of money sufficient to
+redeem their properties, and accompanied the troupe until such time as it
+should be repaid.</p>
+
+<p>A profitable engagement soon came their way. A wealthy count, who
+happened to pass through the town, required their services to entertain the
+prince, whom he was shortly expecting as a guest. For several weeks they
+stayed at his castle, and when, on the prince's departure, their engagement
+came to an end, they were all weightier in purse than they had been for
+many a long day. Melina was now in hopes to get established with his
+company in a thriving town at some distance. To get there it was necessary
+to take a considerable journey by unfrequented roads.</p>
+
+<p>Accordingly, conveyances were hired, and a start was made. Towards
+evening, they began to pitch their camp in the midst of a beech wood; all
+were busily engaged about the task allotted to each--the women to prepare
+the evening meal, the men to attend to everything necessary for their
+comfort for the night. All at once, a shot went off; immediately another;
+the party flew asunder in terror. Next moment armed men were to be seen
+pressing forward to the spot where the coaches, packed with luggage,
+stood.</p>
+
+<p>The men all rushed at the intruders. Wilhelm fired his pistol at one who
+was already on the top of the coach cutting the cords of the packages. The
+scoundrel fell, but several of his friends rushed to his aid; our hero
+fell, stunned by a shot-wound and by a sword-stroke that almost penetrated
+to his brain.</p>
+
+<p>When he recovered his senses, it was to find himself deserted by all his
+companions except two of the girls. His head was lying in Phillina's lap,
+while Mignon, the child whom he had rescued from a brutal circus master who
+was ill-treating her, was vainly trying to staunch his wounds with her
+hair. For some time they continued in this position, no one returning to
+their aid. At last, they heard a troop of horses coming up the road; a
+young lady emerged on horseback, accompanied by some cavaliers. Wilhelm
+fixed his eye on the soft, calm, sympathising features of the stranger; he
+thought he had never seen aught nobler or more lovely. In a few moments one
+of the party stepped to the side of our hero. He held in his hand some
+surgeon's instruments and bandages, with which he hastily attended to his
+wounds. The lady asked several questions, and then, turning to the old
+gentleman, said, "Dear uncle, may I be generous at your expense?" taking
+off the coat that she was wearing as she spoke, and laying it softly above
+him. As he tried to open his mouth to stammer out some words of gratitude
+to the beautiful Amazon, the impression of her presence worked so strongly
+on his senses that all at once it seemed to him that her head was encircled
+with rays, and a glancing light seemed by degrees to spread itself all over
+her form. At this moment the surgeon gave him a sharper twinge; he lost
+consciousness; and on returning to himself the horsemen and coaches, the
+fair one and her attendants, had vanished like a dream.</p>
+
+
+<h4><i>II.--A Message from the Dead</i></h4>
+
+
+<p>Wilhelm's wounds were slow to heal, and it was long before he was able
+to move about freely again. When he fully recovered he went to his old
+friend, Serlo, and obtained a position in his company, both for himself,
+and also for many of his companions in misfortune.</p>
+
+<p>With Serlo he remained for a considerable period, until an untoward
+event led to his leaving him. Aurelia, Serlo's sister, had long entertained
+an affection for a nobleman, whom she knew by the name of Lothario; though
+at one time much attached to her, his affection had cooled off, and for a
+long time now he had not had any communication with her. Heartbroken at
+this treatment, though still devotedly attached to him, she gradually pined
+away, and complete neglect of her health finally brought her to her
+death-bed. Before she died, however, she wrote a letter of farewell to him,
+which she entrusted to Wilhelm to deliver as soon after her death as
+possible.</p>
+
+<p>Arrived at the castle where the baron lived, he found his lordship
+unable to give him any attention that day, as he was engaged to fight a
+duel, and was busy settling up his affairs in preparation. Wilhelm was
+requested to remain until a more convenient season. On the following
+morning, while the company were seated at breakfast, the baron was brought
+back in a carriage, seriously wounded.</p>
+
+<p>As the surgeon came out from attending him, the band hanging from his
+pouch caught Wilhelm's eye; he fancied that he knew it. He was convinced
+that he beheld the very pouch of the surgeon who had dressed his wounds in
+the forest, and the hope, so long deferred, of again finding his lovely
+Amazon struck like a flame through his soul.</p>
+
+<p>The abbé entered from Lothario's chamber, and said to Wilhelm,
+"The baron bids me ask you to remain here to share his hospitality, and, in
+the present circumstances, to contribute to his solacement."</p>
+
+<p>From this hour our friend was treated in the house as if he belonged to
+it.</p>
+
+<p>"We have a kindness to ask of you," said Jarno, the baron's confidential
+companion, to Wilhelm one morning. "The violent, unreasonable love and
+passionateness of the Lady Lydia only hinder the baron's recovery. She must
+be removed by some means. His wound requires rest and calmness; you see how
+she tortures him with her tempestuous anxieties, her ungovernable terrors,
+her never-drying tears. Enough! Our doctor expressly requires that she
+should quit us for a while; we have persuaded her to pay a visit to a lady,
+an old friend of hers; it will be your task to escort her, as you can best
+be spared."</p>
+
+<p>"I willingly undertake the charge," said Wilhelm, "though it is easy to
+foresee the pain I shall have to suffer from the tears, the despair, of
+Lydia."</p>
+
+<p>"And for this no small reward awaits you," said Jarno. "Fraulein
+Theresa, with whom you will get acquainted, is a lady such as you will
+rarely see. Indeed, were it not for an unfortunate passage between her
+mother and the baron, she would long since have been married to his
+lordship."</p>
+
+<p>When they returned from their visit, Lothario was in the way of full
+recovery. He was now for the first time able to talk with Wilhelm about the
+sad cause that had brought him to the castle. "You may, however, well
+forgive me," he said, with a smile, "that I forsook Aurelia for Theresa;
+with the one I could expect a calm and cheerful life, with the other not a
+happy hour."</p>
+
+<p>"I confess," said Wilhelm, "that in coming hither I had no small anger
+in my heart against you, that I proposed to censure with severity your
+conduct towards Aurelia. But, at the grave in which the hapless mother
+sleeps, let me ask you why you acknowledge not the child--a son in whom any
+father might rejoice and whom you appear entirely to overlook. With your
+tender nature, how can you altogether cast away the instinct of a
+parent?"</p>
+
+<p>"Of whom do you speak?" said Lothario. "I do not understand you."</p>
+
+<p>"Of whom but your son, Aurelia's son, the lovely child to whose good
+fortune there is nothing wanting but that a tender father should
+acknowledge and receive him."</p>
+
+<p>"You mistake, my friend," said Lothario; "Aurelia never had a son. I
+know of no child, or I would gladly acknowledge it. But did she ever give
+you to believe that the boy was hers--was mine?"</p>
+
+<p>"I cannot recollect that I ever heard a word from her expressly on the
+subject, but we took it so, and I never for a moment doubted it."</p>
+
+<p>"I can give you a clue to this perplexity," interposed Jarno. "An old
+woman, whom Wilhelm must have noticed, gave Aurelia the child, telling her
+that it was yours. She accepted it eagerly, hoping to alleviate her sorrows
+by its presence; and, in truth, it gave her many a comfortable hour."</p>
+
+<p>This discovery awoke anxieties in Wilhelm. He thought of the beautiful
+child Felix with the liveliest apprehension, and expressed his wish to
+remove him from the state in which he was.</p>
+
+<p>"We can soon arrange that," said Lothario. "I think you ought yourself
+to take charge of him; what in us the women leave uncultivated, children
+cultivate when we retain them near us."</p>
+
+<p>It was agreed to lose no time in putting this plan into execution, and
+Wilhelm departed forthwith to fetch the child.</p>
+
+<p>Passing through the house, he found Aurelia's old serving-maid, whom he
+had never seen at close quarters before, employed in sewing. Felix and
+Mignon were sitting by her on the floor.</p>
+
+<p>"Art thou the person," he demanded earnestly, "from whom Aurelia
+received this child?"</p>
+
+<p>She looked up, and turned her face to him; he saw her in full light, and
+started back in terror. It was old Barbara!</p>
+
+<p>"Where is Mariana?" cried he.</p>
+
+<p>"Far from here."</p>
+
+<p>"And Felix?"</p>
+
+<p>"Is the son of that unhappy and too tender-hearted girl. Here are
+Mariana's last words," she added, handing him a letter.</p>
+
+<p>"She is dead?" cried he.</p>
+
+<p>"Dead," said the old woman.</p>
+
+<p>A bitter grief took hold of Wilhelm; he could scarcely read the words
+that Barbara placed before him.</p>
+
+<p>"If this should reach thee, then lament thine ill-starred friend. The
+boy, whose birth I survived but a few days, is thine. I die faithful to
+thee, much as appearances may be against me; with thee I lost everything
+that bound me to life. This will be my only comfort, that though I cannot
+call myself blameless, towards thee I am free from blame."</p>
+
+<p>Wilhelm was stupified by this news. He removed the children from
+Barbara's care, and took them both back with him to Lothario's castle.
+Felix he kept with him, while Mignon, who was not in the best of health,
+was sent by the baron to the house of his sister, at some distance.</p>
+
+
+<h4><i>III.--Wilhelm's Apprenticeship</i></h4>
+
+
+<p>One evening Jarno said to Wilhelm, "We can now consider you as one of
+ourselves with such security that it were unjust not to introduce you
+deeper into our mysteries. You shall see what a curious little world is at
+your very hand, and how well you are known in it." He led our friend
+through certain unknown chambers and galleries of the castle to a door,
+strongly framed with iron. Jarno knocked; the door opened a little, so as
+to admit one person. Jarno introduced our friend, but did not follow
+him.</p>
+
+<p>Within was complete darkness. A voice cried "Enter"; he pressed forward
+and found that only tapestry was hemming him in. Raising this, he entered.
+Within, he found a man, who said, in a tone of dignity, "To guard from
+error is not the instructor's duty, but to lead the erring pupil; nay, let
+him quaff his error in deep, satiating draughts; he who only tastes his
+error will long dwell with it; he who drains it to the dregs will, if he be
+not crazy, find it out."</p>
+
+<p>A curtain closed before the figure, whom Wilhelm vaguely recollected as
+having seen at some time previously; possibly on the night when he had
+parted from Mariana. Then the curtain opened again; another figure
+advanced, "Learn to know the men who may be trusted," he said, and again
+the curtain closed. "Dispute not with us," cried a voice; "thou art saved,
+thou art on the way to the goal. None of thy follies wilt thou repent; none
+wilt thou wish to repeat."</p>
+
+<p>The curtain opened; the abbé came into view. "Come hither," he
+cried to his marvelling friend. Wilhelm mounted the steps. On the table lay
+a little roll.</p>
+
+<p>"Here is your indenture," said the abbé. "Take it to heart; it is
+of weighty import." Wilhelm opened it, and read:</p>
+
+<p class="letter">
+"<i>INDENTURE</i>.<br/>
+    "<i>Art is long, life short, judgment difficult, opportunity transient. To
+act is easy, to think is hard, to act according to our thought is troublesome.
+It is but a part of art that can be taught; the artist needs it all. Who knows
+it half, speaks much, and is always wrong; who knows it all, speaks seldom, and
+is inclined to act. No one knows what he is doing while he acts aright; but of
+wrong-doing we are always conscious. The instruction which the true artist
+gives us opens the mind, for where words fail him, deeds speak. The true
+scholar learns from the known to unfold the unknown, and approaches more and
+more to being a master</i>----"
+</p>
+
+<p>"Enough," cried the abbé; "the rest in due time. Now look round
+you among these cases." With astonishment Wilhelm found, among others,
+"<i>Lothario's Apprenticeship," "Jarno's Apprenticeship</i>," and his own
+"<i>Apprenticeship</i>" placed there. "May I hope to look into these
+rolls?"</p>
+
+<p>"In this chamber nothing is now hid from you."</p>
+
+<p>Wilhelm heard a noise behind him, and saw a child's face peeping through
+the tapestry at the end of the room. It was Felix. His father rushed
+towards him, took him in his arms, and pressed him to his heart.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, I feel it," cried he. "Thou art mine. For what a gift of Heaven
+have I to thank my friends! How comest thou, my child, at this important
+moment?"</p>
+
+<p>"Ask not," said the abbé. "Hail, young man! Thy apprenticeship is
+done; nature has pronounced thee free."</p>
+
+<p>After sorrow, often and in vain repeated, for the loss of Mariana,
+Wilhelm felt that he must find a mother for the boy; and also, that he
+could not find one equal to Theresa. With this gifted lady he was now
+thoroughly acquainted. Such a spouse and helpmate seemed the only one to
+trust to in such circumstances. Her affection for Lothario did not make him
+hesitate; she looked on herself as free; she had even spoken of marrying,
+with indifference, indeed, but as a matter understood.</p>
+
+<p>Before Theresa's answer came to hand, Lothario sent for our friend. "My
+sister Natalia bids me beg of you to go to her as soon as possible. Poor
+Mignon seems to be getting steadily worse, and it is thought that your
+presence might allay the malady." Wilhelm agreed, and proceeded on the
+journey.</p>
+
+
+<h4><i>IV.--Heart Against Reason</i></h4>
+
+
+<p>Behind a light screen, which threw a shadow on her, sat a young lady,
+reading; she rose and came to him. It was the Amazon! Unable to restrain
+himself, he fell on his knee and cried "It is she!" He seized her hand, and
+kissed it with unbounded rapture.</p>
+
+<p>A day or two later, the following letter from Theresa was handed to
+Wilhelm.</p>
+
+<p>"I am yours, as I am, and as you know me. I call you mine, as you are,
+and as I know you. As it is no passion, but trust and inclination for each
+other, that leads us together, we run less risk than thousands of others.
+You will forgive me, will you not, if I still think often and kindly of my
+former friend; in return, I will press Felix to my heart, as if I were his
+mother. Adieu, dear friend! Theresa clasps you to her breast with hope and
+joy."</p>
+
+<p>Natalia wrote a letter to her brother; she invited Wilhelm to add a word
+or two. They were just about to seal it, when Jarno unexpectedly came
+in.</p>
+
+<p>"I am come," he said, "to give you very curious and pleasing tidings
+about Theresa; now guess."</p>
+
+<p>"We are more skilful than you think," said Natalia, smiling. "Before you
+asked, we had the answer down in black and white," handing him as she spoke
+the letter she had just written. Jarno read the sheet hastily. "What shall
+I say?" cried he. "Surprise against surprise! I came to tell you that
+Theresa is not the daughter of her reputed mother. There is no obstacle to
+her marriage with Lothario: <i>I came to ask you to prepare her for
+it</i>."</p>
+
+<p>"And what," said Lothario, taking Wilhelm by the hand, "what if your
+alliance with my sister were the secret article on which depended my
+alliance with Theresa? These amends the noble maiden has appointed for you;
+she has vowed that we two pairs should appear together at the altar. 'His
+reason has made choice of me,' she said; 'his heart demands Natalia: my
+reason shall assist his heart.'"</p>
+
+<p>Lothario embraced his friend, and led him to Natalia, who, with Theresa,
+came to meet them. "To my mind, thou resemblest Saul, the son of Kish, who
+went out to seek his father's asses, and found a kingdom."</p>
+
+<p>"I know not the worth of a kingdom," said Wilhelm, "but I know that I
+have attained a happiness undeserved, which I would not change for anything
+in life."</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+
+
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="goldsmith">OLIVER GOLDSMITH</a></h2>
+
+
+<h3><a name="goldsmith1">The Vicar of Wakefield</a></h3>
+
+<p class="letter">
+Oliver Goldsmith, the most versatile and perhaps the most
+unstable of eighteenth century men of letters, was born in Ireland on
+November 10, 1728. At Trinity College, Dublin, he revealed three
+characteristics that clung to him throughout his career--high spirits,
+conversational brilliance, and inability to keep money in his pocket. After
+a spell of "philosophic vagabondage" on the Continent, he settled in London
+in 1756, earned money in various ways, and spent it all. "The Vicar of
+Wakefield," perhaps the greatest of all Goldsmith's works, was published on
+March 27, 1766, after Dr. Johnson had raised &pound;60 for him on the
+manuscript of it. The liveliness and grace of Goldsmith's style were never
+more plainly manifested than in this delightful story; and its faults--it
+contains many coincidences and improbabilities--are far more than atoned
+for by the masterly portrait of the simple, manly, generous, and wholly
+lovable vicar who is the central figure of the story. "It has," says
+Mitford, "the truth of Richardson, without his minuteness, and the humour
+of Fielding, without his grossness; if it yields to LeSage in the
+diversified variety of his views of life, it far excels him in the
+description of domestic virtues and the pleasing moral of the tale."
+Goldsmith died on April 4, 1774. (See also Vol. XVII.)
+</p>
+
+<h4><i>I.--Family Portraits</i></h4>
+
+
+<p>I was ever of opinion that the honest man who married and brought up a
+large family did more service than he who continued single and only talked
+of population. From this motive, I chose my wife, as she did her
+wedding-gown, not for a fine glossy surface, but such qualities as would
+wear well. There was nothing that could make us angry with the world or
+each other. We had no revolutions to fear, nor fatigues to undergo; all our
+adventures were by the fireside, and all our migrations from the blue bed
+to the brown.</p>
+
+<p>My children, as they were educated without softness, so they were at
+once well-formed and healthy; my four sons hardy and active, my two
+daughters beautiful and blooming. Olivia, the elder daughter, was open,
+sprightly, and commanding; Sophia's features were not so striking at first,
+but often did more certain execution, for they were soft, modest, and
+alluring.</p>
+
+<p>The profits of my living I made over to the orphans and widows of the
+clergy of our diocese; for, having a sufficient fortune of my own, I was
+careless of temporalities, and felt a secret pleasure in doing my duty
+without reward.</p>
+
+<p>My eldest son, George, just upon leaving college, fixed his affections
+upon Miss Arabella Wilmot, the daughter of a neighbouring clergyman, who
+was in circumstances to give her a large fortune. Mr. Wilmot was not averse
+to the match, but after the day for the nuptials had been fixed, I engaged
+in a dispute with him which threatened to interrupt our intended alliance.
+I have always maintained that it is unlawful for a priest of the Church of
+England, after the death of his first wife, to take a second; and I showed
+Mr. Wilmot a tract which I had written in defence of this principle. It was
+not till too late I discovered that he was violently attached to the
+contrary opinion, and with good reason; for he was at that time actually
+courting a fourth wife.</p>
+
+<p>While the controversy was hottest, a relation, with a face of concern,
+called me out.</p>
+
+<p>"The merchant in town," he said, "in whose hands your money was lodged
+has gone off, to avoid a statute of bankruptcy. Your fortune is now almost
+nothing."</p>
+
+<p>It would be useless to describe the sensations of my family when I
+divulged the news. Near a fortnight had passed before I attempted to
+restrain their affliction; for premature consolation is but the remembrance
+of sorrow. During this interval I determined to send my eldest son to
+London, and I accepted a small cure of fifteen pounds a year in a distant
+neighbourhood.</p>
+
+<p>The first day's journey brought us within thirty miles of our future
+retreat, and we put up at an obscure inn in a village by the way. At the
+inn was a gentleman who, the landlord told me, had been so liberal in his
+charity that he had no money left to pay his reckoning. I could not avoid
+expressing my concern at seeing a gentleman in such circumstances, and
+offered the stranger my purse. "I take it with all my heart, sir," replied
+he, "and am glad that my late oversight has shown me that there are still
+some men like you." The stranger's conversation was so pleasing and
+instructive that we were rejoiced to hear that he was going the same way as
+ourselves.</p>
+
+<p>The next morning we all set forward together. Mr. Burchell and I
+lightened the fatigues of the road with philosophical disputes, and he also
+informed me to whom the different seats belonged that lay in our view.</p>
+
+<p>"That, Dr. Primrose," he said to me, pointing to a very magnificent
+house, "belongs to Mr. Thornhill, a young gentleman who enjoys a large
+fortune, though entirely dependent upon the will of his uncle, Sir William
+Thornhill."</p>
+
+<p>"What!" cried I, "is my young landlord, then, the nephew of one who is
+represented as a man of consummate benevolence?"</p>
+
+<p>At this point we were alarmed by the cries of my family, and I perceived
+my youngest daughter in the midst of a rapid stream, and struggling with
+the torrent; she must have certainly perished had not my companion
+instantly plunged in to her relief. Her gratitude may be more readily
+imagined than described; she thanked her deliverer more with looks than
+words. Soon afterwards Mr. Burchell took leave of us, and we pursued our
+journey to the place of our retreat.</p>
+
+
+<h4><i>II.--The Squire</i></h4>
+
+
+<p>At a small distance from our habitation was a seat overshaded by a hedge
+of hawthorn and honeysuckle. Here, when the weather was fine, and our
+labour soon finished, we usually sat together to enjoy an extensive
+landscape in the calm of the evening. On an afternoon about the beginning
+of autumn, when I had drawn out my family to the seat, dogs and horsemen
+swept past us with great swiftness. After them a young gentleman, of a more
+genteel appearance than the rest, came forward, and, instead of pursuing
+the chase, stopped short, and approached us with a careless, superior air.
+He let us know that his name was Thornhill, and that he was the owner of
+the estate that lay around us. As his address, though confident, was easy,
+we soon became more familiar; and the whole family seemed earnest to please
+him.</p>
+
+<p>As soon as he was gone, my wife gave the opinion that it was a most
+fortunate hit, and hoped again to see the day in which we might hold up our
+heads with the best of them.</p>
+
+<p>"For my part," cried Olivia, "I don't like him, he is so extremely
+impudent and familiar." I interpreted this speech by contrary, and found
+that Olivia secretly admired him.</p>
+
+<p>"To confess the truth," said I, "he has not prepossessed me in his
+favour. I had heard that he was particularly remarkable for faithlessness
+to the fair sex."</p>
+
+<p>A few days afterwards we entertained our young landlord at dinner, and
+it may be easily supposed what provisions were exhausted to make an
+appearance. As he directed his looks and conversation to Olivia, it was no
+longer doubted but that she was the object that induced him to be our
+visitor; and my wife exulted in her daughter's victory as if it were her
+own.</p>
+
+<p>On one evening Mr. Thornhill came with two young ladies, richly dressed,
+whom he introduced as women of very great distinction and fashion from
+town. The two ladies threw my girls quite into the shade, for they would
+talk of nothing but high life and high-lived company. 'Tis true, they once
+or twice mortified us sensibly by slipping out an oath; their finery,
+however, threw a veil over any grossness in their conversation.</p>
+
+<p>I now began to find that all my long and painful lectures upon
+temperance, simplicity, and contentment were entirely disregarded. The
+distinctions lately paid us by our betters awakened that pride which I had
+laid asleep, but not removed. When the two ladies of quality showed a
+willingness to take our girls to town with them as companions, my wife was
+overjoyed at our good fortune. But Mr. Burchell, who had at first been a
+welcome guest at our house, but had become less welcome since we had been
+favoured with the company of persons of superior station, dissuaded her
+with great ardour, and so angered her that she ended by asking him to stay
+away.</p>
+
+<p>Returning home one day, I found my wife and girls all in tears, Mr.
+Thornhill having been there to inform them that their journey to town was
+entirely over. The two ladies, having heard reports of us from some
+malicious person, were that day set out for London. We were not long in
+finding who it was that had been so base as to asperse the character of a
+family so harmless as ours. One of our boys found a letter-case which we
+knew to belong to Mr. Burchell. Within it was a sealed note, superscribed,
+"The copy of a letter to be sent to the two ladies at Thornhill Castle." At
+the joint solicitation of the family, I opened it, and read as follows:</p>
+
+<p>"Ladies,--I am informed that you have some intention of bringing two
+young ladies to town, whom I have some knowledge of, under the character of
+companions. As I would neither have simplicity imposed upon nor virtue
+contaminated, I must offer it as my opinion that the impropriety of such a
+step will be attended with dangerous consequences. Take therefore, the
+admonition of a friend, and seriously reflect on the consequences of
+introducing infamy and vice into retreats where peace and innocence have
+hitherto resided."</p>
+
+<p>Our doubts were now at an end. It appeared to me one of the vilest
+instances of unprovoked ingratitude I had ever met with. As we set
+ruminating upon schemes of vengeance, Mr. Burchell himself entered and sat
+down.</p>
+
+<p>"Do you know this, sir--this pocket-book?" said I.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, sir," returned he, with a face of impenetrable assurance.</p>
+
+<p>"And do you know this letter?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes; it was I that wrote that letter."</p>
+
+<p>"And how could you so basely presume to write this letter?"</p>
+
+<p>"And how came you," replied he, with looks of unparalleled effrontery,
+"so basely to presume to open this letter?"</p>
+
+<p>I could scarcely govern my passion. "Ungrateful wretch!" I cried.
+"Begone, and no longer pollute my dwelling with thy baseness!"</p>
+
+<p>So saying, I threw him his pocket-book, which he took up with a smile,
+and left us astonished at the serenity of his assurance.</p>
+
+
+<h4><i>III.--The Elopement</i></h4>
+
+
+<p>The visits of Mr. Thornhill now became more frequent and longer; but all
+the schemes of Olivia and her mother to bring him to a declaration came to
+nothing. And although Olivia considered his fine sentiments as instances of
+the most exalted passion, it seemed to me plain that they had more of love
+than matrimony in them.</p>
+
+<p>One evening as I sat by the fireside, thanking Heaven for tranquillity,
+health, and competence, and thinking myself happier than the greatest
+monarch upon earth, I noticed that Olivia was absent.</p>
+
+<p>"Where is my darling Olivia?" I asked. Just as I spoke, my boy Dick came
+running in.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, papa, papa, she is gone from us; she is gone from us for ever!"</p>
+
+<p>"Gone, child?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes; she is gone off with two gentlemen in a postchaise, and one of
+them kissed her. And she cried very much, but he persuaded her, and she
+went into the chaise."</p>
+
+<p>"Now, then," cried I, "may Heaven's everlasting fury light upon him and
+his! Thus to rob me of my child! Bring me my pistols; I'll pursue the
+traitor. Old as I am, he shall find I can sting him yet--the perfidious
+villain!"</p>
+
+<p>My poor wife caught me in her arms.</p>
+
+<p>"Indeed, sir," said my son Moses, "your rage is too violent."</p>
+
+<p>"I did not curse him, child, did I?"</p>
+
+<p>"Indeed, sir, you did."</p>
+
+<p>"Then may Heaven forgive me and him. But it is not--it is not a small
+distress that can wring tears from these old eyes. My child--to undo my
+darling! May confusion seize--Heaven forgive me! What am I about to say?
+Had she but died! My son, bring hither my Bible and my staff. I will pursue
+her; and though I cannot save her from shame, I may prevent the continuance
+of her iniquity."</p>
+
+<p>My suspicions fell entirely upon our young landlord, whose character for
+such intrigues was but too well known. I therefore directed my steps
+towards Thornhill Castle. He soon appeared, with the most open, familiar
+air, and seemed perfectly amazed at my daughter's elopement, protesting
+upon his honour that he was quite a stranger to it. A man, however, averred
+that my daughter and Mr. Burchell had been seen driving very fast towards
+the Wells, about thirty miles distant.</p>
+
+<p>I walked towards the Wells with earnestness, and on entering the town I
+was met by a person on horseback, whom I remembered to have seen at the
+squire's, and he assured me that if I followed them to the races, which
+were but thirty miles further, I might depend upon overtaking them.</p>
+
+<p>Early the next day I walked forward to the races, but saw nothing of my
+daughter or of Mr. Burchell.</p>
+
+<p>The agitations of my mind, and the fatigues I had undergone, now threw
+me into a fever. I retired to a little ale-house by the roadside, and here
+I languished for nearly three weeks.</p>
+
+<p>The night coming on as I was twenty miles from home on my return
+journey, I put up at a little public-house, and asked for the landlord's
+company over a pint of wine. I could hear the landlady upstairs bitterly
+reproaching a lodger who could not pay.</p>
+
+<p>"Out, I say," she cried; "pack out this moment!"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, dear madame," replied the stranger, "pity a poor, abandoned
+creature for one night and death will soon do the rest!"</p>
+
+<p>I instantly knew the voice of my poor ruined child, Olivia, and flew to
+her rescue.</p>
+
+<p>"Welcome, anyway welcome, my dearest lost one, to your poor old father's
+bosom!"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, my own dear"--for minutes she could say no more--"my own dearest,
+good papa! You can't forgive me--I know you cannot!"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, my child, from my heart I do forgive thee." After we had talked
+ourselves into some tranquillity, I said, "It surprises me how a person of
+Mr. Burchell's seeming honour could be guilty of such deliberate
+baseness."</p>
+
+<p>"My dear papa," returned my daughter, "you labour under a strange
+mistake. It is Mr. Thornhill who has ruined me; who employed the two
+ladies, as he called them, but who, in fact, were abandoned women of the
+town, to decoy us up to London. Their artifices would certainly have
+succeeded but for Mr. Burchell's letter, who directed those reproaches at
+them which we all applied to ourselves."</p>
+
+<p>"You amaze me, my dear!" cried I. "But tell me, what temptation was it
+that could thus obliterate your virtue?"</p>
+
+<p>"He offered me marriage," replied she. "We were indeed married secretly
+by a popish priest, whose name I was sworn to conceal."</p>
+
+<p>"What!" interrupted I. "And were you indeed married?"</p>
+
+<p>"Alas!" she said, "he has been married already by the same priest to six
+or eight wives more, whom, like me, he has deceived and abandoned."</p>
+
+<p>"Have patience, my child," cried I, "and I hope things will yet be
+better. To-morrow I'll carry you home to your mother. Poor woman, this has
+gone to her heart; but she loves you still, Olivia, and will forget
+it."</p>
+
+
+<h4><i>IV.--Fresh Calamities</i></h4>
+
+
+<p>It was late the next night when I approached my own home. I had left
+Olivia at an inn five miles away, intending to prepare my family for her
+reception. To my amazement, I saw the house bursting out into a blaze of
+fire, and every aperture red with conflagration! I gave a loud convulsive
+outcry, which alarmed my son, and all my family ran out, wild with
+apprehension. Our neighbours came running to our assistance; but the flames
+had taken too strong a hold to be extinguished, and all the neighbours
+could do was to stand spectators of the calamity. They brought us clothes
+and furnished one of our outhouses with kitchen utensils; so that by
+daylight we had another, though a wretched, dwelling to retire to.</p>
+
+<p>In the midst of this affliction our poor lost one returned to us. "Ah,
+madam," cried her mother, "this is but a poor place to come to after so
+much finery! I can afford but little entertainment to persons who have kept
+company only with persons of distinction; but I hope Heaven will forgive
+you."</p>
+
+<p>The unhappy victim stood pale and trembling, unable to weep or to
+reply.</p>
+
+<p>"I entreat, woman," I said to my wife, with severity in my voice and
+manner, "that my words may be now marked once for all. I have here brought
+you back a poor deluded wanderer--her return to duty demands the revival of
+our tenderness. The real hardships of life are now coming fast upon us; let
+us not increase them by dissensions among each other. The kindness of
+Heaven is promised to the penitent, and let ours be directed by the
+example."</p>
+
+<p>My daughter's grief, however, seemed formed for continuing, and her
+wretchedness was increased by the news that Mr. Thornhill was going to be
+married to the rich Miss Wilmot, who had formerly been betrothed to my
+eldest son.</p>
+
+<p>On a morning of peculiar warmth for the season, when we were
+breakfasting out of doors, Mr. Thornhill drove up in his chariot, alighted,
+and inquired after my health with his usual air of familiarity.</p>
+
+<p>"Sir," replied I, "your present assurance only serves to aggravate your
+baseness."</p>
+
+<p>"My dear sir," returned he, "I cannot understand what this means!"</p>
+
+<p>"Go!" cried I. "Thou art a poor, pitiful wretch, and every way a liar;
+but your meanness secures you from my anger!"</p>
+
+<p>"I find," he said, "you are bent upon obliging me to talk in a harsher
+manner than I intended. My steward talks of driving for the rent, and it is
+certain he knows his duty. Yet, still, I could wish to serve you, and even
+to have you and your daughter present at my marriage."</p>
+
+<p>"Mr. Thornhill," replied I, "as to your marriage with any but my
+daughter, that I never will consent to! And though your friendship could
+raise me to a throne, or your resentment sink me to the grave, yet would I
+despise both."</p>
+
+<p>"Depend upon it," returned he, "you shall feel the effects of this
+insolence," and departed abruptly.</p>
+
+<p>On the very next morning his steward came to demand my annual rent,
+which, by reason of the accidents already related, I was unable to pay. On
+the following day two officers of justice took me to the county gaol.</p>
+
+<p>There is no situation, however wretched it seems, but has some sort of
+comfort attending it; and I found mine in the help and kindness of a
+fellow-prisoner, Mr. Jenkinson by name, who was awaiting trial for several
+acts of cheating and roguery. I myself, indeed, had been one of his
+victims.</p>
+
+<p>The fortune of my family, who were lodged in the town, was wholly and
+distressingly adverse. Olivia was ill, and longed for me to make my
+submission to Mr. Thornhill by approving his marriage with Miss Wilmot.
+When I had been confined a fortnight, Mr. Jenkinson brought me dreadful
+news--Olivia was dead! And while yet my grief was fresh upon me my wife
+came weeping to tell me that Sophia had been seized by ruffians and carried
+off.</p>
+
+<p>The sum of my miseries, thought, I, is now made up; nor is it in the
+power of anything on earth to give me another pang. Yet another awaited me.
+My eldest son, George, to whom I had written, went to Thornhill Castle to
+punish our betrayer; he was attacked by the coward's servants, injured one
+of them, and was brought into the very prison where I was confined.</p>
+
+<p>The enemy of my family had now triumphed completely. My only hope was in
+a letter I had written to Sir William Thornhill, telling him of the
+misdeeds of his nephew. I was by this time myself extremely ill. I sought
+to break from my heart all ties that bound it to earth, and to fit myself
+for eternity.</p>
+
+
+<h4><i>V.--The Rescue</i></h4>
+
+
+<p>On parting from my unhappy son, who was removed to a stronger cell, I
+laid me down in bed, when Mr. Jenkinson, entering, informed me that there
+was news of my daughter. He had scarcely delivered his message when my
+dearest girl entered with Mr. Burchell.</p>
+
+<p>"Here, papa," she cried, "here is the brave man to whom I owe my
+delivery; to this gentleman's intrepidity--"</p>
+
+<p>A kiss from Mr. Burchell interrupted what she was going to add.</p>
+
+<p>"Ah, Mr. Burchell," said I, "you were ever our friend. We have long
+discovered our errors with regard to you, and repented our ingratitude. And
+now, as you have delivered my girl, if you think her a recompense, she is
+yours."</p>
+
+<p>"But I suppose, sir," he replied, "you are apprised of my incapacity to
+support her as she deserves?"</p>
+
+<p>"I know no man," I returned, "so worthy to deserve her as you."</p>
+
+<p>Without the least reply to my offer, he ordered from the next inn the
+best dinner that could be provided. While we were at dinner, the gaoler
+brought a message from Mr. Thornhill, desiring permission to appear before
+his uncle in order to vindicate his innocence and honour. The poor,
+harmless Mr. Burchell, then, was in reality the celebrated Sir William
+Thornhill!</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Thornhill entered with a smile, and was going to embrace his
+uncle.</p>
+
+<p>"No fawning, sir, at present," cried the baronet. "The only way to my
+heart is by the road of honour; but here I only see complicated instances
+of falsehood, cowardice, and oppression."</p>
+
+<p>At this moment Jenkinson and the gaoler's two servants entered, hauling
+in a tall man very genteelly dressed. As soon as Mr. Thornhill perceived
+the prisoner and Mr. Jenkinson, he seemed to shrink backward with terror,
+for this was the man whom he had put upon the carrying off of Sophia.</p>
+
+<p>"Heavens," cried Sir William, "what a viper have I been fostering in my
+bosom!"</p>
+
+<p>"As Mr. Thornhill and I have been old fellow-sporters," said Jenkinson,
+"I have a friendship for him; and I hope he will show a proper return of
+friendship to his own honest Jenkinson, who brings him a wife."</p>
+
+<p>So saying, he went off and left us.</p>
+
+<p>"I am surprised," said the baronet, "what he can intend by this?"</p>
+
+<p>"When we reflect," I replied, "on the various schemes--Amazement! Do I
+see my lost daughter? It is--it is my Olivia!"</p>
+
+<p>"As for you, squire," said Jenkinson, "this young lady is your lawful
+wedded wife. Here is the licence to prove it. He commissioned me,
+gentlemen," he continued, "to procure him a false licence and a false
+priest in order to deceive this young lady. What did I do, but went and got
+a true licence and a true priest. To my shame, I confess it, my only design
+was to keep the licence and let the squire know that I could prove it upon
+him whenever I wanted money."</p>
+
+<p>"How could you," I cried, "add to my miseries by the story of her
+death?"</p>
+
+<p>"That," replied Jenkinson, "is easily answered. I thought the only
+probable means of freeing you from prison was by submitting to the squire,
+and consenting to his marriage with the other young lady. But this you had
+vowed never to grant while your daughter was living, so I had to join with
+your wife in persuading you that she was dead."</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Thornhill's assurance had now entirely forsaken him. He fell on his
+knees before his uncle, and implored compassion.</p>
+
+<p>"Thy vices, crimes, and ingratitude," said the baronet, "deserve no
+compassion; but a bare competence shall be supplied thee, and thy wife
+shall possess a third part of that fortune which once was thine." Then,
+turning to Sophia, he caught her to his breast with ardour. "I have
+sought," he cried, "for a woman who, a stranger to my fortune, could think
+I had merit as a man. How great must be my rapture to have made a conquest
+over such sense and such heavenly beauty!"</p>
+
+<p>On the next day Sophia was wedded to Sir William Thornhill; and my son
+George, now freed from justice, as the person supposed to be wounded by him
+was detected to be an impostor, led Miss Wilmot to the altar. As soon as I
+had awakened that morning, I had heard that my merchant had been arrested
+at Antwerp, and that my fortune had been restored to me.</p>
+
+<p>It may not be improper to observe, with respect to Mr. Thornhill, that
+he now resides as companion at a relation's house. My eldest daughter has
+told me that when he reforms she may be brought to relent.</p>
+
+<p>I had now nothing on this side of the grave to wish for. All my cares
+were over. It only remained that my gratitude in good fortune should exceed
+my submission in adversity.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+
+
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="goncourt">EDMOND AND JULES DE GONCOURT</a></h2>
+
+
+<h3><a name="goncourt1">Renée Mauperin</a></h3>
+
+<p class="letter">
+Edmond de Goncourt, born at Nancy on May 26, 1822, and his
+brother Jules, born in Paris on December 17, 1830, were primarily artists,
+who, while wandering over France, knapsack on back, discovered that their
+note-books also made them writers. In 1850 they entered upon a literary
+partnership which only finished with the death of the younger brother on
+June 20, 1870. Their earliest literary endeavours consisted of a series of
+historical studies dealing with the France of the second half of the
+eighteenth century. It was not until 1860, with the publication of their
+first novel, "Les Hommes de Lettres," that they discovered their true bent
+lay in fiction. "Renée Mauperin," which is, perhaps, the best known
+of their books, was published in 1864. As a psychological analysis of
+contemporaneous youth, it is probably without its equal in French fiction.
+"The plot of the story," wrote Edmond de Goncourt, "is secondary. The
+authors have rather preferred to paint the modern young woman as she is:
+the product of the artistic and masculine system of education in force
+during the last thirty years. We have also attempted to portray the modern
+young college man influenced by the republican ideas of the time since
+Louis Philippe." Edmond de Goncourt died on July 16, 1896.
+</p>
+
+<h4><i>I.--A Wayward Girl</i></h4>
+
+
+<p>"Yes, I love riding and hunting. I never miss a meet. The wind blowing
+through one's hair, the hounds, the horns, the trees flying past you--it is
+intoxicating! In those moments I feel brave. Life has few other pleasures
+for a well-brought-up girl like me. Everything is shocking! I dance, yes
+... but do you think I am allowed to talk to my partner? Yes, no, no,
+yes--that's all! That's proper. And I am allowed to read if the books and
+articles are proper. I paint in oils, and that shocks my family; a young
+lady must not go beyond copying roses in water-colours. Isn't the current
+strong here?"</p>
+
+<p>Renée Mauperin and young Reverchon, her parent's guest, were
+swimming in the Seine.</p>
+
+<p>"How beautiful!" exclaimed the girl, as she noticed the evening sun
+gilding the river and the banks where country and suburb merged into each
+other.</p>
+
+<p>"You are an artist by nature, mademoiselle."</p>
+
+<p>"Ouf!" she exclaimed with a comic intonation.</p>
+
+<p>A boat approached.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, Renée, how is the water?" asked one of the rowers.</p>
+
+<p>"Splendid, thanks, Denoisel," she replied, as she mounted the steps
+lowered for her.</p>
+
+<p>"I was almost getting nervous for you. And Reverchon? Ah, there he
+is!"</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p>Renée was the youngest daughter of a distinguished Napoleonic
+officer, who, at the time of the revolution of 1830, was elected deputy,
+and fought with all his ardour for the Liberal cause, but who subsequently,
+at the urging of his wife, a tyrannical conventional member of the
+<i>bourgeois</i>, retired from the world of politics and established a
+sugar refinery, so as to be able to provide suitably for his three
+children.</p>
+
+<p>The first two, a boy born in 1826 and a daughter in 1827, were a
+disappointment to the old soldier. They were too reasonable, too "grown-up"
+before they were children, but in Renée, who was born after an
+interval of eight years, M. Mauperin found ample consolation. His heart
+revelled in her pranks and merry laughter, and she grew up the pet of her
+father, whose affection she returned with all her heart. She was now
+twenty; her brother Henri, serious, studious, plodding and determined to
+make a career, was a lawyer, and had made some reputation by his articles
+on statistical subjects; and Henriette, her elder sister, had found a
+husband in M. Davarande, whose wealth and position allowed her to devote
+herself to the life of empty amusement, divided mainly between long rounds
+of calls, the opera, and the Bois, which filled the days of the moneyed
+Paris <i>bourgeoisie</i> of that time.</p>
+
+<p>Madame Mauperin, delighted with Henriette's match, was anxious to find
+an equally suitable partner for Renée; but the high-spirited girl
+had a will of her own, and seemed to take almost a pleasure in crossing her
+mother's transparent matrimonial schemes. Quite a number of eligible young
+men had been introduced to the house at La Briche--and had left it without
+having furthered their suit. Reverchon had now been invited with similar
+intentions, and Renée was no more amenable than before. While her
+mother filled the young man's ears with praise of her accomplishments, the
+wayward girl, with her charming ingenuous talk, did her best to demonstrate
+her lack of those negative conventional virtues that were expected from a
+well-educated French girl in those days. She made Madame Mauperin turn
+first crimson, then pale, when she finally proceeded to cut Denoisel's hair
+in the drawing-room after dinner.</p>
+
+<p>Denoisel was the son of Mauperin's bosom friend, who had fought by his
+side in many battles, and who on his death-bed had made him his son's
+guardian. Mauperin became more than a guardian to the boy--he became his
+father. When Henri and Henriette were born, it seemed to Denoisel that he
+had been given a brother and sister; but he adored the baby Renée,
+and he alone succeeded in making her listen and obey.</p>
+
+<p>"Sometimes," said Henri to Denoisel as they travelled back to Paris, "my
+sister's follies are harmless enough; but to-night ... before that fellow
+... I am sure the marriage will fall through. And such an excellent
+match!"</p>
+
+<p>"You think so? I began to fear for her. And that's why I lent myself to
+her prank. He is too hopelessly commonplace--a tailor's dummy! He would
+never have understood her. Your sister ought to marry a man of intelligence
+and character."</p>
+
+<p>And Madame Mauperin, as she prepared for bed, lectured her husband upon
+acceding to all his favourite's whims.</p>
+
+<p>"Another marriage missed! Henri spoke to me this evening. He is sure
+Reverchon will not have her."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, what of it?"</p>
+
+<p>"Why, he is the tenth! Renée will get an awful reputation. She
+will see when she is thirty ... and you too." Then, after a pause, "And now
+about your son. He is twenty-nine now. He, at any rate, has no objection to
+marriage. Have you ever thought of finding him a suitable wife?"</p>
+
+<p>She continued to talk and to grumble until Mauperin fell asleep.</p>
+
+<p>"Henri is reasonable enough, but he is a young man, and you know the
+danger. It's driving me mad! What do you think of trying Madame
+Rosiéres?"</p>
+
+<p>There was no reply. Madame Mauperin resigned herself to silence, and
+turned to find the sleep which only came with morning.</p>
+
+
+<h4><i>II.--Plots and Plays</i></h4>
+
+
+<p>Next morning Madame Mauperin proceeded to Paris, and drove to her son's
+apartments in the Rue Taitbout. She found him at work. After some beating
+about the bush she approached the object of her visit.</p>
+
+<p>"I fear," she began, "that you must have some reason for ..."</p>
+
+<p>"For not marrying, isn't it? My dear mother, you need not worry. I know
+that wealth is needed for a successful career, and that the best and most
+honourable way to obtain it is a good marriage. And I am determined to make
+a career. I shall get married soon enough... and better, perhaps, than you
+think."</p>
+
+<p>At La Briche, meanwhile, M. Mauperin vainly tried to be stern with his
+pet.</p>
+
+<p>"I have done it purposely," she said.</p>
+
+<p>"And why?"</p>
+
+<p>"Because I love you better than that young gentleman who was in no way
+sympathetic to me. You are ungrateful."</p>
+
+<p>"But listen, my dear child! Fathers are egotists, and would prefer to
+keep their children. But I am old, and I should not like to part without
+seeing you married, a mother, with affections that will replace mine."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, this is wicked! Never, never!" she exclaimed; "let me cry alone for
+a minute." And she left the room hurriedly.</p>
+
+<p>When she returned after a while, she found Denoisel in the room.</p>
+
+<p>"You have been out? And where have you been?"</p>
+
+<p>"Well, if you want to know, I have been to church to pray that I may die
+before father. I knelt before a statue of the Virgin. And, you may laugh,
+but it seemed to me that she nodded at my request. And it made me quite
+happy."</p>
+
+<p>The conversation drifted to gayer topics, and the two soon fell into
+their wonted tone of banter. "Tell me, Renée," said Denoisel, "have
+you never felt, I won't say love, but some sentiment for anybody?"</p>
+
+<p>"Never. That sort of thing only occurs when the heart is empty. But when
+it is defended by the affection one feels for a father--as a child I felt
+perhaps the beginning of that emotion of which one reads in novels. And do
+you know for whom?"</p>
+
+<p>"No."</p>
+
+<p>"For you. Oh, only for a moment. I soon loved you differently for having
+corrected the spoilt child of its faults, for having directed my attention
+to noble and beautiful things. And I resolved to repay you by true
+friendship."</p>
+
+<p>M. Mauperin entered the room, and interrupted the confidences.</p>
+
+<p>A few days later, Renée having set her mind upon playing in
+private theatricals, a discussion arose about the filling of the second
+lady's part in the play that had been chosen. One by one the names
+suggested were dismissed, until Henri said, "Why not ask Mlle. Bourjot?
+They are just staying at Sannois."</p>
+
+<p>"Noémi?" replied Renée. "I'd love it. But she, was so cold
+towards me last winter. I don't know why."</p>
+
+<p>"She will have &pound;12,000 a year," interrupted Denoisel, "and her
+mother knows that you have a brother. And they are not a little proud of
+their money."</p>
+
+<p>Twelve thousand a year! Madame Mauperin thought of her son's future, and
+supported his suggestion. It was decided that they would call on the
+Bourjots on Saturday.</p>
+
+<p>To Sannois they went as arranged on the Saturday. They were received
+with effusion, and had to put up for an hour or so with the unbearable
+arrogance of their hosts' display of wealth. Renée's warm advances
+to the playmate of her childhood were received by Noémi with
+coolness, not to say reluctance, but the request that Noémi should
+take part in the theatricals met with her mother's approval, the shy girl's
+objections--nervousness, lack of talent, and so forth--being overruled by
+Madame Bourjot. Before the two families parted it was arranged that
+Noémi should be taken by her governess to attend the rehearsals at
+the Mauperins' house.</p>
+
+<p>Renée's whole-hearted friendliness and sparkling humour soon
+overcame Noémi's reserve, and under Denoisel's direction the amateur
+actors made rapid progress. Madame Bourjot herself came to one of the
+rehearsals, and, after the first compliments, expressed her surprise that
+Henri, the principal actor, was absent. "Oh, he has a wonderful memory,"
+said his proud mother; "two rehearsals will set him right."</p>
+
+<p>At last the great day arrived. A stage had been arranged in the large
+drawing-room, which was filled to its utmost capacity, the ladies being
+seated in the long rows of chairs, the men standing behind and overflowing
+through open doors into the adjoining rooms. The play chosen was "The
+Caprice." Henri, who revealed rare talent, took the part of the husband;
+Noémi of the neglected wife. The curtain fell upon enthusiastic
+applause, and Madame Bourjot, who had feared that her daughter would be a
+fiasco, was delighted with her success. Amid the hum of voices she heard
+the lady sitting next to her say to her neighbour, "His sister, I know ...
+but for the part he is not sufficiently in love with her ... and too much
+with his wife. Did you notice?" she continued, in a whisper.</p>
+
+<p>In the second piece Henri appeared as Pierrot, Renée as the
+forsaken wife, and Noémi as the beloved. Henri played with real
+passion. From time to time his eyes seemed to search for Madame Bourjot's.
+Her neighbour felt her leaning against her shoulder. The curtain fell.
+Madame Bourjot swayed, and fell back in a faint.</p>
+
+<p>She was carried to the garden.</p>
+
+<p>"Leave me now," she said, "I am all right now; it was the heat. I only
+want a little air ... Let M. Henri stay with me."</p>
+
+<p>They were left alone.</p>
+
+<p>"You love her?" said Madame Bourjot, clutching Henri's arm. "I know
+all.... Have you nothing to say?"</p>
+
+<p>"Nothing. I have struggled for a year. I will not excuse myself. I owe
+you the truth. I love your daughter, it is true."</p>
+
+<p>Finally, Madame Bourjot rose and walked towards the house. Henri
+followed.</p>
+
+<p>"I count upon never seeing you again, sir," she said, without looking
+round. With a mighty effort she regained her composure, and walked back to
+the house on Henri's arm.</p>
+
+
+<h4><i>III.--Stint to Death by his Sister</i></h4>
+
+
+<p>It was Madame Bourjot herself who insisted upon seeing Henri again, and,
+since he did not answer her letter, she went to his apartments. The
+interview was painful, but she gave her consent to Henri's marriage with
+Noémi, and undertook to overcome M. Bourjot's possible objections,
+on condition that Henri should humour her husband's vanity by adopting a
+title--an easy matter enough. The Mauperins had a farm called Villacourt.
+Mauperin de Villacourt would do very well. Henri promised to see what he
+could do.</p>
+
+<p>Madame Bourjot and her daughter called on the Mauperins next day. The
+two girls were asked to leave their mothers to their talk, and to take a
+walk in the garden.</p>
+
+<p>"A secret!" said Renée, as soon as they were alone. "Can you
+guess it? I can--my brother. ... But you are crying. What is it, my darling
+Noémi?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, you don't know!" her friend sobbed. "I cannot--if you only
+knew----Save me! If I could only die!"</p>
+
+<p>"Die! But why?"</p>
+
+<p>"Because your brother is----" She stopped in horror at what she was
+about to say, then whispered the rest of her sentence into her ear, and hid
+her face on her friend's bosom.</p>
+
+<p>"You lie!" Renée pushed her back.</p>
+
+<p>"I?" Renée did not reply, but looked sadly and gently into
+Noémi's eyes.</p>
+
+<p>Renée doubted no longer. She was silent for a moment; she felt
+almost the duties of a mother towards this child.</p>
+
+<p>In the evening Henri was surprised to find his sister waiting in his
+room. She approached the subject of his impending marriage, and implored
+him, by his love for her, not to give up his name, and to break off the
+match.</p>
+
+<p>"Are you mad? Enough of this!"</p>
+
+<p>Renée fixed her eyes upon her brother.</p>
+
+<p>"Noémi has told me--everything!"</p>
+
+<p>Her cheeks flushed, Henri turned deathly pale.</p>
+
+<p>"My dear," he said, with a shaky voice, "you interfere in things which
+do not concern you. A young girl--" Then seizing her hand, he pointed
+towards the door, and said, "Go!"</p>
+
+<p>Renée was ill for a week, and Henri, knowing the cause, did his
+best to alleviate her suffering. Still, a coldness remained between them.
+He understood that she had forgiven the brother, but not the man. One day
+she accompanied Henri to town and went with him to the Record Office, where
+he had to make some inquiries about the legality of adopting his own name.
+While he was questioning the keeper, she overheard two clerks discuss her
+brother and his claim. "He thinks the Villacourt family is extinct. But he
+is misinformed, although they have gone down in the world. In fact, I know
+the heir to the title--a M. Boisjorand with whom I once had a fight when we
+were boys. They lived in the forest of the Croix-du-Soldat, near St.
+Mihiel, at La Motte-Noire." Renée fixed these names in her mind.</p>
+
+<p>"I have got all I want," said Henri, gaily coming towards her. And they
+went out together.</p>
+
+<p>The Bourjots were giving a great ball to celebrate the public
+announcement of the engagement of their daughter to M. Mauperin de
+Villacourt.</p>
+
+<p>"You are enjoying yourself," said Renée to Noémi.</p>
+
+<p>"I have never danced so much, it is true." And Noémi took her arm
+and drew her into a small salon. "No, never." She kissed her. "Oh, what it
+is to be happy! She loves him no longer. I am sure of it--I can see it; I
+feel it."</p>
+
+<p>"And you love him now?"</p>
+
+<p>Noémi closed her mouth by pressing her lips upon Renée's.
+A young man came to claim Noémi for the dance, and Denoisel
+requested the same favour from Renée.</p>
+
+<p>Denoisel was with Henri Mauperin. They were smoking and talking
+peacefully, when the door was thrust open, and a man forced his way in,
+pushing aside the valet who wanted to prevent him from entering.</p>
+
+<p>"M. Mauperin de Villacourt?" he asked.</p>
+
+<p>"That is my name," said Henri, rising.</p>
+
+<p>"Good. My name is Boisjorand de Villacourt," retorted the stranger,
+striking him so violently on the cheek that his face was immediately
+covered with blood. Henri conquered his first impulse to throw himself upon
+the intruder, and said calmly, "You find that there is one Villacourt too
+many--so do I. Leave your card with my servant. I shall send to you
+to-morrow."</p>
+
+<p>It was from a marked number of the "Moniteur," which the impoverished
+heir of the glorious name of De Villacourt found on his return from a two
+years' sojourn in Africa, that M. Boisjorand had learned that Henri had
+taken from him this name, which was all that had come down to him from his
+famous ancestors. He immediately proceeded to Paris and sought legal
+advice, but found that his poverty rendered legal action impossible. After
+his interview with the solicitor, he went straight to Henri's apartment to
+obtain the only satisfaction that was in his power.</p>
+
+<p>Denoisel and another friend of Henri's arranged with Boisjorand's
+seconds next morning the details of the meeting. Henri, who was an
+excellent shot, had insisted on pistols at thirty-five paces, each
+combatant to have the right to advance ten steps. The duel was to take
+place at four o'clock the same afternoon near the ponds of Ville
+d'Avray.</p>
+
+<p>Neither of the two adversaries showed a trace of nervousness. The signal
+was given, M. De Villacourt advanced five steps, Henri remaining
+stationary. At the sixth step Henri fired, and his opponent fell. Henri
+hurried towards him.</p>
+
+<p>"Back to your place," shouted the wounded man. On his hands and knees he
+crawled forward to the limit of his advance leaving a trail of blood in the
+snow. Then he took careful aim--and Henri fell with arms extended and his
+face towards the ground.</p>
+
+
+<h4><i>IV.--Broken Wanderers</i></h4>
+
+
+<p>To Denoisel fell the painful duty of informing Mauperin of his son's
+death. The old man's grief was heartbreaking. When Denoisel was admitted to
+Renée, he found her sitting on a footstool, sobbing, with her
+handkerchief pressed to her mouth.</p>
+
+<p>"Renée," he said, taking her hands, "he has been killed--that man
+should never have known. He did not read, he saw nobody, he lived like a
+wolf--he was not a subscriber to the 'Moniteur.' Some enemy must have sent
+him that paper."</p>
+
+<p>Renée had risen; she moved her lips; she wanted to scream "It was
+I!" Then, suddenly pressing her hand against her heart, she fell senseless
+on the floor.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p>Renée did not seem to recover from her illness. Denoisel saw her
+daily, but a certain coldness had set in between them--he thought that
+Renée held him responsible for not having prevented the duel, while
+Renée vaguely feared that Denoisel had guessed her secret. He
+started upon a long journey.</p>
+
+<p>In those days of illness and anxiety the hearts of father and daughter
+seemed to come together more closely even than before. The heartbroken old
+man saw his beloved child wasting away. He called in the best specialist
+from Paris, who did not exactly give up all hope, but did not conceal that
+Renée's life was in danger. The poor girl, who could not bear to
+witness her father's misery, put on a gay air, assuring him again and again
+that she was recovering. Indeed, when, at her urging, the family removed to
+the country house where she had spent her childhood, there was a real and
+marked improvement, and for a while the roses seemed to return to her pale
+cheeks.</p>
+
+<p>But she soon fell back into her listless state. Thus she lingered on for
+several months, always cheering her father and speaking of her happy
+future, always fading away until she became a mere shadow of her former
+bright and healthy self. Only to Denoisel, when after a long absence he
+returned from the Pyrenees, she opened her heart. To him she confessed that
+she knew her days were counted.</p>
+
+<p>Those who travel far afield have perhaps met in foreign towns or among
+the ruins of dead places--now in Russia, now in Egypt--two aged people, a
+man and a woman, who seem to march along without looking and without
+seeing. They are the Mauperins--father and mother.</p>
+
+<p>They have sold everything and have gone. Thus they wander from land to
+land, from hotel to hotel. They wander, trying to lose their grief in the
+fatigue of the road, dragging their weary life to all the corners of the
+globe.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+
+
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="grant">JAMES GRANT</a></h2>
+
+
+<h3><a name="grant1">Bothwell</a></h3>
+
+<p class="letter">
+The author of "Bothwell," and many other romantic tales, was a
+Scotsman by birth, parentage, and perfervid sentiment. He was born at
+Edinburgh on August 1, 1822. His father was a distinguished Highland
+officer; by his mother he was related to his illustrious literary exemplar,
+Sir Walter Scott. He was only twenty-three years of age when "The Romance
+of War" made him one of the most famous authors of his day. Other tales
+quickly followed, including, in 1853, "Bothwell, or The Days of Mary Queen
+of Scots," and it seemed as if readers could not have too much of the
+lively adventure and vigorous historical portraiture to which Grant
+unfailingly treated them. Altogether he wrote more than fifty novels, many
+of them involving considerable research. Grant outlived his popularity; the
+public sought new writers, and when he died, on May 5, 1887, he was
+penniless. For fertility of incident, rapid change of scene, and skilful
+intermingling of historical with imaginary people and events, "Bothwell" is
+not surpassed by any of the romances that came from its author's fertile
+pen.
+</p>
+
+<h4><i>I.--Anna of Bergen</i></h4>
+
+
+<p>Erick Rosenkrantz, Governor of Aggerhuis, in Norway, and castellan of
+Bergen, stood in the hall of his castle to welcome noble guests. It was a
+bleak and stormy day in September of 1565. Ill, indeed, would it have fared
+with the newcomers had not Konrad of the Salzberg, the young captain of the
+crossbowmen of Bergen, ventured forth on the raging sea at the peril of his
+life, and piloted their vessel into safety.</p>
+
+<p>The first of these was a tall and handsome man, about thirty years old,
+with a peculiar, dare-devil expression in his deep, dark eye, richly
+attired, and wearing a long sword and Scottish dagger. His companion, who
+deferentially remained a few paces behind, was a man of gigantic stature,
+swarthy and dark in complexion, with fierce and restless eyes.</p>
+
+<p>"Sir Erick," began the chamberlain, "allow me to introduce Sir James
+Hepburn, Earl of Bothwell, a noble peer, ambassador from Mary Queen of
+Scots to his Danish majesty."</p>
+
+<p>"We thank you for your gracious hospitality, fair sir," said Bothwell,
+with a profound courtesy; then, turning to Konrad, "And now, brave youth,
+by whose valour we have been saved, let me thank <i>you</i>."</p>
+
+<p>He warmly shook Konrad's hand, while the youth tried to catch the eye of
+Anna, the governor's fair-haired and lovely niece. But Anna was too
+intently regarding the strangers.</p>
+
+<p>Suddenly Bothwell perceived her; his colour heightened, his eyes
+sparkled.</p>
+
+<p>"Anna--Lady Anna," he exclaimed, "art <i>thou</i> here? When we parted
+at the palace of King Frederick, I feared it was to meet no more."</p>
+
+<p>"Thou seest, my lord," she replied gaily, "that fate never meant to
+separate us altogether."</p>
+
+<p>It was Bothwell who sat by Anna's side at the banquet, not Konrad, her
+lover from childhood. Konrad was displaced and slighted; he left the hall
+with a heart full of jealous and bitter thoughts.</p>
+
+<p>"Dost thou not see the hand of fate in this meeting with Anna?" said
+Bothwell, when retiring, to his gigantic companion, Black Hob of Ormiston,
+the most merciless and ferocious of border barons.</p>
+
+<p>"Nay," said Hob; "I perceive only the finger of mischief!"</p>
+
+<p>"I own to thee," replied the earl, "that all my old passion is revived
+in full force. My whole heart and soul are hers," he went on
+passionately.</p>
+
+<p>"Remember your solemn plight to the Lady Jane Gordon. If that be broken,
+our doleful case will be worse than ever." For Bothwell was no ambassador,
+but an exile; and his real mission to King Frederick was in pursuit of a
+design to hand over the northern Scottish isles to Denmark, and become
+viceroy of them.</p>
+
+<p>"Hob, be not insolent," retorted Bothwell. "I love her a thousand times
+more than Huntly's sickly sister."</p>
+
+<p>It was always thus with this reckless noble--the passion of the moment
+was ever too strong for past pledges and future policy. While waiting at
+Bergen for the ship to be repaired, he wooed Anna with all the skill of an
+accomplished man of pleasure.</p>
+
+<p>Anna's heart was ready to be won, and it was not long ere Bothwell,
+having gained her love, asked Governor Rosenkrantz for her hand. To his
+mortification, he was refused. Anna, said the governor, had long been
+pledged to Konrad.</p>
+
+<p>But Konrad, meanwhile, was in despair. Anna no longer smiled upon him;
+he was lightly cast aside to make way for a more favoured lover. One
+evening he was missing. A day and a night passed, and Konrad was nowhere to
+be seen. Search for him was useless--he had disappeared.</p>
+
+<p>Two letters were brought to Bothwell by a king's messenger. One was from
+King Frederick, commanding him to desist from his mock embassy, and
+instantly leave the Danish seas; the other, from the Earl of Huntly, told
+him that his enemies in Scotland were banished, and his forfeiture
+reversed.</p>
+
+<p>Bothwell's thoughts instantly turned to Anna. He knew that she would not
+accompany him unless he married her, and policy now more than ever required
+that he should keep his troth to the sister of his friend, the Earl of
+Huntly. Then there occurred to him the sinister thought of a mock
+marriage.</p>
+
+<p>His actions were quick, and his persuasions, to the love-sick Anna,
+irresistible. That evening the two were wedded by a crazy hermit who dwelt
+among the rocks of the fjord, and Anna, without a word of farewell to her
+kin, left her native land, it might be for ever.</p>
+
+<p>A stormy voyage brought the ship to Westeray, in Shetland. Bothwell
+escorted Anna to the castle of Noltland; and as she landed at the pier, a
+young man sprang forward and helped her across the plank. She felt
+agitated, she knew not why; she looked at the man's face, but it was
+concealed. It was Konrad. He had fallen over a cliff, had been carried out
+to sea on a plank, had been picked up by a ship which had carried him to
+Shetland, and had taken service with the castellan of Noltland. The
+unexpected sight of Anna brought back his emotions to their starting-point,
+and recalled the poignancy of the hour in which he had realised that he had
+lost her.</p>
+
+
+<h4><i>II.--Bothwell Castle</i></h4>
+
+
+<p>"I have resolved!" exclaimed the earl, on the morning after their
+arrival at Noltland. "I would be worse than mad to forego the prospect of
+power by marring my union with the sister of Huntly."</p>
+
+<p>"Cock and pie! now thou speakest like a man of mettle!" growled Hob.</p>
+
+<p>"Anna is not my first love," mused the earl. "Have I not felt how feeble
+have been my sentiments for Anna, for Jane of Huntly, for all who have
+succeeded her whom I met in France long ago?"</p>
+
+<p>"Then thou wilt sail----"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, like &AElig;neas, leaving my Dido behind me."</p>
+
+<p>With a pretence of the love he felt no longer, Bothwell bade Anna
+farewell, and left her to doubts which, as the months went on and his
+promise to return was not fulfilled, gradually rose to despair.</p>
+
+<p>During the decline of a spring evening, as Anna wandered dejectedly on
+the battlements, Konrad stood before her for the first time since her
+arrival at Noltland.</p>
+
+<p>"Konrad," she faltered, "thou here!"</p>
+
+<p>"Anna--dear Anna!" exclaimed the unhappy young man. "I have tidings to
+tell thee. The false lord of Bothwell hath been espoused to the sister of
+Huntly!"</p>
+
+<p>"And I--" gasped Anna.</p>
+
+<p>"Thou art a captive for life in this island castle!"</p>
+
+<p>Anna would have fallen backwards had Konrad not sprung to her
+assistance.</p>
+
+<p>"Listen," he said, in a low voice. "If thou wouldst escape, an hour will
+set thee free."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, land me once in Scotland, and I will make my way to Bothwell."</p>
+
+<p>That night Anna was on a Norwegian vessel bound for Glasgow, and Konrad
+was with her. She could not, he knew, be his bride, but he could at least
+protect and cherish her, and strive to redress the wrongs she had
+suffered.</p>
+
+<p>A storm was gathering above the lovely valley of the Clyde one June
+evening as two strangers--a man and a woman--plodded wearily towards
+Bothwell Castle. The woman became wholly exhausted; the man laid her gently
+down in shelter among the ruins of Blantyre Priory, and went on his errand
+alone. The storm had now burst, and the river was rising rapidly; but
+Konrad--for it was he--plunged into the raging waters, and strove to swim
+across. The current was too strong for him; he clung to an ash tree that
+projected over the stream, and was nearly exhausted when a man on the bank
+flung down his mantle and poniard, plunged in, and dragged him to the
+shore.</p>
+
+<p>Konrad, almost senseless, was carried within the castle. When he had
+revived and was dressed in dry garments, he was brought before his
+rescuer--it was Bothwell himself.</p>
+
+<p>"I thank thee," said Konrad proudly, "for saving my life."</p>
+
+<p>"Thou didst save mine. We are now equal," replied the earl.</p>
+
+<p>"'Tis well! I would not be <i>thy</i> debtor for all the silver in the
+mines of Bergen! Lord of Bothwell, I tell thee in thine own hall that thou
+art a dishonoured villain!"</p>
+
+<p>"Thou art stark mad!" cried the earl. Then he went on, "Konrad, I have
+wronged thee deeply. In my youth I loved one who neglected me as cruelly as
+thou hast been neglected, and since then a mischievous spirit of vengeance,
+as it were, has led me to make women my playthings, to be won and thrown
+aside. I love thy spirit, Konrad. If I could be thy friend----"</p>
+
+<p>"Never!" cried Konrad. "I come not for friendship, but for justice to
+Anna! Hast thou not wedded another after thine espousal of her?"</p>
+
+<p>"Dost thou deem the mock blessing of yon mad hermit a spousal rite?"
+exclaimed the earl, laughing.</p>
+
+<p>Konrad repressed his passion.</p>
+
+<p>"I go to push my fortune with your turbulent border chiefs; and if, in
+the strife that will soon convulse this land, thou meetest Konrad of
+Salzberg, look well to thyself!"</p>
+
+<p>"Go thy way, and God be with thee!" replied the earl. "Thou art the
+first who hath bent a dark brow on a lord of Bothwell under his own
+roof-tree."</p>
+
+<p>Konrad returned to Anna, and in the ruined priory told her how Bothwell
+was false to her. Anna's grief was dreadful to behold.</p>
+
+<p>"Anna," said Konrad, after a pause, "Scotland hath a queen whose
+goodness of heart is revered in every land save her own."</p>
+
+<p>"True; and at her feet will I pour forth my sorrow and my tears
+together."</p>
+
+<p>So the two traversed the thickets around the priory, and reached the
+broad highway, which was to lead them at length to Edinburgh.</p>
+
+
+<h4><i>III.--Mary Queen of Scots</i></h4>
+
+
+<p>But it was long ere Anna looked upon the face of the queen. At the Red
+Lion Inn in Edinburgh her beauty struck the eye of the Earl of Morton, the
+factious, proud, and ferocious associate of Moray in all the dark intrigues
+of that craftiest of Scottish statesmen. Morton promised that Anna should
+be entrusted to a lady of fair repute, and soon presented to the queen.
+Konrad trusted him, little knowing that the repute of Dame Alison Craig,
+Anna's new guardian, was anything but fair, and set forth for the
+Border.</p>
+
+<p>It was to Sir John Elliot of Park that he offered the service of his
+sword, for it was against this turbulent borderer, who had just raided
+Northumberland, and threatened the peace of the two kingdoms, that Bothwell
+was advancing with the army of Queen Mary. Now garrisoning some solitary
+peel-tower, now hiding in some unfathomed cavern, now issuing with uplifted
+lance from the haggs of some deep moss, Konrad engaged with ardour in every
+desperate foray, and his daring made him the idol of the wild spirits
+around him. In every deed of arms one thought was in his mind--to come
+within a lance-length of Bothwell.</p>
+
+<p>Long and fierce was the struggle, but it ended as a fight so unequal was
+bound to end. John of Park was slain, refusing with his dying breath to
+surrender, and Konrad was carried, a half-senseless captive to Bothwell's
+castle of Hermitage. Even then the earl spared his life. He lay in a
+hideous den, in pitch darkness and dead silence broken only by the splash
+of drops of fetid water that fell from the slimy arch of the vault.</p>
+
+<p>No token reached him of what was happening above; and an event happened
+there that had vast influence on Bothwell's future. Across the hills to
+Hermitage rode the Queen of Scots herself. The sight of her stirred in
+Bothwell's heart an emotion he had never wholly conquered, for she, Mary
+herself, was his first love of the bygone days in France. He had begun to
+realise that he loved her still; he knew the coldness of her relations with
+the dissolute and unfaithful Darnley, her husband; now she had come to
+Hermitage.</p>
+
+<p>"Jesu Maria!" cried the queen, as Bothwell, with beating heart, paused
+in the conversation. "Have you lost your tongue?"</p>
+
+<p>"Nay, madame--my heart."</p>
+
+<p>"That is very serious; but search for another."</p>
+
+<p>"I want no other," replied the earl, in a trembling voice, "but
+<i>thine</i>!"</p>
+
+<p>"Lord Bothwell," she said, with a hauteur that froze her admirer, "thou
+art in a dream."</p>
+
+<p>"Pardon me, I pray you--"</p>
+
+<p>"I do pardon thee," replied the queen, with a calm smile; but added,
+significantly, "I think 'tis time I was riding from Hermitage."</p>
+
+<p>So ended the famous visit to Hermitage, which was interpreted throughout
+Scotland as a token of Mary's love for her favourite earl.</p>
+
+<p>Konrad, a month afterwards, was sent to Edinburgh and confined in the
+old tower of Holyrood, awaiting trial as a Border outlaw. Bothwell himself
+soon followed, and celebrated his return by a wild revel in company with
+Hob of Ormiston and other choice spirits.</p>
+
+<p>As the revellers wandered through the narrow streets at midnight,
+seeking a quarrel, they passed the house of Dame Alison Craig.</p>
+
+<p>"My page tells me," said Bothwell, "there is a famous foreign beauty
+concealed there. Ho! within!"</p>
+
+<p>A stoup of water, poured on them from an upper window, was the answer.
+They broke open the door, and forced the shrieking dame to lead them to the
+apartment where the foreign beauty was hidden.</p>
+
+<p>"Death and confusion!" muttered the earl when he saw who was within.</p>
+
+<p>"Cock and pie!" said Ormiston. "We have started the wrong game."</p>
+
+<p>Hastily they thrust back their companions. But Anna had recognised him.
+When Morton had made advances towards her, she had repulsed him scornfully,
+telling him she was the Countess of Bothwell. Morton had seized on this
+opportunity of injuring a man he hated, and resolved to bring Anna before
+the queen. Bothwell now knew the danger before him, and prepared for
+it.</p>
+
+<p>Next day, as the queen sat with her grim lords in council, Morton led in
+Anna.</p>
+
+<p>"I have the pleasure," said he, "to present a lady who accuseth the Earl
+of Bothwell of wedding and ignobly deserting her."</p>
+
+<p>"'Tis false, Lord Earl!" cried Bothwell.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, madam, hear my story, and condemn me not unheard," pleaded
+Anna.</p>
+
+<p>"Let her speak for herself," said Mary.</p>
+
+<p>Thus encouraged, Anna, in moving accents, told her story.</p>
+
+<p>"A meloncholy tale, in sooth," said Mary; "but what proof is there?"</p>
+
+<p>"Your majesty," said Bothwell, "this is the invention of some unknown
+enemy"--he glanced at Morton--"to deprive me of your royal favour. Let this
+frantic damsel be removed to a Danish vessel now at Leith, and conveyed to
+her home."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, so be it!" replied the facile queen.</p>
+
+<p>Anna drew herself up to her full height.</p>
+
+<p>"Farewell, Bothwell," she cried. "In that dark time of ruin and regret
+that is coming upon thee, remember Anna!"</p>
+
+<p>And as she spoke they hurried her away.</p>
+
+<p>Bothwell henceforth was more than ever in the queen's favour. Only the
+life of Darnley intervened between him and the goal of his love and
+ambition; and the sinister promptings of Ormiston suggested that even that
+obstacle was not irremovable.</p>
+
+
+<h4><i>IV.--The Kirk of Field</i></h4>
+
+
+<p>On a dark winter night a conference of nobles was held at Whittinghame.
+Mary had been asked to divorce her husband, and had proudly and indignantly
+refused. Only one way remained. A solemn bond was drawn up among the
+assembled nobles, and the bond sealed the fate of Darnley. It was not
+without doubt and shrinking that Bothwell saw whither his schemes were
+leading him, but he would not, he could not, turn back.</p>
+
+<p>It was at Ormiston's suggestion that Konrad was employed as an
+unconscious tool in the affair. Ormiston hinted that with a little
+adroitness the whole blame might be laid on the unhappy prisoner. Konrad
+accordingly, on the night when the deed was to be done, was awakened from a
+reverie in his cell at Holyrood by the entry of a tall, masked figure.</p>
+
+<p>"If thou wouldst attain liberty, follow me!" said Ormiston, for it was
+he.</p>
+
+<p>He put a sword in Konrad's hand. Konrad as he grasped the weapon, felt
+his spirits rise again, and he followed.</p>
+
+<p>Presently they came to a group of masked men, and silently the party
+went through a private door in the city walls. Their destination, though
+Konrad knew it not, was the lonely house of the Kirk of Field, where
+Darnley was lying slowly recovering from small-pox--an illness through
+which the queen, forgetting her wrongs at his hands, had tenderly nursed
+him.</p>
+
+<p>Konrad, arrived at the house, helped to unload a horse of heavy packages
+which he conjectured to contain plunder; but it was gunpowder that he
+unwittingly handled.</p>
+
+<p>Suddenly a piercing cry came from above. A moment later the startled
+Konrad perceived Bothwell, his mask awry, his eyes glazed and haggard.</p>
+
+<p>"Thou hast done well!" said Ormiston grimly.</p>
+
+<p>"Well! My God!" groaned the earl.</p>
+
+<p>"Away while I fire the train!" shouted Ormiston.</p>
+
+<p>Like a fiery serpent the train glowed along the ground. Then, red and
+lurid in the shadowy night, there flashed a volume of dazzling light; then
+came a roar as if the earth was splitting.</p>
+
+<p>Konrad fled in bewildered terror, and wandered about the outskirts of
+the city until, in a little ruined chapel on the verge of a moor, he lay
+down exhausted and fell asleep.</p>
+
+<p>In the morning he was awakened by a rough grasp on his shoulder.</p>
+
+<p>"We have meshed one of the knaves at least," said a stern voice. Konrad
+found himself amidst knights and men-at-arms, and he was led back to the
+city.</p>
+
+<p>The citizens were in arms, furious at the outrage of the night before.
+The appearance of a suspected murderer aroused their passion to the utmost;
+Konrad's escort was overpowered and thrust aside. "Awa' wi' him to the
+Papist's pillar!" cried a voice. Down they went with him to the North Loch,
+and tied him there to an oaken stake about five feet deep in the water--a
+spot where many a luckless Catholic had perished. The mob retired, and
+Konrad was left alone, helpless, and to die.</p>
+
+<p>Bothwell sat by the fire in his apartments at Holyrood, with knit brows
+and muttering lips; the word he muttered was, "Murderer." The shriek of the
+man whose death-blow he had struck still echoed in his ears.</p>
+
+<p>Presently there entered the room one of his followers, Hepburn of
+Bolton.</p>
+
+<p>"The Norwegian hath been bound to the Papist's pillar," said he; "and by
+this time he must be dead, for it rains heavily, and the loch fills
+fast."</p>
+
+<p>"One other life!" said the earl gloomily. "By heaven, Bolton! if I can
+save him--come!"</p>
+
+<p>In the darkness and the rain, with the water rising around him, Konrad
+waited for death. A sound of oars roused him from the stupefaction into
+which he had fallen. "Here, here! His head is above water still," said a
+voice. The bonds were cut, Konrad was dragged into the boat and taken to
+land, and offered a draught that revived him.</p>
+
+<p>"Here we part," said the voice. "Give him dry garments, and take him to
+the Norwegian vessel, and bid him cross my path no more!"</p>
+
+<p>"Who art thou?" asked Konrad feebly.</p>
+
+<p>"Thy greatest enemy, James, Earl of Bothwell!"</p>
+
+<p>Slowly Konrad mounted the horse that had been brought for him, and with
+difficulty he rode; but the morning saw him on board a vessel of Bergen, in
+the hands of countrymen and friends.</p>
+
+<p>Bothwell was tried for the murder of Darnley, and triumphantly
+acquitted. He procured the secret assent of the nobles to his marriage with
+Mary; he divorced the Countess Jane; one more vigorous action, and the goal
+would be attained.</p>
+
+<p>On an April day, as Mary rode along the Stirling road towards Edinburgh,
+her way was barred by a thousand armed horsemen in close array; and
+Bothwell, riding up, requested that she should accompany him to his castle
+of Dunbar. It was useless to resist. Once in the castle, Bothwell offered
+her his hand, and was proudly refused.</p>
+
+<p>"Lord Earl," cried Mary, "thou mayest tremble when I leave Dunbar!"</p>
+
+<p>"Madame," he replied, "thou shalt never leave Dunbar but as the bride of
+Bothwell!"</p>
+
+<p>In May, Mary and Bothwell were married. A month later Bothwell fled
+before the wrath of an outraged nation, never to see Mary again; and within
+a week of their parting he roamed a pirate on the northern seas.</p>
+
+
+<h4><i>V.--Nemesis</i></h4>
+
+
+<p>A large Danish war vessel approached the port of Bergen, with prisoners
+to hand over to the castellan--the new castellan, for old Erick Rosenkrantz
+was dead. Chief of the captives was Bothwell, nonchalant but melancholy,
+pale, and more thoughtful than formerly; still, in pleasure and in sorrow,
+was he haunted by the shriek of the dying Darnley.</p>
+
+<p>Near him stood one who was not a captive, but a returning wanderer.
+Konrad had again crossed the path of the earl; his vessel, long detained in
+port, and afterwards delayed by storms, had been captured by the Scottish
+pirate ship, and he had been rescued from this new misfortune by the great
+Norwegian war vessel.</p>
+
+<p>The prisoners were escorted to the hall of the castle, and Bothwell
+assumed his most defiant look. The arras that concealed the da&iuml;s was
+withdrawn, and Bothwell looked upon the face of the hereditary castellan of
+Bergen, Anna Rosenkrantz!</p>
+
+<p>On seeing the earl, she turned pale as death. The earl recovered
+instantly from his surprise, and bowed smilingly.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, madam," said he, "we foresaw not this meeting!"</p>
+
+<p>"Dost thou know," replied Anna firmly, "that thy life and liberty are in
+my power?"</p>
+
+<p>"I am assured," he answered, "that they could not be in safer
+keeping."</p>
+
+<p>"Regicide and betrayer," return Anna, with flashing eyes, "from this
+hour thou shalt have meted out to thee the stern measures thou hast so
+ruthlessly dealt to others. This man," she went on, turning to the captain
+of the war ship, "is the king's prisoner; away with him to the Castle of
+Kiobenhafen--be under sail before sunset!"</p>
+
+<p>Red-bearded Danish bowmen crowded round the earl, who thus passed away
+to the wretched captivity that ended only with his death, ten years
+afterwards.</p>
+
+<p>Konrad, unnoticed and uncared for, stood alone in the hall where he had
+once been so welcome a guest. He had no intention of remaining in a place
+where all was so changed; but ere he turned to leave it for ever he paused
+a moment irresolutely. Once more the arras was withdrawn, and Anna stood
+before him.</p>
+
+<p>"I heard thou wert here, Konrad," she said, with a blushing cheek.
+"Wouldst thou go without one word to me?"</p>
+
+<p>She seated herself in the recess of a window. "I have long wished," she
+faltered, "to see thee once more. I have now seen the worth and faith of
+thy heart when contrasted with mine own, and I blush for my weakness--my
+wickedness--my folly. Thou mayest deem this unwomanly--indelicate; but in
+love we are equal, and why may not one make reparation as the other?"</p>
+
+<p>"Anna," said Konrad, in a choking voice, "though my heart be soured and
+saddened, my first sentiment for thee hath never altered. For all thou hast
+made me endure I forgive thee, and I pray that thou mayest be happy.
+Anna--dearest Anna--I am going far away, for I have doomed myself to exile,
+but I still regard thee as a sister--as a friend. All is forgotten and
+forgiven. And now, farewell!"</p>
+
+<p>He felt the hand of Anna in his; another moment, and she sank upon his
+breast.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, Konrad," she whispered, "if my heart is still prized by thee, it is
+thine, as in the days of our first love."</p>
+
+<p>And, borne away by his passion, the forgiving Konrad pressed the woman
+he loved closer and closer to his breast.
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
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diff --git a/old/old/10921-8.txt b/old/old/10921-8.txt
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+++ b/old/old/10921-8.txt
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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The World's Greatest Books, Vol IV.
+by Editors: Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The World's Greatest Books, Vol IV.
+
+Author: Editors: Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton
+
+Release Date: February 3, 2004 [EBook #10921]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK GREATEST BOOKS, V4 ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by John Hagerson, Kevin Handy and PG Distributed Proofreaders
+
+
+
+
+THE WORLD'S
+GREATEST
+BOOKS
+
+JOINT EDITORS
+
+ARTHUR MEE
+Editor and Founder of the Book of Knowledge
+
+J. A. HAMMERTON
+Editor of Harmsworth's Universal Encyclopaedia
+
+VOL. IV
+FICTION
+
+
+
+Table of Contents
+
+EBERS, GEORG
+  An Egyptian Princess
+
+EDGEWORTH, MARIE
+  Belinda
+  Castle Rackrent
+
+ELIOT, GEORGE
+  Adam Bede
+  Felix Holt
+  Romola
+  Silas Marner
+  The Mill on the Floss
+
+ERCKMANN-CHATRIAN
+  Waterloo
+
+FEUILLET, OCTAVE
+  Romance of a Poor Young Man
+
+FIELDING, HENRY
+  Amelia
+  Jonathan Wild
+  Joseph Andrews
+  Tom Jones
+
+FLAMMARION, CAMILLE
+  Urania
+
+FOUQUÉ, DE LA MOTTE
+  Undine
+
+GABORIAU, EMILE
+  File No. 113
+
+GALT, JOHN
+  Annals of the Parish
+
+GASKELL, MRS.
+  Cranford
+  Mary Barton
+
+GODWIN, WILLIAM
+  Caleb Williams
+
+GOETHE
+  Sorrows of Young Werther
+  Wilhelm Meister
+
+GOLDSMITH, OLIVER
+  Vicar of Wakefield
+
+GONCOURT, EDMOND AND JULES DE
+  Renée Mauperin
+
+GRANT, JAMES
+  Bothwell
+
+
+A Complete Index of THE WORLD'S GREATEST BOOKS will be found at the end
+of Volume XX.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+GEORG EBERS
+
+
+An Egyptian Princess
+
+
+     Georg Moritz Ebers, a great Orientalist and Egyptologist, was
+     born in Berlin on March 1, 1837, received his first
+     instruction at Keilhau in Thuringen, then attended a college
+     at Quedlinburg, and finally took up the study of law at
+     Göttingen University. In 1858, when his feet became lame, he
+     abandoned this study, and took up philology and archæology.
+     After 1859 he devoted himself almost exclusively to
+     Egyptology. Having recovered from his long illness, he visited
+     the most important European museums, and in 1869 he travelled
+     to Egypt, Nubia, and Arabia. On his return he took the chair
+     of Egyptology at Leipzig University. He went back to Egypt in
+     1872, and discovered, besides many other important
+     inscriptions, the famous papyrus which bears his name. "An
+     Egyptian Princess" is his first important novel, written
+     during his illness, and published in 1864. It has gone through
+     numerous editions, and has been translated into most European
+     languages. It was followed by several other similar works of
+     fiction, of which "Serapis" achieved wide popularity. Ebers
+     died on August 7, 1898.
+
+
+_I.--The Royal Bride_
+
+
+A cavalcade of dazzling splendour was moving along the high road towards
+Babylon. The embassy sent by Cambyses, the mighty King of the East, had
+accomplished its mission, and now Nitetis, the daughter of Amasis, King
+of Egypt, was on the way to meet her future spouse. At the head of the
+sumptuous escort were Bartja, Cambyses' handsome golden-haired younger
+brother; his kinsman Darius; Croesus, the dethroned King of Lydia, and
+his son Gyges; Prexaspes, the king's ambassador, and Zopyrus, the son of
+Megabyzus, a Persian noble.
+
+A few miles before the gates of Babylon they perceived a troop of
+horsemen galloping towards them. Cambyses himself came to honour his
+bride. His pale face, framed by an immense black beard, expressed great
+power and unbounded pride. Deep pallor and bright colour flitted by
+turns across the face of Nitetis, as his fiery eyes fixed her with a
+piercing gaze. Then he waved a welcome, sprang from his horse, shook
+Croesus by the hand, and asked him to act as interpreter. "She is
+beautiful and pleases me well," said the king. And Nitetis, who had
+begun to learn the language of her new home on the long journey, blushed
+deeply and began softly in broken Persian, "Blessed be the gods, who
+have caused me to find favour in thine eyes."
+
+Cambyses was delighted with her desire to win his approbation and with
+her industry and intellect, so different from the indolence and idleness
+of the Persian women in his harem. His wonder and satisfaction increased
+when, after recommending her to obey the orders of Boges, the eunuch,
+who was head over the house of women, she reminded him that she was a
+king's daughter, bound to obey the commands of her lord, but unable to
+bow to a venal servant.
+
+Her pride found an echo in his own haughty disposition. "You have spoken
+well. A separate dwelling shall be appointed you. I, and no one else,
+will prescribe your rules of life and conduct. Tell me now, how my
+messengers pleased you and your countrymen?"
+
+"Who could know the noble Croesus without loving him? Who could fail to
+admire the beauty of the young heroes, your friends, and especially of
+your handsome brother Bartja? The Egyptians have no love for strangers,
+but he won all hearts."
+
+At these words the king's brows darkened, he struck his horse so that
+the creature reared, and then, turning it quickly round, he galloped
+towards Babylon. He decided in his mind to give Bartja the command of an
+expedition against the Tapuri, and to make him marry Rosana, the
+daughter of a Persian noble. He also determined to make Nitetis his real
+queen and adviser. She was to be to him what his mother Kassandane had
+been to Cyrus, his great father. Not even Phædime, his favourite wife,
+had occupied such a position. And as for Bartja, "he had better take
+care," he murmured, "or he shall know the fate that awaits the man who
+dares to cross my path."
+
+
+_II.--The Plot_
+
+
+According to Persian custom a year had to pass before Nitetis could
+become Cambyses' lawful wife, but, conscious of his despotic power, he
+had decided to reduce this term to a few months. Meanwhile, he only saw
+the fair Egyptian in the presence of his blind mother or of his sister
+Atossa, both of whom became Nitetis' devoted friends. Meanwhile, Boges,
+the eunuch, sank in public estimation, since it was known that Cambyses
+had ceased to visit the harem, and he began to conspire with Phædime as
+to the best way of ruining Nitetis, who had come to love Cambyses with
+ever growing passion.
+
+The Egyptian princess's happiness was seriously disturbed by the arrival
+of a letter from her mother, which brought her naught but sad news. Her
+father, Amasis, had been struck with blindness on the very day she had
+reached Babylon; and her frail twin-sister Tachot, after falling into a
+violent fever, was wasting away for love of Bartja, whose beauty had
+captured her heart at the time of his mission in Sais. His name had been
+even on her lips in her delirium, and the only hope for her was to see
+him again.
+
+Nitetis' whole happiness was destroyed in one moment. She wept and
+sighed, until she fell asleep from sheer exhaustion. When her maid
+Mandane came to put a last touch to her dress for the banquet, she found
+her sleeping, and as there was ample time she went out into the garden,
+where she met the eunuch Boges. He was the bearer of good news. Mandane
+had been brought up with the children of a Magian, one of whom was now
+the high-priest Oropastes. Love had sprung up between her and his
+handsome brother Gaumata; and Oropastes, who had ambitious schemes, had
+sent his brother to Rhagæ and procured her a situation at court, so that
+they might forget one another. And now Gaumata had come and begged her
+to meet him next evening in the hanging gardens. Mandane consented after
+a hard struggle.
+
+Boges hurried away with malicious pleasure in the near success of his
+scheme. He met one of the gardeners, whom he promised to bring some of
+the nobles to inspect a special kind of blue lily, in which the gardener
+took great pride. He then hurried to the harem, to make sure that the
+king's wives should look their best, and insisted upon Phædime painting
+her face white, and putting on a simple, dark dress without ornament,
+except the chain given her by Cambyses on her marriage, to arouse the
+pity of the Achæmenidæ, to which family she herself belonged.
+
+The eunuch's cunning scheme succeeded but too well. At the end of the
+great banquet Bartja, to whom Cambyses had promised to grant a favour on
+his victorious return from the war, confessed to him his love for
+Sappho, a charming and cultured Greek maiden of noble descent, whom he
+wished to make his wife. Cambyses was delighted at this proof of the
+injustice of his jealous suspicions, and announced aloud that Bartja
+would in a few days depart to bring home a bride. At these words
+Nitetis, thinking of her poor sister's misery, fainted.
+
+Cambyses sprang up pale as death; his lips trembled and his fist was
+clenched. Nitetis looked at him imploringly, but he commanded Boges to
+take the women back to their apartments. "Sleep well, Egyptian, and pray
+to the gods to give you the power of dissembling your feelings. Here,
+give me wine; but taste it well, for to-day, for the first time, I fear
+poison. Do you hear, Egyptian? Yes, all the poison, as well as the
+medicine, comes from Egypt."
+
+Boges gave strict orders that nobody--not even the queen-mother or
+Croesus--was to have access to the hanging gardens, whither he had
+conducted Nitetis. Cambyses, meanwhile, continued the drinking bout,
+thinking the while of punishment for the false woman. Bartja could have
+had no share in her perfidy, or he would have killed him on the spot;
+but he would send him away. And Nitetis should be handed to Boges, to be
+made the servant of his concubines and thus to atone for her crimes.
+
+When the king left the hall, Boges, who had slipped out before him,
+intercepted one of the gardener's boys with a letter for Prince Bartja.
+The boy refused to hand it over, as Nitetis had instructed him to hand
+it only to the prince; and on Cambyses' approach the boy fell on his
+knees, touching the ground with his forehead. Cambyses snatched the
+papyrus roll from his hand, and stamped furiously on the ground at
+seeing that the letter was written in Greek, which he could not read. He
+went to his own apartments, followed by Boges, whom he instructed to
+keep a strict watch over the Egyptian and the hanging gardens. "If a
+single human being or a message reach her without my knowledge, your
+life will be the forfeit."
+
+Boges, pleading a burning fever, begged that Kandaules, the Lydian
+captain of eunuchs, who was true as gold and inflexibly severe, should
+relieve him on the morrow. On the king's consent, he begged furthermore
+that Oropastes, Croesus, and three other nobles should be allowed to
+witness the opening of the blue lily in the hanging gardens. Kandaules
+would see that they enter into no communication with the Egyptian.
+
+"Kandaules must keep his eyes open, if he values his own life--go!"
+
+
+_III.--Conflicting Evidence_
+
+
+The hunt was over, and Bartja, who had invited his bosom friends,
+Darius, Gyges, Zopyrus, and Croesus, to drink a parting-cup with him,
+sat with the first three in the bower of the royal gardens. They talked
+long of love, of their ambitions, of the influence of stars on human
+destinies, when Croesus rapidly approached the arbour. When he beheld
+Bartja, he stood transfixed, then whispered to him, "Unhappy boy, you
+are still here? Fly for your life! The whip-bearers are close on my
+heels."
+
+"What do you mean?"
+
+"Fly, I tell you, even if your visit to the hanging gardens was
+innocently meant. You know Cambyses' violent temper. You know his
+jealousy of you; and your visit to the Egyptian to-night...."
+
+"My visit? I have never left this garden!"
+
+"Don't add a lie to your offense. Save yourself, quickly."
+
+"I speak the truth, and I shall remain."
+
+"You are infatuated. We saw you in the hanging-gardens not an hour ago."
+
+Bartja appealed to his friends, who confirmed on oath the truth of his
+assertion; and before Croesus could arrive at a solution of the mystery,
+the soldiers had arrived, led by an officer who had served under Bartja.
+He had orders to arrest everybody found in the suspect's company, but at
+the risk of his life urged Bartja to escape the king's fury. His men
+would blindly follow his command. But Bartja steadfastly refused. He was
+innocent, and knew that Cambyses, though hasty, was not unjust.
+
+Two hours later Bartja and his friends stood before the king who had
+just recovered from an epileptic fit. A few hours earlier he would have
+killed Bartja with his own hands. Now he was ready to lend an ear to
+both sides. Boges first related that he was with the Achæmenidæ, looking
+at the blue lily, and called Kandaules to inquire if everything was in
+order. On being told that Nitetis had not tasted food or drink all day,
+he sent Kandaules to fetch a physician. It was then that he saw Bartja
+by the princess's window. She herself came out of the sleep-room.
+Croesus called to Bartja, and the two figures disappeared behind a
+cypress. He went to search the house and found Nitetis lying unconscious
+on a couch. Hystaspes and the other nobles confirmed the eunuch's words,
+and even Croesus had to admit their substantial truth, but added that
+they must have been deceived by some remarkable likeness--at which Boges
+grew pale.
+
+Bartja's friends were equally definite in their evidence for the
+accused. Cambyses looked first on the one, then on the other party of
+these strange witnesses. Then Bartja begged permission to speak.
+
+"A son of Cyrus," he said, "would rather die than lie. I confess no
+judge was ever placed in so perplexing a position. But were the entire
+Persian nation to rise up against you, and swear that Cambyses had
+committed an evil deed, and you were to say, 'I did not commit it,' I,
+Bartja, would give all Persia the lie and exclaim, 'Ye are all false
+witnesses! A son of Cyrus cannot allow his mouth to deal in lies.' I
+swear to you that I am innocent. I have not once set foot in the hanging
+gardens since my return."
+
+Cambyses' looks grew milder on hearing these words, and when Oropastes
+suggested that an evil spirit must have taken Bartja's form to ruin him,
+he nodded assent and stretched out his hand towards Bartja. At this
+moment a staff-bearer came in and gave the king a dagger found by a
+eunuch under Nitetis' window. Cambyses examined it, dashed the dagger
+violently to the ground, and shrieked, "This is your dagger! At last you
+are convicted, you liar! Ah, you are feeling in your girdle! You may
+well turn pale, your dagger is gone! Seize him, put on his fetters! He
+shall be strangled to-morrow! Away with you, you perjured villains! They
+shall all die to-morrow! And the Egyptian--at noon she shall be flogged
+through the streets. Then I'll----"
+
+But here he was stopped by another fit of epilepsy, and sank down in
+convulsions.
+
+The fate of the unfortunates was sealed when, afterwards, Cambyses made
+Croesus read to him Nitetis' Greek letter to Bartja.
+
+"Nitetis, daughter of Amasis of Egypt, to Bartja, son of the great
+Cyrus.
+
+"I have something important to tell you; I can tell it to no one but
+yourself. To-morrow I hope to meet you in your mother's rooms. It lies
+in your power to comfort a sad and loving heart, and to give it one
+happy moment before death. I repeat that I must see you soon."
+
+Croesus, who tried to intercede on behalf of the condemned, was
+sentenced to share their fate. In his heart even he was now convinced of
+Bartja's guilt, and of the perjury of his own son and of Darius.
+
+
+_IV.--The Unexpected Witness_
+
+
+Nitetis had passed many a wretched hour since the great banquet. All day
+long she was kept in strict seclusion, and in the twilight Boges came to
+her to tell her jeeringly that her letter had fallen into the king's
+hand, and that its bearer had been executed. The princess swooned away,
+and Boges carried her to her sleeping-room, the door of which he barred
+carefully. When, later, Mandane left her lover Gaumata, the maid hurried
+into her mistress's room, found her in a faint, and used every remedy to
+restore her to consciousness.
+
+Then Boges came with two eunuchs, loaded the princess's arms with
+fetters, and gave vent to his long-nourished spite, telling her of the
+awful fate that was in store for her. Nitetis resolved to swallow a
+poisonous ointment for the complexion directly the executioner should
+draw near her. Then, in spite of her fetters, she managed to write to
+Cambyses, to assure him once more of her love and to explain her
+innocence. "I commit this crime against myself, Cambyses, to save you
+from doing a disgraceful deed."
+
+Meanwhile, Boges, after exciting Phædime's curiosity by many vague
+hints, divulged to her the nature of his infamous scheme. When Gaumata
+had come to Babylon for the New Year's festival, Boges had discovered
+his remarkable likeness to Bartja. He knew of his love for Mandane,
+gained his confidence, and arranged the nocturnal meeting under Nitetis'
+bedroom window. In return he exacted the promise of the lover's
+immediate departure after the meeting. He helped him to escape through a
+trap-door. To get Bartja out of the way, he had induced a Greek merchant
+to dispatch a letter to the prince, asking him, in the name of her he
+loved best, to come alone in the evening to the first station outside
+the Euphrates gate. Unfortunately, the messenger managed the matter
+clumsily, and apparently gave the letter to Gaumata. But to counteract
+Bartja's proof of innocence, Boges had managed to get hold of his
+dagger, which was conclusive evidence. And now Nitetis was sentenced to
+be set astride upon an ass and led through the streets of Babylon. As
+for Gaumata, three men were lying in wait for him to throw him into the
+Euphrates before he could get back to Rhagae. Phædime joined in Boges'
+laughter, and hung a heavy jewel-studded chain round his neck.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+A few hours only were wanted for the time fixed for Nitetis' disgrace,
+and the streets of Babylon were thronged with a dense crowd of
+sightseers, when a small caravan approached the Bel gate. In the first
+carriage was a fine, handsome man of about fifty, of commanding aspect,
+and dressed as a Persian courtier. With difficulty the driver cleared a
+passage through the crowd. "Make way for us! The royal post has no time
+to lose, and I am driving some one who will make you repent every
+minute's delay." They arrived at the palace, and the stranger's
+insistence succeeded in gaining admission to the king. The Greek--for
+such the stranger had declared himself--affirmed that he could prove the
+condemned men's innocence.
+
+"Call him in!" exclaimed Cambyses. "But if he wants to deceive me, let
+him remember that where the head of a son of Cyrus is about to fall, a
+Greek head has but very little chance." The Greek's calm and noble
+manner impressed Cambyses favourably, and his hostility was entirely
+overcome when the stranger revealed to him that he was Phanes, the
+famous commander of the Greek mercenaries in Egypt, and that he had come
+to offer his service to Cambyses.
+
+Phanes now related how, on approaching Babylon by the royal post, just
+before midnight, they heard some cries of distress, and found three
+fierce-looking fellows dragging a youth towards the river; how with his
+Greek war-cry he had rushed on the murderers, slain one of them, and put
+the others to flight; and how he discovered--so he thought--the youth to
+be none other but Bartja, whom he had met at the Egyptian court.
+
+They took him to the nearest station, bled him, and bound up his wounds.
+When he regained consciousness, he told them his name was Gaumata. Then
+he was seized by fever, during which he constantly spoke of the hanging
+gardens and of his Mandane.
+
+"Set the prisoners free, my king. I will answer for it with my own head,
+that Bartja was not in the hanging gardens."
+
+The king was surprised at this speech, but not angry. Phanes then
+advised him to send for Oropastes and Mandane, whose examination
+elicited the full truth. Boges, who was also sent for, had disappeared.
+Cambyses had all the prisoners set free, gave Phanes his hand to kiss--a
+rare honour--and, greater honour still, invited him to eat at the king's
+table. Then he went to the rooms of his mother, who had sent for him.
+
+Nitetis had been carried insensible to the queen-mother's apartments.
+When she opened her eyes, her head was resting on the blind queen's lap,
+she felt Atossa's warm kisses on her forehead, and Cambyses was standing
+by her side. She gazed around, and smiled as she recognised them one by
+one. She raised herself with difficulty. "How could you believe such a
+thing of me, my king?" she asked. There was no reproach in her tone, but
+deep sadness; Cambyses replied, "Forgive me."
+
+Nitetis then gave them the letter she had received from her mother,
+which would explain all, and begged them not to scorn her poor sister.
+"When an Egyptian girl once loves, she cannot forget. But I feel so
+frightened. The end must be near. That horrible man, Boges, read me the
+fearful sentence, and it was that which forced the poison into my hand."
+
+The physician rushed forward. "I thought so! She has taken a poison
+which results in certain death. She is lost!"
+
+On hearing this, the king exclaimed in anguish, "She _shall_ live; it is
+my will! Summon all the physicians in Babylon. Assemble the priests. She
+is not to die! She must live! I am the king, and I command it!"
+
+Nitetis opened her eyes as if endeavouring to obey her lord. She looked
+upon her lover, who was pressing his burning lips to her right hand. She
+murmured, with a smile, "Oh, this great happiness!" Then she closed her
+eyes and was seized with fever.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+All efforts to save Nitetis' life were fruitless. Cambyses fell into the
+deepest gloom, and wanted action, war, to dispel his sad thoughts.
+Phanes gave him the pretext. As commander of the Greek mercenaries in
+Egypt, he had enjoyed Amasis' confidence. He alone, with the
+high-priest, shared Amasis' secret about the birth of Nitetus, who was
+not the daughter of Amasis, but of Hophra, his predecessor, whose throne
+Amasis had usurped. When, owing to the intrigues of Psamtik, Amasis'
+son, Phanes fell into disgrace and had to fly for his life, his little
+son was seized and cruelly murdered by his persecutors. Phanes had sworn
+revenge. He now persuaded Cambyses to wage war upon Egypt, and to claim
+Amasis' throne as the husband of Hophra's daughter.
+
+The rest is known to all students of history--how Cambyses, with the
+help of Phanes, defeated Psamtik's host at Pelusium and took possession
+of the whole Egyptian Empire; how, given more and more to drink and
+fearful excesses, he set up a rule of untold terror, had his brother
+Bartja murdered in another fit of jealousy, and finally suffered defeat
+at the hands of the Ethiopians. They will also know how, on his death,
+Gaumata, the "pseudo-Smerdis" of the Greeks, was urged by his ambitious
+brother, Oropastes, to seize the throne by impersonating the dead
+Bartja; how, finally, the pretender was defeated and had to pay for his
+attempt with his life; and how Persia rose again to unity and greatness
+under the rule of the noble Darius, Bartja's faithful kinsman and
+friend.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+MARIA EDGEWORTH
+
+
+Belinda
+
+
+     Maria Edgeworth was born at Black Bourton, Oxfordshire,
+     England, Jan. 1, 1767, and eleven years later her father
+     removed to Ireland and settled on his own estate at
+     Edgeworthstown. "Belinda," published in 1801, is Maria
+     Edgeworth's one early example of a novel not placed in Irish
+     surroundings, but dealing with fashionable life. Issued just a
+     year after the appearance of her first Irish tale, "Castle
+     Rackrent," it betrays entirely the influence of the novelist's
+     autocratic and eccentric father, Richard Lovell Edgeworth,
+     with whom the daughter had been previously collaborating. No
+     one could be less suited than he to advise about fiction, yet
+     to his daughter his advice was almost the equivalent of a
+     command. The story is interesting as an example of literary
+     workmanship outside of the scenes in which special success had
+     been achieved. Miss Edgeworth died at Edgeworthstown on May
+     22, 1849.
+
+
+_I.--A Match-Maker's Handicap_
+
+
+Mrs. Stanhope, a well-bred woman, accomplished in the art of rising in
+the world, had, with but a small fortune, contrived to live in the
+highest company. She prided herself upon having established half a dozen
+nieces most happily--that is to say, upon having married them to men of
+fortunes far superior to their own. One niece still remained unmarried,
+Belinda Portman, of whom she determined to get rid with all convenient
+expedition; but finding that, owing to declining health, she could not
+go out with her as much as she wished, she succeeded in fastening her
+upon the fashionable Lady Delacour for a winter in London.
+
+"Nothing, to my mind, can be more miserable than the situation of a poor
+girl who fails in her matrimonial expectations (as many do merely from
+not beginning to speculate in time)," she wrote from Bath. "She finds
+herself at five or six-and-thirty a burden to her friends, destitute of
+the means of rendering herself independent--for the girls I speak of
+never think of _learning_ to play cards--_de trop_ in society, yet
+obliged to hang upon all her acquaintances, who wish her in heaven,
+because she is unqualified to make the _expected_ return for civilities,
+having no home--I mean no establishment, no house, etc.--fit for the
+reception of company of certain rank. My dearest Belinda, may this never
+be your case. I have sent your bracelet to you by Mr. Clarence Hervey,
+an acquaintance of Lady Delacour, an uncommonly pleasant young man,
+highly connected, a wit and a gallant, and having a fine independent
+fortune; so, my dear Belinda, I make it a point--look well when he is
+introduced to you, and remember that nobody _can_ look well without
+taking some pains to please."
+
+Belinda had been charmed by Lady Delacour, who was the most agreeable,
+the most fascinating person she had ever beheld; and to be a visitor at
+her house was a delightful privilege. But, a short time after her
+arrival, she began to see through the thin veil with which politeness
+covers domestic misery. Abroad, Lady Delacour appeared all spirit, life,
+and good humour; at home, listless, fretful, and melancholy, a prey to
+thoughts, seemingly, of the most painful nature.
+
+The first time Belinda saw his lordship he was dead drunk in the arms of
+two footmen; his lady, who had just returned from Ranelagh, passed him
+on the stairs with the utmost contempt.
+
+"Don't look so shocked and amazed, Belinda. Don't look so _new_, child.
+This funeral of my lord's intellects is to me a nightly ceremony; or,"
+said her ladyship, looking at her watch and yawning, "I believe I should
+say a daily ceremony--six o'clock, I protest!"
+
+The next morning Clarence Hervey called, and Belinda found him a most
+uncommonly pleasant young man. Lord Delacour was jealous of him; but
+although he would have started with horror at the idea of disturbing the
+peace of a family, in that family, he said, there was no peace to
+disturb. Consequently, he visited her ladyship every day, and every day
+viewed Belinda with increasing admiration, and with increasing dread of
+being taken in to marry a niece of that "catch-matchmaker," as Mrs.
+Stanhope was known amongst the men of his acquaintance.
+
+Under the guise of a tragic muse--in which character Lady Delacour had
+pretended she was going to a masquerade--Belinda heard his true
+sentiments with regard to her.
+
+"You don't believe I go to Lady Delacour's to look for a wife? Do you
+think I'm an idiot? Do you think I could be taken in by one of the
+Stanhope school?" he said to the facetious friends who rallied him on
+his attachment. "Do you think I don't see as plainly as any of you that
+Belinda Portman is a composition of art and affectation?"
+
+"Melpomene, hast thou forgot thyself to warble?" asked Lady Delacour,
+tripping towards them as the comic muse.
+
+"I am not very well," whispered Miss Portman. "Could we get away?"
+
+"Do see if you can find any of my people!" cried Lady Delacour to
+Clarence Hervey, who had followed them downstairs.
+
+"Lady Delacour, the comic muse!" exclaimed he. "I had thought----"
+
+"No matter what you thought!" interrupted her ladyship. "Let my carriage
+draw up, and put this lady into it!" And he obeyed without uttering a
+syllable.
+
+"Dry up your tears, _keep on your mask_, and elbow your way through the
+crowd," she said, when she had heard Belinda's story. "If you stop to be
+civil and 'hope I don't hurt ye,' you will be trod underfoot."
+
+She insisted on driving to the Panthéon instead of going home, but to
+Belinda the night seemed long and dull. The masquerade had no charm to
+keep her thoughts from the conversation that had given her so much pain.
+
+
+_II.--Fashion and Fortitude_
+
+
+"How happy you are, Lady Delacour!" she said, when they got into the
+carriage to go home. "How happy to have such an amazing flow of
+spirits!"
+
+And then she learnt the reason of her ladyship's strange unevenness of
+temper. She was dying of an incurable complaint, which she kept hidden
+from all the world except her maid, Marriott, who attended on her in a
+mysterious cabinet full of medicines and linen rags, the door of which
+she had hitherto kept locked.
+
+"You are shocked, Belinda," said she, "but as yet you have seen nothing.
+Look here!" And baring one half of her bosom, she revealed a hideous
+spectacle.
+
+"Am I humbled? Am I wretched enough?" she asked. "No matter. I will die
+as I have lived, the envy and admiration of the world. Promise--swear to
+me that you will never reveal what you have seen to-night!" And Belinda
+promised not only that, but to remain with her as long as ever she
+wished.
+
+Belinda's quiet avoidance of Clarence Hervey made him begin to believe
+that she might not be "a compound of art and affectation," and he was
+mortified to find that, though she joined with ease and dignity in the
+general conversation with the others, her manner to him was grave and
+reserved. To divert her, he declared he was convinced he was as well
+able to manage a hoop as any woman in England, except Lady Delacour;
+accordingly he was dressed by Marriott, and made his _entree_ with very
+composed assurance and grace, being introduced as the Countess de
+Pomenars to the purblind dowager, Lady Boucher, who had come to call. He
+managed his part well, speaking French and broken English, until Lady
+Delacour dexterously let down Belinda's beautiful tresses, and, calling
+the French lady to admire _la belle chevelure,_ artfully let fall her
+comb.
+
+Totally forgetting his hoop and his character, he stooped to pick it up,
+and lost his wager by knocking over a music-stand. He would have liked a
+lock of her hair, but she refused with a modest, graceful dignity; she
+was glad she had done so later when a tress of hair dropped from his
+pocket-book, and his confusion showed her he was extremely interested
+about the person to whom it belonged.
+
+During her absence from the room Clarence entreated Lady Delacour to
+make his peace with her. She consented on condition that he found her a
+pair of horses from Tattersall's, on which Belinda, she said, had
+secretly set her heart. He was vexed to find Belinda had so little
+delicacy, and relapsed into his former opinion of Mrs. Stanhope's niece,
+addressing her with the air of a man of gallantry, who thought his peace
+had been cheaply made.
+
+The horses ran away with Lady Delacour, injuring her ankle, and on her
+being brought home by Clarence, Lord Delacour wished to enter the locked
+cabinet for _arque-busade._ On being denied entrance, he seized the key,
+believing a lover of hers was concealed there, until Belinda sprang
+forward and took it from him, leaving them to believe what they would.
+
+This circumstance was afterwards explained by Dr. X----, a mutual
+friend, and Hervey was so much charmed with Belinda that he would have
+gone to her at once--only that he had undertaken the reformation of Lady
+Delacour.
+
+
+_III.--An Unexpected Suitor_
+
+
+In the meantime, after spending a morning in tasting wines, and thinking
+that, although he had never learned to swim, some recollection he had of
+an essay on swimming would ensure his safety, he betted his friends a
+hundred guineas that he would swim to a certain point, and flinging
+himself into the Serpentine, would have drowned before their eyes but
+for the help of Mr. Percival. The breach caused by this affair induced
+Sir Philip Baddely, a gentleman who always supplied "each vacuity of
+sense" with an oath, to endeavour to cut him out by proposing to
+Belinda.
+
+"Damme, you're ten times handsomer than the finest woman I ever saw,
+for, damme, I didn't know what it was to be in love then," he said,
+heaving an audible sigh. "I'll trouble you for Mrs. Stanhope's
+direction, Miss Portman; I believe, to do the thing in style, I ought to
+write to her before I speak to you."
+
+Belinda looked at him in astonishment, and then, finding he was in
+earnest, assured him it was not in her power to encourage his addresses,
+although she was fully sensible of the honour he had done her.
+
+"Confusion seize me!" cried he, starting up, "if it isn't the most
+extraordinary thing I ever heard! Is it to Sir Philip Baddely's
+fortune--£15,000 a year--you object, or to his family, or to his person?
+Oh, curse it!" said he, changing his tone, "you're only quizzing me to
+see how I should look--you do it too well, you little coquette!"
+
+Belinda again assured him she was entirely in earnest, and that she was
+incapable of the sort of coquetry which he ascribed to her. To punish
+her for this rejection he spread the report of Hervey's entanglement
+with a beautiful girl named Virginia, whose picture he had sent to an
+exhibition. He also roused Lady Delacour's jealousy into the belief that
+Belinda meant to marry her husband, the viscount, after her death.
+
+In her efforts to bring husband and wife together, Belinda had forgotten
+that jealousy could exist without love, and a letter from Mrs. Stanhope,
+exaggerating the scandalous reports in the hope of forcing her niece to
+marry Sir Philip Baddely, shocked her so much that when Lady Delacour
+quarrelled with her, she accepted an invitation from Lady Anne Percival,
+and went there at once.
+
+There she became acquainted with Mr. Percival's ward, Augustus Vincent,
+a Creole, about two-and-twenty, tall and remarkably handsome, with
+striking manners and an engaging person, who fixed his favourable
+attention on her. The Percivals would have wished her to marry him, but
+she still thought too much of Clarence Hervey to consent, although she
+believed he had some engagement with the lovely Virginia.
+
+
+_IV.--Explanation and Reconciliation_
+
+
+Quite unexpectedly a summons came from Lady Delacour, and Belinda
+returned to her at once, to find her so seriously ill that she persuaded
+her at last to consent to an operation, and inform her husband of the
+dangerous disease from which she was suffering. He believed from her
+preamble that she was about to confess her love for another man; he
+tried to stop her with an emotion and energy he had never shown until
+now.
+
+"I am not sufficiently master of myself. I once loved you too well to
+hear such a stroke. Say no more--trust me with no such secret! you have
+said enough--too much. I forgive you, that is all I can do; but we must
+part, Lady Delacour!" said he, breaking from her with agony expressed in
+his countenance.
+
+"The man has a heart, a soul, I protest! You knew him better that I did,
+Miss Portman. Nay, you are not gone yet, my lord! You really love me, I
+find."
+
+"No, no, no!" cried he vehemently. "Weak as you take me to be, Lady
+Delacour, I am incapable of loving a woman who has disgraced me,
+disgraced herself, her--" His utterance failed.
+
+"Oh, Lady Delacour," cried Belinda, "how can you trifle in this manner?"
+
+"I meant not," said her ladyship, "to trifle; I am satisfied. My lord, I
+can give you the most irrefragable proof that whatever may have been the
+apparent levity of my conduct, you have had no serious cause for
+jealousy. But the proof will shock, disgust you. Have you courage to
+know more? Then follow me."
+
+He followed her. Belinda heard the boudoir door unlocked. In a few
+minutes they returned. Grief and horror and pity were painted on Lord
+Delacour's countenance as he passed hastily out of the room.
+
+"My dearest friend, I have taken your advice; would to heaven I had
+taken it sooner!" said Lady Delacour. "I have revealed to Lord Delacour
+my real situation. Poor man, he was shocked beyond expression. The
+moment his foolish jealousy was extinguished, his love for me revived in
+full."
+
+Lady Delacour awaited the operation with the utmost fortitude; but, to
+everyone's joy, it was found there was no necessity for it; she had been
+deceived by a villainous quack, who knew too well how to make a wound
+hideous and painful, and had continued her delusion for his own
+advantage.
+
+Meanwhile, Belinda having permitted Mr. Vincent to address her, he was
+being given a fair trial whether he could win her love. They had heard
+reports of Clarence Hervey's speedy marriage with an heiress, Miss
+Hartley, and found them confirmed by a letter Lady Delacour received
+from him. Some years ago he had formed the romantic idea of educating a
+wife for himself, and having found a beautiful, artless girl in the New
+Forest, he had taken her under his care on the death of her grandmother.
+
+She felt herself bound in honour and gratitude to him when her fortune
+changed, and she was acknowledged by her father, Mr. Hartley, who had
+long been searching for her, and who had traced her at last by the
+picture Clarence Hervey had caused to be exhibited.
+
+With the utmost magnanimity, Hervey, although he saw a successful rival
+for Belinda's hand in Augustus Vincent, rescued him from ruin at the
+gaming-table, and induced him to promise never to gamble again.
+
+"I was determined Belinda's husband should be my friend. I have
+succeeded beyond my hopes," he said.
+
+But Vincent's love of play had decided Belinda at last. She refused him
+finally in a letter which she confessed she found difficult to write,
+but which she sent because she had promised she would not hold him in
+suspense once she had made her decision.
+
+After this Virginia Hartley confessed to her attachment for one Captain
+Sunderland, and Clarence was free to avow his passion for Belinda.
+
+"And what is Miss Portman to believe," cried one of Belinda's friends,
+"when she has seen you on the very eve of marriage with another lady?"
+
+"The strongest merit I can plead with such a woman as Miss Portman," he
+replied, "is that I was ready to sacrifice my own happiness to a sense
+of duty."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+Castle Rackrent
+
+
+     "Castle Rackrent" was published anonymously in 1800. It was
+     not only the first of Miss Edgeworth's novels,--it is in many
+     respects her best work. Later came "The Absentee," "Belinda,"
+     "Helen," the "Tales of Fashionable Life," and the "Moral
+     Tales." Sir Walter Scott wrote that reading these stories of
+     Irish peasant life made him feel "that something might be
+     tempted for my own country of the same kind as that which Miss
+     Edgeworth so fortunately achieved for Ireland," something that
+     would procure for his own countrymen "sympathy for their
+     virtues and indulgence for their foibles." As a study of Irish
+     fidelity in the person of Old Thady, the steward who tells the
+     story of "Castle Rackrent," the book is a masterpiece.
+
+
+_I.--Sir Patrick and Sir Murtagh_
+
+
+Having, out of friendship for the family, undertaken to publish the
+memoirs of the Rackrent family, I think it my duty to say a few words
+concerning myself first. My real name is Thady Quirk, though in the
+family I've always been known as "Honest Thady"; afterwards, I remember
+to hear them calling me "Old Thady," and now I've come to "Poor Thady."
+To look at me you would hardly think poor Thady was the father of
+Attorney Quirk; he is a high gentleman, and having better than fifteen
+hundred a year, landed estate, looks down upon honest Thady. But I wash
+my hands of his doings, and as I lived so will I die, true and loyal to
+the family.
+
+I ought to bless that day when Sir Tallyhoo Rackrent lost a fine hunter
+and his life, all in one day's hunt, for the estate came straight into
+_the_ family, upon one condition, that Sir Patrick O'Shaughlin (whose
+driver my grandfather was) should, by Act of Parliament, take the
+surname and arms of Rackrent.
+
+Now it was the world could see what was in Sir Patrick. He gave the
+finest entertainments ever was heard of in the country; not a man could
+stand after supper but Sir Patrick himself. He had his house, from one
+year's end to another, as full of company as it would hold; and this
+went on, I can't tell you how long.
+
+But one year, on his birthday, just as the company rose to drink his
+health, he fell down in a sort of fit, and in the morning it was all
+over with poor Sir Patrick.
+
+Never did any gentleman die more beloved by rich and poor. All the
+gentlemen in the three counties came to his funeral; and happy the man
+who could get but a sight of the hearse!
+
+Just as they were passing through his own town the body was seized for
+debt! Little gain had the creditors!
+
+First and foremost, they had the curses of the country, and Sir Murtagh,
+the new heir, refused to pay a shilling on account of the insult to his
+father's body; in which he was countenanced by all the gentlemen of
+property of his acquaintance. He did not take at all after the old
+gentleman. The cellars were never filled, and no open house; even the
+tenants were sent away without their whiskey. I was ashamed myself, but
+put it all down to my lady; she was of the family of the Skinflints. I
+must say, she made the best of wives, being a notable, stirring woman,
+and looking close to everything. 'Tis surprising how cheap my lady got
+things done! What with fear of driving for rent, and Sir Murtagh's
+lawsuits, the tenants were kept in such good order they never came near
+Castle Rackrent without a present of something or other--nothing too
+much or too little for my lady. And Sir Murtagh taught 'em all, as he
+said, the law of landlord and tenant. No man ever loved the law as he
+did.
+
+Out of the forty-nine suits he had, he never lost one, but seventeen.
+
+Though he and my lady were much of a mind in most things, there was a
+deal of sparring and jarring between them. In a dispute about an
+abatement one day, my lady would have the last word, and Sir Murtagh
+grew mad. I was within hearing--he spoke so loud, all the kitchen was
+out on the stairs. All on a sudden he stopped, and my lady, too. Sir
+Murtagh, in his passion, had broken a blood-vessel. My lady sent for
+five physicians; but Sir Murtagh died. She had a fine jointure settled
+upon her, and took herself away, to the great joy of the tenantry.
+
+
+_II.--Sir Kit and his Wife_
+
+
+Then the house was all hurry-scurry, preparing for my new master, Sir
+Murtagh's younger brother, a dashing young officer. He came before I
+knew where I was, with another spark with him, and horses and dogs, and
+servants, and harum-scarum called for everything, as if he were in a
+public-house. I walk slow, and hate a bustle, and if it had not been for
+my pipe and tobacco, should, I verily believe, have broke my heart for
+poor Sir Murtagh.
+
+But one morning my new master caught sight of me. "And is that Old
+Thady?" says he. I loved him from that day to this, his voice was so
+like the family, and I never saw a finer figure of a man.
+
+A fine life we should have led had he stayed among us, God bless him!
+But, the sporting season over, he grew tired of the place, and was off
+in a whirlwind to town. A circular letter came next post from the new
+agent to say he must remit £500 to the master at Bath within a
+fortnight--bad news for the poor tenants. Sir Kit Rackrent, my new
+master, left it all to the agent, and now not a week without a call for
+money. Rents must be paid to the day, and afore--old tenants turned out,
+anything for the ready penny.
+
+The agent was always very civil to me, and took a deal of notice of my
+son Jason, who, though he be my son, was a good scholar from his birth,
+and a very cute lad. Seeing he was a good clerk, the agent gave him the
+rent accounts to copy, which he did for nothing at first, being always
+proud to serve the family.
+
+By-and-by, a good farm fell vacant, and my son put in a proposal for it.
+Why not? The master, knowing no more of the land than a child unborn,
+wrote over, leaving it to the agent, and he must send over £200 by
+return post. So my son's proposal was just the thing, and he a good
+tenant, and he got a promise of abatement after the first year for
+advancing the half-year's rent to make up the £200, and my master was
+satisfied. The agent told us then, as a great secret, that Sir Kit was a
+little too fond of play.
+
+At last, at Christmas, the agent wrote he could raise no more money,
+anyhow, and desired to resign the agency. My son, Jason, who had
+corresponded privately with Sir Kit, was requested to take over the
+accounts forthwith. His honour also condescended to tell us he was going
+to be married in a fortnight to the grandest heiress in England, and had
+immediate occasion for £200 for travelling expenses home to Castle
+Rackrent, where he intended to be early next month. We soon saw his
+marriage in the paper, and news came of him and his bride being in
+Dublin on their way home. We had bonfires all over the country,
+expecting them all day, and were just thinking of giving them up for the
+night, when the carriage came thundering up. I got the first sight of
+the bride, and greatly shocked I was, for she was little better than a
+blackamoor. "You're kindly welcome, my lady," I says; but neither spoke
+a word, nor did he so much as hand her up the steps.
+
+I concluded she could not speak English, and was from foreign parts, so
+I left her to herself, and went down to the servants' hall to learn
+something about her. Sir Kit's own man told us, at last, that she might
+well be a great fortune, for she was a Jewess, by all accounts. I had
+never seen any of that tribe before, and could only gather that she
+could not abide pork nor sausages, and went neither to church nor mass.
+"Mercy upon his honour's poor soul," thought I. But when, after this,
+strange gentleman's servants came and began to talk about the bride, I
+took care to put the best foot foremost, and passed her for a nabob.
+
+I saw plain enough, next morning, how things were between Sir Kit and
+his lady, though they went arm-in-arm to look at the building.
+
+"Old Thady, how do you do?" says my master, just as he used to do, but I
+could see he was not well pleased, and my heart was in my mouth as I
+walked after them.
+
+There were no balls, no dinners, no doings. Sir Kit's gentleman told me
+it was all my lady's fault, because she was so obstinate about the
+cross.
+
+"What cross?" says I. "Is it about her being a heretic?"
+
+"Oh, no such matter," says he. "My master does not mind about her
+heresies, but her diamond cross. She's thousands of English pounds
+concealed in her diamonds, which she as good as promised to give to my
+master before they married; but now she won't part with any of them, and
+must take the consequences."
+
+One morning, his honour says to me, "Thady, buy me a pig," and that was
+the first breaking out of my lady's troubles when the sausages were
+ordered. My lady went down to the kitchen herself, and desired never
+more to see them on her table. The cook took her part, but the master
+made it a principle to have the sausages; so, for fear of her place, she
+gave in, and from that day forward, always sausages or pig-meat in one
+form or other went up to table; upon which my lady shut herself up in
+her own room, and my master turned the key in the door, and kept it ever
+after in his pocket. We none of us saw her, or heard her speak for seven
+years after; he carried her dinner in himself.
+
+Then his honour had a deal of company, and was as gay and gallant as
+before he was married. The country, to be sure, talked and wondered, but
+nobody cared to ask impertinent questions, my master being a famous
+shot. His character was so well known that he lived in peace and quiet
+ever after, and was a great favourite with the ladies; so that, when he
+gave out that my lady was now skin and bone, and could not live through
+the winter, there were no less than three ladies at daggers drawn, as
+his gentleman swore, at the balls, for Sir Kit for their partner. I
+could not but think them bewitched, but it was not known how my lady's
+fortune was settled, nor how the estate was all mortgaged, and bonds out
+against him, for he was never cured of his gaming tricks; but that was
+the only fault he had, God bless him!
+
+Then it was given out, by mistake, that my lady was dead, and the three
+ladies showed their brothers Sir Kit's letters, and claimed his
+promises. His honour said he was willing to meet any man who questioned
+his conduct, and the ladies must settle among themselves who was to be
+his second, while his first was alive, to his mortification and theirs.
+He met the first lady's brother, and shot him; next day called out the
+second, whose wooden leg stuck fast in the ploughed land, so Sir Kit,
+with great candour, fired over his head, whereupon they shook hands
+cordially, and went home together to dinner.
+
+To establish his sister's reputation this gentleman went out as Sir
+Kit's second next day, when he met the last of his adversaries. He had
+just hit the toothpick out of his enemy's hand, when he received a ball
+in a vital part, and was brought home speechless in a hand-barrow. We
+got the key out of his pocket at once, and my son Jason ran to release
+her ladyship. She would not believe but that it was some new trick till
+she saw the men bringing Sir Kit up the avenue. There was no life in
+him, and he was "waked" the same night.
+
+The country was all in an uproar about him, and his murderer would have
+been hanged surely, but he prudently withdrew to the Continent.
+
+My lady got surprisingly well, and no sooner was it known that Sir Kit
+was dead than all the country came round in a body, as it were, to set
+her free. But she had taken an unaccountable prejudice against the
+country, and was not easy, but when she was packing up to leave us, I
+considered her quite as a foreigner, and no longer part of the family.
+Her diamond cross was at the bottom of it all; and it was a shame for
+her, being his wife, not to have given it up to him when he condescended
+to ask for it so often, especially when he made it no secret he had
+married her for her money.
+
+
+_III.--Sir Condy_
+
+
+The new heir, Sir Conolly, commonly called Sir Condy, was the most
+universally beloved man I ever saw or heard of. He was ever my white-
+headed boy, when he used to live in a small but slated house at the end
+of the avenue, before he went to college. He had little fortune of his
+own, and a deal of money was spent on his education. Many of the tenants
+secretly advanced him cash upon his promising bargains of leases, and
+lawful interest should he ever come into the estate. So that when he did
+succeed, he could not command a penny of his first year's income. My son
+Jason, who was now agent, explained matters to Sir Condy, who, not
+willing to take his affairs in his own hands, or even to look them in
+the face, gave my son a bargain of some acres at a reasonable rent to
+pay him for his many years' service in the family gratis.
+
+There was a hunting-lodge convenient to my son's land that he had his
+eye upon, but Sir Condy talked of letting it to his friend Captain
+Moneygawl, with whom he had become very friendly, and whose sister, Miss
+Isabella, fell over head and ears in love with my master the first time
+he went there to dinner.
+
+But Sir Condy was at a terrible nonplus, for he had no liking for Miss
+Isabella. To his mind, little Judy McQuirk, daughter to a sister's son
+of mine, was worth twenty of her. But her father had locked her in her
+room and forbidden her to think of him, which raised his spirit; and I
+could see him growing more and more in the mind to carry Miss Isabella
+off to Scotland, as she desired. And I had wished her joy, a week after,
+on her return with my poor master. Lucky for her she had a few thousands
+of her own, for her father would not give her a farthing. My master and
+my lady set out in great style, and it was reported that her father had
+undertaken to pay all Sir Condy's debts; and, of course, all the
+tradesmen gave him fresh credit, and everything went on smack smooth. I
+was proud to see Castle Rackrent again in all its glory. She went on as
+if she had a mint of money; and all Sir Condy asked--God bless him!--was
+to live in peace and quiet, and have his whiskey punch at night. But my
+lady's few thousands could not last for ever. Things in a twelve-month
+or so came to such a pass that there was no going on any longer.
+
+Well, my son Jason put in a word about the lodge, and Sir Condy was fain
+to take the purchase-money to settle matters, for there were two writs
+come down against him to the sheriff, who was no friend of his. Then
+there came a general election, and Sir Condy was called upon by all his
+friends to stand candidate; they would do all the business, and it
+should not cost him a penny.
+
+There was open house then at Castle Rackrent, and grand dinners, and all
+the gentlemen drinking success to Sir Condy till they were carried off.
+The election day came, and a glorious day it was. I thought I should
+have died with joy in the street when I saw my poor master chaired, and
+the crowd following him up and down. But a stranger man in the crowd
+gets me to introduce him to my son Jason, and little did I guess his
+meaning. He gets a list of my master's debts from him, and goes round
+and buys them up, and so got to be sole creditor over all, and must
+needs have an execution against the master's goods and furniture.
+
+After the election shoals of people came from all parts, claiming to
+have obliged him with votes, and to remind him of promises he never
+made. Worst of all, the gentlemen who had managed everything and
+subscribed by hundreds very genteelly forgot to pay, and it was all left
+at my master's door. All he could do to content 'em was to take himself
+off to Dublin, where my lady had taken a house fitting for a member of
+parliament.
+
+Soon my son Jason said, "Sir Condy must look out for another agent. If
+my lady had the Bank of Ireland to spend, it would all go in one
+winter."
+
+I could scarcely believe my own old eyes when I saw my son's name joined
+in the _custodian_, that the villain who got the list of debts brought
+down in the spring; but he said it would make it easier for Sir Condy.
+
+
+_IV.--The Last of the Rackrents_
+
+
+When Sir Condy and his lady came down in June, he was pleased to take me
+aside to complain of my son and other matters; not one unkind word of my
+lady, but he wondered that her relations would do nothing for them in
+their great distress. He did not take anything long to heart; let it be
+as it might this night, it was all out of his head before he went to
+bed. Next morning my lady had a letter from her relations, and asked to
+be allowed to go back to them. He fell back as if he was shot, but after
+a minute said she had his full consent, for what could she do at Castle
+Rackrent with an execution coming down? Next morning she set off for
+Mount Juliet.
+
+Then everything was seized by the gripers, my son Jason, to his shame be
+it spoken, among them. On the evening Sir Condy had appointed to settle
+all, when he sees the sight of bills and loads of papers on the table,
+he says to Jason, "Can't you now just sit down here and give me a clear
+view of the balance, you know, which is all I need be talking about?
+Thady, do just step out, and see they are bringing the things for the
+punch." When I came back Jason was pointing to the balance, a terrible
+sight for my poor master.
+
+"A--h! Hold your hand!" cries my master. "Where in the wide world am I
+to find hundreds, let alone thousands?"
+
+"There's but one way," says Jason. "Sure, can't you sell, though at a
+loss? Sure, you can sell, and I've a purchaser ready for you."
+
+"Have you so?" says Sir Condy. Then, colouring up a good deal, he tells
+Jason of £500 a year he had settled upon my lady, at which Jason was
+indeed mad; but, with much ado, agreed to a compromise. "And how much am
+I going to sell? The lands of O'Shaughlin's town, and the lands
+of"--just reading to himself--"oh, murder, Jason! Surely you won't put
+this in--castle, stables, and appurtenances of Castle Rackrent?"
+
+"Oh, murder!" says I. "This is too bad, Jason."
+
+"Why so?" says Jason. "When it's all mine, and a great deal more, all
+lawfully mine, was I to push for it?"
+
+But I took no heed, for I was grieved and sick at heart for my poor
+master, and couldn't but speak.
+
+"Here's the punch," says Jason, for the door opened.
+
+So my master starts up in his chair, and Jason uncorks the whiskey.
+Well, I was in great hopes when I saw him making the punch, and my
+master taking a glass; but Jason put it back when he saw him going to
+fill again, saying, "No, Sir Condy; let us settle all before we go
+deeper into the punch-bowl. You've only to sign," says Jason, putting
+the pen to him.
+
+"Take all, and be content," said my master. So he signed, and the man
+who brought the punch witnessed, for I was crying like a child.
+
+So I went out to the street door, and the neighbours' children left
+their play to come to see what ailed me; and I told them all. When they
+heard Sir Condy was going to leave Castle Rackrent for good and all,
+they set up such a whillaluh as brought all their parents round the
+doors in great anger against Jason. I was frightened, and went back to
+warn my son. He grew quite pale and asked Sir Condy what he'd best do.
+
+"I'll tell you," says Sir Condy, laughing to see his fright. "Finish
+your glass first, then let's go to the window, and I'll tell them--or
+you shall, if you please--that I'm going to the lodge for change of air
+for my health, and by my own desire, for the rest of my days."
+
+"Do so," says Jason, who never meant it to be so, but could not refuse
+at such a time.
+
+So the very next day he sets off to the lodge, and I along with him.
+There was great bemoaning all through the town, which I stayed to
+witness. He was in his bed, and very low, when I got there, and
+complained of a great pain about his heart; but I, knowing the nature of
+him from a boy, took my pipe and began telling him how he was beloved
+and regretted in the country. And it did him a great deal of good to
+hear it.
+
+There was a great horn at the lodge that used to belong to the
+celebrated Sir Patrick, who was reported to have drunk the full of it
+without stopping to draw breath, which no other man, afore or since,
+could do.
+
+One night Sir Condy was drinking with the excise-man and the gauger, and
+wagered that he could do it. Says he, "Your hand is steadier than mine,
+Old Thady; fill you the horn for me." And so, wishing his honour
+success, I did. He swallowed it down and dropped like one shot. We put
+him to bed, and for five days the fever came and went, and came and
+went. On the sixth he says, knowing me very well, "I'm in a burning pain
+all withinside of me, Thady." I could not speak. "Brought to this by
+drink," says he. "Where are all the friends? Gone, hey? Ay, Sir Condy
+has been a fool all his days," said he, and died. He had but a very poor
+funeral, after all.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+GEORGE ELIOT
+
+
+Adam Bede
+
+
+     Mary Ann Evans ("George Eliot") was born Nov. 22, 1819, at
+     South Farm, Arbury, Warwickshire, England, where her father
+     was agent on the Newdigate estate. In her youth, she was adept
+     at butter-making and similar rural work, but she found time to
+     master Italian and German. Her first important literary work
+     was the translation of Strauss's "Life of Jesus" in 1844, and
+     shortly after her father's death in 1849 she was writing in
+     the "Westminster Review." It was not until 1856 that George
+     Eliot settled down to the writing of novels. "Scenes from
+     Clerical Life" first appeared serially in "Blackwood's
+     Magazine" during 1857 and 1858; "Adam Bede," the first and
+     most popular of her long stories, in 1859. In May, 1880,
+     eighteen months after the death of her friend George Henry
+     Lewes (see PHILOSOPHY, Vol. XIV), George Eliot married Mr. J.
+     W. Cross. She died on December 22 in the same year. With all
+     her sense of humour there is a note of sadness in George
+     Eliot's novels. She deals with ordinary, everyday people, and
+     describes their joys and sorrows. In "Adam Bede," as in most
+     of her work, the novelist drew from the ample stores of her
+     early life in the Midlands, while the plot is unfolded with
+     singular simplicity, purity, and power.
+
+
+_I.--The Two Brothers_
+
+
+In the roomy workshop of Mr. Jonathan Burge, carpenter and builder, in
+the village of Hayslope, on the eighteenth of June, 1799, five workmen
+were busy upon doors and window-frames.
+
+The tallest of the five was a large-boned, muscular man, nearly six feet
+high. The sleeve rolled up above the elbow showed an arm that was likely
+to win the prize for feats of strength; yet the long, supple hand, with
+its broad finger tips, looked ready for works of skill. In his tall
+stalwartness Adam Bede was a Saxon, and justified his name. The face was
+large and roughly hewn, and when in repose had no other beauty than such
+as belongs to an expression of good-humoured, honest intelligence.
+
+It is clear at a glance that the next workman is Adam's brother. He is
+nearly as tall; he has the same type of features. But Seth's broad
+shoulders have a slight stoop, and his glance, instead of being keen, is
+confiding and benignant.
+
+The idle tramps always felt sure they could get a copper from Seth; they
+scarcely ever spoke to Adam.
+
+At six o'clock the men stopped working, and went out. Seth lingered, and
+looked wistfully at Adam, as if he expected him to say something.
+
+"Shalt go home before thee go'st to the preaching?" Adam asked.
+
+"Nay, I shan't be home before going for ten. I'll happen see Dinah
+Morris safe home, if she's willing. There's nobody comes with her from
+Poyser's, thee know'st."
+
+Adam set off home, and at a quarter to seven Seth was on the village
+green where the Methodists were preaching. The people drew nearer when
+Dinah Morris mounted the cart which served as a pulpit. There was a
+total absence of self-consciousness in her demeanour; she walked to the
+cart as simply as if she were going to market. There was no keenness in
+the eyes; they seemed rather to be shedding love than making
+observations. When Dinah spoke it was with a clear but not loud voice,
+and her sincere, unpremeditated eloquence held the attention of her
+audience without interruption.
+
+When the service was over, Seth Bede walked by Dinah's side along the
+hedgerow path that skirted the pastures and corn-fields which lay
+between the village and the Hall Farm.
+
+Seth could see an expression of unconscious placid gravity on her
+face--an expression that is most discouraging to a lover. He was timidly
+revolving something he wanted to say, and it was only when they were
+close to the yard-gates of the Hall Farm he had the courage to speak.
+
+"It may happen you'll think me overbold to speak to you again after what
+you told me o' your thoughts. But it seems to me there's more texts for
+your marrying than ever you can find against it. St. Paul says, 'Two are
+better than one,' and that holds good with marriage as well as with
+other things. For we should be o' one heart and o' one mind, Dinah. I'd
+never be the husband to make a claim on you as could interfere with your
+doing the work God has fitted you for. I'd make a shift, and fend indoor
+and out, to give you more liberty--more than you can have now; for
+you've got to get your own living now, and I'm strong enough to work for
+us both."
+
+When Seth had once begun to urge his suit, he went on earnestly and
+almost hurriedly. His voice trembled at the last sentence.
+
+They had reached one of those narrow passes between two tall stones,
+which performed the office of a stile in Loamshire. And Dinah paused,
+and said, in her tender but calm notes, "Seth Bede, I thank you for your
+love towards me, and if I could think of any man as more than a
+Christian brother, I think it would be you. But my heart is not free to
+marry, or to think of making a home for myself in this world. God has
+called me to speak His word, and He has greatly owned my work."
+
+They said farewell at the yard-gate, for Seth wouldn't enter the
+farmhouse, choosing rather to turn back along the fields through which
+he and Dinah had already passed. It was ten o'clock when he reached
+home, and he heard the sound of tools as he lifted the latch.
+
+"Why, mother," said Seth, "how is it as father's working so late?"
+
+"It's none o' thy feyther as is a-workin'; it's thy brother as does
+iverything, for there's niver nobody else i' th' way to do nothin'."
+
+Lisbeth Bede was going on, for she was not at all afraid of Seth--who
+had never in his life spoken a harsh word to his mother--and usually
+poured into his ears all the querulousness which was repressed by the
+awe which mingled itself with her idolatrous love of Adam.
+
+But Seth, with an anxious look, had passed into the workshop, and said,
+"Addy, how's this? What! Father's forgot the coffin?"
+
+"Ay, lad, th' old tale; but I shall get it done," said Adam, looking up.
+"Why, what's the matter with thee--thee'st in trouble?"
+
+Seth's eyes were red, and there was a look of deep depression on his
+mild face.
+
+"Yes, Addy, but it's what must be borne, and can't be helped. Let me
+take my turn now, and do thee go to bed."
+
+"No, lad; I'd rather go on, now I'm in harness. The coffin's promised to
+be ready at Brox'on by seven o'clock to-morrow morning. I'll call thee
+up at sunrise, to help me to carry it when it's done. Go and eat thy
+supper and shut the door, so as I mayn't hear mother's talk."
+
+Adam worked throughout the night, thinking of his childhood and its
+happy days, and then of the days of sadness that came later when his
+father began to loiter at public-houses, and Lisbeth began to cry at
+home. He remembered well the night of shame and anguish when he first
+saw his father quite wild and foolish.
+
+The two brothers set off in the early sunlight, carrying the long coffin
+on their shoulders. By six o'clock they had reached Broxton, and were on
+their way home.
+
+When they were coming across the valley, and had entered the pasture
+through which the brook ran, Seth said suddenly, beginning to walk
+faster, "Why, what's that sticking against the willow?"
+
+They both ran forward, and dragged the tall, heavy body out of the
+water; and then looked with mute awe at the glazed eyes--forgetting
+everything but that their father lay dead before them.
+
+Adam's mind rushed back over the past in a flood of relenting and pity.
+Only a few hours ago, and the gray-haired father, of whom he had been
+thinking with a sort of hardness as certain to live to be a thorn in his
+side, was perhaps even then struggling with that watery death!
+
+
+_II.--The Hall Farm_
+
+
+It is a very fine old place of red brick, the Hall Farm--once the
+residence of a country squire, and the Hall.
+
+Plenty of life there, though this is the drowsiest time of the year,
+just before hay-harvest; and it is the drowsiest time of the day, too,
+for it is half-past three by Mrs. Poyser's handsome eight-day clock.
+
+Mrs. Poyser, a good-looking woman, not more than eight-and-thirty, of
+fair complexion and sandy hair, well shaped, light-footed, had just
+taken up her knitting, and was seated with her niece, Dinah Morris.
+Another motherless niece, Hetty Sorrel, a distractingly pretty girl of
+seventeen, was busy in the adjoining dairy.
+
+"You look the image o' your aunt Judith, Dinah, when you sit a-sewing,"
+said Mrs. Poyser. "I allays said that o' Judith, as she'd bear a pound
+weight any day to save anybody else carrying a ounce. And it made no
+difference in her, as I could see, when she took to the Methodists; only
+she talked a bit different, and wore a different sort o' cap. If you'd
+only come and live i' this country you might get married to some decent
+man, and there'd be plenty ready to have you, if you'd only leave off
+that preaching, as is ten times worse than anything your Aunt Judith
+ever did. And even if you'd marry Seth Bede, as is a poor,
+wool-gathering Methodist, and's never like to have a penny beforehand, I
+know your uncle 'ud help you with a pig, and very like a cow, for he's
+allays been good-natur'd to my kin, for all they're poor, and made 'em
+welcome to the house; and 'ud do for you, I'll be bound, as much as ever
+he'd do for Hetty, though she's his own niece."
+
+The arrival of Mr. Irwine, the rector of Hayslope, and Captain
+Donnithorne, Squire Donnithorne's grandson and heir, interrupted Mrs.
+Poyser's flow of talk.
+
+"I'll lay my life they're come to speak about your preaching on the
+Green, Dinah. It's you must answer 'em, for I'm dumb. I've said enough
+a'ready about your bringing such disgrace upo' your uncle's family. I
+wouldn't ha' minded if you'd been Mr. Poyser's own niece. Folks must put
+up wi' their own kin as they put up wi' their own noses; it's their own
+flesh and blood."
+
+Mr. Irwine, however, was the last man to feel any annoyance at the
+Methodist preaching, and young Arthur Donnithorne's visit was merely an
+excuse for exchanging a few words with Hetty Sorrel.
+
+The rector mentioned before he left that Thias Bede had been found
+drowned in the Willow Brook; and Dinah Morris at once decided that she
+might be of some comfort to the widow, and set out for the village.
+
+As for Hetty Sorrel, she was thinking more of the looks Captain
+Donnithorne had cast at her than of Adam and his troubles. Bright,
+admiring glances from a handsome young gentleman--those were the warm
+rays that set poor Hetty's heart vibrating.
+
+Hetty was quite used to the thought that people liked to look at her.
+She was aware that Mr. Craig, the gardener at Squire Donnithorne's, was
+over head-and-ears in love with her. She knew still better that Adam
+Bede--tall, upright, clever, brave Adam Bede--who carried such authority
+with all the people round about, and whom her uncle was always delighted
+to see of an evening, saying that "Adam knew a fine sight more o' the
+natur o' things than those as thought themselves his betters"--she knew
+that this Adam, who was often rather stern to other people, and not much
+given to run after the lassies, could be made to turn pale or red any
+day by a word or a look from her. Hetty's sphere of comparison was not
+large, but she couldn't help perceiving that Adam was "something like" a
+man; always knew what to say about things; knew, with only looking at
+it, the value of a chestnut-tree that was blown down, and why the damp
+came in the walls, and what they must do to stop the rats; and wrote a
+beautiful hand that you could read, and could do figures in his head--a
+degree of accomplishment totally unknown among the richest farmers of
+that country-side.
+
+Hetty was quite certain her uncle wanted her to encourage Adam, and
+would be pleased for her to marry him. For the last three years--ever
+since he had superintended the building of the new barn--Adam had always
+been made welcome at the Hall Farm, and for the last two years at least
+Hetty had been in the habit of hearing her uncle say, "Adam Bede may be
+working for a wage now, but he'll be a master-man some day, as sure as I
+sit in this chair. Master Burge is in the right on't to want him to go
+partners and marry his daughter, if it's true what they say. The woman
+as marries him 'ull have a good take, be't Lady Day or Michaelmas," a
+remark which Mrs. Poyser always followed up with her cordial assent.
+
+"Ah," she would say, "it's all very fine having a ready-made rich man,
+but may happen he'll be a ready-made fool; and it's no use filling your
+pocket full of money if you've got a hole in the corner. It'll do you no
+good to sit in a spring-cart o' your own if you've got a soft to drive
+you; he'll soon turn you over into the ditch."
+
+But Hetty had never given Adam any steady encouragement. She liked to
+feel that this strong, keen-eyed man was in her power; but as to
+marrying Adam, that was a very different affair.
+
+Hetty's dreams were all of luxuries. She thought if Adam had been rich,
+and could have given the things of her dreams--large, beautiful earrings
+and Nottingham lace and a carpeted parlour--she loved him well enough to
+marry him.
+
+The last few weeks a new influence had come over Hetty; she had become
+aware that Mr. Arthur Donnithorne would take a good deal of trouble for
+the chance of seeing her. And Dinah Morris was away, preaching and
+working in a manufacturing town.
+
+
+_III.--Adam's First Love_
+
+
+Adam Bede, like many other men, thought the signs of love for another
+were signs of love towards himself. The time had come to him that
+summer, as he helped Hetty pick currants in the orchard of the Hall
+Farm, that a man can least forget in after-life--the time when he
+believes that the first woman he has ever loved is, at least, beginning
+to love him in return.
+
+He was not wrong in thinking that a change had come over Hetty; the
+anxieties and fears of a first passion with which she was trembling had
+become stronger than vanity, and while Adam drew near to her she was
+absorbed in thinking and wondering about Arthur Donnithorne's possible
+return.
+
+For the first time Hetty felt that there was something soothing to her
+in Adam's timid yet manly tenderness; she wanted to be treated lovingly.
+And Arthur was away from home; and, oh, it was very hard to bear the
+blank of absence. She was not afraid that Adam would tease her with
+love-making and flattering speeches; he had always been so reserved to
+her. She could enjoy without any fear the sense that this strong, brave
+man loved her and was near her. It never entered into her mind that Adam
+was pitiable, too, that Adam, too, must suffer one day.
+
+It was from Adam that she found out that Captain Donnithorne would be
+back in a day or two, and this knowledge made her the more kindly
+disposed towards him. But for all the world Adam would not have spoken
+of his love to Hetty yet, till this commencing kindness towards him
+should have grown into unmistakable love. He did no more than pluck a
+rose for her, and walk back to the farm with her arm in his.
+
+When Adam, after stopping a while to chat with the Poysers, had said
+good-night, Mr. Poyser remarked, "If you can catch Adam for a husband,
+Hetty, you'll ride i' your own spring-cart some day, I'll be your
+warrant."
+
+Her uncle did not see the little toss of the head with which Hetty
+answered him. To ride in a spring-cart seemed a very miserable lot
+indeed to her now.
+
+It was on August 18, when Adam, going home from some work he had been
+doing at one of the farms, passed through a grove of beeches, and saw,
+at the end of the avenue, about twenty yards before him, two figures.
+They were standing opposite to each other with clasped hands, and they
+separated with a start at a sharp bark from Adam Bede's dog. One hurried
+away through a gate out of the grove; the other, Arthur Donnithorne,
+looking flushed and excited, sauntered towards Adam. The young squire
+had been home for some weeks celebrating his twenty-first birthday, and
+he was leaving on the morrow to rejoin his regiment.
+
+Hitherto there had been a cordial and sincere liking and a mutual esteem
+between the two young men; but now Adam stood as if petrified, and his
+amazement turned quickly to fierceness.
+
+Arthur tried to pass the matter off lightly, as if it had been a chance
+meeting with Hetty; but Adam, who felt that he had been robbed
+treacherously by the man in whom he had trusted, would not so easily let
+him off. It came to blows, and Arthur sank under a well-planted blow of
+Adam's, as a steel rod is broken by an iron bar.
+
+Before they separated, Arthur promised that he would write and tell
+Hetty there could be no further communication between them. And this
+promise he kept. Adam rested content with the assurance that nothing but
+an innocent flirtation had been stopped. As the days went by he found
+that the calm patience with which he had waited for Hetty's love had
+forsaken him since that night in the beech-grove. The agitations of
+jealousy had given a new restlessness to his passion.
+
+Hetty, for her part, after the first misery caused by Arthur's letter,
+had turned into a mood of dull despair, and sought only for change. Why
+should she not marry Adam? She did not care what she did so that it made
+some change in her life.
+
+So, in November, when Mr. Burge offered Adam a share in his business,
+Adam not only accepted it, but decided that the time had come to ask
+Hetty to marry him.
+
+Hetty did not speak when Adam got out the question, but his face was
+very close to hers, and she put up her round cheek against his, like a
+kitten. She wanted to be caressed--she wanted to feel as if Arthur were
+with her again.
+
+Adam only said after that, "I may tell your uncle and aunt, mayn't I,
+Hetty?" And she said "Yes."
+
+The red firelight on the hearth at the Hall Farm shone on joyful faces
+that evening when Adam took the opportunity of telling Mr. and Mrs.
+Poyser that he saw his way to maintaining a wife now, and that Hetty had
+consented to have him.
+
+There was a great deal of discussion before Adam went away about the
+possibility of his finding a house that would do for him to settle in.
+
+"Well, well," said Mr. Poyser at last, "we needna fix everything
+to-night. You canna think o' getting married afore Easter. I'm not for
+long courtships, but there must be a bit o' time to make things
+comfortable."
+
+This was in November.
+
+Then in February came the full tragedy of Hetty Sorrel's life. She left
+home, and in a strange village, a child--Arthur Donnithorne's child--was
+born. Hetty left the baby in a wood, and returned to find it dead.
+Arrest and trial followed, and only at the last moment was the capital
+sentence commuted to transportation.
+
+She died a few years later on her way home.
+
+
+_IV.--The Wife of Adam Bede_
+
+
+It was the autumn of 1801, and Dinah Morris was once more at the Hall
+Farm, only to leave it again for her work in the town. Mrs. Poyser
+noticed that Dinah, who never used to change colour, flushed when Adam
+said, "Why, I hoped Dinah was settled among us for life. I thought she'd
+given up the notion o' going back to her old country."
+
+"Thought! Yes," said Mrs. Poyser; "and so would anybody else ha' thought
+as had got their right ends up'ards. But I suppose you must be a
+Methodist to know what a Methodist 'ull do. It's all guessing what the
+bats are flying after."
+
+"Why, what have we done to you, Dinah, as you must go away from us?"
+said Mr. Poyser. "It's like breaking your word; for your aunt never had
+no thought but you'd make this your home."
+
+"Nay, uncle," said Dinah, trying to be quite calm. "When I first came I
+said it was only for a time, as long as I could be of any comfort to my
+aunt."
+
+"Well, an' who said you'd ever left off being a comfort to me?" said
+Mrs. Poyser. "If you didna mean to stay wi' me, you'd better never ha'
+come. Them as ha' never had a cushion don't miss it."
+
+Dinah set off with Adam, for Lisbeth was ailing and wanted Dinah to sit
+with her a bit. On the way he reverted to her leaving the Hall Farm.
+"You know best, Dinah, but if it had been ordered so that you could ha'
+been my sister, and lived wi' us all our lives, I should ha' counted it
+the greatest blessing as could happen to us now."
+
+Dinah made no answer, and they walked on in silence, until presently,
+crossing the stone stile, Adam saw her face, flushed, and with a look of
+suppressed agitation.
+
+It struck him with surprise, and then he said, "I hope I've not hurt or
+displeased you by what I've said, Dinah; perhaps I was making too free.
+I've no wish different from what you see to be best; and I'm satisfied
+for you to live thirty miles off if you think it right."
+
+Poor Adam! Thus do men blunder.
+
+Lisbeth opened his eyes on the Sunday morning when Adam sat at home and
+read from his large pictured Bible.
+
+For a long time his mother talked on about Dinah, and about how they
+were losing her when they might keep her, and Adam at last told her she
+must make up her mind that she would have to do without Dinah.
+
+"Nay, but I canna ma' up my mind, when she's just cut out for thee; an'
+nought shall ma' me believe as God didna make her and send her here o'
+purpose for thee. What's it sinnify about her being a Methody? It 'ud
+happen wear out on her wi' marryin'."
+
+Adam threw himself back in his chair and looked at his mother. He
+understood now what her talk had been aiming at, and tried to chase away
+the notion from her mind.
+
+He was amazed at the way in which this new thought of Dinah's love had
+taken possession of him with an overmastering power that made all other
+feelings give way before the impetuous desire to know that the thought
+was true. He spoke to Seth, who said quite simply that he had long given
+up all thoughts of Dinah ever being his wife, and would rejoice in his
+brother's joy. But he could not tell whether Dinah was for marrying.
+
+"Thee might'st ask her," Seth said presently. "She took no offence at
+_me_ for asking, and thee'st more right than I had."
+
+When Adam did ask, Dinah answered that her heart was strongly drawn
+towards him, but that she must wait for divine guidance. So she left the
+Hall Farm and went back to the town, and Adam waited,--and then went
+after her to get his answer.
+
+"Adam," she said when they had met and walked some distance together,
+"it is the divine will. My soul is so knit to yours that it is but a
+divided life I live without you. And this moment, now you are with me,
+and I feel that our hearts are filled with the same love, I have a
+fullness of strength to bear and do our Heavenly Father's will that I
+had lost before."
+
+Adam paused and looked into her sincere eyes.
+
+"Then we'll never part any more, Dinah, till death parts us."
+
+And they kissed each other with deep joy.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+Felix Holt, the Radical
+
+
+     "Felix Holt, the Radical," was published in 1866. It has never
+     been one of George Eliot's very popular books. There is less
+     in it of her own life and experience than in most of her
+     novels, less of the homely wit of agricultural England. The
+     real value of the book is the picture it gives of the social
+     and political life, and for this reason, it will always be
+     read by those who want to know what English political methods
+     and customs were like at the time of the passing of the Reform
+     Bill of 1832. The character of Mr. Rufus Lyon, the independent
+     minister, is an admirable study of the non-conformist of that
+     period. Esther's renunciation of a brilliant fortune for a
+     humbler lot with the man she loved and admired, was quite in
+     accord with the teaching George Eliot inculcated all her life.
+     The scene of the story is laid in the Midlands, and the
+     action, covering about nine months, begins in 1832.
+
+
+_I.--The Minister's Daughter_
+
+
+The Rev. Rufus Lyon, Minister of the Independent Chapel, in the
+old-fashioned market town of Treby Magna, in the County of Loumshire,
+lived in a small house, adjoining the entry which led to the Chapel
+Yard.
+
+He sat this morning, as usual, in a low upstairs room, called his study,
+which served also as a sleeping-room, and from time to time got up to
+walk about between the piles of old books which lay around him on the
+floor. His face looked old and worn, yet the curtain of hair that fell
+from his bald crown and hung about his neck retained much of its
+original auburn tint, and his large, brown short-sighted eyes were still
+clear and bright. At the first glance, everyone thought him a very
+odd-looking, rusty old man, and the free-school boys often hooted after
+him, and called him "Revelations." But he was too short-sighted and too
+absent from the world of small facts and petty impulses to notice those
+who tittered at him.
+
+He was meditating on the text for his Sunday morning sermon, when old
+Lyddy, the minister's servant, opened the door to tell him that Mrs.
+Holt was wanting to see him. "She says she comes out of season, but
+she's in trouble."
+
+The minister bade her send Mistress Holt up, and a tall elderly woman
+dressed in black entered.
+
+Mrs. Holt, Mr. Lyon said to himself, is a woman who darkens counsel by
+words without knowledge, and angers the reason of the natural man; and
+he prayed for patience while his visitor rambled on concerning her late
+husband and her son Felix.
+
+The minister made out that Felix objected to the sale of his father's
+quack medicines, Holt's Elixir and Cancer Cure, and wanted Mr. Lyon to
+talk to him.
+
+"For after we'd been to chapel, he spoke better of you than he does of
+most: he said you was a fine old fellow, and an old-fashioned Puritan--
+he uses dreadful language, Mr. Lyon; but I saw he didn't mean you ill,
+for all that; he calls most folks' religion rottenness."
+
+Mrs. Holt departed, and in the evening, when Mr. Lyon was in the
+sitting-room, Felix Holt knocked at the door.
+
+The minister, accustomed to the respectable air of provincial townsmen,
+felt a slight shock, when his spectacles made clear to him the shaggy-
+headed, large-eyed, strong-limbed person of this questionable young man,
+without waistcoat or cravat.
+
+Felix spoke loudly and brusquely when the minister mentioned the subject
+of Mrs. Holt's visit.
+
+"As to those absurd medicines and gulling advertisements that my mother
+has been talking of to you, I've no more doubt about _them_ than I have
+about pocket-picking. If I allowed the sale of those medicines to go on,
+and my mother to live out of the proceeds when I can keep her by the
+honest labour of hands, I've not the least doubt that I should be a
+rascal."
+
+"I would fain inquire more particularly into your objection to these
+medicines," said Mr. Lyon gravely.
+
+"My father was ignorant," said Felix, bluntly. "I know something about
+these things. I was 'prentice for five miserable years to a stupid brute
+of a country apothecary--my poor father left money for that--he thought
+nothing could be finer for me. No matter: I know that the Cathartic
+Pills may be as bad as poison to half the people who swallow them, and
+that the cancer cure might as well be bottled ditch-water. I can keep my
+mother, as well, nay, better, than she keeps herself. With my watch and
+clock cleaning, and teaching one or two little chaps that I've got to
+come to me, I can earn enough."
+
+Mr. Lyon's suggestion that some situation might be obtained as clerk or
+assistant was brushed aside.
+
+"Why should I want to get into the middle class because I have some
+learning? The most of the middle class are as ignorant as the working
+people about everything that doesn't belong to their own Brummagem
+life."
+
+The entrance of Lyddy with the tea tray disturbed the conversation, but
+the minister, interested in his visitor, asked Felix to stay for a dish
+of tea, and Felix accepted.
+
+"My daughter, who has been detained in giving a lesson in the French
+tongue, has doubtless returned now," said the minister. On the entrance
+of the young lady, Felix was conscious she was not the sort of person he
+had expected the minister's daughter to be, and the incongruity repelled
+him. There were things about her, her walk, the long neck and high crown
+of shining brown hair, that suggested a fine lady to him. A fine lady
+was always a sort of spun glass affair; but a fine lady as the daughter
+of this rusty old Puritan was especially offensive.
+
+The discovery that Miss Lyon read Byron set Felix off on a tirade
+against the poet, and his works, and throughout the meal no agreement on
+any topic seemed possible between Esther and the guest.
+
+Felix noted that Mr. Lyon was devoted to his daughter and stood in some
+fear of her.
+
+"That is a singular young man, Esther," said the minister, when Felix
+had gone. "I discern in him a love for whatever things are honest and
+true, and I feel a great enlargement in his presence."
+
+"I think he is very coarse and rude," said Esther, with a touch of
+temper. "But he speaks better English than most of our visitors. What is
+his occupation?"
+
+"Watch and clock making, my dear."
+
+Esther was disappointed, she thought he was something higher than that.
+
+Felix on his side wondered how the queer old minister had a daughter so
+little in his own likeness. He decided that nothing should make him
+marry.
+
+
+_II.--The Election Riot_
+
+
+The return of Mr. Harold Transome, to Transome Court, after fifteen
+years' absence, and his adoption as Radical Candidate for the county
+created no little stir and excitement in Treby. It also assisted the
+growing intimacy between Mr. Lyon and Felix Holt, for though neither
+possessed votes in that memorable year 1832, they shared the same
+liberal sympathies. Perhaps the most delightful friendships are those in
+which there is much agreement, much disputation, and yet more personal
+liking; and the advent of the public-spirited, contradictory, yet
+affectionate Felix, into Treby life had made a welcome epoch to the
+minister.
+
+Esther had not seen so much of their new acquaintance as her father had.
+But she had begun to find him amusing, though he always opposed and
+criticised her, and looked at her as if he never saw a single detail
+about her person. It seemed to Esther that he thought slightly of her.
+"But, rude and queer as he is, I cannot say there is anything vulgar
+about him," she said to herself.
+
+One Sunday afternoon Felix Holt rapped at the door of Mr. Lyon's house,
+although he could hear the voice of the minister in the chapel.
+
+Esther was in the kitchen alone, reading a French romance, and she
+opened the door and invited him in.
+
+He scoffed at her book, and as the talk went on, upbraided her for her
+vanity. Finally he told her that he wanted her to change. "Of course, I
+am a brute to say so," he added. "I ought to say you are perfect.
+Another man would, perhaps; I can't bear to see you going the way of the
+foolish women who spoil men's lives."
+
+Mortification and anger filled Esther's mind, and when Felix got up to
+say he was going, she returned his "good-bye" without even looking at
+him.
+
+Only, when the door closed she burst into tears. She revolted against
+his assumption of superiority.... Did he love her one little bit, and
+was that the reason why he wanted her to change? But Esther was quite
+sure she could never love anyone who was so much of a pedagogue and a
+master.
+
+Yet, a few weeks later, and Esther accepted willingly when Felix
+proposed a walk for the first time together. That same afternoon he told
+her that she was very beautiful, and that he would never be rich: he
+intended going away to some manufacturing town to lead the people to
+better things and this meant a life of poverty.
+
+Something Esther said made Felix ask suddenly, "Can you imagine yourself
+choosing hardship as the better lot?"
+
+"Yes, I can," she answered, flushing over neck and brow. They walked
+home very silently after that. Felix struggling as a firm man struggles
+with a temptation, Esther struggling as a woman struggles with the
+yearning for some expression of love.
+
+On the day of the election a mob of miners, primed with liquor by an
+unscrupulous agent of Transome's, came into the town to hoot the Tory
+voters; and as the disturbance increased, Felix knowing that Mr. Lyon
+was away preaching went round to the minister's house to reassure
+Esther.
+
+"I am so thankful to see you," she said eagerly. He mentioned that the
+magistrates and constables were coming and that the town would be
+quieter. His only fear was that drinking might inflame the mob again.
+
+Again Felix told her of his renunciation of the ordinary hopes and
+ambitions of men, and at the same time tried to prove that he thought
+very highly of her. He wanted her to know that her love was dear to him,
+and he felt that they must not marry--to do so would be to ruin each
+other's lives.
+
+When Felix went out into the streets in the afternoon, the crowd was
+larger and more mischievous. The constables were quite unable to cope
+with the mob, the polling booth was closed for the day, and the
+magistrates had sent to the neighbouring town of Duffield for the
+military.
+
+There were proofs that the predominant will of the crowd was in favour
+of Transome for several shops were attacked and they were all of them
+"Tory shops."
+
+Felix was soon hotly occupied trying to save a wretched publican named
+Spratt from the fury of the crowd. The man had been dragged out into the
+streets, and Felix had got as near him as he could when a young
+constable armed with a sabre rushed upon him. It was a choice of two
+evils, and quick as lightning Felix frustrated him, the constable fell
+undermost and Felix got his weapon. Tucker did not rise immediately, but
+Felix did not imagine that he was much hurt, and bidding the crowd
+follow him tried to lead them away from the town. He hoped that the
+soldiers would soon arrive, and felt confident that there would be no
+resistance to a military force.
+
+Suddenly a cry was raised, "Let us go to Treby Manor," the residence of
+Sir Maximus Debarry, whose son was the Tory candidate.
+
+From that moment Felix was powerless, and was carried along with the
+rush. All he could hope to do was to get to the front terrace of the
+house, and assure the inmates that the soldiers would arrive quickly.
+Just as he approached a large window he heard the horses of the
+troopers, and then came the words, "Halt! Fire!" Before he had time to
+move a bullet whizzed, and passed through Felix Holt's shoulder--the
+shoulder of the arm that bore the sabre.
+
+Felix fell. The rioters ran confusedly, like terrified sheep.
+
+It was a weary night for Felix, and the next day his wound was declared
+trivial, and he was lodged in Loumford Jail. There were three charges
+against him; that he had assaulted a constable, that he had committed
+manslaughter (Tucker was dead from spinal concussion), and that he had
+led a riotous onslaught on a dwelling house.
+
+Four other men were arrested, one for theft, and three others for riot
+and assault.
+
+
+_III.--The Trial_
+
+
+A great change took place in the fortunes of Esther in the interval
+between the riot and the opening of the assizes. It was found that she,
+and not Harold Transome, was the rightful owner of the Transome estates.
+For Esther's real name was Bycliffe and not Lyon, and she was the
+step-daughter only of the minister. Mr. Lyon had found Esther's mother,
+a French woman of great beauty, in destitution--her husband, an
+Englishman, lying in some unknown prison. This Englishman was a
+Bycliffe--and heir to the Transome property, and on the proof of his
+death Mr. Lyon, knowing nothing of Bycliffe's family, married his widow,
+who, however, died while Esther was still a tiny child. Not till the
+time of the election did Esther learn that her real father was dead.
+
+Mr. Transome's lawyer--Jermyn--was fully aware of the claim of the
+Bycliffes, but knew they were powerless without money to enforce the
+claim, and that Esther and her step-father alike were ignorant of all
+the facts. It was only when Harold Transome, on his return, quarrelled
+with Jermyn on the management of the estates, and, after the Election
+(which Transome lost) threatened him with a law-suit, that Jermyn turned
+round and told Harold the truth. At the same time, another lawyer,
+formerly in Jermyn's confidence, thought the more profitable course
+could be found in throwing Jermyn over, and wrote to Esther informing
+her of her inheritance.
+
+Harold Transome decided to act openly. With his mother, he drove to the
+minister's house and Mrs. Transome persuaded Esther to come and stay at
+Transome Court. Both mother and son found Esther to their liking, and it
+appeared to Harold that marriage with Esther would be a happy conclusion
+to the divided claim to the property. He was rich, and the Transome (or
+Bycliffe) property was heavily encumbered.
+
+The Transomes, Esther and Mr. Lyon all agreed that no law-suit over the
+property should take place.
+
+But while Esther stayed at Transome Court she never forgot her friend in
+prison. Mr. Lyon had visited Felix, and Esther herself obtained an
+interview with him just before the assizes began.
+
+She had grown conscious that Harold Transome was making love to her,
+that Mrs. Transome really desired her for a daughter-in-law, and it
+seemed to her as she waited with the minister in the cheerless prison
+room, that she stood at the first and last parting of the ways.
+
+Soon the door opened, and Felix Holt entered.
+
+"Miss Lyon--Esther!" and her hand was in his grasp. He was just the
+same--no, something inexpressibly better, because of the distance and
+separation, which made him like the return of morning.
+
+"Take no heed of me, children," said Mr. Lyon. "I have some notes to
+make." And the old man sat down at a window with his back to them,
+writing with his head bent close to the paper.
+
+Felix had heard of Esther's change of fortune and felt sure she would
+marry Harold Transome. It was only when the time for parting came that
+he could bring himself to say:
+
+"I had a horrible struggle, Esther. But you see I was right. There was a
+fitting lot in reserve for you." Esther felt too miserable for tears to
+come. She looked helplessly at Felix for a moment, then took her hands
+from his, and turning away mutely, said, "Father, I am ready--there is
+no more to say."
+
+"Esther."
+
+She heard Felix say the word, with an entreating cry, and went towards
+him swiftly. He clasped her, and they kissed each other.
+
+When the trial came on Esther went under Mrs. Transome's protection to
+the court.
+
+The case against Felix looked very black when the prosecution closed.
+Various respectable witnesses swore to the prisoner's leadership of the
+mob, to his fatal assault on Tucker, and to his attitude in front of the
+drawing-room window at the Manor.
+
+Felix then gave a concise narrative of his motives and conduct on the
+day of the riot, and explained that in throwing the constable down he
+had not foreseen the possibility of death ensuing. It was a good,
+straightforward speech, not without a touch of defiant independence,
+which did the prisoner little good with judge or jury.
+
+Mr. Lyon and Harold Transome both gave evidence in favour of Felix,
+stating that the prisoner had often expressed his hatred of rioting, and
+had protested with indignation against the treating that went on during
+the election by some of the Radical agents.
+
+One or two witnesses were called who swore that Felix had tried to lead
+the mob in the opposite direction to Treby Manor, and it was understood
+that the case for the defence was closed.
+
+Then it came to Esther that she must speak if Felix was to be saved.
+There had been no witness to tell what had been his behaviour just
+before the riot. There was time, but not too much time.
+
+Before Harold Transome was aware of Esther's intention she was on her
+way to the witness-box.
+
+A sort of gleam shot across the face of Felix Holt, and anyone close to
+the prisoner would have seen that his hand trembled, for the first time,
+at Esther's beautiful aspect. There was no blush on her face: she stood,
+divested of all personal consideration whether of vanity or shyness, and
+gave her story as if she had been making a confession of faith.
+
+She knew Felix Holt well, she said. He came to see her on the day of the
+election, and told her he feared the men might collect again after
+drinking. "It was the last thing he would have done to join in riot or
+to hurt any man, if he could have helped it. He could never have had any
+intention that was not brave and good."
+
+When she was back in her place Felix could not help looking towards her,
+and their eyes met in one solemn glance.
+
+Esther stayed in court till the end. She heard the verdict, "Guilty of
+Manslaughter," followed by the judge's sentence, "Imprisonment for four
+years." But so great was the impression made by Esther's speech that a
+petition to the Home Secretary was at once set on foot by the leading
+men of the county.
+
+
+_IV.--Felix and Esther_
+
+
+One April day, when the sun shone on the lingering raindrops, Lyddy was
+gone out, and Esther chose to sit in the kitchen. She was not reading,
+but stitching, and as her fingers moved nimbly, something played about
+her lips like a ray.
+
+A loud rap came at the door.
+
+"Mr. Lyon at home?" said Felix in his firm tones. "No, sir," said
+Esther: "but Miss Lyon is, if you'll please to walk in."
+
+"Esther!" exclaimed Felix, amazed.
+
+They held each other by both hands, and looked into each other's faces
+with delight.
+
+"You are out of prison?"
+
+"Yes, till I do something bad again. But you--how is it all? Are you
+come back to live here then?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"You are not going to be married to Harold Transome, or to be rich?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Why?" said Felix in rather a low tone, leaning his elbow on the table,
+and resting his head on his hand while he looked at her.
+
+"I did not wish to marry him, or to be rich."
+
+"You have given it all up?" said Felix, leaning forward a little and
+speaking in a still lower tone. "Could you share the life of a poor man,
+then, Esther?"
+
+"If I thought well enough of him," she said, with a smile, and a pretty
+movement of her head.
+
+"Have you considered well what it would be?--that it would be a very
+bare and simple life? and the people I shall live among, Esther? They
+have not just the same follies and vices as the rich, but they have
+their own forms of folly and vice. It is very serious, Esther."
+
+"I know it is serious," said Esther, looking up at him. "Since I have
+been at Transome Court I have seen many things very seriously. If I had
+not, I should not have left what I did leave. I made a deliberate
+choice."
+
+She could not tell him that at Transome Court, all that finally seemed
+balanced against her love for him, was the offer of a silken bondage
+that arrested all motive, and was nothing better than a well-cushioned
+despair. A vision of being restless amidst ease, of being languid among
+all appliances had quickened her resignation of the Transome estates.
+
+Esther explained, however, that she thought of retaining a little of the
+wealth.
+
+"How?" said Felix, anxiously. "What do you mean?"
+
+"I think even of two pounds a week: one needn't live up to the splendour
+of all that, you know: we might live as simply as you liked. And then I
+think of a little income for your mother, and a little income for my
+father, to save him from being dependent when he is no longer able to
+preach!"
+
+Felix put his hand on her shoulder, said, lifting up his eyes with a
+smile:
+
+"Why, I shall be able to set up a great library, and lend the books!"
+
+They laughed merrily, each holding the other's arms, like girl and boy.
+There was the ineffable sense of youth in common.
+
+Then Felix leaned forward, that their lips might meet, and after that
+his eyes roved tenderly over her face and curls.
+
+"I'm a rough, severe fellow, Esther. Shall you never repent?--never be
+inwardly reproaching me that I was not a man who could have shared your
+wealth? Are you quite sure?"
+
+The very next May, Felix and Esther were married. Everyone in those days
+was married at the parish church; but Mr. Lyon was not satisfied without
+an additional private solemnity, "so that he might have a more enlarged
+utterance of joy and supplication."
+
+It was a very simple wedding; but no wedding, even the gayest, ever
+raised so much interest and debate in Treby Magna. Even the very great
+people of the county went to the church to look at this bride, who had
+renounced wealth, and chosen to be the wife of a man who said he would
+always be poor.
+
+Some few shook their heads; could not quite believe it; and thought
+there was more behind. But the majority of honest Trebians were affected
+somewhat in the same way as Mr. Wall, the brewer of the town, who
+observed to his wife as they walked home, "I feel somehow as if I
+believed more in everything that's good."
+
+Felix and Esther did not take up their abode in Treby Magna; and after
+awhile Mr. Lyon left the town too, and joined them where they dwelt.
+
+As to the town in which Felix Holt now resides I will keep that a
+secret.
+
+I will only say that Esther has never repented. Felix, however, grumbles
+a little that she has made his life too easy.
+
+There is a young Felix, who has a great deal more science than his
+father, but not much more money.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+Romola
+
+
+     "Romola" was George Eliot's fifth book, and followed "Silas
+     Marner," which was published in 1861. It is a story of
+     Florence in the days of Savonarola, and was largely the
+     outcome of a visit the novelist paid to Italy with her
+     life-long friend, George Henry Lewes. With dim ideas for the
+     story in her mind, she made exhaustive researches in the
+     Florentine libraries, gathering historical and topographical
+     details of the city and its life as they were in the mediæval
+     period which she was setting herself to re-create. After much
+     study there and at home, and after one false start, she made a
+     serious beginning in January, 1862. She was engaged upon it
+     for eighteen months, always in doubt and sometimes in despair
+     of her ability to accomplish the task, and by June of the
+     following year she had thankfully written the last words of
+     what is regarded by some as her greatest book. Meanwhile, the
+     romance had begun to appear serially in the "Cornhill" in
+     July, 1862. The writing of "Romola" is said to have "ploughed
+     into her" more than any of her other books.
+
+
+_I.--Tito and Little Tessa_
+
+
+Under the Loggia de Cerchi, in the heart of old Florence, in the early
+morning of April 9, 1492, two men had their eyes fixed on each other.
+One was looking downward with the scrutiny of curiosity; the other,
+lying on the pavement, was looking upward with the startled gaze of a
+suddenly awakened dreamer.
+
+"Young man," said the standing figure, pointing to a ring on the finger
+of the other, "when your chin has got a stiffer crop on it you'll know
+better than to take your nap in street corners with a ring like that on
+your forefinger. By the holy 'vangels, if it had been anybody but me
+standing over you--but Bratti Ferravecchi is not the man to steal! Three
+years ago, one San Giovanni, the saint, sent a dead body in my way--a
+blind beggar, with his cap well lined with pieces. But how comes a young
+man like you, with the face of Messer San Michele, to be sleeping on a
+stone bed? Your tunic and hose match ill with that jewel, young man.
+Anybody might say the saints had sent you a dead body; but if you took
+the jewels, I hope you buried him--and you can afford a mass or two for
+him into the bargain!"
+
+Something like a painful thrill appeared to dart through the frame of
+the listener, and arrest the careless stretching of his arms. But he
+immediately recovered an air of indifference, took off the red Levantine
+cap which hung like a great purse over his left ear, and pushing back
+his long, dark brown curls, said smiling, "The fact is, I'm a stranger
+in Florence, and when I came in footsore last night, I preferred
+flinging myself in the corner of this hospitable porch to hunting for a
+chance hostelry, which might turn out to be a nest of bloodsuckers. Can
+you show me the way to a more lively quarter, where I can get a meal and
+a lodging?"
+
+"That I can," said Bratti.
+
+And, talking volubly as they went, Bratti led the way to the Mercato
+Vecchio, or the Old Market, promising to conduct him to the prettiest
+damsel in the Mercato for a cup of milk.
+
+But as soon as they emerged from the narrow streets into the Old Market,
+they found the place packed with excited groups of men and women humming
+with gossip.
+
+"Diavolo!" said Bratti. "The Mercato has gone as mad as if the Holy
+Father had excommunicated us again! I must know what this is."
+
+He pushed about among the crowd, inquiring and disputing, and was
+presently absorbed in discussing the newest development of Florentine
+politics, the death of Lorenzo de Medici, and whether or not this death
+was the beginning of the time of tribulation that Savonarola had been
+seeing in visions and foretelling in sermons.
+
+Indifferent to this general agitation, the young stranger became tired
+of waiting for Bratti's escort, and strolling on round the piazza, felt,
+on a sudden thought, in the wallet that hung at his waist.
+
+"Not an obolus, by Jupiter!" he murmured, in a language that was not
+Tuscan or even Italian. "I must get my breakfast for love, then!"
+
+In a corner, away from any group of talkers, two mules were standing.
+One carried wooden milk vessels, the other a pair of panniers filled
+with herbs and salads. Resting her elbow on the mule that carried the
+milk, there leaned a young girl, apparently not more than sixteen, with
+a red hood surrounding her face, which was all the more baby-like in its
+prettiness from the entire concealment of her hair. The poor child was
+weary, and it seemed to have gone to sleep in that half-standing,
+half-leaning posture. Nevertheless, our stranger had no compunction in
+awaking her. She opened her baby-blue eyes, and stared up with
+astonishment and confusion.
+
+"Forgive me, pretty one, for awaking you," he said. "I'm dying with
+hunger, and the scent of milk makes breakfast seem more desirable than
+ever."
+
+She bestirred herself, and in a few moments a large cup of fragrant milk
+was held out to him; and by the time he set the cup down she had brought
+bread from a bag which hung by the side of the mule, and shyly and
+mutely insisted on his taking it, even though he told her he had nothing
+to pay her with; and just as he was leaning down to kiss her he was
+harshly interrupted by Monna Ghita, Tessa's mother, who had come upon
+them unobserved.
+
+The handsome presence of the stranger and his charm of manner were of no
+avail with Monna Ghita; her noisy rating of him drew Bratti and the
+barber, Nello, to the spot, and with these he was glad to make good his
+escape, having waived a furtive adieu to the pretty Tessa.
+
+It was not until after Bratti, having business at home, had handed the
+young stranger over to Nello, and in the barber's shop he had been
+shaved and trimmed, and made to look presentable, that Tito Melema
+became more confidential, and explained that he was a Greek; that he was
+returning from adventures abroad, had suffered shipwreck, and found
+himself in Florence with nothing saved from the disaster but some few
+rare old gems for which he was anxious to obtain a purchaser.
+
+"Let us see, let us see," said Nello, walking up and down his shop.
+"What you want is a man of wealth and influence and scholarly tastes;
+and that man is Bartolommeo Scala, the Secretary of our Republic. He
+came to Florence as a poor adventurer himself, a miller's son; and that
+may be a reason why he may be the more ready to do a good turn to a
+strange scholar. I could take you to a man who, if he has a mind, can
+help you to a chance of a favourable interview with Scala--a man worth
+seeing for his own sake, too, to say nothing of his collections, or of
+his daughter Romola, who is as fair as the Florentine lily before it got
+quarrelsome and turned red."
+
+"But if the father of this beautiful Romola makes collections, why
+should he not like to buy some of my gems himself?"
+
+Nello shrugged his shoulders. "For two good reasons--want of sight to
+look at the gems and want of money to pay for them."
+
+
+_II.--"More than a Man's Ransom"_
+
+
+He was a moneyless, blind old scholar, the Bardo de Bardi, to whom Nello
+introduced Tito Melema; a man who came of a proud, energetic stock,
+whose ancestors had loved to play the signor, had been merchants and
+usurers of keen daring, and conspicuous among those who clutched the
+sword in the earliest world-famous quarrels of Florentine with
+Florentine. The family passions lived on in Bardo under altered
+conditions; he was a man with a deep-veined hand cramped by much copying
+of manuscripts, who ate sparing dinners, and wore threadbare clothes, at
+first from choice, and at last from necessity; who sat among his books
+and manuscripts, and saw them only by the light of those far-off younger
+days which still shone in his memory.
+
+And among his books and antiquities and rare marble fragments, in a
+spacious room surrounded with laden shelves, Romola was his daily
+companion and assistant. There was a time when he had hoped that his
+son, Dino, would have followed in his steps, to be the prop of his age,
+and to take up and continue his scholarly labours after he was dead. But
+Dino had failed him; Dino had given himself up to religion and entered
+the priesthood, and the passion of Bardo's resentment had flamed into
+fierce hatred towards this recreant son of his, and none dared so much
+as to name him within his hearing.
+
+Maso, the old serving-man ushered in the two visitors he had announced a
+few minutes previously, and Nello introduced Tito to Bardo and his
+daughter as a scholar of considerable learning.
+
+Romola's astonishment could hardly have been greater if the stranger had
+worn a panther-skin and carried a thyrsus, for the cunning barber had
+said nothing of the Greeks age or appearance, and among her father's
+scholarly visitors she had hardly ever seen any but gray-headed men.
+
+Nevertheless, she returned Tito's bow with the same pale, proud face as
+ever; but as he approached the snow melted, and when he ventured to look
+towards her again a pink flush overspread her face, to vanish again
+almost immediately, as if her imperious will had recalled it. Tito's
+glance, on the other hand, as he looked at this tall maiden of seventeen
+or eighteen, as she stood at the reading-desk with one hand on the back
+of her father's chair, had that gentle, beseeching admiration in it
+which is the most propitiating of appeals to a proud, shy woman, and is
+perhaps the only atonement a man can make for being too handsome.
+
+"Messere, I give you welcome," said Bardo with some condescension;
+"misfortune wedded to learning, and especially to Greek learning, is a
+letter of credit that should win the ear of every instructed
+Florentine."
+
+He proceeded to question Tito as to what part of Greece he came from,
+learned that he was a young man of unusual scholastic attainments, and
+that he had a father who was himself a scholar.
+
+"At least," said Tito, "a father by adoption. He was a Neapolitan, but,"
+he added, after another slight pause, "he is lost to me--was lost on a
+voyage he too rashly undertook to Delos."
+
+Bardo forbore to speak further on so painful a topic; he discoursed
+freely upon his own studies, his past hopes, and the one great ambition
+that remained to him--that his library and his magnificent collection of
+treasures should not be dissipated on his death, but should become the
+property of the public, and be honourably housed in Florence for all
+time, with his name over the door.
+
+In his eagerness he made passing reference to his son, of how Romola had
+been filling his place to the best of her power, and plainly hinted--and
+Tito was not slow to profit by the opportunity--that if he could have
+the young Greek scholar to work with him instead of her, he might yet
+look to fulfill some of the notable designs he had abandoned when his
+blindness came upon him.
+
+"But," he resumed, in his original tone of condescension, "we are
+departing from what I believe is your most important business. Nello
+informed me that you had certain gems which you would fain dispose of."
+
+"I have one or two intagli of much beauty," said Tito. "But they are now
+in the keeping of Messer Domenico Cennini, who has a strong and safe
+place for such things. He estimates them as worth at least five hundred
+ducats."
+
+"Ah, then, they are fine intagli!" said Bardo. "Five hundred ducats! Ah,
+more than a man's ransom!"
+
+Tito gave a slight, almost imperceptible start, and opened his long,
+dark eyes with questioning surprise at Bardo's blind face, as if his
+words--a mere phrase of common parlance at a time when men were often
+being ransomed from slavery or imprisonment--had some special meaning
+for him.
+
+But Bardo had used the words in all innocence, and went on to talk of
+superstitions that attached to certain gems, and to undertake that he
+would use his influence with the Secretary of the Republic in Tito's
+behalf. Both Romola and her father were attracted by the charm and
+freshness and apparent simplicity of the young man; but just as he was
+making ready to depart they were interrupted by the entrance of Bernardo
+del Nero, one of the chief citizens of Florence, Bardo's oldest friend,
+and Romola's godfather; and Bernardo felt an instant, instinctive
+distrust of the handsome, ingratiating stranger, and did not hesitate to
+say so after Tito had left them.
+
+"Remember, Bardo," he said at length, "thou hast a rare gem of thy own;
+take care no one gets it who is not like to pay a worthy price. That
+pretty Greek has a sleekness about him that seems marvelously fitted for
+slipping into any nest he fixes his mind on."
+
+
+_III.--The Man who was Wronged_
+
+
+It was undeniable that Tito's coming had been the dawn of a new life for
+both father and daughter, and he grew to care for Romola supremely--to
+wish to have her for his beautiful and loving wife.
+
+He took her place as Bardo's assistant, and served him with an easy
+efficiency that had been beyond her; and she, happier in her father's
+happiness, had given her love to Tito even before he ventured to offer
+her his own. He was thus sailing under the fairest breeze, and besides
+convincing fair judges that his talents squared with his good fortune,
+he wore that fortune so unpretentiously that no one seemed to be
+offended by it.
+
+And that was not the whole of Tito's good fortune, for he had sold his
+jewels, and was master of full five hundred gold florins. Yet the moment
+when he first had this sum in his possession was the crisis of the first
+serious struggle his facile, good-humoured nature had known.
+
+"A man's ransom!" Who was it that had said five hundred florins was more
+than a man's ransom? If, now, under this mid-day sun, on some hot coast
+far away, a man somewhat stricken in years--a man not without high
+thoughts, and with the most passionate heart--a man who long years ago
+had rescued a little boy from a life of beggary, filth, and cruel wrong,
+and had reared him tenderly, if that man were now, under this summer
+sun, toiling as a slave, hewing wood and drawing water? If he were
+saying to himself, "Tito will find me. He had but to carry our gems to
+Venice; he will have raised money, and will never rest till he finds me
+out?" If that were certain, could he--Tito--see the price of the gems
+lying before him, and say, "I will stay at Florence, where I am fanned
+by soft airs of love and prosperity; I will not risk myself for his
+sake?" No, surely not _if it were certain_. But the galley had been
+taken by a Turkish vessel; that was known by the report of the companion
+galley which had escaped; and there had been resistance and probable
+bloodshed, a man had been seen falling overboard.
+
+He quieted his conscience with such reasonings as these, and when
+definite tidings reached him that his father was still a prisoner, he
+contrived to keep the knowledge to himself, and still did nothing. The
+death of the exhausted, emaciated monk who had brought these tidings
+freed him of one fear; but this monk was Romola's brother, Dino, and
+obeying his summons she had been in secret to see him as he lay dying.
+
+"Romola," her brother began to speak, "in the deep night, as I lay
+awake, I saw my father's room, and I saw you ... And at the _leggio_
+where I used to stand stood a man whose face I could not see. I saw him
+move and take thee, Romola, by the hand, and then I saw thee take my
+father by the hand, and you all three went down the stone steps into the
+streets, the man, whose face was a blank to me, leading the way. And you
+stood at the altar of Santa Croce, and the priest who married you had
+the face of death; and the graves opened and the dead in their shrouds
+followed you like a bridal train. And it seemed to me that at last you
+came to a stony place where there was no water, and no trees or herbage;
+but instead of water I saw written parchment unrolling itself
+everywhere, and instead of trees and herbage I saw men of bronze and
+marble springing up and crowding round you. And my father was faint, and
+fell to the ground; and the man loosed thy hand and departed; and as he
+went I could see his face, and it was the face of the Great Tempter....
+Thrice have I had that vision, Romola. I believe it is a revelation
+meant for thee--to warn thee against marriage as a temptation of the
+enemy...."
+
+The words died away.
+
+"Frate," said the dying voice. "Give her----"
+
+"The crucifix," said the voice of Fra Girolamo Savonarola, who was
+standing in the shadows behind her.
+
+"Dino!" said Romola, with a low but piercing cry.
+
+"Take the crucifix, my daughter," said Fra Girolamo, after a few
+minutes. "His eyes behold it no more."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+But, heedless of the distrust and opposition of Messer Bernardo del
+Nero, and with this vision of Dino's menacing his highest hope, Tito
+went gaily on his triumphant way.
+
+Also he had renewed acquaintance with the little Tessa. He came upon her
+in the thronged streets during carnival time, and seeing her, a
+timorous, tearful little _contadin_, terrified by the burlesque threats
+of a boisterous conjurer, took her under his protection.
+
+Thereafter, he met her again at intervals, finding her naive love and
+humble adoration and obedience very pleasant; and, meeting her once at a
+peasant's fair, he jestingly yielded to the burlesque solicitations of a
+mountebank in a white mitre, paid a small fee, and went through an
+absurd ceremony of mock-marriage with her.
+
+Tessa herself believed the marriage to be real enough, and he would not
+mar her delight by undeceiving her. Later, since she was wretched at
+home with her scolding mother and a brutal step-father, and there were
+dangers in allowing her to go on waylaying him in streets when too long
+a period elapsed between his visits to her, he quietly took her away and
+established her in a small house on the outskirts of the city, with the
+deaf, discreet old Monna Lisa as her servant and companion.
+
+Neither this nor the darker secret of his treachery to his adoptive
+father cast any cloud over his habitual cheerfulness. His love for
+Romola was a higher and deeper passion than anything he felt for the
+child-like, submissive little Tessa, and when she told him frankly of
+her brother's warning vision, he set himself to convince her it was the
+mere nightmare of a diseased imagination, and the perfect love and trust
+she had for him made the task easy.
+
+For a while after their marriage she was ideally happy; she was not even
+separated from her father, for Tito came to live with them, and was to
+Bardo, in his scholastic labours, all that he had wished his own son to
+be. Then came the first cloud.
+
+On November 17, 1494, more than eighteen months after the marriage of
+Tito and Romola, the King of France marched his army into Florence on
+his way to take possession of Naples and impose peace on the warring
+little states into which Italy was divided. There were those in Florence
+who were prepared to welcome the invaders, but the majority, the common
+people in particular, resented their coming.
+
+With the soldiery came three wretched prisoners; they were led in ropes
+by their captors, and with blows from knotted cords were stimulated to
+beg. Two, as they passed, held out their hands, crying piteously, "For
+the love of God and the Holy Madonna, give us something towards our
+ransom!"
+
+But the third remained obstinately silent. He was old, white-haired,
+emaciated, with a thick-set figure that seemed to express energy in
+spite of age; yet there was something fitful in his eyes.
+
+This sight was witnessed by the Florentines with growing exasperation,
+and presently from jeering at the French soldiers and hustling them,
+they became bent upon rescuing this third prisoner from his tormentors;
+one venturesome youth suddenly dashed in, cut the old man's bonds and
+urged him to run; and the next moment he had plunged into the crowd,
+which closed behind him and hampered the pursuit.
+
+With one soldier struggling desperately on his track, the fugitive sped
+towards the Duomo, to seek refuge in that sanctuary, but in mounting the
+steps his foot slipped, he was precipitated towards a group of signori
+who stood there with their backs to him, and clutched one to save
+himself.
+
+It was Tito Melema who felt the clutch. He turned, and saw the face of
+his adoptive father, Baldassarre Calvo, close to his own. The two men
+looked at each other silent as death; Tito with cheeks and lips all
+bloodless, fascinated by terror. The next instant the grasp on his arm
+relaxed, and Baldassarre disappeared within the church.
+
+
+_IV.--Romola's Ordeal_
+
+
+With Baldassarre lurking in Florence, Tito went in hourly fear. At any
+moment the story of his baseness might be blown abroad; at any moment,
+worse still, he might be struck down by the old man, in whose wild eyes
+he had read only a fierce yearning for vengeance.
+
+As a precaution, Tito took to wearing a coat of fine chain-mail under
+his doublet, and the discovery of this alarmed Romola for his safety,
+and shocked her with a suspicion that he was something of a coward.
+
+But by now Tito was deeply involved in Florentine politics, and easily
+persuaded her that it was against secret political intriguers that he
+thus shielded himself. He went on to confess that his life was no longer
+safe in Florence, and he was resolved to leave the city for good. But to
+this she demurred; her father had died and left his library and his
+collection as a sacred trust to her and Tito, and until they had carried
+out his wish and made them over to the city authorities, she felt she
+could not go.
+
+Tito made light of her scruples. Her father's wish, he said, had been a
+mere foolish vanity; they had need of money, and he intended to sell
+both the library and collection, and when, for the first time in her
+life, she spoke bitterly, in scorn and anger of his faithlessness, he
+told her flatly it was useless to bandy words for he had sold them
+already, and they were to be removed that day.
+
+Frantic with grief and resentment, she thought of desperate ways of
+preventing the accomplishment of his heartless plans, even to borrowing
+of her godfather and buying back the treasures, so that Tito might keep
+his ill-gotten gain and her father's last wish still be fulfilled; but
+he convinced her that all interference was too late, for the things had
+been purchased by the Count di San Severino and the Seneschal de
+Beaucaire, who were already on their way with the French king to Sienna.
+
+Latterly, in many ways, Romola had been disappointed in her husband's
+character; she had found that his handsome face and gay air masked a
+cowardice, a cunning meanness, a sordid selfishness of disposition that
+were all at variance with her high ideal of him; but that final
+unspeakable treachery of the dead man who had trusted him so implicitly
+shattered her love for Tito utterly.
+
+As soon as her father's library was dismantled and his treasures taken
+away, Romola went from the house with the old man-servant, Maso, and
+would never have looked upon Tito's face again, but that Fra Girolamo
+intercepted her.
+
+"I have a command to call you back," he said. "My daughter, you must
+return to your place. You are flying from your debts; the debt of a
+Florentine woman to her fellow citizens; the debt of a wife. You are
+turning your back on the lot that has been appointed for you--you are
+going to choose another. My daughter, you are fleeing from the presence
+of God into the wilderness. My daughter, if the cross comes to you as a
+wife, you must carry it as a wife. You may say, 'I will forsake my
+husband,' but you cannot cease to be a wife."
+
+There was hunger and misery in the streets, and he urged upon her that
+if she had no other purpose in life she could stay, and help the poor of
+her own city. Her pride was broken, and she yielded.
+
+
+_V.--Baldassarre is Avenged_
+
+
+Meanwhile, Baldassarre, lurking about Florence, had armed himself with a
+knife, and was ravenous for revenge. Being homeless, he called by chance
+at Tessa's little house, and she, not knowing who he was, took pity on
+his age and misery, gave him shelter in a shed, and food and drink.
+
+Whilst he was there, Tito came, and, too frankly simple to keep anything
+from him, Tessa confessed that she had disobeyed his injunctions against
+holding converse with strangers, and was sheltering a strange, weary old
+man in the shed without. Her description of this guest left Tito in no
+doubt as to his identity, and, subduing his first perturbation, he
+conceived that he might turn the situation to his own advantage. He went
+out to the shed, and looking down upon Baldassarre in the moonlight,
+sought to propitiate him with honeyed words, specious explanations, and
+a plea for pardon. But the old man answered nothing, till his
+smouldering fury burst into a flame, then he precipitated himself upon
+the intruder and struck with all his force; but the blade of the knife
+broke off short against the hidden coat of mail.
+
+Tito insisted that he was welcome to remain there, and said what he
+could to soothe him, but Baldassarre would stay no longer when he knew
+whose roof covered him. Presently, he armed himself anew, and waited for
+another opportunity. He learned all that was to be known of Tito's
+career since his arrival in Florence; ascertained that he was married,
+and had thoughts of winning his wife's sympathy and telling her of
+Tessa. Then one night he contrived to get into the Rucellai Gardens,
+where Tito was at supper with a gathering of Florentine notabilities,
+and, seized in time and held back from assassinating him, he
+passionately denounced him before the company as a scoundrel, a liar,
+and a robber.
+
+There were those present who had been on the church steps that day when
+Baldassarre had clutched Tito by the arm, and Tito had then explained
+away his momentary panic. Questioned now by one of these, he declared
+that though when first he encountered his accuser he did not recognise
+him, he now saw that he was the servant who years ago accompanied him
+and his adoptive father to Greece, and was dismissed on account of
+misdemeanours, and that the story of his being rescued from beggary was
+the vision of a disordered brain.
+
+Baldassarre was given a chance to prove that he was not the servant, but
+the great scholar to whom Tito was indebted for his learning.
+
+"The ring I possess," said Rucellai, "is a fine sard that I myself
+purchased from Messer Tito. It is engraved with a subject from Homer.
+Will you turn to the passage in Homer from which that subject was
+taken?"
+
+But sitting to look over the book, Baldassarre realised that the
+sufferings through which he had passed had unhinged his mind and his
+memory; the words he stared at had no meaning for him, and he lifted his
+hands to his head in despair.
+
+The consequence of this fresh failure was that Baldassarre was cast into
+prison, and Tito was at liberty to pursue his political ambitions
+unhaunted by that dogging shadow that was to him as the shadow of death.
+He managed his affairs so cleverly that whichever party came uppermost
+he was secure of favour and money.
+
+But by-and-by the tide began to turn against him. Baldassarre was at
+large again, and met Romola and told her not only of his own wrongs, but
+of Tessa. She saw Tessa and her two children, and befriended them, and
+was so far from blaming that innocent little creature that she did not
+even disclose the truth to her; but she was importunate with Tito that
+he should make atonement to the man who had been a father to him. Then
+came a day when Tito's treacheries were discovered by the party he was
+supposed to serve, and he had to flee for his life through Florence.
+Scattering jewels and gold to delay his pursuers, he leaped from the
+bridge into the river, and swam in the darkness, leaving the bellowing
+mob to think he was drowned.
+
+But far down the stream there were certain eyes that saw him from the
+banks of the river, and when he landed and fell, faint and helpless,
+Baldassarre's hands closed on his throat; and next evening a passer-by
+found the two dead bodies there.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+Silas Marner
+
+
+     "Silas Marner, the Weaver of Raveloe," begun about November,
+     1860, and published early in 1861, is in many respects the
+     most admirable of all George Eliot's works. It is not a long
+     story, but it is a most carefully finished novel--"a perfect
+     gem, a pure work of art," Mr. Oscar Browning describes it. Mr.
+     Blackwood, the publisher, found it rather sombre, and George
+     Eliot replied to him, "I hope you will not find it at all a
+     sad story as a whole, since it sets--or is intended to set--in
+     a strong light the remedial influences of pure, natural, human
+     relations. I have felt all through as if the story would have
+     lent itself best to metrical rather than to prose fiction,
+     especially in all that relates to the psychology of Silas;
+     except that, under that treatment, there could not be an equal
+     play of humour." No novel of George Eliot's has received more
+     praise from men of letters than "Silas Marner."
+
+
+_I.--Why Silas Came to Raveloe_
+
+
+In the early years of the nineteenth century a linen-weaver named Silas
+Marner worked at his vocation in a stone cottage that stood among the
+nutty hedgerows near the village of Raveloe, and not far from the edge
+of a deserted stone-pit.
+
+It was fifteen years since Silas Marner had first come to Raveloe; he
+was then simply a pallid young man with prominent, short-sighted brown
+eyes. To the villagers among whom he had come to settle he seemed to
+have mysterious peculiarities, chiefly owing to his advent from an
+unknown region called "North'ard." He invited no comer to step across
+his door-sill, and he never strolled into the village to drink a pint at
+the Rainbow, or to gossip at the wheel-wrights'; he sought no man or
+woman, save for the purposes of his calling, or in order to supply
+himself with necessaries.
+
+At the end of fifteen years the Raveloe men said just the same things
+about Silas Marner as at the beginning. There was only one important
+addition which the years had brought; it was that Master Marner had laid
+by a fine sight of money somewhere, and that he could buy up "bigger men
+than himself."
+
+But while his daily habits presented scarcely any visible change,
+Marner's inward life had been a history and a metamorphosis as that of
+every fervid nature must be when it has been condemned to solitude. His
+life, before he came to Raveloe, had been filled with the close
+fellowship of a narrow religious sect, where the poorest layman had the
+chance of distinguishing himself by gifts of speech; and Marner was
+highly thought of in that little hidden world, known to itself as the
+church assembling in Lantern Yard. He was believed to be a young man of
+exemplary life and ardent faith, and a peculiar interest had been
+centred in him ever since he had fallen at a prayer-meeting into a
+trance or cataleptic fit, which lasted for an hour.
+
+Among the members of his church there was one young man, named William
+Dane, with whom he lived in close friendship; and it seemed to the
+unsuspecting Silas that the friendship suffered no chill, even after he
+had formed a closer attachment, and had become engaged to a young
+servant-woman.
+
+At this time the senior deacon was taken dangerously ill, and Silas and
+William, with others of the brethren, took turns at night-watching. On
+the night the old man died, Silas fell into one of his trances, and when
+he awoke at four o'clock in the morning death had come, and, further, a
+little bag of money had been stolen from the deacon's bureau, and
+Silas's pocket-knife was found inside the bureau. For some time Silas
+was mute with astonishment, then he said, "God will clear me; I know
+nothing about the knife being there, or the money being gone. Search me
+and my dwelling."
+
+The search was made, and it ended in William Dane finding the deacon's
+bag, empty, tucked behind the chest of drawers in Silas's chamber.
+
+According to the principles of the church in Lantern Yard prosecution
+was forbidden to Christians. But the members were bound to take other
+measures for finding out the truth, and they resolved on praying and
+drawing lots; there was nothing unusual about such proceedings a hundred
+years ago. Silas knelt with his brethren, relying on his own innocence
+being certified by immediate Divine interference. _The lots declared
+that Silas Marner was guilty_. He was solemnly suspended from church-
+membership, and called upon to render up the stolen money; only on
+confession and repentance could he be received once more within the fold
+of the church. Marner listened in silence. At last, when everyone rose
+to depart, he went towards William Dane and said, in a voice shaken by
+agitation, "The last time I remember using my knife was when I took it
+out to cut a strap for you. I don't remember putting it in my pocket
+again. _You_ stole the money, and you have woven a plot to lay the sin
+at my door. But you may prosper for all that; there is no just God, but
+a God of lies, that bears witness against the innocent!"
+
+There was a general shudder at this blasphemy. Poor Marner went out with
+that despair in his soul--that shaken trust in God and man which is
+little short of madness to a loving nature. In the bitterness of his
+wounded spirit, he said to himself, "_She_ will cast me off, too!" and
+for a whole day he sat alone, stunned by despair.
+
+The second day he took refuge from benumbing unbelief by getting into
+his loom and working away as usual, and, before many hours were past,
+the minister and one of the deacons came to him with a message from
+Sarah, the young woman to whom he had been engaged, that she held her
+engagement at an end. In little more than a month from that time Sarah
+was married to William Dane, and not long afterwards it was known to the
+brethren in Lantern Yard that Silas Marner had departed from the town.
+
+
+_II.--The Second Blow_
+
+
+When Silas Marner first came to Raveloe he seemed to weave like a
+spider, from pure impulse, without reflection. Then there were the calls
+of hunger, and Silas, in his solitude, had to provide his own breakfast,
+dinner, and supper, to fetch his own water from the well, and put his
+own kettle on the fire; and all these immediate promptings helped to
+reduce his life to the unquestioning activity of a spinning insect. He
+hated the thought of the past; there was nothing that called out his
+love and fellowship towards the strangers he had come amongst; and the
+future was all dark, for there was no Unseen Love that cared for him.
+
+It was then, when all purpose of life was gone, that Silas got into the
+habit of looking towards the money he received for his weaving, and
+grasping it with a sense of fulfilled effort. Gradually, the guineas,
+the crowns, and the half-crowns, grew to a heap, and Marner drew less
+and less for his own wants, trying to solve the problem of keeping
+himself strong enough to work sixteen hours a day on as small an outlay
+as possible. He handled his coins, he counted them, till their form and
+colour were like the satisfaction of a thirst to him; but it was only in
+the night, when his work was done, that he drew them out, to enjoy their
+companionship. He had taken up some bricks in his floor underneath his
+loom, and here he had made a hole in which he set the iron pot that
+contained his guineas and silver coins, covering the bricks with sand
+whenever he replaced them.
+
+So, year after year, Silas Marner lived in this solitude, his guineas
+rising in the iron pot, and his life narrowing and hardening itself more
+and more as it became reduced to the functions of weaving and hoarding.
+
+This is the history of Silas Marner until the fifteenth year after he
+came to Raveloe. Then, about the Christmas of that year, a second great
+change came over his life.
+
+It was a raw, foggy night, with rain, and Silas was returning from the
+village, plodding along, with a sack thrown round his shoulders, and
+with a horn lantern in his hand. His legs were weary, but his mind was
+at ease with the sense of security that springs from habit. Supper was
+his favourite meal, because it was his time of revelry, when his heart
+warmed over his gold.
+
+He reached his door in much satisfaction that his errand was done; he
+opened it, and to his short-sighted eyes everything remained as he had
+left it, except that the fire sent out a welcome increase of heat.
+
+As soon as he was warm he began to think it would be a long while to
+wait till after supper before he drew out his guineas, and it would be
+pleasant to see them on the table before him as he ate his food.
+
+He rose and placed his candle unsuspectingly on the floor near his loom,
+swept away the sand, without noticing any change, and removed the
+bricks. The sight of the empty hole made his heart leap violently, but
+the belief that his gold was gone could not come at once--only terror,
+and the eager effort to put an end to the terror. He passed his
+trembling hand all about the hole, then he held the candle and examined
+it curiously, trembling more and more. He searched in every corner, he
+turned his bed over, and shook it, and kneaded it; he looked in his
+brick oven; and when there was no other place to be searched, he felt
+once more all round the hole.
+
+He could see every object in his cottage, and his gold was not there. He
+put his trembling hands to his head, and gave a wild, ringing scream--
+the cry of desolation. Then the idea of a thief began to present itself,
+and he entertained it eagerly, because a thief might be caught and made
+to restore the gold. The robber must be laid hold of. Marner's ideas of
+legal authority were confused, but he felt that he must go and proclaim
+his loss; and the great people in the village--the clergyman, the
+constable, and Squire Cass--would make the thief deliver up the stolen
+money.
+
+It was to the village inn Silas Marner went, where the parish clerk and
+a select company were assembled, and told the story of his loss--£272
+12s. 6d. in all. The machinery of the law was set in motion, but no
+thief was ever captured, nor could grounds be found for suspicion
+against any persons.
+
+What had really happened was that Dunsey Cass, Squire Cass's second
+son--a mean, boastful rascal--on his way home on foot from hunting, saw
+the light in the weaver's cottage, and knocked, hoping to borrow a
+lantern, for the lane was unpleasantly slippery, and the night dark. But
+all was silence in the cottage, for the weaver at that moment had not
+yet reached home. For a minute Dunsey thought that old Marner might be
+dead, fallen over into the stone pits. And from that came the decision
+that he must be dead. If so, the question arose, what would become of
+the money that everybody said the old miser had put by?
+
+Dunstan Cass was in difficulties for want of money, and he had killed
+his brother's horse that day on the hunting-field. Who would know, if
+Marner was dead, that anybody had come to take his hoard of money away?
+
+There were only three hiding-places where he had heard of cottagers'
+hoards being found: the thatch, the bed, and a hole in the floor. His
+eyes travelling eagerly over the floor, noted a spot where the sand had
+been more carefully spread.
+
+Dunstan found the hole and the money, now hidden in two leathern bags.
+From their weight he judged they must be filled with guineas. Quickly he
+hastened out into the darkness with the bags, and Dunstan Cass was seen
+no more alive.
+
+At the very moment when he turned his back on the cottage Silas Marner
+was not more than a hundred yards away.
+
+
+_III.--Silas Marner's Visitor_
+
+
+It was New Year's Eve, and Squire Cass was giving a dance to the
+neighbouring gentry of Raveloe. There had been snow in the afternoon,
+but at seven o'clock it had ceased, and a freezing wind had sprung up.
+
+A woman, shabbily dressed, with a child in her arms, was making her way
+towards Raveloe, seeking the Red House, where Squire Cass lived. It was
+not the squire she wanted, but his eldest son, Godfrey, to whom she was
+secretly married. The marriage--the result of rash impulse--had been an
+unhappy one from the first, for Godfrey's wife was the slave of opium.
+The squire had long desired that his son should marry Miss Nancy
+Lammeter, and would have turned him out of house and home had he known
+of the unfortunate marriage already contracted. Cold and weariness drove
+the woman, even while she walked, to the only comfort she knew. She
+raised the black remnant to her lips, and then flung the empty phial
+away. Now she walked, always more and more drowsily, and clutched more
+and more automatically the sleeping child at her bosom. Soon she felt
+nothing but a supreme longing to lie down and sleep; and so sank down
+against a straggling furze-bush, an easy pillow enough; and the bed of
+snow, too, was soft. The cold was no longer felt, but her arms did not
+at once relax their instinctive clutch, and the little one slumbered on.
+
+The complete torpor came at last; the fingers lost their tension, the
+arms unbent; then the little head fell away from the bosom, and the blue
+eyes of the child opened wide on the cold starlight. At first there was
+a little peevish cry of "Mammy," as the child rolled downward; and then,
+suddenly, its eyes were caught by a bright gleaming light on the white
+ground, and with the ready transition of infancy it decided the light
+must be caught.
+
+In an instant the child had slipped on all fours, and, after making out
+that the cunning gleam came from a very bright place, the little one,
+rising on its legs, toddled through the snow--toddled on to the open
+door of Silas Marner's cottage, and right up to the warm hearth, where
+was a bright fire.
+
+The little one, accustomed to be left to itself for long hours without
+notice, squatted down on the old sack spread out before the fire, in
+perfect contentment. Presently the little golden head sank down, and the
+blue eyes were veiled by their delicate half-transparent lids.
+
+But where was Silas Marner while this strange visitor had come to his
+hearth? He was in the cottage, but he did not see the child. Since he
+had lost his money he had contracted the habit of opening his door, and
+looking out from time to time, as if he thought that his money might,
+somehow, be coming back to him.
+
+That morning he had been told by some of his neighbours that it was New
+Year's Eve, and that he must sit up and hear the old year rung out, and
+the new rung in, because that was good luck, and might bring his money
+back again. Perhaps this friendly Raveloe way of jesting had helped to
+throw Silas into a more than usually excited state. Certainly he opened
+his door again and again that night, and the last time, just as he put
+out his hand to close it, the invisible wand of catalepsy arrested him,
+and there he stood like a graven image, powerless to resist either the
+good or evil that might enter.
+
+When Marner's sensibility returned he was unaware of the break in his
+consciousness, and only noticed that he was chilled and faint.
+
+Turning towards the hearth it seemed to his blurred vision as if there
+was a heap of gold on the floor; but instead of hard coin his fingers
+encountered soft, warm curls. In utter amazement, Silas fell on his
+knees to examine the marvel: it was a sleeping child, a round, fair
+thing, with soft, yellow rings all over its head. Could this be the
+little sister come back to him in a dream--his little sister whom he had
+carried about in his arms for a year before she died? That was the first
+thought. _Was_ it a dream? It was very much like his little sister. How
+and when had the child come in without his knowledge?
+
+But there was a cry on the hearth; the child had awakened, and Marner
+stooped to lift it on to his knee. He had plenty to do through the next
+hour. The porridge, sweetened with some dry brown sugar, stopped the
+cries of the little one for "mammy." Then it occurred to Silas's dull
+bachelor mind that the child wanted its wet boots off, and this having
+been done, the wet boots suggested that the child had been walking on
+the snow.
+
+He made out the marks of the little feet in the snow, and, holding the
+child in his arms, followed their track to the furze-bush. Then he
+became aware that there was something more than the bush before
+him--that there was a human body, half covered with the shifting snow.
+
+With the child in his arms, Silas at once went for the doctor, who was
+spending the evening at the Red House. And Godfrey Cass recognised that
+it was his own child he saw in Marner's arms.
+
+The woman was dead--had been dead for some hours, the doctor said; and
+Godfrey, who had accompanied him to Marner's cottage, understood that he
+was free to marry Nancy Lammeter.
+
+"You'll take the child to the parish to-morrow?" Godfrey asked, speaking
+as indifferently as he could.
+
+"Who says so?" said Marner sharply. "Will they make me take her? I shall
+keep her till anybody shows they've a right to take her away from me.
+The mother's dead, and I reckon it's got no father. It's a lone thing,
+and I'm a lone thing. My money's gone--I don't know where, and this is
+come from I don't know where."
+
+Godfrey returned to the Red House with a sense of relief and gladness,
+and Silas kept the child. There had been a softening of feeling to him
+in the village since the day of his robbery, and now an active sympathy
+was aroused amongst the women. The child was christened Hephzibah, after
+Marner's mother, and was called Eppie for short.
+
+
+_IV--Eppie's Decision_
+
+
+Eppie had come to link Silas Marner once more with the whole world. The
+disposition to hoard had utterly gone, and there was no longer any
+repulsion around to him.
+
+As the child grew up, one person watched with keener, though more
+hidden, interest than any other the prosperous growth of Eppie under the
+weaver's care. The squire was dead, and Godfrey Cass was married to
+Nancy Lammeter. He had no child of his own save the one that knew him
+not. No Dunsey had ever turned up, and people had ceased to think of
+him.
+
+Sixteen years had passed, and now Aaron Winthrop, a well-behaved young
+gardener, is wanting to marry Eppie, and Eppie is willing to have him
+"some time."
+
+"'Everybody's married some time,' Aaron says," said Eppie. "But I told
+him that wasn't true, for I said look at father--he's never been
+married."
+
+"No, child," said Silas, "your father was a lone man till you was sent
+to him."
+
+"But you'll never be lone again, father," said Eppie tenderly. "That was
+what Aaron said--'I could never think o' taking you away from Master
+Marner, Eppie.' And I said, 'It 'ud be no use if you did, Aaron.' And he
+wants us all to live together, so as you needn't work a bit, father,
+only what's for your own pleasure, and he'd be as good as a son to
+you--that was what he said."
+
+The proposal to separate Eppie from her foster-father came from Godfrey
+Cass.
+
+When the old stone-pit by Marner's cottage went dry, owing to drainage
+operations, the skeleton of Dunstan Cass was found, wedged between two
+great stones. The watch and seals were recognised, and all the weaver's
+money was at the bottom of the pit. The shock of this discovery moved
+Godfrey to tell Nancy the secret of his earlier marriage.
+
+"Everything comes to light, Nancy, sooner or later," he said. "That
+woman Marner found dead in the snow--Eppie's mother--was my wife. Eppie
+is my child. I oughtn't to have left the child unowned. I oughtn't to
+have kept it from you."
+
+"It's but little wrong to me, Godfrey," Nancy answered sadly. "You've
+made it up to me--you've been good to me for fifteen years. It'll be a
+different coming to us, now she's grown up."
+
+They were childless, and it hadn't occurred to them as they approached
+Silas Marner's cottage that Godfrey's offer might be declined. At first
+Godfrey explained that he and his wife wanted to adopt Eppie in place of
+a daughter.
+
+"Eppie, my child, speak," said old Marner faintly. "I won't stand in
+your way. Thank Mr. and Mrs. Cass."
+
+"Thank you, ma'am--thank you, sir," said Eppie dropping a curtsy; "but I
+can't leave my father, nor own anybody nearer than him."
+
+Godfrey Cass was irritated at this obstacle.
+
+"But I've a claim on you, Eppie," he returned. "It's my duty, Marner, to
+own Eppie as my child, and provide for her. She's my own child. Her
+mother was my wife. I've a natural claim on her."
+
+"Then, sir, why didn't you say so sixteen years ago, and claim her
+before I'd come to love her, i'stead o' coming to take her from me now,
+when you might as well take the heart out o' my body? When a man turns a
+blessing from his door, it falls to them as take it in. But let it be as
+you will. Speak to the child. I'll hinder nothing."
+
+"Eppie, my dear," said Godfrey, looking at his daughter not without some
+embarrassment, "it'll always be our wish that you should show your love
+and gratitude to one who's been a father to you so many years; but we
+hope you'll come to love us as well, and though I haven't been what a
+father should ha' been to you all these years, I wish to do the utmost
+in my power for you now, and provide for you as my only child. And
+you'll have the best of mothers in my wife."
+
+Eppie did not come forward and curtsy as she had done before, but she
+held Silas's hand in hers and grasped it firmly.
+
+"Thank you, ma'am--thank you, sir, for your offers--they're very great
+and far above my wish. For I should have no delight in life any more if
+I was forced to go away from my father."
+
+In vain Nancy expostulated mildly.
+
+"I can't feel as I've got any father but one," said Eppie. "I've always
+thought of a little home where he'd sit i' the corner, and I should fend
+and do everything for him. I can't think o' no other home. I wasn't
+brought up to be a lady, and," she ended passionately, "I'm promised to
+marry a working man, as'll live with father and help me to take care of
+him."
+
+Godfrey Cass and his wife went out.
+
+A year later Eppie was married, and Mrs. Godfrey Cass provided the
+wedding dress, and Mr. Cass made some necessary alterations to suit
+Silas's larger family.
+
+"Oh, father," said Eppie, when the bridal party returned from the
+church, "what a pretty home ours is! I think nobody could be happier
+than we are!"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+The Mill on the Floss
+
+
+     In "The Mill on the Floss," published in 1860, George Eliot
+     went to her own early life for the chief characters in the
+     story, and in the relations of Tom and Maggie Tulliver we get
+     a picture of the youth of Mary Ann Evans and her brother
+     Isaac. Lord Lytton objected that Maggie was too passive in the
+     scene at Red Deeps, and that the tragedy of the flood was not
+     adequately prepared. To this criticism George Eliot answered,
+     "Now that the defect is suggested to me, if the book were
+     still in manuscript I should alter, or rather expand, that
+     scene at Red Deeps." She also admitted that there was "a want
+     of proportionate fulness" in the conclusion. But, with all its
+     faults, "The Mill on the Floss" deserves the reputation it has
+     won. The reception of the story at first was disappointing,
+     and we find the authoress telling her publisher that "she does
+     not want to see any newspaper articles." But the book made its
+     way, and prepared an ever-growing public for "Silas Marner."
+
+
+_I.--The Tullivers of Dorlcote Mill_
+
+
+"What I want, you know," said Mr. Tulliver, "what I want is to give Tom
+a good eddication--an eddication as'll be a bread to him. I mean to put
+him to a downright good school at midsummer. The two years at th'
+academy 'ud ha' done well enough if I'd meant to make a miller and
+farmer of him, but I should like Tom to be a bit of a scholard. It 'ud
+be a help to me wi' these lawsuits, and arbitrations, and things. I
+wouldn't make a downright lawyer o' the lad--I should be sorry for him
+to be a raskill--but a sort of engineer, or a surveyor, or an auctioneer
+and vallyer, like Riley, or one o' them smartish businesses as are all
+profits and no outlay, only for a big watch-chain and a high stool.
+They're pretty nigh all one, and they're not far off being even wi' the
+law, I believe; for Riley looks Lawyer Wakem i' the face as hard as one
+cat looks another. _He's_ none frightened at him."
+
+Mr. Tulliver was speaking to his wife, a blonde, comely woman, nearly
+forty years old.
+
+"Well, Mr. Tulliver, you know best. _I've_ no objections. But if Tom's
+to go to a new school, I should like him to go where I can wash him and
+mend him, else he might as well have calico as linen. And then, when the
+box is goin' backwards and forwards, I could send the lad a cake, or a
+pork-pie, or an apple."
+
+"Well, well, we won't send him out o' reach o' the carrier's cart, if
+other things fit in," said Mr. Tulliver. "Riley's as likely a man as any
+to know o' some school; he's had schooling himself, an' goes about to
+all sorts o' places--arbitratin' and vallyin', and that."
+
+So a day or two later Mr. Riley, the auctioneer, came to Dorlcote Mill,
+and stayed the night, the better that Mr. Tulliver, who was slow at
+coming to a point, might consult him on the all-important subject of his
+boy.
+
+"You see, I want to put him to a new school at midsummer," said Mr.
+Tulliver, when the topic had been reached. "I want to send him to a
+downright good school, where they'll make a scholard of him. I don't
+mean Tom to be a miller an' farmer. I see no fun i' that. I shall give
+Tom an eddication and put him to a business as he may make a nest for
+himself, an' not want to push me out o' mine."
+
+At the sound of her brother's name, Maggie, the second and only other
+child of the Tullivers, who was seated on a low stool close by the fire,
+with a large book open on her lap, looked up eagerly. Tom, it appeared,
+was supposed capable of turning his father out of doors. This was not to
+be borne, and Maggie jumped up from her stool, and going up between her
+father's knees, said, in a half-crying, half-indignant voice, "Father,
+Tom wouldn't be naughty to you ever; I know he wouldn't."
+
+Mr. Tulliver's heart was touched.
+
+"What! They mustn't say any harm o' Tom, eh?" he said, looking at Maggie
+with a twinkling eye. Then, in a lower voice, turning to Mr. Riley, "She
+understands what one's talking about so as never was. And you should
+hear her read--straight off, as if she knowed it all beforehand. But
+it's bad--it's bad. A woman's no business wi' being so clever; it'll
+turn to trouble, I doubt. It's a pity, but what she'd been the
+lad--she'd ha' been a match for the lawyers, she would."
+
+Mr. Riley took a pinch of snuff before he said, "But your lad's not
+stupid, is he? I saw him, when I was here last, busy making
+fishing-tackle; he seemed quite up to it."
+
+"Well, he isn't not to say stupid; he's got a notion o' things out o'
+door, an' a sort o' commonsense, as he'd lay hold o' things by the right
+handle. But he's slow with his tongue, you see, and reads but poorly,
+and can't abide the books, and spells all wrong, they tell me, an' as
+shy as can be wi' strangers. Now, what I want is to send him to a school
+where they'll make him a bit nimble with his tongue and his pen, to make
+a smart chap of him. I want my son to be even wi' these fellows as have
+got the start o' me with schooling."
+
+The talk ended in Mr. Riley recommending a country parson named Stelling
+as a suitable tutor for Tom, and Mr. Tulliver decided that his son
+should go to Mr. Stelling at King's Lorton, fifteen miles from Dorlcote
+Mill.
+
+
+_II.--School-Time_
+
+
+Tom Tulliver's sufferings during the first quarter he was at King's
+Lorton, under the distinguished care of the Rev. Walter Stelling, were
+rather severe. It had been very difficult for him to reconcile himself
+to the idea that his school-time was to be prolonged, and that he was
+not to be brought up to his father's business, which he had always
+thought extremely pleasant, for it was nothing but riding about, giving
+orders, and going to market.
+
+Mr. Stelling was not a harsh-tempered or unkind man--quite the contrary,
+but he thought Tom a stupid boy, and determined to develop his powers
+through Latin grammar and Euclid to the best of his ability.
+
+As for Tom, he had no distinct idea how there came to be such a thing as
+Latin on this earth. It would have taken a long while to make it
+conceivable to him that there ever existed a people who bought and sold
+sheep and oxen, and transacted the everyday affairs of life through the
+medium of this language, or why he should be called upon to learn it,
+when its connection with those affairs had become entirely latent. He
+was of a very firm, not to say obstinate disposition, but there was no
+brute-like rebellion or recklessness in his nature; the human
+sensibilities predominated, and he was anxious to acquire Mr. Stelling's
+approbation by showing some quickness at his lessons, if he had known
+how to accomplish it.
+
+In his secret heart Tom yearned to have Maggie with him, and, before the
+first dreary half-year was ended, Maggie actually came. Mrs. Stelling
+had given a general invitation for the little girl to come and stay with
+her brother; so when Mr. Tulliver drove over to King's Lorton late in
+October, Maggie came too, with the sense that she was taking a great
+journey, and beginning to see the world.
+
+"Well, my lad," Mr. Tulliver said, "you look rarely! School agrees with
+you!"
+
+"I don't think I _am_ well, father," said Tom; "I wish you'd ask Mr.
+Stelling not to let me do Euclid--it brings on the toothache, I think."
+
+"Euclid, my lad--why, what's that?" said Mr. Tulliver.
+
+"Oh, I don't know! It's definitions and axioms and triangles and things.
+It's a book I've got to learn in--there's no sense in it."
+
+"Go, go!" said Mr. Tulliver reprovingly. "You mustn't say so. You must
+learn what your master tells you. He knows what it's right for you to
+learn."
+
+In the second term Mr. Stelling had a second pupil--Philip, the son of
+Lawyer Wakem, Mr. Tulliver's standing enemy.
+
+Philip was a very old-looking boy, Tom thought. His spine had been
+deformed through an accident in infancy, and to Tom he was simply a
+humpback. He had a vague notion that the deformity of Wakem's son had
+some relation to the lawyer's rascality, of which he had so often heard
+his father talk with hot emphasis.
+
+There was a natural antipathy of temperament between the two boys; for
+Tom was an excellent bovine lad, and Philip was sensitive, and suffered
+acute pain when the other blurted out offensive things.
+
+Maggie, on her second visit to King's Lorton, pronounced Philip to be "a
+nice boy."
+
+"He couldn't choose his father, you know," she said to Tom. "And I've
+read of very bad men who had good sons, as well as good parents who had
+bad children."
+
+"Oh, he's a queer fellow," said Tom curtly, "and he's as sulky as can be
+with me because I told him his father was a rogue. And I'd a right to
+tell him so, for it was true--and he began it with calling me names."
+
+An accident to Tom's foot brought the two boys nearer again, and also
+threw Philip and Maggie together.
+
+"Maggie," said Philip one day, "if you had had a brother like me, do you
+think you should have loved him as well as Tom?"
+
+"Oh, yes, better," she answered immediately. "No, not better; because I
+don't think I could love you better than Tom. But I should be so
+sorry--so sorry for you."
+
+Philip coloured. He had meant to imply, would she love him as well in
+spite of his deformity, and yet when she alluded to it so plainly he
+winced under her pity. Maggie, young as she was, felt her mistake.
+
+"But you are so very clever, Philip, and you can play and sing," she
+added quickly. "I wish you were my brother. I'm very fond of you."
+
+"But you'll go away soon, and go to school, Maggie, and then you'll
+forget all about me, and not care for me any more."
+
+"Oh, no, I shan't forget you, I'm sure." And Maggie put her arm round
+his neck, and kissed him quite earnestly.
+
+
+_III.--The Downfall_
+
+
+When Tom had turned sixteen, and Maggie, three years younger, was at
+boarding school, came the downfall of the Tullivers. A long and
+expensive law-suit concerning rights of water, brought by Mr. Tulliver,
+ended in defeat. Wakem was his opponent's lawyer.
+
+Maggie broke the news to Tom. Not only would mill and lands and
+everything be lost, and nothing left, but their father had fallen off
+his horse, and knew nobody, and seemed to have lost his senses.
+
+"They say Mr. Wakem has got a mortgage or something on the land, Tom,"
+said Maggie, on their way home from King's Lorton. "It was the letter
+with that news in it that made father ill, they think."
+
+"I believe that scoundrel's been planning all along to ruin my father,"
+said Tom, leaping from the vaguest impressions to a definite conclusion.
+"I'll make him feel for it when I'm a man. Mind you never speak to
+Philip again!"
+
+For more than two months Mr. Tulliver lay ill in his room, oblivious to
+all that was taking place around him. From time to time recognition came
+to him of his wife and family, but there was no remembrance of recent
+events.
+
+The mill and land of the Tullivers were sold to Wakem the lawyer, and
+the bulk of their household goods were disposed of by public auction;
+but the Tullivers were not turned out of Dorlcote Mill. And, indeed,
+when Mr. Tulliver, known to be a man of proud honesty, was once more
+able to be up and about, it was proposed that he should remain and
+accept employment as manager of the mill for Mr. Wakem.
+
+It was with difficulty that poor Tulliver could bring himself to accept
+the situation, but he saw the possibility, by much pinching, of saving
+money out of the thirty shillings a week salary promised by Wakem, and
+paying a second dividend to his creditors. The strongest influence of
+all was the love of the old premises where he had run about when he was
+a boy, just as Tom had done after him.
+
+Tom, who had at once applied to his Uncle Deane, partner in a wealthy
+merchant's business, for work, and was now earning a pound a week, had
+protested against entertaining the proposition; he shouldn't like his
+father to be under Wakem; he thought it would look nothing but mean
+spirited.
+
+But Mr. Tulliver had come to a decision. The first evening of his new
+life downstairs, he called his family round him, and began to speak,
+looking first at his wife.
+
+"I've made up my mind, Bessy. I'll stop in the old place, and I'll serve
+under Wakem, and I'll serve him like an honest man; there's no Tulliver
+but what's honest, mind that, Tom. They'll have it to throw up against
+me as I paid a dividend--but it wasn't my fault--it was because there's
+raskills in the world. They've been too many for me, and I must give in.
+But I'll serve him as honest as if he was no raskill. I'm an honest man,
+though I shall never hold my head up no more! I'm a tree as is broke--a
+tree as is broke."
+
+He paused, and looked on the ground. Then suddenly raising his head, he
+said, in a louder yet deeper tone, "But I won't forgive him! I know what
+they say--he never meant me any harm! I shouldn't ha' gone to law they
+say. But who made it so as there was no arbitrating and no justice to be
+got? It signifies nothing to him--I know that he's one o' them fine
+gentlemen as get money by doing business for poorer folks, and when he's
+made beggars of 'em he'll give 'em charity. I won't forgive him! I wish
+he might be punished with shame till his own son 'ud like to forget him.
+And you mind this, Tom--you never forgive him, neither, if you mean to
+be my son. Now write--write it i' the Bible!"
+
+"Oh, father, what?" said Maggie. "It's wicked to curse and bear malice."
+
+"It isn't wicked, I tell you," said her father, fiercely. "It's wicked
+as the raskills should prosper--it's the devil's doing. Do as I tell
+you, Tom! Write."
+
+The big Bible was open at the beginning, where many family entries were
+put down.
+
+"What am I to write, father?" said Tom, with gloomy submission.
+
+"Write as your father, Edward Tulliver, took service under John Wakem,
+the man as had helped to ruin him, because I'd promised my wife to make
+her what amends I could, and because I wanted to die in th' old place
+where I was born, and my father was born. Put that i' the right
+words--you know how--and then write as I don't forgive Wakem for all
+that; and for all I'll serve him honest, I wish evil may befall him.
+Write that."
+
+There was a dead silence as Tom's pen moved along the paper.
+
+"Now let me hear what you've wrote," said Mr. Tulliver; and Tom read
+aloud, slowly.
+
+"Now, write--write as you'll remember what Wakem's done to your father,
+and you'll make him and his feel it, if ever the day comes. And sign
+your name--Thomas Tulliver!"
+
+"Oh, no, father, dear father!" said Maggie, trembling like a leaf. "You
+shouldn't make Tom write that!"
+
+"Be quiet, Maggie!" said Tom, impatiently, "I shall write it!"
+
+
+_IV.--In Death They Were Not Divided_
+
+
+The Red Deeps was always a favourite place to Maggie to walk in. An old
+stone quarry, so long exhausted that both mounds and hollows were now
+clothed with brambles and trees, and with here and there a stretch of
+grass which a few sheep kept close nibbled. This was the Red Deeps, and
+it was here in June that Maggie once more met Philip Wakem, five years
+after their first meeting at Mr. Stelling's. He told her that she was
+much more beautiful than he had thought she would be, and assured her,
+in answer to the difficulties she raised as to their meeting, that there
+was no enmity in his father's mind.
+
+And Maggie went home with an inward conflict already begun, and Philip
+went home to do nothing but remember and hope.
+
+In the following April they met again, after Philip had been abroad.
+
+And now he took her hand, and asked her the simple question, "_Do_ you
+love me?"
+
+"I think I could hardly love anyone better; there is nothing but what I
+love you for," Maggie answered. But she pointed out how impossible even
+their friendship was, if it were discovered.
+
+Philip, on his side, refused to give up hope, and before they parted
+that day she had kissed him.
+
+Tom intervened before the next visit to the Red Deeps. He had heard that
+Philip Wakem had been seen there with his sister, and Maggie admitted,
+on his questioning her, that she had told Philip that she loved him.
+
+"Now, then, Maggie," Tom said coldly, "there are but two courses for you
+to take. Either you vow solemnly to me, with your hand on father's
+Bible, that you will never have another meeting or speak another word in
+private to Philip Wakem, or you refuse and I tell my father everything!"
+
+In vain Maggie pleaded. Tom was obdurate, and she repeated the words of
+renunciation.
+
+But that was not enough for Tom Tulliver; he accompanied Maggie to Red
+Deeps, and in a voice of harsh scorn told Philip that he had been taking
+a mean, unmanly advantage.
+
+"It was for my father's sake, Philip," said Maggie, imploringly. "Tom
+threatens to tell my father--and he couldn't bear it. I have promised, I
+have vowed solemnly, that we will not have any intercourse without my
+brother's knowledge."
+
+"It is enough, Maggie. _I_ shall not change, but I wish you to hold
+yourself entirely free. But trust me--remember that I can never seek for
+anything but good to what belongs to you."
+
+Tom only replied with angry contempt, and led Maggie away. All his
+sister's remonstrances he answered with cold obstinacy.
+
+For his character in its strength was hard. Tom had laboured to one end
+in these years: to pay off his father's creditors, and regain Dorlcote
+Mill. By his industry, and by some successful private ventures in trade,
+the day came when the first of the objects was realised, and Mr.
+Tulliver lived to see himself free of debt.
+
+But Mr. Tulliver's satisfaction was short-lived. Excited by the dinner
+given to celebrate the payment of his creditors, he met Mr. Wakem near
+the mill. From angry words it came to blows, and Tulliver fell on the
+lawyer furiously, only ceasing from attack when Maggie and Mrs. Tulliver
+appeared. Wakem went off without serious injury, but Tulliver only lived
+through the night; the excitement had killed him.
+
+"You must take care of her, Tom," said the dying man, turning to his
+daughter. "You'll manage to pay for a brick grave, Tom, so as your
+mother and me can lie together? This world's...too many...honest man..."
+
+At last there was total stillness, and poor Tulliver's dimly lighted
+soul had ceased to be vexed with the painful riddle of this world.
+
+Tom and Maggie went downstairs together, and Maggie spoke. "Tom, forgive
+me; let us always love each other"--and they clung and wept together.
+
+But they were not to be always united.
+
+Tom lived in lodgings in the town, and was anxious to provide for his
+sister, but Maggie preferred to take up teaching in her old boarding-
+school. She met Philip Wakem again, and though Tom released her from her
+old promise, he could not regard Philip with any feelings of friendship.
+
+It was when Tom had, by years of steady work, fulfilled his father's
+wishes and become once more master of Dorlcote Mill that Maggie
+returned--to be no more separated from her brother. She was staying in
+the town near the river on the night when the flood came, and the river
+rose beyond its banks. Her first thought, as the water entered the lower
+part of the house, was of the mill, where Tom was. There was no time to
+get assistance; she must go herself, and alone. Hastily she procured a
+boat, and at last reached the mill. The water was up to the first story,
+but still the mill stood firm.
+
+"Tom, where are you? Here is Maggie!" she called out, in a loud,
+piercing voice. Tom opened the middle window, and got into the boat. Tom
+rowed with vigour, but a new danger was before them in the river.
+
+"Get out of the current!" was shouted at them, but it could not be done
+at once. Huge fragments of machinery, swept off one of the wharves,
+blocked the stream in one wide mass, and the current swept the boat
+swiftly on to its doom.
+
+"It is coming, Maggie!" Tom said, in a deep, hoarse voice, loosing the
+oars and clasping her.
+
+The next instant the boat was no longer seen upon the water, and brother
+and sister had gone down in an embrace never to be parted; living
+through again in one supreme moment the days when they had clasped their
+little hands in love.
+
+"In their death they were not divided."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+ERCKMANN-CHATRIAN
+
+
+Waterloo
+
+
+     Emile Erckmann was born at Phalsbourg, in Alsace, on May 20,
+     1822, and Alexandre Chatrian, at Soldatenthal, on December 18,
+     1826. Erckmann, the son of a bookseller, became a law student,
+     and was admitted to the Bar in 1858. But the law studies were
+     always uncongenial, and Erckmann meeting Chatrian as a fellow
+     student in the gymnasium at Phalsbourg, the two young men
+     decided to join forces in authorship. The Erckmann-Chatrian
+     partnership lasted from 1860 to 1885, and resulted in a
+     remarkable series of novels, short stories, plays, and operas.
+     "Waterloo" was published in 1865, and has enjoyed a wide
+     popularity in many languages. Like "The Conscript," its
+     predecessor, the charm of "Waterloo" consists largely in the
+     character of Joseph Bertha, the young clockmaker of
+     Phalsbourg, who tells the story. Bertha is a peaceful citizen
+     who hates war and has no taste for glory. Yet he is nothing of
+     a coward, and behaves like a man when he is forced to fight.
+     To the student of history, the light thrown on the rise and
+     fall of the Bourbon popularity in France, 1813-14, in this
+     novel, will always be of interest. Chatrian died in Paris on
+     September 4, 1890, and Erckmann at Luneville, on March 14,
+     1899.
+
+
+_I.--Napoleon Returns_
+
+
+Never was anything so joyous as the spring of 1814 Louis XVIII. was
+king, and the war was over. All except the old soldiers were content;
+and only when the nobles, who had fled at the Revolution, returned, and
+it was said that they were going to bring back all their old ideas, did
+M. Goulden express any dissatisfaction. There were great religious
+processions everywhere and expiatory services, and talk of rebuilding
+all the convents, and setting up the nobles again in their castles. But
+these things did not trouble me, because I was married to Catherine, and
+knew nothing about politics.
+
+The treatment of the old soldiers enraged me. On the day of the
+religious procession at Phalsbourg, half a dozen old veterans, restored
+prisoners, were set upon in our town by that rascal Pinacle and the
+people of Baraques, and knocked about. Pinacle did this to curry favour
+with Louis XVIII., and M. Goulden warned us that if ruffians like
+Pinacle got the upper hand it would open people's eyes.
+
+Sure enough, Pinacle received the cross of honour in the autumn when the
+Duc de Berry came to review the troops at Phalsbourg, and even Aunt
+Grédel, who was fond of abusing Napoleon and the Jacobins, and
+applauding the king and the clergy, thought this a shameful thing.
+
+It really was scandalous the way titles and honours were given to
+worthless people who shouted for the king. Worse than this was the way
+Napoleon's old officers were treated. Men who had fought and bled for
+France for twenty years were now well-nigh starving, driven out of the
+army to make room for the king's favourites.
+
+We read all this in the "Gazette," and Zébédé, who had come back alive
+and in time for my wedding, and was still in the army, would often come
+in and tell us of the growing indignation of the soldiers. The whole of
+that winter the indignation was spreading in the town at the sight of so
+many brave officers, the heroes of Marengo, Austerlitz, and Wagram,
+wandering forlornly about, starving on half-pay, and deprived of their
+posts.
+
+How well I remember one day in January, 1815, two of these officers,
+pale and gaunt, coming into the workshop to sell a watch.
+
+M. Goulden examined the watch with great care and said, "Do not be
+offended, gentlemen; I, too, served France under the Republic, and I
+know it must cut to the heart to be forced to sell something which
+recalls sacred memories."
+
+"It was given me by Prince Eugène," said one of the officers, Commandant
+Margarot, a hussar.
+
+"It is worth more than 1,000 francs," said M. Goulden, "and I cannot
+afford to buy it. But I will advance you 200 francs, and the watch shall
+remain here if you like, and shall be yours whenever you come to reclaim
+it."
+
+The old hussar broke down at this, and though his comrade, Colonel
+Falconette, tried to restrain him, he poured forth thanks and bitter
+words against the government.
+
+From that time it always seemed to me that things would end badly, and
+that the nobles had gone too far. The old commandant had said that the
+government behaved like Cossacks to the army, and this was horrible.
+
+M. Goulden read the "Gazette" aloud to us every day, and both Catherine
+and I were pleased to find there were men in Paris maintaining the very
+things we thought ourselves.
+
+All this time the clergy were going on with their processions, and
+sermons were being preached about the rebellion of 1790, the restitution
+of property to the landowners, and the re-establishment of convents, and
+the need for missionaries for the conversion of France. From such ideas
+what good could come?
+
+It is no wonder that when a report came early in March that Napoleon had
+landed at Cannes and was marching on Paris we were all very agitated at
+Phalsbourg.
+
+"It is plain," said M. Goulden, "that the emperor will reach Paris. The
+soldiers are for him; so are the peasantry, whose property is
+threatened; and so are the middle classes, provided he will make
+treaties of peace."
+
+
+_II.--"Vive l'Empereur!"_
+
+
+For some days, though all knew Napoleon had set foot in France, no one
+dared talk of it aloud. Only the looks of the half-pay officers betrayed
+their anxiety. If they had possessed horses and arms I am sure they
+would have set out to meet their emperor.
+
+On March 8, Zébédé entered our house and said abruptly, "The two first
+batallions are starting."
+
+"They are going to stop him?" said M. Goulden.
+
+"Yes, they'll stop him, that is very likely," Zébédé answered, winking.
+At the foot of the stairs he drew me aside and whispered, "Look inside
+my cap, Joseph; all the soldiers have got it, too."
+
+Sure enough it was the old tricolour cockade, which had been removed on
+the return of Louis XVIII.
+
+At last the papers had to admit that Buonaparte had escaped from Elba.
+What a scene it was in the café the night the papers arrived! M. Goulden
+and I were hardly seated before the place was filled with people, and it
+was so close the windows had to be opened.
+
+Commandant Margarot mounted on a table with other officers all around
+him, and began to read the "Gazette" aloud. It took a long time, the
+reading, and the people laughed and jeered at the passages that said the
+troops were faithful to the king, that Buonaparte was surrounded and
+would soon be taken, and that the illustrious Ney and the other marshals
+had hastened to place their swords at the service of the king. The
+commandant read on firmly in that distinct voice of his until he came to
+the order calling upon the French to seize Buonaparte and give him up
+dead or alive.
+
+Then his whole face changed and his eyes glittered. He took the
+"Gazette" up and tore it into little pieces, and, drawing himself up,
+his long arms stretched out, cried, "Vive l'Empereur!" with all his
+might. Immediately all the half-pay officers took up the cry, and "Vive
+l'Empereur!" was repeated again by the very soldiers posted outside the
+town hall when they heard the shout.
+
+The commandant was carried shoulder high round the café, and everyone
+was now calling out, "Vive l'Empereur!" I saw the tears in the eyes of
+the commandant, tears at hearing the name he loved best acclaimed once
+more.
+
+As for me, I felt as if cold water was being forced down my back. "It's
+all over," I said to myself. "It's no good talking about peace."
+
+But M. Goulden was more hopeful, and after we got home spoke cheerfully
+of the blessings of liberty and a good constitution.
+
+Aunt Grédel did not take this view. She came to see us the morning after
+the scene in the café, when all the town was discussing the great news,
+and began at once, "So it seems the villain has run away from his
+island?"
+
+Both M. Goulden and I were anxious to avoid a dispute, for Aunt Grédel
+was really angry, and she couldn't leave the subject.
+
+M. Goulden admitted that he preferred Napoleon to the Bourbons, with
+their nobles and missionary priests, because the emperor was bound to
+respect the national property, whereas the later would have destroyed
+all that the Revolution had accomplished. "Still, I am now, and always
+shall be till death, for the Republic and the rights of man," M. Goulden
+concluded.
+
+The old gentleman took his hat and went out to escape further argument,
+and Aunt Grédel turned to me and told me that M. Goulden was an old fool
+and always had been, and that I should have to go to Switzerland now,
+unless Buonaparte was taken before he reached Paris.
+
+In the evening, however, when Aunt Grédel had gone, and we three were
+together, Catherine said quietly, "M. Goulden is right; he knows more
+about these things than my mother does, and we will always listen to his
+advice."
+
+I thought to myself, "Yes, that's all very well; but it will be a
+horrible thing to have to put on one's knapsack again and be off. I
+would rather be in Switzerland than in Leipzig."
+
+Each day now brought news of Napoleon's advance, from Grenoble to Lyons,
+from Lyons to Macon and Auxerre. There was no opposition anywhere to his
+progress, and the only question that troubled M. Goulden's mind was the
+attitude of Ney to the emperor. Could Ney, an old soldier of the
+Revolution, though he had kissed the hand of Louis XVIII., betray the
+country to please the king? The uneasiness disappeared when we learnt
+that Ney had followed the example of the army, the citizens, and of all
+who did not wish to go back to the customs and laws of twenty-five years
+earlier.
+
+On March 21, just as it was getting dark, we knew that something
+decisive must have happened at Paris. The drums were calling to arms in
+the market-place, and a great crowd soon assembled.
+
+The soldiers fell into their ranks, Commandant Gémeau, who had only just
+recovered from his wounds, drew his sword, and gave the order to form
+square.
+
+M. Goulden and I got on a bench to listen; we knew that the fate of
+France depended on the message we were to hear.
+
+"Present arms!" called out the commandant in the same clear voice which
+had bidden us at Lützen and Leipzig, "Close up your ranks!"
+
+Then came the news we had been waiting for.
+
+"Soldiers, his Majesty Louis XVIII. left Paris on March 20, and the
+Emperor Napoleon entered the capital the same day."
+
+For a second there was a dead silence, and then the commandant spoke of
+the banner of France, the banner of Marengo, Austerlitz, and Jena,
+stained with our blood; and the old sergeant drew out the tattered
+tricolour flag from its case.
+
+"I know no other flag!" cried the commandant, raising his sword. "Vive
+la France! Vive l'Empereur!"
+
+What a shout there was of "Vive l'Empereur! Vive la France!" at this.
+The people and the soldiers embraced one another, and that night and for
+the next five or six days there was, if anything, even more rejoicing
+than there had been on the return of Louis XVIII. We still hoped for the
+continuance of peace, but who could say how long the peace would last?
+
+Phalsbourg was ordered to put itself into a state of defence, a large
+workshop was set up at the arsenal for the repairing of arms, and
+engineers and artillerymen came over from Metz to make earthworks in the
+fortifications. It seemed to me that a large number of men would be
+required for all the guns and forts, and that my watchmaking days would
+soon be exchanged for active service. I began to think that, after all,
+religious processions were better than being sent to fight against
+people one knew nothing about.
+
+
+_III.--On the Road to Waterloo_
+
+
+Aunt Grédel had not been to see us for a month, and it was a great
+comfort to Catherine and me when one Sunday M. Goulden proposed that we
+should all three pay her a visit at Quatre Vents. As soon as she saw us,
+Aunt Grédel rushed to kiss her daughter, and called out, "You are a good
+man, M. Goulden, better a thousand times than I am. How glad I am to see
+you! It doesn't matter about being a Jacobin or anything else; the main
+thing is to have a good heart."
+
+It was not until the afternoon that M. Goulden explained that he had
+known for some days that I should be called up to rejoin my old
+regiment, and that he had arranged with the commandant of artillery that
+I should be received at the arsenal as a workman. What relief this was
+to us, for I could not bear the thought of separation from Catherine. So
+from that day I went to work at the arsenal, and Aunt Grédel came to see
+us again as she had been accustomed to do.
+
+It can be guessed with what spirit I worked at the arsenal, and how
+pleased I was when the commandant expressed satisfaction at my work. But
+I was not allowed to stop at Phalsbourg.
+
+On May 23 the commandant told me that I must go to Metz with the 3rd
+battalion, to which I belonged. He assured me, however, that I should be
+kept at Metz in the workshops, and we all did our best to believe that I
+was fortunate in my destination. M. Goulden, however, warned me before I
+left that France was threatened by her enemies, that the allies would
+make no peace with the emperor, but were determined to set Louis XVIII.
+once more on the throne, and that now the question was not of invading
+other countries, but of defending our own.
+
+Catherine was asleep when the morning came for my departure, and I was
+glad to escape the pain of saying "good-bye." At the barracks, Zébédé,
+who was now a sergeant, led me into the soldiers' room, and I put on my
+uniform. Then the battalion defiled through the gates, the soldiers at
+the outworks presented arms, and we were on the way to Waterloo.
+
+It was useless to think of stopping in Metz. We arrived in that city of
+Jews and soldiers after five days' march, and were at once, after our
+night's rest, supplied with ammunition. I saw that my only chance of
+staying at the workshops of Metz would be after the campaign was over,
+for we were on the march the very next morning. Zébédé was not always
+with me now, and my closest comrade was Jean Buche, the son of a
+sledge-maker at Harberg, who had never eaten anything better than
+potatoes before he became a conscript. Buche turned in his feet in
+walking, but he never seemed to know the meaning of being tired, and in
+his own fashion was a wonderful pedestrian.
+
+From Metz we marched through Thionville, Châtelet, Etain, Dannevoux,
+Yong, Vivier, and Cul-de-Sard. All our troops were pouring into
+Belgium--cavalry, infantry, and artillery--and though there were no
+signs of the enemy, it was reported that we were to attack the English.
+I thought as well English as Prussians, Austrians, or Russians, since we
+were to kill each other.
+
+On the night of June 14 we bivouacked outside the village of Roly, and
+General Pécheux read a proclamation by the emperor, reminding us that
+this was the anniversary of Marengo, that the powers were in coalition
+against France, and that the hour had come for France to conquer or
+perish.
+
+It is impossible to describe the enthusiasm at this message from the
+emperor; our courage was stronger, and the conscripts were even more
+anxious than the veterans for the fighting to begin.
+
+We were up at daybreak next day and on the march, eager to get a sight
+of the Prussians, who had been repulsed from Charleroi by the emperor,
+we were told. At the village of Châtelet we halted, and heard the noise
+of firing away across the River Sambre, in the direction of Gilly. An
+old bald peasant told us that evening that the Prussians had men in the
+villages of Fleurus and Lambusart, that the English and Belgians were on
+the great Brussels road, and that the causeway through Quatre Bras and
+Ligny enabled the Prussians and English to communicate freely with each
+other. He also told us that the Prussians said insulting things of the
+French army, and were generally hated by the people. When I heard of the
+way the Prussians boasted, my blood boiled, and I said to myself, "There
+shall be no more compassion. Either they or we must be utterly
+destroyed."
+
+I can recall with what splendour the sun rose next morning above a
+cornfield--it was the morning of the battle of Ligny. Zébédé and one or
+two comrades whom I had known in 1813 came and chattered while we lit
+our fires. We could see the Prussians before us, posting themselves
+behind hedges and walls, and preparing to defend the villages, and all
+the time we were kept roasting in the corn, waiting for the signal to
+attack. The emperor arrived, and held a short conference with the
+superior officers, and I saw him at close quarters before he rode off
+again to the village of Fleurus, already vacated by the Prussians.
+
+And still we waited, though we knew the attack on St. Amand had begun.
+
+At last came our turn to advance on Ligny. "Forward! Forward!" cried the
+officers. "Vive l'Empereur!" we shouted. The Prussian bullets whizzed
+like hail upon us, and then we could see or hear nothing till we were in
+the village.
+
+No quarter was given that day; we fought in houses and gardens, in barns
+and lanes, with muskets and bayonets. Those who fell were lost. At one
+time fifteen of us were in possession of a barn, and the Prussians, for
+a time outnumbering us, drove us up a ladder. They fired up at our
+floor, and finally, when it seemed we were lost, and were all to be
+massacred we heard the shout of "Vive l'Empereur!" and the Prussians
+fled. Out of that fifteen only six were left alive, but Zébédé and Buche
+were among the survivors.
+
+The battle still raged in the village streets, dead and dying were
+everywhere. Towards nightfall it was plain we were the victors; Ligny
+and St. Amand were in our hands, and the Prussians had moved away. On
+the plateau behind Ligny, where our cavalry had been at work, the
+slaughter had been terrible.
+
+The dozen or so remaining of our company rested for a few hours that
+night in the ruins of a farmhouse, and next day came the roll-call of
+our battalion, and the sending off of the wounded. More than 360 of our
+men, including Commandant Gémeau and Captain Vidal, were disabled, and
+we were busy all day over the wounded.
+
+It was wet and muddy that evening, and we were hungry and dispirited
+when we reached Quatre Bras, about eight o'clock. We were not allowed to
+halt here, but marched on to a village called Jemappes, and at midnight
+we settled down in a furrow to wait for morning.
+
+The red coats of the English were visible before us when we awoke next
+morning; behind their lines was the village of Mont St. Jean, and they
+had also the farmhouses of La Haie-Sainte and Hougomont. At six o'clock
+I looked at their position, with Zébédé, Captain Florentin, and Buche,
+and it seemed to me it was a difficult task before us. It was Sunday,
+and I could hear the bells of villages, recalling Phalsbourg. But in a
+very little while we heard no more bells, for at half-past eight our
+battalion was on its way to the high road in front, and the battle of
+Waterloo had begun.
+
+
+_IV.--The Hour of Disaster_
+
+
+I have often heard veterans describe the order of battle given by the
+emperor. But all I remember of that terrible day is that we marched out
+with the bands playing, that we got to close quarters with the English,
+were repulsed, and were assisted by regiments of cuirassiers, that we
+carried La Haie-Sainte with terrible slaughter at Ney's command.
+Hougomont we could not carry. When we thought we were winning, the news
+was spread that Blücher, with 60,000 men, was advancing on our flank,
+and that unless Grouchy, with his 30,000, arrived in time to reinforce
+us the day might be lost.
+
+All the world knows now that Grouchy did not arrive, that we threw
+ourselves again and again upon the English squares, and that at last,
+when regiment after regiment had tried in vain to break the enemy's
+line, the Old Guard were called up by the emperor. It was the last
+chance of retrieving the day, the grand stroke--and it failed.
+
+The four battalions of the Guards, reduced from 3,000 to 1,200 men, were
+assailed by so fierce a fire that they were compelled to retire. They
+retired slowly, defending themselves with muskets and bayonets, but with
+their retirement, and the approach of night, the battle ended for us in
+the confusion of a rout. It was like a flood. We were surrounded on all
+sides when Blücher arrived. The Old Guard formed a square for the
+emperor and his officers, and the rest of us simply straggled away, back
+to France. The most awful thing of all was the beating of the drum of
+the Old Guard in that hour of disaster. It was like a fire-bell, the
+last appeal of a burning nation.
+
+Buche was by my side in the retreat. Several times the Prussians
+attacked us. We heard that the emperor had departed for Paris, and we
+struggled on, only hoping to escape with our lives. At Charleroi the
+inhabitants shut the city gates in our face, and Buche shared in the
+general rage, and proposed to destroy the town. But I thought we had had
+enough massacres, and that it was not right we should be killing our own
+countrymen, and I persuaded Buche to come on with me.
+
+In a few days we felt ourselves safe from pursuing Prussians, and at the
+village of Bouvigny I wrote a letter to Catherine, telling her I was
+safe. In this village some officers of our regiment, the 6th of the
+Line, found us, and we had to rejoin. Presently we saw all that was left
+of Grouchy's army corps in retreat, and a day or two later we heard of
+the emperor's abdication. On July 1, we reached Paris, and outside the
+city, near the village of Issy, we once more fell in with the Prussians;
+for two days we fought them with fury, and then some generals announced
+that peace had been made.
+
+We believed that this truce was to give the enemy time to leave the
+country, and that otherwise France would rise, as it rose in '92, and
+drive them out.
+
+Unhappily, we soon learnt that the Prussians and English were to occupy
+Paris, and that the remains of the French army were to be kept beyond
+the Loire. We all felt that we had been betrayed, and the old officers,
+pale with anger, wept in their misery. Paris in the hands of the
+Prussians! Besides, were we to go to the other side of the Loire at the
+command of Blücher?
+
+Desertions began that very day, and I said to Buche, "Let us return to
+Phalsbourg and Harberg, and take up our work, and live like honest men."
+About fifty of us from Alsace-Lorraine were in the battalion, and we set
+off together on the road to Strasbourg.
+
+On July 8 we heard that Louis XVIII. was to come back, and already the
+white banner of the Bourbons was being displayed in the villages.
+
+In some places there were rascals who called us Buonapartists, and
+gendarmes who took us to the town hall and made us shout "Vive le Roi!"
+Buche and some of the old soldiers hated this; but what did it matter
+who was king, and what these fools wanted us to shout?
+
+Our little company got smaller and smaller as men halted in their own
+villages, and when, on July 16, we reached Phalsbourg, Buche and I were
+alone.
+
+Buche went on to break the news of my return, but I could not wait, and
+ran after him.
+
+I heard people saying, "There's Joseph, Bertha," and in a moment I was
+in the house, and in Catherine's arms. Then I embraced M. Goulden, and
+an hour later Aunt Grédel arrived.
+
+Jean Buche would not stay and dine with us, but hurried home to Harberg.
+I have often seen him since; and Zébédé, too, who remained in the army.
+
+Many insulting things were said about us by the Pinacles, but I had
+happiness in my family circle, especially when Catherine presented me
+with a little Joseph.
+
+I am an old man now, but M. Goulden always said the principles of
+freedom and liberty would triumph, and I have lived long enough to see
+his words come true.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+OCTAVE FEUILLET
+
+
+Romance of a Poor Young Man
+
+     Octave Feuillet, born at Saint Lô, in France, on August 11,
+     1821, was the son of a Norman gentleman who regarded
+     literature as an ignoble profession. When Octave ran away to
+     Paris in order to pursue a literary career, his father refused
+     to help him, and for some years the young writer had a very
+     hard struggle. But on taking to novel-writing, Feuillet
+     quickly acquired fame and fortune. His "Romance of a Poor
+     Young Man" ("Le Roman d'un Jeune Homme Pauvre"), which
+     appeared in 1858, made him the most popular author of the day.
+     Standing midway between the novelists of the romantic school
+     and the writers of the realistic movement, he combined a sense
+     of the poetry of life with a gift for analysing the finer
+     shades of feeling. The plot of the "Romance of a Poor Young
+     Man" is certainly extraordinary; but in the present case some
+     allowance must be made for the fact that the hero is induced
+     to accept the humble position in which he finds himself by his
+     old family lawyer, who secretly designs to marry him to the
+     daughter of his new employers. A scheme of this sort would not
+     Strike a French reader as improbable, for marriage in France
+     is often more a business arrangement than a love affair.
+     Feuillet spent the latter part of his life in retirement, and
+     died on December 29, 1890.
+
+
+_I.--A Nobleman in Difficulties_
+
+
+Here I am, then, in the situation that Lawyer Laubépin obtained for me.
+I am alone at last, thank goodness, sitting in a gloomy room in this old
+Breton castle, in which the former steward to the Laroque family used to
+live. My position is certainly very strange, but as Laubépin was
+discreet, and did not tell his clients that he was sending them a new
+steward in the person of the young Marquis of Champcey, perhaps I shall
+not find my post very difficult. I was afraid that the Laroques were a
+family of the vulgarly rich sort, like the dreadful persons who have
+bought my father's lands. Laroque is a picturesque figure in his old
+age, and though his widowed daughter-in-law is rather more commonplace,
+his grand-daughter, Marguerite Laroque, is a nobly beautiful girl.
+
+If it were not for my accursed pride, I should now feel happier than I
+have ever felt since that day of disaster, misery, and shame when
+Laubépin told me that my poor dead father had lost his fortune in
+speculations, and left nothing but his title and his debts. Well, I have
+paid the debts, and if I can now only earn enough money to keep my
+little sister Hélène at school, I shall not grumble at my lot. I feel
+the loss of my friends, it is true. There is not a soul I can confide
+in, and I must find some outlet for the thoughts and feelings that
+oppress me; so I will keep this diary.
+
+It will be at least a silent confidant, and perhaps when I am older I
+shall be able to read with a certain pleasurable interest its record of
+my singular adventures. No other man in France, on May 1, 1857, can have
+been transformed so suddenly, as by the wand of a witch, from a powerful
+and wealthy young nobleman of ancient lineage into a humble and despised
+domestic servant. Perhaps a good fairy will appear and restore me to my
+proper shape; but I wish she had appeared at dinner this evening. There
+were twenty guests, and it was the first time since the change of my
+fortunes that I took part in a society affair. Nobody spoke to me,
+except the pretty little governess of the family, Mlle. Hélouin; and we
+were placed at the end of the table. The position of honour was given to
+a young and brilliant nobleman, M. de Bévallan, whose estate joined that
+of the Laroque family. I gathered from Mlle. Hélouin that it was his
+ambition to unite the two estates by marrying Mlle. Marguerite Laroque.
+I was, therefore, surprised when the lovely heiress led her grandfather
+into the room when everybody was seated, placed him in a chair by
+Bévallan, and came and sat by my side.
+
+"She can't," I thought to myself, "be much in love with her wooer," and
+I began to study her with a certain curiosity. Her fine, clear-cut
+features and large dark eyes attracted me; and by way of opening the
+conversation I spoke of the wildly beautiful scenery through which I had
+passed on my way to the castle. It was a bad beginning.
+
+"I see," she said, with a singular expression of irony, "that you are a
+poet. You must talk about the forests and moorlands with Mlle. Hélouin,
+who also adores these things. For my part I do not love them."
+
+"What is it, then, that you really love?" I said.
+
+She gave me a supercilious look and said, in a hard voice, "Nothing,
+sir."
+
+I must confess I was hurt. I could not see that I had done anything to
+lay myself open to so harsh an answer. No doubt I was only a servant.
+But why had she come and sat beside me if she did not want to talk? I
+was glad when the dinner was over and we went into the drawing-room.
+Madame Laroque, the widowed mother of Marguerite, began to ask M.
+Bévallan about the new opera in Paris; he was unable to reply, so, as I
+had seen the work in Italy before it was produced in France, I gave her
+a description of it. I am afraid I forgot myself with Madame Laroque--a
+fine-looking, cultivated woman of forty years of age. Flattered by the
+way in which she treated me entirely as her equal, I insensibly glided
+from theatrical topics to fashionable gossip, and just stopped in time
+in an anecdote about my tour in Russia. A few more words and she would
+have learnt that her humble steward, Maxime Odiot--as I am now called--
+was a man with very aristocratic connections.
+
+In order to hide my embarrassment, I moved towards the table where some
+of the guests were playing whist. This led to my committing a blunder
+which, I fear, may make my position a difficult one. Among the whist-
+players was a Mlle. de Porhoet-Gael, eighty-eight years of age and full
+of strange crotchets. The last descendant of the noblest of Breton
+families, she lived, so Madame Laroque told me, on an income of forty
+pounds a year, her fortune having been spent in vainly fighting for the
+succession to a great estate in Spain. She was talking about it to her
+partner when I came up.
+
+"The estate belongs to me," she was saying. "My father told me so a
+hundred times, and the persons who are trying to take it from me have no
+more connection with my family than this handsome young gentleman has."
+
+And she designated me with a look and a movement of her head. No doubt
+she did not mean to imply that because I was a steward I was of mean
+birth; but I was stung by her remark, and forgetting myself, I replied
+rather sharply, "You are mistaken, madam, in thinking that I am
+unrelated to your family."
+
+"You will have to prove that to me, young man."
+
+Confused and ashamed, I withdrew into the corner and tried to talk to
+Mlle. Hélouin about poetry and art, but at last, upset and distracted, I
+arose and walked out of the room. Mlle. de Porhoet followed me.
+
+"Monsieur Odiot," she said, "would you mind seeing me home? My servant
+has not arrived, and I am growing too feeble now to walk without help."
+
+Naturally, I went with her.
+
+"What did you mean," she said, as we walked on together, "by claiming to
+be a relation of mine?"
+
+"I hope," I replied very humbly, "that you will pardon a jest that--"
+
+"A jest!" she interrupted. "Is a matter touching my honour a jest? I
+see; a remark which would be an insult if addressed to a man becomes
+only a jest when it is levelled at an old, unprotected woman."
+
+After that, nothing was left to me, as a man of honour, but to entrust
+her with my secret. There had been several marriages between our
+families, and after listening with great interest to the story of my
+troubles, she became wonderfully kind in her manner to me.
+
+"You must come and see me to-morrow, cousin," she said, when we parted.
+"My law-suit is going very badly and I should like you to go through all
+my papers, and see if you can discover any new documents in support of
+my claim. Do not despair, my dear, over your own misfortunes. I think I
+shall be able to help you."
+
+
+_II.--Love and Jealousy_
+
+
+I am afraid I lack the industry necessary for keeping a diary. It is now
+two months since I wrote the last entry. If I had made every night a
+brief note of the events of the day, I should now have a better view of
+my position. Has Mlle. de Porhoet betrayed my secret? There has
+certainly been a curious change in my relations with the Laroques. I
+fancy it began on the day when Marguerite and I met at last on an equal
+footing at Mlle. de Porhoet's house. The document which I had just then
+found may not be as important as we thought, but our common joy in what
+we considered was a discovery of tremendous value brought us closer
+together.
+
+But I cannot understand Marguerite. Sometimes she still goes out of her
+way to be insulting towards me, and sometimes she treats me with a sweet
+frankness which has something sisterly in it. One day, for instance, she
+came to my window and asked me if I would go for a walk with her. "Bring
+your sketch-book, Monsieur Odiot," she called out gaily, "and I will
+take you to Merlin's Tomb in the Enchanted Valley."
+
+As a matter of fact, the woods around the castle of the Laroques were
+the remains of the famous forest of Broceliande, and I had always been
+promising myself a long ramble through this region of romance, but I had
+never found time to explore it. I was now glad I had waited, for
+Marguerite was a charming guide. Never had I seen her so light-hearted.
+When we reached a great block of stone in the depth of the wood, under
+which the wizard Merlin is said to be imprisoned by Vivien, Marguerite
+made herself a garland of oak-leaves, and standing like a lovely
+priestess clad all in white against the Druidic monument, she asked me
+to make a sketch of her. With what joy did I paint the poetic vision
+before me! I think she was pleased with the drawing, but on our way back
+to the castle a foolish word of mine brought our friendship to an end.
+We came to a picturesque little lake, at the end of which was a
+waterfall, overgrown with brambles. In order to show what a good swimmer
+her dog was, Marguerite threw something in the current and told him to
+fetch it, but he got carried over the waterfall and caught in the
+whirlpool below.
+
+"Come away! He is drowning--come away! I can't bear to see it!" cried
+Marguerite, seizing me by the arm. "No, do not attempt to save him. The
+pool is very dangerous."
+
+I am a good swimmer, however, and with a little trouble I managed to
+rescue the dog.
+
+"What madness!" she murmured. "You might have been drowned, and just for
+a dog!"
+
+"It was yours," I answered in a low voice.
+
+Her manner at once changed.
+
+"You had better run home, Monsieur Odiot," she said very coldly, "or you
+will get a chill. Do not wait for me."
+
+So I returned alone, and for some days Marguerite never spoke a word to
+me. What was still worse, M. Bévallan appeared at the castle, and she
+went for walks with him, leaving me in the company of Mlle. Hélouin. I
+am afraid that I became very friendly with the pretty governess.
+Nothing, however, that I ever said to her, or that she said to me,
+prepared me for the strange scene that happened to-night. As I was
+walking along the terrace, she came up and took my arm, and said, "Are
+you really my friend, Maxime?"
+
+"Yes," I said.
+
+"Then tell me the truth," she exclaimed. "Do you love me, or do you love
+Mademoiselle Marguerite?"
+
+"Why do you bring in her name?" I said.
+
+"Ah, you love her!" she cried fiercely; "or, rather, you love her
+fortune. But you shall never have it, Monsieur de Champcey. I know why
+you came here under a false name, and so shall she."
+
+With a movement of anger she departed. I cannot continue here under
+suspicion of being a fortune-hunter, so I have written to Laubépin to
+obtain another situation for me.
+
+
+_III.--Two on a Tower_
+
+
+It is all over. Was it because she still only half believed the slanders
+spread against me that Marguerite again asked me to go for a walk with
+her? Oh, what an unfortunate wretch I am! We rode through the forest
+together to one of the most magnificent monuments in Brittany, the
+Castle of Elven. Finding the door unlocked, we tethered our horses in
+the deserted courtyard, and climbed up the narrow, winding staircase to
+the battlements. The sea of autumnal foliage below was bathed in the
+light of the setting sun, and for a long time we sat side by side in
+silence, gazing at the infinite distances.
+
+"Come!" she said at last, in a low whisper, as the light died out of the
+sky. "It is finished!"
+
+But on descending the dark staircase we found that the door of the keep
+was locked. No doubt the shepherd boy who looked after the castle had
+come and shut up the place while we were sitting, watching the sunset.
+
+"Monsieur de Champcey," she said, in a cold, hard voice, "were there any
+scoundrels in your family before you?"
+
+"Marguerite!" I cried.
+
+"You paid that boy to lock us in," she exclaimed. "You think you will
+force me to marry you by compromising me in this manner. Do you think
+you will win my hand--and, what is more important to you still, my
+wretched wealth--by this trick? Rather than marry a scoundrel like you,
+I will shut myself up in a convent!"
+
+Carried away by my feelings, I seized her two hands, and said, "Now
+listen, Marguerite. I love you, it is true. Never did man love more
+devotedly, yes, and more disinterestedly, than I do. But I swear that if
+I get out of this place alive I will never marry you until you are as
+poor as I am, or I as rich as you are. If you love me, as I think you
+do, fall on your knees and pray, for unless a miracle happens you will
+never see me again alive."
+
+But a miracle did happen. I threw myself out of the window, and fell
+upon a branch of an oak-tree. It bent beneath my weight, and then broke;
+but it came so near the earth before breaking that if my left arm had
+not struck against the masonry I should have escaped uninjured. As it
+was, my arm was smashed, and I swooned away with the pain. When I came
+to, Marguerite was leaning out of the window, calling, "Maxime, speak to
+me! For the love of heaven, speak to me, and say you pardon me!"
+
+I arose, saying, "I am not hurt. If you will only wait another hour, I
+will go home and get some one to let you out. Believe me, I will save
+your honour as I have saved my own."
+
+Binding up my arm, I got on my horse, and galloped back to Laroque
+Castle. On the way I met Bévallan.
+
+"Have you seen Mlle. Marguerite?" he said. "We are afraid she has got
+lost."
+
+"I met her this afternoon," I replied. "She told me she was going for a
+ride to Elven Castle."
+
+He rode off in the direction from which I had come, and when I returned
+from the doctor with my broken arm set and bandaged, Marguerite and
+Bévallan entered.
+
+Hearing that I had had an accident, Madame Laroque came up late to-night
+to see me. Old Laroque has had a stroke of paralysis, she tells me, and
+she wishes to get the marriage contract between her daughter and
+Bévallan signed to-morrow. Laubépin is bringing the document.
+
+
+_IV.---A Test Case_
+
+
+I don't know why I take the trouble to go on with this diary, but having
+begun it I may as well finish it. Laubépin wanted me to go into the
+drawing-room to witness the signing of the marriage contract, but
+happily I was too ill to leave my bed; not only was my arm very painful,
+but I was suffering from the shock of the fall. What an hour of misery I
+passed before Mlle. de Porhoet-Gael appeared with the news of what had
+happened! Her sweet, kind old eyes were bright with joy.
+
+"It is all over," she said. "Bévallan has gone, and young Hélouin has
+also been turned out of the house."
+
+I started up with surprise.
+
+"Yes," she continued, with a smile, "the contract has not been signed.
+Our friend Laubépin drew it up in such a way that the husband was not
+able to touch a penny of the wife's money. M. Bévallan objected to this;
+while he and his lawyer were arguing the matter with Laubépin,
+Marguerite rose up.
+
+"'Throw the contract in the fire,' she said, 'and, mother, give this
+gentleman back the presents he sent to me.'
+
+"Laubépin threw the deed in the flames, and Marguerite and her mother
+walked out of the room.
+
+"'What is the meaning of this?' cried Bévallan.
+
+"'I will tell you,' I answered. 'A certain young lady was afraid that
+you were merely a fortune-hunter. She wanted to be certain of it, and
+now she is so.'
+
+"Thereupon I, too, left the room.
+
+"But what is the matter with you, my dear boy? You are as pale as a
+corpse."
+
+The fact was that the unexpected news aroused in me such a mixture of
+joyful and painful feelings that I fell back in a swoon. When I
+recovered, dear old Laubépin was standing by my bed.
+
+"Will you not confide in me, my boy?" he said rather sadly. "Something,
+I can see, has happened which has made you miserable on the very day on
+which you should be full of joy. What is it?"
+
+Moved by his sympathy, I gave him this diary to read, and poured out my
+very soul to him.
+
+"It is useless for me," he said at last, "to conceal from you the fact
+that I sent you here with the design to marry you to Marguerite.
+Everything at first went as well as I could wish, and Madame Laroque was
+delighted with the match. You and Marguerite were made for each other,
+and you fell in love almost at first sight. But this affair at the
+Castle of Elven is something I had not reckoned on. To leap out of the
+window at the risk of breaking your neck was, my romantic young friend,
+a sufficient demonstration of your disinterestedness. You need not have
+taken a solemn oath never to marry Marguerite until you were as rich as
+she is. What can you do now? You cannot forswear yourself, and you
+cannot suddenly make an immense fortune."
+
+"I must depart with you," I said very sorrowfully. "There is no other
+way."
+
+"No, Maxime," he replied, "you are too unwell to move. Remain here for
+one month longer; then, if you do not hear from me, return to Paris."
+
+It is now a week since he left me, and I have seen no one for the last
+seven days but the servant who waits upon me. He tells me that Laroque
+has died, and that Marguerite and her mother, who have been tending him
+night and day, have worn themselves out, and are now laid up with some
+sort of fever. Mlle. de Porhoet is also very ill, and not expected to
+live. Since I am well enough to walk over to Mlle. de Porhoet. I am told
+that she keeps asking to see me.
+
+
+_V.--Two in a Garden_
+
+
+The little maid who came to open the door was weeping, and as I came in
+I was surprised to hear the voice of Laubépin.
+
+"It is Maxime, Marguerite," he said.
+
+Had Marguerite also risen up from a bed of sickness to see Mlle. de
+Porhoet? I sprang up the stairs, and entered the room.
+
+"My poor, dear boy!" said Mlle. de Porhoet, in a strange, broken voice.
+
+She was lying in bed. Laubépin, a priest, and a doctor were standing on
+one side, and Marguerite and her mother were kneeling down in prayer on
+the other. I saw at once that she was at the point of death, and knelt
+down beside Marguerite. The poor dying woman smiled faintly, and groped
+for my hand and put it in Marguerite's, and then fell back on the
+pillow. She was dead.
+
+Laubépin led me out of the room, and put a document in my hand. It was a
+will, and the ink on it was hardly dry. Mlle. de Porhoet had made me her
+heir.
+
+"How good of her!" I said to Laubépin. "I shall treasure her testament
+as a mark of her love for me. I will settle her little estate on my
+sister. It will at least keep Hélène from having to go out into the
+world as a governess."
+
+"And it will keep you, my friend, from having to go out into the world
+as a steward," said Laubépin, with a smile. "Don't you remember that
+document about the Spanish succession which you discovered and sent to
+me? We have won the law-suit, and you are the heir to an estate in Spain
+which will make you one of the richest men in France."
+
+I went into the garden to think over my strange fortune. How long I sat
+there in the darkness I do not know. On rising up, I heard a faint sound
+beneath one of the trees, and a beloved form emerged from the foliage,
+and stood against the starry sky.
+
+"Marguerite!" I cried, running up to her with outstretched arm.
+
+She murmured my name, and as I clasped her her lips sought mine, and we
+poured our souls out in a kiss.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+I have given Hélène half of my fortune. Marguerite is my wife, and I
+close these pages for ever, having nothing more to confide to them. It
+can be said of men, as it has been said of nations, "Happy are those
+that have no story."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+HENRY FIELDING
+
+
+Amelia
+
+     Henry Fielding was born at Sharpham Park, near Glastonbury,
+     England, April 12, 1707. His father, a grandson of the Earl of
+     Desmond, and great-grandson of the first Earl of Denbigh,
+     settled in England shortly after the battle of Ramillies as a
+     country squire. In due course, Fielding was sent to Eton, and
+     afterwards to Leyden, where he remained for two years studying
+     civil law. Financial difficulties, however, put a temporary
+     end to his intention of entering the Bar, and in 1727 he
+     solved the problem of a career by beginning to write for the
+     stage. During the next nine years some eighteen of his plays
+     were produced. In 1748 he was appointed a justice of peace for
+     Westminster, and his writings on police and crime are of
+     interest to this day. "Amelia" was published in 1751, when its
+     author was a magistrate at Bow Street. In a dedicatory letter,
+     Fielding explained that the book was "sincerely designed to
+     promote the cause of virtue, and to expose some of the most
+     glaring evils, as well public as private, which at present
+     infest the country." The licentiousness of wealthy "men about
+     town," the corruption of justice, the abuses of the prison
+     system, the lack of honour concerning marriage--these are some
+     of the "glaring evils" exposed with all the great novelist's
+     power in "Amelia." In the characters of Dr. Harrison and
+     Amelia herself, the virtuous man and woman are drawn so
+     clearly that they inevitably win the reader's sympathy.
+     "Amelia" does not equal the genius of "Tom Jones," but it is
+     remarkable for being so largely devoted to the adventures of a
+     married couple, instead of ending at marriage. Fielding died
+     on October 8, 1754.
+
+
+_I.--The Inside of a Prison_
+
+
+On the first of April, in the year--, the watchmen of a certain parish
+in Westminster brought several persons, whom they had apprehended the
+preceding night, before Jonathan Thrasher, Esq., one of the justices of
+the peace for that city.
+
+Among the prisoners a young fellow, whose name was Booth, was charged
+with beating the watchman in the execution of his office, and breaking
+his lantern. The justice perceiving the criminal to be but shabbily
+dressed, was going to commit him without asking any further questions,
+but at the earnest request of the accused the worthy magistrate
+submitted to hear his defence.
+
+The young man then alleged that as he was walking home to his lodgings
+he saw two men in the street cruelly beating a third, upon which he had
+stopped and endeavoured to assist the person who was so unequally
+attacked; that the watch came up during the affray, and took them all
+four into custody; that they were immediately carried to the
+round-house, where the two original assailants found means to make up
+the matter, and were discharged by the constable, a favour which he
+himself, having no money in his pocket, was unable to obtain. He utterly
+denied having assaulted any of the watchmen, and solemnly declared that
+he was offered his liberty at the price of half a crown.
+
+Though the bare word of an offender can never be taken against the oath
+of his accuser, yet the magistrate might have employed some labour in
+cross-examining the watchman, or at least have given the defendant time
+to send for the other persons who were present at the affray; neither of
+which he did.
+
+Booth and the poor man in whose defence he had been engaged were both
+dispatched to prison under a guard of watchmen.
+
+Mr. Booth was no sooner arrived in the prison than a number of persons
+gathered around him, all demanding garnish. The master or keeper of the
+prison then acquainted him that it was the custom of the place for every
+prisoner, upon his first arrival there, to give something to the former
+prisoners to make them drink. This was what they called garnish. Mr.
+Booth answered that he would readily comply with this laudable custom,
+were it in his power; but that in reality he had not a shilling in his
+pocket, and, what was worse, he had not a shilling in the world. Upon
+which the keeper departed, and left poor Booth to the mercy of his
+companions, who, without loss of time, stripped him of his coat and hid
+it.
+
+Mr. Booth was too weak to resist and too wise to complain of his usage.
+He summoned his philosophy to his assistance, and resolved to make
+himself as easy as possible under his present circumstances.
+
+On the following day, Miss Matthews, an old acquaintance whom he had not
+seen for some years, was brought into the prison, and Booth was shortly
+afterwards invited to the room this lady had engaged. Miss Matthews,
+having told her story, requested Booth to do the same, and to this he
+acceded.
+
+
+_II.--Captain Booth Tells His Story_
+
+
+"From the first I was in love with Amelia; but my own fortune was so
+desperate, and hers was entirely dependent on her mother, a woman of
+violent passions, and very unlikely to consent to a match so highly
+contrary to the interest of her daughter, that I endeavoured to refrain
+from any proposal of love. I had nothing more than the poor provision of
+an ensign's commission to depend on, and the thought of leaving my
+Amelia to starve alone, deprived of her mother's help, was intolerable
+to me.
+
+"In spite of this I could not keep from telling Amelia the state of my
+heart, and I soon found all that return of my affection which the
+tenderest lover can require. Against the opposition of Amelia's mother,
+Mrs. Harris, to our engagement, we had the support of that good man, Dr.
+Harrison, the rector; and at last Mrs. Harris yielded to the doctor, and
+we were married. There was an agreement that I should settle all my
+Amelia's fortune on her, except a certain sum, which was to be laid out
+in my advancement in the army, and shortly afterwards I was preferred to
+the rank of a lieutenant in my regiment, and ordered to Gibraltar. I
+noticed that Amelia's sister, Miss Betty, who had said many ill-natured
+things of our marriage, now again became my friend.
+
+"At the siege of Gibraltar I was very badly wounded, and in this
+situation the image of my Amelia haunted me day and night. Two months
+and more I continued in a state of uncertainty; when one afternoon poor
+Atkinson, my servant, came running to my room. I asked him what was the
+matter, when Amelia herself rushed into the room, and ran hastily to me.
+She gently chided me for concealing my illness from her, saying, 'Oh,
+Mr. Booth! And do you think so little of your Amelia as to think I could
+or would survive you?' Amelia then informed me that she had received a
+letter from an unknown hand, acquainting her with my misfortune, and
+advising her, if she desired to see me more, to come directly to
+Gibraltar.
+
+"From the time of Amelia's arrival nothing remarkable happened till my
+perfect recovery; and then the siege being at an end, and Amelia being
+in some sort of fever, the governor gave me leave to attend my wife to
+Montpelier, the air of which was judged to be most likely to restore her
+to health.
+
+"A fellow-officer, Captain James, willingly lent me money, and, after an
+ample recovery at Montpelier, and a stay in Paris, we returned to
+England. It was in Paris we received a long letter from Dr. Harrison,
+enclosing £100, and containing the news that Mrs. Harris was dead, and
+had left her whole fortune to Miss Betty. So now it was that I was a
+married man with children, and the half-pay of a lieutenant.
+
+"Dr. Harrison, at whose rectory we were staying, came to our assistance.
+He asked me if I had any prospect of going again into the army; if not,
+what scheme of life I proposed to myself.
+
+"I told him that as I had no powerful friends, I could have but little
+expectations in a military way; that I was incapable of thinking of any
+other scheme, for I was without the necessary knowledge or experience,
+and was likewise destitute of money to set up with.
+
+"The doctor, after a little hesitation, said he had been thinking on
+this subject, and proposed to me to turn farmer. At the same time he
+offered to let me his parsonage, which was then become vacant; he said
+it was a farm which required but little stock, and that little should
+not be wanting.
+
+"I embraced this offer very eagerly, and Amelia received the news with
+the highest transports of joy. Thus, you see me degraded from my former
+rank in life; no longer Captain Booth, but Farmer Booth.
+
+"For a year all went well; love, health, and tranquillity filled our
+lives. Then a heavy blow befell us, and we were robbed of our dear
+friend the doctor, who was chosen to attend the young lord, the son of
+the patron of the living, in his travels as a tutor.
+
+"By this means I was bereft not only of the best companion in the world,
+but of the best counsellor, and in consequence of this loss I fell into
+many errors.
+
+"The first of these was in enlarging my business by adding a farm of one
+hundred a year to the parsonage, in renting which I had also as bad a
+bargain as the doctor had before given me a good one. The consequence of
+which was that whereas at the end of the first year I was £80 to the
+good, at the end of the second I was nearly £40 to the bad.
+
+"A second folly I was guilty of was in uniting families with the curate
+of the parish, who had just married. We had not, however, lived one
+month together before I plainly perceived the curate's wife had taken a
+great prejudice against my wife, though my Amelia had treated her with
+nothing but kindness, and, with the mischievous nature of envy, spread
+dislike against us.
+
+"My greatest folly, however, was the purchase of an old coach. The
+farmers and their wives considered that the setting up of a coach was
+the elevating ourselves above them, and immediately began to declare war
+against us. The neighbouring little squires, too, were uneasy to see a
+poor renter become their equal in a matter in which they placed so much
+dignity, and began to hate me likewise.
+
+"My neighbours now began to conspire against me. Whatever I bought, I
+was sure to buy dearer, and when I sold, I was obliged to sell cheaper
+than any other. In fact, they were all united; and while they every day
+committed trespasses on my lands with impunity, if any of my cattle
+escaped into their fields I was either forced to enter into a law-suit
+or to make amends for the damage sustained.
+
+"The consequence of all this could be no other than ruin. Before the end
+of four years I became involved in debt to the extent of £300. My
+landlord seized my stock for rent, and, to avoid immediate confinement
+in prison, I was forced to leave the country.
+
+"In this condition I arrived in town a week ago. I had just taken a
+lodging, and had written my dear Amelia word where she might find me;
+and that very evening, as I was returning from a coffee-house, because I
+endeavoured to assist the injured party in an affray, I was seized by
+the watch and committed here by a justice of the peace."
+
+
+_III.--Amelia in London_
+
+
+Miss Matthews, being greatly drawn to Captain Booth, procured his
+discharge by the expenditure of £20, and obtained her own release at the
+same time.
+
+Amelia arrived in London to receive her husband in her arms. "For," said
+she, "your confinement was known all over the county, my sister having
+spread the news with a malicious joy; and so, not hearing from you, I
+hastened to town with our children."
+
+Poor Booth, in spite of his release, was very cast down. Seeing tears in
+his eyes at the sight of his children, Amelia, embracing him with
+rapturous fondness, cried out, "My dear Billy, let nothing make you
+uneasy. Heaven will provide for us and these poor babes. Great fortunes
+are not necessary to happiness. Make yourself easy, my dear love, for
+you have a wife who will think herself happy with you, and endeavour to
+make you so, in any situation. Fear nothing, Billy; industry will always
+provide us a wholesome meal."
+
+Booth, who was naturally of a sanguine temper, took the cue she had
+given him, but he could not help reproaching himself as the cause of all
+her wretchedness. This it was that enervated his heart and threw him
+into agonies, which all that profusion of heroic tenderness that the
+most excellent of women intended for his comfort served only to heighten
+and aggravate: as the more she rose in his admiration, the more she
+quickened the sense of his unworthiness.
+
+His affairs did not prosper; in vain he solicited a commission in the
+army. With no great man to back him, and with his friend, Captain James
+(now a colonel, and in London), too taken up with his own affairs to
+exert any influence on behalf of Booth, it seemed as though no escape
+from misery was possible. The beautiful Amelia, always patient and
+cheerful, remained his comforter. And Atkinson, now a sergeant in the
+guards, was the devoted servant of both Amelia and her husband.
+
+Then one morning, when Amelia was out, Booth was arrested for debt and
+carried to the bailiff's house in Gray's Inn Lane.
+
+"Who has done this barbarous action?" cries Amelia, when the news is
+told her by Sergeant Atkinson.
+
+"One I am ashamed to name," cries the sergeant; "indeed, I had always a
+very different opinion of him; but Dr. Harrison is the man who has done
+the deed."
+
+"Dr. Harrison!" cries Amelia. "Well, then, there is an end of all
+goodness in the world. I will never have a good opinion of any human
+being more!"
+
+The fact was that while the doctor was abroad he had received from the
+curate, and from a gentleman of the neighbourhood, accounts of Booth's
+doings very much to his disadvantage. On his return to the parish these
+accusations were confirmed by many witnesses, and the whole
+neighbourhood rang with several gross and scandalous lies, which were
+merely the inventions of Booth's enemies. Poisoned with all this malice,
+the doctor came to London, and calling at Booth's lodgings, when both
+the captain and Amelia were out, learnt from the servant-maid that the
+children had got a gold watch and several fine trinkets. These presents,
+indeed, had come from a certain noble lord, who hoped by these means to
+win Amelia's affection; but no suspicion of his evil desire had entered
+the innocent mind of Amelia.
+
+The doctor had no doubt that these trinkets had been purchased by
+Amelia; and this account tallied so well with the ideas he had imbibed
+of Booth's extravagance in the country, that he firmly believed both the
+husband and wife to be the vainest, silliest and most unjust people
+alive.
+
+But no sooner did the doctor hear that Booth was arrested than the
+wretched condition of his wife and children began to affect his mind. In
+this temper of mind he resolved to pay Amelia a second visit, and was on
+his way thither when Sergeant Atkinson met him, and made himself known
+to him.
+
+The doctor received from Atkinson such an account of Booth and his
+family that he hastened at once to Amelia, and soon became satisfied
+concerning the trinkets which had given him so much uneasiness. Amelia
+likewise gave the doctor some satisfaction as to what he had heard of
+her husband's behaviour In the country, and assured him, upon her
+honour, that Booth could answer every complaint against his conduct, so
+that the doctor would find him an innocent, unfortunate man, the object
+of a good man's compassion, not of his anger or resentment.
+
+This worthy clergyman, who was not desirous of finding proofs to condemn
+the captain, rejoiced heartily in every piece of evidence which tended
+to clear up the character of his friend, and gave a ready ear to all
+which Amelia said.
+
+Induced, indeed, by the love he always had for that lady, whom he was
+wont to call his daughter, as well as by pity for her present condition,
+the doctor immediately endeavoured to comfort the afflicted, and then
+proceeded to accomplish the captain's release.
+
+"So, captain," says the doctor, on arrival at the bailiff's house, "when
+last we met I believe that we neither of us expected to meet in such a
+place as this."
+
+"Indeed, doctor," cries Booth, "I did not expect to have been sent
+hither by the gentleman who did me this favour."
+
+"How so, sir!" said the doctor. "You were sent hither by some person, I
+suppose, to whom you were indebted. But you ought to be more surprised
+that the gentleman who sent you thither is come to release you."
+
+
+_IV.--Fortune Smiles on Amelia_
+
+
+Booth was again arrested some months later, and lodged in the bailiff's
+house. This time his creditor was a Captain Trent, who had lent him
+money, and promised him assistance in getting returned to the army. In
+reality, Trent was only seeking to ingratiate himself with Amelia, and
+meeting with no encouragement, took his revenge accordingly.
+
+Amelia at once sought out Dr. Harrison, and told him what had occurred
+to her husband; and the doctor set forwards to the bailiff's to see what
+he could do for Booth.
+
+The doctor had not got so much money in town as Booth's debt amounted
+to, and therefore he was forced to give bail to the action.
+
+While the necessary forms were being made out, the bailiff, addressing
+himself to the doctor, said, "Sir, there is a man above in a dying
+condition that desires the favour of speaking to you. I believe he wants
+you to pray by him."
+
+Without making any further inquiry, the doctor immediately went
+upstairs.
+
+The sick man mentioned his name, and explained that he lived for many
+years in the town where the doctor resided, and that he used to write
+for the attorneys in those parts. He was anxious, he said, as he hoped
+for forgiveness, to make all the amends he could to some one he had
+injured, and to undo, if possible, the injury he had done.
+
+The doctor commended this as a sincere repentance.
+
+"You know, good doctor," the sick man resumed, "that Mrs. Harris, of our
+town, had two daughters--one now Mrs. Booth, and another. Before Mrs.
+Harris died, she made a will, and left all her fortune, except £1,000,
+to Mrs. Booth, to which will Mr. Murphy, the lawyer, myself, and another
+were witnesses. Mrs. Harris afterwards died suddenly, upon which it was
+contrived, by her other daughter and Mr. Murphy, to make a new will, in
+which Mrs. Booth had a legacy of £10, and all the rest was given to the
+other."
+
+"Good heaven, how wonderful is thy providence!" cries the doctor.
+"Murphy, say you? Why, this Murphy is still my attorney."
+
+Within a short time Murphy was arrested, and the sick man's depositions
+taken. Booth was released on the doctor's bail, and on the following
+morning Amelia learnt of the change in fortune that had befallen them.
+
+Dr. Harrison himself broke the good news by reading the following
+paragraph from the newspaper.
+
+"Yesterday, one Murphy, an eminent attorney-at-law, was committed to
+Newgate for the forgery of a will, under which an estate has been for
+many years detained from the right owner."
+
+"Now," said the doctor, "in this paragraph there is something very
+remarkable, and that is that it is true. But now let us read the
+following note upon the words 'right owner.' 'The right owner of this
+estate is a young lady of the highest merit, whose maiden name was
+Harris, and who some time since was married to an idle fellow, one
+Lieutenant Booth; and the best historians assure us that letters from
+the elder sister of this lady, which manifestly prove the forgery and
+clear up the whole affair, are in the hands of an old parson, called Dr.
+Harrison.'"
+
+"And is this really true?" cries Amelia.
+
+"Yes, really and sincerely," cries the doctor, "the whole estate--for
+your mother left it you all; and it is as surely yours as if you were
+already in possession."
+
+"Gracious heaven!" cries she, falling on her knees, "I thank you!" And
+then, starting up, she ran to her husband, and embracing him, cried, "My
+dear love, I wish you joy! It is upon yours and my children's account
+that I principally rejoice."
+
+She then desired her children to be brought to her, whom she immediately
+caught in her arms; and having profusely cried over them, soon regained
+her usual temper and complexion.
+
+Miss Harris, having received a letter from Amelia, informing her of the
+discovery and the danger in which she stood, immediately set out for
+France, carrying with her all her money, most of her clothes, and some
+few jewels.
+
+About a week afterwards, Booth and Amelia, with their children, and
+Atkinson and his wife, all set forward together for Amelia's house,
+where they arrived amidst the acclamations of all the neighbours, and
+every public demonstration of joy.
+
+Miss Harris lived for three years with a broken heart at Boulogne, where
+she received annually £50 from her sister; and then died in a most
+miserable manner.
+
+Dr. Harrison is grown old in years and in honour, beloved and respected
+by all his parishioners and neighbours.
+
+As to Booth and Amelia, fortune seems to have made them large amends for
+the tricks she played them in their youth. They have continued to enjoy
+an uninterrupted course of health and happiness. In about six weeks
+after Booth's first coming into the country, he went to London and paid
+all his debts, after which, and a stay of two days only, he returned
+into the country, and has never since been thirty miles from home.
+
+Amelia is still the finest woman in England of her age; Booth himself
+often avers she is as handsome as ever. Nothing can equal the serenity
+of their lives.
+
+Amelia declared the other day that she did not remember to have seen her
+husband out of humour these ten years!
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+Jonathan Wild
+
+
+     "Jonathan Wild," published in 1743, is in many respects
+     Fielding's most powerful piece of satire, surpassed only,
+     perhaps, by Thackeray's "Barry Lyndon." It can hardly be
+     called a novel, and still less a serious biography, though it
+     is founded on the real history of a notorious highway robber
+     and thief. The author disclaimed in his preface any attempt on
+     his part at authentic history or faithful portraiture.
+     "Roguery, and not a rogue is my subject," he wrote; adding,
+     that the ideas of goodness and greatness are too often
+     confounded together. "A man may be great without being good,
+     or good without being great." The story of "Jonathan Wild" is
+     really a bitter, satirical attack on what Fielding called "the
+     greatness which is totally devoid of goodness." He avowed it
+     his intention "to expose the character of this bombast
+     greatness," and no one can deny the success of his
+     achievement. Surely no story was ever written under more
+     desperate circumstances. The evils of poverty, which at this
+     period were at their height, were aggravated by the serious
+     illness of his wife, and his own sufferings from attacks of
+     gout. These troubles and others may well increase our
+     admiration for the genius which, in the face of all
+     difficulties, is shown in "Jonathan Wild."
+
+
+_I.--Mr. Wild's Early Exploits_
+
+
+Mr. Jonathan Wild, who was descended from a long line of great men, was
+born in 1665. His father followed the fortunes of Mr. Snap, who enjoyed
+a reputable office under the sheriff of London and Middlesex; and his
+mother was the daughter of Scragg Hollow, Esq., of Hockley-in-the-Hole.
+He was scarce settled at school before he gave marks of his lofty and
+aspiring temper, and was regarded by his schoolfellows with that
+deference which men generally pay to those superior geniuses who will
+exact it of them. If an orchard was to be robbed, Wild was consulted;
+and though he was himself seldom concerned in the execution of the
+design, yet was he always concerter of it, and treasurer of the booty,
+some little part of which he would now and then, with wonderful
+generosity, bestow on those who took it. He was generally very secret on
+these occasions; but if any offered to plunder of his own head without
+acquainting Master Wild, and making a deposit of the booty, he was sure
+to have an information against him lodged with the schoolmaster, and to
+be severely punished for his pains.
+
+At the age of seventeen his father brought the young gentleman to town,
+where he resided with him till he was of an age to travel.
+
+Men of great genius as easily discover one another as Freemasons can. It
+was therefore no wonder that the Count la Ruse--who was confined in Mr.
+Snap's house until the day when he should appear in court to answer a
+certain creditor--soon conceived an inclination to an intimacy with our
+young hero, whose vast abilities could not be concealed from one of the
+count's discernment; for though the latter was exceedingly expert at his
+cards, he was no match for Master Wild, who never failed to send him
+away from the table with less in his pocket than he brought to it. With
+so much ingenuity, indeed, could our young hero extract a purse, that
+his hands made frequent visits to the count's pocket before the latter
+had entertained any suspicion of him. But one night, when Wild imagined
+the count asleep, he made so unguarded an attack upon him that the other
+caught him in the act. However, he did not think proper to acquaint him
+with the discovery he had made, but only took care for the future to
+button his pockets and to pack the cards with double industry.
+
+In reality, this detection recommended these two prigs to each other,
+for a wise man--that is to say, a rogue--considers a trick in life as a
+gamester doth a trick at play. It sets him on his guard, but he admires
+the dexterity of him who plays it.
+
+When our two friends met the next morning, the count began to bewail the
+misfortune of his captivity, and the backwardness of friends to assist
+each other in their necessities.
+
+Wild told him that bribery was the surest means of procuring his escape,
+and advised him to apply to the maid, telling him at the same time that
+as he had no money he must make it up with promises, which he would know
+how to put off.
+
+The maid only consented to leave the door open when Wild, depositing a
+guinea in the girl's hands, declared that he himself would swear that he
+saw the count descending from the window by a pair of sheets.
+
+Thus did our young hero not only lend his rhetoric, which few people
+care to do without a fee, but his money too, to procure liberty for his
+friend. At the same time it would be highly derogatory from the great
+character of Wild should the reader not understand that this was done
+because our hero had some interested view in the count's enlargement.
+
+Intimacy and friendship subsisted between the count and Mr. Wild, and
+the latter, now dressed in good clothes, was introduced into the best
+company. They constantly frequented the assemblies, auctions, gaming-
+tables, and play-houses, and Wild passed for a gentleman of great
+fortune.
+
+It was then that an accident occurred that obliged Wild to go abroad for
+seven years to his majesty's plantations in America; and there are such
+various accounts, one of which only can be true, of this accident that
+we shall pass them all over. It is enough that Wild went abroad, and
+stayed seven years.
+
+
+_II.--An Example of Wild's Greatness_
+
+
+The count was one night very successful at the gaming-table, where Wild,
+who was just returned from his travels, was then present; as was
+likewise a young gentleman whose name was Bob Bagshot, an acquaintance
+of Mr. Wild's. Taking, therefore, Mr. Bagshot aside, he advised him to
+provide himself with a case of pistols, and to attack the count on his
+way home.
+
+This was accordingly executed, and the count obliged to surrender to
+savage force what he had in so genteel a manner taken at play. As one
+misfortune never comes alone, the count had hardly passed the
+examination of Mr. Bagshot when he fell into the hands of Mr. Snap, who
+carried him to his house.
+
+Mr. Wild and Mr. Bagshot went together to the tavern, where Mr. Bagshot
+offered to share the booty. Having divided the money into two unequal
+heaps, and added a golden snuffbox to the lesser heap, he desired Mr.
+Wild to take his choice.
+
+Mr. Wild immediately conveyed the larger share of the ready into his
+pocket, according to an excellent maxim of his--"First secure what share
+you can before you wrangle for the rest"; and then, turning to his
+companion, he asked him whether he intended to keep all that sum
+himself. "I grant you took it," Wild said; "but, pray, who proposed or
+counselled the taking of it? Can you say that you have done more than
+execute my scheme? The ploughman, the shepherd, the weaver, the builder,
+and the soldier work not for themselves, but others; they are contented
+with a poor pittance--the labourer's hire--and permit us, the great, to
+enjoy the fruits of their labours. Why, then, should the state of a prig
+differ from all others? Or why should you, who are the labourer only,
+the executor of my scheme, expect a share in the profit? Be advised,
+therefore; deliver the whole booty to me, and trust to my bounty for
+your reward."
+
+Mr. Bagshot not being minded to yield to these arguments, Wild adopted a
+fiercer tone, and the other was glad to let him borrow a part of his
+share. So that Wild got three-fourths of the whole before taking leave
+of his companion.
+
+Wild then returned to visit his friend the count, now in captivity at
+Mr. Snap's; for our hero was none of those half-bred fellows who are
+ashamed to see their friends when they have plundered and betrayed them.
+
+The count, little suspecting that Wild had been the sole contriver of
+the misfortune which had befallen him, eagerly embraced him, and Wild
+returned his embrace with equal warmth.
+
+While they were discoursing, Mr. Snap introduced Mr. Bagshot; for Mr.
+Bagshot had lost what money he had from Mr. Wild at a gaming-table, and
+was directly afterwards arrested for debt. Mr. Wild no sooner saw his
+friend than he immediately presented him to the count, who received him
+with great civility. But no sooner was Mr. Bagshot out of the room than
+the count said to Wild, "I am very well convinced that Bagshot is the
+person who robbed me, and I will apply to a justice of the peace."
+
+Wild replied with indignation that Mr. Bagshot was a man of honour, but,
+as this had no weight with the count, he went on, more vehemently, "I am
+ashamed of my own discernment when I mistook you for a great man.
+Prosecute him, and you may promise yourself to be blown up at every
+gaming-house in the town. But leave the affair to me, and if I find he
+hath played you this trick, I will engage my own honour you shall in the
+end be no loser." The count answered, "If I was sure to be no loser, Mr.
+Wild, I apprehend you have a better opinion of my understanding than to
+imagine I would prosecute a gentleman for the sake of the public."
+
+Wild having determined to make use of Bagshot as long as he could, and
+then send him to be hanged, went to Bagshot next day and told him the
+count knew all, and intended to prosecute him, and the only thing to be
+done was to refund the money.
+
+"Refund the money!" cried Bagshot. "Why, you know what small part of it
+fell to my share!"
+
+"How?" replied Wild. "Is this your gratitude to me for saving your life?
+For your own conscience must convince you of your guilt."
+
+"Marry come up!" quoth Bagshot. "I believe my life alone will not be in
+danger. Can you deny your share?"
+
+"Yes, you rascal!" answered Wild. "I do deny everything, and do you find
+a witness to prove it. I will show you the difference between committing
+a robbery and conniving at it."
+
+So alarmed was Bagshot at the threats of Wild that he drew forth all he
+found in his pockets, to the amount of twenty-one guineas, which he had
+just gained at dice.
+
+Wild now returned to the count, and informed him that he had got ten
+guineas of Bagshot, and by these means the count was once more enlarged,
+and enabled to carry out a new plan of the great Wild.
+
+
+_III.--Mr. Heartfree's Weakness_
+
+
+By accident, Wild had met with a young fellow who had formerly been his
+companion at school.
+
+Mr. Thomas Heartfree (for that was his name) was of an honest and open
+disposition. He was possessed of several great weaknesses of mind, being
+good-natured, friendly, and generous to a great excess.
+
+This young man, who was about Wild's age, had some time before set up in
+the trade of a jeweller, in the materials for which he had laid out the
+greatest part of a little fortune.
+
+He no sooner recognised Wild than he accosted him in the most friendly
+manner, and invited him home with him to breakfast, which invitation our
+hero, with no great difficulty, consented to.
+
+Wild, after vehement professions of friendship, then told him he had an
+opportunity of recommending a gentleman, on the brink of marriage, to
+his custom, "and," says he, "I will endeavour to prevail on him to
+furnish his lady with jewels at your shop."
+
+Having parted from Heartfree, Wild sought out the count, who, in order
+to procure credit from tradesmen, had taken a handsome house,
+ready-furnished, in one of the new streets. He instructed the count to
+take only one of Heartfree's jewels at the first interview, to reject
+the rest as not fine enough, and order him to provide some richer. The
+count was then to dispose of the jewel, and by means of that money, and
+his great abilities at cards and dice, to get together as large a sum as
+possible, which he was to pay down to Heartfree at the delivery of the
+set of jewels.
+
+This method was immediately put in execution; and the count, the first
+day, took only a single brilliant, worth about £300, and ordered a
+necklace and earrings, of the value of £3,000 more, to be prepared by
+that day week.
+
+This interval was employed by Wild in raising a gang, and within a few
+days he had levied several bold and resolute fellows, fit for any
+enterprise, how dangerous or great soever.
+
+The count disposed of his jewel for its full value, and by his dexterity
+raised £1,000. This sum he paid down to Heartfree at the end of the
+week, and promised him the rest within a month. Heartfree did not in the
+least scruple giving him credit, but as he had in reality procured those
+jewels of another, his own little stock not being able to furnish
+anything so valuable. The count, in addition to the £1,000 in gold, gave
+him his note for £2,800 more.
+
+As soon as Heartfree was departed, Wild came in and received the casket
+from the count, and an appointment was made to meet the next morning to
+come to a division of its contents.
+
+Two gentlemen of resolution, in the meantime, attacked Heartfree on his
+way home, according to Wild's orders, and spoiled the enemy of the whole
+sum he had received from the count. According to agreement, Wild, who
+had made haste to overtake the conquerors, took nine-tenths of the
+booty, but was himself robbed of this £900 before nightfall.
+
+As for the casket, when he opened it, the stones were but paste. For the
+sagacious count had conveyed the jewels into his own pocket, and in
+their stead had placed artificial stones. On Wild's departure the count
+hastened out of London, and was well on his way to Dover when Wild
+knocked at his door.
+
+Heartfree, wounded and robbed, had only the count's note left, and this
+was returned to him as worthless, inquiries having proved that the count
+had run away. So confused was poor Heartfree at this that his creditor
+for the jewels was frightened, and at once had him arrested for the
+debt.
+
+Heartfree applied in vain for money to numerous customers who were
+indebted to him; they all replied with various excuses, and the unhappy
+wretch was soon taken to Newgate. He had been inclined to blame Wild for
+his misfortunes, but our hero boldly attacked him for giving credit to
+the count, and this degree of impudence convinced both Heartfree and his
+wife of Wild's innocence, the more so as the latter promised to procure
+bail for his friend. In this he was unsuccessful, and it was long before
+Heartfree was released and restored to happiness.
+
+
+_IV.--The Highest Pinnacle of Greatness_
+
+
+Wild was a living instance that human greatness and happiness are not
+always inseparable. He was under a continual alarm of frights and fears
+and jealousies, and was thoroughly convinced there was not a single man
+amongst his own gang who would not, for the value of five shillings,
+bring him to the gallows.
+
+A clause in an act of parliament procured by a learned judge entrapped
+Wild. Hitherto he had always employed less gifted men to carry out his
+plans. Now, by this law it was made capital in a prig to steal with the
+hands of other people, and it was impossible for our hero to avoid the
+destruction so plainly calculated for his greatness.
+
+Wild, having received from some dutiful members of his gang a valuable
+piece of goods, did, for a consideration, re-convey it to the right
+owner, for which fact, being ungratefully informed against by the said
+owner, he was surprised in his own house, and, being overpowered by
+numbers, was hurried before a magistrate, and by him committed to
+Newgate.
+
+When the day of his trial arrived, our hero was, notwithstanding his
+utmost caution and prudence, convicted and sentenced to be hanged by the
+neck. He now suspected that the malice of his enemies would overpower
+him, and therefore betook himself to that true support of greatness in
+affliction--a bottle, by means of which he was enabled to curse, swear,
+and bully, and brave his fate. Other comfort, indeed, he had not much,
+for not a single friend ever came near him.
+
+From the time our hero gave over all hopes of life, his conduct was
+truly great and admirable. Instead of showing any marks of contrition or
+dejection, he rather infused more confidence and assurance into his
+looks. He spent most of his hours in drinking with acquaintances, and
+with the good chaplain; and being asked whether he was afraid to die, he
+answered, "It's only a dance without music. A man can die but once.
+Zounds! Who's afraid?"
+
+At length the morning came which Fortune had resolutely ordained for the
+consummation of our hero's greatness; he had himself, indeed, modestly
+declined the public honour she intended him, and had taken a quantity of
+laudanum in order to retire quietly off the stage. But it is vain to
+struggle against the decrees of fortune, and the laudanum proved
+insufficient to stop his breath.
+
+At the usual hour he was acquainted that the cart was ready, and his
+fetters having been knocked off in a solemn and ceremonious manner,
+after drinking a bumper of brandy, he ascended the cart, where he was no
+sooner seated than he received the acclamations of the multitude, who
+were highly ravished with his greatness.
+
+The cart now moved slowly on, preceded by a troop of Horse Guards,
+bearing javelins in their hands, through the streets lined with crowds
+all admiring the great behaviour of our hero, who rode on, sometimes
+sighing, sometimes swearing, sometimes singing or whistling, as his
+humour varied.
+
+When he came to the tree of glory, he was welcomed with an universal
+shout of the people; but there were not wanting some who maligned this
+completion of glory, now about to be fulfilled by our hero, and
+endeavoured to prevent it by knocking him on the head as he stood under
+the tree, while the chaplain was performing his last office.
+
+They therefore began to batter the cart with stones, brick-bats, dirt,
+and all manner of mischievous weapons, so that the ecclesiastic ended
+almost in an instant, and conveyed himself into a place of safety in a
+hackney coach.
+
+One circumstance must not be omitted. Whilst the chaplain was busy in
+his ejaculations, Wild, in the midst of the shower of stones, etc.,
+which played upon him, true to his character, applied his hands to the
+parson's pocket, and emptied it of his bottle-screw, which he carried
+out of the world in his hand.
+
+The chaplain being now descended from the cart, Wild had just
+opportunity to cast his eyes around the crowd, and to give them a hearty
+curse, when immediately the horses moved on, and, with universal
+applause, our hero swung out of this world.
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+Joseph Andrews
+
+
+     "Joseph Andrews," Fielding's first novel, was published in
+     1742, and was intended to be a satire on Richardson's "Pamela"
+     (see Vol. VII), which appeared in 1740. He described it as
+     "written in the manner of Cervantes," and in Parson Adams
+     there is the same quaint blending of the humorous and the
+     pathetic as in the Knight of La Mancha. Although such
+     characters as Lady Booby and Mrs. Slipslop are admittedly
+     ridiculous, Parson Adams remains an admirable study of a
+     simple-minded clergyman of the eighteenth century.
+
+
+_I.--The Virtues of Joseph Andrews_
+
+
+Mr. Joseph Andrews was esteemed to be the only son of Gaffer and Gammer
+Andrews, and brother to the illustrious Pamela.
+
+At ten years old (by which time his education was advanced to writing
+and reading) he was bound an apprentice to Sir Thomas Booby, an uncle of
+Mr. Booby's by the father's side. From the stable of Sir Thomas he was
+preferred to attend as foot-boy on Lady Booby, to go on her errands,
+stand behind her chair, wait at her tea-table, and carry her prayer-book
+to church; at which place he behaved so well in every respect at divine
+service that it recommended him to the notice of Mr. Abraham Adams, the
+curate, who took an opportunity one day to ask the young man several
+questions concerning religion, with his answers to which he was
+wonderfully pleased.
+
+Mr. Abraham Adams was an excellent scholar, a man of good sense and good
+nature, but at the same time entirely ignorant of the ways of the world.
+At the age of fifty he was provided with a handsome income of twenty-
+three pounds a year, which, however, he could not make any great figure
+with, because he was a little encumbered with a wife and six children.
+
+Adams had no nearer access to Sir Thomas or my lady than through Mrs.
+Slipslop, the waiting-gentlewoman, for Sir Thomas was too apt to
+estimate men merely by their dress or fortune, and my lady was a woman
+of gaiety, who never spoke of any of her country neighbours by any other
+appellation than that of the brutes.
+
+Mrs. Slipslop, being herself the daughter of a curate, preserved some
+respect for Adams; she would frequently dispute with him, and was a
+mighty affecter of hard words, which she used in such a manner that the
+parson was frequently at some loss to guess her meaning.
+
+Adams was so much impressed by the industry and application he saw in
+young Andrews that one day he mentioned the case to Mrs. Slipslop,
+desiring her to recommend him to my lady as a youth very susceptible of
+learning, and one whose instruction in Latin he would himself undertake,
+by which means he might be qualified for a higher station than that of
+footman. He therefore desired that the boy might be left behind under
+his care when Sir Thomas and my lady went to London.
+
+"La, Mr. Adams," said Mrs. Slipslop, "do you think my lady will suffer
+any preambles about any such matter? She is going to London very
+concisely, and I am confidous would not leave Joey behind on any
+account, for he is one of the genteelest young fellows you may see in a
+summer's day; and I am confidous she would as soon think of parting with
+a pair of her grey mares, for she values herself on one as much as the
+other. And why is Latin more necessitous for a footman than a gentleman?
+I am confidous my lady would be angry with me for mentioning it, and I
+shall draw myself into no such delemy."
+
+So young Andrews went to London in attendance on Lady Booby, and became
+acquainted with the brethren of his profession. They could not, however,
+teach him to game, swear, drink, nor any other genteel vice the town
+abounded with. He applied most of his leisure hours to music, in which
+he greatly improved himself, so that he led the opinion of all the other
+footmen at an opera. Though his morals remain entirely uncorrupted, he
+was at the same time smarter and genteeler than any of the beaus in town
+either in or out of livery.
+
+At this time an accident happened, and this was no other than the death
+of Sir Thomas Booby, who left his disconsolate lady closely confined to
+her house. During the first six days the poor lady admitted none but
+Mrs. Slipslop and three female friends, who made a party at cards; but
+on the seventh she ordered Joey, whom we shall hereafter call Joseph, to
+bring up her teakettle.
+
+Lady Booby's affection for her footman had for some time been a matter
+of gossip in the town, but it is certain that her innocent freedoms had
+made no impression on young Andrews.
+
+Now, however, he thought my lady had become distracted with grief at her
+husband's death, so strange was her conduct, and wrote to his sister
+Pamela on the subject.
+
+     If madam be mad, I shall not care for staying long in the
+     family, so I heartily wish you could get me a place at some
+     neighbouring gentleman's. I fancy I shall be discharged very
+     soon, and the moment I am I shall return to my old master's
+     country seat, if it be only to see Parson Adams, who is the
+     best man in the world. London is a bad place, and there is so
+     little good fellowship that the next-door neighbours don't
+     know one another. Your loving brother,
+     JOSEPH ANDREWS.
+
+The sending of this letter was quickly followed by the discharge of the
+writer. To Lady Booby's open declarations of love, Joseph replied that a
+lady having no virtue was not a reason against his having any.
+
+"I am out of patience!" cries the lady, "did ever mortal hear of a man's
+virtue? Will magistrates who punish lewdness, or parsons who preach
+against it, make any scruple of committing it? And can a boy have the
+confidence to talk of his virtue?"
+
+"Madam," says Joseph, "that boy is the brother of Pamela, and would be
+ashamed that the chastity of his family, which is preserved in her,
+should be stained in him. If there are such men as your ladyship
+mentions, I am sorry for it, and I wish they had an opportunity of
+reading my sister Pamela's letters; nor do I doubt but such an example
+would amend them."
+
+"You impudent villain!" cries the lady in a rage. "Get out of my sight,
+and leave the house this night!"
+
+Joseph having received what wages were due, and having been stripped of
+his livery, took a melancholy leave of his fellow-servants and set out
+at seven in the evening.
+
+
+_II.--Adventures on the Road_
+
+
+It may be wondered why Joseph made such extraordinary haste to get out
+of London, and why, instead of proceeding to the habitation of his
+father and mother, or to his beloved sister Pamela, he chose rather to
+set out full speed to Lady Booby's country seat, which he had left on
+his journey to town.
+
+Be it known then, that in the same parish where this seat stood there
+lived a young girl whom Joseph longed more impatiently to see than his
+parents or his sister. She was a poor girl, formerly bred up in Sir
+Thomas's house, and, discarded by Mrs. Slipslop on account of her
+extraordinary beauty, was now a servant to a farmer in the parish.
+
+Fanny was two years younger than our hero, and had been always beloved
+by him, and returned his affection. They had been acquainted from their
+infancy, and Mr. Adams had, with much ado, prevented them from marrying,
+and persuaded them to wait till a few years' service and thrift had a
+little improved their experience, and enabled them to live comfortably
+together.
+
+They followed this good man's advice, as, indeed, his word was little
+less than a law in his parish, for during twenty-five years he had shown
+that he had the good of his parishioners entirely at heart, so that they
+consulted him on every occasion, and very seldom acted contrary to his
+opinion.
+
+Honest Joseph therefore set out on his travels without delay, in order
+that he might once more look upon his Fanny, from whom he had been
+absent for twelve months.
+
+But on the road he was attacked by robbers, and, having been left
+wounded in a ditch, was mercifully taken to an inn by some later
+travellers.
+
+It was at this same inn that, to the great surprise on both sides, Mr.
+Abraham Adams found Joseph.
+
+The parson informed his young friend, who was still sick in bed, that
+the occasion of the journey he was making to London was to publish three
+volumes of sermons, being encouraged, as he said, by an advertisement
+lately set forth by the Society of Booksellers; but, though he imagined
+he should get a considerable sum of money on this occasion, which his
+family were in urgent need of, he protested he would not leave Joseph in
+his present penniless condition. Finally, he told him he had nine
+shillings and threepence-halfpenny in his pocket, which he was welcome
+to use as he pleased.
+
+This goodness of Parson Adams brought tears into Joseph's eyes; he had
+now a second reason to desire life, that he might show his gratitude to
+such a friend.
+
+Before pursuing his journey Adams made the acquaintance of another
+clergyman named Barnabas at the inn, who in his turn, hearing that Adams
+was proposing to publish sermons, introduced him to a stranger who he
+said was a bookseller.
+
+Adams, saluting the stranger, answered Barnabas that he was very much
+obliged to him; that nothing could be more convenient, for he had no
+other business to the great city, and was heartily desirous of returning
+with the young man, who was just recovered of his misfortune. To induce
+the bookseller to be as expeditious as possible, he assured them their
+meeting was extremely lucky to himself, for that he had the most
+pressing occasion for money at that time, his own being almost spent.
+"So that nothing," says he, "could be so opportune as my making an
+immediate bargain with you."
+
+"Sir, sermons are mere drugs," said the stranger. "The trade is so
+vastly stocked with them that really, unless they come out with the name
+of Whitefield or Wesley, or some other such great man, as a bishop, or
+those sort of people, I don't care to touch. However, I will, if you
+please, take the manuscript with me to town, and send you my opinion of
+it in a very short time."
+
+When, however, Adams began to describe the nature of his sermons the
+bookseller drew back, on the ground that the clergy would be certain to
+cry down such a book.
+
+An accident prevented Mr. Adams from pursuing a market for his sermons
+any further, which he would have done in spite of the advice of Barnabas
+and the bookseller. This accident was, that those sermons which the
+parson was travelling to London to publish were left behind; what he had
+mistaken for them in the saddle-bags were three shirts, which Mrs.
+Adams, who thought her husband would need shirts rather than sermons on
+his journey, had carefully provided for him.
+
+Joseph, concerned at the disappointment to his friend, begged him to
+pursue his journey all the same, and promised he would himself return
+with the books to him with the utmost expedition.
+
+"No, thank you, child," answered Adams; "it shall not be so. What would
+it avail me to tarry in the great city unless I had my discourses with
+me? No; as this accident has happened, I am resolved to return back to
+my cure, together with you; which, indeed, my inclination sufficiently
+leads me to."
+
+Mr. Adams, whose credit was good wherever he was known, having borrowed
+a guinea from a servant belonging to a coach-and-six, who had been
+formerly one of his parishioners, discharged the bill for Joseph and
+himself, and the two travellers set off.
+
+
+_III.--More Adventures_
+
+
+Adams and Joseph Andrews being for a time separated on the road, through
+the former's absent-mindedness, it fell to the lot of the parson to
+hasten to the assistance of a damsel who in a lonely place was being
+attacked by some ruffian.
+
+Adams was as strong as he was brave, and having rescued the maiden, took
+her under his protection. It was too dark for either to identify the
+other, but on Mr. Adams ejaculating the name of Joseph Andrews, for
+whose safety he was anxious, his companion recognised his voice, and the
+parson was quickly informed that it was Fanny who was by his side.
+
+The fact was the poor girl had heard of Joseph's misfortune from the
+servants of a coach which had stopped at the inn while the poor youth
+was confined to his bed; and she had that instant abandoned the cow she
+was milking, and taking with her a little bundle of clothes under her
+arm, and all the money she was worth in her own purse, immediately set
+forward in pursuit of one whom she loved with inexpressible violence,
+though with the purest and most delicate passion.
+
+Fanny was now in the nineteenth year of her age; she was tall and
+delicately shaped. Her hair was a chestnut brown; her complexion was
+fair; and, to conclude all, she had a natural gentility which surprised
+all who beheld her.
+
+Can it be wondered that on the following day, when Adams and the damsel
+overtook Andrews at a wayside ale-house, the youth imprinted numberless
+kisses on her lips, while Parson Adams danced about the room in a
+rapture of joy?
+
+It was so late when our travellers left the ale-house that they had not
+travelled many miles before night overtook them. They moved forwards
+where the nearest light presented itself; and having crossed a common
+field, they came to a meadow where they seemed to be at a very little
+distance from the light, when, to their grief, they arrived at the banks
+of a river. Adams declared he could swim, but Joseph answered, if they
+walked along its banks they might be certain of soon finding a bridge,
+especially as, by the number of lights, they might be assured a parish
+was near.
+
+"That's true, indeed," said Adams. "I did not think of that."
+
+Accordingly, Joseph's advice being taken, they passed over two meadows,
+and came to a little orchard which led them to a house. Fanny begged of
+Joseph to knock at the door, assuring him she was so weary that she
+could hardly stand on her feet; and the door being immediately opened, a
+plain kind of man appeared at it. Adams acquainted him that they had a
+young woman with them, who was so tired with her journey that he should
+be much obliged to him if he would suffer her to come in and rest
+herself.
+
+The man, who saw Fanny by the light of the candle which he held in his
+hand, perceiving her innocent and modest look, and having no
+apprehensions from the civil behaviour of Adams, presently answered that
+the young woman was very welcome to rest herself in his house, and so
+were her company. He then ushered them into a very decent room, where
+his wife was sitting at a table; she immediately rose up, and assisted
+them in setting forth chairs, and desired them to sit down.
+
+They now sat cheerfully round the fire till the master of the house,
+having surveyed his guests, and conceiving that the cassock which
+appeared under Adams's greatcoat, and the shabby livery of Joseph
+Andrews, did not well suit the familiarity between them, began to
+entertain some suspicions not much to their advantage. Addressing
+himself, therefore, to Adams, he said he perceived he was a clergyman by
+his dress, and supposed that honest man was his footman.
+
+"Sir," answered Adams, "I am a clergyman, at your service; but as to
+that young man, whom you have rightly termed honest, he is at present in
+nobody's service; he never lived in any other family than that of Lady
+Booby, from whence he was discharged; I assure you, for no crime."
+
+The modest behaviour of Joseph, with the character which Adams gave of
+him, entirely cured a jealousy which had lately been in the gentleman's
+mind that Fanny was the daughter of some person of fashion and that
+Joseph had run away with her, and Adams was concerned in the plot.
+Having had a full account from Adams of Joseph's history he became
+enamoured of his guests, drank their healths with great cheerfulness;
+and, at the parson's request, told something of his own life.
+
+"Sir," says Adams, at the conclusion of the history, "fortune has, I
+think, paid you all her debts in this sweet retirement."
+
+"Sir," replied the gentleman, whose name was Wilson, "I have the best of
+wives and three pretty children; but within three years of my arrival
+here I lost my eldest son. If he had died I could have borne the loss
+with patience; but, alas, he was stolen away from my door by some wicked
+travelling people, whom they call gypsies; nor could I ever, with the
+most diligent search, recover him. Poor child, he had the sweetest look!
+The exact picture of his mother!" Mr. Wilson went on to say that he
+should know his son amongst ten thousand, for he had a mark on his
+breast of a strawberry.
+
+
+_IV.--Joseph Finds his Father_
+
+
+Our travellers, having well refreshed themselves at Mr. Wilson's house,
+renewed their journey next morning with great alacrity, and two days
+later reached the parish they were seeking.
+
+The people flocked about Parson Adams like children round a parent; and
+the parson, on his side, shook every one by the hand. Nor did Joseph and
+Fanny want a hearty welcome from all who saw them. Adams carried his
+fellow-travellers home to his house, where he insisted on their
+partaking whatever his wife could provide, and on the very next Sunday
+he published, for the first time, the banns of marriage between Joseph
+Andrews and Fanny Goodwill.
+
+Lady Booby, who was now at her country seat again, was furious when she
+heard in church these banns called, and at once sent for Mr. Adams, and
+rated him soundly.
+
+"It is my orders that you publish these banns no more, and if you dare,
+I will recommend it to your master, the rector, to discard you from his
+service," says my lady. "The fellow Andrews is a vagabond, and shall not
+settle here and bring a nest of beggars into the parish."
+
+"Madam," answered Adams, "I know not what your ladyship means by the
+terms 'master' and 'service.' I am in the service of a Master who will
+never discard me for doing my duty; and if the rector thinks proper to
+turn me from my cure, God will provide me, I hope, another."
+
+The malice of Lady Booby did not stop at this; she endeavoured to get
+Joseph and Fanny convicted on a trumped-up charge of trespass. In this
+base wickedness she was defeated by her nephew, young Squire Booby, who
+had married the virtuous Pamela, Joseph's sister; and at once stopped
+the proceedings. More than that, he carried off Andrews to Lady Booby's,
+and on his arrival, said, "Madam, as I have married a virtuous and
+worthy woman, I am resolved to own her relations, and show them all
+respect; I shall think myself, therefore, infinitely obliged to all mine
+who will do the same. It is true her brother has been your servant, but
+he has now become my brother."
+
+Lady Booby answered that she would be pleased to entertain Joseph
+Andrews; but when the squire went on to speak of Fanny, his aunt put her
+foot down resolutely against her civility to the young woman.
+
+And now both Pamela and her husband were inclined to urge Joseph to
+break off the engagement with Fanny, but the young man would not give
+way, and in this he was supported by Mr. Adams.
+
+The arrival of a peddler in the parish, who had shown some civility to
+Adams and Andrews when they were travelling on the road, threatened the
+marriage prospect much more dangerously for a time.
+
+According to the pedaler, who was a man of some education and birth,
+Fanny had been stolen away from her home when an infant, and sold for
+three guineas to Sir Thomas Booby; the name of her family was Andrews,
+and they had a daughter of a very strange name, Pamela. This story he
+had received from a dying woman when he had been a drummer in an Irish
+regiment.
+
+The only thing now to be done was to send for old Mr. Andrews and his
+wife; and, in the meantime, the pedal was bidden to Booby Hall to tell
+the whole story again. All who heard him were well satisfied of the
+truth, except Pamela, who imagined as neither of her parents had ever
+mentioned such an incident to her, it must be false; and except Lady
+Booby, who suspected the falsehood of the story from her ardent desire
+that it should be true; and Joseph, who feared its truth, from his
+earnest wishes that it might prove false.
+
+On the following morning news came of the arrival of old Mr. Andrews and
+his wife. Mr. Andrews assured Mr. Booby that he had never lost a
+daughter by gypsies, nor ever had any other children than Joseph and
+Pamela. But old Mrs. Andrews, running to Fanny, embraced her, crying
+out, "She is--she is my child!"
+
+The company were all amazed at this disagreement, until the old woman
+explained the mystery. During her husband's absence at Gibraltar, when
+he was a sergeant in the army, a party of gypsies had stolen the little
+girl who had been born to him, and left a small male child in her place.
+So she had brought up the boy as her own.
+
+"Well," says Gaffer Andrews, "you have proved, I think, very plainly,
+that this girl does not belong to us; I hope you are certain the boy is
+ours."
+
+Then it turned out that Joseph had a strawberry mark on his left breast,
+and this made the peddler, who knew all about Mr. Wilson's loss,
+satisfied that Joseph was no other than Mr. Wilson's son.
+
+So Mr. Wilson had to be sent for, who, on his arrival, no sooner saw the
+mark than he cried out with tears of joy, "I have discovered my son!"
+
+The banns having been duly called, there was now nothing to prevent the
+wedding, which, having taken place, Joseph and his wife settled down in
+Mr. Wilson's parish, Mr. Booby having given Fanny a fortune of £2,000.
+He also presented Mr. Adams with a living of £130 a year.
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+Tom Jones
+
+
+     "The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling," described in the
+     dedication as the "labour of some years of my life," appeared
+     in six volumes, on February 28, 1749, a short time after
+     Fielding's appointment as justice of peace for Westminster.
+     Though its broad humour and coarseness of expression are
+     perhaps hard to bear in these times, it is by common consent
+     Fielding's masterpiece, and by way of being one of the
+     greatest novels in the language. For experience of life,
+     observation of character, and sheer humanity, it is certainly
+     an outstanding specimen of the English novel and manners. Like
+     others of his books, "Tom Jones" was written during a period
+     of great mental strain. Ever haunted by poverty, Fielding
+     acknowledges his debt to his old schoolfellow Lyttelton, to
+     whom he owed his "existence during the composition of the
+     book." The story was popular from the first.
+
+
+_I.--Mr. Allworthy Makes a Discovery_
+
+
+In that part of the country which is commonly called Somersetshire there
+lately lived a gentleman whose name was Allworthy, and who might well be
+called the favourite of both nature and fortune. From the former of
+these he derived an agreeable person, a sound constitution, a solid
+understanding, and a benevolent heart; by the latter he was decreed to
+the inheritance of one of the largest estates in the country.
+
+Mr. Allworthy lived, for the most part, retired in the country, with one
+sister, for whom he had a very tender affection. This lady, Miss Bridget
+Allworthy, now somewhat past the age of thirty, was of that species of
+women whom you commend rather for good qualities than beauty.
+
+Mr. Allworthy had been absent a full quarter of a year in London on some
+very particular business, and having returned to his house very late in
+the evening, retired, much fatigued, to his chamber. Here, after he had
+spent some minutes on his knees--a custom which he never broke through
+on any account--he was preparing to step into bed, when, upon opening
+the clothes, to his great surprise, he beheld an infant wrapped up in
+some coarse linen, in a sweet and profound sleep, between his sheets. He
+stood for some time lost in astonishment at this sight; but soon began
+to be touched with sentiments of compassion for the little wretch before
+him. He then rang his bell, and ordered an elderly woman-servant to rise
+immediately and come to him.
+
+The consternation of Mrs. Deborah Wilkins at the finding of the little
+infant was rather greater than her master's had been; nor could she
+refrain from crying out, with great horror, "My good sir, what's to be
+done?"
+
+Mr. Allworthy answered she must take care of the child that evening, and
+in the morning he would give orders to provide it a nurse.
+
+"Yes, sir," says she, "and I hope your worship will send out your
+warrant to take up the hussy its mother. Indeed, such wicked sluts
+cannot be too severely punished for laying their sins at honest men's
+doors; and though your worship knows your own innocence, yet the world
+is censorious, and if your worship should provide for the child it may
+make the people after to believe. If I might be so bold as to give my
+advice, I would have it put in a basket, and sent out and laid at the
+churchwarden's door. It is a good night, only a little rainy and windy,
+and if it was well wrapped up and put in a warm basket, it is two to one
+but it lives till it is found in the morning. But if it should not, we
+have discharged our duty in taking care of it; and it is, perhaps,
+better for such creatures to die in a state of innocence than to grow up
+and imitate their mothers."
+
+But Mr. Allworthy had now got one of his fingers into the infant's hand,
+which, by its gentle pressure, seeming to implore his assistance,
+certainly outpleaded the eloquence of Mrs. Deborah. Mr. Allworthy gave
+positive orders for the child to be taken away and provided with pap and
+other things against it waked. He likewise ordered that proper clothes
+should be procured for it early in the morning, and that it should be
+brought to himself as soon as he was stirring.
+
+Such was the respect Mrs. Wilkins bore her master, under whom she
+enjoyed a most excellent place, that her scruples gave way to his
+peremptory commands, and, declaring the child was a sweet little infant,
+she walked off with it to her own chamber.
+
+Allworthy betook himself to those pleasing slumbers which a heart that
+hungers after goodness is apt to enjoy when thoroughly satisfied.
+
+In the morning Mr. Allworthy told his sister he had a present for her,
+and, when Mrs. Wilkins produced the little infant, told her the whole
+story of its appearance.
+
+Miss Bridget took the good-natured side of the question, intimated some
+compassion for the helpless little creature, and commended her brother's
+charity in what he had done. The good lady subsequently gave orders for
+providing all necessaries for the child, and her orders were indeed so
+liberal that had it been a child of her own she could not have exceeded
+them.
+
+
+_II.--The Foundling Achieves Manhood_
+
+
+Miss Bridget having been asked in marriage by one Captain Blifil, a
+half-pay officer, and the nuptials duly celebrated, Mrs. Blifil was in
+course of time delivered of a fine boy.
+
+Though the birth of an heir to his beloved sister was a circumstance of
+great joy to Mr. Allworthy, yet it did not alienate his affections from
+the little foundling to whom he had been godfather, and had given his
+own name of Thomas; the surname of Jones being added because it was
+believed that was the mother's name.
+
+He told his sister, if she pleased, the newborn infant should be bred up
+together with little Tommy, to which she consented, for she had truly a
+great complaisance for her brother.
+
+The captain, however, could not so easily bring himself to bear what he
+condemned as a fault in Mr. Allworthy; for his meditations being chiefly
+employed on Mr. Allworthy's fortune, and on his hopes of succession, he
+looked on all the instances of his brother-in-law's generosity as
+diminutions of his own wealth.
+
+But one day, while the captain was exulting in the happiness which would
+accrue to him by Mr. Allworthy's death, he himself died of apoplexy.
+
+So the two boys grew up together under the care of Mr. Allworthy and
+Mrs. Blifil, and by the time he was fourteen Tom Jones--who, according
+to universal opinion, was certainly born to be hanged--had been already
+convicted of three robberies--_viz._, of robbing an orchard, of stealing
+a duck out of a farmer's yard, and of picking Master Blifil's pocket of
+a ball.
+
+The vices of this young man were, moreover, heightened by the
+disadvantageous light in which they appeared when opposed to the virtues
+of Master Blifil, his companion. He was, indeed, a lad of remarkable
+disposition--sober, discreet, and pious beyond his age; and many
+expressed their wonder that Mr. Allworthy should suffer such a lad as
+Tom Jones to be educated with his nephew lest the morals of the latter
+should be corrupted by his example.
+
+To say the truth, the whole duck, and great part of the apples, were
+converted to the use of Tom's friend, the gamekeeper, and his family;
+though, as Jones alone was discovered, the poor lad bore not only the
+whole smart, but the whole blame.
+
+Mr. Allworthy had committed the instruction of the two boys to a learned
+divine, the Reverend Mr. Thwackum, who resided in the house; but though
+Mr. Allworthy had given him frequent orders to make no difference
+between the lads, yet was Thwackum altogether as kind and gentle to
+Master Blifil as he was harsh, nay, even barbarous, to the other. In
+truth, Blifil had greatly gained his master's affections; partly by the
+profound respect he always showed his person, but much more by the
+decent reverence with which he received his doctrine, for he had got by
+heart, and frequently repeated, his phrases, and maintained all his
+master's religious principles, with a zeal which was surprising in one
+so young.
+
+Tom Jones, on the other hand, was not only deficient in outward tokens
+of respect, often forgetting to pull off his cap at his master's
+approach, but was altogether unmindful both of his master's precepts and
+example.
+
+At the, age of twenty, however, Tom, for his love of hunting, had become
+a great favourite with Mr. Allworthy's neighbour, Squire Western; and
+Sophia, Mr. Western's only child, lost her heart irretrievably to him
+before she suspected it was in danger. On his side, Tom was truly
+sensible of the great worth of Sophia. He liked her person extremely, no
+less admired her accomplishments, and tenderly loved her goodness. In
+reality, as he had never once entertained any thoughts of possessing
+her, nor had ever given the least voluntary indulgence to his
+inclinations, he had a much stronger passion for her than he himself was
+acquainted with.
+
+An accident occurred on the hunting-field in saving Sophia from her too
+mettlesome horse kept Jones a prisoner for some time in Mr. Western's
+house, and during those weeks he not only found that he loved Sophia
+with an unbounded passion, but he plainly saw the tender sentiments she
+had for him; yet could not this assurance lessen his despair of
+obtaining the consent of her father, nor the horrors which attended his
+pursuit of her by any base or treacherous method.
+
+Hence, at the approach of the young lady, he grew pale; and, if this was
+sudden, started. If his eyes accidentally met hers, the blood rushed
+into his cheeks, and his countenance became all over scarlet. If he
+touched her, his hand, nay, his whole frame, trembled.
+
+All these symptoms escaped the notice of the squire, but not so of
+Sophia. She soon perceived these agitations of mind in Jones, and was at
+no loss to discover the cause; for, indeed, she recognised it in her own
+breast. In a word, she was in love with him to distraction. It was not
+long before Jones was able to attend her to the harpsichord, where she
+would kindly condescend for hours together to charm him with the most
+delicious music.
+
+The news that Mr. Allworthy was dangerously ill (for a servant had
+brought word that he was dying) broke off Tom's stay at Mr. Western's,
+and drove all the thoughts of love out of his head. He hurried instantly
+into the chariot which was sent for him, and ordered the coachman to
+drive with all imaginable haste; nor did the idea of Sophia once occur
+to him on the way.
+
+
+_III.--Tom Jones Falls into Disgrace_
+
+
+On the night when the physician announced that Mr. Allworthy was out of
+danger Jones was thrown into such immoderate excess of rapture by the
+news that he might be truly said to be drunk with joy--an intoxication
+which greatly forwards the effects of wine; and as he was very free,
+too, with the bottle, on this occasion he became very soon literally
+drunk.
+
+Jones had naturally violent animal spirits, and Thwackum, resenting his
+speeches, only the doctor's interposition prevented wrath kindling.
+After which, Jones gave loose to mirth, sang two or three amorous songs,
+and fell into every frantic disorder which unbridled joy is apt to
+inspire; but so far was he from any disposition to quarrel that he was
+ten times better-humoured, if possible, than when he was sober.
+
+Blifil, whose mother had died during her brother's illness, was highly
+offended at a behaviour which was so inconsistent with the sober and
+prudent reserve of his own temper. The recent death of his mother, he
+declared, made such conduct very indecent.
+
+"It would become them better," he said, "to express the exultations of
+their hearts at Mr. Allworthy's recovery in thanksgiving, than in
+drunkenness and riot."
+
+Wine had not so totally overpowered Jones as to prevent him recollecting
+Blifil's loss the moment it was mentioned. He at once offered to shake
+Mr. Blifil by the hand, and begged his pardon, saying his excessive joy
+for Mr. Allworthy's recovery had driven every other thought out of his
+mind.
+
+Blifil scornfully rejected his hand, and with an insulting illusion to
+the misfortune of Jones's birth provoked the latter to blows. The
+scuffle which ensued might have produced mischief had it not been for
+the interference of Thwackum and the physician.
+
+Blifil, however, only waited for an opportunity to be revenged on Jones,
+and the occasion was soon forthcoming when Mr. Allworthy was fully
+recovered from his illness.
+
+Mr. Western had found out that his daughter was in love with Tom Jones,
+and at once decided that she should marry Blifil, to whom Sophia
+professed great abhorrence.
+
+As for Blifil, the success of Jones was much more grievous to him than
+the loss of Sophia, whose estate, indeed, was dearer to him than her
+person.
+
+Mr. Western swore that his daughter shouldn't have a ha'penny, nor the
+twentieth part of a brass farthing, if she married Jones; and Blifil,
+with many sighs, professed to his uncle that he could not bear the
+thought of Sophia being ruined by her preference for Jones.
+
+"This lady, I am sure, will be undone in every sense; for, besides the
+loss of most part of her own fortune, she will be married to a beggar.
+Nay, that is a trifle; for I know him to be one of the worst men in the
+world."
+
+"How?" said Mr. All worthy. "I command you to tell me what you mean."
+
+"You know, sir," said Blifil, "I never disobeyed you. In the very day of
+your utmost danger, when myself and all the family were in tears, he
+filled the house with riot and debauchery. He drank, and sang, and
+roared; and when I gave him a gentle hint of the indecency of his
+actions, he fell into a violent passion, swore many oaths, called me
+rascal, and struck me. I am sure I have forgiven him that long ago. I
+wish I could so easily forget his ingratitude to the best of
+benefactors."
+
+Thwackum was now sent for, and corroborated every circumstance which the
+other had deposed.
+
+Poor Jones was too full of grief at the thought that Western had
+discovered the whole affair between him and Sophia to make any adequate
+defence. He could not deny the charge of drunkenness, and out of modesty
+sunk everything that related particularly to himself.
+
+Mr. Allworthy answered that he was now resolved to banish him from his
+sight for ever. "Your audacious attempt to steal away a young lady calls
+upon me to justify my own character in punishing you. And there is no
+part of your character which I resent more than your ill-treatment of
+that good young man (meaning Blifil), who hath behaved with so much
+tenderness and honour towards you."
+
+A flood of tears now gushed from the eyes of Jones, and every faculty of
+speech and motion seemed to have deserted him. It was some time before
+he was able to obey Allworthy's peremptory commands of departing, which
+he at length did, having first kissed his hands with a passion difficult
+to be affected, and as difficult to be described.
+
+Mr. Allworthy, however, did not permit him to leave the house penniless,
+but presented him with a note for £500. He then commanded him to go
+immediately, and told Jones that his clothes, and everything else,
+should be sent to him whithersoever he should order them.
+
+Jones had hardly set out, which he did with feelings of agony and
+despair, before Sophia Western decided that only in flight could she be
+saved from marriage with the detested Blifil.
+
+Mr. Western, in spite of tremendous love for his daughter, thought her
+inclinations of as little consequence as Blifil himself conceived them
+to be; and Mr. Allworthy, who said "he would on no account be accessory
+to forcing a young lady into a marriage contrary to her own will," was
+satisfied by his nephew's disingenuous statement that the young lady's
+behaviour to him was full as forward as he wished it.
+
+Sophia, having appointed her maid to meet her at a certain place not far
+from the house, exactly at the ghostly and dreadful hour of twelve,
+began to prepare for her own departure.
+
+But first she was obliged to give a painful audience to her father, and
+he treated her in so violent and outrageous a manner that he frightened
+her into an affected compliance with his will, which so highly pleased
+the good squire that he at once changed his frowns into smiles, and his
+menaces into promises.
+
+He vowed his whole soul was wrapped in hers, that her consent had made
+him the happiest of mankind.
+
+He then gave her a large bank-bill to dispose of in any trinkets she
+pleased, and kissed and embraced her in the fondest manner.
+
+Sophia reverenced her father piously and loved him passionately, but the
+thoughts of her beloved Jones quickly destroyed all the regretful
+promptings of filial love.
+
+
+_IV.--Tom Jones's Restoration_
+
+
+After many adventures on the road Mr. Jones reached London; and as he
+had often heard Mr. Allworthy mention the gentlewoman at whose house in
+Bond Street he used to lodge when he was in town, he sought the house,
+and was soon provided with a room there on the second floor. Mrs.
+Miller, the person who let these lodgings, was the widow of a clergyman,
+and Mr. Allworthy had settled an annuity of £50 a year on her, "in
+consideration of always having her first floor when he was in town."
+
+Tom Jones's fortunes were now very soon at the lowest. Having been
+forced into a quarrel in the streets with an acquaintance named
+Fitzpatrick, and having wounded him with his sword, a number of fellows
+rushed in and carried Jones off to the civil magistrate, who, being
+informed that the wound appeared to be mortal, straightway committed the
+prisoner to the Gatehouse.
+
+Sophia Western was also in London at the house of her aunt; and soon
+afterwards Mr. Western, Mr. Allworthy, and Blifil all reached the city.
+
+It was just at this time that Mr. Allworthy, consenting to his nephew
+once more offering himself to Sophia, came with Blifil to his accustomed
+lodgings in Bond Street. Mrs. Miller, to whom Jones had showed many
+kindnesses, at once put in a good word for the unfortunate young man;
+and, on Blifil exulting over the manslaughter Jones was alleged to have
+committed, declared that the wounded man, whoever he was, was in fault.
+This, indeed, was shortly afterwards corroborated by Fitzpatrick
+himself, who acknowledged his mistake.
+
+But it was not till Mr. Allworthy discovered that Blifil had been
+arranging with a lawyer to get the men who had arrested Jones to bear
+false witness, and learnt further that Tom Jones was his sister
+Bridget's child, and that on her death-bed Mrs. Blifil's message to her
+brother confessing the fact had been suppressed by her son, that his old
+feelings of affection for Tom Jones returned. Before setting out to
+visit Jones in the prison Mr. Allworthy called on Sophia to inform her
+that he regretted Blifil had ever been encouraged to give her annoyance,
+and that Mr. Jones was his nephew and his heir.
+
+Men over-violent in their dispositions are, for the most part, as
+changeable in them. No sooner was Western informed of Mr. Allworthy's
+intention to make Jones his heir than he joined heartily with the uncle
+in every commendation of the nephew, and became as eager for his
+daughter's marriage with Jones as he had before been to couple her to
+Blifil.
+
+Fitzpatrick being recovered of his wound, and admitting the aggression,
+Jones was released from custody and returned to his lodgings to meet Mr.
+Allworthy.
+
+It is impossible to conceive a more tender or moving scene than this
+meeting between the uncle and nephew. Allworthy received Jones into his
+arms. "O my child!" he cried, "how have I been to blame! How have I
+injured you! What amends can I ever make you for those unkind
+suspicions which I have entertained, and for all the sufferings they
+have occasioned you?"
+
+"Am I not now made amends?" cried Jones. "Would not my sufferings, had
+they been ten times greater, have been now richly repaid?"
+
+Here the conversation was interrupted by the arrival of Western, who
+could no longer be kept away even by the authority of Allworthy himself.
+Western immediately went up to Jones, crying out, "My old friend Tom, I
+am glad to see thee, with all my heart. All past must be forgotten. Come
+along with me; I'll carry thee to thy mistress this moment."
+
+Here Allworthy interposed; and the squire was obliged to consent to
+delay introducing Jones to Sophia till the afternoon.
+
+Blifil, now thoroughly exposed in his treachery, was at first sullen and
+silent, balancing in his mind whether he should yet deny all; but
+finding at last the evidence too strong against him, betook himself to
+confession, and was now as remarkably mean as he had been before
+remarkably wicked. Mr. Allworthy subsequently settled £200 a year upon
+him, to which Jones hath privately added a third. Upon this income
+Blifil lives in one of the northern counties. He is also lately turned
+Methodist, in hopes of marrying a very rich widow of that sect. Sophia
+would not at first permit any promise of an immediate engagement with
+Jones because of certain stories of his inconstancy, but Mr. Western
+refused to hear of any delay.
+
+"To-morrow or next day?" says Western, bursting into the room where
+Sophia and Jones were alone.
+
+"Indeed, sir," says she, "I have no such intention."
+
+"But I can tell thee," replied he, "why hast not; only because thou dost
+love to be disobedient, and to plague and vex thy father. When I forbid
+her, then it was all nothing but sighing and whining, and languishing
+and writing; now I am for thee--(this to Jones)--she is against thee.
+All the spirit of contrary, that's all. She is above being guided and
+governed by her father, that is the whole truth on't. It is only to
+disoblige and contradict me."
+
+"What would my papa have me do?" cries Sophia.
+
+"What would I ha' thee do?" says he, "why gee un thy hand this moment."
+
+"Well, sir," said Sophia, "I will obey you. There is my hand, Mr.
+Jones."
+
+"Well, and will you consent to ha' un to-morrow morning?" says Western.
+
+"I will be obedient to you, sir," cries she.
+
+"Why, then, to-morrow morning be the day," cries he.
+
+"Why, then, to-morrow morning shall be the day, papa, since you will
+have it so," said Sophia. Jones then fell upon his knees and kissed her
+hand in an agony of joy, while Western began to caper and dance about
+the room, presently crying out, "Where the devil is Allworthy?" He then
+sallied out in quest of him, and very opportunely left the lovers to
+enjoy a few tender minutes alone.
+
+But he soon returned with Allworthy, saying, "If you won't believe me,
+you may ask her yourself. Hast not gin thy consent, Sophy, to be married
+to-morrow?"
+
+"Such are your commands, sir," cries Sophia, "and I dare not be guilty
+of disobedience."
+
+"I hope there is not the least constraint," cries Allworthy.
+
+"Why, there," cried Western, "you may bid her unsay all again if you
+will. Dost repent heartily of thy promise, dost not, Sophy?"
+
+"Indeed, papa," cried she. "I do not repent, nor do I believe I ever
+shall, of any promise in favour of Mr. Jones."
+
+"Then, nephew," cries Allworthy, "I felicitate you most heartily, for I
+think you are the happiest of men."
+
+Mr. Allworthy, Mr. Western, and Mrs. Miller were the only persons
+present at the wedding, and within two days of that event Mr. Jones and
+Sophia attended Mr. Western and Mr. Allworthy into the country.
+
+There is not a neighbour or a servant, who doth not most gratefully
+bless the day when Mr. Jones was married to Sophia.
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+CAMILLE FLAMMARION
+
+
+Urania
+
+
+     Camille Flammarion is one of the most remarkable of modern
+     French scientists. Born on February 25, 1842, he was
+     apprenticed at an early age to an engraver, but, attracted by
+     astronomy, he studied so well that, when a lad of sixteen, he
+     was admitted as a pupil to the Paris Observatory. There is no
+     doubt that the great French mathematician, Le Verrier,
+     regarded Flammarion with a certain disdain as more of a poet
+     than an astronomer; but he soon vindicated, by several
+     important discoveries, his title to be regarded as a man of
+     science. "Urania," which appeared in 1889, is an excellent
+     example of his ability as a thinker, and of his charm as a
+     writer. The work is hardly a novel, though it is far more
+     popular than many books of fiction. It is really an essay in
+     philosophy dealing with the question of the immortality of the
+     soul; and it has an especial interest for English readers
+     owing to the fact that much in it that seems to be pure
+     fantasy is based on researches undertaken by the British
+     Society for Psychical Research. The plot and the characters
+     are of secondary importance; they are only used for the
+     purpose of illustrating certain ideas.
+
+
+_I.--The Muse of Astronomy_
+
+
+I was seventeen years old when I fell in love with Urania. Was she a
+fair, young, blue-eyed daughter of Eve? No; she was an exquisite statue
+of the Muse of Astronomy, chiselled by Pradier in the days of the
+Empire. She stood on the mantelpiece in the study of the famous
+mathematician, Le Verrier, who directed the Paris Observatory, where I
+was working. At four o'clock in the afternoon my illustrious chief used
+to depart, and I would then steal into his room and sit down before
+Urania and dream of lovelier worlds than ours, hidden in the infinite
+spaces of the starry sky. Sometimes my friend and companion in studies,
+Georges Spero, would come and sit beside me; and, inspired by the
+immortal beauty of Urania, we would let our young and ardent
+imaginations play over the glories and wonders of the heavens.
+
+"You will be too late for Jupiter," said Le Verrier, entering
+unexpectedly one evening, and catching me in an attitude of adoration
+before Urania. "I am afraid you are more of a poet than an astronomer."
+
+The great man of science himself certainly did not love beauty as much
+as he loved wisdom, for the next day he sold the lovely image of Urania
+in order to buy an old Chinese astronomical clock. I was almost
+heartbroken when I entered his room and found that Urania had
+disappeared. With her had gone the vivifying power of imagination which
+had transmuted the abstruse calculations on which I was engaged into
+glimpses of heavenly visions of infinite life. With what wild joy then
+did I see, when I returned home, Urania shining in all her loveliness on
+my own mantelpiece. Knowing my love for the beautiful figure of the
+muse, Georges Spero had bought it back from the watchmaker to whom Le
+Verrier had sent it, and placed it in my room as a gift.
+
+It was an extraordinary mark of friendship, for Georges loved Urania
+even more passionately than I did. To him she was the personification of
+everything in life that lifted man above the level of the brute.
+
+Possessing a nobler and finer intellect than mine, he had thrown himself
+into the study of the problems of the soul with a fury of passion and a
+concentration of thought that almost killed him. Are our souls immortal,
+or do they perish with our bodies? This was the question that tormented
+him to madness. One night I found him sitting in his room in the Place
+du Panthéon with a glass of poison in his hand.
+
+"This is the quickest road to the knowledge I want," he said, with a
+smile. "I shall soon know if the soul is immortal."
+
+He had been dissecting a skull; and by his side was a microscope with
+which he had been studying the grey matter of the brain. Convinced at
+last of the uncertainty of the positive sciences, he had fallen into
+violent despair. But Urania was at hand to comfort him, and his mind
+became calmer and clearer when we ceased to talk about earthly things,
+and ascended into high regions of philosophic speculation over which the
+muse of heaven presides.
+
+"Ah, Camille," he exclaimed, "the Uranian way is the best. It is only by
+studying the heavens that we shall be able to understand this little
+earth of ours, and the part we play in it. Look at the midnight sky,
+streaming with the light of infinite suns, and filled with an unending
+procession of worlds in which the spirit of life clothes itself in an
+unimaginable variety of forms. This clot of dust on which we live will
+grow cold, and break and scatter in the abysses of space. But it is not
+our home; we are only passengers, and when our journey here is done,
+fairer mansions are waiting for us in the depths of the sky. If I die
+before you, I will return and convince you of this truth."
+
+Returning to the study of astronomy, Spero built up a system of
+philosophy which made him, at the age of twenty-five, one of the most
+famous men in France.
+
+
+_II.--Love and Death_
+
+
+By way of relief from his severer work, Georges Spero resolved to go to
+Norway and study the wild and beautiful phenomena of the Aurora
+Borealis, and I went with him. One morning, as we were standing on a
+mountain looking at a magnificent sunrise, I saw a girl climbing a
+neighbouring peak. She did not perceive us; but when she reached the
+summit the image of Spero was thrown on a cloud in front of her, by one
+of those curious plays of sunlight and mist which sometimes occur in
+hazy, mountainous regions. His fine, austere features and graceful
+figure were enlarged into a vast, god-like apparition, with a halo of
+bright colours shining like a glory around his head, and a fainter
+circle of rainbow hues framing his whole form. It was the first anthelia
+that the lovely girl had seen, and it filled her with wonder and awe.
+
+Theirs was a strange courtship--Spero's and Iclea's. The lovely young
+Norwegian lady had recently lost her mother, and being, like many of the
+cultivated women of Northern Europe, somewhat dubious of the dogmas of
+religion, she had found death a terrible mystery when it was thus
+brought sharply home to her. She was wandering in the dreadful labyrinth
+of modern doubt, vainly seeking to forget her trouble in the excitements
+of mountaineering, when she saw the unearthly apparition of the young
+French philosopher. A study of his works heightened the feeling of awe
+with which she already regarded him. At first there was no room for love
+in the passionate desire after knowledge which drew her to him. She was
+merely a disciple sitting at the feet of the great master. Accompanied
+by her father, she continued her studies under him when he returned to
+Paris, and for three months they were bound together wholly by
+intellectual interest. For several hours every day they studied side by
+side, and much of Iclea's time was spent in translating papers in
+foreign languages, bearing on subjects in which Georges was interested.
+One morning he arrived earlier than usual, his eyes shining with joy.
+
+"I have settled the problem," he cried, leaning against the mantelpiece.
+"At least," he added, with his usual modesty, "I have settled it to my
+own satisfaction."
+
+Striding up and down the room, he rapidly sketched out a system of
+philosophy in which the ultimate truths of modern science were
+transformed into the bases of religion. Iclea listened to him in silence
+as he went on to explain the spiritual forces still dormant in the human
+soul.
+
+"We are still in our spiritual infancy," he said. "It is scarcely four
+thousand years since mankind began to manifest its higher powers. Our
+greatest conquests over nature are all of recent date, and they are the
+work of a few noble souls who have erected themselves above the animal
+conditions of life. The reign of brute force is over, and I am certain
+that as soon as we learn to exercise the powers of our soul we shall
+acquire transcendental faculties that will enable us to transport
+ourselves from one world to another."
+
+"That, too, is my belief," said Iclea.
+
+Georges bent over her and gazed into her eyes of heavenly blue through
+which her very soul was speaking. There was a strange silence, and then
+their lips met.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+For some months I lost sight of my two friends. In the ecstasy of their
+love they forgot for a while the problems of philosophy which had
+brought them together. The joys of intellectual communion were submerged
+and almost lost in the new, strange feeling which crowned and glorified
+their lives. Hand in hand the lovers wandered about Paris, which had now
+become to them a city in fairyland. Meeting them one evening on the
+banks of the Seine, I learned that they were returning to Norway with
+Iclea's father, and that they were to be married at Christiania on the
+anniversary of the mysterious apparition on the mountain which had
+brought them together. Georges was about to resume his interrupted
+studies of the Aurora Borealis, which he wished to trace to its source
+by means of a balloon ascent, and Iclea intended to accompany him in his
+voyage through the air.
+
+To my great regret I was unable to go with them to Norway, as my duties
+as an astronomer kept me in Paris. I anxiously awaited that
+extraordinary agitation of the magnetic needle which announces the
+existence of an Aurora Borealis in Northern Europe. When at last the
+magnetic perturbation occurred in the observatory, I rejoiced to think
+that Spero and his bride were floating high, feasting their eyes on the
+most gorgeous of spectacles.
+
+But suddenly an indefinable feeling of uneasiness came over me, which
+grew into a dreadful presentiment of disaster. Long before the telegram
+arrived from Christiania I knew what had happened. Georges and Iclea
+were dead!
+
+Every reader of the newspapers next morning knew as much as I did. An
+escape of gas which could not be stopped sent the balloon hurtling to
+the earth. Spero threw everything movable out of the car in a vain
+attempt to lighten it and break the force of the descent. The balloon
+still kept falling; then Iclea, with a wild courage born of love, saved
+Georges' life by leaping out of the car. Relieved of her weight, the
+balloon rose up, but Spero had now no wish to live. He jumped out with a
+wild cry, and his body crashed on the edge of the lake into which Iclea
+had fallen. There the mortal remains of the two lovers now lie, covered
+by a single stone. But where were their souls?
+
+One night Georges Spero remembered his promise to me, and returned to
+earth.
+
+
+_III.--A Soul from Mars_
+
+
+Sitting alone on the top of the ancient castle of Montlhéry, I was
+conducting an experiment in optics by means of electrical communications
+with two assistants at Paris and Juvisy. I was trying to find out if the
+rays of different colours in the spectrum travel at the same rate. It
+was just on midnight before I brought the experiment to a successful
+conclusion. As I covered up my instruments, some one said, "You would
+not have brought that off, Camille, if it had not been for me. I gave
+you the idea of comparing the violet vibrations with the red."
+
+I turned round with a cry of fear. Georges Spero was sitting in the
+moonlight on the parapet, looking at me with a smile.
+
+"Are you afraid of me, Camille?" he said.
+
+"You, Georges! You!" I stammered. "Is it really you? Keep still, and let
+me touch you."
+
+I put my hands on his face, and stroked his hair, and felt his body. I
+could no longer doubt that I had him before me in the actual flesh, but
+he read my thoughts.
+
+"You are mistaken, Camille," he said. "My real body is asleep on Mars."
+
+"So you still live?" I exclaimed. "You have solved the great problem.
+And Iclea?"
+
+"Let us sit here and talk," he replied. "There are many things I want to
+tell you."
+
+My fears had vanished, and I sat by my beloved friend.
+
+"It seemed to me," said Georges, "that my fall from the balloon knocked
+me senseless. When I came to, I was lying in the darkness with the
+ripple of lake-water breaking on my ear. What amazed me was a strange
+sense of lightness that made me feel I could rise up and float away if I
+wanted to. Thinking this was a disorder of the mind, I did not attempt
+to move, but watched with wondering eyes the sky above me. It was
+lighted by two strange moons. When the day broke, and showed around me a
+world of unimaginable splendour, I knew the meaning of the two moons and
+of my strange feeling of lightness. I was a disembodied spirit that had
+been transported to Mars.
+
+"Do you know, Camille, that the soul is able to choose its mortal
+covering? This is, at least, the case on Mars. For some time I wandered
+about in an invisible form, studying the conditions of life there.
+Animal strength, I found, counted for nothing. The Martians are an
+aerial race, with exquisite senses, which respond in a way unknown on
+earth to spiritual influences. Do you remember I read your thoughts when
+we first met, and answered them before you spoke? That is one of the
+Martians' gifts. Finding that these wonderful faculties were better
+developed in the women of Mars than in the men, I chose the feminine
+form for my reincarnation."
+
+"And Iclea?" I said.
+
+"Iclea," said Spero, "was re-born in a masculine shape. It was partly
+because of the mystic attraction that I felt for her that I chose the
+other form. Neither of us remembered our earthly existence, but a vague
+yet deep sentiment of our spiritual relationship made me seek her out
+and unite myself to her. It was your beloved muse Uriana," he added,
+"who revealed the ties that bound us in our former lives.
+
+"Owing to their superior faculties, the Martians have carried every
+science to a perfection undreamt of on this earth. In astronomical
+observations, for instance, they employ a system of telephotography. For
+thousands of years their instruments have been photographing, on an
+unending roll of paper, the wild spectacle of terrestrial life.
+
+"One day, as Iclea and I were examining recent photographs, we saw a
+picture of Paris during the Great Exhibition. Seizing a microscope, we
+looked at the figures, and recognised ourselves among them. Strange
+memories stirred within us, and we stared at each other in silent
+amazement. Suddenly I remembered the sacred words I learnt at my
+mother's knee. Yes, there were many mansions in our Father's house! The
+blood-stained planet from which we had escaped was neither the cradle
+nor the grave of His children.
+
+"Then we wept as we thought of the cruelty, ignorance, misery, and
+grossness of existence on earth. It was, dear Camille, with no joy that
+I recollected the promise I had made to you. But, you see, I have
+carried it out. I wish to convince you, and, through you, all the rest
+of mankind, that the soul is immortal, and that the earth is only a
+temporary stage of existence in a spiritual progress in which the whole
+universe is included."
+
+"But how is it possible for you, Georges," I interrupted, "to appear to
+me in the body you wore on earth?"
+
+"All this," said Spero, touching his body, "is an illusion. Do you not
+recollect my saying that only invisible things are real? You do not see
+me with your eyes, or feel me with your hands, as you think you do. The
+impression which you have of my presence is born of the influence which
+my mind is exerting in an invisible way on your mind. Can't you
+understand? It is a kind of hypnotism. At the present moment, as I have
+said, I am lying asleep on Mars, but my spirit is in direct
+communication with yours. The form you see sitting beside you on this
+parapet is only an illusion of your senses. My soul is speaking to your
+soul."
+
+"But could you not," I said, "give me some description of life on Mars?"
+
+"A dream," he replied, "would be more vivid than a mere description,
+though it would only be a shadow of the reality. For since you have not,
+my dear friend, our exquisite faculties of knowledge, your mind could
+not clearly mirror our life. Hark! Iclea is awake, and calling me. I
+cannot stay any longer. Shut your eyes, and I will send you a dream."
+
+I turned to say good-bye, but Spero had vanished. A deep drowsiness fell
+upon me, and just as I got off the parapet and found a safer position I
+fell asleep.
+
+
+_IV.--The Eternal Progress_
+
+
+I was sitting under a strange tree covered with gigantic red flowers. In
+the sky above me were two moons that shed a dim brightness on the lovely
+and fantastic scenery. A multitude of radiant shapes fluttered and
+darted through the air. They were Martians--exquisite, aerial, and
+divinely beautiful figures glowing with luminous tints. Airy gondolas,
+which seemed to be fashioned from phosphorescent flowers, passed above
+my head, and one of them floated down to the tree under which I was
+lying. In it were Iclea and Georges, but etherealised beyond the reach
+of human imagination.
+
+They took me in their flying chariot as day was breaking, and we
+coursed, with a strange silent interchange of thoughts, over the
+orange-coloured land of Mars. I could not understand everything which
+was communicated to me, now by Iclea and now by Georges; but I perceived
+that all manual labour on the planet was done by means of machines
+directed by animals whose intelligence was on a level with my own. The
+Martians themselves lived only for the things of the mind; they had
+twelve senses instead of five, and their bodies, in which electricity
+played the part that blood does in our systems, were so finely and yet
+so strongly organised that they possessed an extraordinary power over
+the forces of nature. Everything on their world, seas, mountains and
+rivers were like their wonderful canals, works of art and science.
+Nature was completely plastic in their hands. There was no poverty and
+no crime. Deriving their food from the air which they breathe, the
+Martians were liberated from material cares and immersed in the joys of
+intellectual pursuits.
+
+"You now see, Camille," said Spero, resorting at last to language which
+I could clearly understand, "that life on Mars has developed as
+peacefully and nobly as it began. There is no break between our
+vegetable kingdom and our animal kingdom. We are nourished, like your
+plants, trees, and herbs, by the air which we breathe. Ten million years
+ago your world was also a scene of innocence and tranquil felicity. The
+land was overgrown with a wildly beautiful vegetation that fed on the
+gentle winds of heaven, and primitive forms of animal life had spread
+from the depths of the sea along the shallow shores, and were there
+learning to extract from the air a nourishment similar to that which
+they obtained from the water. But by a woeful chance, one of your
+primitive animals--a deaf, blind, sexless clot of jelly--then had its
+body pierced by a drop of sea-water thicker than usual, and it found
+that this way of feeding was quicker than simple respiration. Such was
+the origin of the first digestive tube, which has exercised so baleful
+an influence on the course of terrestrial life, and turned the earth
+into a vast slaughterhouse."
+
+"Is there no hope for us?" I said.
+
+"No," he replied; "the earth is a shipwrecked planet. None of the higher
+organisms there will ever rise to our level. How can they alter the
+structure of their bodies, and empty their veins of blood, and fill them
+with the subtle electricity which serves us as a life force? And the
+grossness of their blood-fed senses! How can all the fine powers of the
+immortal soul ever develop along with such degraded instruments of
+knowledge?"
+
+"But even if our earth is a shipwrecked planet," I exclaimed, "there is
+at least some means of escaping from it. You and Iclea, for instance----"
+
+"Yes, there is a way of escape," said Spero, "the Uranian way. By
+soaring aloft into the serene region of spiritual ideas, a terrestrial
+soul can still free itself from its animality. Some save themselves by
+their high moral qualities, others are purified and uplifted by their
+imagination and intellect. Virtue and science are the wings that enable
+earth-born spirits to mount the skies. The destiny of a soul is
+determined by its works and aspirations. Lovers of knowledge sojourn
+awhile on Mars, which is only the first stage in the eternal progress.
+Spirits animated by divine feelings rise at once into high regions of
+starry splendour. The Uranian way is open to all, and the day will
+arrive when every inhabitant of your wild, dark planet will recognise
+that he, too, is a citizen of heaven. Then Urania will at last inspire
+and direct him, and point out the path by which he can ascend from the
+blood-stained earth to the fairer mansions prepared for him in the
+skies."
+
+As he was speaking our aerial chariot floated down to a fairy palace by
+the shore of an enchanted sea. I alighted; and a radiant, flower-like
+maiden, who was standing by the portal, unfolded her rainbow wings and
+shadowed me with them, and murmured, "Do you wish to return to earth?"
+
+"No," I cried, running up to clasp her in my arms.
+
+I awoke with a sudden shock. I was lying on the top of the tower of
+Montlhéry; the sun was rising, and the vast circle of country below me
+shone clear and distinct in the morning light.
+
+"Was it a dream?" I said to myself. "Surely not. The earth is not the
+only home of life in the universe. Urania, the celestial muse, is now
+unfolding before our astonished eyes the panoramas of infinity, and we
+know at last that we are not the children of the earth, but citizens of
+the heavens."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+DE LA MOTTE FOUQUÉ
+
+
+Undine
+
+
+     Friedrich Heinrich Karl Fouqué, Baron de la Motte, was born at
+     Brandenburg, in Prussia, Feb. 12, 1777, and died in Berlin
+     January 23, 1843. The mixed nationality indicated by his name
+     is accounted for by his descent from a French Huguenot family.
+     He served as a Prussian cavalryman in the two campaigns
+     against Napoleon of 1792 and 1813, but during the long
+     interval between devoted himself actively to intellectual
+     culture and literary pursuits. He began his career as an
+     author by translating the "Numancia" of Cervantes, but his
+     admiration of the ancient Norse sagas and the old German
+     legends led him into the composition of exquisitely beautiful
+     and tender, though exceedingly fantastic, romances which
+     speedily gained immense popularity. In these productions fairy
+     and magical elements predominate. His masterpiece is "Undine,"
+     published in 1814, the other best-known works being "Sintram,"
+     "Aslauga's Knight," and "The Two Captains." In all Fouqué's
+     stories the marks of genius appear in his brilliant
+     imagination and pure and fascinating diction.
+
+
+_I.--The Water Sprite_
+
+
+About a century ago an aged fisherman sat mending his nets by his
+cottage door, in front of a lovely lake. Behind his dwelling stretched a
+sombre forest, reputed to be haunted by goblin creatures. Through this
+gloomy solitude the pious old fisherman frequently passed, religiously
+dispelling all terrors by singing hymns as he went with his fish to a
+town near the border of the forest.
+
+One evening he heard the sound of a horse's hoofs, and presently
+appeared a knight riding on a splendid steed, and clad in resplendent
+armour. The stranger stopped, and besought shelter for the night, and
+the good old fisherman accorded him a most cheery welcome, taking him
+into the cottage, where sat his aged wife by a scanty fire. Soon the
+three were freely conversing. The knight told of his travels and
+revealed that he was Sir Huldbrand of Ringstetten, where he had a castle
+by the Rhine.
+
+A splash against the window surprising the guest he was informed by his
+host, with some little show of vexation, that little tricks were often
+played by a foster-child of the old couple, named Undine, a girl of
+eighteen.
+
+The door flew open, and a lovely girl glided, laughing, into the room.
+Without the slightest token of shyness she gazed at the knight for a few
+moments, then asked why he had come to the poor cottage.
+
+"Have you come through the wild forest?"
+
+He confessed that he had, and she instantly demanded a recital of his
+adventures. With a slight shudder at his own recollections of the
+strange creatures he had encountered, Huldbrand consented, but a reproof
+from the fisherman at her obtrusiveness angered Undine. The girl sprang
+up and rushed forth into the night, exclaiming, "Sleep alone in your
+smoky old hut!"
+
+In great alarm, the fisherman and Huldbrand rose to follow the girl, but
+she had vanished in the darkness. Remarking that she had acted so
+before, the old fisherman invited Huldbrand to sit by the fire and talk
+awhile, and began to relate how Undine had come to live with them.
+
+The couple had lost their only child, a wonderfully beautiful little
+girl. At the age of three, when sitting in her mother's lap at the edge
+of the lake, she seemed to be attracted by some lovely apparition in the
+water, for, suddenly stretching out her hands and laughing, she had in a
+moment sprung into the lake. No trace of the child could ever be found.
+But the same evening a lovely little girl, three or four years old, with
+water streaming from her golden tresses, suddenly entered the cottage,
+smiling sweetly at the fisherman and his wife. They hastily undressed
+the little stranger and put her to bed. She uttered not a word, but
+simply smiled. In the morning she talked a little, confusedly telling
+how she had been in a boat on the lake with her mother, and had fallen
+in, and could recollect nothing more. She could say nothing as to who
+she was or whence she came. But she talked often of golden castles and
+crystal domes.
+
+While the fisherman was talking thus to the knight, he was suddenly
+interrupted by the noise of rushing water. Floods seemed to be bursting
+forth, and he and his guest, going hastily to the door, saw by the
+moonlight that the brook which issued from the forest was surging in a
+wild torrent over its margin, while a roaring wind was lashing the lake.
+In great alarm both shouted, "Undine! Undine!" But there was no
+response, and the two ran off in different directions in search of the
+fugitive.
+
+It was Huldbrand who discovered the girl. Clambering down some rocks at
+the edge of the stream, thinking Undine might have fallen there, he was
+hailed by the sweet voice of the girl herself.
+
+"Venture not," she cried. "The old man of the stream is full of tricks."
+
+Looking across at a tiny isle in the stream, the knight saw her nestling
+in the grass, smiling, and in an instant he had crossed.
+
+"The fisherman is distressed at your absence," said he. "Let us go
+back."
+
+Looking at him with her beautiful blue eyes, the girl replied. "If you
+think so, well; whatever you think is right to me."
+
+Taking Undine in his arms, Huldbrand bore her over the stream to the
+cottage, where she was received with joy. Dawn was breaking, and
+breakfast was prepared under the trees. Undine flung herself on the
+grass at Huldbrand's feet, and at her renewed request the knight told
+the story of his forest adventures.
+
+"It is now about eight days since I rode into the city on the other side
+of the forest to join in a great tournament. In one of the intervals
+between the jousts I noticed a lovely lady among the spectators. I
+learned that she was Bertalda, foster-daughter of a great duke, and each
+evening I became her partner in the dances.
+
+"This Bertalda was a wayward girl, and each day pleased me less and
+less; but I continued in her company, and asked her jestingly to give me
+a glove. She said she would do so if I would explore alone the haunted
+forest. As an honourable knight I could not decline the challenge, and
+yesterday I set out on the enterprise. Before I had penetrated very far
+within the glades, I saw what looked like a bear in the branches of an
+oak; but the creature, in a harsh, human voice, growled that it was
+getting branches with which to roast me at night. My horse was scared at
+this, and other grim apparitions, but at last I emerged from the forest,
+and saw the lake and this cottage."
+
+When he had finished, the fisherman spoke of the best way by which the
+visitor could return to the city; but, with sly laughter, Undine
+declared that the knight could not depart, for if he attempted now to
+cross the deluged wood, he would be overwhelmed.
+
+
+_II.--"I Have No Soul!"_
+
+
+Huldbrand, detained at the cottage by the increasing overflow of the
+stream, enjoyed the most perfect satisfaction with his sojourn.
+
+The old folks with pleasure regarded the two young people as being
+betrothed, and Huldbrand assumed that he was accepted by the girl, whom
+he had come to look upon as not being in reality one of this poor
+household, but one of some illustrious family, and when, one evening, an
+aged priest appeared at the cottage, driven in by the storm, Huldbrand
+addressed to him a request that he should on the spot at once unite him
+and the maiden, as they were pledged to each other. A discussion arose,
+but matters were at length settled, and the old wife produced two
+consecrated tapers. Lighting these, the priest, with brief, solemn
+ceremony, celebrated the nuptials.
+
+Undine had been quiet and grave during these proceedings, but a singular
+change took place in her demeanour as soon as the rite had been
+performed. She began at intervals to indulge in wild freaks, teasing the
+priest, and indulging in a variety of silly tricks. At length the priest
+gently expostulated with Undine, exhorting her so to attune her soul
+that it might always be in concord with that of her husband.
+
+Her reply amazed the listeners, for she said, "If one has no soul, as I
+have none, what is there to harmonise?" Then she burst into a fit of
+passionate weeping, to the consternation of all the little company. As
+she again and again wept, the priest, fearing that she was possessed by
+some evil spirit, sought to exorcise it. The priest turned to the
+bridegroom with the assurance that he could discover nothing evil in the
+bride, mysterious though her behaviour was, and he commended him to be
+loving and true to her.
+
+The next morning Undine, when she and her husband made their appearance,
+responded gracefully to the paternal greeting of the priest, beseeching
+his pardon for her folly of the previous evening, and begging him to
+pray for the good of her soul. Through the whole day Undine behaved
+angelically. She was kind, quiet, and gentle. At eventide she led her
+husband out to the edge of the stream, which, to the wonder of
+Huldbrand, had subsided into gentle, rippling waves.
+
+She whispered, "Carry me across to that little isle, and we will decide
+there."
+
+Wondering, he carried her across, and, laying her on the turf, listened
+as she began.
+
+"My loved one, know that there are strange beings which, though seeming
+almost mortals, are rarely visible to human eyes--salamanders in the
+flames, gnomes down in the earth, spirits in the air. And in the water
+are myriads of spirits dwelling in crystal domes, in the coral-trees,
+and in the lovely shells. These are far more beautiful than the fairest
+of human beings, and sometimes a fisherman has seen a tender mermaid,
+and has listened to her song. Such wonderful creatures are called
+Undines, and one of these you see now before you!
+
+"We should be far superior to other beings--for we consider ourselves
+human--but for one defect. We have no souls, and nothing remains of us
+after this mortal life is over. Yet every being aspires to rise higher,
+and so my father, who is a great water prince in the Mediterranean Sea,
+desired that his only daughter should become possessed of a soul. But
+this can only come to pass with loving union with one of your race. Now,
+O my dearly beloved, I have to thank you that I am gifted with a soul,
+and it will be due to you should all my life be made wretched. For what
+will become of me if you forsake me? If you would do so, do it now! Then
+I will plunge into the stream--which is my uncle--and as he brought me
+here, so will he take me back to my parents, a loving, suffering woman
+with a soul."
+
+Undine would have said yet more, but Huldbrand, astonishing though the
+recital was, with tears and kisses vowed he would never leave his lovely
+wife; and with her leaning in loving trustfulness on his arm, they
+returned to the hut.
+
+The next day, at Undine's strange urgency, farewell was said with bitter
+tears and lamentations.
+
+Undine was placed on the beautiful horse, and Huldbrand and the priest
+walked on either side as the three passed through the solemn glades of
+the wood. A fourth soon joined them. He was dressed in a white robe,
+like that of the priest, and presently attempted to speak to Undine. But
+she shrank from him, declaring she wished to have nothing to do with
+him.
+
+"Oh, oh!" cried the stranger, with a laugh. "What kind of a marriage is
+this you have made, that you must not speak to your relative? Do you not
+know I am your uncle Kühleborn, who brought you to this region, and that
+I am here to protect you from goblins and sprites? So let me quietly
+accompany you."
+
+"We are near the end of the forest, and shall not need you further," was
+her rejoinder. But he grinned at her so frightfully that she shrieked
+for help, and the knight aimed at his head a blow from his sword.
+Instantly Kühleborn was transformed into a gushing waterfall, foaming
+over them from a rock near by and drenching all three.
+
+
+_III.--"Woe! Woe!"_
+
+
+The sudden disappearance of the young knight had caused a sensation in
+the city, for the duke and duchess, and the friends and servants of
+Huldbrand, feared he had perished in the forest during the terrible
+tempest When he suddenly reappeared, all rejoiced except Bertalda, who
+was profoundly vexed at seeing with him a beautiful bride. She so far
+reconciled herself to the conditions that a warm friendship sprang up
+between Undine and herself.
+
+It was agreed that Bertalda should accompany the wedded pair to
+Ringstetten, and with the consent of the noble foster-parents of
+Bertalda the three appointed a day for departure. One beautiful evening,
+as they walked about the market-place round the great fountain, suddenly
+a tall man emerged from among the people and stopped in front of Undine.
+He quickly whispered something in her ear, and though at first she
+seemed vexed at the intrusion, presently she clapped her hands and
+laughed joyously. Then the stranger mysteriously vanished, and seemed to
+disappear in the fountain.
+
+Huldbrand had suspected that he had seen the man before, and now felt
+assured that he was Kühleborn. Undine admitted the fact, and said that
+her uncle had told her a secret, which she was to reveal on the third
+day afterwards, which would be the anniversary of Bertalda's nameday.
+
+The anniversary came, and strange incidents happened. After the banquet
+given by the duke and duchess, Undine suddenly gave a signal, and from
+among the retainers at the door came forth the old fisherman and his
+wife, and Undine declared that in these Bertalda saw her real parents.
+The proud maiden instantly flew into a violent rage, weeping
+passionately, and utterly refused to acknowledge the old couple as her
+father and mother. She declared that Undine was an enchantress and a
+witch, sustaining intercourse with evil spirits.
+
+Undine, with great dignity, indignantly denied the accusation, while
+Bertalda's violent conduct created a feeling of disgust in the minds of
+all in the assembly. The matter was settled in a simple manner, for the
+duke commanded Bertalda to withdraw to a private apartment with the
+duchess and the two old folks from the hut, that an investigation might
+be made. It was soon over, for the noble lady was able presently to
+inform the company that Undine's story was absolutely true. The guests
+silently departed, and Undine sank sobbing into her husband's arms.
+
+Next day Bertalda, humbled by these events, sought pardon of Undine for
+her evil behaviour, and was instantly welcomed with loving assurances of
+forgiveness, moreover, she was cordially invited to go with the pair to
+Ringstetten.
+
+"We will share all things there as sisters," said Undine.
+
+The three journeyed to the distant castle, and took up their abode
+together. Soon Kühleborn appeared on the scene, but Undine at once
+repulsed him. Next, when her husband was one day hunting, she ordered
+the great well in the courtyard to be covered with a big stone, on which
+she cut some curious characters.
+
+Bertalda waywardly complained that this proceeding deprived her of water
+that was good for her complexion, but Undine privately explained to
+Huldbrand that she had caused the servants to seal up this spring
+because only by that way of access could her uncle Kühleborn come to
+disturb their peace.
+
+As time passed on, Huldbrand gradually cooled toward his wife and turned
+affectionately towards Bertalda. Undine bore patiently and silently the
+sorrow thus inflicted on her. But when her husband was impatient and
+angry she would plead with him never to speak to her in accents of
+unkindness when they happened to be on the water, for the water spirits
+had her completely in their power on their element, and would seek to
+protect her, and even seize her and take her down for ever to dwell in
+the crystal castles of the deep.
+
+After some estrangements, Undine and Bertalda had again become loving
+friends, and Huldbrand's affection for his wife had revived with its old
+and welcome warmth, while the attachment between him and Bertalda seemed
+forgotten.
+
+One day the three were enjoying a delightful excursion on the glorious
+Danube. Bertalda had taken off a beautiful coral necklace which
+Huldbrand had given her. She leaned over and drew the coral beads across
+the surface, enjoying the glitter thus caused, when suddenly a great
+hand from beneath seized the necklace and snatched it down. The maiden's
+scream of terror was answered by mocking laughter from the water.
+
+In an outburst of passion, Huldbrand started up and poured forth curses
+on the river and its denizens, whether spirits or sirens. With tears in
+her eyes, Undine besought him softly not to scold her there, and she
+took from her neck a beautiful necklace and offered it to Bertalda as a
+compensation.
+
+But the angry knight snatched it away, and hurled it into the river,
+exclaiming, "Are you still connected with them? In the name of all the
+witches, remain among them with your presents, and leave us mortals in
+peace, you sorceress!"
+
+Bitterly weeping and crying, "Woe! Woe!" she vanished over the side of
+the vessel. Her last words were, "Remain true! Woe! Woe!" Huldbrand lay
+swooning on the deck, and little waves seemed to be sobbing on the
+surface of the Danube, "Woe! Woe! Remain true!"
+
+
+_IV.--The White Stranger_
+
+
+For a time deep sorrow fell on the lord of Ringstetten and Bertalda.
+They lived long in the castle quietly, often weeping for Undine,
+tenderly cherishing her memory. Undine often visited Huldbrand in his
+dreams, caressing him and weeping silently so that his cheeks were wet
+when he awoke. But these visions grew less frequent, and the knight's
+grief diminished by degrees. At length he and Bertalda were married, but
+it was in spite of a grave warning from Father Heilmann, who declared
+that Undine had appeared to him in visions, beseeching him to warn
+Huldbrand and Bertalda to leave each other. They were too infatuated to
+heed the admonition, and a priest from a neighbouring monastery promised
+to perform the ceremony in a few days.
+
+Meantime, when lying between sleeping and waking, the knight seemed
+fanned by the wings of a swan, and, as he fell asleep, seemed borne
+along on the wings of swans which sang their sweetest music. All at once
+he seemed to be hovering over the Mediterranean Sea. Its waters were so
+crystalline that he could see through them to the bottom, and there,
+under a crystal arch, sat Undine, weeping bitterly. She seemed not to
+perceive him. Kühleborn approached her, and told her that Huldbrand was
+to be wedded again, and that it would be her duty, from which nothing
+could release her, to end his life.
+
+"That I cannot do," said she. "I have sealed up the fountain against my
+race."
+
+Huldbrand felt as if he were soaring back again over the sea, and at
+length he seemed to reach his castle. He awoke on his couch, but he
+could not bring himself to break off the arrangements that had been
+made.
+
+The marriage feast at Ringstetten was not as bright and happy as such
+occasions usually are, for a veil of gloom seemed to rest over the
+company. Even the bride affected a happy and thoughtless demeanour which
+she did not really feel. The company dispersed early, Bertalda retiring
+with her maidens, and Huldbrand with his attendants.
+
+In her apartment Bertalda, with a sigh, noticed how freckled was her
+neck, and a remark she made to her maidens as she gazed in the mirror
+excited the eager attention of one of them. She heard her fair mistress
+say, "Oh, that I had a flask of the purifying water from the closed
+fountain!" Presently the officious waiting-woman was seen leading men to
+the fountain. With levers they quickly lifted the stone, for some
+mysterious force within seemed to aid them.
+
+Then from the fountain solemnly rose a white column of water. It was
+presently perceived that it was a pale female figure, veiled in white.
+She was weeping bitterly as she walked slowly to the building, while
+Bertalda and her attendants, pale with terror, watched from the window.
+The figure passed on, and at the door of Huldbrand's room, where the
+knight was partly undressed, was heard a gentle tap. The white figure
+slowly entered. It was Undine, who softly said, "They have opened the
+spring, and now I am here and you must die." Said the knight, "It must
+be so! But let me die in your embrace."
+
+"Most gladly, my loved one," said she, throwing back her veil and
+disclosing her face divinely smiling. Imprinting on his lips a sacred
+kiss, Undine clasped the knight in her arms, weeping as if she would
+weep her very soul away. Huldbrand fell softly back on the pillows of
+his couch, a corpse.
+
+At the funeral of Huldbrand the veiled figure appeared when the
+procession formed a circle round the grave. All knelt in mute devotion
+at a signal from Father Heilmann. When they rose again the white
+stranger had vanished, and on the spot where she had knelt a silvery
+little fountain gushed forth, which almost encircled the grave and then
+ran on till it reached a lake near by. And to this day the inhabitants
+cherish the tradition that thus the poor rejected Undine still lovingly
+embraces her husband.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+ÉMILE GABORIAU
+
+
+"File No. 113"
+
+
+     Émile Gaboriau, one of the best-known exponents of the "police
+     story," was born at Saujon, in France, on November 9, 1833. He
+     began life in a lawyer's office, became a volunteer in a
+     cavalry regiment, and, later, secretary to Paul Feval, the
+     novelist and dramatist. In the meantime, Gaboriau had
+     contributed a number of sketches dealing with military and
+     fashionable life to various minor Parisian journals, but it
+     was not until 1866, with the publication of "L'Affaire
+     Lerouge," that he suddenly sprang into fame. From that time
+     until his death, on September 28, 1873, story after story
+     appeared rapidly from his pen. "File No. 113" ("Le Dossier
+     113") was published in 1867, and was the first of a remarkable
+     series of detective tales introducing the figure of Lecoq.
+     "File No. 113" is perhaps the most characteristic specimen of
+     his work, exhibiting as it does a careful study of the Paris
+     police system, and a thorough acquaintance with all phases of
+     criminal life.
+
+
+_I.--The Robbery and a Clue_
+
+
+The first mention of the celebrated robbery which took place at M.
+Fauvel's bank in Paris--the _dossier_ of the case is numbered 113 in the
+police files--appeared in the evening papers, February 28, 1866.
+
+On the previous day a certain Count Louis de Clameran sent word to M.
+Fauvel that he wished to withdraw the following morning at ten o'clock
+the sum of £12,000 which had been deposited in the bank by his brother,
+an ironmaster from the south of France who had recently died.
+
+M. Fauvel made it a rule never to keep any large sums of money on the
+premises, but to deposit all such amounts in the keeping of the Bank of
+France. As this sum, however, had to be paid the first thing in the
+morning, the chief cashier, M. Prosper Bertomy, thought he was justified
+in obtaining the amount from the Bank of France on the evening of the
+27th, and in locking it up in the bank safe against the morning.
+
+The safe was a formidable-looking affair constructed entirely of wrought
+iron of treble thickness. An ingenious device regulated its opening. On
+the massive door were five movable steel buttons engraved with the
+letters of the alphabet. Before the key could be inserted in the lock,
+these buttons had to be manipulated in the same order in which they had
+been used when the safe was last shut. The buttons were arranged so that
+the letters on them formed some word, which was changed from time to
+time. This word was known only to M. Fauvel and his cashier, each of
+whom possessed a key of the safe.
+
+As soon as the bank opened on the morning of February 28, the count put
+in an appearance, and Prosper Bertomy went to the safe to obtain the
+money. When, a second later, he reappeared, his face was ashy pale, and
+his steps tottered as he walked. The £12,000 had disappeared from within
+the safe. What made the affair all the more mysterious was that the safe
+was locked just as the cashier had left it the night before.
+
+The room in which the safe was situated communicated with the bank by
+another room in which every night a tried servant of the establishment
+slept. By a second door admittance was obtained to the private
+apartments of M. and Madame Fauvel and their niece Madeline.
+
+As soon as M. Fauvel had heard the startling news, he first obtained the
+necessary money from the Bank of France, settled the business with the
+count, and then turned his attention to the elucidation of the robbery.
+He summoned the cashier to his presence.
+
+Bertomy was a young man of thirty to whom M. Fauvel had shown great
+kindness, advancing his interests wherever possible until, though very
+young for the position, he was his most important and most confidential
+employee. Besides the paternal affection with which the bank manager
+regarded his cashier, another tie tended to make their relations all the
+stronger and more personal. Bertomy loved M. Fauvel's niece Madeline,
+and though a curious estrangement had sprung up between them during the
+previous nine or ten months, the banker always regarded their marriage
+as practically arranged.
+
+The interview between the two men was a curious one. To each it appeared
+that the other must be the thief. They alone had the keys of the safe;
+they alone knew the magic word which could open the massive door. The
+banker urged Bertomy to confess, promising him forgiveness; the other
+haughtily rejected the suggestion, and hinted that his employer had
+converted the £12,000 to his own use. In the end M. Fauvel lost his
+temper, sent for the police, and before twenty-four hours were up,
+Prosper Bertomy, who but the day before had held one of the most
+important and envied positions in the financial world of Paris, was
+charged before a magistrate as being a common thief.
+
+Investigation of the case was at first entrusted to a detective named
+Fanferlot, nicknamed by his comrades the "Squirrel." Fanferlot's
+examination of the premises resulted in little. All he discovered was a
+scratch upon the door of the safe, but certain words that passed between
+M. Fauvel and his niece, which seemed to indicate that the former was
+secretly opposed to the marriage of Madeline with Bertomy, caused him to
+jump to the conclusion that the banker had robbed his own safe in order
+to bring disgrace upon his cashier. He connived, however, at the arrest
+of Bertomy, hoping that later on he might obtain great kudos for himself
+by unmasking the banker. What might have been the result of his improper
+and unofficial methods will never be known, but in all probability great
+inconvenience would have been caused to a number of innocent persons and
+the whole course of justice thwarted had it not been for the
+intervention of the great and famous M. Lecoq.
+
+M. Lecoq's interest in the bank robbery case was largely a personal one.
+Even detectives have hearts, and M. Lecoq had loved with heart and soul
+a charming young girl named Nina Gipsy. Under the name of Caldas in one
+of his innumerable disguises, he had wooed her for many months. When he
+thought at last that he had won her affections, she had fled to the
+protection of no less a person than Prosper Bertomy himself. The cashier
+cared nothing for her, but embittered by an estrangement that had sprung
+up between Madeline and himself, he had sought forgetfulness in her
+society. Bertomy's arrest gave Lecoq an opportunity for a noble revenge.
+He determined to prove to the woman he loved his superiority over his
+rival by saving the cashier from disgrace.
+
+Though the case looked black against Bertomy, for it was shown that he
+was heavily in debt, and living far beyond his means, Lecoq was
+satisfied that he had not committed the crime. When Fanferlot,
+hopelessly befogged, called for his advice at his house in the Rue
+Montmartre, the great detective deigned to explain the preliminary data
+and the deductions from the data he had made.
+
+The scratch on the safe door, slight and minute as it was, was his
+starting-point. How had it been made? He had found by experiment that it
+was impossible to make such a scratch upon the varnish without the
+exercise of considerable force. It was clear, therefore, that the
+scratch by the keyhole could not have been made by the thief in his
+trembling anxiety to get the business he had undertaken accomplished.
+But why was such force used?
+
+For a long time Lecoq puzzled over this problem. Then, with Fanferlot,
+he tried an experiment. In his room was an iron box varnished like the
+safe. Taking the key of this box from his pocket, he ordered Fanferlot
+to seize his arm just as he put it near the lock. The key slipped,
+pulled away from the lock, and sliding along the surface of the door,
+left upon it a diagonal scratch, almost an exact reproduction of the one
+on the safe.
+
+From this simple experiment Lecoq deduced that two people were present
+when the safe was robbed; one wanted to take the money, the other wanted
+to prevent it being taken. This was the basis of the case which he set
+out to draw up against some person or persons unknown. He argued, with
+his usual clear logic, that neither Fauvel nor Bertomy could have robbed
+the safe. Both of them had keys; both of them knew the secret word and
+could have robbed the safe whenever they pleased. Therefore, neither of
+them would have committed the theft in the presence of somebody else.
+
+
+_II.--A Mysterious Journey_
+
+
+Lecoq's first steps after establishing these preliminary deductions was
+to secure the release of Bertomy on the grounds of insufficient
+evidence.
+
+On the very morning of his release, Bertomy had received a mysterious
+letter composed of printed words cut out letter by letter from a book
+and pasted on paper.
+
+"My dear Prosper," so the epistle ran, "a friend who knows the horror of
+your situation sends you this help. There is one heart at least which
+feels for you. Leave France; you are yourself. The future is before you.
+Go, and may this money be of use."
+
+Enclosed with this note were banknotes for £400. Lecoq, disguised as a
+M. Verduret, a country merchant, a friend of Bertomy's father, secured
+this epistle and studied it carefully. His knowledge of the various
+types used by the printers in Paris showed him that the letters had been
+taken from a book printed by a well-known firm who published volumes of
+devotion. The correctness of this conclusion was established by the
+discovery on the back of one of the small cuttings the word "Deus." The
+words had been cut from a Catholic prayer-book. To find that prayer-book
+was his next business.
+
+In another disguise he sought out Nina Gipsy, and, by asking her
+assistance to clear Prosper, induced her to take up the position of
+lady's-maid in the Fauvel family, for it was there, he conceived, the
+mutilated book of devotion would be found. Again his wonderful instinct
+proved right. In a few days Nina brought him the very book--a prayer-
+book, belonging to Madeline, which had been given her by Bertomy.
+
+Why had Madeline sent the cashier this elaborately disguised letter? Why
+had she wished him to leave France, confident as she was, so she told
+him, of his innocence?
+
+To find an answer to these important queries, Lecoq closely questioned
+Bertomy. He learnt that the night before the robbery the cashier had
+dined with his friend Raoul de Lagors, the wealthy, dissolute young
+nephew of M. Fauvel's wife. This Lagors was the friend of Count Louis de
+Clameran, whose demand for the £12,000 left him by his dead brother had
+resulted in the discovery of the mysterious robbery.
+
+Bertomy had nothing but the highest praise for Lagors, but, on the other
+hand, spoke most disparagingly of the count. The count, it appeared, had
+proposed for the hand of Madeline, and had pressed his suit with great
+determination. And Madeline--and this was what provided a new problem
+for Lecoq's consideration--had tacitly accepted his attention.
+
+Through Nina, Lecoq had arranged a meeting between Bertomy and Madeline,
+and satisfied himself that the girl was whole-heartedly and devotedly
+attached to her uncle's cashier. Then why was she favouring the suit of
+the count? Lecoq at once made it his business to inquire into the
+count's past.
+
+He was the second son of an old and noble family. His elder brother,
+Gaston, having to fly the country in consequence of causing the death of
+several men, he had inherited the property. A life of dissolute
+pleasures had soon exhausted his patrimony and he was reduced to living
+by his wits. Some weeks before the robbery, he had discovered that his
+brother Gaston was alive and was living on a large estate in the south
+of France, which he had purchased with the wealth he had accumulated in
+business. Six weeks after the two brothers met again, the elder died and
+the younger inherited his vast fortune.
+
+Raoul de Lagors was the next character in the drama whose past the
+detective made it his business to expose. Lagors, it has been said, was
+the nephew of Madame Fauvel. To his surprise, Lecoq discovered, by
+inquiries in her native place, that the banker's wife had never had any
+brothers or sisters. Lagors, therefore, was not her nephew.
+
+Fanferlot, acting on instructions, had kept a strict watch on the
+movements of Madeline, and by this means Lecoq received timely warning
+of a mysterious excursion which the girl made one night. He followed her
+to a lonely house on the outskirts of the city. When she had gained
+admittance, the appearance of a light in one of the windows on the first
+floor seemed to indicate the room to which she had been taken. By the
+aid of a ladder, Lecoq was able to watch what was going on within
+through the shutters.
+
+He saw Madeline standing opposite Lagors, evidently, from her attitude,
+pleading with him. For some time he listened to her, with a cynical
+smile upon his face, but after an hour he seemed to decide, with evident
+reluctance, to comply with her request. Going to a cabinet, he took out
+a bundle of pawn tickets and flung them on the table. Hastily going
+through the collection, she selected three, and concealing them in her
+dress, left the house.
+
+By following her to a pawnshop, Lecoq discovered that she had redeemed
+certain valuable articles of jewelry belonging to Madame Fauvel. Lecoq
+knew, through Nina Gipsy, who still filled the part of lady's-maid in
+the Fauvel family, that M. Fauvel had insisted on his wife accompanying
+him on the following evening to a great fancy-dress ball which was to be
+given by one of the wealthiest families in the capital. Obviously, then,
+the jewelry that Madeline had redeemed was required by Madame Fauvel for
+the occasion. Why had she pawned it for Lagors?
+
+A theory had half formed itself in Lecoq's brain. He determined to prove
+its truth. Disguised as a clown, he attended the fancy-dress ball, and
+in the character of a mountebank collected a group of ladies and
+gentlemen around him while he related with the inimitable skill of a
+buffoon a romantic narrative. To most of the people present it was
+simply an amusing story, but to the count and Lagors and Madame Fauvel,
+who were among the listeners, it seemed something much more, for Lecoq
+dressed out his theory of the robbery in the trappings of romance. Just
+as he reached the climax of the story there was a cry, and Madame Fauvel
+almost fell fainting on the floor. The count and Lagors rushed up
+furiously to Lecoq.
+
+"Master Clown," said Lagors, "your tongue is too long."
+
+"Perhaps, my pretty boy," retorted Lecoq, "perhaps it is. But it is, I
+can assure you, not so long as my arm."
+
+"Who are you, M. le Clown?" the count exclaimed angrily.
+
+"I am," replied Lecoq, "the best friend your brother Gaston had. I was
+his counsellor. I am the confidant of his last wishes."
+
+Though the solution of the problem seemed so tantalisingly near, there
+were still some threads in the tangle which required sorting out before
+Lecoq could say that the case was complete. Among other matters he
+inquired of Bertomy the word which had been used to lock the safe on,
+the night of the robbery. The word had been "gipsy." Bertomy was
+confident that he had not mentioned it to anybody, but Nina Gipsy was
+able to throw light on this part of the problem. She recollected a
+chance remark of Bertomy's while sitting at dinner with herself and
+Lagors on the night of the robbery. She had reproached Bertomy with
+neglecting her.
+
+"It's too bad for you to reproach me," cried the cashier, "for it is
+your name which at this very moment guards the safe of M. Fauvel."
+
+Lagors, therefore, had known the password. What did this new discovery
+imply? How did it fit in with the rest of the data which Lecoq had so
+brilliantly collected?
+
+After his custom, he marshalled once more in his mind all the facts at
+his disposal, but they were like so many loose links in a chain. They
+required the connecting link to make the chain complete. To find that
+link Lecoq spent a month in visiting the old home of the De Clamerans,
+the estate formerly occupied by Gaston de Clameron, who had died a few
+days before the robbery, and also in a trip to England. When he returned
+to Paris, _dossier_ No. 113 was complete.
+
+
+_III.--The Dossier_
+
+
+In her extreme youth, Madame Fauvel had been secretly loved by Gaston de
+Clameron. It was a result of certain contemptuous words spoken of the
+girl he loved that Gaston had committed those deeds which had compelled
+him to fly the country. Shortly after his flight, the girl, finding that
+she was about to give birth to a child, imparted the secret to her
+mother. Fearing a scandal, the mother, accompanied by a faithful nurse,
+took her daughter over to England. There, near London, a child was born,
+who was immediately handed over to some simple country people to adopt.
+The unhappy girl returned to France, and shortly after married M.
+Fauvel, the banker.
+
+Years after, the Count Louis de Clameron, who had inherited and ruined
+the estates of which his brother Gaston had been deprived, discovered
+this secret from the nurse, and finding on inquiries in London that the
+child had died, persuaded a young ne'er-do-well Englishman to play the
+_rôle_ of his brother's son. He secretly introduced him to Madame
+Fauvel, and through this means obtained what money he required from the
+unhappy woman, who feared the discovery of her past secret by her
+husband. The situation was complicated by the count falling in love with
+Madeline and the sudden appearance of Gaston de Clameron, who was
+thought to be dead.
+
+The count poisoned his brother, and then, finding that Madeline refused
+to give up Bertomy, determined to accomplish the cashier's ruin, and at
+the same time obtain an amount of money large enough to buy off his
+fellow-conspirator Lagors. Lagors, having learnt by chance the password
+that guarded the safe, was sent to Madame Fauvel late at night with a
+request for money.
+
+At this time Madame Fauvel was at the end of her resources. Lagors
+suggested taking the money from the safe. Tom between a desire to help
+her supposed son and the risk of discovery, she at last consented.
+Taking M. Fauvel's key, they descended silently to the safe-room. At the
+last moment, just as the key was in the lock, Madame Fauvel attempted to
+deter Lagors from his purpose. In the struggle that scratch was made on
+the door which formed the basis of Lecoq's inquiries and enabled the
+great detective to unravel the mystery.
+
+Madeline, who all the while half guessed at the truth, and perceived
+without being told that Madame Fauvel was at the mercy of the count, had
+been prepared to sacrifice her future happiness in order to prevent the
+scandal being made public.
+
+M. Lecoq, armed with these facts, sought out Lagors. He arrived only in
+time to prevent a tragedy. Warned by an anonymous letter that his wife
+had pawned her diamonds for the benefit of Lagors, the banker came upon
+them when they were together in Lagor's rooms. Imagining the young man
+was his wife's lover, the banker drew a revolver and fired four times.
+Fortunately, none of the shots took effect, and before he could fire
+again Lecoq had rushed into the room and torn the weapon from his grasp.
+It was the moment of the great detective's triumph. With the dramatic
+skill of which he was a master, he laid bare the whole story and
+disclosed the true identity of Raoul Lagors. Before he left he compelled
+Lagors to refund the £12,000 he had stolen, and in order to avoid a
+scandal allowed the young man to go free. Then, that nothing should be
+wanting to his triumph, he obtained the consent of the banker to
+Bertomy's marriage with Madeline.
+
+Hurrying from the banker's house, Lecoq hastened to effect the arrest of
+the count. He arrived too late. Realising that he was hopelessly in the
+toils, the count was bereft of his senses and become a hopeless maniac.
+
+Four days later M. Lecoq, the official M. Lecoq, awaited the arrival of
+Nina Gipsy and Prosper Bertomy. They declared that they had come to meet
+M. Verduret, who had saved Prosper Bertomy. The detective retired,
+promising to summon the man they had come to see. A quarter of an hour
+later M. Verduret entered the room. Facing them, he told them how a
+friend of his named Caldas had fallen in love with a girl, and how that
+girl had been won from him by a man who cared nothing for her.
+
+"Caldas determined to revenge himself in his own way. It was his hand
+that saved the man on the very verge of disgrace. I see you know that
+you, Nina, are the woman, and you, Prosper, the man; while Caldas
+is...."
+
+With a quick gesture he removed his wig and whiskers, and the true Lecoq
+appeared.
+
+"Caldas!" cried Nina.
+
+"No, not Caldas, not Verduret, but Lecoq, the detective."
+
+After the moments of amazement had passed, Lecoq turned to leave the
+room, but Nina barred the way.
+
+"Caldas," she cried, "have you not punished me enough? Caldas...."
+
+Prosper went from the office alone.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+JOHN GALT
+
+
+Annals of the Parish
+
+
+     John Gait, poet, dramatist, historian, and novelist, was born
+     at Irvine, Ayrshire, Scotland, on May 2, 1779. He was trained
+     for a commercial career in the Greenock Custom House, and in
+     the office of a merchant in that seaport. Removing to London,
+     Gait engaged in business and afterwards travelled extensively
+     to forward mercantile enterprises in all the countries
+     bordering on the Mediterranean and the Near East, where he
+     repeatedly met Lord Byron. His first work of fiction was a
+     Sicilian story, published in 1816, but it was not until 1820
+     that he found his true literary expression, when the "Ayrshire
+     Legatees" appeared in "Blackwood's Magazine." The success of
+     this tale was so great that Gait finished the "Annals of the
+     Parish; or the Chronicle of Dalmailing, during the Ministry of
+     the Rev. Micah Balwhidder," which he had really begun in 1813,
+     and they were published in 1821. The "Annals" contain a lively
+     and humorous picture of Scottish character, manners, and
+     feeling during the era described. In the latter part of his
+     life Gait wrote several novels, a life of Byron, an
+     autobiography, and his "Literary Life and Miscellanies." He
+     died on April 11, 1838.
+
+
+_I.--The Placing of Mr. Balwhidder_
+
+
+The year A.D. 1760 was remarkable for three things in the parish of
+Dalmailing. First and foremost, there was my placing, then the coming of
+Mrs. Malcolm with her five children to settle among us, and next my
+marriage with my own cousin, Miss Betty Lanshaw. The placing was a great
+affair, for I was put in by the patron, and the people knew nothing of
+me whatsoever. They were really mad and vicious, insomuch that there was
+obliged to be a guard of soldiers to protect the presbytery. Dirt was
+flung upon us as we passed, and the finger of scorn held out to me. But
+I endured it with a resigned spirit, compassionating their wilfulness
+and blindness.
+
+The kirk door was nailed up and we were obligated to go in by the
+window, making the Lord's house like an inn on a fair-day with their
+grievous yelly hooing. Thomas Thorl, the weaver, a pious zealot, got up
+at the time of the induction and protested, and said, "Verily, verily, I
+say unto you, he that entereth not by the door of the sheepfold, but
+climbeth up some other way, the same is a thief and a robber."
+
+When the laying on of the hands upon me was adoing, Mr. Given, minister
+of Lugton, a jocose man, who could not get near, stretched out his staff
+and touched my head, saying, to the great diversion of the rest, "This
+will do well enough--timber to timber."
+
+After the ceremony we went to the manse, and there had an excellent
+dinner. Although my people received me in this unruly manner, I was
+resolved to cultivate civility among them; and next morning I began a
+round of visitations. But, oh! it was a steep brae to climb. The doors
+in some places were barred against me; in others the bairns ran crying
+to their mothers, "Here's the feckless Mess-John." But Thomas Thorl
+received me kindly, and said that this early visitation was a symptom of
+grace, and that not to condemn me without trial he and some neighbours
+would be at the kirk at the next Lord's day, so that I would not have to
+preach just to the bare walls and the laird's family.
+
+As to Mrs. Malcolm, she was the widow of a Clyde shipmaster that was
+lost at sea with his vessel. A genty body, she never changed her widow's
+weeds, and span frae morning tae nicht to keep her bairns and herself.
+When her daughter Effie was ill, I called on her in a sympathising way,
+and offered her some assistance frae the Session, but she refused help
+out of the poor's-box, as it might be hereafter cast up to her bairns.
+
+It was in the year 1761 that the great smuggling trade corrupted the
+west coast. Tea was going like chaff, and brandy like well-water. There
+was nothing minded but the riding of cadgers by day and excisemen by
+night, and battles between the smugglers and the king's men, both by sea
+and land; continual drunkenness and debauchery, and our Session had an
+awful time o't.
+
+I did all that was in my power to keep my people from the contagion. I
+preached sixteen times from the text, "Render to Caesar the things that
+are Caesar's." I visited, exhorted, warned, and prophesied, but the evil
+got in among us. The third year of my ministry was long held in
+remembrance. The small-pox came in among the poor bits o' weans of the
+parish, and the smashing it made among them was woeful. When the
+pestilence was raging, I preached a sermon about Rachel weeping for her
+children, which Thomas Thorl, a great judge of good preaching, said,
+"was a monument of divinity whilk searched the heart of many a parent
+that day"--a thing I was well pleased to hear, and was minded to make
+him an elder the next vacancy. But, worthy man, it was not permitted him
+to arrive at that honour; for that fall it pleased Him that alone can
+give and take to pluck him from this life.
+
+In this year Charlie Malcolm, Mrs. Malcolm's eldest son, was sent to sea
+in a tobacco-trader that sailed between Port Glasgow and Virginia.
+Tea-drinking was beginning to spread more openly, in so much that by the
+advice of the first Mrs. Balwhidder, Mrs. Malcolm took in tea to sell to
+eke out something to the small profits of her wheel. I lost some of my
+dislike to the tea after that, and we had it for breakfast at the manse
+as well as in the afternoon. But what I thought most of it for was that
+it did no harm to the head of the drinkers, which was not always the
+case with the possets in fashion before, when I remember decent ladies
+coming home with red faces from a posset-masking. So I refrained from
+preaching against tea henceforth, but I never lifted the weight of my
+displeasure from off the smuggling trade, until it was utterly put down
+by the strong hand of government.
+
+
+_II.--The Minister's Second Marriage_
+
+
+A memorable year, both in public and private, was 1763. The king granted
+peace to the French. Lady Macadam, widow of General Macadam, who lived
+in her jointure-house, took Kate Malcolm to live with her as companion,
+and she took pleasure in teaching Kate all her accomplishments and how
+to behave herself like a lady. The lint-mill on Lugton Water was burned
+to the ground, with not a little of the year's crop of lint in our
+parish. The first Mrs. Balwhidder lost upwards of twelve stone, which
+was intended for sarking to ourselves and sheets and napery. A great
+loss indeed it was, and the vexation thereof had a visible effect on her
+health, which from the spring had been in a dwining way. But for it, I
+think she might have wrestled through the winter. However, it was
+ordered otherwise, and she was removed from mine to Abraham's bosom on
+Christmas Day, and buried on Hogmanay, for it was thought uncanny to
+have a dead corpse in the house on the New Year's Day.
+
+Just by way of diversion in my heavy sorrow, I got a well-shapen
+headstone made for her; but a headstone without a epitaph being no
+better than a body without the breath of life in't, I made a poesy for
+the monument, not in the Latin tongue, which Mrs. Balwhidder, worthy
+woman as she was, did not understand, but in sedate language, which was
+greatly thought of at the time. My servant lassies, having no eye of a
+mistress over them, wasted everything at such a rate that, long before
+the end of the year, the year's stipend was all spent, and I did not
+know what to do. At lang and length I sent for Mr. Auld, a douce and
+discreet elder, and told him how I was situated. He advised me, for my
+own sake, to look out for another wife, as soon as decency would allow.
+
+In the following spring I placed my affections, with due consideration,
+on Miss Lizzy Kibbock, the well-brought-up daughter of Mr. Joseph
+Kibbock, of the Gorbyholm, farmer; and we were married on the 29th day
+of April, on account of the dread we had of being married in May, for it
+is said, "Of the marriages in May, the bairns die of a decay." The
+second Mrs. Balwhidder had a genius for management, and started a dairy,
+and set the servant lassies to spin wool for making blankets and lint
+for sheets and napery. She sent the butter on market days to Irville,
+her cheese and huxtry to Glasgow. We were just coining money, in so much
+that, after the first year, we had the whole tot of stipend to put into
+the bank.
+
+The opening of coal-pits in Douray Moor brought great prosperity to the
+parish, but the coal-carts cut up the roads, especially the Vennel, a
+narrow and crooked street in the clachan. Lord Eglesham came down from
+London in the spring of 1767 to see the new lands he had bought in our
+parish. His coach couped in the Vennel, and his lordship was thrown head
+foremost into the mud. He swore like a trooper, and said he would get an
+act of parliament to put down the nuisance. His lordship came to the
+manse, and, being in a woeful plight, he got the loan of my best suit of
+clothes. This made him wonderful jocose both with Mrs. Balwhidder and
+me, for he was a portly man, and I but a thin body, and it was really
+droll to see his lordship clad in my garments. Out of this accident grew
+a sort of neighbourliness between Lord Eglesham and me.
+
+
+_III.--A Runaway Match_
+
+
+About Christmas, Lady Macadam's son, having been perfected in the art of
+war at a school in France, had, with the help of his mother's friends
+and his father's fame, got a stand of colours in the Royal Scots
+Regiment. He came to show himself in his regimentals to his lady mother,
+and during the visit he fell in love and entered into correspondence
+with Kate Malcolm. A while after, her ladyship's flunkey came to the
+manse and begged me to go to her. So I went; and there she was, with
+gum-flowers on her head, sitting on a settee, for she was lame, and in
+her hand she held a letter.
+
+"Sir," she said, as I came into the room, "I want you to go instantly to
+your clerk," meaning Mr. Lorimore, the schoolmaster, "and tell him I
+will give him a couple of hundred pounds to marry Miss Malcolm without
+delay."
+
+"Softly, my lady; you must first tell me the meaning of all this haste
+of kindness," said I, in my calm, methodical manner. At which she began
+to sob, and bewail her ruin and the dishonour of her family. I was
+confounded, but at length it came out that she had accidentally opened a
+letter that had come from London for Kate, that she had read it, by
+which she came to know that Kate and her darling son were trysted, and
+that this was not the first love-letter which had passed between them.
+Mr. Lorimore promptly declined her ladyship's proposal, as he was
+engaged to be married to his present worthy helpmate. Although her
+ladyship was so overcome with passion, she would not part with Kate, nor
+allow her to quit the house.
+
+Three years later the young Laird Macadam, being ordered with his
+regiment for America, got leave from the king to come and see his lady
+mother before his departure. But it was not to see her only. He arrived
+at a late hour unwarned, lest his mother would send Kate out of the way;
+but no sooner did her ladyship behold his face than she kindled upon
+both him and Kate, and ordered them out of her sight and house. The
+young folk had discretion. Kate went home to her mother, and the laird
+came to the manse and begged us to take him in.
+
+He asked me to perform the ceremony, as he was resolved to marry Kate.
+We stepped over to Mrs. Malcolm's house, where we found the saintly
+woman with Kate and Erne and Willie, preparing to read their Bible for
+the night. After speaking to Mrs. Malcolm for a time, she consented to
+the marriage. It was sanctified by me before we left Mrs. Malcolm's, the
+young couple setting off in the laird's chaise to Glasgow, and
+authorising me to break the matter to Lady Macadam. I was spared this
+performance, for the servants jealoused what had been done, and told her
+ladyship. When I entered the room she was like a mad woman in Bedlam.
+She sent her coachman on horseback to overtake them, which he did at
+Kilmarnock, and they returned in the morning, when her ladyship was as
+cagey and meikle taken up with them as if they had gotten her full
+consent and privilege from the first. Captain Macadam afterwards bought
+a house at the Braehead, and gave it, with a judicious income, to Mrs.
+Malcolm, telling her it was not becoming that she should any longer be
+dependent upon her own industry. For this the young man got a name like
+a sweet odour in all the country-side.
+
+It will be remembered that Charlie Malcolm went a-sailing in a
+tobacco-trader to America. When his ship was lying in the harbour of
+Virginia, a press-gang, that was in need of men for the Avenger,
+man-of-war, came on board and pressed poor Charles. I wrote to Lord
+Eglesham anent the matter, and his lordship's brother being connected
+with the Admiralty, the captain of the man-of-war was instructed to make
+a midshipman of Charles. This was done, and Mrs. Malcolm heard from time
+to time from her son, saying that he had found a friend in the captain,
+that was just a father to him.
+
+In the latter end of 1776, the man-of-war, with Charles Malcolm in her,
+came to the Tail of the Bank at Greenock, and Charles got leave from his
+captain to come and see his mother. He brought with him Mr. Howard,
+another midshipman, the son of a great Parliament man in London. They
+were dressed in their fine gold-laced garbs. When Charles had seen his
+mother and his sister, Effie, he came with his friend to see me at the
+manse, and got Mrs. Balwhidder to ask his friend to sleep there. In
+short, we had a ploy the whole two days they stayed with us, Lady
+Macadam made for them at a ball, and it was a delight to see how old and
+young of all degrees made much of Charles.
+
+
+_IV.--Years of Lamentation_
+
+
+I was named in the year 1779 for the General Assembly, and Mrs.
+Balwhidder, by her continual thrift, having made our purse able to stand
+a shake against the wind, we resolved to go into Edinburgh in a
+creditable manner. We put up at Widow M'Vicar's, a relation to my first
+wife, a gawsy, furthy woman, taking great pleasure in hospitality. In
+short, everybody in Edinburgh was in a manner wearisome kind.
+
+I was delighted and surprised to find Lord Eglesham at the levee, and he
+introduced me to his grace the Commissioner, who required me to preach
+before him. Fain would I have eschewed the honour that was thus thrust
+upon me; but both my wife and Mrs. M'Vicar were just lifted out of
+themselves at the thought. After the sermon the Commissioner
+complimented me on my apostolic earnestness, and Mrs. M'Vicar said I had
+surprised everybody; but I was fearful there was something of jocularity
+at the bottom of all this.
+
+The year 1781 was one of dolour and tribulation, for Lord Eglesham was
+shot dead by a poaching exciseman, and Lady Macadam died of paralysis;
+but the year after was one of greater lamentation. Three brave young
+fellows belonging to the clachan, who had gone as soldiers in America,
+were killed in battle with the rebels, for which there was great grief.
+Shortly after this the news came of a victory over the French fleet, and
+by the same post I got a letter from Mr. Howard, the midshipman, telling
+me that poor Charles had been mortally wounded in the action, and had
+afterwards died of his wounds.
+
+Mrs. Malcolm heard the news of the victory through the steeple hell
+being set a-ringing, and she came over to the manse in great anxiety.
+When I saw her I could not speak, but looked at her in pity, and, the
+tears fleeing into my eyes, she guessed what had happened. After giving
+a deep and sore sigh, she inquired, "How did he behave? I hope well, for
+he was aye a gallant laddie!" And then she wept very bitterly. I gave
+her the letter, which she begged me to give to her to keep, saying,
+"It's all that I have left now of my pretty boy; but it is mair precious
+to me than the wealth of the Indies!"
+
+
+_V.--Death of the Second Mrs. Balwhidder_
+
+
+Some time after this a Mr. Cayenne, a man of crusty temper but good
+heart, and his family, American loyalists, settled among us. In the year
+1788, a proposal came from Glasgow to build a cotton mill on the banks
+of the Brawl burn, a rapid stream which ran through the parish. Mr.
+Cayenne took a part in the profit or loss of the concern, and the cotton
+mill and a new town was built, and the whole called Cayenneville.
+Weavers of muslin were brought to the mill, and women to teach the
+lassie bairns in our old clachan tambouring instead of hand-spinning.
+
+Prosperity of fortune is like the golden hue of the evening cloud that
+delighteth the spirit and passeth away. In the month of February 1796,
+my second wife was gathered to the Lord. Her death was to me a great
+sorrow, for she was a most excellent wife, industrious to a degree. With
+her I had grown richer than any other minister in the presbytery.
+
+I laid her by the side of my first love, Betty Lanshaw, and I inscribed
+her name upon the same headstone. Time had drained my poetical vein, and
+I have not yet been able to indite an epithet on her merits and virtues,
+for she had an eminent share of both. Above all, she was the mother of
+my children. She was not long deposited in her place of rest until
+things fell into amazing confusion, and I saw it would be necessary, as
+soon as decency would allow, for me to take another wife, both for a
+helpmate, and to tend me in my approaching infirmities.
+
+I saw it would not do for me to look out for an overly young woman, nor
+yet would it do for one of my way to take an elderly maiden, ladies of
+that sort being liable to possess strong-set particularities. I
+therefore resolved that my choice should lie among widows of a discreet
+age, and I fixed my purpose on Mrs. Nugent, the relict of a professor in
+the University of Glasgow, both because she was a well-bred woman
+without any children, and because she was held in great estimation as a
+lady of Christian principle. And so we were married as soon as a
+twelve-month and a day had passed from the death of the second Mrs.
+Balwhidder; and neither of us have had occasion to rue the bargain.
+
+
+_VI.--The Last Sermon_
+
+
+Two things made 1799 a memorable year; the marriage of my daughter Janet
+with the Rev. Dr. Kittleword of Swappington, a match in every way
+commendable; and the death of Mrs. Malcolm. If ever there was a saint on
+earth she was surely one. She bore adversity with an honest pride; she
+toiled in the day of penury and affliction with thankfulness for her
+little earnings.
+
+The year 1803 saw tempestuous times. Bonaparte gathered his host fornent
+the English coast, and the government at London were in terror of their
+lives for an invasion. All in the country saw that there was danger, and
+I was not backward in sounding the trumpet to battle. I delivered on
+Lord's Day a religious and political exhortation on the present posture
+of public affairs before a vast congregation of all ranks. The week
+following there were meetings of weavers and others, and volunteers were
+enrolled in defence of king and country.
+
+In the course of the next four or five years many changes took place in
+the parish. The weavers and cotton-mill folk and seceders from my own
+kirk built a meeting-house in Cayenneville, where there had been for a
+while great suffering on account of the failure of the cotton-mill
+company. In the year 1809 the elders came in a body to the manse, and
+said that, seeing that I was now growing old, they thought they could
+not testify their respect for me in a better manner than by agreeing to
+get me a helper; and the next year several young ministers spared me
+from the necessity of preaching.
+
+When it was known that I was to preach my last sermon on the last
+sabbath of 1810, everyone, including the seceders to the meeting-house,
+made it a point to be in the parish kirk, or to stand in the crowd that
+made a lane of reverence for me to pass from the kirk door to the
+back-yett of the manse. It was a moving discourse, and there were few
+dry eyes in the kirk that day; for my bidding them farewell was as when
+of old among the heathen an idol was taken away by the hand of the
+enemy. Shortly after, a deputation of the seceders, with their minister
+at their head, came to me and presented a server of silver in token of
+their esteem of my blameless life, and the charity I had practised
+towards the poor.
+
+I am thankful that I have been spared with a sound mind to write this
+book to the end, having really no more to say, saving only to wish a
+blessing on all people from on high, where I soon hope to be, and to
+meet there all the old and long-departed sheep of my flock, especially
+the first and second Mrs. Balwhidders.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+ELIZABETH CLEGHORN GASKELL
+
+
+Cranford
+
+
+     Mrs. Gaskell, whose maiden name was Elizabeth C. Stevenson,
+     was born in Chelsea, London, Sept. 29, 1810. She married a
+     Unitarian clergyman in Manchester. Her first literary work was
+     published anonymously, and met with a storm of mingled
+     approval and disapproval. Charles Dickens invited her to
+     contribute to his "Household Words," and it was in the pages
+     of that famous periodical, at intervals between December 13,
+     1851, and May 21, 1853, that her charming sketches of social
+     life in a little country town first appeared. In June, 1853,
+     they were grouped together under the title of "Cranford,"
+     meeting with wide approval, and have long taken rank as one of
+     the accepted English classics. The town which figures here as
+     Cranford is understood to have been Knutsford, in Cheshire,
+     which still retains something of that old-world feeling and
+     restfulness which Mrs. Gaskell embodied in the pages of her
+     most engaging book. "Cranford" is probably the direct
+     progenitor of many latter-day books of the class to which the
+     word "idyll" has been somewhat loosely applied. Its charm and
+     freshness are unfading; it remains unique and unrivalled as a
+     sympathetic and kindly humorous description of English
+     provincial life. Mrs. Gaskell died in November, 1865.
+
+
+_I.--Our Society_
+
+
+On the first visit I paid to Cranford, after I had left it as a
+residence, I was astonished to find a man had settled there--a Captain
+Brown. In my time Cranford was in possession of the Amazons. If a
+married couple came to settle there, somehow the man always disappeared.
+Either he was fairly frightened to death by being the only man at the
+evening parties, or he was accounted for by being with his regiment, his
+ship, or closely connected in business all the week in the great
+neighbouring commercial town of Drumble, distant only twenty miles on
+the railroad.
+
+I was naturally interested to learn what opinions Captain Brown had
+managed to win for himself in Cranford. So, with all the delicacy which
+the subject demanded, I made inquiries of my hostess, Miss Jenkyns. I
+was surprised to learn that Captain Brown not only was respected, but
+had even gained an extraordinary place of authority among the Cranford
+ladies. Of course, he had been forced to overcome great difficulties.
+
+In the first place, the ladies of Cranford had moaned over the invasion
+of their territories by a man and a gentleman. Then Captain Brown had
+started badly, very badly, by openly referring to his poverty. If he had
+whispered it to an intimate friend, the doors and windows being
+previously closed, his vulgarity--a tremendous word in Cranford--might
+have been forgiven. But he had published his poverty in the public
+street, in a loud military voice, alleging it as a reason for not taking
+a particular house.
+
+In Cranford, too, where it was tacitly agreed to ignore that anyone with
+whom we associated on terms of equality could ever be prevented by
+poverty from doing anything they wished. Where, if we walked to and from
+a party, it was because the night was _so_ fine or the air _so_
+refreshing, not because sedan-chairs were so expensive.
+
+So the poor captain had been sent to Coventry. The ladies of Cranford
+had frozen him out, until the day when the cow, an Alderney cow, had
+broken the ice.
+
+It happened like this. Miss Betsy Barker had an Alderney cow, which she
+looked upon as a daughter. You could not pay the regulation short
+quarter of an hour's call--to stay longer was a breach of
+manners--without being told of the wonderful milk or wonderful
+intelligence of this animal. The whole town knew and kindly regarded
+Miss Betsy Barker's Alderney.
+
+One day the cow fell into a lime-pit, and Cranford grieved over the
+spectacle of the poor beast being drawn out, having lost most of her
+hair, and looking naked, cold and miserable, in a bare skin. Miss Betsy
+Barker absolutely cried with sorrow and dismay, and was about to prepare
+a bath of oil for the sufferer, when Captain Brown called out: "Get her
+a flannel waistcoat and flannel drawers, ma'am, if you wish to keep her
+alive. But my advice is, 'kill the poor creature at once.'" Miss Betsy
+Barker dried her eyes, and in a few hours the whole town turned out to
+see the Alderney meekly going to her pasture, clad in dark-gray flannel.
+Do you ever see cows dressed in gray flannel in London?
+
+On that day was born the respect of the Cranford ladies for Captain
+Brown.
+
+Soon after my arrival in Cranford, Miss Jenkyns gave a party in my
+honour, and recalling the old days when we had almost persuaded
+ourselves that to be a man was to be "vulgar," I was curious to see what
+the ladies would do with Captain Brown.
+
+The preparations were much as usual. Card-tables, with green baize tops,
+were set out by daylight, and towards four, when the evening closed in,
+we all stood dressed in our best, each with a candle-lighter in our
+hand, ready to dart at the candles as soon as the first knock came. The
+china was delicate egg-shell; the old-fashioned silver glittered with
+polishing; but the eatables were of the slightest description. While the
+trays were yet on the table, Captain Brown arrived with his two
+daughters, Miss Brown and Miss Jessie, the former with a sickly, pained,
+and careworn expression; the latter with a pretty, round, dimpled face,
+and the look of a child which will remain with her should she live to be
+a hundred.
+
+I could see that the captain was a favourite with all the ladies
+present. Ruffled brows were smoothed and sharp voices hushed at his
+approach. He immediately and quietly assumed the man's place in the
+room; attended to everyone's wants, lessened the pretty maidservant's
+labour by waiting on empty cups and bread-and-butterless ladies; and yet
+did it all in so easy and dignified a manner, and so much as if it were
+a matter of course for the strong to attend to the weak, that he was a
+true man throughout.
+
+The party passed off very well in spite of one or two little hitches.
+One was Miss Jessie Brown's unguarded admission--_à propos_ of Shetland
+wool--that she had an uncle, her mother's brother, who was a shopkeeper
+in Edinburgh. Miss Jenkyns tried to drown this confession by a terrible
+cough, for the honourable Mrs. Jamieson was sitting at the card-table
+nearest Miss Jessie, and what would she say or think if she found out
+she was in the same room with a shopkeeper's niece!
+
+Then there was a slight breeze between Miss Jenkyns and Captain Brown
+over the relative merits of Dr. Johnson and the author of "Pickwick
+Papers"--then being published in parts--as writers of light and
+agreeable fiction. Captain Brown read an account of the "Swarry" which
+Sam Weller gave at Bath. Some of us laughed very heartily. _I_ did not
+dare, because I was staying in the house. At the conclusion Miss Jenkyns
+said to me, with mild dignity, "Fetch me 'Rasselas,' my dear, out of the
+book-room."
+
+After delivering one of the conversations between Rasselas and Imlac in
+a majestic, high-pitched voice, Miss Jenkyns said, "I imagine I am now
+justified in my preference for Dr. Johnson over your Mr. Boz as a writer
+of fiction."
+
+The captain said nothing, merely screwed his lips up and drummed on the
+table; but when Miss Jenkyns returned later to the charge and
+recommended the doctor's style to Captain Brown's favourite, the captain
+replied, "I should be very sorry for him to exchange his style for any
+such pompous writing."
+
+Miss Jenkyns felt this as a personal affront in a way of which the
+captain had not dreamed. How could he know that she and her friends
+looked upon epistolary writing as their forte, and that when in a letter
+they "seized the half-hour just previous to post-time to assure" their
+friends of this and that, they were using the doctor as a model?
+
+As it was Miss Jenkyns refused to be mollified by Captain Brown's
+efforts later to beguile her into conversation on some more pleasing
+subject. She was inexorable.
+
+Captain Brown endeavoured to make peace after this memorable dispute by
+a present to Miss Jenkyns of a wooden fire-shovel (his own making),
+having heard her say how much the grating of an iron one annoyed her.
+She received the present with cool gratitude and thanked him formally.
+When he was gone she bade me put it in the lumber-room, feeling probably
+that no present from a man who preferred Mr. Boz to Dr. Johnson could be
+less jarring than an iron fire-shovel.
+
+Such was the state of affairs at the time when I left Cranford and went
+to Drumble. I had, however, several correspondents who kept me _au fait_
+as to the proceedings of the inhabitants of the dear little town.
+
+
+_II.--The Captain_
+
+
+My next visit to Cranford was in the summer. There had been neither
+births, deaths, nor marriages since I was there last. Everybody lived in
+the same house, and wore pretty near the same well-preserved,
+old-fashioned clothes. The greatest event was that the Misses Jenkyns
+had purchased a new carpet for the drawing-room. Oh, the busy work Miss
+Matty and I had in chasing the sunbeams as they fell in an afternoon
+right down on this carpet through the blindless windows! We spread our
+newspapers over the places and sat down to our book or our work; and,
+lo! in a quarter of an hour the sun had moved and was blazing away in a
+fresh spot; and down again we went on our knees to alter the position of
+the newspapers. One whole morning, too, we spent in cutting out and
+stitching together pieces of newspapers so as to form little paths to
+every chair, lest the shoes of visitors should defile the purity of the
+carpet. Do you make paper paths for every guest to walk upon in London?
+
+The literary dispute between Captain Brown and Miss Jenkyns continued.
+She had formed a habit of talking _at_ him. And he retaliated by
+drumming his fingers, which action Miss Jenkyns felt and resented as
+disparaging to Dr. Johnson.
+
+The poor captain! I noticed on this visit that he looked older and more
+worn, and his clothes were very threadbare. But he seemed as bright and
+cheerful as ever, unless he was asked about his daughter's health.
+
+One afternoon we perceived little groups in the street, all listening
+with faces aghast to some tale or other. It was some time before Miss
+Jenkyns took the undignified step of sending Jenny out to inquire.
+
+Jenny came back with a white face of terror.
+
+"Oh, ma'am! Oh, Miss Jenkyns, ma'am! Captain Brown is killed by them
+nasty cruel railroads." And she burst into tears.
+
+"How, where--where? Good God! Jenny, don't waste time in crying, but
+tell us something."
+
+Miss Matty rushed out into the street, and presently an affrighted
+carter appeared in the drawing-room and told the story.
+
+"'Tis true, mum, I seed it myself. The captain was a-readin' some book,
+waitin' for the down train, when a lass as gave its sister the slip came
+toddling across the line. He looked up sudden, see'd the child, darted
+on the line, cotched it up, and his foot slipped and the train came over
+him in no time. The child's safe. Poor captain would be glad of that,
+mum, wouldn't he? God bless him!"
+
+The great rough carter turned away to hide his tears. I turned to Miss
+Jenkyns. She looked very ill, as though she were going to faint, and
+signed to me to open a window.
+
+"Matilda, bring me my bonnet. I must go to those girls. God pardon me if
+ever I have spoken contemptuously to the captain."
+
+Miss Brown did not long survive her father. Her last words were a prayer
+for forgiveness for her selfishness in allowing her sister Jessie to
+sacrifice herself for her all her life.
+
+But Miss Jessie was not long left alone. Miss Jenkyns insisted she
+should come and stay with her, and would not hear of her going out into
+the world to earn her living as a saleswoman. "Some people have no idea
+of their rank as a captain's daughter," she related indignantly, and
+stumped out of the room. Presently she came back with a strange look on
+her face.
+
+"I have been much startled--no, I've not been startled--don't mind me,
+my dear Miss Jessie, only surprised--in fact, I've had a caller whom you
+once knew, my dear Miss Jessie."
+
+Miss Jessie went very white, then flushed scarlet.
+
+"Is it?--it is not----" stammered out Miss Jessie, and got no farther.
+
+"This is his card," said Miss Jenkyns, and went through a series of
+winks and odd faces at me, and formed a long sentence with her lips, of
+which I could not understand a word.
+
+Major Gordon was shown upstairs.
+
+While downstairs Miss Jenkyns told me what the major had told her. How
+he had served in the same regiment as Captain Brown and had fallen in
+love with Miss Jessie, then a sweet-looking, blooming girl of eighteen;
+how she had refused him, though obviously not indifferent to him; how he
+had discovered the obstacle to be the fell disease which had stricken
+her sister, whom there was no one to nurse and comfort but herself; how
+he had believed her cold and had left in anger; and finally how he had
+read of the death of Captain Brown in a foreign newspaper.
+
+Just then Miss Matty burst into the room.
+
+"Oh, Deborah," she said, "there's a gentleman sitting in the drawing-
+room with his arm round Miss Jessie's waist!"
+
+"The most proper place for his arm to be in. Go, Matilda, and mind your
+own business."
+
+Poor Miss Matty! This was a shock, coming from her decorous sister.
+
+Thus happiness, and with it some of her early bloom, returned to Miss
+Jessie, and as Mrs. Gordon her dimples were not out of place.
+
+
+_III.--Poor Peter_
+
+
+My visits to Cranford continued for many years, and did not cease even
+after the death of Miss Jenkyns.
+
+Miss Matty became my new hostess. At first I rather dreaded the changed
+aspect of things. Miss Matty, too, began to cry as soon as she saw me.
+She was evidently nervous from having anticipated my visit. I comforted
+her as well as I could, and I found the best consolation I could give
+was the honest praise that came from my heart as I spoke of the
+deceased.
+
+Miss Matty made me her confidante in many matters, and one evening she
+sent Martha to go for eggs at a farm at the other end of the town and
+told me the story of her brother.
+
+"Poor Peter! The sole honour he brought from Shrewsbury was the
+reputation of being captain of the school in the art of practical
+joking. He even thought that the people of Cranford might be hoaxed.
+'Hoaxing' is not a pretty word, my dear, and I hope you won't tell your
+father I used it, for I should not like him to think I was not choice in
+my language, after living with such a woman as Deborah. I don't know how
+it slipped out of my mouth, except it was that I was thinking of poor
+Peter, and it was always his expression.
+
+"One day my father had gone to see some sick people in the village.
+Deborah, too, was away from home for a fortnight or so. I don't know
+what possessed poor Peter, but he went to her room and dressed himself
+in her old gown and shawl and bonnet. And he made the pillow into a
+little--you are sure you locked the door, my dear?--into--into a little
+baby with white long clothes. And he went and walked up and down in the
+Filbert Walk--just half hidden by the rails and half seen; and he
+cuddled the pillow just like a baby and talked to it all the nonsense
+people do. Oh, dear, and my father came stepping stately up the street,
+as he always did, and pushing past the crowd saw--I don't know what he
+saw--but old Clare said his face went grey-white with anger. He seized
+hold of poor Peter, tore the clothes off his back--bonnet, shawl, gown,
+and all--threw them among the crowd, and before all the people lifted up
+his cane and flogged Peter.
+
+"My dear, that boy's trick on that sunny day, when all promised so well,
+broke my mother's heart and changed my father for life. Old Clare said
+Peter looked as white as my father and stood still as a statue to be
+flogged.
+
+"'Have you done enough, sir?' he asked hoarsely, when my father stopped.
+Then Peter bowed grandly to the people outside the railing and walked
+slowly home. He went straight to his mother, looking as haughty as any
+man, and not like a boy.
+
+"'Mother,' he said, 'I am come to say "God bless you for ever."'
+
+"He would say no more, and by the time my mother had found out what had
+happened from my father, and had gone to her boy's room to comfort him,
+he had gone, and did not come back. That spring day was the last time he
+ever saw his mother's face. He wrote a passionate entreaty to her to
+come and see him before his ship left the Mersey for the war, but the
+letter was delayed, and when she arrived it was too late. It killed my
+mother. And think, my dear, the day after her death--for she did not
+live a twelve-month after Peter left--came a parcel from India from her
+poor boy. It was a large, soft white India shawl. Just what my mother
+would have liked.
+
+"We took it to my father in the hopes it would rouse him, for he had sat
+with her hand in his all night long. At first he took no notice of it.
+Then suddenly he got up and spoke. 'She shall be buried in it,' he said.
+'Peter shall have that comfort; and she would have liked it.'"
+
+"Did Mr. Peter ever come home?"
+
+"Yes, once. He came home a lieutenant. And he and my father were such
+friends. My father was so proud to show him to all the neighbours. He
+never walked out without Peter's arm to lean on. And then Peter went to
+sea again, and by-and-by my father died, blessing us both and thanking
+Deborah for all she had been to him. And our circumstances were changed,
+and from a big rectory with three servants we had come down to a small
+house with a servant-of-all-work. But, as Deborah used to say, we have
+always lived genteelly, even if circumstances have compelled us to
+simplicity. Poor Deborah!"
+
+"And Mr. Peter?" I asked.
+
+"Oh, there was some great war in India, and we have never heard of Peter
+since then. I believe he is dead myself. Sometimes when I sit by myself
+and the house is quiet, I think I hear his step coming up the street,
+and my heart begins to flutter and beat; but the sound goes, and Peter
+never comes back."
+
+
+_IV.--Friends in Need_
+
+
+The years rolled on. I spent my time between Drumble and Cranford. I was
+thankful that I happened to be staying with Miss Matty when the Town and
+County Bank failed, which had such a disastrous effect on her little
+fortune.
+
+It was an example to me, and I fancy it might be to many others, to see
+how immediately Miss Matty set about the retrenchment she knew to be
+right under her altered circumstances. I did the little I could. Some
+months back a conjuror had given a performance in the Cranford Assembly
+Rooms. By a strange set of circumstances the identity of Signor Brunoni
+was revealed. He was plain Samuel Brown, who had fallen out of his cart
+and had to be attended by our doctor. I went to visit the patient and
+his wife, and learned that she had been India. She told me a long story
+about being befriended, after a perilous journey, by a kind Englishman
+who lived right in the midst of the natives. It was his name which
+astonished me. Agra Jenkyns.
+
+Could Agra Jenkyns be the long lost Peter? I resolved to say nothing to
+Miss Matty, but got the address from the signor (as we still called him
+from habit), spelt by sound, and very queer it looked, and posted a
+letter to him.
+
+All sorts of plans were discussed for Miss Matty's future. I thought of
+all the things by which a woman, past middle age, and with the education
+common to ladies fifty years ago, could earn or add to a living without
+materially losing caste; but at length I put even this last clause on
+one side, and wondered what in the world Miss Matty could do. Even
+teaching was out of the question, for, reckoning over her
+accomplishments, I had to come down to reading, writing, and
+arithmetic--and in reading the chapter every morning she always coughed
+before coming to long words.
+
+I was still in a quandary the next morning, when I received a letter
+from Miss Pole, so mysteriously wrapped up and with so many seals on it
+to secure secrecy that I had to tear the paper before I could unfold it.
+
+It summoned me to go to Miss Pole at 11 a.m., the a.m. twice dashed
+under as if I were likely to come at eleven at night, when all Cranford
+was usually abed and asleep by ten. I went and found Miss Pole dressed
+in solemn array, though there were only Mrs. Forrester, crying quietly
+and sadly, and Mrs. FitzAdam present. Miss Pole was armed with a card,
+on which I imagine she had written some notes.
+
+"Miss Smith," she began, when I entered (I was familiarly known to all
+Cranford as Mary, but this was a state occasion), "I have conversed in
+private with these ladies on the misfortune which has happened to our
+friend, and one and all have agreed that while we have a superfluity, it
+is not only a duty but a pleasure--a true pleasure, Mary!"--her voice
+was rather choked just here, and she had to wipe her spectacles before
+she could go on--"to give what we can to assist her--Miss Matilda
+Jenkyns. Only in consideration of the feelings of delicate independence
+existing in the mind of every refined female"--I was sure she had got
+back to the card--"we wish to contribute our mites in a secret and
+concealed manner, so as not to hurt the feelings I have referred to."
+
+Well, the upshot of this solemn meeting was that each of those dear old
+ladies wrote down the sum she could afford annually, signed the paper
+and sealed it mysteriously, and I was commissioned to get my father to
+administer the fund in such a manner that Miss Jenkyns should imagine
+the money came from her own improved investments.
+
+As I was going, Mrs. Forrester took me aside, and in the manner of one
+confessing a great crime the poor old lady told me how very, very little
+she had to live on--a confession she was brought to make from a dread
+lest we should think that the small contribution named in her paper bore
+any proportion to her love and regard for Miss Mary. And yet that sum
+which she so eagerly relinquished was, in truth, more than a twentieth
+part of what she had to live on. And when the whole income does not
+nearly amount to a hundred pounds, to give up a twentieth of it will
+necessitate many careful economies and many pieces of self-denial--small
+and insignificant in the world's account, but bearing a different value
+in another account book that I have heard of.
+
+The upshot of it all was that dear Miss Matty was comfortably installed
+in her own house, and added to her slender income by selling tea! This
+last was my idea, and it was a proud moment for me when it realized. The
+small dining-room was converted into a shop, without any of its
+degrading characteristics, a table formed the counter, one window was
+retained unaltered and the other changed into a glass door, and there
+she was. Tea was certainly a happy commodity, as it was neither greasy
+nor sticky, grease and stickiness being two of the qualities which Miss
+Matty could not endure. Moreover, as Miss Matty said, one good thing
+about it was that men did not buy it, and it was of men particularly she
+was afraid. They had such sharp, loud ways with them, and did up
+accounts and counted their change so quickly.
+
+Very little remains to be told. The approval of the Honourable Mrs.
+Jamieson set the seal upon the successful career of Miss Matty as a
+purveyor of tea. Thus did she escape even the shadow of "vulgarity."
+
+One afternoon I was sitting in the shop parlour with Miss Matty, when we
+saw a gentleman go slowly past the window and then stand opposite to the
+door, as if looking out for the name which we had so carefully hidden.
+His clothes had an out-of-the-way foreign cut, and it flashed across me
+it was the Agra himself! He entered.
+
+Miss Matty looked at him, and something of tender relaxation in his face
+struck home to her heart. She said: "It is--oh, sir, can you be Peter?"
+and trembled from head to foot. In a moment he had her in his arms,
+sobbing the tearless cries of old age.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+Mary Barton
+
+
+     "Mary Barton," although not Mrs. Gaskell's first attempt at
+     authorship, was her first literary success; and although her
+     later writings revealed a gain in skill, subtlety and humour,
+     none of them equalled "Mary Barton" in dramatic intensity and
+     fervent sincerity. This passionate tale of the sorrows of the
+     Manchester poor, given to the world anonymously in the year
+     1848, was greeted with a storm of mingled approval and
+     disapproval. It was praised by Carlyle and Landor, but some
+     critics attacked it fiercely as a slander on the Manchester
+     manufacturers, and there were admirers who complained that it
+     was too heartrending. The controversy has long since died
+     down, but the book holds a permanent place in literature as a
+     vivid revelation of a dark and painful phase of English life
+     in the middle of the last century.
+
+
+_I.--Rich and Poor_
+
+
+"Mary," said John Barton to his daughter, "what's come o'er thee and Jem
+Wilson? You were great friends at one time."
+
+"Oh, folk say he is going to be married to Molly Gibson," answered Mary,
+as indifferently as she could.
+
+"Thou'st played thy cards badly, then," replied her father in a surly
+tone. "At one time he were much fonder o' thee than thou deservedst."
+
+"That's as people think," said Mary pertly, for she remembered that the
+very morning before, when on her way to her dressmaking work, she had
+met Mr. Harry Carson, who had sighed, and sworn and protested all manner
+of tender vows. Mr. Harry Carson was the son and the idol of old Mr.
+Carson, the wealthy mill-owner. Jem Wilson, her old playmate, and the
+son of her father's, closest friend, although he had earned a position
+of trust at the foundry where he worked, was but a mechanic after all!
+Mary was ambitious; she knew that she had beauty; she believed that when
+young Mr. Carson declared he meant to marry her he spoke the truth.
+
+It so happened that Jem, after much anxious thought, had determined that
+day to "put his fortune to the touch." Just after John Barton had gone
+out, Jem appeared at the door, looking more awkward and abashed than he
+had ever done before.
+
+He thought he had better begin at once.
+
+"Mary, it's no new story I'm going to speak about. Since we were boy and
+girl I ha' loved you above father and mother and all. And now, Mary, I'm
+foreman at the works, and I've a home to offer you, and a heart as true
+as ever man had to love you and cherish you. Darling, say that you'll be
+mine."
+
+Mary could not speak at once.
+
+"Mary, they say, silence gives consent," he whispered.
+
+"No, not with me! I can never be your wife."
+
+"Oh, Mary, think awhile!" he urged.
+
+"Jem, it cannot be," she said calmly, although she trembled from head to
+foot. "Once for all, I will never marry you."
+
+"And this is the end!" he cried passionately. "Mary, you'll hear, maybe,
+of me as a drunkard, and maybe as a thief, and maybe as a murderer.
+Remember! it's your cruelty that will have made me what I feel I shall
+become."
+
+He rushed out of the house.
+
+When he had gone, Mary lay half across the dresser, her head hidden in
+her hands, and her body shaken with violent sobs. For these few minutes
+had unveiled her heart to her; it had convinced her that she loved Jem
+above all persons or things. What were the wealth and prosperity that
+Mr. Harry Carson might bring to her now that she had suddenly discovered
+the passionate secret of her soul?
+
+Her first duty, she saw, was to reject the advances of her rich lover.
+She avoided him as far as possible, and slighted him when he forced his
+presence upon her. And how was she to redress the wrong she had done to
+Jem in denying him her heart? She took counsel with her friend,
+Margaret Legh. When Mary had first known Margaret and her grandfather,
+Job Legh--an old man who belonged to the class of Manchester workmen who
+are warm and devoted followers of science, a man whose home was like a
+wizard's dwelling, filled with impaled insects and books and
+instruments--Margaret had a secret fear of blindness. The fear had since
+been realised, but she remained the quiet, sensible, tender-hearted girl
+she had been before her great deprivation. She opposed Mary's notion of
+writing a letter to Jem.
+
+"You must just wait and be patient," she advised; "being patient is the
+hardest work we have to do through life, I take it. Waiting is far more
+difficult than doing; but it's one of God's lessons we must learn, one
+way or another."
+
+So Mary waited. But Jem took his disappointment as final, and her hopes
+of seeing him were always baffled.
+
+John Barton, on the night of Jem's proposal, had gone to his union. The
+members of the union were all desperate men, ready for anything; made
+ready by want. Barton himself was out of work. He had seen much of the
+bitterness of poverty in Manchester; now he was feeling the pinch of it
+himself.
+
+Ever since the death of his wife, whose end had been hastened by the
+sudden and complete disappearance of her darling sister Esther, the wan
+colourlessness of his face had been intensified; his stern enthusiasm,
+once latent, had become visible; his heart, tenderer than ever towards
+the victims of the misery around him, grew harder towards the employers,
+whom he believed to be the cause of that misery. Trade grew worse, but
+there was no sign that the masters were suffering; they still had their
+carriages and their comforts; the woe in these terrible years 1839,
+1840, and 1841 seemed to fall wholly upon the poor. It is impossible
+even faintly to picture the state of distress which prevailed in
+Manchester at that time. Whole families went through a gradual
+starvation; John Barton saw them starve, saw fathers and mothers and
+children die of low, putrid fever in foetid cellars, and cursed the rich
+men who never extended a helping hand to the sufferers.
+
+"Working folk won't be ground to the dust much longer," he declared.
+"We'n ha' had as much to bear as human nature can bear."
+
+Fiercer grew he, and more sullen. Darker and darker were the schemes he
+brooded over in his desolate home, or discussed with others at the
+meetings of the union. Even Mary did not escape his ill-temper. Once he
+struck her. And yet Mary was the one being on earth he devotedly loved.
+What would he have thought had he known that his daughter had listened
+to the voice of an employer's son? But he did not know.
+
+
+_II.--The Rivals_
+
+
+One night, as Jem was leaving the foundry, a woman laid her hand upon
+his arm. A momentary glance at the faded finery she wore told him the
+class to which she belonged, and he made an effort to pass on. But she
+grasped him firmly.
+
+"You must listen to me, Jem Wilson," she said, "for Mary Barton's sake."
+
+"And who can you be to know Mary Barton?" he exclaimed.
+
+"Do you remember Esther, Mary's aunt?"
+
+'"Yes, I mind her well." He looked into her face. "Why, Esther! Where
+have ye been this many a year?"
+
+She answered with fierce earnestness, "Where have I been? What have I
+been doing? Can you not guess? See after Mary, and take care she does
+not become like me. As she is loving now, so did I love once--one above
+me, far."
+
+Jem cut her short with his hoarse, stern inquiry, "Who is this spark
+that Mary loves?"
+
+"It's old Carson's son." Then, after a pause, she continued, "Oh, Jem, I
+charge you with the care of her! Her father won't listen to me." She
+cried a little at the recollection of John Barton's harsh words when she
+had timidly tried to approach him. "It would be better for her to die
+than to live to lead such a life as I do!"
+
+"It would be better," said Jem, as if thinking aloud. Then he went on.
+"Esther, you may trust to my doing all I can for Mary. And now, listen.
+Come home with me. Come to my mother."
+
+"God bless you, Jem!" she replied. "But it is too late now--too late!"
+
+She rapidly turned away. Jem felt that the great thing was to reach home
+and solitude. His heart was filled with jealous anguish. Mary loved
+another! She was lost to him for evermore. A frenzied longing for blood
+entered his mind as he brooded that night over his loss. But at last the
+thought of duty brought peace to his soul. If Carson loved Mary, Carson
+must marry her. It was Jem's part to speak straightforwardly to Carson,
+to be unto Mary as a brother.
+
+Four days later his opportunity came. He met Carson in an unfrequented
+lane.
+
+"May I speak a word wi' you, sir?" said Jem respectfully.
+
+"Certainly, my good man," replied Harry Carson.
+
+"I think, sir, you're keeping company wi' Mary Barton?"
+
+"Mary Barton! Ay, that is her name. An arrant flirt the little hussy is,
+but very pretty."
+
+"I will tell you in plain words," said Jem, angered, "what I have got to
+say to you. I'm an old friend of Mary's and her father's, and I want to
+know if you mean fair by Mary or not."
+
+"You will have the kindness to leave us to ourselves," answered Carson
+contemptuously. "No one shall interfere between my little girl and me.
+Get out of my way! Won't you? Then I'll make you!"
+
+He raised his cane, and smote the mechanic on his face. An instant
+afterwards he lay stretched in the muddy road, Jem standing over him,
+panting with rage. Just then a policeman, who had been watching them
+unobserved, interfered with expostulations and warnings.
+
+"If you dare to injure her," shouted Jem, as he was dragged away, "I
+will wait you where no policeman can step in between. And God shall
+judge between us two!"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The mill-workers had struck against low wages. Five haggard, earnest-
+looking men had presented the workpeople's demands to the assembled
+mill-owners, and the demands had been rejected. None had been fiercer in
+opposing the delegates, none more bitter in mockery of their rags and
+leanness, than the son of old Mr. Carson.
+
+That evening, starved, irritated, despairing men gathered to hear the
+delegates tell of their failure.
+
+"It's the masters as has wrought this woe," said John Barton in a low
+voice. "It's the masters as should pay for it. Set me to serve out the
+masters, and see if there's aught I'll stick at!"
+
+Deeper and darker grew the import of the speeches as the men stood
+hoarsely muttering their meaning out with set teeth and livid looks.
+After a fierce and terrible oath had been sworn, a number of pieces of
+paper, one of them marked, were shuffled in a hat. The gas was
+extinguished; each drew a paper. The gas was re-lighted. Each examined
+his paper, with a countenance as immovable as he could make it. Then
+they went every one his own way.
+
+He who had drawn the marked paper had drawn the lot of the assassin. And
+no one, save God and his own conscience, knew who was the appointed
+murderer.
+
+
+_III.--Murder_
+
+
+Two nights later, Barton was to leave for Glasgow, whither he was to
+travel as delegate to entreat assistance for the strikers. "What could
+be the matter with him?" thought Mary. He was so restless; he seemed so
+fierce, too.
+
+Presently he rose, and in a short, cold manner bade her farewell. She
+stood at the door, looking after him, her eyes blinded with tears. He
+was so strange, so cold, so hard. Suddenly he came back, and took her in
+his arms.
+
+"God in heaven bless thee, Mary!"
+
+She threw her arms round his neck. He kissed her, unlaced her soft,
+twining arms, and set off on his errand.
+
+When Mary reached the dressmaker's next morning, she noticed that the
+girls stopped talking. They eyed her! then they began to whisper. At
+last one of them asked her if she had heard the news.
+
+"No! What news?" she answered.
+
+"Have you not heard that young Mr. Carson was murdered last night?"
+
+Mary could not speak, but no one who looked at her pale and
+terror-stricken face could have doubted that she had not heard before of
+the fearful occurrence.
+
+She felt throughout the day as if the haunting horror were a nightmare
+from which awakening would relieve her. Everybody was full of the one
+subject.
+
+In the evening she went to Mrs. Wilson's, hoping that at last she might
+see Jem. But here a new and terrible shock awaited her.
+
+Mrs. Wilson turned fiercely upon her.
+
+"And is it thee that dares set foot in this house, after what has come
+to pass? Dost thou know where my son is, all through thee?"
+
+"No," quivered out poor Mary.
+
+"He's lying in prison, waiting to take his trial for murdering young Mr.
+Carson."
+
+So, indeed, it was. At the inquest the policeman who had witnessed the
+quarrel between the rivals testified to the threats uttered by Jem; and
+the gun used by the murderer, and thrown away by him in his haste to
+escape, had been proved to be Jem's property.
+
+Jem an assassin, and because of her! In the agony of that night Mary saw
+the gallows standing black against the burning light which dazzled her
+shut eyes, press on them as she would. She thought she was going mad;
+then Heaven blessed her unawares, and she sank to sleep.
+
+She was awakened by the coming of a visitor. It was her long-lost,
+unrecognised aunt Esther, who had come to her niece bringing her a
+little piece of paper compressed into a round shape. It was the paper
+that had served as wadding for the murderer's gun. Esther had picked it
+up while wandering in curiosity about the scene of the murder. There was
+writing on the paper, and she had brought it to Mary, fearing that if it
+fell into the hands of the police it would provide more evidence against
+Jem.
+
+The paper told Mary everything. It had belonged to John Barton. Jem was
+innocent, and her own father was the murderer! Jem must be saved, and
+she must do it; for was she not the sole repository of the terrible
+secret? And how could she prove Jem's innocence without admitting her
+father's guilt?
+
+When she could think calmly, she realised that she must discover where
+Jem had been on the Thursday night when the murder had been committed.
+Tremblingly she went to Mrs. Wilson, and learnt what she wanted to know.
+Jem had walked towards Liverpool with his cousin Will, a sailor who had
+spent all his money in Manchester, and could not afford railway-fare.
+Will's ship was to sail on Tuesday, and on Tuesday Jem was to be tried
+at the Liverpool assizes.
+
+Job Legh engaged a lawyer to defend Jem, and Mary prepared to go to
+Liverpool to find the one man whose evidence could save her lover. Ere
+she left, a policeman brought her a bit of parchment. Her heart misgave
+her as she took it; she guessed its purport. It was a summons to bear
+witness against Jem Wilson at the assizes.
+
+
+_IV.--"Not Guilty_"
+
+
+Arrived at Liverpool on Monday, after the bewilderment of a railway
+journey--the first she had ever made--Mary found her way to the little
+court, not far from the docks, were Jem's sailor cousin lodged.
+
+"Is Will Wilson here?" she asked the landlady.
+
+"No, he is not," replied the woman, curtly.
+
+"Tell me--where he is?" asked Mary, sickening.
+
+"He's gone this very morning, my poor dear," answered the landlady,
+relenting at the sight of Mary's obvious distress. "He's sailed, my
+dear--sailed in the John Cropper this very blessed morning!"
+
+Mary staggered into the house, stricken into hopelessness. Yet hope was
+not dead. The landlady's son told her that the John Cropper would be
+waiting for high-water to cross the sandbanks at the river's mouth, and
+that there was a chance that a sailing-boat might overtake the vessel.
+
+Mary hurried down to the docks, spent every penny she had in hiring a
+boat, and presently was tossing on the water for the first time in her
+life, alone with two rough men.
+
+The boatmen hailed the John Cropper just as the crew were heaving
+anchor, and told their errand. The captain refused with a dreadful oath
+to stop his ship for anyone, whoever swung for it. But Will Wilson,
+standing at the stern, shouted through his hands, "So help me God, Mary
+Barton, I'll come back in the pilot-boat time enough to save his life!"
+
+As the ship receded in the distance, Mary asked anxiously when the
+pilot-boat would be back. The boatmen did not know; it might be twelve
+hours, it might be two days. A chance yet remained, but she could no
+longer hope. When she reached the landing-place, faint and penniless,
+one of the boatmen took her to his home, and there she sat sleeplessly
+awaiting the dawn of the day of trial.
+
+When she entered the witness-box next day, the whole court reeled before
+her, save two figures only--that of the judge and that of the prisoner.
+Jem sat silent--he had held his peace ever since his arrest--with his
+face bowed on his hands.
+
+Mary answered a few questions with a sort of wonder at the reality of
+the terrible circumstances in which she was placed.
+
+"And pray, may I ask, which was the favoured lover?" went on the
+barrister.
+
+A look of indignation for an instant contracted Mary's brow. She was
+aware that Jem had raised his head and was gazing at her. Turning
+towards the judge, she said steadily, "Perhaps I liked Mr. Harry Carson
+once; but I loved James Wilson beyond what tongue can tell. When he
+asked me to marry him, I was very hard in my answer; but he'd not been
+gone out of my sight above a minute before I knew I loved him--far above
+my life."
+
+After these words the prisoner's head was no longer bowed. He stood
+erect and firm, with self-respect in his attitude; yet he seemed lost in
+thought.
+
+But Will Wilson did not come, and the evidence against Jem grew stronger
+and stronger. Mary was flushed and anxious, muttering to herself in a
+wild, restless manner. Job Legh heard her repeat again and again, "I
+must not go mad; I must not!"
+
+Suddenly she threw up her arms and shrieked aloud: "Oh, Jem! Jem! You're
+saved! and I am mad!" and was carried out of court stiff and convulsed.
+And as they bore her off, a sailor forced his way over rails and seats,
+through turnkeys and policemen. Will Wilson had come in time.
+
+He told his tale clearly and distinctly; the efforts of the prosecution
+to shake him were useless. "Not guilty" was the verdict that thrilled
+through the breathless court. One man sank back in his seat in sickening
+despair. The vengeance that old Mr. Carson had longed to compass for the
+murder of his beloved boy was thwarted; he had been cheated of the
+desire that now ruled his life--the desire of blood for blood.
+
+
+_V.--"Forgive Us Our Trespasses_"
+
+
+For many days Mary hovered between life and death, and it was long ere
+she could make the journey back to Manchester under the tender care of
+the man who now knew she loved him. Not until she had recovered did he
+tell her that he had lost his situation at the foundry--the men refused
+to work under one who had been tried for murder--and that he was looking
+for work elsewhere.
+
+"Mary," he asked, "art thou much bound to Manchester? Would it grieve
+thee sore to quit the old smoke-jack?"
+
+"With thee?" was her quiet response.
+
+"I've heard fine things of Canada. Thou knowest where Canada is, Mary?"
+
+"Not rightly--but with thee, Jem"--her voice sank to a
+whisper--"anywhere." Then, after a pause, she added, "But father!"
+
+John Barton was smitten, helpless, very near to death. His face was sunk
+and worn--like a skull, with yet a suffering expression that skulls have
+not! Crime and all had been forgotten by his daughter when she saw him;
+fondly did she serve him in every way that heart could devise.
+
+Jem had known from the first that Barton was the murderer of Harry
+Carson. Several days before the murder Barton had borrowed Jem's gun,
+and Jem had seen the truth at the moment of his arrest. When Mary came
+to tell him that her father wished to speak to him, Jem could not guess
+what was before him, and did not try to guess.
+
+When they entered the room, Mary saw all at a glance. Her father stood
+holding on to a chair as if for support. Behind him sat Job Legh,
+listening; before him stood the stern figure of Mr. Carson.
+
+"Don't dare to think that I shall be merciful; you shall be
+hanged--hanged--man!" said Mr. Carson, with slow, emphasis.
+
+"I've had far, far worse misery than hanging!" cried Barton. "Sir, one
+word! My hairs are grey with suffering."
+
+"And have I had no suffering?" interrupted Mr. Carson. "Is not my boy
+gone--killed--out of my sight for ever? He was my sunshine, and now it
+is night! Oh, my God! comfort me, comfort me!" cried the old man aloud.
+
+Barton lay across the table broken-hearted. "God knows I didn't know
+what I was doing," he whispered. "Oh, sir," he said wildly, "say you
+forgive me?"
+
+"Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive them that trespass against us,"
+said Job solemnly.
+
+Mr. Carson took his hands from his face.
+
+"Let my trespasses be unforgiven, so that I may have vengeance for my
+son's murder."
+
+John Barton lay on the ground as one dead.
+
+When Mr. Carson had left the house, he leant against a railing to steady
+himself, for he was dizzy with agitation. He looked up to the calm,
+majestic depths of the heavens, and by-and-by the last words he had
+spoken returned upon him, as if they were being echoed through all that
+infinite space in tones of unutterable sorrow. He went homewards; not to
+the police-office. All night long, the archangel combated with the demon
+in his soul.
+
+All night long, others watched by the bed of death. As morning dawned,
+Barton grew worse; his breathing seemed almost stopped. Jem had gone to
+the druggist's, and Mary cried out for assistance to raise her father.
+
+A step, which was not Jem's, came up the stairs. Mr. Carson stood in the
+doorway. He raised up the powerless frame, and the departing soul looked
+out of the eyes with gratitude.
+
+"Pray for us!" cried Mary, sinking on her knees.
+
+"God be merciful to us sinners," was Mr. Carson's prayer. "Forgive us
+our trespasses as we forgive them that trespass against us."
+
+And when the words were said, John Barton lay a corpse in Mr. Carson's
+arms.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+At the door of a long, low wooden house stands Mary, watching the return
+of her husband from his work.
+
+Her baby boy, in his grandmother's arms, sees him come with a crow of
+delight.
+
+"English letters!" cries Jem. "Guess the good news!"
+
+"Oh, tell me!" says Mary.
+
+"Margaret has recovered her sight. She and Will are to be married, and
+he's bringing her out here to Canada; and Job Legh talks of coming,
+too--not to see you, Mary, but to try and pick up a few specimens of
+Canadian insects."
+
+"Dear Job Legh!" said Mary, softly.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+WILLIAM GODWIN
+
+
+Caleb Williams
+
+
+     William Godwin, the son of a dissenting parson, was a man of
+     remarkable gifts and the father of the poet Shelley's second
+     wife, Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley (see Vol. VII). Born at
+     Wisbeach, England, March 3, 1756, he served for five years,
+     1778-83, as a Nonconformist minister, and then going to
+     London, joined the leading Whig circle of the day, and turned
+     his attention to political writings. His "Political Justice,"
+     though little read to-day, had a great number of readers and
+     considerable influence a hundred years ago. "Things as They
+     Are, or the Adventures of Caleb Williams," published in 1794,
+     has a philosophical significance, suggested by the falseness
+     of the common code of morality, which is apt to be overlooked
+     by many readers in the strong interest of the tale. It is one
+     of the few books of that period which may still be said to
+     live. It is quite the best of his novels. "It raised Godwin's
+     reputation to a pinnacle," according to contemporary
+     criticism, though some of his other novels, notably
+     "Fleetwood," have been preferred for their descriptive
+     writing. He was an exceedingly industrious writer; essays,
+     biography, political philosophy, and history all coming from
+     his pen; but in spite of this and of his many distinguished
+     friendships, Godwin was always in difficulties, which he bore
+     with the becoming grace of a philosopher. He died on April 7,
+     1836.
+
+
+_I.--Mr. Falkland's Secret_
+
+
+My life has for several years been a theatre of calamity. My fairest
+prospects have been blasted. My enemy has shown himself inaccessible to
+entreaties and untired in persecution. I was born of humble parents, in
+a remote county of England. Their occupations were such as usually fall
+to the lot of peasants, and they had no portion to give me. I was taught
+the rudiments of no science, except reading, writing, and arithmetic.
+But I had an inquisitive mind, and neglected no means of information
+from conversation or books.
+
+The residence of my parents was within the manor of Ferdinando Falkland,
+a country squire of considerable opulence. At an early age I attracted
+the favourable notice of Mr. Collins, this gentleman's steward, who used
+to call in occasionally at my father's.
+
+In the summer of the year----, Mr. Falkland visited his estate in our
+county after an absence of several months. This was a period of
+misfortune to me. I was then eighteen years of age. My father lay dead
+in our cottage, and I had lost my mother some years before. In this
+forlorn situation I received a message from the squire, ordering me to
+repair to the manor house.
+
+My reception was as gracious and encouraging as I could possibly desire.
+Mr. Falkland questioned me respecting my learning, and my conceptions of
+men and things, and listened to my answers with condescension and
+approbation. He then informed me that he was in want of a secretary, and
+that if I approved of the employment he would take me into his house.
+
+I felt highly flattered by the proposal, and found my employment--which
+included the duties of librarian as well as those of a secretary--easy
+and agreeable.
+
+Mr. Falkland's mode of living was in the utmost degree recluse and
+solitary. His features were scarcely ever relaxed in a smile, and the
+distemper which afflicted him with incessant gloom had its paroxysms.
+None of the domestics, except myself and Mr. Collins approached Mr.
+Falkland but at stated seasons and then only for a very short interval.
+
+Once after I had seen my patron in a strange fit of intolerable anguish,
+I could not help confiding in Mr. Collins that I feared Mr. Falkland had
+some secret trouble, and in answer to my communication Mr. Collins told
+me the story of Tyrrel's murder.
+
+Barnabas Tyrrel had been a neighbouring squire insupportably brutish and
+arrogant, tyrannical to his inferiors, and insolent to his equals. From
+the first he hated Falkland, whose dignity and courtesy were a constant
+rebuke to the other's boorish ill-humours, and rejected with scorn all
+proposals for civil intercourse.
+
+The crisis came when Tyrrel, who had been expelled from the rural
+assembly which met every week at the market-town, forced his way in. He
+was intoxicated, and at once attacked Falkland, knocking him down, and
+then kicking his prostrate enemy before anyone had time to interfere.
+
+To Mr. Falkland disgrace was worse than death. This complication of
+ignominy, base, humiliating, and public, stung him to the very soul, and
+filled his mind with horror and uproar. One other event closed that
+memorable evening. Mr. Tyrrel was found dead in the street, having been
+murdered a few yards from the assembly-house.
+
+From that day Falkland was a changed man. His cheerfulness and
+tranquillity gave way to gloomy and unsociable melancholy, and, filled
+with the ideas of chivalry, the humiliating and dishonourable situation
+in which he had been placed could never be forgotten. To add to his
+misfortunes, it was presently whispered that he was no other than the
+murderer of his antagonist, and even the magistrates at length decided
+that the matter must be investigated, and requested Falkland to appear
+before them.
+
+Mr. Falkland attended, and easily convinced the magistrates of his
+innocence, pointing out that his one desire was to have called out the
+man who had insulted him so horribly, and to have fought him to the
+death. He was not only acquitted, but a public demonstration of sympathy
+was arranged at once to show the esteem in which he was held.
+
+A few weeks, and the real murderer was discovered. This was a man named
+Hawkins, who, with his son, had been reduced from an honest livelihood
+to beggary and ruin by Tyrrel. On circumstantial evidence, Hawkins and
+his son were condemned and executed.
+
+This was the story Mr. Collins told me in order that I might understand
+Mr. Falkland's unhappy state. In reality it only added to my
+embarrassment.
+
+Was it possible, after all, that Mr. Falkland should be the murderer? It
+was but a passing thought, and yet what was the meaning of Mr.
+Falkland's agonies of mind? I could not accept Mr. Collins's view that
+Mr. Falkland was so much the slave and fool of honour that the shame of
+Tyrrel's savage assault alone had driven him to this melancholy and
+solitude, and compelled the violent outbursts of passion.
+
+
+_II.--I Learn the Secret_
+
+
+My suspicions would not be set at rest. No spark of malignity was
+harboured in my soul. I reverenced the sublime mind of Mr. Falkland, but
+I had a mistaken curiosity to find out the truth of Tyrrel's murder.
+Often it seemed that Mr. Falkland was about to speak to me, but the
+movement always ended in silence.
+
+At last one day he sent for me to his room, and after making me swear
+never to disclose his confidence, and warning me that he had observed my
+suspicions, told me that he was the murderer of Tyrrel and the assassin
+of the two Hawkins.
+
+"This it is to be a gentleman, a man of honour!" Falkland went on, in
+extreme distress. "My virtue, my honesty, my everlasting peace of mind,
+all sacrificed that I may preserve my good name. And I am as much the
+fool of fame as ever. Though I be the blackest of villains, I will leave
+behind me a spotless and illustrious name. Why is it that I am compelled
+to this confidence? From the love of fame. I had no alternative but to
+make you my confidant or my victim, and perhaps my next murder would not
+have been so fortunate. I do not want to shed more blood. It is better
+to trust you with the whole truth, under every seal of secrecy, than to
+live in perpetual fear of your penetration. But look what you have done
+with your foolishly inquisitive humour. You shall continue in my
+service, and I will benefit you in respect of fortune; but I shall
+always hate you. If ever an unguarded word escape from your lips, you
+may expect to pay for it with your death, or worse. By everything that
+is sacred, preserve your faith!"
+
+Such was the secret I had been so desirous to know.
+
+"It is a wretched prospect," I said to myself, "that he holds up to me.
+But I will never become an informer. I will never injure my patron; and
+therefore he will not be my enemy."
+
+It was no long time after this that Mr. Forester--Mr. Falkland's
+half-brother--came to stay in the house while his own residence was
+being got ready for him, and there being little in common between the
+two, Mr. Forester being of a peculiarly sociable disposition, our
+visitor chose to make me his companion. No sooner was this growing
+intimacy observed than Mr. Falkland warned me that it was not agreeable
+to him, and that he would not have it.
+
+"Young man, take warning!" he said to me one day when we were alone.
+"You little suspect the extent of my power. You might as well think of
+escaping from the power of the omnipresent God as from mine."
+
+My whole soul now revolted against the treatment I endured, and yet I
+could not utter a word. I resolved to quit Mr. Falkland's service, and
+when Mr. Forester had retired to his own house, I wrote a letter to Mr.
+Falkland to that effect.
+
+"You shall never quit it with your life," was his reply. "If you attempt
+it, you shall never cease to rue your folly as long as you exist. Do not
+imagine I am afraid of you! I wear an armour against which all your
+weapons are impotent. Do you not know, miserable wretch, that I have
+sworn to preserve my reputation, whatever it cost? I have dug a pit for
+you, and whichever way you move it is ready to swallow you."
+
+This speech was the dictate of frenzy, and it created in me a similar
+frenzy. It determined me to do the very thing against which I was thus
+solemnly warned, and fly from my patron's house.
+
+No sooner, however, had I set off, and travelled some miles, than a
+horseman overtook me, and handed me a letter from Mr. Forester. I opened
+the letter, and read as follows:
+
+"Williams:--My brother Falkland has sent the bearer in pursuit of you.
+He expects that, if found, you will return with him. I expect it, too.
+If you are a villain and a rascal, you will perhaps endeavour to fly; if
+your conscience tells you you are innocent, you will, out of all doubt,
+come back. If you come, I pledge myself that if you clear your
+reputation, you shall not only be free to go wherever you please, but
+shall receive every assistance in my power to give.
+
+"Valentine Forester."
+
+To a mind like mine, such a letter was enough to draw me from one end of
+the earth to the other. I could not recall anything out of which the
+shadow of a criminal accusation could be extorted, and I returned with
+willingness and impatience. I knew the stern inflexibility of Mr.
+Falkland's mind, but I also knew his virtuous and magnanimous
+principles. I could not believe my innocence could be confounded with
+guilt.
+
+
+_III.--My Persecutions and Sufferings_
+
+
+Mr. Falkland accused me of having stolen money and jewels from him, and
+when my boxes, which I had left behind, were opened, a watch and certain
+jewels were found in one of them.
+
+My amazement yielded to indignation and horror. I protested my innocence
+I declared that Mr. Falkland knew I was innocent, and that while I was
+wholly unable to account for the articles found in my possession, I
+firmly believed that their being there was of Mr. Falkland's
+contrivance.
+
+Mr. Falkland now expressed his willingness to proceed no further against
+me, and, since I had been brought to public shame, to let me depart
+wherever I pleased. I was unworthy of his resentment, he said, and he
+could afford to smile at my malice.
+
+Mr. Forester, however, said this was impossible, and, as a magistrate,
+he thereupon committed me to prison to await my trial. Not one of the
+servants who had been present at my examination expressed any compassion
+for me. The robbery appeared to them atrocious, and they were indignant
+at my recrimination on their excellent master.
+
+When I had been about a month in prison the assizes were held, but my
+case was not brought forward, and I was suffered to stand over six
+months longer.
+
+I noticed a change in my jailer's behaviour at this time. He offered to
+make better provision for my comfort, and as I had no doubt he was
+instigated by Mr. Falkland, I answered that he might tell his employer I
+would accept no favours from a man that held a halter about my neck.
+Then the idea of an escape occurred to me, and as I had some proficiency
+in carpentry, I decided to obtain tools by proposing to make some chairs
+for the jailer. My offer was accepted, and I gradually accumulated tools
+of various sorts--gimlets, chisels, etc.
+
+In the middle of the night, my plans being now thoroughly digested, I
+set about making my escape. I had to get the first door from its hinges,
+and though this was attended with considerable difficulty, I was
+successful. The second door being fastened on the inside, all I had to
+do was to push back the bolts and unscrew the box of the lock.
+
+Thus far I had proceeded with the happiest success; but close on the
+other side there was a kennel with a large mastiff dog, of which I had
+not the smallest previous knowledge. However, I managed to soothe the
+animal, and go to the wall. Before I had gained half the ascent, a voice
+at the garden door cried out, "Halloa! Who is there?" At this the dog
+began to bark violently, and a second man came out. Alarmed at my
+situation, I descended on the other side too quickly, and in my fall
+nearly dislocated my ankle.
+
+In the meantime, the two warders came through a door in the wall, of
+which I had not been aware, and were at the place where I had descended,
+in no time. The pain in my ankle was so intense that I could scarcely
+stand, and I suffered myself to be retaken.
+
+The condition in which I was now placed was totally different from that
+which had preceded this attempt. I was chained all day in my dungeon, my
+manual labors were at an end, my cell was searched every night, and
+every kind of tool carefully kept from me.
+
+Nevertheless, an active mind, which has once been forced into any
+particular train, can scarcely give it up as hopeless. One day I chanced
+to observe a nail trodden into the mud floor at no great distance from
+me. I seized upon this new treasure, and found that I could unlock with
+it the padlock that fastened me to the staple in the floor. By this
+means I had the pitiful consolation of being able to range, without
+constraint, the miserable coop in which I was confined. It became my
+constant practice to liberate myself at night; but security breeds
+negligence. One morning I overslept myself, and the turnkey, to his
+surprise, found me disengaged.
+
+Again my apartment was changed. I was now put in the strong-room, an
+underground dungeon, and handcuffs were added to my fetters.
+
+It was at this time that Thomas, Mr. Falkland's footman, and an old
+acquaintance of mine, visited me. He was of the better order of
+servants, and my condition shocked him. He returned again in the
+afternoon.
+
+"Well, Master Williams," he said, "you have been very wicked, to be
+sure, and I thought it would have done me good to see you hanged. I know
+I am doing wrong; but if they hang me, too, I cannot help it. For
+Christ's sake, get out of this place; I cannot bear the thought of it."
+
+With that, he slipped into my hand a chisel, a file, and a saw. I
+received the implements with great joy, and thrust them into my bosom.
+
+I waited for bright moonlight; it was necessary that I should work in
+the night, and between nine and seven.
+
+It was ten o'clock when I first took off my handcuffs. I then filed
+through my fetters, and next performed the same service to the three
+iron bars that secured my window. All this was the work of more than two
+hours. But, even with the bars removed, the space was by no means wide
+enough to admit the passing of my body. Therefore, I had to loosen the
+brickwork, and this I did partly with the chisel, and partly with one of
+the iron bars. When the space was sufficient for my purpose, I crept
+through the opening and stepped upon a shed outside.
+
+The prison wall, which now had to be scaled, was of considerable height,
+and there was no resource for me but that of making a breach in its
+lower part. For six hours I worked at this with incredible labour, and
+at last I had made a passage. But the day was breaking, and in ten
+minutes' time the keepers would probably enter my apartment and see the
+devastation I had left.
+
+I decided to avoid the town as much as possible, and depended upon the
+open country for protection; and so I passed along the lane beyond the
+wall.
+
+I was free of my prison, but I was destitute, and had not a shilling in
+the world.
+
+
+_IV.--The Doom of Falkland_
+
+
+Mr. Falkland's implacable animosity pursued me beyond the prison. A
+hundred guineas was at once offered for my recapture, and though I
+evaded arrest for some months, a man named Gines, who had at one time
+been a member of a gang of robbers, undertook to lay hold of me, and
+tracked me to my place of hiding in London. By this time the hawkers
+were actually selling papers in the streets containing "The most
+Wonderful and Surprising History and Miraculous Adventures of Caleb
+Williams," for a halfpenny, and I had the temerity to purchase one. In
+this I was informed how I, Caleb Williams, "first robbed, and then
+brought false accusations against my master"; how I attempted at divers
+times to break out of prison, and at last succeeded "in the most
+wonderful and incredible manner"; and how I had travelled the kingdom in
+disguise, and was now lying concealed in London, with a hundred guineas
+reward for my discovery.
+
+It seemed then that there was no end to my persecution, and I thought of
+death as my only release. That very night the landlord of my humble
+lodgings brought Gines to the house, and gave me up to the authorities.
+
+And now the result of all my labour to get out of prison and evade my
+pursuers had brought me back to my starting-place! Never was a human
+creature so hunted by enemies. What hope was there they would ever cease
+their persecution.
+
+My long-cherished reverence for Mr. Falkland was changed to something
+like abhorrence. I determined to bring the real criminal to justice.
+
+Accordingly, when I was taken before the magistrates at Bow Street, I
+declared that Mr. Falkland was a murderer, and that I was entirely
+innocent.
+
+But the magistrates simply told me they had nothing to do with such
+statements, and that I seemed a most impudent rascal to trump up such
+things against my master.
+
+I was conducted back to the very prison from which I had escaped, and my
+situation seemed more irremediable than ever. How great, therefore, was
+my astonishment, at the assizes when my case was called, to find neither
+Mr. Falkland, nor Mr. Forester, nor any individual to appear against me.
+I, who had come to the bar with the sentence of death already ringing in
+my ears, to be told I was free to go whithersoever I pleased!
+
+I was not, however, yet free of Mr. Falkland. I was kidnapped by Gines
+and an accomplice, and carried to an inn, and here Mr. Falkland
+commanded me to sign a paper declaring that the charge I had alleged
+against him at Bow Street was false, malicious, and groundless. On my
+refusal, he told me that he would exercise a power that should grind me
+to atoms.
+
+The impression of that memorable meeting on my understanding is
+indelible. The deathlike weakness and decay of Mr. Falkland, his misery
+and rage, his haggard, emaciated, and fleshless visage, are still before
+me.
+
+There was to be no peace or happiness for me. Wherever I went, sooner or
+later, Gines found me, and any new acquaintances turned from me with
+loathing after they had read the handbills containing my "Wonderful and
+Surprising History." This man followed me from place to place, blasting
+my reputation.
+
+I now formed my resolution and carried it into execution. At all costs I
+would free myself from this overpowering tyranny.
+
+I set out for the chief town of the county in which Mr. Falkland lived,
+and there laid a formal charge of murder before the principal
+magistrate.
+
+After an interval of three days, I met Mr. Falkland in the presence of
+the magistrate. It was now the appearance of a ghost before me. He was
+brought in in a chair, unable to stand, fatigued and almost destroyed by
+the journey he had just taken.
+
+Until that moment my breast was steeled to pity; it was now too late to
+draw back.
+
+I told my story plainly, declared the nobility of Mr. Falkland's
+character, and admitted that my own proceedings now seemed to me a
+dreadful mistake.
+
+When I had finished, Mr. Falkland rose from his seat, and, to my
+infinite astonishment, threw himself into my arms.
+
+"Williams," said he, "you have conquered. All that I most ardently
+desired is for ever frustrated. I have spent a life of the basest
+cruelty to cover one act of momentary passion. And now"--turning to the
+magistrate--"do with me as you please. I am prepared to suffer all the
+vengeance of the law."
+
+He survived this dreadful scene but three days, and I feel, and always
+shall feel, that I have been his murderer. I began these memoirs to
+vindicate my character. I have now no character that I wish to
+vindicate.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+JOHANN WOLFGANG VON GOETHE
+
+
+The Sorrows of Young Werther
+
+
+     Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, the greatest of German poets, and
+     one of the most highly gifted men of the eighteenth century,
+     was born in 1749 at Frankfort-on-the-Main. He received his
+     early education from his father, who was an imperial
+     councillor, and in the year 1765 he went to the University of
+     Leipzig. Goethe's first great work was "Goetz von
+     Berlichingen" (see Vol. XVII). which was translated into
+     English by Sir Walter Scott. "The Sorrows of Young Werther"
+     ("Die Leiden des jungen Werthers") was begun in 1772, when
+     Goethe was twenty-three years old, and was published
+     anonymously two years later. It immediately created an immense
+     sensation, made a round of the world, and was everywhere
+     either enthusiastically praised or severely condemned. It
+     became the fashion of young men to dress themselves in blue
+     coats and yellow breeches in imitation of the hero, and many
+     of them were moved to follow Werther's example as the simplest
+     way of settling their love affairs. Nevertheless, "Werther"
+     formed the real basis of Goethe's fame. It was the first
+     revelation to the world of the genius, which, a quarter of a
+     century later, was to give it "Faust" (Vol. XVI). The story is
+     frankly sentimental, but as such it is easily the best of the
+     sentimental novels of the eighteenth century. When, many years
+     later, Goethe was invited to an audience with Napoleon, the
+     emperor volunteered the information that he had read "Werther"
+     through six times. Goethe died in March, 1832, in his
+     eighty-fourth year.
+
+
+_I.--"I Have Found an Angel"_
+
+
+_May 4_. What a strange thing is the heart of man. To leave my dearest
+friend, and yet to feel happy! I know you will forgive me, and I in
+return will promise that I will no longer worry myself over every petty
+stab of fortune. Poor Leonora! And yet I was not to blame. Was I in
+fault that, while I was pleasantly entertained by the charms of her
+sister, her feeble heart conceived a passion for me? And yet I am not
+wholly blameless. Did I not encourage her emotion? Did I not--but what
+is man that he dares so to accuse himself? Beyond doubt, the sufferings
+of mankind would be far less did they but endure the present with
+equanimity, instead of raking up the past for memories of sorrow.
+
+A wonderful calm has come over me; I am alone, and feel that a spot like
+this was created for the happiness of souls like mine. You ask if you
+shall send me books; I pray you spare me. My heart craves for no
+excitement; I need strains to soothe me, and I find them to perfection
+in my Homer.
+
+_May 17_. I have formed many acquaintances, but as yet have found no
+friends. If you inquire what sort of people are here, I answer "the same
+as everywhere." The human race is a monotonous affair. The majority
+labours nearly all its time for mere subsistence, and is then so
+distressed to have a small portion of freedom still unemployed that it
+exerts even greater efforts to get rid of it.
+
+I have just become acquainted with a very worthy person, the district
+judge. They tell me how charming it is to see him in the midst of his
+family of nine. His eldest daughter is much spoken of. He has invited me
+to go and see him.
+
+_June 16_. Why do I not write to you? You should have guessed that I was
+pre-occupied; that, in a word, that I have made a friend who has won my
+heart. I have found--I know not what. An angel? Nonsense! Everyone so
+describes his mistress. And yet I cannot tell you how perfect she is, or
+why so perfect. Between ourselves, I have been three times on the point
+of throwing down my pen, ordering my horse, and riding out. And yet this
+morning I determined not to ride to-day; and I keep running to the
+window to see how high the sun is.
+
+I could not restrain myself; go to her I must. I have just returned,
+Wilhelm, and while I eat my supper I will write to you. I had already
+made the acquaintance of her aunt, the judge's sister, and with her I
+was going to accompany Charlotte to a ball given by some young people in
+the neighbourhood. While we were on our way to fetch her, my companion
+was loud in her praises of her niece's beauty and charm. "Take care,
+however," she added, "that you do not lose your heart." "Why?" I asked.
+"Because she is already betrothed to a most excellent man."
+
+As the door opened, I saw before me the most charming sight that I have
+ever beheld. Six children, of various ages, were running about the hall
+and surrounding a lady of medium height, with a lovely figure, dressed
+in a robe of simple white, trimmed with pink ribbons. She held a loaf of
+brown bread, and was cutting slices for the little ones all round. She
+apologised for not being quite ready, explaining that household duties
+had made her forget the children's supper, which they always preferred
+to take from her. I uttered some unmeaning compliment, but my whole soul
+was absorbed by her air, her voice, her manner. You who know me can
+imagine how I gazed upon her rich, dark eyes; how my soul gloated over
+her warm lips and fresh glowing cheeks.
+
+Never did I dance more lightly; I felt myself more than mortal, holding
+this loveliest of creatures in my arms, flying with her as rapidly as
+the wind, till I lost sight of every other object. And, oh, Wilhelm, I
+vowed at that moment that no maiden whom I loved should ever waltz with
+another than myself, if I went to perdition for it.
+
+Returning from the ball, there was a most magnificent sunrise. Our
+companions were asleep. Charlotte asked me if I did not wish to sleep
+too, and begged me not to stand on ceremony. Looking deep into her eyes,
+I answered, "As long as those eyes remain open, there is no fear for
+mine." We continued awake until we reached her door. I left her, asking
+her permission to call in the course of the day. She consented, and I
+went Since then, sun, moon, and stars may pursue their course; I know
+not whether it is day or night; the whole world is nothing to me.
+
+_June 21_. My days are as happy as those reserved by God for His elect,
+and whatever be my fate hereafter, I can never say that I have not
+tasted joy--the purest joy of life. Little did I think when I selected
+this spot for my home that all heaven lay within half a league of it.
+
+How childish is man. To be disturbed about a mere look. We had been to
+Walheim, but during our walk I thought I saw in Charlotte's eyes--I am a
+fool, but forgive me. You should see her eyes. However, to be brief, as
+the ladies were preparing to drive away I watched her eyes; they
+wandered from one to another, but they did not alight on me--on me who
+saw nothing but her. She noticed me not. The carriage drove off, and my
+eyes filled with tears. Suddenly I saw Charlotte's bonnet leaning out of
+the window, and she turned to look back--was it at me? I know not, and
+in uncertainty is my consolation. Perhaps she turned to look at me.
+Perhaps. Good-night. What a child I am!
+
+_July 10_. Someone asked me the other day how I like her. How I _like_
+her! What sort of creature must he be who merely likes Charlotte? Whose
+entire being were not absolutely filled with her? Like her! One might as
+well ask if I like Ossian.
+
+_July 13_. No, I am not deceived. In her dark eyes I read a real
+interest in me. Yes, I feel it, and I believe my own heart which tells
+me--dare I say it?--that she loves me. How the idea exalts me in my own
+eyes. And as you can understand my feelings, I may say to you, how I
+honour myself because she loves me.
+
+I do not know a man able to take my place in her heart; yet when she
+speaks of Albert with so much warmth and affection, I feel like a
+soldier who has been stripped of all his honours. Sometimes when we are
+talking, in the eagerness of conversation she comes closer to me, and
+her balmy breath reaches my lips, I feel that I could sink into the
+earth for very joy. And yet, Wilhelm, if I know myself, and should ever
+dare--you understand me--No, no; my heart is not so corrupt; it is weak,
+but is not that a degree of corruption?
+
+She is to me a sacred being; how her simplest song enchants me.
+Sometimes, when I am ready to commit suicide, she sings some favourite
+air, and instantly the gloom and madness are dispersed.
+
+_July 24_. Yes, dear Charlotte. I will arrange everything. Only give me
+more commissions; the more the better. One thing, however, I must
+request you--use no more writing-sand with the letters you send me!
+Today, I raised your letter to my lips, and it set my teeth on edge.
+
+
+_II.--Bereft of Comfort_
+
+
+_July 30_. Albert is arrived, and I must take my departure. Were he the
+best of men, and I absolutely beneath him, I could not endure to see him
+in possession of my perfect being. Enough! her betrothed is here. A fine
+fellow, whom I cannot help liking. And he is so considerate; he has not
+given Charlotte one kiss in my presence. Heaven reward him for it. He is
+free from ill-humour, which you know is the fault I detest most. I do
+not ask whether he may not now and then tease her with some little
+jealousies, as I know that in his place I should not be entirely free
+from such feelings.
+
+_August 8_. I am amazed to see from my diary, which I have somewhat
+neglected of late, how deliberately I have entangled myself, step by
+step. But even though I see the result plainly, I have no thought of
+acting with any greater prudence. And yet I feel that if only I knew
+where to go, I would abandon everything and fly from this place.
+
+And yet I feel that, if I were not a fool, I could enjoy life here most
+delightfully. Admitted into this charming family, loved by the father as
+a son, by his children as a second father, and by Charlotte!
+Furthermore, Albert welcomes me with the heartiest affection, and loves
+me, next to Charlotte, more than all the world.
+
+_August 21_. In vain do I stretch out my arms towards her when I wake in
+the morning. In vain do I seek for her when some innocent dream has
+happily deceived me, and placed me near her in the fields when I have
+seized her hand and covered it with kisses. Tears flow from my oppressed
+heart; and, bereft of all comfort, I weep over my future woes.
+
+_August 28_. This is my birthday, and early in the morning I received a
+packet from Albert. I found within one of the pink ribbons which
+Charlotte wore in her dress the first time I saw her, and which I had
+often asked her to give me. With it were two volumes of Wetstein's
+Homer, a book I had often wished for. How well they understood those
+little attentions of friendship, so superior to costly presents, unhappy
+being that I am. Why do I thus deceive myself? What is to be the outcome
+of all this wild, aimless, endless passion? I cannot pray except to her.
+Oh, Wilhelm, the hermit's cell, his sackcloth and girdle of thorns,
+would be luxury and indulgence compared with what I have to suffer.
+
+_October 20_. I have taken the plunge, and following your repeated
+advice, I have taken a post with the ambassador. We arrived here
+yesterday. If he were less peevish and morose all would be well. As it
+is, he occasions me continual annoyance; he is the most punctilious
+blockhead in the world. He does everything step by step, with the paltry
+fussiness of an old woman; and he is a man whom it is impossible to
+please, because he is never pleased with himself.
+
+_January 20_. I have but one being here to interest me, my dear
+Charlotte--a Miss B----. She resembles you, if indeed anyone can
+possibly resemble you. "Ah," you will say, "he has learnt to pay fine
+compliments." And this is partly true; I have been very agreeable
+lately, as it was not in my power to be otherwise. But I must tell you
+of Miss B----. She has abundance of soul, which flashes from her deep
+blue eyes. Her rank is a torment to her, and satisfies no single desire
+of her heart. She knows you, my dear Charlotte, as I have told her all
+about you, and renders homage to your merits; but her homage is not
+exacted, but voluntary--she loves you, and delights to hear you made the
+subject of conversation. Adieu! Is Albert with you, and what is he to
+you? Forgive the question.
+
+_February 20_. I thank you, Albert, for having deceived me. I waited for
+the news that your wedding-day was fixed, and I meant on that day to
+remove Charlotte's picture from the wall, and bury it with some old
+papers that I wish destroyed. You are now united, and the picture
+remains. Well, let it remain. Why should it not?
+
+
+_III.--"I Can Remain No Longer"_
+
+
+_June 11_. Say what you will, I can remain here no longer. Why should I
+remain? The prince is as gracious to me as anyone could be, and yet I am
+not at my ease. There is, indeed, nothing in common between us; he is a
+man of understanding, but quite of the ordinary kind. His conversation
+gives me no more amusement than I should derive from an ordinary
+well-written book. Whither am I going? I think it would be better for me
+to visit the mines in----. But I am only deluding myself thus. You know
+that I only want to be near my dear Charlotte once more. I smile at the
+suggestion of my heart, but I obey its dictates.
+
+_July 29_. Dear Wilhelm, my whole frame feels convulsed when I see
+Albert put his arms round that slender waist. Oh, the very thought of
+folding that dearest of heaven's creatures in one's arms.
+
+And--shall I avow it? Why should I not?--she would have been happier
+with me than with him. Albert is not the man to satisfy the wishes of
+such a heart. He wants a certain sensibility; he wants--in short, their
+hearts do not beat in unison. But, Wilhelm, he loves her with his whole
+heart, and what does not such a love deserve?
+
+_September 5_. Charlotte had written a letter to her husband in the
+country, where he was detained on business. It began: "My dearest love,
+return as soon as possible. I await you with a thousand raptures!"
+
+A friend who arrived brought word that he could not return immediately.
+Her letter fell into my hands. I read it, and smiled. She asked the
+reason. "What a heavenly treasure is imagination," I exclaimed. "I
+fancied for a moment that this was written to me." She paused, and
+seemed displeased. I was silent.
+
+_October 10_. Only to gaze into her dark eyes is to me a source of
+happiness. And what grieves me is that Albert does not seem so happy as
+he--as I--as he hoped to be--as I should have been--if--. I am no friend
+to these pauses, but here I cannot express myself otherwise; and
+probably I am explicit enough.
+
+_October 19_. Alas the void--the fearful void which I feel in my bosom!
+Sometimes I think, if I could only once press her to my heart, this
+dreadful void would be filled.
+
+_October 30_. A hundred times I have been on the point of embracing her.
+Heavens! what a torment it is to see so much loveliness passing and
+repassing before us, and yet not dare to touch it. And to touch is the
+most natural of human instincts. Do not children touch everything that
+they see?
+
+_November 8_. Charlotte reproves me for my excesses with so much
+tenderness and goodness. I have lately drunk more wine than usual.
+"Don't do it," she said; "think of Charlotte." "Think of you," I
+answered; "can such advice be necessary? Do I not ever think of you?"
+She immediately changed the subject to prevent me pursuing it further.
+My dear friend, my energies are all prostrated; she can do with me what
+she pleases. Yesterday, when I took leave, she seized me by the hand,
+and said, "Adieu, dear Werther!" It was the first time she had ever
+called me "dear." I have repeated it a hundred times.
+
+
+_IV.--"I am Resolved to Die"_
+
+
+_November 24_. She is sensible of my sufferings. This morning her look
+pierced my soul. I found her alone; she was silent, and only gazed
+steadfastly at me. Oh, who can express my emotions? I was quite
+overcome, and bending down, pronounced this vow to myself, "Beautiful
+lips, which angels guard, never will I seek to profane your purity with
+a kiss." And yet, oh, I wish--But, alas, my heart is darkened by doubt
+and indecision. Could I but taste felicity, and then die to expiate the
+sin. What sin?
+
+_December 21_. I am lost. My senses are bewildered, my recollection is
+confused, my eyes are bathed in tears. I am ill, and yet am well. I wish
+for nothing; I have no desires; it were better I were gone. I saw
+Charlotte to-day; she was busy preparing some little gifts for her
+brothers and sisters, to be given to them on Christmas Day. "You shall
+have a gift too," she said, "if you behave well." "And what do you call
+behaving well?" I asked. "What should I do; what can I do?" "Thursday
+night," she answered, "is Christmas Eve; the children are all to be
+here, and my father too; there is a present for each of them. Do you
+come likewise, but do not come before that time!"
+
+I started. She must have seen my emotion, for she continued, hastily "I
+desire that you will not. It must be so; I ask it of you as a favour,
+for my own peace and tranquillity. We cannot go on in this manner any
+longer!" It were idle to attempt to describe my emotions I was as if
+paralysed; it was as if the sun had suddenly gone out. When I
+recollected myself, Charlotte was trying to speak on some indifferent
+topic. "No, Charlotte," I explained, "I understand you perfectly. I will
+never see you again!"
+
+_December 22_. It is all over, Charlotte; I am resolved to die. I make
+this declaration deliberately and coolly, without any romantic passion,
+on the morning of the day when I am to see you for the last time. At the
+moment that you read these lines the cold grave will hold the remains of
+that restless and unhappy being who, in his last moments of existence,
+knew no pleasure so great as that of conversing with you.
+
+When I tore myself from you yesterday my senses were in tumult and
+disorder. I could scarcely reach my room. A thousand ideas floated
+through my mind. At last one fixed, final thought took possession of my
+heart. It was to die. Oh, beloved Charlotte, this heart, excited by rage
+and fury, has often conceived the horrid idea of murdering your
+husband--you--myself.
+
+What do they mean by saying that Albert is your husband? He may be so
+for this world, and in this world it is a sin to love you--to wish to
+tear you from his embrace. Yes, it is a crime, and I suffer the
+punishment--but I have enjoyed the full delight of my sin. I have
+inhaled a balm that has revived my soul; from this hour you are mine;
+yes, Charlotte, you are mine. I do not dream, I do not rave. Drawing
+nearer to the grave my perceptions become clearer. We shall exist; we
+shall see each other again.
+
+I wish to be buried in the dress I wear at present; it has been made
+sacred by your touch. How warmly I have loved you, Charlotte. Since the
+first hour I saw you, how impossible have I found it to leave you. This
+ribbon must be buried with me; it was a present from you on my birthday.
+How confused it all appears. Little did I think then that I should
+journey on this road. But peace, I pray you, peace.
+
+Both my pistols are loaded. The clock strikes twelve. I say Amen.
+Charlotte! Charlotte! Farewell! Farewell!
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+Wilhelm Meister's Apprenticeship
+
+
+     Goethe's prestige was enormously increased by the publication
+     in 1796 of "Wilhelm Meister's Apprenticeship" ("Wilhelm
+     Meisters Lehrjahre"). Representing the fruit of twenty years'
+     labour, it was, like "Faust," written in fragments during the
+     ripest period of his intellectual activity. The story of
+     "Wilhelm Meister" is by no means exciting, but, as a gallery
+     of portraits and repository of wise observation, it is more
+     characteristic of the genius of its author than any other of
+     his prose works. It is more mellow than "Werther," and the
+     action moves slower. Incident follows incident in a leisurely
+     fashion. The keen psychological analysis in the story is
+     assumed to have been derived from Goethe's own experience.
+     "Wilhelm Meister" was dramatised and produced at Leipzig a few
+     years ago, but with no marked success.
+
+
+_I.--On the Road_
+
+
+The moment was now at hand to which poor Mariana had been looking
+forward as to the last of her life. Wilhelm Meister, the man she loved,
+was departing on a long journey in connection with his father's
+business; a disagreeable lover was threatening to come.
+
+"I am miserable," she exclaimed, "miserable for life! I love him, and he
+loves me; yet I see that we must part, and know not how I shall survive
+it. Wilhelm is poor, and can do nothing for me--"
+
+Darkness had scarcely come on when Wilhelm glided forth to her house; he
+carried with him a letter in which he entreated her to marry him
+forthwith, saying that he would abandon his father's business, and earn
+his living on the stage, to which he had always been strongly drawn.
+This he could do with certainty, as he was well acquainted with Serlo,
+manager of a theatre in a town at some distance.
+
+His plan was to leave the letter with her, and return a little later for
+her answer. The vehemence of his emotion at first prevented him from
+noticing that she did not greet him with her wonted heartiness; she
+complained of a headache, and would not hear of his coming back later
+that evening. Suspecting nothing wrong, he ceased to urge her, but he
+felt that this was not the moment for delivering his letter. He retained
+it, therefore, and, in a tumult of insatiable love, as he tore himself
+away from her he snatched one of her neckerchiefs, and, after pressing
+it madly to his lips, crushed it into his pocket.
+
+His whole being was in a ferment of excitement as he walked aimlessly
+about the streets. Midnight found him again in the neighbourhood of
+Mariana's house; consciousness of the fact brought him to himself. He
+went slowly away, set himself for home, and constantly turned round
+again; at last, with an effort, he constrained himself, and actually
+departed. At the corner of the street, looking back yet once more, he
+imagined that he saw Mariana's door open, and a dark figure issue from
+it. He was too distant to see clearly, and in a moment the appearance
+was lost in the night.
+
+On his way, he had almost effaced the unexpected delusion from his mind
+by the most sufficient reasons. To soothe his heart, and put the last
+seal on his returning belief, ere he disrobed for the night, he took her
+kerchief from his pocket. The rustle of a letter which fell from it took
+the kerchief from his lips; he lifted it, and read a passionate letter
+from another man, railing at her for her coldness on the preceding
+night, making an appointment for that same night, and breathing a spirit
+of intimate familiarity.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+A violent fever, with its train of consequences, besides the unwearied
+attentions of his family, were so many fresh occupations for his mind,
+and formed a kind of painful entertainment. On his recovery, he
+determined to abandon for ever his former leaning towards the stage, and
+to apply himself with greater diligence to business, and, to the great
+contentment of his father, no one was now more diligent in the
+counting-house. For a long time he continued to show exemplary attention
+to his duties, and was then thought sufficiently master of his business
+to be sent on a long expedition on behalf of the firm.
+
+The first part of his business successfully accomplished, Wilhelm found
+himself at a little mountain town called Hochdorf. A troupe of actors
+had got stranded there, their exchequer empty, their properties seized
+as security for debts. Wilhelm recognised among them an old man whom he
+recollected as having seen on the stage with Mariana. After some
+hesitation, he hazarded a question concerning her. "Do not speak to me
+of that baggage!" cried the old man. "I am ashamed that I felt such a
+friendship for her. Yet, had you known the girl better, you would excuse
+me. I loved her as my own daughter; indeed, I had formed a resolution to
+take the creature into my own house, and save her from the hands of that
+old crone Barbara, her confidante; but my wife died, and so the project
+came to nothing. At the end of our stay in your native town, I noticed a
+visible sadness about her. I questioned her, but she evaded me. At last
+we set out on our journey. She travelled in the same coach with me, and
+I soon observed what she could not deny, that she was about to become a
+mother. In a short time the manager made the same discovery; he paid her
+off at once and left her behind at the village inn."
+
+Wilhelm's old wounds were all torn open afresh by the old man's story;
+the thought that perhaps Mariana was not wholly unworthy of his love was
+again brought to life. Nay, even the bitter accusations brought against
+her could not lower her in his estimation; for he, as well as she, was
+guilty in all her aberrations. He saw her as a frail, ill-succoured
+mother, wandering helplessly about the world.
+
+The old longing for the stage came back to him with redoubled force; he
+determined to give it vent, for a time at least, and to this end he
+advanced to Melina, the manager of the actors, a sum of money sufficient
+to redeem their properties, and accompanied the troupe until such time
+as it should be repaid.
+
+A profitable engagement soon came their way. A wealthy count, who
+happened to pass through the town, required their services to entertain
+the prince, whom he was shortly expecting as a guest. For several weeks
+they stayed at his castle, and when, on the prince's departure, their
+engagement came to an end, they were all weightier in purse than they
+had been for many a long day. Melina was now in hopes to get established
+with his company in a thriving town at some distance. To get there it
+was necessary to take a considerable journey by unfrequented roads.
+
+Accordingly, conveyances were hired, and a start was made. Towards
+evening, they began to pitch their camp in the midst of a beech wood;
+all were busily engaged about the task allotted to each--the women to
+prepare the evening meal, the men to attend to everything necessary for
+their comfort for the night. All at once, a shot went off; immediately
+another; the party flew asunder in terror. Next moment armed men were to
+be seen pressing forward to the spot where the coaches, packed with
+luggage, stood.
+
+The men all rushed at the intruders. Wilhelm fired his pistol at one who
+was already on the top of the coach cutting the cords of the packages.
+The scoundrel fell, but several of his friends rushed to his aid; our
+hero fell, stunned by a shot-wound and by a sword-stroke that almost
+penetrated to his brain.
+
+When he recovered his senses, it was to find himself deserted by all his
+companions except two of the girls. His head was lying in Phillina's
+lap, while Mignon, the child whom he had rescued from a brutal circus
+master who was ill-treating her, was vainly trying to staunch his wounds
+with her hair. For some time they continued in this position, no one
+returning to their aid. At last, they heard a troop of horses coming up
+the road; a young lady emerged on horseback, accompanied by some
+cavaliers. Wilhelm fixed his eye on the soft, calm, sympathising
+features of the stranger; he thought he had never seen aught nobler or
+more lovely. In a few moments one of the party stepped to the side of
+our hero. He held in his hand some surgeon's instruments and bandages,
+with which he hastily attended to his wounds. The lady asked several
+questions, and then, turning to the old gentleman, said, "Dear uncle,
+may I be generous at your expense?" taking off the coat that she was
+wearing as she spoke, and laying it softly above him. As he tried to
+open his mouth to stammer out some words of gratitude to the beautiful
+Amazon, the impression of her presence worked so strongly on his senses
+that all at once it seemed to him that her head was encircled with rays,
+and a glancing light seemed by degrees to spread itself all over her
+form. At this moment the surgeon gave him a sharper twinge; he lost
+consciousness; and on returning to himself the horsemen and coaches, the
+fair one and her attendants, had vanished like a dream.
+
+
+_II.--A Message from the Dead_
+
+
+Wilhelm's wounds were slow to heal, and it was long before he was able
+to move about freely again. When he fully recovered he went to his old
+friend, Serlo, and obtained a position in his company, both for himself,
+and also for many of his companions in misfortune.
+
+With Serlo he remained for a considerable period, until an untoward
+event led to his leaving him. Aurelia, Serlo's sister, had long
+entertained an affection for a nobleman, whom she knew by the name of
+Lothario; though at one time much attached to her, his affection had
+cooled off, and for a long time now he had not had any communication
+with her. Heartbroken at this treatment, though still devotedly attached
+to him, she gradually pined away, and complete neglect of her health
+finally brought her to her death-bed. Before she died, however, she
+wrote a letter of farewell to him, which she entrusted to Wilhelm to
+deliver as soon after her death as possible.
+
+Arrived at the castle where the baron lived, he found his lordship
+unable to give him any attention that day, as he was engaged to fight a
+duel, and was busy settling up his affairs in preparation. Wilhelm was
+requested to remain until a more convenient season. On the following
+morning, while the company were seated at breakfast, the baron was
+brought back in a carriage, seriously wounded.
+
+As the surgeon came out from attending him, the band hanging from his
+pouch caught Wilhelm's eye; he fancied that he knew it. He was convinced
+that he beheld the very pouch of the surgeon who had dressed his wounds
+in the forest, and the hope, so long deferred, of again finding his
+lovely Amazon struck like a flame through his soul.
+
+The abbé entered from Lothario's chamber, and said to Wilhelm, "The
+baron bids me ask you to remain here to share his hospitality, and, in
+the present circumstances, to contribute to his solacement."
+
+From this hour our friend was treated in the house as if he belonged to
+it.
+
+"We have a kindness to ask of you," said Jarno, the baron's confidential
+companion, to Wilhelm one morning. "The violent, unreasonable love and
+passionateness of the Lady Lydia only hinder the baron's recovery. She
+must be removed by some means. His wound requires rest and calmness; you
+see how she tortures him with her tempestuous anxieties, her
+ungovernable terrors, her never-drying tears. Enough! Our doctor
+expressly requires that she should quit us for a while; we have
+persuaded her to pay a visit to a lady, an old friend of hers; it will
+be your task to escort her, as you can best be spared."
+
+"I willingly undertake the charge," said Wilhelm, "though it is easy to
+foresee the pain I shall have to suffer from the tears, the despair, of
+Lydia."
+
+"And for this no small reward awaits you," said Jarno. "Fraulein
+Theresa, with whom you will get acquainted, is a lady such as you will
+rarely see. Indeed, were it not for an unfortunate passage between her
+mother and the baron, she would long since have been married to his
+lordship."
+
+When they returned from their visit, Lothario was in the way of full
+recovery. He was now for the first time able to talk with Wilhelm about
+the sad cause that had brought him to the castle. "You may, however,
+well forgive me," he said, with a smile, "that I forsook Aurelia for
+Theresa; with the one I could expect a calm and cheerful life, with the
+other not a happy hour."
+
+"I confess," said Wilhelm, "that in coming hither I had no small anger
+in my heart against you, that I proposed to censure with severity your
+conduct towards Aurelia. But, at the grave in which the hapless mother
+sleeps, let me ask you why you acknowledge not the child--a son in whom
+any father might rejoice and whom you appear entirely to overlook. With
+your tender nature, how can you altogether cast away the instinct of a
+parent?"
+
+"Of whom do you speak?" said Lothario. "I do not understand you."
+
+"Of whom but your son, Aurelia's son, the lovely child to whose good
+fortune there is nothing wanting but that a tender father should
+acknowledge and receive him."
+
+"You mistake, my friend," said Lothario; "Aurelia never had a son. I
+know of no child, or I would gladly acknowledge it. But did she ever
+give you to believe that the boy was hers--was mine?"
+
+"I cannot recollect that I ever heard a word from her expressly on the
+subject, but we took it so, and I never for a moment doubted it."
+
+"I can give you a clue to this perplexity," interposed Jarno. "An old
+woman, whom Wilhelm must have noticed, gave Aurelia the child, telling
+her that it was yours. She accepted it eagerly, hoping to alleviate her
+sorrows by its presence; and, in truth, it gave her many a comfortable
+hour."
+
+This discovery awoke anxieties in Wilhelm. He thought of the beautiful
+child Felix with the liveliest apprehension, and expressed his wish to
+remove him from the state in which he was.
+
+"We can soon arrange that," said Lothario. "I think you ought yourself
+to take charge of him; what in us the women leave uncultivated, children
+cultivate when we retain them near us."
+
+It was agreed to lose no time in putting this plan into execution, and
+Wilhelm departed forthwith to fetch the child.
+
+Passing through the house, he found Aurelia's old serving-maid, whom he
+had never seen at close quarters before, employed in sewing. Felix and
+Mignon were sitting by her on the floor.
+
+"Art thou the person," he demanded earnestly, "from whom Aurelia
+received this child?"
+
+She looked up, and turned her face to him; he saw her in full light, and
+started back in terror. It was old Barbara!
+
+"Where is Mariana?" cried he.
+
+"Far from here."
+
+"And Felix?"
+
+"Is the son of that unhappy and too tender-hearted girl. Here are
+Mariana's last words," she added, handing him a letter.
+
+"She is dead?" cried he.
+
+"Dead," said the old woman.
+
+A bitter grief took hold of Wilhelm; he could scarcely read the words
+that Barbara placed before him.
+
+"If this should reach thee, then lament thine ill-starred friend. The
+boy, whose birth I survived but a few days, is thine. I die faithful to
+thee, much as appearances may be against me; with thee I lost everything
+that bound me to life. This will be my only comfort, that though I
+cannot call myself blameless, towards thee I am free from blame."
+
+Wilhelm was stupified by this news. He removed the children from
+Barbara's care, and took them both back with him to Lothario's castle.
+Felix he kept with him, while Mignon, who was not in the best of health,
+was sent by the baron to the house of his sister, at some distance.
+
+
+_III.--Wilhelm's Apprenticeship_
+
+
+One evening Jarno said to Wilhelm, "We can now consider you as one of
+ourselves with such security that it were unjust not to introduce you
+deeper into our mysteries. You shall see what a curious little world is
+at your very hand, and how well you are known in it." He led our friend
+through certain unknown chambers and galleries of the castle to a door,
+strongly framed with iron. Jarno knocked; the door opened a little, so
+as to admit one person. Jarno introduced our friend, but did not follow
+him.
+
+Within was complete darkness. A voice cried "Enter"; he pressed forward
+and found that only tapestry was hemming him in. Raising this, he
+entered. Within, he found a man, who said, in a tone of dignity, "To
+guard from error is not the instructor's duty, but to lead the erring
+pupil; nay, let him quaff his error in deep, satiating draughts; he who
+only tastes his error will long dwell with it; he who drains it to the
+dregs will, if he be not crazy, find it out."
+
+A curtain closed before the figure, whom Wilhelm vaguely recollected as
+having seen at some time previously; possibly on the night when he had
+parted from Mariana. Then the curtain opened again; another figure
+advanced, "Learn to know the men who may be trusted," he said, and again
+the curtain closed. "Dispute not with us," cried a voice; "thou art
+saved, thou art on the way to the goal. None of thy follies wilt thou
+repent; none wilt thou wish to repeat."
+
+The curtain opened; the abbé came into view. "Come hither," he cried to
+his marvelling friend. Wilhelm mounted the steps. On the table lay a
+little roll.
+
+"Here is your indenture," said the abbé. "Take it to heart; it is of
+weighty import." Wilhelm opened it, and read:
+
+     "_INDENTURE_.
+
+     "_Art is long, life short, judgment difficult, opportunity
+     transient. To act is easy, to think is hard, to act according
+     to our thought is troublesome. It is but a part of art that
+     can be taught; the artist needs it all. Who knows it half,
+     speaks much, and is always wrong; who knows it all, speaks
+     seldom, and is inclined to act. No one knows what he is doing
+     while he acts aright; but of wrong-doing we are always
+     conscious. The instruction which the true artist gives us
+     opens the mind, for where words fail him, deeds speak. The
+     true scholar learns from the known to unfold the unknown, and
+     approaches more and more to being a master_----"
+
+"Enough," cried the abbé; "the rest in due time. Now look round you
+among these cases." With astonishment Wilhelm found, among others,
+"_Lothario's Apprenticeship," "Jarno's Apprenticeship_," and his own
+"_Apprenticeship_" placed there. "May I hope to look into these rolls?"
+
+"In this chamber nothing is now hid from you."
+
+Wilhelm heard a noise behind him, and saw a child's face peeping through
+the tapestry at the end of the room. It was Felix. His father rushed
+towards him, took him in his arms, and pressed him to his heart.
+
+"Yes, I feel it," cried he. "Thou art mine. For what a gift of Heaven
+have I to thank my friends! How comest thou, my child, at this important
+moment?"
+
+"Ask not," said the abbé. "Hail, young man! Thy apprenticeship is done;
+nature has pronounced thee free."
+
+After sorrow, often and in vain repeated, for the loss of Mariana,
+Wilhelm felt that he must find a mother for the boy; and also, that he
+could not find one equal to Theresa. With this gifted lady he was now
+thoroughly acquainted. Such a spouse and helpmate seemed the only one to
+trust to in such circumstances. Her affection for Lothario did not make
+him hesitate; she looked on herself as free; she had even spoken of
+marrying, with indifference, indeed, but as a matter understood.
+
+Before Theresa's answer came to hand, Lothario sent for our friend. "My
+sister Natalia bids me beg of you to go to her as soon as possible. Poor
+Mignon seems to be getting steadily worse, and it is thought that your
+presence might allay the malady." Wilhelm agreed, and proceeded on the
+journey.
+
+
+_IV.--Heart Against Reason_
+
+
+Behind a light screen, which threw a shadow on her, sat a young lady,
+reading; she rose and came to him. It was the Amazon! Unable to restrain
+himself, he fell on his knee and cried "It is she!" He seized her hand,
+and kissed it with unbounded rapture.
+
+A day or two later, the following letter from Theresa was handed to
+Wilhelm.
+
+"I am yours, as I am, and as you know me. I call you mine, as you are,
+and as I know you. As it is no passion, but trust and inclination for
+each other, that leads us together, we run less risk than thousands of
+others. You will forgive me, will you not, if I still think often and
+kindly of my former friend; in return, I will press Felix to my heart,
+as if I were his mother. Adieu, dear friend! Theresa clasps you to her
+breast with hope and joy."
+
+Natalia wrote a letter to her brother; she invited Wilhelm to add a word
+or two. They were just about to seal it, when Jarno unexpectedly came
+in.
+
+"I am come," he said, "to give you very curious and pleasing tidings
+about Theresa; now guess."
+
+"We are more skilful than you think," said Natalia, smiling. "Before you
+asked, we had the answer down in black and white," handing him as she
+spoke the letter she had just written. Jarno read the sheet hastily.
+"What shall I say?" cried he. "Surprise against surprise! I came to tell
+you that Theresa is not the daughter of her reputed mother. There is no
+obstacle to her marriage with Lothario: _I came to ask you to prepare
+her for it_."
+
+"And what," said Lothario, taking Wilhelm by the hand, "what if your
+alliance with my sister were the secret article on which depended my
+alliance with Theresa? These amends the noble maiden has appointed for
+you; she has vowed that we two pairs should appear together at the
+altar. 'His reason has made choice of me,' she said; 'his heart demands
+Natalia: my reason shall assist his heart.'"
+
+Lothario embraced his friend, and led him to Natalia, who, with Theresa,
+came to meet them. "To my mind, thou resemblest Saul, the son of Kish,
+who went out to seek his father's asses, and found a kingdom."
+
+"I know not the worth of a kingdom," said Wilhelm, "but I know that I
+have attained a happiness undeserved, which I would not change for
+anything in life."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+OLIVER GOLDSMITH
+
+
+The Vicar of Wakefield
+
+
+     Oliver Goldsmith, the most versatile and perhaps the most
+     unstable of eighteenth century men of letters, was born in
+     Ireland on November 10, 1728. At Trinity College, Dublin, he
+     revealed three characteristics that clung to him throughout
+     his career--high spirits, conversational brilliance, and
+     inability to keep money in his pocket. After a spell of
+     "philosophic vagabondage" on the Continent, he settled in
+     London in 1756, earned money in various ways, and spent it
+     all. "The Vicar of Wakefield," perhaps the greatest of all
+     Goldsmith's works, was published on March 27, 1766, after Dr.
+     Johnson had raised £60 for him on the manuscript of it. The
+     liveliness and grace of Goldsmith's style were never more
+     plainly manifested than in this delightful story; and its
+     faults--it contains many coincidences and improbabilities--are
+     far more than atoned for by the masterly portrait of the
+     simple, manly, generous, and wholly lovable vicar who is the
+     central figure of the story. "It has," says Mitford, "the
+     truth of Richardson, without his minuteness, and the humour of
+     Fielding, without his grossness; if it yields to LeSage in the
+     diversified variety of his views of life, it far excels him in
+     the description of domestic virtues and the pleasing moral of
+     the tale." Goldsmith died on April 4, 1774. (See also Vol.
+     XVII.)
+
+
+_I.--Family Portraits_
+
+
+I was ever of opinion that the honest man who married and brought up a
+large family did more service than he who continued single and only
+talked of population. From this motive, I chose my wife, as she did her
+wedding-gown, not for a fine glossy surface, but such qualities as would
+wear well. There was nothing that could make us angry with the world or
+each other. We had no revolutions to fear, nor fatigues to undergo; all
+our adventures were by the fireside, and all our migrations from the
+blue bed to the brown.
+
+My children, as they were educated without softness, so they were at
+once well-formed and healthy; my four sons hardy and active, my two
+daughters beautiful and blooming. Olivia, the elder daughter, was open,
+sprightly, and commanding; Sophia's features were not so striking at
+first, but often did more certain execution, for they were soft, modest,
+and alluring.
+
+The profits of my living I made over to the orphans and widows of the
+clergy of our diocese; for, having a sufficient fortune of my own, I was
+careless of temporalities, and felt a secret pleasure in doing my duty
+without reward.
+
+My eldest son, George, just upon leaving college, fixed his affections
+upon Miss Arabella Wilmot, the daughter of a neighbouring clergyman, who
+was in circumstances to give her a large fortune. Mr. Wilmot was not
+averse to the match, but after the day for the nuptials had been fixed,
+I engaged in a dispute with him which threatened to interrupt our
+intended alliance. I have always maintained that it is unlawful for a
+priest of the Church of England, after the death of his first wife, to
+take a second; and I showed Mr. Wilmot a tract which I had written in
+defence of this principle. It was not till too late I discovered that he
+was violently attached to the contrary opinion, and with good reason;
+for he was at that time actually courting a fourth wife.
+
+While the controversy was hottest, a relation, with a face of concern,
+called me out.
+
+"The merchant in town," he said, "in whose hands your money was lodged
+has gone off, to avoid a statute of bankruptcy. Your fortune is now
+almost nothing."
+
+It would be useless to describe the sensations of my family when I
+divulged the news. Near a fortnight had passed before I attempted to
+restrain their affliction; for premature consolation is but the
+remembrance of sorrow. During this interval I determined to send my
+eldest son to London, and I accepted a small cure of fifteen pounds a
+year in a distant neighbourhood.
+
+The first day's journey brought us within thirty miles of our future
+retreat, and we put up at an obscure inn in a village by the way. At the
+inn was a gentleman who, the landlord told me, had been so liberal in
+his charity that he had no money left to pay his reckoning. I could not
+avoid expressing my concern at seeing a gentleman in such circumstances,
+and offered the stranger my purse. "I take it with all my heart, sir,"
+replied he, "and am glad that my late oversight has shown me that there
+are still some men like you." The stranger's conversation was so
+pleasing and instructive that we were rejoiced to hear that he was going
+the same way as ourselves.
+
+The next morning we all set forward together. Mr. Burchell and I
+lightened the fatigues of the road with philosophical disputes, and he
+also informed me to whom the different seats belonged that lay in our
+view.
+
+"That, Dr. Primrose," he said to me, pointing to a very magnificent
+house, "belongs to Mr. Thornhill, a young gentleman who enjoys a large
+fortune, though entirely dependent upon the will of his uncle, Sir
+William Thornhill."
+
+"What!" cried I, "is my young landlord, then, the nephew of one who is
+represented as a man of consummate benevolence?"
+
+At this point we were alarmed by the cries of my family, and I perceived
+my youngest daughter in the midst of a rapid stream, and struggling with
+the torrent; she must have certainly perished had not my companion
+instantly plunged in to her relief. Her gratitude may be more readily
+imagined than described; she thanked her deliverer more with looks than
+words. Soon afterwards Mr. Burchell took leave of us, and we pursued our
+journey to the place of our retreat.
+
+
+_II.--The Squire_
+
+
+At a small distance from our habitation was a seat overshaded by a hedge
+of hawthorn and honeysuckle. Here, when the weather was fine, and our
+labour soon finished, we usually sat together to enjoy an extensive
+landscape in the calm of the evening. On an afternoon about the
+beginning of autumn, when I had drawn out my family to the seat, dogs
+and horsemen swept past us with great swiftness. After them a young
+gentleman, of a more genteel appearance than the rest, came forward,
+and, instead of pursuing the chase, stopped short, and approached us
+with a careless, superior air. He let us know that his name was
+Thornhill, and that he was the owner of the estate that lay around us.
+As his address, though confident, was easy, we soon became more
+familiar; and the whole family seemed earnest to please him.
+
+As soon as he was gone, my wife gave the opinion that it was a most
+fortunate hit, and hoped again to see the day in which we might hold up
+our heads with the best of them.
+
+"For my part," cried Olivia, "I don't like him, he is so extremely
+impudent and familiar." I interpreted this speech by contrary, and found
+that Olivia secretly admired him.
+
+"To confess the truth," said I, "he has not prepossessed me in his
+favour. I had heard that he was particularly remarkable for
+faithlessness to the fair sex."
+
+A few days afterwards we entertained our young landlord at dinner, and
+it may be easily supposed what provisions were exhausted to make an
+appearance. As he directed his looks and conversation to Olivia, it was
+no longer doubted but that she was the object that induced him to be our
+visitor; and my wife exulted in her daughter's victory as if it were her
+own.
+
+On one evening Mr. Thornhill came with two young ladies, richly dressed,
+whom he introduced as women of very great distinction and fashion from
+town. The two ladies threw my girls quite into the shade, for they would
+talk of nothing but high life and high-lived company. 'Tis true, they
+once or twice mortified us sensibly by slipping out an oath; their
+finery, however, threw a veil over any grossness in their conversation.
+
+I now began to find that all my long and painful lectures upon
+temperance, simplicity, and contentment were entirely disregarded. The
+distinctions lately paid us by our betters awakened that pride which I
+had laid asleep, but not removed. When the two ladies of quality showed
+a willingness to take our girls to town with them as companions, my wife
+was overjoyed at our good fortune. But Mr. Burchell, who had at first
+been a welcome guest at our house, but had become less welcome since we
+had been favoured with the company of persons of superior station,
+dissuaded her with great ardour, and so angered her that she ended by
+asking him to stay away.
+
+Returning home one day, I found my wife and girls all in tears, Mr.
+Thornhill having been there to inform them that their journey to town
+was entirely over. The two ladies, having heard reports of us from some
+malicious person, were that day set out for London. We were not long in
+finding who it was that had been so base as to asperse the character of
+a family so harmless as ours. One of our boys found a letter-case which
+we knew to belong to Mr. Burchell. Within it was a sealed note,
+superscribed, "The copy of a letter to be sent to the two ladies at
+Thornhill Castle." At the joint solicitation of the family, I opened it,
+and read as follows:
+
+"Ladies,--I am informed that you have some intention of bringing two
+young ladies to town, whom I have some knowledge of, under the character
+of companions. As I would neither have simplicity imposed upon nor
+virtue contaminated, I must offer it as my opinion that the impropriety
+of such a step will be attended with dangerous consequences. Take
+therefore, the admonition of a friend, and seriously reflect on the
+consequences of introducing infamy and vice into retreats where peace
+and innocence have hitherto resided."
+
+Our doubts were now at an end. It appeared to me one of the vilest
+instances of unprovoked ingratitude I had ever met with. As we set
+ruminating upon schemes of vengeance, Mr. Burchell himself entered and
+sat down.
+
+"Do you know this, sir--this pocket-book?" said I.
+
+"Yes, sir," returned he, with a face of impenetrable assurance.
+
+"And do you know this letter?"
+
+"Yes; it was I that wrote that letter."
+
+"And how could you so basely presume to write this letter?"
+
+"And how came you," replied he, with looks of unparalleled effrontery,
+"so basely to presume to open this letter?"
+
+I could scarcely govern my passion. "Ungrateful wretch!" I cried.
+"Begone, and no longer pollute my dwelling with thy baseness!"
+
+So saying, I threw him his pocket-book, which he took up with a smile,
+and left us astonished at the serenity of his assurance.
+
+
+_III.--The Elopement_
+
+
+The visits of Mr. Thornhill now became more frequent and longer; but all
+the schemes of Olivia and her mother to bring him to a declaration came
+to nothing. And although Olivia considered his fine sentiments as
+instances of the most exalted passion, it seemed to me plain that they
+had more of love than matrimony in them.
+
+One evening as I sat by the fireside, thanking Heaven for tranquillity,
+health, and competence, and thinking myself happier than the greatest
+monarch upon earth, I noticed that Olivia was absent.
+
+"Where is my darling Olivia?" I asked. Just as I spoke, my boy Dick came
+running in.
+
+"Oh, papa, papa, she is gone from us; she is gone from us for ever!"
+
+"Gone, child?"
+
+"Yes; she is gone off with two gentlemen in a postchaise, and one of
+them kissed her. And she cried very much, but he persuaded her, and she
+went into the chaise."
+
+"Now, then," cried I, "may Heaven's everlasting fury light upon him and
+his! Thus to rob me of my child! Bring me my pistols; I'll pursue the
+traitor. Old as I am, he shall find I can sting him yet--the perfidious
+villain!"
+
+My poor wife caught me in her arms.
+
+"Indeed, sir," said my son Moses, "your rage is too violent."
+
+"I did not curse him, child, did I?"
+
+"Indeed, sir, you did."
+
+"Then may Heaven forgive me and him. But it is not--it is not a small
+distress that can wring tears from these old eyes. My child--to undo my
+darling! May confusion seize--Heaven forgive me! What am I about to say?
+Had she but died! My son, bring hither my Bible and my staff. I will
+pursue her; and though I cannot save her from shame, I may prevent the
+continuance of her iniquity."
+
+My suspicions fell entirely upon our young landlord, whose character for
+such intrigues was but too well known. I therefore directed my steps
+towards Thornhill Castle. He soon appeared, with the most open, familiar
+air, and seemed perfectly amazed at my daughter's elopement, protesting
+upon his honour that he was quite a stranger to it. A man, however,
+averred that my daughter and Mr. Burchell had been seen driving very
+fast towards the Wells, about thirty miles distant.
+
+I walked towards the Wells with earnestness, and on entering the town I
+was met by a person on horseback, whom I remembered to have seen at the
+squire's, and he assured me that if I followed them to the races, which
+were but thirty miles further, I might depend upon overtaking them.
+
+Early the next day I walked forward to the races, but saw nothing of my
+daughter or of Mr. Burchell.
+
+The agitations of my mind, and the fatigues I had undergone, now threw
+me into a fever. I retired to a little ale-house by the roadside, and
+here I languished for nearly three weeks.
+
+The night coming on as I was twenty miles from home on my return
+journey, I put up at a little public-house, and asked for the landlord's
+company over a pint of wine. I could hear the landlady upstairs bitterly
+reproaching a lodger who could not pay.
+
+"Out, I say," she cried; "pack out this moment!"
+
+"Oh, dear madame," replied the stranger, "pity a poor, abandoned
+creature for one night and death will soon do the rest!"
+
+I instantly knew the voice of my poor ruined child, Olivia, and flew to
+her rescue.
+
+"Welcome, anyway welcome, my dearest lost one, to your poor old father's
+bosom!"
+
+"Oh, my own dear"--for minutes she could say no more--"my own dearest,
+good papa! You can't forgive me--I know you cannot!"
+
+"Yes, my child, from my heart I do forgive thee." After we had talked
+ourselves into some tranquillity, I said, "It surprises me how a person
+of Mr. Burchell's seeming honour could be guilty of such deliberate
+baseness."
+
+"My dear papa," returned my daughter, "you labour under a strange
+mistake. It is Mr. Thornhill who has ruined me; who employed the two
+ladies, as he called them, but who, in fact, were abandoned women of the
+town, to decoy us up to London. Their artifices would certainly have
+succeeded but for Mr. Burchell's letter, who directed those reproaches
+at them which we all applied to ourselves."
+
+"You amaze me, my dear!" cried I. "But tell me, what temptation was it
+that could thus obliterate your virtue?"
+
+"He offered me marriage," replied she. "We were indeed married secretly
+by a popish priest, whose name I was sworn to conceal."
+
+"What!" interrupted I. "And were you indeed married?"
+
+"Alas!" she said, "he has been married already by the same priest to six
+or eight wives more, whom, like me, he has deceived and abandoned."
+
+"Have patience, my child," cried I, "and I hope things will yet be
+better. To-morrow I'll carry you home to your mother. Poor woman, this
+has gone to her heart; but she loves you still, Olivia, and will forget
+it."
+
+
+_IV.--Fresh Calamities_
+
+
+It was late the next night when I approached my own home. I had left
+Olivia at an inn five miles away, intending to prepare my family for her
+reception. To my amazement, I saw the house bursting out into a blaze of
+fire, and every aperture red with conflagration! I gave a loud
+convulsive outcry, which alarmed my son, and all my family ran out, wild
+with apprehension. Our neighbours came running to our assistance; but
+the flames had taken too strong a hold to be extinguished, and all the
+neighbours could do was to stand spectators of the calamity. They
+brought us clothes and furnished one of our outhouses with kitchen
+utensils; so that by daylight we had another, though a wretched,
+dwelling to retire to.
+
+In the midst of this affliction our poor lost one returned to us. "Ah,
+madam," cried her mother, "this is but a poor place to come to after so
+much finery! I can afford but little entertainment to persons who have
+kept company only with persons of distinction; but I hope Heaven will
+forgive you."
+
+The unhappy victim stood pale and trembling, unable to weep or to reply.
+
+"I entreat, woman," I said to my wife, with severity in my voice and
+manner, "that my words may be now marked once for all. I have here
+brought you back a poor deluded wanderer--her return to duty demands the
+revival of our tenderness. The real hardships of life are now coming
+fast upon us; let us not increase them by dissensions among each other.
+The kindness of Heaven is promised to the penitent, and let ours be
+directed by the example."
+
+My daughter's grief, however, seemed formed for continuing, and her
+wretchedness was increased by the news that Mr. Thornhill was going to
+be married to the rich Miss Wilmot, who had formerly been betrothed to
+my eldest son.
+
+On a morning of peculiar warmth for the season, when we were
+breakfasting out of doors, Mr. Thornhill drove up in his chariot,
+alighted, and inquired after my health with his usual air of
+familiarity.
+
+"Sir," replied I, "your present assurance only serves to aggravate your
+baseness."
+
+"My dear sir," returned he, "I cannot understand what this means!"
+
+"Go!" cried I. "Thou art a poor, pitiful wretch, and every way a liar;
+but your meanness secures you from my anger!"
+
+"I find," he said, "you are bent upon obliging me to talk in a harsher
+manner than I intended. My steward talks of driving for the rent, and it
+is certain he knows his duty. Yet, still, I could wish to serve you, and
+even to have you and your daughter present at my marriage."
+
+"Mr. Thornhill," replied I, "as to your marriage with any but my
+daughter, that I never will consent to! And though your friendship could
+raise me to a throne, or your resentment sink me to the grave, yet would
+I despise both."
+
+"Depend upon it," returned he, "you shall feel the effects of this
+insolence," and departed abruptly.
+
+On the very next morning his steward came to demand my annual rent,
+which, by reason of the accidents already related, I was unable to pay.
+On the following day two officers of justice took me to the county gaol.
+
+There is no situation, however wretched it seems, but has some sort of
+comfort attending it; and I found mine in the help and kindness of a
+fellow-prisoner, Mr. Jenkinson by name, who was awaiting trial for
+several acts of cheating and roguery. I myself, indeed, had been one of
+his victims.
+
+The fortune of my family, who were lodged in the town, was wholly and
+distressingly adverse. Olivia was ill, and longed for me to make my
+submission to Mr. Thornhill by approving his marriage with Miss Wilmot.
+When I had been confined a fortnight, Mr. Jenkinson brought me dreadful
+news--Olivia was dead! And while yet my grief was fresh upon me my wife
+came weeping to tell me that Sophia had been seized by ruffians and
+carried off.
+
+The sum of my miseries, thought, I, is now made up; nor is it in the
+power of anything on earth to give me another pang. Yet another awaited
+me. My eldest son, George, to whom I had written, went to Thornhill
+Castle to punish our betrayer; he was attacked by the coward's servants,
+injured one of them, and was brought into the very prison where I was
+confined.
+
+The enemy of my family had now triumphed completely. My only hope was in
+a letter I had written to Sir William Thornhill, telling him of the
+misdeeds of his nephew. I was by this time myself extremely ill. I
+sought to break from my heart all ties that bound it to earth, and to
+fit myself for eternity.
+
+
+_V.--The Rescue_
+
+
+On parting from my unhappy son, who was removed to a stronger cell, I
+laid me down in bed, when Mr. Jenkinson, entering, informed me that
+there was news of my daughter. He had scarcely delivered his message
+when my dearest girl entered with Mr. Burchell.
+
+"Here, papa," she cried, "here is the brave man to whom I owe my
+delivery; to this gentleman's intrepidity--"
+
+A kiss from Mr. Burchell interrupted what she was going to add.
+
+"Ah, Mr. Burchell," said I, "you were ever our friend. We have long
+discovered our errors with regard to you, and repented our ingratitude.
+And now, as you have delivered my girl, if you think her a recompense,
+she is yours."
+
+"But I suppose, sir," he replied, "you are apprised of my incapacity to
+support her as she deserves?"
+
+"I know no man," I returned, "so worthy to deserve her as you."
+
+Without the least reply to my offer, he ordered from the next inn the
+best dinner that could be provided. While we were at dinner, the gaoler
+brought a message from Mr. Thornhill, desiring permission to appear
+before his uncle in order to vindicate his innocence and honour. The
+poor, harmless Mr. Burchell, then, was in reality the celebrated Sir
+William Thornhill!
+
+Mr. Thornhill entered with a smile, and was going to embrace his uncle.
+
+"No fawning, sir, at present," cried the baronet. "The only way to my
+heart is by the road of honour; but here I only see complicated
+instances of falsehood, cowardice, and oppression."
+
+At this moment Jenkinson and the gaoler's two servants entered, hauling
+in a tall man very genteelly dressed. As soon as Mr. Thornhill perceived
+the prisoner and Mr. Jenkinson, he seemed to shrink backward with
+terror, for this was the man whom he had put upon the carrying off of
+Sophia.
+
+"Heavens," cried Sir William, "what a viper have I been fostering in my
+bosom!"
+
+"As Mr. Thornhill and I have been old fellow-sporters," said Jenkinson,
+"I have a friendship for him; and I hope he will show a proper return of
+friendship to his own honest Jenkinson, who brings him a wife."
+
+So saying, he went off and left us.
+
+"I am surprised," said the baronet, "what he can intend by this?"
+
+"When we reflect," I replied, "on the various schemes--Amazement! Do I
+see my lost daughter? It is--it is my Olivia!"
+
+"As for you, squire," said Jenkinson, "this young lady is your lawful
+wedded wife. Here is the licence to prove it. He commissioned me,
+gentlemen," he continued, "to procure him a false licence and a false
+priest in order to deceive this young lady. What did I do, but went and
+got a true licence and a true priest. To my shame, I confess it, my only
+design was to keep the licence and let the squire know that I could
+prove it upon him whenever I wanted money."
+
+"How could you," I cried, "add to my miseries by the story of her
+death?"
+
+"That," replied Jenkinson, "is easily answered. I thought the only
+probable means of freeing you from prison was by submitting to the
+squire, and consenting to his marriage with the other young lady. But
+this you had vowed never to grant while your daughter was living, so I
+had to join with your wife in persuading you that she was dead."
+
+Mr. Thornhill's assurance had now entirely forsaken him. He fell on his
+knees before his uncle, and implored compassion.
+
+"Thy vices, crimes, and ingratitude," said the baronet, "deserve no
+compassion; but a bare competence shall be supplied thee, and thy wife
+shall possess a third part of that fortune which once was thine." Then,
+turning to Sophia, he caught her to his breast with ardour. "I have
+sought," he cried, "for a woman who, a stranger to my fortune, could
+think I had merit as a man. How great must be my rapture to have made a
+conquest over such sense and such heavenly beauty!"
+
+On the next day Sophia was wedded to Sir William Thornhill; and my son
+George, now freed from justice, as the person supposed to be wounded by
+him was detected to be an impostor, led Miss Wilmot to the altar. As
+soon as I had awakened that morning, I had heard that my merchant had
+been arrested at Antwerp, and that my fortune had been restored to me.
+
+It may not be improper to observe, with respect to Mr. Thornhill, that
+he now resides as companion at a relation's house. My eldest daughter
+has told me that when he reforms she may be brought to relent.
+
+I had now nothing on this side of the grave to wish for. All my cares
+were over. It only remained that my gratitude in good fortune should
+exceed my submission in adversity.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+EDMOND AND JULES DE GONCOURT
+
+
+Renée Mauperin
+
+
+     Edmond de Goncourt, born at Nancy on May 26, 1822, and his
+     brother Jules, born in Paris on December 17, 1830, were
+     primarily artists, who, while wandering over France, knapsack
+     on back, discovered that their note-books also made them
+     writers. In 1850 they entered upon a literary partnership
+     which only finished with the death of the younger brother on
+     June 20, 1870. Their earliest literary endeavours consisted of
+     a series of historical studies dealing with the France of the
+     second half of the eighteenth century. It was not until 1860,
+     with the publication of their first novel, "Les Hommes de
+     Lettres," that they discovered their true bent lay in fiction.
+     "Renée Mauperin," which is, perhaps, the best known of their
+     books, was published in 1864. As a psychological analysis of
+     contemporaneous youth, it is probably without its equal in
+     French fiction. "The plot of the story," wrote Edmond de
+     Goncourt, "is secondary. The authors have rather preferred to
+     paint the modern young woman as she is: the product of the
+     artistic and masculine system of education in force during the
+     last thirty years. We have also attempted to portray the
+     modern young college man influenced by the republican ideas of
+     the time since Louis Philippe." Edmond de Goncourt died on
+     July 16, 1896.
+
+
+_I.--A Wayward Girl_
+
+
+"Yes, I love riding and hunting. I never miss a meet. The wind blowing
+through one's hair, the hounds, the horns, the trees flying past you--it
+is intoxicating! In those moments I feel brave. Life has few other
+pleasures for a well-brought-up girl like me. Everything is shocking! I
+dance, yes ... but do you think I am allowed to talk to my partner? Yes,
+no, no, yes--that's all! That's proper. And I am allowed to read if the
+books and articles are proper. I paint in oils, and that shocks my
+family; a young lady must not go beyond copying roses in water-colours.
+Isn't the current strong here?"
+
+Renée Mauperin and young Reverchon, her parent's guest, were swimming in
+the Seine.
+
+"How beautiful!" exclaimed the girl, as she noticed the evening sun
+gilding the river and the banks where country and suburb merged into
+each other.
+
+"You are an artist by nature, mademoiselle."
+
+"Ouf!" she exclaimed with a comic intonation.
+
+A boat approached.
+
+"Well, Renée, how is the water?" asked one of the rowers.
+
+"Splendid, thanks, Denoisel," she replied, as she mounted the steps
+lowered for her.
+
+"I was almost getting nervous for you. And Reverchon? Ah, there he is!"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Renée was the youngest daughter of a distinguished Napoleonic officer,
+who, at the time of the revolution of 1830, was elected deputy, and
+fought with all his ardour for the Liberal cause, but who subsequently,
+at the urging of his wife, a tyrannical conventional member of the
+_bourgeois_, retired from the world of politics and established a sugar
+refinery, so as to be able to provide suitably for his three children.
+
+The first two, a boy born in 1826 and a daughter in 1827, were a
+disappointment to the old soldier. They were too reasonable, too
+"grown-up" before they were children, but in Renée, who was born after
+an interval of eight years, M. Mauperin found ample consolation. His
+heart revelled in her pranks and merry laughter, and she grew up the pet
+of her father, whose affection she returned with all her heart. She was
+now twenty; her brother Henri, serious, studious, plodding and
+determined to make a career, was a lawyer, and had made some reputation
+by his articles on statistical subjects; and Henriette, her elder
+sister, had found a husband in M. Davarande, whose wealth and position
+allowed her to devote herself to the life of empty amusement, divided
+mainly between long rounds of calls, the opera, and the Bois, which
+filled the days of the moneyed Paris _bourgeoisie_ of that time.
+
+Madame Mauperin, delighted with Henriette's match, was anxious to find
+an equally suitable partner for Renée; but the high-spirited girl had a
+will of her own, and seemed to take almost a pleasure in crossing her
+mother's transparent matrimonial schemes. Quite a number of eligible
+young men had been introduced to the house at La Briche--and had left it
+without having furthered their suit. Reverchon had now been invited with
+similar intentions, and Renée was no more amenable than before. While
+her mother filled the young man's ears with praise of her
+accomplishments, the wayward girl, with her charming ingenuous talk, did
+her best to demonstrate her lack of those negative conventional virtues
+that were expected from a well-educated French girl in those days. She
+made Madame Mauperin turn first crimson, then pale, when she finally
+proceeded to cut Denoisel's hair in the drawing-room after dinner.
+
+Denoisel was the son of Mauperin's bosom friend, who had fought by his
+side in many battles, and who on his death-bed had made him his son's
+guardian. Mauperin became more than a guardian to the boy--he became his
+father. When Henri and Henriette were born, it seemed to Denoisel that
+he had been given a brother and sister; but he adored the baby Renée,
+and he alone succeeded in making her listen and obey.
+
+"Sometimes," said Henri to Denoisel as they travelled back to Paris, "my
+sister's follies are harmless enough; but to-night ... before that
+fellow ... I am sure the marriage will fall through. And such an
+excellent match!"
+
+"You think so? I began to fear for her. And that's why I lent myself to
+her prank. He is too hopelessly commonplace--a tailor's dummy! He would
+never have understood her. Your sister ought to marry a man of
+intelligence and character."
+
+And Madame Mauperin, as she prepared for bed, lectured her husband upon
+acceding to all his favourite's whims.
+
+"Another marriage missed! Henri spoke to me this evening. He is sure
+Reverchon will not have her."
+
+"Well, what of it?"
+
+"Why, he is the tenth! Renée will get an awful reputation. She will see
+when she is thirty ... and you too." Then, after a pause, "And now about
+your son. He is twenty-nine now. He, at any rate, has no objection to
+marriage. Have you ever thought of finding him a suitable wife?"
+
+She continued to talk and to grumble until Mauperin fell asleep.
+
+"Henri is reasonable enough, but he is a young man, and you know the
+danger. It's driving me mad! What do you think of trying Madame
+Rosiéres?"
+
+There was no reply. Madame Mauperin resigned herself to silence, and
+turned to find the sleep which only came with morning.
+
+
+_II.--Plots and Plays_
+
+
+Next morning Madame Mauperin proceeded to Paris, and drove to her son's
+apartments in the Rue Taitbout. She found him at work. After some
+beating about the bush she approached the object of her visit.
+
+"I fear," she began, "that you must have some reason for ..."
+
+"For not marrying, isn't it? My dear mother, you need not worry. I know
+that wealth is needed for a successful career, and that the best and
+most honourable way to obtain it is a good marriage. And I am determined
+to make a career. I shall get married soon enough... and better,
+perhaps, than you think."
+
+At La Briche, meanwhile, M. Mauperin vainly tried to be stern with his
+pet.
+
+"I have done it purposely," she said.
+
+"And why?"
+
+"Because I love you better than that young gentleman who was in no way
+sympathetic to me. You are ungrateful."
+
+"But listen, my dear child! Fathers are egotists, and would prefer to
+keep their children. But I am old, and I should not like to part without
+seeing you married, a mother, with affections that will replace mine."
+
+"Oh, this is wicked! Never, never!" she exclaimed; "let me cry alone for
+a minute." And she left the room hurriedly.
+
+When she returned after a while, she found Denoisel in the room.
+
+"You have been out? And where have you been?"
+
+"Well, if you want to know, I have been to church to pray that I may die
+before father. I knelt before a statue of the Virgin. And, you may
+laugh, but it seemed to me that she nodded at my request. And it made me
+quite happy."
+
+The conversation drifted to gayer topics, and the two soon fell into
+their wonted tone of banter. "Tell me, Renée," said Denoisel, "have you
+never felt, I won't say love, but some sentiment for anybody?"
+
+"Never. That sort of thing only occurs when the heart is empty. But when
+it is defended by the affection one feels for a father--as a child I
+felt perhaps the beginning of that emotion of which one reads in novels.
+And do you know for whom?"
+
+"No."
+
+"For you. Oh, only for a moment. I soon loved you differently for having
+corrected the spoilt child of its faults, for having directed my
+attention to noble and beautiful things. And I resolved to repay you by
+true friendship."
+
+M. Mauperin entered the room, and interrupted the confidences.
+
+A few days later, Renée having set her mind upon playing in private
+theatricals, a discussion arose about the filling of the second lady's
+part in the play that had been chosen. One by one the names suggested
+were dismissed, until Henri said, "Why not ask Mlle. Bourjot? They are
+just staying at Sannois."
+
+"Noémi?" replied Renée. "I'd love it. But she, was so cold towards me
+last winter. I don't know why."
+
+"She will have £12,000 a year," interrupted Denoisel, "and her mother
+knows that you have a brother. And they are not a little proud of their
+money."
+
+Twelve thousand a year! Madame Mauperin thought of her son's future, and
+supported his suggestion. It was decided that they would call on the
+Bourjots on Saturday.
+
+To Sannois they went as arranged on the Saturday. They were received
+with effusion, and had to put up for an hour or so with the unbearable
+arrogance of their hosts' display of wealth. Renée's warm advances to
+the playmate of her childhood were received by Noémi with coolness, not
+to say reluctance, but the request that Noémi should take part in the
+theatricals met with her mother's approval, the shy girl's objections--
+nervousness, lack of talent, and so forth--being overruled by Madame
+Bourjot. Before the two families parted it was arranged that Noémi
+should be taken by her governess to attend the rehearsals at the
+Mauperins' house.
+
+Renée's whole-hearted friendliness and sparkling humour soon overcame
+Noémi's reserve, and under Denoisel's direction the amateur actors made
+rapid progress. Madame Bourjot herself came to one of the rehearsals,
+and, after the first compliments, expressed her surprise that Henri, the
+principal actor, was absent. "Oh, he has a wonderful memory," said his
+proud mother; "two rehearsals will set him right."
+
+At last the great day arrived. A stage had been arranged in the large
+drawing-room, which was filled to its utmost capacity, the ladies being
+seated in the long rows of chairs, the men standing behind and
+overflowing through open doors into the adjoining rooms. The play chosen
+was "The Caprice." Henri, who revealed rare talent, took the part of the
+husband; Noémi of the neglected wife. The curtain fell upon enthusiastic
+applause, and Madame Bourjot, who had feared that her daughter would be
+a fiasco, was delighted with her success. Amid the hum of voices she
+heard the lady sitting next to her say to her neighbour, "His sister, I
+know ... but for the part he is not sufficiently in love with her ...
+and too much with his wife. Did you notice?" she continued, in a
+whisper.
+
+In the second piece Henri appeared as Pierrot, Renée as the forsaken
+wife, and Noémi as the beloved. Henri played with real passion. From
+time to time his eyes seemed to search for Madame Bourjot's. Her
+neighbour felt her leaning against her shoulder. The curtain fell.
+Madame Bourjot swayed, and fell back in a faint.
+
+She was carried to the garden.
+
+"Leave me now," she said, "I am all right now; it was the heat. I only
+want a little air ... Let M. Henri stay with me."
+
+They were left alone.
+
+"You love her?" said Madame Bourjot, clutching Henri's arm. "I know
+all.... Have you nothing to say?"
+
+"Nothing. I have struggled for a year. I will not excuse myself. I owe
+you the truth. I love your daughter, it is true."
+
+Finally, Madame Bourjot rose and walked towards the house. Henri
+followed.
+
+"I count upon never seeing you again, sir," she said, without looking
+round. With a mighty effort she regained her composure, and walked back
+to the house on Henri's arm.
+
+
+_III.--Stint to Death by his Sister_
+
+
+It was Madame Bourjot herself who insisted upon seeing Henri again, and,
+since he did not answer her letter, she went to his apartments. The
+interview was painful, but she gave her consent to Henri's marriage with
+Noémi, and undertook to overcome M. Bourjot's possible objections, on
+condition that Henri should humour her husband's vanity by adopting a
+title--an easy matter enough. The Mauperins had a farm called
+Villacourt. Mauperin de Villacourt would do very well. Henri promised to
+see what he could do.
+
+Madame Bourjot and her daughter called on the Mauperins next day. The
+two girls were asked to leave their mothers to their talk, and to take a
+walk in the garden.
+
+"A secret!" said Renée, as soon as they were alone. "Can you guess it? I
+can--my brother. ... But you are crying. What is it, my darling Noémi?"
+
+"Oh, you don't know!" her friend sobbed. "I cannot--if you only
+knew----Save me! If I could only die!"
+
+"Die! But why?"
+
+"Because your brother is----" She stopped in horror at what she was
+about to say, then whispered the rest of her sentence into her ear, and
+hid her face on her friend's bosom.
+
+"You lie!" Renée pushed her back.
+
+"I?" Renée did not reply, but looked sadly and gently into Noémi's eyes.
+
+Renée doubted no longer. She was silent for a moment; she felt almost
+the duties of a mother towards this child.
+
+In the evening Henri was surprised to find his sister waiting in his
+room. She approached the subject of his impending marriage, and implored
+him, by his love for her, not to give up his name, and to break off the
+match.
+
+"Are you mad? Enough of this!"
+
+Renée fixed her eyes upon her brother.
+
+"Noémi has told me--everything!"
+
+Her cheeks flushed, Henri turned deathly pale.
+
+"My dear," he said, with a shaky voice, "you interfere in things which
+do not concern you. A young girl--" Then seizing her hand, he pointed
+towards the door, and said, "Go!"
+
+Renée was ill for a week, and Henri, knowing the cause, did his best to
+alleviate her suffering. Still, a coldness remained between them. He
+understood that she had forgiven the brother, but not the man. One day
+she accompanied Henri to town and went with him to the Record Office,
+where he had to make some inquiries about the legality of adopting his
+own name. While he was questioning the keeper, she overheard two clerks
+discuss her brother and his claim. "He thinks the Villacourt family is
+extinct. But he is misinformed, although they have gone down in the
+world. In fact, I know the heir to the title--a M. Boisjorand with whom
+I once had a fight when we were boys. They lived in the forest of the
+Croix-du-Soldat, near St. Mihiel, at La Motte-Noire." Renée fixed these
+names in her mind.
+
+"I have got all I want," said Henri, gaily coming towards her. And they
+went out together.
+
+The Bourjots were giving a great ball to celebrate the public
+announcement of the engagement of their daughter to M. Mauperin de
+Villacourt.
+
+"You are enjoying yourself," said Renée to Noémi.
+
+"I have never danced so much, it is true." And Noémi took her arm and
+drew her into a small salon. "No, never." She kissed her. "Oh, what it
+is to be happy! She loves him no longer. I am sure of it--I can see it;
+I feel it."
+
+"And you love him now?"
+
+Noémi closed her mouth by pressing her lips upon Renée's. A young man
+came to claim Noémi for the dance, and Denoisel requested the same
+favour from Renée.
+
+Denoisel was with Henri Mauperin. They were smoking and talking
+peacefully, when the door was thrust open, and a man forced his way in,
+pushing aside the valet who wanted to prevent him from entering.
+
+"M. Mauperin de Villacourt?" he asked.
+
+"That is my name," said Henri, rising.
+
+"Good. My name is Boisjorand de Villacourt," retorted the stranger,
+striking him so violently on the cheek that his face was immediately
+covered with blood. Henri conquered his first impulse to throw himself
+upon the intruder, and said calmly, "You find that there is one
+Villacourt too many--so do I. Leave your card with my servant. I shall
+send to you to-morrow."
+
+It was from a marked number of the "Moniteur," which the impoverished
+heir of the glorious name of De Villacourt found on his return from a
+two years' sojourn in Africa, that M. Boisjorand had learned that Henri
+had taken from him this name, which was all that had come down to him
+from his famous ancestors. He immediately proceeded to Paris and sought
+legal advice, but found that his poverty rendered legal action
+impossible. After his interview with the solicitor, he went straight to
+Henri's apartment to obtain the only satisfaction that was in his power.
+
+Denoisel and another friend of Henri's arranged with Boisjorand's
+seconds next morning the details of the meeting. Henri, who was an
+excellent shot, had insisted on pistols at thirty-five paces, each
+combatant to have the right to advance ten steps. The duel was to take
+place at four o'clock the same afternoon near the ponds of Ville
+d'Avray.
+
+Neither of the two adversaries showed a trace of nervousness. The signal
+was given, M. De Villacourt advanced five steps, Henri remaining
+stationary. At the sixth step Henri fired, and his opponent fell. Henri
+hurried towards him.
+
+"Back to your place," shouted the wounded man. On his hands and knees he
+crawled forward to the limit of his advance leaving a trail of blood in
+the snow. Then he took careful aim--and Henri fell with arms extended
+and his face towards the ground.
+
+
+_IV.--Broken Wanderers_
+
+
+To Denoisel fell the painful duty of informing Mauperin of his son's
+death. The old man's grief was heartbreaking. When Denoisel was admitted
+to Renée, he found her sitting on a footstool, sobbing, with her
+handkerchief pressed to her mouth.
+
+"Renée," he said, taking her hands, "he has been killed--that man should
+never have known. He did not read, he saw nobody, he lived like a
+wolf--he was not a subscriber to the 'Moniteur.' Some enemy must have
+sent him that paper."
+
+Renée had risen; she moved her lips; she wanted to scream "It was I!"
+Then, suddenly pressing her hand against her heart, she fell senseless
+on the floor.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Renée did not seem to recover from her illness. Denoisel saw her daily,
+but a certain coldness had set in between them--he thought that Renée
+held him responsible for not having prevented the duel, while Renée
+vaguely feared that Denoisel had guessed her secret. He started upon a
+long journey.
+
+In those days of illness and anxiety the hearts of father and daughter
+seemed to come together more closely even than before. The heartbroken
+old man saw his beloved child wasting away. He called in the best
+specialist from Paris, who did not exactly give up all hope, but did not
+conceal that Renée's life was in danger. The poor girl, who could not
+bear to witness her father's misery, put on a gay air, assuring him
+again and again that she was recovering. Indeed, when, at her urging,
+the family removed to the country house where she had spent her
+childhood, there was a real and marked improvement, and for a while the
+roses seemed to return to her pale cheeks.
+
+But she soon fell back into her listless state. Thus she lingered on for
+several months, always cheering her father and speaking of her happy
+future, always fading away until she became a mere shadow of her former
+bright and healthy self. Only to Denoisel, when after a long absence he
+returned from the Pyrenees, she opened her heart. To him she confessed
+that she knew her days were counted.
+
+Those who travel far afield have perhaps met in foreign towns or among
+the ruins of dead places--now in Russia, now in Egypt--two aged people,
+a man and a woman, who seem to march along without looking and without
+seeing. They are the Mauperins--father and mother.
+
+They have sold everything and have gone. Thus they wander from land to
+land, from hotel to hotel. They wander, trying to lose their grief in
+the fatigue of the road, dragging their weary life to all the corners of
+the globe.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+JAMES GRANT
+
+
+Bothwell
+
+
+     The author of "Bothwell," and many other romantic tales, was a
+     Scotsman by birth, parentage, and perfervid sentiment. He was
+     born at Edinburgh on August 1, 1822. His father was a
+     distinguished Highland officer; by his mother he was related
+     to his illustrious literary exemplar, Sir Walter Scott. He was
+     only twenty-three years of age when "The Romance of War" made
+     him one of the most famous authors of his day. Other tales
+     quickly followed, including, in 1853, "Bothwell, or The Days
+     of Mary Queen of Scots," and it seemed as if readers could
+     not have too much of the lively adventure and vigorous
+     historical portraiture to which Grant unfailingly treated
+     them. Altogether he wrote more than fifty novels, many of them
+     involving considerable research. Grant outlived his
+     popularity; the public sought new writers, and when he died,
+     on May 5, 1887, he was penniless. For fertility of incident,
+     rapid change of scene, and skilful intermingling of historical
+     with imaginary people and events, "Bothwell" is not surpassed
+     by any of the romances that came from its author's fertile
+     pen.
+
+
+_I.--Anna of Bergen_
+
+
+Erick Rosenkrantz, Governor of Aggerhuis, in Norway, and castellan of
+Bergen, stood in the hall of his castle to welcome noble guests. It was
+a bleak and stormy day in September of 1565. Ill, indeed, would it have
+fared with the newcomers had not Konrad of the Salzberg, the young
+captain of the crossbowmen of Bergen, ventured forth on the raging sea
+at the peril of his life, and piloted their vessel into safety.
+
+The first of these was a tall and handsome man, about thirty years old,
+with a peculiar, dare-devil expression in his deep, dark eye, richly
+attired, and wearing a long sword and Scottish dagger. His companion,
+who deferentially remained a few paces behind, was a man of gigantic
+stature, swarthy and dark in complexion, with fierce and restless eyes.
+
+"Sir Erick," began the chamberlain, "allow me to introduce Sir James
+Hepburn, Earl of Bothwell, a noble peer, ambassador from Mary Queen of
+Scots to his Danish majesty."
+
+"We thank you for your gracious hospitality, fair sir," said Bothwell,
+with a profound courtesy; then, turning to Konrad, "And now, brave
+youth, by whose valour we have been saved, let me thank _you_."
+
+He warmly shook Konrad's hand, while the youth tried to catch the eye of
+Anna, the governor's fair-haired and lovely niece. But Anna was too
+intently regarding the strangers.
+
+Suddenly Bothwell perceived her; his colour heightened, his eyes
+sparkled.
+
+"Anna--Lady Anna," he exclaimed, "art _thou_ here? When we parted at the
+palace of King Frederick, I feared it was to meet no more."
+
+"Thou seest, my lord," she replied gaily, "that fate never meant to
+separate us altogether."
+
+It was Bothwell who sat by Anna's side at the banquet, not Konrad, her
+lover from childhood. Konrad was displaced and slighted; he left the
+hall with a heart full of jealous and bitter thoughts.
+
+"Dost thou not see the hand of fate in this meeting with Anna?" said
+Bothwell, when retiring, to his gigantic companion, Black Hob of
+Ormiston, the most merciless and ferocious of border barons.
+
+"Nay," said Hob; "I perceive only the finger of mischief!"
+
+"I own to thee," replied the earl, "that all my old passion is revived
+in full force. My whole heart and soul are hers," he went on
+passionately.
+
+"Remember your solemn plight to the Lady Jane Gordon. If that be broken,
+our doleful case will be worse than ever." For Bothwell was no
+ambassador, but an exile; and his real mission to King Frederick was in
+pursuit of a design to hand over the northern Scottish isles to Denmark,
+and become viceroy of them.
+
+"Hob, be not insolent," retorted Bothwell. "I love her a thousand times
+more than Huntly's sickly sister."
+
+It was always thus with this reckless noble--the passion of the moment
+was ever too strong for past pledges and future policy. While waiting at
+Bergen for the ship to be repaired, he wooed Anna with all the skill of
+an accomplished man of pleasure.
+
+Anna's heart was ready to be won, and it was not long ere Bothwell,
+having gained her love, asked Governor Rosenkrantz for her hand. To his
+mortification, he was refused. Anna, said the governor, had long been
+pledged to Konrad.
+
+But Konrad, meanwhile, was in despair. Anna no longer smiled upon him;
+he was lightly cast aside to make way for a more favoured lover. One
+evening he was missing. A day and a night passed, and Konrad was nowhere
+to be seen. Search for him was useless--he had disappeared.
+
+Two letters were brought to Bothwell by a king's messenger. One was from
+King Frederick, commanding him to desist from his mock embassy, and
+instantly leave the Danish seas; the other, from the Earl of Huntly,
+told him that his enemies in Scotland were banished, and his forfeiture
+reversed.
+
+Bothwell's thoughts instantly turned to Anna. He knew that she would not
+accompany him unless he married her, and policy now more than ever
+required that he should keep his troth to the sister of his friend, the
+Earl of Huntly. Then there occurred to him the sinister thought of a
+mock marriage.
+
+His actions were quick, and his persuasions, to the love-sick Anna,
+irresistible. That evening the two were wedded by a crazy hermit who
+dwelt among the rocks of the fjord, and Anna, without a word of farewell
+to her kin, left her native land, it might be for ever.
+
+A stormy voyage brought the ship to Westeray, in Shetland. Bothwell
+escorted Anna to the castle of Noltland; and as she landed at the pier,
+a young man sprang forward and helped her across the plank. She felt
+agitated, she knew not why; she looked at the man's face, but it was
+concealed. It was Konrad. He had fallen over a cliff, had been carried
+out to sea on a plank, had been picked up by a ship which had carried
+him to Shetland, and had taken service with the castellan of Noltland.
+The unexpected sight of Anna brought back his emotions to their
+starting-point, and recalled the poignancy of the hour in which he had
+realised that he had lost her.
+
+
+_II.--Bothwell Castle_
+
+
+"I have resolved!" exclaimed the earl, on the morning after their
+arrival at Noltland. "I would be worse than mad to forego the prospect
+of power by marring my union with the sister of Huntly."
+
+"Cock and pie! now thou speakest like a man of mettle!" growled Hob.
+
+"Anna is not my first love," mused the earl. "Have I not felt how feeble
+have been my sentiments for Anna, for Jane of Huntly, for all who have
+succeeded her whom I met in France long ago?"
+
+"Then thou wilt sail----"
+
+"Yes, like Æneas, leaving my Dido behind me."
+
+With a pretence of the love he felt no longer, Bothwell bade Anna
+farewell, and left her to doubts which, as the months went on and his
+promise to return was not fulfilled, gradually rose to despair.
+
+During the decline of a spring evening, as Anna wandered dejectedly on
+the battlements, Konrad stood before her for the first time since her
+arrival at Noltland.
+
+"Konrad," she faltered, "thou here!"
+
+"Anna--dear Anna!" exclaimed the unhappy young man. "I have tidings to
+tell thee. The false lord of Bothwell hath been espoused to the sister
+of Huntly!"
+
+"And I--" gasped Anna.
+
+"Thou art a captive for life in this island castle!"
+
+Anna would have fallen backwards had Konrad not sprung to her
+assistance.
+
+"Listen," he said, in a low voice. "If thou wouldst escape, an hour will
+set thee free."
+
+"Yes, land me once in Scotland, and I will make my way to Bothwell."
+
+That night Anna was on a Norwegian vessel bound for Glasgow, and Konrad
+was with her. She could not, he knew, be his bride, but he could at
+least protect and cherish her, and strive to redress the wrongs she had
+suffered.
+
+A storm was gathering above the lovely valley of the Clyde one June
+evening as two strangers--a man and a woman--plodded wearily towards
+Bothwell Castle. The woman became wholly exhausted; the man laid her
+gently down in shelter among the ruins of Blantyre Priory, and went on
+his errand alone. The storm had now burst, and the river was rising
+rapidly; but Konrad--for it was he--plunged into the raging waters, and
+strove to swim across. The current was too strong for him; he clung to
+an ash tree that projected over the stream, and was nearly exhausted
+when a man on the bank flung down his mantle and poniard, plunged in,
+and dragged him to the shore.
+
+Konrad, almost senseless, was carried within the castle. When he had
+revived and was dressed in dry garments, he was brought before his
+rescuer--it was Bothwell himself.
+
+"I thank thee," said Konrad proudly, "for saving my life."
+
+"Thou didst save mine. We are now equal," replied the earl.
+
+"'Tis well! I would not be _thy_ debtor for all the silver in the mines
+of Bergen! Lord of Bothwell, I tell thee in thine own hall that thou art
+a dishonoured villain!"
+
+"Thou art stark mad!" cried the earl. Then he went on, "Konrad, I have
+wronged thee deeply. In my youth I loved one who neglected me as cruelly
+as thou hast been neglected, and since then a mischievous spirit of
+vengeance, as it were, has led me to make women my playthings, to be won
+and thrown aside. I love thy spirit, Konrad. If I could be thy friend----"
+
+"Never!" cried Konrad. "I come not for friendship, but for justice to
+Anna! Hast thou not wedded another after thine espousal of her?"
+
+"Dost thou deem the mock blessing of yon mad hermit a spousal rite?"
+exclaimed the earl, laughing.
+
+Konrad repressed his passion.
+
+"I go to push my fortune with your turbulent border chiefs; and if, in
+the strife that will soon convulse this land, thou meetest Konrad of
+Salzberg, look well to thyself!"
+
+"Go thy way, and God be with thee!" replied the earl. "Thou art the
+first who hath bent a dark brow on a lord of Bothwell under his own
+roof-tree."
+
+Konrad returned to Anna, and in the ruined priory told her how Bothwell
+was false to her. Anna's grief was dreadful to behold.
+
+"Anna," said Konrad, after a pause, "Scotland hath a queen whose
+goodness of heart is revered in every land save her own."
+
+"True; and at her feet will I pour forth my sorrow and my tears
+together."
+
+So the two traversed the thickets around the priory, and reached the
+broad highway, which was to lead them at length to Edinburgh.
+
+
+_III.--Mary Queen of Scots_
+
+
+But it was long ere Anna looked upon the face of the queen. At the Red
+Lion Inn in Edinburgh her beauty struck the eye of the Earl of Morton,
+the factious, proud, and ferocious associate of Moray in all the dark
+intrigues of that craftiest of Scottish statesmen. Morton promised that
+Anna should be entrusted to a lady of fair repute, and soon presented to
+the queen. Konrad trusted him, little knowing that the repute of Dame
+Alison Craig, Anna's new guardian, was anything but fair, and set forth
+for the Border.
+
+It was to Sir John Elliot of Park that he offered the service of his
+sword, for it was against this turbulent borderer, who had just raided
+Northumberland, and threatened the peace of the two kingdoms, that
+Bothwell was advancing with the army of Queen Mary. Now garrisoning some
+solitary peel-tower, now hiding in some unfathomed cavern, now issuing
+with uplifted lance from the haggs of some deep moss, Konrad engaged
+with ardour in every desperate foray, and his daring made him the idol
+of the wild spirits around him. In every deed of arms one thought was in
+his mind--to come within a lance-length of Bothwell.
+
+Long and fierce was the struggle, but it ended as a fight so unequal was
+bound to end. John of Park was slain, refusing with his dying breath to
+surrender, and Konrad was carried, a half-senseless captive to
+Bothwell's castle of Hermitage. Even then the earl spared his life. He
+lay in a hideous den, in pitch darkness and dead silence broken only by
+the splash of drops of fetid water that fell from the slimy arch of the
+vault.
+
+No token reached him of what was happening above; and an event happened
+there that had vast influence on Bothwell's future. Across the hills to
+Hermitage rode the Queen of Scots herself. The sight of her stirred in
+Bothwell's heart an emotion he had never wholly conquered, for she, Mary
+herself, was his first love of the bygone days in France. He had begun
+to realise that he loved her still; he knew the coldness of her
+relations with the dissolute and unfaithful Darnley, her husband; now
+she had come to Hermitage.
+
+"Jesu Maria!" cried the queen, as Bothwell, with beating heart, paused
+in the conversation. "Have you lost your tongue?"
+
+"Nay, madame--my heart."
+
+"That is very serious; but search for another."
+
+"I want no other," replied the earl, in a trembling voice, "but
+_thine_!"
+
+"Lord Bothwell," she said, with a hauteur that froze her admirer, "thou
+art in a dream."
+
+"Pardon me, I pray you--"
+
+"I do pardon thee," replied the queen, with a calm smile; but added,
+significantly, "I think 'tis time I was riding from Hermitage."
+
+So ended the famous visit to Hermitage, which was interpreted throughout
+Scotland as a token of Mary's love for her favourite earl.
+
+Konrad, a month afterwards, was sent to Edinburgh and confined in the
+old tower of Holyrood, awaiting trial as a Border outlaw. Bothwell
+himself soon followed, and celebrated his return by a wild revel in
+company with Hob of Ormiston and other choice spirits.
+
+As the revellers wandered through the narrow streets at midnight,
+seeking a quarrel, they passed the house of Dame Alison Craig.
+
+"My page tells me," said Bothwell, "there is a famous foreign beauty
+concealed there. Ho! within!"
+
+A stoup of water, poured on them from an upper window, was the answer.
+They broke open the door, and forced the shrieking dame to lead them to
+the apartment where the foreign beauty was hidden.
+
+"Death and confusion!" muttered the earl when he saw who was within.
+
+"Cock and pie!" said Ormiston. "We have started the wrong game."
+
+Hastily they thrust back their companions. But Anna had recognised him.
+When Morton had made advances towards her, she had repulsed him
+scornfully, telling him she was the Countess of Bothwell. Morton had
+seized on this opportunity of injuring a man he hated, and resolved to
+bring Anna before the queen. Bothwell now knew the danger before him,
+and prepared for it.
+
+Next day, as the queen sat with her grim lords in council, Morton led in
+Anna.
+
+"I have the pleasure," said he, "to present a lady who accuseth the Earl
+of Bothwell of wedding and ignobly deserting her."
+
+"'Tis false, Lord Earl!" cried Bothwell.
+
+"Oh, madam, hear my story, and condemn me not unheard," pleaded Anna.
+
+"Let her speak for herself," said Mary.
+
+Thus encouraged, Anna, in moving accents, told her story.
+
+"A meloncholy tale, in sooth," said Mary; "but what proof is there?"
+
+"Your majesty," said Bothwell, "this is the invention of some unknown
+enemy"--he glanced at Morton--"to deprive me of your royal favour. Let
+this frantic damsel be removed to a Danish vessel now at Leith, and
+conveyed to her home."
+
+"Well, so be it!" replied the facile queen.
+
+Anna drew herself up to her full height.
+
+"Farewell, Bothwell," she cried. "In that dark time of ruin and regret
+that is coming upon thee, remember Anna!"
+
+And as she spoke they hurried her away.
+
+Bothwell henceforth was more than ever in the queen's favour. Only the
+life of Darnley intervened between him and the goal of his love and
+ambition; and the sinister promptings of Ormiston suggested that even
+that obstacle was not irremovable.
+
+
+_IV.--The Kirk of Field_
+
+
+On a dark winter night a conference of nobles was held at Whittinghame.
+Mary had been asked to divorce her husband, and had proudly and
+indignantly refused. Only one way remained. A solemn bond was drawn up
+among the assembled nobles, and the bond sealed the fate of Darnley. It
+was not without doubt and shrinking that Bothwell saw whither his
+schemes were leading him, but he would not, he could not, turn back.
+
+It was at Ormiston's suggestion that Konrad was employed as an
+unconscious tool in the affair. Ormiston hinted that with a little
+adroitness the whole blame might be laid on the unhappy prisoner. Konrad
+accordingly, on the night when the deed was to be done, was awakened
+from a reverie in his cell at Holyrood by the entry of a tall, masked
+figure.
+
+"If thou wouldst attain liberty, follow me!" said Ormiston, for it was
+he.
+
+He put a sword in Konrad's hand. Konrad as he grasped the weapon, felt
+his spirits rise again, and he followed.
+
+Presently they came to a group of masked men, and silently the party
+went through a private door in the city walls. Their destination, though
+Konrad knew it not, was the lonely house of the Kirk of Field, where
+Darnley was lying slowly recovering from small-pox--an illness through
+which the queen, forgetting her wrongs at his hands, had tenderly nursed
+him.
+
+Konrad, arrived at the house, helped to unload a horse of heavy packages
+which he conjectured to contain plunder; but it was gunpowder that he
+unwittingly handled.
+
+Suddenly a piercing cry came from above. A moment later the startled
+Konrad perceived Bothwell, his mask awry, his eyes glazed and haggard.
+
+"Thou hast done well!" said Ormiston grimly.
+
+"Well! My God!" groaned the earl.
+
+"Away while I fire the train!" shouted Ormiston.
+
+Like a fiery serpent the train glowed along the ground. Then, red and
+lurid in the shadowy night, there flashed a volume of dazzling light;
+then came a roar as if the earth was splitting.
+
+Konrad fled in bewildered terror, and wandered about the outskirts of
+the city until, in a little ruined chapel on the verge of a moor, he lay
+down exhausted and fell asleep.
+
+In the morning he was awakened by a rough grasp on his shoulder.
+
+"We have meshed one of the knaves at least," said a stern voice. Konrad
+found himself amidst knights and men-at-arms, and he was led back to the
+city.
+
+The citizens were in arms, furious at the outrage of the night before.
+The appearance of a suspected murderer aroused their passion to the
+utmost; Konrad's escort was overpowered and thrust aside. "Awa' wi' him
+to the Papist's pillar!" cried a voice. Down they went with him to the
+North Loch, and tied him there to an oaken stake about five feet deep in
+the water--a spot where many a luckless Catholic had perished. The mob
+retired, and Konrad was left alone, helpless, and to die.
+
+Bothwell sat by the fire in his apartments at Holyrood, with knit brows
+and muttering lips; the word he muttered was, "Murderer." The shriek of
+the man whose death-blow he had struck still echoed in his ears.
+
+Presently there entered the room one of his followers, Hepburn of
+Bolton.
+
+"The Norwegian hath been bound to the Papist's pillar," said he; "and by
+this time he must be dead, for it rains heavily, and the loch fills
+fast."
+
+"One other life!" said the earl gloomily. "By heaven, Bolton! if I can
+save him--come!"
+
+In the darkness and the rain, with the water rising around him, Konrad
+waited for death. A sound of oars roused him from the stupefaction into
+which he had fallen. "Here, here! His head is above water still," said a
+voice. The bonds were cut, Konrad was dragged into the boat and taken to
+land, and offered a draught that revived him.
+
+"Here we part," said the voice. "Give him dry garments, and take him to
+the Norwegian vessel, and bid him cross my path no more!"
+
+"Who art thou?" asked Konrad feebly.
+
+"Thy greatest enemy, James, Earl of Bothwell!"
+
+Slowly Konrad mounted the horse that had been brought for him, and with
+difficulty he rode; but the morning saw him on board a vessel of Bergen,
+in the hands of countrymen and friends.
+
+Bothwell was tried for the murder of Darnley, and triumphantly
+acquitted. He procured the secret assent of the nobles to his marriage
+with Mary; he divorced the Countess Jane; one more vigorous action, and
+the goal would be attained.
+
+On an April day, as Mary rode along the Stirling road towards Edinburgh,
+her way was barred by a thousand armed horsemen in close array; and
+Bothwell, riding up, requested that she should accompany him to his
+castle of Dunbar. It was useless to resist. Once in the castle, Bothwell
+offered her his hand, and was proudly refused.
+
+"Lord Earl," cried Mary, "thou mayest tremble when I leave Dunbar!"
+
+"Madame," he replied, "thou shalt never leave Dunbar but as the bride of
+Bothwell!"
+
+In May, Mary and Bothwell were married. A month later Bothwell fled
+before the wrath of an outraged nation, never to see Mary again; and
+within a week of their parting he roamed a pirate on the northern seas.
+
+
+_V.--Nemesis_
+
+
+A large Danish war vessel approached the port of Bergen, with prisoners
+to hand over to the castellan--the new castellan, for old Erick
+Rosenkrantz was dead. Chief of the captives was Bothwell, nonchalant but
+melancholy, pale, and more thoughtful than formerly; still, in pleasure
+and in sorrow, was he haunted by the shriek of the dying Darnley.
+
+Near him stood one who was not a captive, but a returning wanderer.
+Konrad had again crossed the path of the earl; his vessel, long detained
+in port, and afterwards delayed by storms, had been captured by the
+Scottish pirate ship, and he had been rescued from this new misfortune
+by the great Norwegian war vessel.
+
+The prisoners were escorted to the hall of the castle, and Bothwell
+assumed his most defiant look. The arras that concealed the daïs was
+withdrawn, and Bothwell looked upon the face of the hereditary castellan
+of Bergen, Anna Rosenkrantz!
+
+On seeing the earl, she turned pale as death. The earl recovered
+instantly from his surprise, and bowed smilingly.
+
+"Well, madam," said he, "we foresaw not this meeting!"
+
+"Dost thou know," replied Anna firmly, "that thy life and liberty are in
+my power?"
+
+"I am assured," he answered, "that they could not be in safer keeping."
+
+"Regicide and betrayer," return Anna, with flashing eyes, "from this
+hour thou shalt have meted out to thee the stern measures thou hast so
+ruthlessly dealt to others. This man," she went on, turning to the
+captain of the war ship, "is the king's prisoner; away with him to the
+Castle of Kiobenhafen--be under sail before sunset!"
+
+Red-bearded Danish bowmen crowded round the earl, who thus passed away
+to the wretched captivity that ended only with his death, ten years
+afterwards.
+
+Konrad, unnoticed and uncared for, stood alone in the hall where he had
+once been so welcome a guest. He had no intention of remaining in a
+place where all was so changed; but ere he turned to leave it for ever
+he paused a moment irresolutely. Once more the arras was withdrawn, and
+Anna stood before him.
+
+"I heard thou wert here, Konrad," she said, with a blushing cheek.
+"Wouldst thou go without one word to me?"
+
+She seated herself in the recess of a window. "I have long wished," she
+faltered, "to see thee once more. I have now seen the worth and faith of
+thy heart when contrasted with mine own, and I blush for my weakness--my
+wickedness--my folly. Thou mayest deem this unwomanly--indelicate; but
+in love we are equal, and why may not one make reparation as the other?"
+
+"Anna," said Konrad, in a choking voice, "though my heart be soured and
+saddened, my first sentiment for thee hath never altered. For all thou
+hast made me endure I forgive thee, and I pray that thou mayest be
+happy. Anna--dearest Anna--I am going far away, for I have doomed myself
+to exile, but I still regard thee as a sister--as a friend. All is
+forgotten and forgiven. And now, farewell!"
+
+He felt the hand of Anna in his; another moment, and she sank upon his
+breast.
+
+"Oh, Konrad," she whispered, "if my heart is still prized by thee, it is
+thine, as in the days of our first love."
+
+And, borne away by his passion, the forgiving Konrad pressed the woman
+he loved closer and closer to his breast.
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The World's Greatest Books, Vol IV.
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@@ -0,0 +1,11922 @@
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The World's Greatest Books, Vol IV.
+by Editors: Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The World's Greatest Books, Vol IV.
+
+Author: Editors: Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton
+
+Release Date: February 3, 2004 [EBook #10921]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK GREATEST BOOKS, V4 ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by John Hagerson, Kevin Handy and PG Distributed Proofreaders
+
+
+
+
+THE WORLD'S
+GREATEST
+BOOKS
+
+JOINT EDITORS
+
+ARTHUR MEE
+Editor and Founder of the Book of Knowledge
+
+J. A. HAMMERTON
+Editor of Harmsworth's Universal Encyclopaedia
+
+VOL. IV
+FICTION
+
+
+
+Table of Contents
+
+EBERS, GEORG
+  An Egyptian Princess
+
+EDGEWORTH, MARIE
+  Belinda
+  Castle Rackrent
+
+ELIOT, GEORGE
+  Adam Bede
+  Felix Holt
+  Romola
+  Silas Marner
+  The Mill on the Floss
+
+ERCKMANN-CHATRIAN
+  Waterloo
+
+FEUILLET, OCTAVE
+  Romance of a Poor Young Man
+
+FIELDING, HENRY
+  Amelia
+  Jonathan Wild
+  Joseph Andrews
+  Tom Jones
+
+FLAMMARION, CAMILLE
+  Urania
+
+FOUQUE, DE LA MOTTE
+  Undine
+
+GABORIAU, EMILE
+  File No. 113
+
+GALT, JOHN
+  Annals of the Parish
+
+GASKELL, MRS.
+  Cranford
+  Mary Barton
+
+GODWIN, WILLIAM
+  Caleb Williams
+
+GOETHE
+  Sorrows of Young Werther
+  Wilhelm Meister
+
+GOLDSMITH, OLIVER
+  Vicar of Wakefield
+
+GONCOURT, EDMOND AND JULES DE
+  Renee Mauperin
+
+GRANT, JAMES
+  Bothwell
+
+
+A Complete Index of THE WORLD'S GREATEST BOOKS will be found at the end
+of Volume XX.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+GEORG EBERS
+
+
+An Egyptian Princess
+
+
+     Georg Moritz Ebers, a great Orientalist and Egyptologist, was
+     born in Berlin on March 1, 1837, received his first
+     instruction at Keilhau in Thuringen, then attended a college
+     at Quedlinburg, and finally took up the study of law at
+     Goettingen University. In 1858, when his feet became lame, he
+     abandoned this study, and took up philology and archaeology.
+     After 1859 he devoted himself almost exclusively to
+     Egyptology. Having recovered from his long illness, he visited
+     the most important European museums, and in 1869 he travelled
+     to Egypt, Nubia, and Arabia. On his return he took the chair
+     of Egyptology at Leipzig University. He went back to Egypt in
+     1872, and discovered, besides many other important
+     inscriptions, the famous papyrus which bears his name. "An
+     Egyptian Princess" is his first important novel, written
+     during his illness, and published in 1864. It has gone through
+     numerous editions, and has been translated into most European
+     languages. It was followed by several other similar works of
+     fiction, of which "Serapis" achieved wide popularity. Ebers
+     died on August 7, 1898.
+
+
+_I.--The Royal Bride_
+
+
+A cavalcade of dazzling splendour was moving along the high road towards
+Babylon. The embassy sent by Cambyses, the mighty King of the East, had
+accomplished its mission, and now Nitetis, the daughter of Amasis, King
+of Egypt, was on the way to meet her future spouse. At the head of the
+sumptuous escort were Bartja, Cambyses' handsome golden-haired younger
+brother; his kinsman Darius; Croesus, the dethroned King of Lydia, and
+his son Gyges; Prexaspes, the king's ambassador, and Zopyrus, the son of
+Megabyzus, a Persian noble.
+
+A few miles before the gates of Babylon they perceived a troop of
+horsemen galloping towards them. Cambyses himself came to honour his
+bride. His pale face, framed by an immense black beard, expressed great
+power and unbounded pride. Deep pallor and bright colour flitted by
+turns across the face of Nitetis, as his fiery eyes fixed her with a
+piercing gaze. Then he waved a welcome, sprang from his horse, shook
+Croesus by the hand, and asked him to act as interpreter. "She is
+beautiful and pleases me well," said the king. And Nitetis, who had
+begun to learn the language of her new home on the long journey, blushed
+deeply and began softly in broken Persian, "Blessed be the gods, who
+have caused me to find favour in thine eyes."
+
+Cambyses was delighted with her desire to win his approbation and with
+her industry and intellect, so different from the indolence and idleness
+of the Persian women in his harem. His wonder and satisfaction increased
+when, after recommending her to obey the orders of Boges, the eunuch,
+who was head over the house of women, she reminded him that she was a
+king's daughter, bound to obey the commands of her lord, but unable to
+bow to a venal servant.
+
+Her pride found an echo in his own haughty disposition. "You have spoken
+well. A separate dwelling shall be appointed you. I, and no one else,
+will prescribe your rules of life and conduct. Tell me now, how my
+messengers pleased you and your countrymen?"
+
+"Who could know the noble Croesus without loving him? Who could fail to
+admire the beauty of the young heroes, your friends, and especially of
+your handsome brother Bartja? The Egyptians have no love for strangers,
+but he won all hearts."
+
+At these words the king's brows darkened, he struck his horse so that
+the creature reared, and then, turning it quickly round, he galloped
+towards Babylon. He decided in his mind to give Bartja the command of an
+expedition against the Tapuri, and to make him marry Rosana, the
+daughter of a Persian noble. He also determined to make Nitetis his real
+queen and adviser. She was to be to him what his mother Kassandane had
+been to Cyrus, his great father. Not even Phaedime, his favourite wife,
+had occupied such a position. And as for Bartja, "he had better take
+care," he murmured, "or he shall know the fate that awaits the man who
+dares to cross my path."
+
+
+_II.--The Plot_
+
+
+According to Persian custom a year had to pass before Nitetis could
+become Cambyses' lawful wife, but, conscious of his despotic power, he
+had decided to reduce this term to a few months. Meanwhile, he only saw
+the fair Egyptian in the presence of his blind mother or of his sister
+Atossa, both of whom became Nitetis' devoted friends. Meanwhile, Boges,
+the eunuch, sank in public estimation, since it was known that Cambyses
+had ceased to visit the harem, and he began to conspire with Phaedime as
+to the best way of ruining Nitetis, who had come to love Cambyses with
+ever growing passion.
+
+The Egyptian princess's happiness was seriously disturbed by the arrival
+of a letter from her mother, which brought her naught but sad news. Her
+father, Amasis, had been struck with blindness on the very day she had
+reached Babylon; and her frail twin-sister Tachot, after falling into a
+violent fever, was wasting away for love of Bartja, whose beauty had
+captured her heart at the time of his mission in Sais. His name had been
+even on her lips in her delirium, and the only hope for her was to see
+him again.
+
+Nitetis' whole happiness was destroyed in one moment. She wept and
+sighed, until she fell asleep from sheer exhaustion. When her maid
+Mandane came to put a last touch to her dress for the banquet, she found
+her sleeping, and as there was ample time she went out into the garden,
+where she met the eunuch Boges. He was the bearer of good news. Mandane
+had been brought up with the children of a Magian, one of whom was now
+the high-priest Oropastes. Love had sprung up between her and his
+handsome brother Gaumata; and Oropastes, who had ambitious schemes, had
+sent his brother to Rhagae and procured her a situation at court, so that
+they might forget one another. And now Gaumata had come and begged her
+to meet him next evening in the hanging gardens. Mandane consented after
+a hard struggle.
+
+Boges hurried away with malicious pleasure in the near success of his
+scheme. He met one of the gardeners, whom he promised to bring some of
+the nobles to inspect a special kind of blue lily, in which the gardener
+took great pride. He then hurried to the harem, to make sure that the
+king's wives should look their best, and insisted upon Phaedime painting
+her face white, and putting on a simple, dark dress without ornament,
+except the chain given her by Cambyses on her marriage, to arouse the
+pity of the Achaemenidae, to which family she herself belonged.
+
+The eunuch's cunning scheme succeeded but too well. At the end of the
+great banquet Bartja, to whom Cambyses had promised to grant a favour on
+his victorious return from the war, confessed to him his love for
+Sappho, a charming and cultured Greek maiden of noble descent, whom he
+wished to make his wife. Cambyses was delighted at this proof of the
+injustice of his jealous suspicions, and announced aloud that Bartja
+would in a few days depart to bring home a bride. At these words
+Nitetis, thinking of her poor sister's misery, fainted.
+
+Cambyses sprang up pale as death; his lips trembled and his fist was
+clenched. Nitetis looked at him imploringly, but he commanded Boges to
+take the women back to their apartments. "Sleep well, Egyptian, and pray
+to the gods to give you the power of dissembling your feelings. Here,
+give me wine; but taste it well, for to-day, for the first time, I fear
+poison. Do you hear, Egyptian? Yes, all the poison, as well as the
+medicine, comes from Egypt."
+
+Boges gave strict orders that nobody--not even the queen-mother or
+Croesus--was to have access to the hanging gardens, whither he had
+conducted Nitetis. Cambyses, meanwhile, continued the drinking bout,
+thinking the while of punishment for the false woman. Bartja could have
+had no share in her perfidy, or he would have killed him on the spot;
+but he would send him away. And Nitetis should be handed to Boges, to be
+made the servant of his concubines and thus to atone for her crimes.
+
+When the king left the hall, Boges, who had slipped out before him,
+intercepted one of the gardener's boys with a letter for Prince Bartja.
+The boy refused to hand it over, as Nitetis had instructed him to hand
+it only to the prince; and on Cambyses' approach the boy fell on his
+knees, touching the ground with his forehead. Cambyses snatched the
+papyrus roll from his hand, and stamped furiously on the ground at
+seeing that the letter was written in Greek, which he could not read. He
+went to his own apartments, followed by Boges, whom he instructed to
+keep a strict watch over the Egyptian and the hanging gardens. "If a
+single human being or a message reach her without my knowledge, your
+life will be the forfeit."
+
+Boges, pleading a burning fever, begged that Kandaules, the Lydian
+captain of eunuchs, who was true as gold and inflexibly severe, should
+relieve him on the morrow. On the king's consent, he begged furthermore
+that Oropastes, Croesus, and three other nobles should be allowed to
+witness the opening of the blue lily in the hanging gardens. Kandaules
+would see that they enter into no communication with the Egyptian.
+
+"Kandaules must keep his eyes open, if he values his own life--go!"
+
+
+_III.--Conflicting Evidence_
+
+
+The hunt was over, and Bartja, who had invited his bosom friends,
+Darius, Gyges, Zopyrus, and Croesus, to drink a parting-cup with him,
+sat with the first three in the bower of the royal gardens. They talked
+long of love, of their ambitions, of the influence of stars on human
+destinies, when Croesus rapidly approached the arbour. When he beheld
+Bartja, he stood transfixed, then whispered to him, "Unhappy boy, you
+are still here? Fly for your life! The whip-bearers are close on my
+heels."
+
+"What do you mean?"
+
+"Fly, I tell you, even if your visit to the hanging gardens was
+innocently meant. You know Cambyses' violent temper. You know his
+jealousy of you; and your visit to the Egyptian to-night...."
+
+"My visit? I have never left this garden!"
+
+"Don't add a lie to your offense. Save yourself, quickly."
+
+"I speak the truth, and I shall remain."
+
+"You are infatuated. We saw you in the hanging-gardens not an hour ago."
+
+Bartja appealed to his friends, who confirmed on oath the truth of his
+assertion; and before Croesus could arrive at a solution of the mystery,
+the soldiers had arrived, led by an officer who had served under Bartja.
+He had orders to arrest everybody found in the suspect's company, but at
+the risk of his life urged Bartja to escape the king's fury. His men
+would blindly follow his command. But Bartja steadfastly refused. He was
+innocent, and knew that Cambyses, though hasty, was not unjust.
+
+Two hours later Bartja and his friends stood before the king who had
+just recovered from an epileptic fit. A few hours earlier he would have
+killed Bartja with his own hands. Now he was ready to lend an ear to
+both sides. Boges first related that he was with the Achaemenidae, looking
+at the blue lily, and called Kandaules to inquire if everything was in
+order. On being told that Nitetis had not tasted food or drink all day,
+he sent Kandaules to fetch a physician. It was then that he saw Bartja
+by the princess's window. She herself came out of the sleep-room.
+Croesus called to Bartja, and the two figures disappeared behind a
+cypress. He went to search the house and found Nitetis lying unconscious
+on a couch. Hystaspes and the other nobles confirmed the eunuch's words,
+and even Croesus had to admit their substantial truth, but added that
+they must have been deceived by some remarkable likeness--at which Boges
+grew pale.
+
+Bartja's friends were equally definite in their evidence for the
+accused. Cambyses looked first on the one, then on the other party of
+these strange witnesses. Then Bartja begged permission to speak.
+
+"A son of Cyrus," he said, "would rather die than lie. I confess no
+judge was ever placed in so perplexing a position. But were the entire
+Persian nation to rise up against you, and swear that Cambyses had
+committed an evil deed, and you were to say, 'I did not commit it,' I,
+Bartja, would give all Persia the lie and exclaim, 'Ye are all false
+witnesses! A son of Cyrus cannot allow his mouth to deal in lies.' I
+swear to you that I am innocent. I have not once set foot in the hanging
+gardens since my return."
+
+Cambyses' looks grew milder on hearing these words, and when Oropastes
+suggested that an evil spirit must have taken Bartja's form to ruin him,
+he nodded assent and stretched out his hand towards Bartja. At this
+moment a staff-bearer came in and gave the king a dagger found by a
+eunuch under Nitetis' window. Cambyses examined it, dashed the dagger
+violently to the ground, and shrieked, "This is your dagger! At last you
+are convicted, you liar! Ah, you are feeling in your girdle! You may
+well turn pale, your dagger is gone! Seize him, put on his fetters! He
+shall be strangled to-morrow! Away with you, you perjured villains! They
+shall all die to-morrow! And the Egyptian--at noon she shall be flogged
+through the streets. Then I'll----"
+
+But here he was stopped by another fit of epilepsy, and sank down in
+convulsions.
+
+The fate of the unfortunates was sealed when, afterwards, Cambyses made
+Croesus read to him Nitetis' Greek letter to Bartja.
+
+"Nitetis, daughter of Amasis of Egypt, to Bartja, son of the great
+Cyrus.
+
+"I have something important to tell you; I can tell it to no one but
+yourself. To-morrow I hope to meet you in your mother's rooms. It lies
+in your power to comfort a sad and loving heart, and to give it one
+happy moment before death. I repeat that I must see you soon."
+
+Croesus, who tried to intercede on behalf of the condemned, was
+sentenced to share their fate. In his heart even he was now convinced of
+Bartja's guilt, and of the perjury of his own son and of Darius.
+
+
+_IV.--The Unexpected Witness_
+
+
+Nitetis had passed many a wretched hour since the great banquet. All day
+long she was kept in strict seclusion, and in the twilight Boges came to
+her to tell her jeeringly that her letter had fallen into the king's
+hand, and that its bearer had been executed. The princess swooned away,
+and Boges carried her to her sleeping-room, the door of which he barred
+carefully. When, later, Mandane left her lover Gaumata, the maid hurried
+into her mistress's room, found her in a faint, and used every remedy to
+restore her to consciousness.
+
+Then Boges came with two eunuchs, loaded the princess's arms with
+fetters, and gave vent to his long-nourished spite, telling her of the
+awful fate that was in store for her. Nitetis resolved to swallow a
+poisonous ointment for the complexion directly the executioner should
+draw near her. Then, in spite of her fetters, she managed to write to
+Cambyses, to assure him once more of her love and to explain her
+innocence. "I commit this crime against myself, Cambyses, to save you
+from doing a disgraceful deed."
+
+Meanwhile, Boges, after exciting Phaedime's curiosity by many vague
+hints, divulged to her the nature of his infamous scheme. When Gaumata
+had come to Babylon for the New Year's festival, Boges had discovered
+his remarkable likeness to Bartja. He knew of his love for Mandane,
+gained his confidence, and arranged the nocturnal meeting under Nitetis'
+bedroom window. In return he exacted the promise of the lover's
+immediate departure after the meeting. He helped him to escape through a
+trap-door. To get Bartja out of the way, he had induced a Greek merchant
+to dispatch a letter to the prince, asking him, in the name of her he
+loved best, to come alone in the evening to the first station outside
+the Euphrates gate. Unfortunately, the messenger managed the matter
+clumsily, and apparently gave the letter to Gaumata. But to counteract
+Bartja's proof of innocence, Boges had managed to get hold of his
+dagger, which was conclusive evidence. And now Nitetis was sentenced to
+be set astride upon an ass and led through the streets of Babylon. As
+for Gaumata, three men were lying in wait for him to throw him into the
+Euphrates before he could get back to Rhagae. Phaedime joined in Boges'
+laughter, and hung a heavy jewel-studded chain round his neck.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+A few hours only were wanted for the time fixed for Nitetis' disgrace,
+and the streets of Babylon were thronged with a dense crowd of
+sightseers, when a small caravan approached the Bel gate. In the first
+carriage was a fine, handsome man of about fifty, of commanding aspect,
+and dressed as a Persian courtier. With difficulty the driver cleared a
+passage through the crowd. "Make way for us! The royal post has no time
+to lose, and I am driving some one who will make you repent every
+minute's delay." They arrived at the palace, and the stranger's
+insistence succeeded in gaining admission to the king. The Greek--for
+such the stranger had declared himself--affirmed that he could prove the
+condemned men's innocence.
+
+"Call him in!" exclaimed Cambyses. "But if he wants to deceive me, let
+him remember that where the head of a son of Cyrus is about to fall, a
+Greek head has but very little chance." The Greek's calm and noble
+manner impressed Cambyses favourably, and his hostility was entirely
+overcome when the stranger revealed to him that he was Phanes, the
+famous commander of the Greek mercenaries in Egypt, and that he had come
+to offer his service to Cambyses.
+
+Phanes now related how, on approaching Babylon by the royal post, just
+before midnight, they heard some cries of distress, and found three
+fierce-looking fellows dragging a youth towards the river; how with his
+Greek war-cry he had rushed on the murderers, slain one of them, and put
+the others to flight; and how he discovered--so he thought--the youth to
+be none other but Bartja, whom he had met at the Egyptian court.
+
+They took him to the nearest station, bled him, and bound up his wounds.
+When he regained consciousness, he told them his name was Gaumata. Then
+he was seized by fever, during which he constantly spoke of the hanging
+gardens and of his Mandane.
+
+"Set the prisoners free, my king. I will answer for it with my own head,
+that Bartja was not in the hanging gardens."
+
+The king was surprised at this speech, but not angry. Phanes then
+advised him to send for Oropastes and Mandane, whose examination
+elicited the full truth. Boges, who was also sent for, had disappeared.
+Cambyses had all the prisoners set free, gave Phanes his hand to kiss--a
+rare honour--and, greater honour still, invited him to eat at the king's
+table. Then he went to the rooms of his mother, who had sent for him.
+
+Nitetis had been carried insensible to the queen-mother's apartments.
+When she opened her eyes, her head was resting on the blind queen's lap,
+she felt Atossa's warm kisses on her forehead, and Cambyses was standing
+by her side. She gazed around, and smiled as she recognised them one by
+one. She raised herself with difficulty. "How could you believe such a
+thing of me, my king?" she asked. There was no reproach in her tone, but
+deep sadness; Cambyses replied, "Forgive me."
+
+Nitetis then gave them the letter she had received from her mother,
+which would explain all, and begged them not to scorn her poor sister.
+"When an Egyptian girl once loves, she cannot forget. But I feel so
+frightened. The end must be near. That horrible man, Boges, read me the
+fearful sentence, and it was that which forced the poison into my hand."
+
+The physician rushed forward. "I thought so! She has taken a poison
+which results in certain death. She is lost!"
+
+On hearing this, the king exclaimed in anguish, "She _shall_ live; it is
+my will! Summon all the physicians in Babylon. Assemble the priests. She
+is not to die! She must live! I am the king, and I command it!"
+
+Nitetis opened her eyes as if endeavouring to obey her lord. She looked
+upon her lover, who was pressing his burning lips to her right hand. She
+murmured, with a smile, "Oh, this great happiness!" Then she closed her
+eyes and was seized with fever.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+All efforts to save Nitetis' life were fruitless. Cambyses fell into the
+deepest gloom, and wanted action, war, to dispel his sad thoughts.
+Phanes gave him the pretext. As commander of the Greek mercenaries in
+Egypt, he had enjoyed Amasis' confidence. He alone, with the
+high-priest, shared Amasis' secret about the birth of Nitetus, who was
+not the daughter of Amasis, but of Hophra, his predecessor, whose throne
+Amasis had usurped. When, owing to the intrigues of Psamtik, Amasis'
+son, Phanes fell into disgrace and had to fly for his life, his little
+son was seized and cruelly murdered by his persecutors. Phanes had sworn
+revenge. He now persuaded Cambyses to wage war upon Egypt, and to claim
+Amasis' throne as the husband of Hophra's daughter.
+
+The rest is known to all students of history--how Cambyses, with the
+help of Phanes, defeated Psamtik's host at Pelusium and took possession
+of the whole Egyptian Empire; how, given more and more to drink and
+fearful excesses, he set up a rule of untold terror, had his brother
+Bartja murdered in another fit of jealousy, and finally suffered defeat
+at the hands of the Ethiopians. They will also know how, on his death,
+Gaumata, the "pseudo-Smerdis" of the Greeks, was urged by his ambitious
+brother, Oropastes, to seize the throne by impersonating the dead
+Bartja; how, finally, the pretender was defeated and had to pay for his
+attempt with his life; and how Persia rose again to unity and greatness
+under the rule of the noble Darius, Bartja's faithful kinsman and
+friend.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+MARIA EDGEWORTH
+
+
+Belinda
+
+
+     Maria Edgeworth was born at Black Bourton, Oxfordshire,
+     England, Jan. 1, 1767, and eleven years later her father
+     removed to Ireland and settled on his own estate at
+     Edgeworthstown. "Belinda," published in 1801, is Maria
+     Edgeworth's one early example of a novel not placed in Irish
+     surroundings, but dealing with fashionable life. Issued just a
+     year after the appearance of her first Irish tale, "Castle
+     Rackrent," it betrays entirely the influence of the novelist's
+     autocratic and eccentric father, Richard Lovell Edgeworth,
+     with whom the daughter had been previously collaborating. No
+     one could be less suited than he to advise about fiction, yet
+     to his daughter his advice was almost the equivalent of a
+     command. The story is interesting as an example of literary
+     workmanship outside of the scenes in which special success had
+     been achieved. Miss Edgeworth died at Edgeworthstown on May
+     22, 1849.
+
+
+_I.--A Match-Maker's Handicap_
+
+
+Mrs. Stanhope, a well-bred woman, accomplished in the art of rising in
+the world, had, with but a small fortune, contrived to live in the
+highest company. She prided herself upon having established half a dozen
+nieces most happily--that is to say, upon having married them to men of
+fortunes far superior to their own. One niece still remained unmarried,
+Belinda Portman, of whom she determined to get rid with all convenient
+expedition; but finding that, owing to declining health, she could not
+go out with her as much as she wished, she succeeded in fastening her
+upon the fashionable Lady Delacour for a winter in London.
+
+"Nothing, to my mind, can be more miserable than the situation of a poor
+girl who fails in her matrimonial expectations (as many do merely from
+not beginning to speculate in time)," she wrote from Bath. "She finds
+herself at five or six-and-thirty a burden to her friends, destitute of
+the means of rendering herself independent--for the girls I speak of
+never think of _learning_ to play cards--_de trop_ in society, yet
+obliged to hang upon all her acquaintances, who wish her in heaven,
+because she is unqualified to make the _expected_ return for civilities,
+having no home--I mean no establishment, no house, etc.--fit for the
+reception of company of certain rank. My dearest Belinda, may this never
+be your case. I have sent your bracelet to you by Mr. Clarence Hervey,
+an acquaintance of Lady Delacour, an uncommonly pleasant young man,
+highly connected, a wit and a gallant, and having a fine independent
+fortune; so, my dear Belinda, I make it a point--look well when he is
+introduced to you, and remember that nobody _can_ look well without
+taking some pains to please."
+
+Belinda had been charmed by Lady Delacour, who was the most agreeable,
+the most fascinating person she had ever beheld; and to be a visitor at
+her house was a delightful privilege. But, a short time after her
+arrival, she began to see through the thin veil with which politeness
+covers domestic misery. Abroad, Lady Delacour appeared all spirit, life,
+and good humour; at home, listless, fretful, and melancholy, a prey to
+thoughts, seemingly, of the most painful nature.
+
+The first time Belinda saw his lordship he was dead drunk in the arms of
+two footmen; his lady, who had just returned from Ranelagh, passed him
+on the stairs with the utmost contempt.
+
+"Don't look so shocked and amazed, Belinda. Don't look so _new_, child.
+This funeral of my lord's intellects is to me a nightly ceremony; or,"
+said her ladyship, looking at her watch and yawning, "I believe I should
+say a daily ceremony--six o'clock, I protest!"
+
+The next morning Clarence Hervey called, and Belinda found him a most
+uncommonly pleasant young man. Lord Delacour was jealous of him; but
+although he would have started with horror at the idea of disturbing the
+peace of a family, in that family, he said, there was no peace to
+disturb. Consequently, he visited her ladyship every day, and every day
+viewed Belinda with increasing admiration, and with increasing dread of
+being taken in to marry a niece of that "catch-matchmaker," as Mrs.
+Stanhope was known amongst the men of his acquaintance.
+
+Under the guise of a tragic muse--in which character Lady Delacour had
+pretended she was going to a masquerade--Belinda heard his true
+sentiments with regard to her.
+
+"You don't believe I go to Lady Delacour's to look for a wife? Do you
+think I'm an idiot? Do you think I could be taken in by one of the
+Stanhope school?" he said to the facetious friends who rallied him on
+his attachment. "Do you think I don't see as plainly as any of you that
+Belinda Portman is a composition of art and affectation?"
+
+"Melpomene, hast thou forgot thyself to warble?" asked Lady Delacour,
+tripping towards them as the comic muse.
+
+"I am not very well," whispered Miss Portman. "Could we get away?"
+
+"Do see if you can find any of my people!" cried Lady Delacour to
+Clarence Hervey, who had followed them downstairs.
+
+"Lady Delacour, the comic muse!" exclaimed he. "I had thought----"
+
+"No matter what you thought!" interrupted her ladyship. "Let my carriage
+draw up, and put this lady into it!" And he obeyed without uttering a
+syllable.
+
+"Dry up your tears, _keep on your mask_, and elbow your way through the
+crowd," she said, when she had heard Belinda's story. "If you stop to be
+civil and 'hope I don't hurt ye,' you will be trod underfoot."
+
+She insisted on driving to the Pantheon instead of going home, but to
+Belinda the night seemed long and dull. The masquerade had no charm to
+keep her thoughts from the conversation that had given her so much pain.
+
+
+_II.--Fashion and Fortitude_
+
+
+"How happy you are, Lady Delacour!" she said, when they got into the
+carriage to go home. "How happy to have such an amazing flow of
+spirits!"
+
+And then she learnt the reason of her ladyship's strange unevenness of
+temper. She was dying of an incurable complaint, which she kept hidden
+from all the world except her maid, Marriott, who attended on her in a
+mysterious cabinet full of medicines and linen rags, the door of which
+she had hitherto kept locked.
+
+"You are shocked, Belinda," said she, "but as yet you have seen nothing.
+Look here!" And baring one half of her bosom, she revealed a hideous
+spectacle.
+
+"Am I humbled? Am I wretched enough?" she asked. "No matter. I will die
+as I have lived, the envy and admiration of the world. Promise--swear to
+me that you will never reveal what you have seen to-night!" And Belinda
+promised not only that, but to remain with her as long as ever she
+wished.
+
+Belinda's quiet avoidance of Clarence Hervey made him begin to believe
+that she might not be "a compound of art and affectation," and he was
+mortified to find that, though she joined with ease and dignity in the
+general conversation with the others, her manner to him was grave and
+reserved. To divert her, he declared he was convinced he was as well
+able to manage a hoop as any woman in England, except Lady Delacour;
+accordingly he was dressed by Marriott, and made his _entree_ with very
+composed assurance and grace, being introduced as the Countess de
+Pomenars to the purblind dowager, Lady Boucher, who had come to call. He
+managed his part well, speaking French and broken English, until Lady
+Delacour dexterously let down Belinda's beautiful tresses, and, calling
+the French lady to admire _la belle chevelure,_ artfully let fall her
+comb.
+
+Totally forgetting his hoop and his character, he stooped to pick it up,
+and lost his wager by knocking over a music-stand. He would have liked a
+lock of her hair, but she refused with a modest, graceful dignity; she
+was glad she had done so later when a tress of hair dropped from his
+pocket-book, and his confusion showed her he was extremely interested
+about the person to whom it belonged.
+
+During her absence from the room Clarence entreated Lady Delacour to
+make his peace with her. She consented on condition that he found her a
+pair of horses from Tattersall's, on which Belinda, she said, had
+secretly set her heart. He was vexed to find Belinda had so little
+delicacy, and relapsed into his former opinion of Mrs. Stanhope's niece,
+addressing her with the air of a man of gallantry, who thought his peace
+had been cheaply made.
+
+The horses ran away with Lady Delacour, injuring her ankle, and on her
+being brought home by Clarence, Lord Delacour wished to enter the locked
+cabinet for _arque-busade._ On being denied entrance, he seized the key,
+believing a lover of hers was concealed there, until Belinda sprang
+forward and took it from him, leaving them to believe what they would.
+
+This circumstance was afterwards explained by Dr. X----, a mutual
+friend, and Hervey was so much charmed with Belinda that he would have
+gone to her at once--only that he had undertaken the reformation of Lady
+Delacour.
+
+
+_III.--An Unexpected Suitor_
+
+
+In the meantime, after spending a morning in tasting wines, and thinking
+that, although he had never learned to swim, some recollection he had of
+an essay on swimming would ensure his safety, he betted his friends a
+hundred guineas that he would swim to a certain point, and flinging
+himself into the Serpentine, would have drowned before their eyes but
+for the help of Mr. Percival. The breach caused by this affair induced
+Sir Philip Baddely, a gentleman who always supplied "each vacuity of
+sense" with an oath, to endeavour to cut him out by proposing to
+Belinda.
+
+"Damme, you're ten times handsomer than the finest woman I ever saw,
+for, damme, I didn't know what it was to be in love then," he said,
+heaving an audible sigh. "I'll trouble you for Mrs. Stanhope's
+direction, Miss Portman; I believe, to do the thing in style, I ought to
+write to her before I speak to you."
+
+Belinda looked at him in astonishment, and then, finding he was in
+earnest, assured him it was not in her power to encourage his addresses,
+although she was fully sensible of the honour he had done her.
+
+"Confusion seize me!" cried he, starting up, "if it isn't the most
+extraordinary thing I ever heard! Is it to Sir Philip Baddely's
+fortune--L15,000 a year--you object, or to his family, or to his person?
+Oh, curse it!" said he, changing his tone, "you're only quizzing me to
+see how I should look--you do it too well, you little coquette!"
+
+Belinda again assured him she was entirely in earnest, and that she was
+incapable of the sort of coquetry which he ascribed to her. To punish
+her for this rejection he spread the report of Hervey's entanglement
+with a beautiful girl named Virginia, whose picture he had sent to an
+exhibition. He also roused Lady Delacour's jealousy into the belief that
+Belinda meant to marry her husband, the viscount, after her death.
+
+In her efforts to bring husband and wife together, Belinda had forgotten
+that jealousy could exist without love, and a letter from Mrs. Stanhope,
+exaggerating the scandalous reports in the hope of forcing her niece to
+marry Sir Philip Baddely, shocked her so much that when Lady Delacour
+quarrelled with her, she accepted an invitation from Lady Anne Percival,
+and went there at once.
+
+There she became acquainted with Mr. Percival's ward, Augustus Vincent,
+a Creole, about two-and-twenty, tall and remarkably handsome, with
+striking manners and an engaging person, who fixed his favourable
+attention on her. The Percivals would have wished her to marry him, but
+she still thought too much of Clarence Hervey to consent, although she
+believed he had some engagement with the lovely Virginia.
+
+
+_IV.--Explanation and Reconciliation_
+
+
+Quite unexpectedly a summons came from Lady Delacour, and Belinda
+returned to her at once, to find her so seriously ill that she persuaded
+her at last to consent to an operation, and inform her husband of the
+dangerous disease from which she was suffering. He believed from her
+preamble that she was about to confess her love for another man; he
+tried to stop her with an emotion and energy he had never shown until
+now.
+
+"I am not sufficiently master of myself. I once loved you too well to
+hear such a stroke. Say no more--trust me with no such secret! you have
+said enough--too much. I forgive you, that is all I can do; but we must
+part, Lady Delacour!" said he, breaking from her with agony expressed in
+his countenance.
+
+"The man has a heart, a soul, I protest! You knew him better that I did,
+Miss Portman. Nay, you are not gone yet, my lord! You really love me, I
+find."
+
+"No, no, no!" cried he vehemently. "Weak as you take me to be, Lady
+Delacour, I am incapable of loving a woman who has disgraced me,
+disgraced herself, her--" His utterance failed.
+
+"Oh, Lady Delacour," cried Belinda, "how can you trifle in this manner?"
+
+"I meant not," said her ladyship, "to trifle; I am satisfied. My lord, I
+can give you the most irrefragable proof that whatever may have been the
+apparent levity of my conduct, you have had no serious cause for
+jealousy. But the proof will shock, disgust you. Have you courage to
+know more? Then follow me."
+
+He followed her. Belinda heard the boudoir door unlocked. In a few
+minutes they returned. Grief and horror and pity were painted on Lord
+Delacour's countenance as he passed hastily out of the room.
+
+"My dearest friend, I have taken your advice; would to heaven I had
+taken it sooner!" said Lady Delacour. "I have revealed to Lord Delacour
+my real situation. Poor man, he was shocked beyond expression. The
+moment his foolish jealousy was extinguished, his love for me revived in
+full."
+
+Lady Delacour awaited the operation with the utmost fortitude; but, to
+everyone's joy, it was found there was no necessity for it; she had been
+deceived by a villainous quack, who knew too well how to make a wound
+hideous and painful, and had continued her delusion for his own
+advantage.
+
+Meanwhile, Belinda having permitted Mr. Vincent to address her, he was
+being given a fair trial whether he could win her love. They had heard
+reports of Clarence Hervey's speedy marriage with an heiress, Miss
+Hartley, and found them confirmed by a letter Lady Delacour received
+from him. Some years ago he had formed the romantic idea of educating a
+wife for himself, and having found a beautiful, artless girl in the New
+Forest, he had taken her under his care on the death of her grandmother.
+
+She felt herself bound in honour and gratitude to him when her fortune
+changed, and she was acknowledged by her father, Mr. Hartley, who had
+long been searching for her, and who had traced her at last by the
+picture Clarence Hervey had caused to be exhibited.
+
+With the utmost magnanimity, Hervey, although he saw a successful rival
+for Belinda's hand in Augustus Vincent, rescued him from ruin at the
+gaming-table, and induced him to promise never to gamble again.
+
+"I was determined Belinda's husband should be my friend. I have
+succeeded beyond my hopes," he said.
+
+But Vincent's love of play had decided Belinda at last. She refused him
+finally in a letter which she confessed she found difficult to write,
+but which she sent because she had promised she would not hold him in
+suspense once she had made her decision.
+
+After this Virginia Hartley confessed to her attachment for one Captain
+Sunderland, and Clarence was free to avow his passion for Belinda.
+
+"And what is Miss Portman to believe," cried one of Belinda's friends,
+"when she has seen you on the very eve of marriage with another lady?"
+
+"The strongest merit I can plead with such a woman as Miss Portman," he
+replied, "is that I was ready to sacrifice my own happiness to a sense
+of duty."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+Castle Rackrent
+
+
+     "Castle Rackrent" was published anonymously in 1800. It was
+     not only the first of Miss Edgeworth's novels,--it is in many
+     respects her best work. Later came "The Absentee," "Belinda,"
+     "Helen," the "Tales of Fashionable Life," and the "Moral
+     Tales." Sir Walter Scott wrote that reading these stories of
+     Irish peasant life made him feel "that something might be
+     tempted for my own country of the same kind as that which Miss
+     Edgeworth so fortunately achieved for Ireland," something that
+     would procure for his own countrymen "sympathy for their
+     virtues and indulgence for their foibles." As a study of Irish
+     fidelity in the person of Old Thady, the steward who tells the
+     story of "Castle Rackrent," the book is a masterpiece.
+
+
+_I.--Sir Patrick and Sir Murtagh_
+
+
+Having, out of friendship for the family, undertaken to publish the
+memoirs of the Rackrent family, I think it my duty to say a few words
+concerning myself first. My real name is Thady Quirk, though in the
+family I've always been known as "Honest Thady"; afterwards, I remember
+to hear them calling me "Old Thady," and now I've come to "Poor Thady."
+To look at me you would hardly think poor Thady was the father of
+Attorney Quirk; he is a high gentleman, and having better than fifteen
+hundred a year, landed estate, looks down upon honest Thady. But I wash
+my hands of his doings, and as I lived so will I die, true and loyal to
+the family.
+
+I ought to bless that day when Sir Tallyhoo Rackrent lost a fine hunter
+and his life, all in one day's hunt, for the estate came straight into
+_the_ family, upon one condition, that Sir Patrick O'Shaughlin (whose
+driver my grandfather was) should, by Act of Parliament, take the
+surname and arms of Rackrent.
+
+Now it was the world could see what was in Sir Patrick. He gave the
+finest entertainments ever was heard of in the country; not a man could
+stand after supper but Sir Patrick himself. He had his house, from one
+year's end to another, as full of company as it would hold; and this
+went on, I can't tell you how long.
+
+But one year, on his birthday, just as the company rose to drink his
+health, he fell down in a sort of fit, and in the morning it was all
+over with poor Sir Patrick.
+
+Never did any gentleman die more beloved by rich and poor. All the
+gentlemen in the three counties came to his funeral; and happy the man
+who could get but a sight of the hearse!
+
+Just as they were passing through his own town the body was seized for
+debt! Little gain had the creditors!
+
+First and foremost, they had the curses of the country, and Sir Murtagh,
+the new heir, refused to pay a shilling on account of the insult to his
+father's body; in which he was countenanced by all the gentlemen of
+property of his acquaintance. He did not take at all after the old
+gentleman. The cellars were never filled, and no open house; even the
+tenants were sent away without their whiskey. I was ashamed myself, but
+put it all down to my lady; she was of the family of the Skinflints. I
+must say, she made the best of wives, being a notable, stirring woman,
+and looking close to everything. 'Tis surprising how cheap my lady got
+things done! What with fear of driving for rent, and Sir Murtagh's
+lawsuits, the tenants were kept in such good order they never came near
+Castle Rackrent without a present of something or other--nothing too
+much or too little for my lady. And Sir Murtagh taught 'em all, as he
+said, the law of landlord and tenant. No man ever loved the law as he
+did.
+
+Out of the forty-nine suits he had, he never lost one, but seventeen.
+
+Though he and my lady were much of a mind in most things, there was a
+deal of sparring and jarring between them. In a dispute about an
+abatement one day, my lady would have the last word, and Sir Murtagh
+grew mad. I was within hearing--he spoke so loud, all the kitchen was
+out on the stairs. All on a sudden he stopped, and my lady, too. Sir
+Murtagh, in his passion, had broken a blood-vessel. My lady sent for
+five physicians; but Sir Murtagh died. She had a fine jointure settled
+upon her, and took herself away, to the great joy of the tenantry.
+
+
+_II.--Sir Kit and his Wife_
+
+
+Then the house was all hurry-scurry, preparing for my new master, Sir
+Murtagh's younger brother, a dashing young officer. He came before I
+knew where I was, with another spark with him, and horses and dogs, and
+servants, and harum-scarum called for everything, as if he were in a
+public-house. I walk slow, and hate a bustle, and if it had not been for
+my pipe and tobacco, should, I verily believe, have broke my heart for
+poor Sir Murtagh.
+
+But one morning my new master caught sight of me. "And is that Old
+Thady?" says he. I loved him from that day to this, his voice was so
+like the family, and I never saw a finer figure of a man.
+
+A fine life we should have led had he stayed among us, God bless him!
+But, the sporting season over, he grew tired of the place, and was off
+in a whirlwind to town. A circular letter came next post from the new
+agent to say he must remit L500 to the master at Bath within a
+fortnight--bad news for the poor tenants. Sir Kit Rackrent, my new
+master, left it all to the agent, and now not a week without a call for
+money. Rents must be paid to the day, and afore--old tenants turned out,
+anything for the ready penny.
+
+The agent was always very civil to me, and took a deal of notice of my
+son Jason, who, though he be my son, was a good scholar from his birth,
+and a very cute lad. Seeing he was a good clerk, the agent gave him the
+rent accounts to copy, which he did for nothing at first, being always
+proud to serve the family.
+
+By-and-by, a good farm fell vacant, and my son put in a proposal for it.
+Why not? The master, knowing no more of the land than a child unborn,
+wrote over, leaving it to the agent, and he must send over L200 by
+return post. So my son's proposal was just the thing, and he a good
+tenant, and he got a promise of abatement after the first year for
+advancing the half-year's rent to make up the L200, and my master was
+satisfied. The agent told us then, as a great secret, that Sir Kit was a
+little too fond of play.
+
+At last, at Christmas, the agent wrote he could raise no more money,
+anyhow, and desired to resign the agency. My son, Jason, who had
+corresponded privately with Sir Kit, was requested to take over the
+accounts forthwith. His honour also condescended to tell us he was going
+to be married in a fortnight to the grandest heiress in England, and had
+immediate occasion for L200 for travelling expenses home to Castle
+Rackrent, where he intended to be early next month. We soon saw his
+marriage in the paper, and news came of him and his bride being in
+Dublin on their way home. We had bonfires all over the country,
+expecting them all day, and were just thinking of giving them up for the
+night, when the carriage came thundering up. I got the first sight of
+the bride, and greatly shocked I was, for she was little better than a
+blackamoor. "You're kindly welcome, my lady," I says; but neither spoke
+a word, nor did he so much as hand her up the steps.
+
+I concluded she could not speak English, and was from foreign parts, so
+I left her to herself, and went down to the servants' hall to learn
+something about her. Sir Kit's own man told us, at last, that she might
+well be a great fortune, for she was a Jewess, by all accounts. I had
+never seen any of that tribe before, and could only gather that she
+could not abide pork nor sausages, and went neither to church nor mass.
+"Mercy upon his honour's poor soul," thought I. But when, after this,
+strange gentleman's servants came and began to talk about the bride, I
+took care to put the best foot foremost, and passed her for a nabob.
+
+I saw plain enough, next morning, how things were between Sir Kit and
+his lady, though they went arm-in-arm to look at the building.
+
+"Old Thady, how do you do?" says my master, just as he used to do, but I
+could see he was not well pleased, and my heart was in my mouth as I
+walked after them.
+
+There were no balls, no dinners, no doings. Sir Kit's gentleman told me
+it was all my lady's fault, because she was so obstinate about the
+cross.
+
+"What cross?" says I. "Is it about her being a heretic?"
+
+"Oh, no such matter," says he. "My master does not mind about her
+heresies, but her diamond cross. She's thousands of English pounds
+concealed in her diamonds, which she as good as promised to give to my
+master before they married; but now she won't part with any of them, and
+must take the consequences."
+
+One morning, his honour says to me, "Thady, buy me a pig," and that was
+the first breaking out of my lady's troubles when the sausages were
+ordered. My lady went down to the kitchen herself, and desired never
+more to see them on her table. The cook took her part, but the master
+made it a principle to have the sausages; so, for fear of her place, she
+gave in, and from that day forward, always sausages or pig-meat in one
+form or other went up to table; upon which my lady shut herself up in
+her own room, and my master turned the key in the door, and kept it ever
+after in his pocket. We none of us saw her, or heard her speak for seven
+years after; he carried her dinner in himself.
+
+Then his honour had a deal of company, and was as gay and gallant as
+before he was married. The country, to be sure, talked and wondered, but
+nobody cared to ask impertinent questions, my master being a famous
+shot. His character was so well known that he lived in peace and quiet
+ever after, and was a great favourite with the ladies; so that, when he
+gave out that my lady was now skin and bone, and could not live through
+the winter, there were no less than three ladies at daggers drawn, as
+his gentleman swore, at the balls, for Sir Kit for their partner. I
+could not but think them bewitched, but it was not known how my lady's
+fortune was settled, nor how the estate was all mortgaged, and bonds out
+against him, for he was never cured of his gaming tricks; but that was
+the only fault he had, God bless him!
+
+Then it was given out, by mistake, that my lady was dead, and the three
+ladies showed their brothers Sir Kit's letters, and claimed his
+promises. His honour said he was willing to meet any man who questioned
+his conduct, and the ladies must settle among themselves who was to be
+his second, while his first was alive, to his mortification and theirs.
+He met the first lady's brother, and shot him; next day called out the
+second, whose wooden leg stuck fast in the ploughed land, so Sir Kit,
+with great candour, fired over his head, whereupon they shook hands
+cordially, and went home together to dinner.
+
+To establish his sister's reputation this gentleman went out as Sir
+Kit's second next day, when he met the last of his adversaries. He had
+just hit the toothpick out of his enemy's hand, when he received a ball
+in a vital part, and was brought home speechless in a hand-barrow. We
+got the key out of his pocket at once, and my son Jason ran to release
+her ladyship. She would not believe but that it was some new trick till
+she saw the men bringing Sir Kit up the avenue. There was no life in
+him, and he was "waked" the same night.
+
+The country was all in an uproar about him, and his murderer would have
+been hanged surely, but he prudently withdrew to the Continent.
+
+My lady got surprisingly well, and no sooner was it known that Sir Kit
+was dead than all the country came round in a body, as it were, to set
+her free. But she had taken an unaccountable prejudice against the
+country, and was not easy, but when she was packing up to leave us, I
+considered her quite as a foreigner, and no longer part of the family.
+Her diamond cross was at the bottom of it all; and it was a shame for
+her, being his wife, not to have given it up to him when he condescended
+to ask for it so often, especially when he made it no secret he had
+married her for her money.
+
+
+_III.--Sir Condy_
+
+
+The new heir, Sir Conolly, commonly called Sir Condy, was the most
+universally beloved man I ever saw or heard of. He was ever my white-
+headed boy, when he used to live in a small but slated house at the end
+of the avenue, before he went to college. He had little fortune of his
+own, and a deal of money was spent on his education. Many of the tenants
+secretly advanced him cash upon his promising bargains of leases, and
+lawful interest should he ever come into the estate. So that when he did
+succeed, he could not command a penny of his first year's income. My son
+Jason, who was now agent, explained matters to Sir Condy, who, not
+willing to take his affairs in his own hands, or even to look them in
+the face, gave my son a bargain of some acres at a reasonable rent to
+pay him for his many years' service in the family gratis.
+
+There was a hunting-lodge convenient to my son's land that he had his
+eye upon, but Sir Condy talked of letting it to his friend Captain
+Moneygawl, with whom he had become very friendly, and whose sister, Miss
+Isabella, fell over head and ears in love with my master the first time
+he went there to dinner.
+
+But Sir Condy was at a terrible nonplus, for he had no liking for Miss
+Isabella. To his mind, little Judy McQuirk, daughter to a sister's son
+of mine, was worth twenty of her. But her father had locked her in her
+room and forbidden her to think of him, which raised his spirit; and I
+could see him growing more and more in the mind to carry Miss Isabella
+off to Scotland, as she desired. And I had wished her joy, a week after,
+on her return with my poor master. Lucky for her she had a few thousands
+of her own, for her father would not give her a farthing. My master and
+my lady set out in great style, and it was reported that her father had
+undertaken to pay all Sir Condy's debts; and, of course, all the
+tradesmen gave him fresh credit, and everything went on smack smooth. I
+was proud to see Castle Rackrent again in all its glory. She went on as
+if she had a mint of money; and all Sir Condy asked--God bless him!--was
+to live in peace and quiet, and have his whiskey punch at night. But my
+lady's few thousands could not last for ever. Things in a twelve-month
+or so came to such a pass that there was no going on any longer.
+
+Well, my son Jason put in a word about the lodge, and Sir Condy was fain
+to take the purchase-money to settle matters, for there were two writs
+come down against him to the sheriff, who was no friend of his. Then
+there came a general election, and Sir Condy was called upon by all his
+friends to stand candidate; they would do all the business, and it
+should not cost him a penny.
+
+There was open house then at Castle Rackrent, and grand dinners, and all
+the gentlemen drinking success to Sir Condy till they were carried off.
+The election day came, and a glorious day it was. I thought I should
+have died with joy in the street when I saw my poor master chaired, and
+the crowd following him up and down. But a stranger man in the crowd
+gets me to introduce him to my son Jason, and little did I guess his
+meaning. He gets a list of my master's debts from him, and goes round
+and buys them up, and so got to be sole creditor over all, and must
+needs have an execution against the master's goods and furniture.
+
+After the election shoals of people came from all parts, claiming to
+have obliged him with votes, and to remind him of promises he never
+made. Worst of all, the gentlemen who had managed everything and
+subscribed by hundreds very genteelly forgot to pay, and it was all left
+at my master's door. All he could do to content 'em was to take himself
+off to Dublin, where my lady had taken a house fitting for a member of
+parliament.
+
+Soon my son Jason said, "Sir Condy must look out for another agent. If
+my lady had the Bank of Ireland to spend, it would all go in one
+winter."
+
+I could scarcely believe my own old eyes when I saw my son's name joined
+in the _custodian_, that the villain who got the list of debts brought
+down in the spring; but he said it would make it easier for Sir Condy.
+
+
+_IV.--The Last of the Rackrents_
+
+
+When Sir Condy and his lady came down in June, he was pleased to take me
+aside to complain of my son and other matters; not one unkind word of my
+lady, but he wondered that her relations would do nothing for them in
+their great distress. He did not take anything long to heart; let it be
+as it might this night, it was all out of his head before he went to
+bed. Next morning my lady had a letter from her relations, and asked to
+be allowed to go back to them. He fell back as if he was shot, but after
+a minute said she had his full consent, for what could she do at Castle
+Rackrent with an execution coming down? Next morning she set off for
+Mount Juliet.
+
+Then everything was seized by the gripers, my son Jason, to his shame be
+it spoken, among them. On the evening Sir Condy had appointed to settle
+all, when he sees the sight of bills and loads of papers on the table,
+he says to Jason, "Can't you now just sit down here and give me a clear
+view of the balance, you know, which is all I need be talking about?
+Thady, do just step out, and see they are bringing the things for the
+punch." When I came back Jason was pointing to the balance, a terrible
+sight for my poor master.
+
+"A--h! Hold your hand!" cries my master. "Where in the wide world am I
+to find hundreds, let alone thousands?"
+
+"There's but one way," says Jason. "Sure, can't you sell, though at a
+loss? Sure, you can sell, and I've a purchaser ready for you."
+
+"Have you so?" says Sir Condy. Then, colouring up a good deal, he tells
+Jason of L500 a year he had settled upon my lady, at which Jason was
+indeed mad; but, with much ado, agreed to a compromise. "And how much am
+I going to sell? The lands of O'Shaughlin's town, and the lands
+of"--just reading to himself--"oh, murder, Jason! Surely you won't put
+this in--castle, stables, and appurtenances of Castle Rackrent?"
+
+"Oh, murder!" says I. "This is too bad, Jason."
+
+"Why so?" says Jason. "When it's all mine, and a great deal more, all
+lawfully mine, was I to push for it?"
+
+But I took no heed, for I was grieved and sick at heart for my poor
+master, and couldn't but speak.
+
+"Here's the punch," says Jason, for the door opened.
+
+So my master starts up in his chair, and Jason uncorks the whiskey.
+Well, I was in great hopes when I saw him making the punch, and my
+master taking a glass; but Jason put it back when he saw him going to
+fill again, saying, "No, Sir Condy; let us settle all before we go
+deeper into the punch-bowl. You've only to sign," says Jason, putting
+the pen to him.
+
+"Take all, and be content," said my master. So he signed, and the man
+who brought the punch witnessed, for I was crying like a child.
+
+So I went out to the street door, and the neighbours' children left
+their play to come to see what ailed me; and I told them all. When they
+heard Sir Condy was going to leave Castle Rackrent for good and all,
+they set up such a whillaluh as brought all their parents round the
+doors in great anger against Jason. I was frightened, and went back to
+warn my son. He grew quite pale and asked Sir Condy what he'd best do.
+
+"I'll tell you," says Sir Condy, laughing to see his fright. "Finish
+your glass first, then let's go to the window, and I'll tell them--or
+you shall, if you please--that I'm going to the lodge for change of air
+for my health, and by my own desire, for the rest of my days."
+
+"Do so," says Jason, who never meant it to be so, but could not refuse
+at such a time.
+
+So the very next day he sets off to the lodge, and I along with him.
+There was great bemoaning all through the town, which I stayed to
+witness. He was in his bed, and very low, when I got there, and
+complained of a great pain about his heart; but I, knowing the nature of
+him from a boy, took my pipe and began telling him how he was beloved
+and regretted in the country. And it did him a great deal of good to
+hear it.
+
+There was a great horn at the lodge that used to belong to the
+celebrated Sir Patrick, who was reported to have drunk the full of it
+without stopping to draw breath, which no other man, afore or since,
+could do.
+
+One night Sir Condy was drinking with the excise-man and the gauger, and
+wagered that he could do it. Says he, "Your hand is steadier than mine,
+Old Thady; fill you the horn for me." And so, wishing his honour
+success, I did. He swallowed it down and dropped like one shot. We put
+him to bed, and for five days the fever came and went, and came and
+went. On the sixth he says, knowing me very well, "I'm in a burning pain
+all withinside of me, Thady." I could not speak. "Brought to this by
+drink," says he. "Where are all the friends? Gone, hey? Ay, Sir Condy
+has been a fool all his days," said he, and died. He had but a very poor
+funeral, after all.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+GEORGE ELIOT
+
+
+Adam Bede
+
+
+     Mary Ann Evans ("George Eliot") was born Nov. 22, 1819, at
+     South Farm, Arbury, Warwickshire, England, where her father
+     was agent on the Newdigate estate. In her youth, she was adept
+     at butter-making and similar rural work, but she found time to
+     master Italian and German. Her first important literary work
+     was the translation of Strauss's "Life of Jesus" in 1844, and
+     shortly after her father's death in 1849 she was writing in
+     the "Westminster Review." It was not until 1856 that George
+     Eliot settled down to the writing of novels. "Scenes from
+     Clerical Life" first appeared serially in "Blackwood's
+     Magazine" during 1857 and 1858; "Adam Bede," the first and
+     most popular of her long stories, in 1859. In May, 1880,
+     eighteen months after the death of her friend George Henry
+     Lewes (see PHILOSOPHY, Vol. XIV), George Eliot married Mr. J.
+     W. Cross. She died on December 22 in the same year. With all
+     her sense of humour there is a note of sadness in George
+     Eliot's novels. She deals with ordinary, everyday people, and
+     describes their joys and sorrows. In "Adam Bede," as in most
+     of her work, the novelist drew from the ample stores of her
+     early life in the Midlands, while the plot is unfolded with
+     singular simplicity, purity, and power.
+
+
+_I.--The Two Brothers_
+
+
+In the roomy workshop of Mr. Jonathan Burge, carpenter and builder, in
+the village of Hayslope, on the eighteenth of June, 1799, five workmen
+were busy upon doors and window-frames.
+
+The tallest of the five was a large-boned, muscular man, nearly six feet
+high. The sleeve rolled up above the elbow showed an arm that was likely
+to win the prize for feats of strength; yet the long, supple hand, with
+its broad finger tips, looked ready for works of skill. In his tall
+stalwartness Adam Bede was a Saxon, and justified his name. The face was
+large and roughly hewn, and when in repose had no other beauty than such
+as belongs to an expression of good-humoured, honest intelligence.
+
+It is clear at a glance that the next workman is Adam's brother. He is
+nearly as tall; he has the same type of features. But Seth's broad
+shoulders have a slight stoop, and his glance, instead of being keen, is
+confiding and benignant.
+
+The idle tramps always felt sure they could get a copper from Seth; they
+scarcely ever spoke to Adam.
+
+At six o'clock the men stopped working, and went out. Seth lingered, and
+looked wistfully at Adam, as if he expected him to say something.
+
+"Shalt go home before thee go'st to the preaching?" Adam asked.
+
+"Nay, I shan't be home before going for ten. I'll happen see Dinah
+Morris safe home, if she's willing. There's nobody comes with her from
+Poyser's, thee know'st."
+
+Adam set off home, and at a quarter to seven Seth was on the village
+green where the Methodists were preaching. The people drew nearer when
+Dinah Morris mounted the cart which served as a pulpit. There was a
+total absence of self-consciousness in her demeanour; she walked to the
+cart as simply as if she were going to market. There was no keenness in
+the eyes; they seemed rather to be shedding love than making
+observations. When Dinah spoke it was with a clear but not loud voice,
+and her sincere, unpremeditated eloquence held the attention of her
+audience without interruption.
+
+When the service was over, Seth Bede walked by Dinah's side along the
+hedgerow path that skirted the pastures and corn-fields which lay
+between the village and the Hall Farm.
+
+Seth could see an expression of unconscious placid gravity on her
+face--an expression that is most discouraging to a lover. He was timidly
+revolving something he wanted to say, and it was only when they were
+close to the yard-gates of the Hall Farm he had the courage to speak.
+
+"It may happen you'll think me overbold to speak to you again after what
+you told me o' your thoughts. But it seems to me there's more texts for
+your marrying than ever you can find against it. St. Paul says, 'Two are
+better than one,' and that holds good with marriage as well as with
+other things. For we should be o' one heart and o' one mind, Dinah. I'd
+never be the husband to make a claim on you as could interfere with your
+doing the work God has fitted you for. I'd make a shift, and fend indoor
+and out, to give you more liberty--more than you can have now; for
+you've got to get your own living now, and I'm strong enough to work for
+us both."
+
+When Seth had once begun to urge his suit, he went on earnestly and
+almost hurriedly. His voice trembled at the last sentence.
+
+They had reached one of those narrow passes between two tall stones,
+which performed the office of a stile in Loamshire. And Dinah paused,
+and said, in her tender but calm notes, "Seth Bede, I thank you for your
+love towards me, and if I could think of any man as more than a
+Christian brother, I think it would be you. But my heart is not free to
+marry, or to think of making a home for myself in this world. God has
+called me to speak His word, and He has greatly owned my work."
+
+They said farewell at the yard-gate, for Seth wouldn't enter the
+farmhouse, choosing rather to turn back along the fields through which
+he and Dinah had already passed. It was ten o'clock when he reached
+home, and he heard the sound of tools as he lifted the latch.
+
+"Why, mother," said Seth, "how is it as father's working so late?"
+
+"It's none o' thy feyther as is a-workin'; it's thy brother as does
+iverything, for there's niver nobody else i' th' way to do nothin'."
+
+Lisbeth Bede was going on, for she was not at all afraid of Seth--who
+had never in his life spoken a harsh word to his mother--and usually
+poured into his ears all the querulousness which was repressed by the
+awe which mingled itself with her idolatrous love of Adam.
+
+But Seth, with an anxious look, had passed into the workshop, and said,
+"Addy, how's this? What! Father's forgot the coffin?"
+
+"Ay, lad, th' old tale; but I shall get it done," said Adam, looking up.
+"Why, what's the matter with thee--thee'st in trouble?"
+
+Seth's eyes were red, and there was a look of deep depression on his
+mild face.
+
+"Yes, Addy, but it's what must be borne, and can't be helped. Let me
+take my turn now, and do thee go to bed."
+
+"No, lad; I'd rather go on, now I'm in harness. The coffin's promised to
+be ready at Brox'on by seven o'clock to-morrow morning. I'll call thee
+up at sunrise, to help me to carry it when it's done. Go and eat thy
+supper and shut the door, so as I mayn't hear mother's talk."
+
+Adam worked throughout the night, thinking of his childhood and its
+happy days, and then of the days of sadness that came later when his
+father began to loiter at public-houses, and Lisbeth began to cry at
+home. He remembered well the night of shame and anguish when he first
+saw his father quite wild and foolish.
+
+The two brothers set off in the early sunlight, carrying the long coffin
+on their shoulders. By six o'clock they had reached Broxton, and were on
+their way home.
+
+When they were coming across the valley, and had entered the pasture
+through which the brook ran, Seth said suddenly, beginning to walk
+faster, "Why, what's that sticking against the willow?"
+
+They both ran forward, and dragged the tall, heavy body out of the
+water; and then looked with mute awe at the glazed eyes--forgetting
+everything but that their father lay dead before them.
+
+Adam's mind rushed back over the past in a flood of relenting and pity.
+Only a few hours ago, and the gray-haired father, of whom he had been
+thinking with a sort of hardness as certain to live to be a thorn in his
+side, was perhaps even then struggling with that watery death!
+
+
+_II.--The Hall Farm_
+
+
+It is a very fine old place of red brick, the Hall Farm--once the
+residence of a country squire, and the Hall.
+
+Plenty of life there, though this is the drowsiest time of the year,
+just before hay-harvest; and it is the drowsiest time of the day, too,
+for it is half-past three by Mrs. Poyser's handsome eight-day clock.
+
+Mrs. Poyser, a good-looking woman, not more than eight-and-thirty, of
+fair complexion and sandy hair, well shaped, light-footed, had just
+taken up her knitting, and was seated with her niece, Dinah Morris.
+Another motherless niece, Hetty Sorrel, a distractingly pretty girl of
+seventeen, was busy in the adjoining dairy.
+
+"You look the image o' your aunt Judith, Dinah, when you sit a-sewing,"
+said Mrs. Poyser. "I allays said that o' Judith, as she'd bear a pound
+weight any day to save anybody else carrying a ounce. And it made no
+difference in her, as I could see, when she took to the Methodists; only
+she talked a bit different, and wore a different sort o' cap. If you'd
+only come and live i' this country you might get married to some decent
+man, and there'd be plenty ready to have you, if you'd only leave off
+that preaching, as is ten times worse than anything your Aunt Judith
+ever did. And even if you'd marry Seth Bede, as is a poor,
+wool-gathering Methodist, and's never like to have a penny beforehand, I
+know your uncle 'ud help you with a pig, and very like a cow, for he's
+allays been good-natur'd to my kin, for all they're poor, and made 'em
+welcome to the house; and 'ud do for you, I'll be bound, as much as ever
+he'd do for Hetty, though she's his own niece."
+
+The arrival of Mr. Irwine, the rector of Hayslope, and Captain
+Donnithorne, Squire Donnithorne's grandson and heir, interrupted Mrs.
+Poyser's flow of talk.
+
+"I'll lay my life they're come to speak about your preaching on the
+Green, Dinah. It's you must answer 'em, for I'm dumb. I've said enough
+a'ready about your bringing such disgrace upo' your uncle's family. I
+wouldn't ha' minded if you'd been Mr. Poyser's own niece. Folks must put
+up wi' their own kin as they put up wi' their own noses; it's their own
+flesh and blood."
+
+Mr. Irwine, however, was the last man to feel any annoyance at the
+Methodist preaching, and young Arthur Donnithorne's visit was merely an
+excuse for exchanging a few words with Hetty Sorrel.
+
+The rector mentioned before he left that Thias Bede had been found
+drowned in the Willow Brook; and Dinah Morris at once decided that she
+might be of some comfort to the widow, and set out for the village.
+
+As for Hetty Sorrel, she was thinking more of the looks Captain
+Donnithorne had cast at her than of Adam and his troubles. Bright,
+admiring glances from a handsome young gentleman--those were the warm
+rays that set poor Hetty's heart vibrating.
+
+Hetty was quite used to the thought that people liked to look at her.
+She was aware that Mr. Craig, the gardener at Squire Donnithorne's, was
+over head-and-ears in love with her. She knew still better that Adam
+Bede--tall, upright, clever, brave Adam Bede--who carried such authority
+with all the people round about, and whom her uncle was always delighted
+to see of an evening, saying that "Adam knew a fine sight more o' the
+natur o' things than those as thought themselves his betters"--she knew
+that this Adam, who was often rather stern to other people, and not much
+given to run after the lassies, could be made to turn pale or red any
+day by a word or a look from her. Hetty's sphere of comparison was not
+large, but she couldn't help perceiving that Adam was "something like" a
+man; always knew what to say about things; knew, with only looking at
+it, the value of a chestnut-tree that was blown down, and why the damp
+came in the walls, and what they must do to stop the rats; and wrote a
+beautiful hand that you could read, and could do figures in his head--a
+degree of accomplishment totally unknown among the richest farmers of
+that country-side.
+
+Hetty was quite certain her uncle wanted her to encourage Adam, and
+would be pleased for her to marry him. For the last three years--ever
+since he had superintended the building of the new barn--Adam had always
+been made welcome at the Hall Farm, and for the last two years at least
+Hetty had been in the habit of hearing her uncle say, "Adam Bede may be
+working for a wage now, but he'll be a master-man some day, as sure as I
+sit in this chair. Master Burge is in the right on't to want him to go
+partners and marry his daughter, if it's true what they say. The woman
+as marries him 'ull have a good take, be't Lady Day or Michaelmas," a
+remark which Mrs. Poyser always followed up with her cordial assent.
+
+"Ah," she would say, "it's all very fine having a ready-made rich man,
+but may happen he'll be a ready-made fool; and it's no use filling your
+pocket full of money if you've got a hole in the corner. It'll do you no
+good to sit in a spring-cart o' your own if you've got a soft to drive
+you; he'll soon turn you over into the ditch."
+
+But Hetty had never given Adam any steady encouragement. She liked to
+feel that this strong, keen-eyed man was in her power; but as to
+marrying Adam, that was a very different affair.
+
+Hetty's dreams were all of luxuries. She thought if Adam had been rich,
+and could have given the things of her dreams--large, beautiful earrings
+and Nottingham lace and a carpeted parlour--she loved him well enough to
+marry him.
+
+The last few weeks a new influence had come over Hetty; she had become
+aware that Mr. Arthur Donnithorne would take a good deal of trouble for
+the chance of seeing her. And Dinah Morris was away, preaching and
+working in a manufacturing town.
+
+
+_III.--Adam's First Love_
+
+
+Adam Bede, like many other men, thought the signs of love for another
+were signs of love towards himself. The time had come to him that
+summer, as he helped Hetty pick currants in the orchard of the Hall
+Farm, that a man can least forget in after-life--the time when he
+believes that the first woman he has ever loved is, at least, beginning
+to love him in return.
+
+He was not wrong in thinking that a change had come over Hetty; the
+anxieties and fears of a first passion with which she was trembling had
+become stronger than vanity, and while Adam drew near to her she was
+absorbed in thinking and wondering about Arthur Donnithorne's possible
+return.
+
+For the first time Hetty felt that there was something soothing to her
+in Adam's timid yet manly tenderness; she wanted to be treated lovingly.
+And Arthur was away from home; and, oh, it was very hard to bear the
+blank of absence. She was not afraid that Adam would tease her with
+love-making and flattering speeches; he had always been so reserved to
+her. She could enjoy without any fear the sense that this strong, brave
+man loved her and was near her. It never entered into her mind that Adam
+was pitiable, too, that Adam, too, must suffer one day.
+
+It was from Adam that she found out that Captain Donnithorne would be
+back in a day or two, and this knowledge made her the more kindly
+disposed towards him. But for all the world Adam would not have spoken
+of his love to Hetty yet, till this commencing kindness towards him
+should have grown into unmistakable love. He did no more than pluck a
+rose for her, and walk back to the farm with her arm in his.
+
+When Adam, after stopping a while to chat with the Poysers, had said
+good-night, Mr. Poyser remarked, "If you can catch Adam for a husband,
+Hetty, you'll ride i' your own spring-cart some day, I'll be your
+warrant."
+
+Her uncle did not see the little toss of the head with which Hetty
+answered him. To ride in a spring-cart seemed a very miserable lot
+indeed to her now.
+
+It was on August 18, when Adam, going home from some work he had been
+doing at one of the farms, passed through a grove of beeches, and saw,
+at the end of the avenue, about twenty yards before him, two figures.
+They were standing opposite to each other with clasped hands, and they
+separated with a start at a sharp bark from Adam Bede's dog. One hurried
+away through a gate out of the grove; the other, Arthur Donnithorne,
+looking flushed and excited, sauntered towards Adam. The young squire
+had been home for some weeks celebrating his twenty-first birthday, and
+he was leaving on the morrow to rejoin his regiment.
+
+Hitherto there had been a cordial and sincere liking and a mutual esteem
+between the two young men; but now Adam stood as if petrified, and his
+amazement turned quickly to fierceness.
+
+Arthur tried to pass the matter off lightly, as if it had been a chance
+meeting with Hetty; but Adam, who felt that he had been robbed
+treacherously by the man in whom he had trusted, would not so easily let
+him off. It came to blows, and Arthur sank under a well-planted blow of
+Adam's, as a steel rod is broken by an iron bar.
+
+Before they separated, Arthur promised that he would write and tell
+Hetty there could be no further communication between them. And this
+promise he kept. Adam rested content with the assurance that nothing but
+an innocent flirtation had been stopped. As the days went by he found
+that the calm patience with which he had waited for Hetty's love had
+forsaken him since that night in the beech-grove. The agitations of
+jealousy had given a new restlessness to his passion.
+
+Hetty, for her part, after the first misery caused by Arthur's letter,
+had turned into a mood of dull despair, and sought only for change. Why
+should she not marry Adam? She did not care what she did so that it made
+some change in her life.
+
+So, in November, when Mr. Burge offered Adam a share in his business,
+Adam not only accepted it, but decided that the time had come to ask
+Hetty to marry him.
+
+Hetty did not speak when Adam got out the question, but his face was
+very close to hers, and she put up her round cheek against his, like a
+kitten. She wanted to be caressed--she wanted to feel as if Arthur were
+with her again.
+
+Adam only said after that, "I may tell your uncle and aunt, mayn't I,
+Hetty?" And she said "Yes."
+
+The red firelight on the hearth at the Hall Farm shone on joyful faces
+that evening when Adam took the opportunity of telling Mr. and Mrs.
+Poyser that he saw his way to maintaining a wife now, and that Hetty had
+consented to have him.
+
+There was a great deal of discussion before Adam went away about the
+possibility of his finding a house that would do for him to settle in.
+
+"Well, well," said Mr. Poyser at last, "we needna fix everything
+to-night. You canna think o' getting married afore Easter. I'm not for
+long courtships, but there must be a bit o' time to make things
+comfortable."
+
+This was in November.
+
+Then in February came the full tragedy of Hetty Sorrel's life. She left
+home, and in a strange village, a child--Arthur Donnithorne's child--was
+born. Hetty left the baby in a wood, and returned to find it dead.
+Arrest and trial followed, and only at the last moment was the capital
+sentence commuted to transportation.
+
+She died a few years later on her way home.
+
+
+_IV.--The Wife of Adam Bede_
+
+
+It was the autumn of 1801, and Dinah Morris was once more at the Hall
+Farm, only to leave it again for her work in the town. Mrs. Poyser
+noticed that Dinah, who never used to change colour, flushed when Adam
+said, "Why, I hoped Dinah was settled among us for life. I thought she'd
+given up the notion o' going back to her old country."
+
+"Thought! Yes," said Mrs. Poyser; "and so would anybody else ha' thought
+as had got their right ends up'ards. But I suppose you must be a
+Methodist to know what a Methodist 'ull do. It's all guessing what the
+bats are flying after."
+
+"Why, what have we done to you, Dinah, as you must go away from us?"
+said Mr. Poyser. "It's like breaking your word; for your aunt never had
+no thought but you'd make this your home."
+
+"Nay, uncle," said Dinah, trying to be quite calm. "When I first came I
+said it was only for a time, as long as I could be of any comfort to my
+aunt."
+
+"Well, an' who said you'd ever left off being a comfort to me?" said
+Mrs. Poyser. "If you didna mean to stay wi' me, you'd better never ha'
+come. Them as ha' never had a cushion don't miss it."
+
+Dinah set off with Adam, for Lisbeth was ailing and wanted Dinah to sit
+with her a bit. On the way he reverted to her leaving the Hall Farm.
+"You know best, Dinah, but if it had been ordered so that you could ha'
+been my sister, and lived wi' us all our lives, I should ha' counted it
+the greatest blessing as could happen to us now."
+
+Dinah made no answer, and they walked on in silence, until presently,
+crossing the stone stile, Adam saw her face, flushed, and with a look of
+suppressed agitation.
+
+It struck him with surprise, and then he said, "I hope I've not hurt or
+displeased you by what I've said, Dinah; perhaps I was making too free.
+I've no wish different from what you see to be best; and I'm satisfied
+for you to live thirty miles off if you think it right."
+
+Poor Adam! Thus do men blunder.
+
+Lisbeth opened his eyes on the Sunday morning when Adam sat at home and
+read from his large pictured Bible.
+
+For a long time his mother talked on about Dinah, and about how they
+were losing her when they might keep her, and Adam at last told her she
+must make up her mind that she would have to do without Dinah.
+
+"Nay, but I canna ma' up my mind, when she's just cut out for thee; an'
+nought shall ma' me believe as God didna make her and send her here o'
+purpose for thee. What's it sinnify about her being a Methody? It 'ud
+happen wear out on her wi' marryin'."
+
+Adam threw himself back in his chair and looked at his mother. He
+understood now what her talk had been aiming at, and tried to chase away
+the notion from her mind.
+
+He was amazed at the way in which this new thought of Dinah's love had
+taken possession of him with an overmastering power that made all other
+feelings give way before the impetuous desire to know that the thought
+was true. He spoke to Seth, who said quite simply that he had long given
+up all thoughts of Dinah ever being his wife, and would rejoice in his
+brother's joy. But he could not tell whether Dinah was for marrying.
+
+"Thee might'st ask her," Seth said presently. "She took no offence at
+_me_ for asking, and thee'st more right than I had."
+
+When Adam did ask, Dinah answered that her heart was strongly drawn
+towards him, but that she must wait for divine guidance. So she left the
+Hall Farm and went back to the town, and Adam waited,--and then went
+after her to get his answer.
+
+"Adam," she said when they had met and walked some distance together,
+"it is the divine will. My soul is so knit to yours that it is but a
+divided life I live without you. And this moment, now you are with me,
+and I feel that our hearts are filled with the same love, I have a
+fullness of strength to bear and do our Heavenly Father's will that I
+had lost before."
+
+Adam paused and looked into her sincere eyes.
+
+"Then we'll never part any more, Dinah, till death parts us."
+
+And they kissed each other with deep joy.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+Felix Holt, the Radical
+
+
+     "Felix Holt, the Radical," was published in 1866. It has never
+     been one of George Eliot's very popular books. There is less
+     in it of her own life and experience than in most of her
+     novels, less of the homely wit of agricultural England. The
+     real value of the book is the picture it gives of the social
+     and political life, and for this reason, it will always be
+     read by those who want to know what English political methods
+     and customs were like at the time of the passing of the Reform
+     Bill of 1832. The character of Mr. Rufus Lyon, the independent
+     minister, is an admirable study of the non-conformist of that
+     period. Esther's renunciation of a brilliant fortune for a
+     humbler lot with the man she loved and admired, was quite in
+     accord with the teaching George Eliot inculcated all her life.
+     The scene of the story is laid in the Midlands, and the
+     action, covering about nine months, begins in 1832.
+
+
+_I.--The Minister's Daughter_
+
+
+The Rev. Rufus Lyon, Minister of the Independent Chapel, in the
+old-fashioned market town of Treby Magna, in the County of Loumshire,
+lived in a small house, adjoining the entry which led to the Chapel
+Yard.
+
+He sat this morning, as usual, in a low upstairs room, called his study,
+which served also as a sleeping-room, and from time to time got up to
+walk about between the piles of old books which lay around him on the
+floor. His face looked old and worn, yet the curtain of hair that fell
+from his bald crown and hung about his neck retained much of its
+original auburn tint, and his large, brown short-sighted eyes were still
+clear and bright. At the first glance, everyone thought him a very
+odd-looking, rusty old man, and the free-school boys often hooted after
+him, and called him "Revelations." But he was too short-sighted and too
+absent from the world of small facts and petty impulses to notice those
+who tittered at him.
+
+He was meditating on the text for his Sunday morning sermon, when old
+Lyddy, the minister's servant, opened the door to tell him that Mrs.
+Holt was wanting to see him. "She says she comes out of season, but
+she's in trouble."
+
+The minister bade her send Mistress Holt up, and a tall elderly woman
+dressed in black entered.
+
+Mrs. Holt, Mr. Lyon said to himself, is a woman who darkens counsel by
+words without knowledge, and angers the reason of the natural man; and
+he prayed for patience while his visitor rambled on concerning her late
+husband and her son Felix.
+
+The minister made out that Felix objected to the sale of his father's
+quack medicines, Holt's Elixir and Cancer Cure, and wanted Mr. Lyon to
+talk to him.
+
+"For after we'd been to chapel, he spoke better of you than he does of
+most: he said you was a fine old fellow, and an old-fashioned Puritan--
+he uses dreadful language, Mr. Lyon; but I saw he didn't mean you ill,
+for all that; he calls most folks' religion rottenness."
+
+Mrs. Holt departed, and in the evening, when Mr. Lyon was in the
+sitting-room, Felix Holt knocked at the door.
+
+The minister, accustomed to the respectable air of provincial townsmen,
+felt a slight shock, when his spectacles made clear to him the shaggy-
+headed, large-eyed, strong-limbed person of this questionable young man,
+without waistcoat or cravat.
+
+Felix spoke loudly and brusquely when the minister mentioned the subject
+of Mrs. Holt's visit.
+
+"As to those absurd medicines and gulling advertisements that my mother
+has been talking of to you, I've no more doubt about _them_ than I have
+about pocket-picking. If I allowed the sale of those medicines to go on,
+and my mother to live out of the proceeds when I can keep her by the
+honest labour of hands, I've not the least doubt that I should be a
+rascal."
+
+"I would fain inquire more particularly into your objection to these
+medicines," said Mr. Lyon gravely.
+
+"My father was ignorant," said Felix, bluntly. "I know something about
+these things. I was 'prentice for five miserable years to a stupid brute
+of a country apothecary--my poor father left money for that--he thought
+nothing could be finer for me. No matter: I know that the Cathartic
+Pills may be as bad as poison to half the people who swallow them, and
+that the cancer cure might as well be bottled ditch-water. I can keep my
+mother, as well, nay, better, than she keeps herself. With my watch and
+clock cleaning, and teaching one or two little chaps that I've got to
+come to me, I can earn enough."
+
+Mr. Lyon's suggestion that some situation might be obtained as clerk or
+assistant was brushed aside.
+
+"Why should I want to get into the middle class because I have some
+learning? The most of the middle class are as ignorant as the working
+people about everything that doesn't belong to their own Brummagem
+life."
+
+The entrance of Lyddy with the tea tray disturbed the conversation, but
+the minister, interested in his visitor, asked Felix to stay for a dish
+of tea, and Felix accepted.
+
+"My daughter, who has been detained in giving a lesson in the French
+tongue, has doubtless returned now," said the minister. On the entrance
+of the young lady, Felix was conscious she was not the sort of person he
+had expected the minister's daughter to be, and the incongruity repelled
+him. There were things about her, her walk, the long neck and high crown
+of shining brown hair, that suggested a fine lady to him. A fine lady
+was always a sort of spun glass affair; but a fine lady as the daughter
+of this rusty old Puritan was especially offensive.
+
+The discovery that Miss Lyon read Byron set Felix off on a tirade
+against the poet, and his works, and throughout the meal no agreement on
+any topic seemed possible between Esther and the guest.
+
+Felix noted that Mr. Lyon was devoted to his daughter and stood in some
+fear of her.
+
+"That is a singular young man, Esther," said the minister, when Felix
+had gone. "I discern in him a love for whatever things are honest and
+true, and I feel a great enlargement in his presence."
+
+"I think he is very coarse and rude," said Esther, with a touch of
+temper. "But he speaks better English than most of our visitors. What is
+his occupation?"
+
+"Watch and clock making, my dear."
+
+Esther was disappointed, she thought he was something higher than that.
+
+Felix on his side wondered how the queer old minister had a daughter so
+little in his own likeness. He decided that nothing should make him
+marry.
+
+
+_II.--The Election Riot_
+
+
+The return of Mr. Harold Transome, to Transome Court, after fifteen
+years' absence, and his adoption as Radical Candidate for the county
+created no little stir and excitement in Treby. It also assisted the
+growing intimacy between Mr. Lyon and Felix Holt, for though neither
+possessed votes in that memorable year 1832, they shared the same
+liberal sympathies. Perhaps the most delightful friendships are those in
+which there is much agreement, much disputation, and yet more personal
+liking; and the advent of the public-spirited, contradictory, yet
+affectionate Felix, into Treby life had made a welcome epoch to the
+minister.
+
+Esther had not seen so much of their new acquaintance as her father had.
+But she had begun to find him amusing, though he always opposed and
+criticised her, and looked at her as if he never saw a single detail
+about her person. It seemed to Esther that he thought slightly of her.
+"But, rude and queer as he is, I cannot say there is anything vulgar
+about him," she said to herself.
+
+One Sunday afternoon Felix Holt rapped at the door of Mr. Lyon's house,
+although he could hear the voice of the minister in the chapel.
+
+Esther was in the kitchen alone, reading a French romance, and she
+opened the door and invited him in.
+
+He scoffed at her book, and as the talk went on, upbraided her for her
+vanity. Finally he told her that he wanted her to change. "Of course, I
+am a brute to say so," he added. "I ought to say you are perfect.
+Another man would, perhaps; I can't bear to see you going the way of the
+foolish women who spoil men's lives."
+
+Mortification and anger filled Esther's mind, and when Felix got up to
+say he was going, she returned his "good-bye" without even looking at
+him.
+
+Only, when the door closed she burst into tears. She revolted against
+his assumption of superiority.... Did he love her one little bit, and
+was that the reason why he wanted her to change? But Esther was quite
+sure she could never love anyone who was so much of a pedagogue and a
+master.
+
+Yet, a few weeks later, and Esther accepted willingly when Felix
+proposed a walk for the first time together. That same afternoon he told
+her that she was very beautiful, and that he would never be rich: he
+intended going away to some manufacturing town to lead the people to
+better things and this meant a life of poverty.
+
+Something Esther said made Felix ask suddenly, "Can you imagine yourself
+choosing hardship as the better lot?"
+
+"Yes, I can," she answered, flushing over neck and brow. They walked
+home very silently after that. Felix struggling as a firm man struggles
+with a temptation, Esther struggling as a woman struggles with the
+yearning for some expression of love.
+
+On the day of the election a mob of miners, primed with liquor by an
+unscrupulous agent of Transome's, came into the town to hoot the Tory
+voters; and as the disturbance increased, Felix knowing that Mr. Lyon
+was away preaching went round to the minister's house to reassure
+Esther.
+
+"I am so thankful to see you," she said eagerly. He mentioned that the
+magistrates and constables were coming and that the town would be
+quieter. His only fear was that drinking might inflame the mob again.
+
+Again Felix told her of his renunciation of the ordinary hopes and
+ambitions of men, and at the same time tried to prove that he thought
+very highly of her. He wanted her to know that her love was dear to him,
+and he felt that they must not marry--to do so would be to ruin each
+other's lives.
+
+When Felix went out into the streets in the afternoon, the crowd was
+larger and more mischievous. The constables were quite unable to cope
+with the mob, the polling booth was closed for the day, and the
+magistrates had sent to the neighbouring town of Duffield for the
+military.
+
+There were proofs that the predominant will of the crowd was in favour
+of Transome for several shops were attacked and they were all of them
+"Tory shops."
+
+Felix was soon hotly occupied trying to save a wretched publican named
+Spratt from the fury of the crowd. The man had been dragged out into the
+streets, and Felix had got as near him as he could when a young
+constable armed with a sabre rushed upon him. It was a choice of two
+evils, and quick as lightning Felix frustrated him, the constable fell
+undermost and Felix got his weapon. Tucker did not rise immediately, but
+Felix did not imagine that he was much hurt, and bidding the crowd
+follow him tried to lead them away from the town. He hoped that the
+soldiers would soon arrive, and felt confident that there would be no
+resistance to a military force.
+
+Suddenly a cry was raised, "Let us go to Treby Manor," the residence of
+Sir Maximus Debarry, whose son was the Tory candidate.
+
+From that moment Felix was powerless, and was carried along with the
+rush. All he could hope to do was to get to the front terrace of the
+house, and assure the inmates that the soldiers would arrive quickly.
+Just as he approached a large window he heard the horses of the
+troopers, and then came the words, "Halt! Fire!" Before he had time to
+move a bullet whizzed, and passed through Felix Holt's shoulder--the
+shoulder of the arm that bore the sabre.
+
+Felix fell. The rioters ran confusedly, like terrified sheep.
+
+It was a weary night for Felix, and the next day his wound was declared
+trivial, and he was lodged in Loumford Jail. There were three charges
+against him; that he had assaulted a constable, that he had committed
+manslaughter (Tucker was dead from spinal concussion), and that he had
+led a riotous onslaught on a dwelling house.
+
+Four other men were arrested, one for theft, and three others for riot
+and assault.
+
+
+_III.--The Trial_
+
+
+A great change took place in the fortunes of Esther in the interval
+between the riot and the opening of the assizes. It was found that she,
+and not Harold Transome, was the rightful owner of the Transome estates.
+For Esther's real name was Bycliffe and not Lyon, and she was the
+step-daughter only of the minister. Mr. Lyon had found Esther's mother,
+a French woman of great beauty, in destitution--her husband, an
+Englishman, lying in some unknown prison. This Englishman was a
+Bycliffe--and heir to the Transome property, and on the proof of his
+death Mr. Lyon, knowing nothing of Bycliffe's family, married his widow,
+who, however, died while Esther was still a tiny child. Not till the
+time of the election did Esther learn that her real father was dead.
+
+Mr. Transome's lawyer--Jermyn--was fully aware of the claim of the
+Bycliffes, but knew they were powerless without money to enforce the
+claim, and that Esther and her step-father alike were ignorant of all
+the facts. It was only when Harold Transome, on his return, quarrelled
+with Jermyn on the management of the estates, and, after the Election
+(which Transome lost) threatened him with a law-suit, that Jermyn turned
+round and told Harold the truth. At the same time, another lawyer,
+formerly in Jermyn's confidence, thought the more profitable course
+could be found in throwing Jermyn over, and wrote to Esther informing
+her of her inheritance.
+
+Harold Transome decided to act openly. With his mother, he drove to the
+minister's house and Mrs. Transome persuaded Esther to come and stay at
+Transome Court. Both mother and son found Esther to their liking, and it
+appeared to Harold that marriage with Esther would be a happy conclusion
+to the divided claim to the property. He was rich, and the Transome (or
+Bycliffe) property was heavily encumbered.
+
+The Transomes, Esther and Mr. Lyon all agreed that no law-suit over the
+property should take place.
+
+But while Esther stayed at Transome Court she never forgot her friend in
+prison. Mr. Lyon had visited Felix, and Esther herself obtained an
+interview with him just before the assizes began.
+
+She had grown conscious that Harold Transome was making love to her,
+that Mrs. Transome really desired her for a daughter-in-law, and it
+seemed to her as she waited with the minister in the cheerless prison
+room, that she stood at the first and last parting of the ways.
+
+Soon the door opened, and Felix Holt entered.
+
+"Miss Lyon--Esther!" and her hand was in his grasp. He was just the
+same--no, something inexpressibly better, because of the distance and
+separation, which made him like the return of morning.
+
+"Take no heed of me, children," said Mr. Lyon. "I have some notes to
+make." And the old man sat down at a window with his back to them,
+writing with his head bent close to the paper.
+
+Felix had heard of Esther's change of fortune and felt sure she would
+marry Harold Transome. It was only when the time for parting came that
+he could bring himself to say:
+
+"I had a horrible struggle, Esther. But you see I was right. There was a
+fitting lot in reserve for you." Esther felt too miserable for tears to
+come. She looked helplessly at Felix for a moment, then took her hands
+from his, and turning away mutely, said, "Father, I am ready--there is
+no more to say."
+
+"Esther."
+
+She heard Felix say the word, with an entreating cry, and went towards
+him swiftly. He clasped her, and they kissed each other.
+
+When the trial came on Esther went under Mrs. Transome's protection to
+the court.
+
+The case against Felix looked very black when the prosecution closed.
+Various respectable witnesses swore to the prisoner's leadership of the
+mob, to his fatal assault on Tucker, and to his attitude in front of the
+drawing-room window at the Manor.
+
+Felix then gave a concise narrative of his motives and conduct on the
+day of the riot, and explained that in throwing the constable down he
+had not foreseen the possibility of death ensuing. It was a good,
+straightforward speech, not without a touch of defiant independence,
+which did the prisoner little good with judge or jury.
+
+Mr. Lyon and Harold Transome both gave evidence in favour of Felix,
+stating that the prisoner had often expressed his hatred of rioting, and
+had protested with indignation against the treating that went on during
+the election by some of the Radical agents.
+
+One or two witnesses were called who swore that Felix had tried to lead
+the mob in the opposite direction to Treby Manor, and it was understood
+that the case for the defence was closed.
+
+Then it came to Esther that she must speak if Felix was to be saved.
+There had been no witness to tell what had been his behaviour just
+before the riot. There was time, but not too much time.
+
+Before Harold Transome was aware of Esther's intention she was on her
+way to the witness-box.
+
+A sort of gleam shot across the face of Felix Holt, and anyone close to
+the prisoner would have seen that his hand trembled, for the first time,
+at Esther's beautiful aspect. There was no blush on her face: she stood,
+divested of all personal consideration whether of vanity or shyness, and
+gave her story as if she had been making a confession of faith.
+
+She knew Felix Holt well, she said. He came to see her on the day of the
+election, and told her he feared the men might collect again after
+drinking. "It was the last thing he would have done to join in riot or
+to hurt any man, if he could have helped it. He could never have had any
+intention that was not brave and good."
+
+When she was back in her place Felix could not help looking towards her,
+and their eyes met in one solemn glance.
+
+Esther stayed in court till the end. She heard the verdict, "Guilty of
+Manslaughter," followed by the judge's sentence, "Imprisonment for four
+years." But so great was the impression made by Esther's speech that a
+petition to the Home Secretary was at once set on foot by the leading
+men of the county.
+
+
+_IV.--Felix and Esther_
+
+
+One April day, when the sun shone on the lingering raindrops, Lyddy was
+gone out, and Esther chose to sit in the kitchen. She was not reading,
+but stitching, and as her fingers moved nimbly, something played about
+her lips like a ray.
+
+A loud rap came at the door.
+
+"Mr. Lyon at home?" said Felix in his firm tones. "No, sir," said
+Esther: "but Miss Lyon is, if you'll please to walk in."
+
+"Esther!" exclaimed Felix, amazed.
+
+They held each other by both hands, and looked into each other's faces
+with delight.
+
+"You are out of prison?"
+
+"Yes, till I do something bad again. But you--how is it all? Are you
+come back to live here then?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"You are not going to be married to Harold Transome, or to be rich?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Why?" said Felix in rather a low tone, leaning his elbow on the table,
+and resting his head on his hand while he looked at her.
+
+"I did not wish to marry him, or to be rich."
+
+"You have given it all up?" said Felix, leaning forward a little and
+speaking in a still lower tone. "Could you share the life of a poor man,
+then, Esther?"
+
+"If I thought well enough of him," she said, with a smile, and a pretty
+movement of her head.
+
+"Have you considered well what it would be?--that it would be a very
+bare and simple life? and the people I shall live among, Esther? They
+have not just the same follies and vices as the rich, but they have
+their own forms of folly and vice. It is very serious, Esther."
+
+"I know it is serious," said Esther, looking up at him. "Since I have
+been at Transome Court I have seen many things very seriously. If I had
+not, I should not have left what I did leave. I made a deliberate
+choice."
+
+She could not tell him that at Transome Court, all that finally seemed
+balanced against her love for him, was the offer of a silken bondage
+that arrested all motive, and was nothing better than a well-cushioned
+despair. A vision of being restless amidst ease, of being languid among
+all appliances had quickened her resignation of the Transome estates.
+
+Esther explained, however, that she thought of retaining a little of the
+wealth.
+
+"How?" said Felix, anxiously. "What do you mean?"
+
+"I think even of two pounds a week: one needn't live up to the splendour
+of all that, you know: we might live as simply as you liked. And then I
+think of a little income for your mother, and a little income for my
+father, to save him from being dependent when he is no longer able to
+preach!"
+
+Felix put his hand on her shoulder, said, lifting up his eyes with a
+smile:
+
+"Why, I shall be able to set up a great library, and lend the books!"
+
+They laughed merrily, each holding the other's arms, like girl and boy.
+There was the ineffable sense of youth in common.
+
+Then Felix leaned forward, that their lips might meet, and after that
+his eyes roved tenderly over her face and curls.
+
+"I'm a rough, severe fellow, Esther. Shall you never repent?--never be
+inwardly reproaching me that I was not a man who could have shared your
+wealth? Are you quite sure?"
+
+The very next May, Felix and Esther were married. Everyone in those days
+was married at the parish church; but Mr. Lyon was not satisfied without
+an additional private solemnity, "so that he might have a more enlarged
+utterance of joy and supplication."
+
+It was a very simple wedding; but no wedding, even the gayest, ever
+raised so much interest and debate in Treby Magna. Even the very great
+people of the county went to the church to look at this bride, who had
+renounced wealth, and chosen to be the wife of a man who said he would
+always be poor.
+
+Some few shook their heads; could not quite believe it; and thought
+there was more behind. But the majority of honest Trebians were affected
+somewhat in the same way as Mr. Wall, the brewer of the town, who
+observed to his wife as they walked home, "I feel somehow as if I
+believed more in everything that's good."
+
+Felix and Esther did not take up their abode in Treby Magna; and after
+awhile Mr. Lyon left the town too, and joined them where they dwelt.
+
+As to the town in which Felix Holt now resides I will keep that a
+secret.
+
+I will only say that Esther has never repented. Felix, however, grumbles
+a little that she has made his life too easy.
+
+There is a young Felix, who has a great deal more science than his
+father, but not much more money.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+Romola
+
+
+     "Romola" was George Eliot's fifth book, and followed "Silas
+     Marner," which was published in 1861. It is a story of
+     Florence in the days of Savonarola, and was largely the
+     outcome of a visit the novelist paid to Italy with her
+     life-long friend, George Henry Lewes. With dim ideas for the
+     story in her mind, she made exhaustive researches in the
+     Florentine libraries, gathering historical and topographical
+     details of the city and its life as they were in the mediaeval
+     period which she was setting herself to re-create. After much
+     study there and at home, and after one false start, she made a
+     serious beginning in January, 1862. She was engaged upon it
+     for eighteen months, always in doubt and sometimes in despair
+     of her ability to accomplish the task, and by June of the
+     following year she had thankfully written the last words of
+     what is regarded by some as her greatest book. Meanwhile, the
+     romance had begun to appear serially in the "Cornhill" in
+     July, 1862. The writing of "Romola" is said to have "ploughed
+     into her" more than any of her other books.
+
+
+_I.--Tito and Little Tessa_
+
+
+Under the Loggia de Cerchi, in the heart of old Florence, in the early
+morning of April 9, 1492, two men had their eyes fixed on each other.
+One was looking downward with the scrutiny of curiosity; the other,
+lying on the pavement, was looking upward with the startled gaze of a
+suddenly awakened dreamer.
+
+"Young man," said the standing figure, pointing to a ring on the finger
+of the other, "when your chin has got a stiffer crop on it you'll know
+better than to take your nap in street corners with a ring like that on
+your forefinger. By the holy 'vangels, if it had been anybody but me
+standing over you--but Bratti Ferravecchi is not the man to steal! Three
+years ago, one San Giovanni, the saint, sent a dead body in my way--a
+blind beggar, with his cap well lined with pieces. But how comes a young
+man like you, with the face of Messer San Michele, to be sleeping on a
+stone bed? Your tunic and hose match ill with that jewel, young man.
+Anybody might say the saints had sent you a dead body; but if you took
+the jewels, I hope you buried him--and you can afford a mass or two for
+him into the bargain!"
+
+Something like a painful thrill appeared to dart through the frame of
+the listener, and arrest the careless stretching of his arms. But he
+immediately recovered an air of indifference, took off the red Levantine
+cap which hung like a great purse over his left ear, and pushing back
+his long, dark brown curls, said smiling, "The fact is, I'm a stranger
+in Florence, and when I came in footsore last night, I preferred
+flinging myself in the corner of this hospitable porch to hunting for a
+chance hostelry, which might turn out to be a nest of bloodsuckers. Can
+you show me the way to a more lively quarter, where I can get a meal and
+a lodging?"
+
+"That I can," said Bratti.
+
+And, talking volubly as they went, Bratti led the way to the Mercato
+Vecchio, or the Old Market, promising to conduct him to the prettiest
+damsel in the Mercato for a cup of milk.
+
+But as soon as they emerged from the narrow streets into the Old Market,
+they found the place packed with excited groups of men and women humming
+with gossip.
+
+"Diavolo!" said Bratti. "The Mercato has gone as mad as if the Holy
+Father had excommunicated us again! I must know what this is."
+
+He pushed about among the crowd, inquiring and disputing, and was
+presently absorbed in discussing the newest development of Florentine
+politics, the death of Lorenzo de Medici, and whether or not this death
+was the beginning of the time of tribulation that Savonarola had been
+seeing in visions and foretelling in sermons.
+
+Indifferent to this general agitation, the young stranger became tired
+of waiting for Bratti's escort, and strolling on round the piazza, felt,
+on a sudden thought, in the wallet that hung at his waist.
+
+"Not an obolus, by Jupiter!" he murmured, in a language that was not
+Tuscan or even Italian. "I must get my breakfast for love, then!"
+
+In a corner, away from any group of talkers, two mules were standing.
+One carried wooden milk vessels, the other a pair of panniers filled
+with herbs and salads. Resting her elbow on the mule that carried the
+milk, there leaned a young girl, apparently not more than sixteen, with
+a red hood surrounding her face, which was all the more baby-like in its
+prettiness from the entire concealment of her hair. The poor child was
+weary, and it seemed to have gone to sleep in that half-standing,
+half-leaning posture. Nevertheless, our stranger had no compunction in
+awaking her. She opened her baby-blue eyes, and stared up with
+astonishment and confusion.
+
+"Forgive me, pretty one, for awaking you," he said. "I'm dying with
+hunger, and the scent of milk makes breakfast seem more desirable than
+ever."
+
+She bestirred herself, and in a few moments a large cup of fragrant milk
+was held out to him; and by the time he set the cup down she had brought
+bread from a bag which hung by the side of the mule, and shyly and
+mutely insisted on his taking it, even though he told her he had nothing
+to pay her with; and just as he was leaning down to kiss her he was
+harshly interrupted by Monna Ghita, Tessa's mother, who had come upon
+them unobserved.
+
+The handsome presence of the stranger and his charm of manner were of no
+avail with Monna Ghita; her noisy rating of him drew Bratti and the
+barber, Nello, to the spot, and with these he was glad to make good his
+escape, having waived a furtive adieu to the pretty Tessa.
+
+It was not until after Bratti, having business at home, had handed the
+young stranger over to Nello, and in the barber's shop he had been
+shaved and trimmed, and made to look presentable, that Tito Melema
+became more confidential, and explained that he was a Greek; that he was
+returning from adventures abroad, had suffered shipwreck, and found
+himself in Florence with nothing saved from the disaster but some few
+rare old gems for which he was anxious to obtain a purchaser.
+
+"Let us see, let us see," said Nello, walking up and down his shop.
+"What you want is a man of wealth and influence and scholarly tastes;
+and that man is Bartolommeo Scala, the Secretary of our Republic. He
+came to Florence as a poor adventurer himself, a miller's son; and that
+may be a reason why he may be the more ready to do a good turn to a
+strange scholar. I could take you to a man who, if he has a mind, can
+help you to a chance of a favourable interview with Scala--a man worth
+seeing for his own sake, too, to say nothing of his collections, or of
+his daughter Romola, who is as fair as the Florentine lily before it got
+quarrelsome and turned red."
+
+"But if the father of this beautiful Romola makes collections, why
+should he not like to buy some of my gems himself?"
+
+Nello shrugged his shoulders. "For two good reasons--want of sight to
+look at the gems and want of money to pay for them."
+
+
+_II.--"More than a Man's Ransom"_
+
+
+He was a moneyless, blind old scholar, the Bardo de Bardi, to whom Nello
+introduced Tito Melema; a man who came of a proud, energetic stock,
+whose ancestors had loved to play the signor, had been merchants and
+usurers of keen daring, and conspicuous among those who clutched the
+sword in the earliest world-famous quarrels of Florentine with
+Florentine. The family passions lived on in Bardo under altered
+conditions; he was a man with a deep-veined hand cramped by much copying
+of manuscripts, who ate sparing dinners, and wore threadbare clothes, at
+first from choice, and at last from necessity; who sat among his books
+and manuscripts, and saw them only by the light of those far-off younger
+days which still shone in his memory.
+
+And among his books and antiquities and rare marble fragments, in a
+spacious room surrounded with laden shelves, Romola was his daily
+companion and assistant. There was a time when he had hoped that his
+son, Dino, would have followed in his steps, to be the prop of his age,
+and to take up and continue his scholarly labours after he was dead. But
+Dino had failed him; Dino had given himself up to religion and entered
+the priesthood, and the passion of Bardo's resentment had flamed into
+fierce hatred towards this recreant son of his, and none dared so much
+as to name him within his hearing.
+
+Maso, the old serving-man ushered in the two visitors he had announced a
+few minutes previously, and Nello introduced Tito to Bardo and his
+daughter as a scholar of considerable learning.
+
+Romola's astonishment could hardly have been greater if the stranger had
+worn a panther-skin and carried a thyrsus, for the cunning barber had
+said nothing of the Greeks age or appearance, and among her father's
+scholarly visitors she had hardly ever seen any but gray-headed men.
+
+Nevertheless, she returned Tito's bow with the same pale, proud face as
+ever; but as he approached the snow melted, and when he ventured to look
+towards her again a pink flush overspread her face, to vanish again
+almost immediately, as if her imperious will had recalled it. Tito's
+glance, on the other hand, as he looked at this tall maiden of seventeen
+or eighteen, as she stood at the reading-desk with one hand on the back
+of her father's chair, had that gentle, beseeching admiration in it
+which is the most propitiating of appeals to a proud, shy woman, and is
+perhaps the only atonement a man can make for being too handsome.
+
+"Messere, I give you welcome," said Bardo with some condescension;
+"misfortune wedded to learning, and especially to Greek learning, is a
+letter of credit that should win the ear of every instructed
+Florentine."
+
+He proceeded to question Tito as to what part of Greece he came from,
+learned that he was a young man of unusual scholastic attainments, and
+that he had a father who was himself a scholar.
+
+"At least," said Tito, "a father by adoption. He was a Neapolitan, but,"
+he added, after another slight pause, "he is lost to me--was lost on a
+voyage he too rashly undertook to Delos."
+
+Bardo forbore to speak further on so painful a topic; he discoursed
+freely upon his own studies, his past hopes, and the one great ambition
+that remained to him--that his library and his magnificent collection of
+treasures should not be dissipated on his death, but should become the
+property of the public, and be honourably housed in Florence for all
+time, with his name over the door.
+
+In his eagerness he made passing reference to his son, of how Romola had
+been filling his place to the best of her power, and plainly hinted--and
+Tito was not slow to profit by the opportunity--that if he could have
+the young Greek scholar to work with him instead of her, he might yet
+look to fulfill some of the notable designs he had abandoned when his
+blindness came upon him.
+
+"But," he resumed, in his original tone of condescension, "we are
+departing from what I believe is your most important business. Nello
+informed me that you had certain gems which you would fain dispose of."
+
+"I have one or two intagli of much beauty," said Tito. "But they are now
+in the keeping of Messer Domenico Cennini, who has a strong and safe
+place for such things. He estimates them as worth at least five hundred
+ducats."
+
+"Ah, then, they are fine intagli!" said Bardo. "Five hundred ducats! Ah,
+more than a man's ransom!"
+
+Tito gave a slight, almost imperceptible start, and opened his long,
+dark eyes with questioning surprise at Bardo's blind face, as if his
+words--a mere phrase of common parlance at a time when men were often
+being ransomed from slavery or imprisonment--had some special meaning
+for him.
+
+But Bardo had used the words in all innocence, and went on to talk of
+superstitions that attached to certain gems, and to undertake that he
+would use his influence with the Secretary of the Republic in Tito's
+behalf. Both Romola and her father were attracted by the charm and
+freshness and apparent simplicity of the young man; but just as he was
+making ready to depart they were interrupted by the entrance of Bernardo
+del Nero, one of the chief citizens of Florence, Bardo's oldest friend,
+and Romola's godfather; and Bernardo felt an instant, instinctive
+distrust of the handsome, ingratiating stranger, and did not hesitate to
+say so after Tito had left them.
+
+"Remember, Bardo," he said at length, "thou hast a rare gem of thy own;
+take care no one gets it who is not like to pay a worthy price. That
+pretty Greek has a sleekness about him that seems marvelously fitted for
+slipping into any nest he fixes his mind on."
+
+
+_III.--The Man who was Wronged_
+
+
+It was undeniable that Tito's coming had been the dawn of a new life for
+both father and daughter, and he grew to care for Romola supremely--to
+wish to have her for his beautiful and loving wife.
+
+He took her place as Bardo's assistant, and served him with an easy
+efficiency that had been beyond her; and she, happier in her father's
+happiness, had given her love to Tito even before he ventured to offer
+her his own. He was thus sailing under the fairest breeze, and besides
+convincing fair judges that his talents squared with his good fortune,
+he wore that fortune so unpretentiously that no one seemed to be
+offended by it.
+
+And that was not the whole of Tito's good fortune, for he had sold his
+jewels, and was master of full five hundred gold florins. Yet the moment
+when he first had this sum in his possession was the crisis of the first
+serious struggle his facile, good-humoured nature had known.
+
+"A man's ransom!" Who was it that had said five hundred florins was more
+than a man's ransom? If, now, under this mid-day sun, on some hot coast
+far away, a man somewhat stricken in years--a man not without high
+thoughts, and with the most passionate heart--a man who long years ago
+had rescued a little boy from a life of beggary, filth, and cruel wrong,
+and had reared him tenderly, if that man were now, under this summer
+sun, toiling as a slave, hewing wood and drawing water? If he were
+saying to himself, "Tito will find me. He had but to carry our gems to
+Venice; he will have raised money, and will never rest till he finds me
+out?" If that were certain, could he--Tito--see the price of the gems
+lying before him, and say, "I will stay at Florence, where I am fanned
+by soft airs of love and prosperity; I will not risk myself for his
+sake?" No, surely not _if it were certain_. But the galley had been
+taken by a Turkish vessel; that was known by the report of the companion
+galley which had escaped; and there had been resistance and probable
+bloodshed, a man had been seen falling overboard.
+
+He quieted his conscience with such reasonings as these, and when
+definite tidings reached him that his father was still a prisoner, he
+contrived to keep the knowledge to himself, and still did nothing. The
+death of the exhausted, emaciated monk who had brought these tidings
+freed him of one fear; but this monk was Romola's brother, Dino, and
+obeying his summons she had been in secret to see him as he lay dying.
+
+"Romola," her brother began to speak, "in the deep night, as I lay
+awake, I saw my father's room, and I saw you ... And at the _leggio_
+where I used to stand stood a man whose face I could not see. I saw him
+move and take thee, Romola, by the hand, and then I saw thee take my
+father by the hand, and you all three went down the stone steps into the
+streets, the man, whose face was a blank to me, leading the way. And you
+stood at the altar of Santa Croce, and the priest who married you had
+the face of death; and the graves opened and the dead in their shrouds
+followed you like a bridal train. And it seemed to me that at last you
+came to a stony place where there was no water, and no trees or herbage;
+but instead of water I saw written parchment unrolling itself
+everywhere, and instead of trees and herbage I saw men of bronze and
+marble springing up and crowding round you. And my father was faint, and
+fell to the ground; and the man loosed thy hand and departed; and as he
+went I could see his face, and it was the face of the Great Tempter....
+Thrice have I had that vision, Romola. I believe it is a revelation
+meant for thee--to warn thee against marriage as a temptation of the
+enemy...."
+
+The words died away.
+
+"Frate," said the dying voice. "Give her----"
+
+"The crucifix," said the voice of Fra Girolamo Savonarola, who was
+standing in the shadows behind her.
+
+"Dino!" said Romola, with a low but piercing cry.
+
+"Take the crucifix, my daughter," said Fra Girolamo, after a few
+minutes. "His eyes behold it no more."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+But, heedless of the distrust and opposition of Messer Bernardo del
+Nero, and with this vision of Dino's menacing his highest hope, Tito
+went gaily on his triumphant way.
+
+Also he had renewed acquaintance with the little Tessa. He came upon her
+in the thronged streets during carnival time, and seeing her, a
+timorous, tearful little _contadin_, terrified by the burlesque threats
+of a boisterous conjurer, took her under his protection.
+
+Thereafter, he met her again at intervals, finding her naive love and
+humble adoration and obedience very pleasant; and, meeting her once at a
+peasant's fair, he jestingly yielded to the burlesque solicitations of a
+mountebank in a white mitre, paid a small fee, and went through an
+absurd ceremony of mock-marriage with her.
+
+Tessa herself believed the marriage to be real enough, and he would not
+mar her delight by undeceiving her. Later, since she was wretched at
+home with her scolding mother and a brutal step-father, and there were
+dangers in allowing her to go on waylaying him in streets when too long
+a period elapsed between his visits to her, he quietly took her away and
+established her in a small house on the outskirts of the city, with the
+deaf, discreet old Monna Lisa as her servant and companion.
+
+Neither this nor the darker secret of his treachery to his adoptive
+father cast any cloud over his habitual cheerfulness. His love for
+Romola was a higher and deeper passion than anything he felt for the
+child-like, submissive little Tessa, and when she told him frankly of
+her brother's warning vision, he set himself to convince her it was the
+mere nightmare of a diseased imagination, and the perfect love and trust
+she had for him made the task easy.
+
+For a while after their marriage she was ideally happy; she was not even
+separated from her father, for Tito came to live with them, and was to
+Bardo, in his scholastic labours, all that he had wished his own son to
+be. Then came the first cloud.
+
+On November 17, 1494, more than eighteen months after the marriage of
+Tito and Romola, the King of France marched his army into Florence on
+his way to take possession of Naples and impose peace on the warring
+little states into which Italy was divided. There were those in Florence
+who were prepared to welcome the invaders, but the majority, the common
+people in particular, resented their coming.
+
+With the soldiery came three wretched prisoners; they were led in ropes
+by their captors, and with blows from knotted cords were stimulated to
+beg. Two, as they passed, held out their hands, crying piteously, "For
+the love of God and the Holy Madonna, give us something towards our
+ransom!"
+
+But the third remained obstinately silent. He was old, white-haired,
+emaciated, with a thick-set figure that seemed to express energy in
+spite of age; yet there was something fitful in his eyes.
+
+This sight was witnessed by the Florentines with growing exasperation,
+and presently from jeering at the French soldiers and hustling them,
+they became bent upon rescuing this third prisoner from his tormentors;
+one venturesome youth suddenly dashed in, cut the old man's bonds and
+urged him to run; and the next moment he had plunged into the crowd,
+which closed behind him and hampered the pursuit.
+
+With one soldier struggling desperately on his track, the fugitive sped
+towards the Duomo, to seek refuge in that sanctuary, but in mounting the
+steps his foot slipped, he was precipitated towards a group of signori
+who stood there with their backs to him, and clutched one to save
+himself.
+
+It was Tito Melema who felt the clutch. He turned, and saw the face of
+his adoptive father, Baldassarre Calvo, close to his own. The two men
+looked at each other silent as death; Tito with cheeks and lips all
+bloodless, fascinated by terror. The next instant the grasp on his arm
+relaxed, and Baldassarre disappeared within the church.
+
+
+_IV.--Romola's Ordeal_
+
+
+With Baldassarre lurking in Florence, Tito went in hourly fear. At any
+moment the story of his baseness might be blown abroad; at any moment,
+worse still, he might be struck down by the old man, in whose wild eyes
+he had read only a fierce yearning for vengeance.
+
+As a precaution, Tito took to wearing a coat of fine chain-mail under
+his doublet, and the discovery of this alarmed Romola for his safety,
+and shocked her with a suspicion that he was something of a coward.
+
+But by now Tito was deeply involved in Florentine politics, and easily
+persuaded her that it was against secret political intriguers that he
+thus shielded himself. He went on to confess that his life was no longer
+safe in Florence, and he was resolved to leave the city for good. But to
+this she demurred; her father had died and left his library and his
+collection as a sacred trust to her and Tito, and until they had carried
+out his wish and made them over to the city authorities, she felt she
+could not go.
+
+Tito made light of her scruples. Her father's wish, he said, had been a
+mere foolish vanity; they had need of money, and he intended to sell
+both the library and collection, and when, for the first time in her
+life, she spoke bitterly, in scorn and anger of his faithlessness, he
+told her flatly it was useless to bandy words for he had sold them
+already, and they were to be removed that day.
+
+Frantic with grief and resentment, she thought of desperate ways of
+preventing the accomplishment of his heartless plans, even to borrowing
+of her godfather and buying back the treasures, so that Tito might keep
+his ill-gotten gain and her father's last wish still be fulfilled; but
+he convinced her that all interference was too late, for the things had
+been purchased by the Count di San Severino and the Seneschal de
+Beaucaire, who were already on their way with the French king to Sienna.
+
+Latterly, in many ways, Romola had been disappointed in her husband's
+character; she had found that his handsome face and gay air masked a
+cowardice, a cunning meanness, a sordid selfishness of disposition that
+were all at variance with her high ideal of him; but that final
+unspeakable treachery of the dead man who had trusted him so implicitly
+shattered her love for Tito utterly.
+
+As soon as her father's library was dismantled and his treasures taken
+away, Romola went from the house with the old man-servant, Maso, and
+would never have looked upon Tito's face again, but that Fra Girolamo
+intercepted her.
+
+"I have a command to call you back," he said. "My daughter, you must
+return to your place. You are flying from your debts; the debt of a
+Florentine woman to her fellow citizens; the debt of a wife. You are
+turning your back on the lot that has been appointed for you--you are
+going to choose another. My daughter, you are fleeing from the presence
+of God into the wilderness. My daughter, if the cross comes to you as a
+wife, you must carry it as a wife. You may say, 'I will forsake my
+husband,' but you cannot cease to be a wife."
+
+There was hunger and misery in the streets, and he urged upon her that
+if she had no other purpose in life she could stay, and help the poor of
+her own city. Her pride was broken, and she yielded.
+
+
+_V.--Baldassarre is Avenged_
+
+
+Meanwhile, Baldassarre, lurking about Florence, had armed himself with a
+knife, and was ravenous for revenge. Being homeless, he called by chance
+at Tessa's little house, and she, not knowing who he was, took pity on
+his age and misery, gave him shelter in a shed, and food and drink.
+
+Whilst he was there, Tito came, and, too frankly simple to keep anything
+from him, Tessa confessed that she had disobeyed his injunctions against
+holding converse with strangers, and was sheltering a strange, weary old
+man in the shed without. Her description of this guest left Tito in no
+doubt as to his identity, and, subduing his first perturbation, he
+conceived that he might turn the situation to his own advantage. He went
+out to the shed, and looking down upon Baldassarre in the moonlight,
+sought to propitiate him with honeyed words, specious explanations, and
+a plea for pardon. But the old man answered nothing, till his
+smouldering fury burst into a flame, then he precipitated himself upon
+the intruder and struck with all his force; but the blade of the knife
+broke off short against the hidden coat of mail.
+
+Tito insisted that he was welcome to remain there, and said what he
+could to soothe him, but Baldassarre would stay no longer when he knew
+whose roof covered him. Presently, he armed himself anew, and waited for
+another opportunity. He learned all that was to be known of Tito's
+career since his arrival in Florence; ascertained that he was married,
+and had thoughts of winning his wife's sympathy and telling her of
+Tessa. Then one night he contrived to get into the Rucellai Gardens,
+where Tito was at supper with a gathering of Florentine notabilities,
+and, seized in time and held back from assassinating him, he
+passionately denounced him before the company as a scoundrel, a liar,
+and a robber.
+
+There were those present who had been on the church steps that day when
+Baldassarre had clutched Tito by the arm, and Tito had then explained
+away his momentary panic. Questioned now by one of these, he declared
+that though when first he encountered his accuser he did not recognise
+him, he now saw that he was the servant who years ago accompanied him
+and his adoptive father to Greece, and was dismissed on account of
+misdemeanours, and that the story of his being rescued from beggary was
+the vision of a disordered brain.
+
+Baldassarre was given a chance to prove that he was not the servant, but
+the great scholar to whom Tito was indebted for his learning.
+
+"The ring I possess," said Rucellai, "is a fine sard that I myself
+purchased from Messer Tito. It is engraved with a subject from Homer.
+Will you turn to the passage in Homer from which that subject was
+taken?"
+
+But sitting to look over the book, Baldassarre realised that the
+sufferings through which he had passed had unhinged his mind and his
+memory; the words he stared at had no meaning for him, and he lifted his
+hands to his head in despair.
+
+The consequence of this fresh failure was that Baldassarre was cast into
+prison, and Tito was at liberty to pursue his political ambitions
+unhaunted by that dogging shadow that was to him as the shadow of death.
+He managed his affairs so cleverly that whichever party came uppermost
+he was secure of favour and money.
+
+But by-and-by the tide began to turn against him. Baldassarre was at
+large again, and met Romola and told her not only of his own wrongs, but
+of Tessa. She saw Tessa and her two children, and befriended them, and
+was so far from blaming that innocent little creature that she did not
+even disclose the truth to her; but she was importunate with Tito that
+he should make atonement to the man who had been a father to him. Then
+came a day when Tito's treacheries were discovered by the party he was
+supposed to serve, and he had to flee for his life through Florence.
+Scattering jewels and gold to delay his pursuers, he leaped from the
+bridge into the river, and swam in the darkness, leaving the bellowing
+mob to think he was drowned.
+
+But far down the stream there were certain eyes that saw him from the
+banks of the river, and when he landed and fell, faint and helpless,
+Baldassarre's hands closed on his throat; and next evening a passer-by
+found the two dead bodies there.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+Silas Marner
+
+
+     "Silas Marner, the Weaver of Raveloe," begun about November,
+     1860, and published early in 1861, is in many respects the
+     most admirable of all George Eliot's works. It is not a long
+     story, but it is a most carefully finished novel--"a perfect
+     gem, a pure work of art," Mr. Oscar Browning describes it. Mr.
+     Blackwood, the publisher, found it rather sombre, and George
+     Eliot replied to him, "I hope you will not find it at all a
+     sad story as a whole, since it sets--or is intended to set--in
+     a strong light the remedial influences of pure, natural, human
+     relations. I have felt all through as if the story would have
+     lent itself best to metrical rather than to prose fiction,
+     especially in all that relates to the psychology of Silas;
+     except that, under that treatment, there could not be an equal
+     play of humour." No novel of George Eliot's has received more
+     praise from men of letters than "Silas Marner."
+
+
+_I.--Why Silas Came to Raveloe_
+
+
+In the early years of the nineteenth century a linen-weaver named Silas
+Marner worked at his vocation in a stone cottage that stood among the
+nutty hedgerows near the village of Raveloe, and not far from the edge
+of a deserted stone-pit.
+
+It was fifteen years since Silas Marner had first come to Raveloe; he
+was then simply a pallid young man with prominent, short-sighted brown
+eyes. To the villagers among whom he had come to settle he seemed to
+have mysterious peculiarities, chiefly owing to his advent from an
+unknown region called "North'ard." He invited no comer to step across
+his door-sill, and he never strolled into the village to drink a pint at
+the Rainbow, or to gossip at the wheel-wrights'; he sought no man or
+woman, save for the purposes of his calling, or in order to supply
+himself with necessaries.
+
+At the end of fifteen years the Raveloe men said just the same things
+about Silas Marner as at the beginning. There was only one important
+addition which the years had brought; it was that Master Marner had laid
+by a fine sight of money somewhere, and that he could buy up "bigger men
+than himself."
+
+But while his daily habits presented scarcely any visible change,
+Marner's inward life had been a history and a metamorphosis as that of
+every fervid nature must be when it has been condemned to solitude. His
+life, before he came to Raveloe, had been filled with the close
+fellowship of a narrow religious sect, where the poorest layman had the
+chance of distinguishing himself by gifts of speech; and Marner was
+highly thought of in that little hidden world, known to itself as the
+church assembling in Lantern Yard. He was believed to be a young man of
+exemplary life and ardent faith, and a peculiar interest had been
+centred in him ever since he had fallen at a prayer-meeting into a
+trance or cataleptic fit, which lasted for an hour.
+
+Among the members of his church there was one young man, named William
+Dane, with whom he lived in close friendship; and it seemed to the
+unsuspecting Silas that the friendship suffered no chill, even after he
+had formed a closer attachment, and had become engaged to a young
+servant-woman.
+
+At this time the senior deacon was taken dangerously ill, and Silas and
+William, with others of the brethren, took turns at night-watching. On
+the night the old man died, Silas fell into one of his trances, and when
+he awoke at four o'clock in the morning death had come, and, further, a
+little bag of money had been stolen from the deacon's bureau, and
+Silas's pocket-knife was found inside the bureau. For some time Silas
+was mute with astonishment, then he said, "God will clear me; I know
+nothing about the knife being there, or the money being gone. Search me
+and my dwelling."
+
+The search was made, and it ended in William Dane finding the deacon's
+bag, empty, tucked behind the chest of drawers in Silas's chamber.
+
+According to the principles of the church in Lantern Yard prosecution
+was forbidden to Christians. But the members were bound to take other
+measures for finding out the truth, and they resolved on praying and
+drawing lots; there was nothing unusual about such proceedings a hundred
+years ago. Silas knelt with his brethren, relying on his own innocence
+being certified by immediate Divine interference. _The lots declared
+that Silas Marner was guilty_. He was solemnly suspended from church-
+membership, and called upon to render up the stolen money; only on
+confession and repentance could he be received once more within the fold
+of the church. Marner listened in silence. At last, when everyone rose
+to depart, he went towards William Dane and said, in a voice shaken by
+agitation, "The last time I remember using my knife was when I took it
+out to cut a strap for you. I don't remember putting it in my pocket
+again. _You_ stole the money, and you have woven a plot to lay the sin
+at my door. But you may prosper for all that; there is no just God, but
+a God of lies, that bears witness against the innocent!"
+
+There was a general shudder at this blasphemy. Poor Marner went out with
+that despair in his soul--that shaken trust in God and man which is
+little short of madness to a loving nature. In the bitterness of his
+wounded spirit, he said to himself, "_She_ will cast me off, too!" and
+for a whole day he sat alone, stunned by despair.
+
+The second day he took refuge from benumbing unbelief by getting into
+his loom and working away as usual, and, before many hours were past,
+the minister and one of the deacons came to him with a message from
+Sarah, the young woman to whom he had been engaged, that she held her
+engagement at an end. In little more than a month from that time Sarah
+was married to William Dane, and not long afterwards it was known to the
+brethren in Lantern Yard that Silas Marner had departed from the town.
+
+
+_II.--The Second Blow_
+
+
+When Silas Marner first came to Raveloe he seemed to weave like a
+spider, from pure impulse, without reflection. Then there were the calls
+of hunger, and Silas, in his solitude, had to provide his own breakfast,
+dinner, and supper, to fetch his own water from the well, and put his
+own kettle on the fire; and all these immediate promptings helped to
+reduce his life to the unquestioning activity of a spinning insect. He
+hated the thought of the past; there was nothing that called out his
+love and fellowship towards the strangers he had come amongst; and the
+future was all dark, for there was no Unseen Love that cared for him.
+
+It was then, when all purpose of life was gone, that Silas got into the
+habit of looking towards the money he received for his weaving, and
+grasping it with a sense of fulfilled effort. Gradually, the guineas,
+the crowns, and the half-crowns, grew to a heap, and Marner drew less
+and less for his own wants, trying to solve the problem of keeping
+himself strong enough to work sixteen hours a day on as small an outlay
+as possible. He handled his coins, he counted them, till their form and
+colour were like the satisfaction of a thirst to him; but it was only in
+the night, when his work was done, that he drew them out, to enjoy their
+companionship. He had taken up some bricks in his floor underneath his
+loom, and here he had made a hole in which he set the iron pot that
+contained his guineas and silver coins, covering the bricks with sand
+whenever he replaced them.
+
+So, year after year, Silas Marner lived in this solitude, his guineas
+rising in the iron pot, and his life narrowing and hardening itself more
+and more as it became reduced to the functions of weaving and hoarding.
+
+This is the history of Silas Marner until the fifteenth year after he
+came to Raveloe. Then, about the Christmas of that year, a second great
+change came over his life.
+
+It was a raw, foggy night, with rain, and Silas was returning from the
+village, plodding along, with a sack thrown round his shoulders, and
+with a horn lantern in his hand. His legs were weary, but his mind was
+at ease with the sense of security that springs from habit. Supper was
+his favourite meal, because it was his time of revelry, when his heart
+warmed over his gold.
+
+He reached his door in much satisfaction that his errand was done; he
+opened it, and to his short-sighted eyes everything remained as he had
+left it, except that the fire sent out a welcome increase of heat.
+
+As soon as he was warm he began to think it would be a long while to
+wait till after supper before he drew out his guineas, and it would be
+pleasant to see them on the table before him as he ate his food.
+
+He rose and placed his candle unsuspectingly on the floor near his loom,
+swept away the sand, without noticing any change, and removed the
+bricks. The sight of the empty hole made his heart leap violently, but
+the belief that his gold was gone could not come at once--only terror,
+and the eager effort to put an end to the terror. He passed his
+trembling hand all about the hole, then he held the candle and examined
+it curiously, trembling more and more. He searched in every corner, he
+turned his bed over, and shook it, and kneaded it; he looked in his
+brick oven; and when there was no other place to be searched, he felt
+once more all round the hole.
+
+He could see every object in his cottage, and his gold was not there. He
+put his trembling hands to his head, and gave a wild, ringing scream--
+the cry of desolation. Then the idea of a thief began to present itself,
+and he entertained it eagerly, because a thief might be caught and made
+to restore the gold. The robber must be laid hold of. Marner's ideas of
+legal authority were confused, but he felt that he must go and proclaim
+his loss; and the great people in the village--the clergyman, the
+constable, and Squire Cass--would make the thief deliver up the stolen
+money.
+
+It was to the village inn Silas Marner went, where the parish clerk and
+a select company were assembled, and told the story of his loss--L272
+12s. 6d. in all. The machinery of the law was set in motion, but no
+thief was ever captured, nor could grounds be found for suspicion
+against any persons.
+
+What had really happened was that Dunsey Cass, Squire Cass's second
+son--a mean, boastful rascal--on his way home on foot from hunting, saw
+the light in the weaver's cottage, and knocked, hoping to borrow a
+lantern, for the lane was unpleasantly slippery, and the night dark. But
+all was silence in the cottage, for the weaver at that moment had not
+yet reached home. For a minute Dunsey thought that old Marner might be
+dead, fallen over into the stone pits. And from that came the decision
+that he must be dead. If so, the question arose, what would become of
+the money that everybody said the old miser had put by?
+
+Dunstan Cass was in difficulties for want of money, and he had killed
+his brother's horse that day on the hunting-field. Who would know, if
+Marner was dead, that anybody had come to take his hoard of money away?
+
+There were only three hiding-places where he had heard of cottagers'
+hoards being found: the thatch, the bed, and a hole in the floor. His
+eyes travelling eagerly over the floor, noted a spot where the sand had
+been more carefully spread.
+
+Dunstan found the hole and the money, now hidden in two leathern bags.
+From their weight he judged they must be filled with guineas. Quickly he
+hastened out into the darkness with the bags, and Dunstan Cass was seen
+no more alive.
+
+At the very moment when he turned his back on the cottage Silas Marner
+was not more than a hundred yards away.
+
+
+_III.--Silas Marner's Visitor_
+
+
+It was New Year's Eve, and Squire Cass was giving a dance to the
+neighbouring gentry of Raveloe. There had been snow in the afternoon,
+but at seven o'clock it had ceased, and a freezing wind had sprung up.
+
+A woman, shabbily dressed, with a child in her arms, was making her way
+towards Raveloe, seeking the Red House, where Squire Cass lived. It was
+not the squire she wanted, but his eldest son, Godfrey, to whom she was
+secretly married. The marriage--the result of rash impulse--had been an
+unhappy one from the first, for Godfrey's wife was the slave of opium.
+The squire had long desired that his son should marry Miss Nancy
+Lammeter, and would have turned him out of house and home had he known
+of the unfortunate marriage already contracted. Cold and weariness drove
+the woman, even while she walked, to the only comfort she knew. She
+raised the black remnant to her lips, and then flung the empty phial
+away. Now she walked, always more and more drowsily, and clutched more
+and more automatically the sleeping child at her bosom. Soon she felt
+nothing but a supreme longing to lie down and sleep; and so sank down
+against a straggling furze-bush, an easy pillow enough; and the bed of
+snow, too, was soft. The cold was no longer felt, but her arms did not
+at once relax their instinctive clutch, and the little one slumbered on.
+
+The complete torpor came at last; the fingers lost their tension, the
+arms unbent; then the little head fell away from the bosom, and the blue
+eyes of the child opened wide on the cold starlight. At first there was
+a little peevish cry of "Mammy," as the child rolled downward; and then,
+suddenly, its eyes were caught by a bright gleaming light on the white
+ground, and with the ready transition of infancy it decided the light
+must be caught.
+
+In an instant the child had slipped on all fours, and, after making out
+that the cunning gleam came from a very bright place, the little one,
+rising on its legs, toddled through the snow--toddled on to the open
+door of Silas Marner's cottage, and right up to the warm hearth, where
+was a bright fire.
+
+The little one, accustomed to be left to itself for long hours without
+notice, squatted down on the old sack spread out before the fire, in
+perfect contentment. Presently the little golden head sank down, and the
+blue eyes were veiled by their delicate half-transparent lids.
+
+But where was Silas Marner while this strange visitor had come to his
+hearth? He was in the cottage, but he did not see the child. Since he
+had lost his money he had contracted the habit of opening his door, and
+looking out from time to time, as if he thought that his money might,
+somehow, be coming back to him.
+
+That morning he had been told by some of his neighbours that it was New
+Year's Eve, and that he must sit up and hear the old year rung out, and
+the new rung in, because that was good luck, and might bring his money
+back again. Perhaps this friendly Raveloe way of jesting had helped to
+throw Silas into a more than usually excited state. Certainly he opened
+his door again and again that night, and the last time, just as he put
+out his hand to close it, the invisible wand of catalepsy arrested him,
+and there he stood like a graven image, powerless to resist either the
+good or evil that might enter.
+
+When Marner's sensibility returned he was unaware of the break in his
+consciousness, and only noticed that he was chilled and faint.
+
+Turning towards the hearth it seemed to his blurred vision as if there
+was a heap of gold on the floor; but instead of hard coin his fingers
+encountered soft, warm curls. In utter amazement, Silas fell on his
+knees to examine the marvel: it was a sleeping child, a round, fair
+thing, with soft, yellow rings all over its head. Could this be the
+little sister come back to him in a dream--his little sister whom he had
+carried about in his arms for a year before she died? That was the first
+thought. _Was_ it a dream? It was very much like his little sister. How
+and when had the child come in without his knowledge?
+
+But there was a cry on the hearth; the child had awakened, and Marner
+stooped to lift it on to his knee. He had plenty to do through the next
+hour. The porridge, sweetened with some dry brown sugar, stopped the
+cries of the little one for "mammy." Then it occurred to Silas's dull
+bachelor mind that the child wanted its wet boots off, and this having
+been done, the wet boots suggested that the child had been walking on
+the snow.
+
+He made out the marks of the little feet in the snow, and, holding the
+child in his arms, followed their track to the furze-bush. Then he
+became aware that there was something more than the bush before
+him--that there was a human body, half covered with the shifting snow.
+
+With the child in his arms, Silas at once went for the doctor, who was
+spending the evening at the Red House. And Godfrey Cass recognised that
+it was his own child he saw in Marner's arms.
+
+The woman was dead--had been dead for some hours, the doctor said; and
+Godfrey, who had accompanied him to Marner's cottage, understood that he
+was free to marry Nancy Lammeter.
+
+"You'll take the child to the parish to-morrow?" Godfrey asked, speaking
+as indifferently as he could.
+
+"Who says so?" said Marner sharply. "Will they make me take her? I shall
+keep her till anybody shows they've a right to take her away from me.
+The mother's dead, and I reckon it's got no father. It's a lone thing,
+and I'm a lone thing. My money's gone--I don't know where, and this is
+come from I don't know where."
+
+Godfrey returned to the Red House with a sense of relief and gladness,
+and Silas kept the child. There had been a softening of feeling to him
+in the village since the day of his robbery, and now an active sympathy
+was aroused amongst the women. The child was christened Hephzibah, after
+Marner's mother, and was called Eppie for short.
+
+
+_IV--Eppie's Decision_
+
+
+Eppie had come to link Silas Marner once more with the whole world. The
+disposition to hoard had utterly gone, and there was no longer any
+repulsion around to him.
+
+As the child grew up, one person watched with keener, though more
+hidden, interest than any other the prosperous growth of Eppie under the
+weaver's care. The squire was dead, and Godfrey Cass was married to
+Nancy Lammeter. He had no child of his own save the one that knew him
+not. No Dunsey had ever turned up, and people had ceased to think of
+him.
+
+Sixteen years had passed, and now Aaron Winthrop, a well-behaved young
+gardener, is wanting to marry Eppie, and Eppie is willing to have him
+"some time."
+
+"'Everybody's married some time,' Aaron says," said Eppie. "But I told
+him that wasn't true, for I said look at father--he's never been
+married."
+
+"No, child," said Silas, "your father was a lone man till you was sent
+to him."
+
+"But you'll never be lone again, father," said Eppie tenderly. "That was
+what Aaron said--'I could never think o' taking you away from Master
+Marner, Eppie.' And I said, 'It 'ud be no use if you did, Aaron.' And he
+wants us all to live together, so as you needn't work a bit, father,
+only what's for your own pleasure, and he'd be as good as a son to
+you--that was what he said."
+
+The proposal to separate Eppie from her foster-father came from Godfrey
+Cass.
+
+When the old stone-pit by Marner's cottage went dry, owing to drainage
+operations, the skeleton of Dunstan Cass was found, wedged between two
+great stones. The watch and seals were recognised, and all the weaver's
+money was at the bottom of the pit. The shock of this discovery moved
+Godfrey to tell Nancy the secret of his earlier marriage.
+
+"Everything comes to light, Nancy, sooner or later," he said. "That
+woman Marner found dead in the snow--Eppie's mother--was my wife. Eppie
+is my child. I oughtn't to have left the child unowned. I oughtn't to
+have kept it from you."
+
+"It's but little wrong to me, Godfrey," Nancy answered sadly. "You've
+made it up to me--you've been good to me for fifteen years. It'll be a
+different coming to us, now she's grown up."
+
+They were childless, and it hadn't occurred to them as they approached
+Silas Marner's cottage that Godfrey's offer might be declined. At first
+Godfrey explained that he and his wife wanted to adopt Eppie in place of
+a daughter.
+
+"Eppie, my child, speak," said old Marner faintly. "I won't stand in
+your way. Thank Mr. and Mrs. Cass."
+
+"Thank you, ma'am--thank you, sir," said Eppie dropping a curtsy; "but I
+can't leave my father, nor own anybody nearer than him."
+
+Godfrey Cass was irritated at this obstacle.
+
+"But I've a claim on you, Eppie," he returned. "It's my duty, Marner, to
+own Eppie as my child, and provide for her. She's my own child. Her
+mother was my wife. I've a natural claim on her."
+
+"Then, sir, why didn't you say so sixteen years ago, and claim her
+before I'd come to love her, i'stead o' coming to take her from me now,
+when you might as well take the heart out o' my body? When a man turns a
+blessing from his door, it falls to them as take it in. But let it be as
+you will. Speak to the child. I'll hinder nothing."
+
+"Eppie, my dear," said Godfrey, looking at his daughter not without some
+embarrassment, "it'll always be our wish that you should show your love
+and gratitude to one who's been a father to you so many years; but we
+hope you'll come to love us as well, and though I haven't been what a
+father should ha' been to you all these years, I wish to do the utmost
+in my power for you now, and provide for you as my only child. And
+you'll have the best of mothers in my wife."
+
+Eppie did not come forward and curtsy as she had done before, but she
+held Silas's hand in hers and grasped it firmly.
+
+"Thank you, ma'am--thank you, sir, for your offers--they're very great
+and far above my wish. For I should have no delight in life any more if
+I was forced to go away from my father."
+
+In vain Nancy expostulated mildly.
+
+"I can't feel as I've got any father but one," said Eppie. "I've always
+thought of a little home where he'd sit i' the corner, and I should fend
+and do everything for him. I can't think o' no other home. I wasn't
+brought up to be a lady, and," she ended passionately, "I'm promised to
+marry a working man, as'll live with father and help me to take care of
+him."
+
+Godfrey Cass and his wife went out.
+
+A year later Eppie was married, and Mrs. Godfrey Cass provided the
+wedding dress, and Mr. Cass made some necessary alterations to suit
+Silas's larger family.
+
+"Oh, father," said Eppie, when the bridal party returned from the
+church, "what a pretty home ours is! I think nobody could be happier
+than we are!"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+The Mill on the Floss
+
+
+     In "The Mill on the Floss," published in 1860, George Eliot
+     went to her own early life for the chief characters in the
+     story, and in the relations of Tom and Maggie Tulliver we get
+     a picture of the youth of Mary Ann Evans and her brother
+     Isaac. Lord Lytton objected that Maggie was too passive in the
+     scene at Red Deeps, and that the tragedy of the flood was not
+     adequately prepared. To this criticism George Eliot answered,
+     "Now that the defect is suggested to me, if the book were
+     still in manuscript I should alter, or rather expand, that
+     scene at Red Deeps." She also admitted that there was "a want
+     of proportionate fulness" in the conclusion. But, with all its
+     faults, "The Mill on the Floss" deserves the reputation it has
+     won. The reception of the story at first was disappointing,
+     and we find the authoress telling her publisher that "she does
+     not want to see any newspaper articles." But the book made its
+     way, and prepared an ever-growing public for "Silas Marner."
+
+
+_I.--The Tullivers of Dorlcote Mill_
+
+
+"What I want, you know," said Mr. Tulliver, "what I want is to give Tom
+a good eddication--an eddication as'll be a bread to him. I mean to put
+him to a downright good school at midsummer. The two years at th'
+academy 'ud ha' done well enough if I'd meant to make a miller and
+farmer of him, but I should like Tom to be a bit of a scholard. It 'ud
+be a help to me wi' these lawsuits, and arbitrations, and things. I
+wouldn't make a downright lawyer o' the lad--I should be sorry for him
+to be a raskill--but a sort of engineer, or a surveyor, or an auctioneer
+and vallyer, like Riley, or one o' them smartish businesses as are all
+profits and no outlay, only for a big watch-chain and a high stool.
+They're pretty nigh all one, and they're not far off being even wi' the
+law, I believe; for Riley looks Lawyer Wakem i' the face as hard as one
+cat looks another. _He's_ none frightened at him."
+
+Mr. Tulliver was speaking to his wife, a blonde, comely woman, nearly
+forty years old.
+
+"Well, Mr. Tulliver, you know best. _I've_ no objections. But if Tom's
+to go to a new school, I should like him to go where I can wash him and
+mend him, else he might as well have calico as linen. And then, when the
+box is goin' backwards and forwards, I could send the lad a cake, or a
+pork-pie, or an apple."
+
+"Well, well, we won't send him out o' reach o' the carrier's cart, if
+other things fit in," said Mr. Tulliver. "Riley's as likely a man as any
+to know o' some school; he's had schooling himself, an' goes about to
+all sorts o' places--arbitratin' and vallyin', and that."
+
+So a day or two later Mr. Riley, the auctioneer, came to Dorlcote Mill,
+and stayed the night, the better that Mr. Tulliver, who was slow at
+coming to a point, might consult him on the all-important subject of his
+boy.
+
+"You see, I want to put him to a new school at midsummer," said Mr.
+Tulliver, when the topic had been reached. "I want to send him to a
+downright good school, where they'll make a scholard of him. I don't
+mean Tom to be a miller an' farmer. I see no fun i' that. I shall give
+Tom an eddication and put him to a business as he may make a nest for
+himself, an' not want to push me out o' mine."
+
+At the sound of her brother's name, Maggie, the second and only other
+child of the Tullivers, who was seated on a low stool close by the fire,
+with a large book open on her lap, looked up eagerly. Tom, it appeared,
+was supposed capable of turning his father out of doors. This was not to
+be borne, and Maggie jumped up from her stool, and going up between her
+father's knees, said, in a half-crying, half-indignant voice, "Father,
+Tom wouldn't be naughty to you ever; I know he wouldn't."
+
+Mr. Tulliver's heart was touched.
+
+"What! They mustn't say any harm o' Tom, eh?" he said, looking at Maggie
+with a twinkling eye. Then, in a lower voice, turning to Mr. Riley, "She
+understands what one's talking about so as never was. And you should
+hear her read--straight off, as if she knowed it all beforehand. But
+it's bad--it's bad. A woman's no business wi' being so clever; it'll
+turn to trouble, I doubt. It's a pity, but what she'd been the
+lad--she'd ha' been a match for the lawyers, she would."
+
+Mr. Riley took a pinch of snuff before he said, "But your lad's not
+stupid, is he? I saw him, when I was here last, busy making
+fishing-tackle; he seemed quite up to it."
+
+"Well, he isn't not to say stupid; he's got a notion o' things out o'
+door, an' a sort o' commonsense, as he'd lay hold o' things by the right
+handle. But he's slow with his tongue, you see, and reads but poorly,
+and can't abide the books, and spells all wrong, they tell me, an' as
+shy as can be wi' strangers. Now, what I want is to send him to a school
+where they'll make him a bit nimble with his tongue and his pen, to make
+a smart chap of him. I want my son to be even wi' these fellows as have
+got the start o' me with schooling."
+
+The talk ended in Mr. Riley recommending a country parson named Stelling
+as a suitable tutor for Tom, and Mr. Tulliver decided that his son
+should go to Mr. Stelling at King's Lorton, fifteen miles from Dorlcote
+Mill.
+
+
+_II.--School-Time_
+
+
+Tom Tulliver's sufferings during the first quarter he was at King's
+Lorton, under the distinguished care of the Rev. Walter Stelling, were
+rather severe. It had been very difficult for him to reconcile himself
+to the idea that his school-time was to be prolonged, and that he was
+not to be brought up to his father's business, which he had always
+thought extremely pleasant, for it was nothing but riding about, giving
+orders, and going to market.
+
+Mr. Stelling was not a harsh-tempered or unkind man--quite the contrary,
+but he thought Tom a stupid boy, and determined to develop his powers
+through Latin grammar and Euclid to the best of his ability.
+
+As for Tom, he had no distinct idea how there came to be such a thing as
+Latin on this earth. It would have taken a long while to make it
+conceivable to him that there ever existed a people who bought and sold
+sheep and oxen, and transacted the everyday affairs of life through the
+medium of this language, or why he should be called upon to learn it,
+when its connection with those affairs had become entirely latent. He
+was of a very firm, not to say obstinate disposition, but there was no
+brute-like rebellion or recklessness in his nature; the human
+sensibilities predominated, and he was anxious to acquire Mr. Stelling's
+approbation by showing some quickness at his lessons, if he had known
+how to accomplish it.
+
+In his secret heart Tom yearned to have Maggie with him, and, before the
+first dreary half-year was ended, Maggie actually came. Mrs. Stelling
+had given a general invitation for the little girl to come and stay with
+her brother; so when Mr. Tulliver drove over to King's Lorton late in
+October, Maggie came too, with the sense that she was taking a great
+journey, and beginning to see the world.
+
+"Well, my lad," Mr. Tulliver said, "you look rarely! School agrees with
+you!"
+
+"I don't think I _am_ well, father," said Tom; "I wish you'd ask Mr.
+Stelling not to let me do Euclid--it brings on the toothache, I think."
+
+"Euclid, my lad--why, what's that?" said Mr. Tulliver.
+
+"Oh, I don't know! It's definitions and axioms and triangles and things.
+It's a book I've got to learn in--there's no sense in it."
+
+"Go, go!" said Mr. Tulliver reprovingly. "You mustn't say so. You must
+learn what your master tells you. He knows what it's right for you to
+learn."
+
+In the second term Mr. Stelling had a second pupil--Philip, the son of
+Lawyer Wakem, Mr. Tulliver's standing enemy.
+
+Philip was a very old-looking boy, Tom thought. His spine had been
+deformed through an accident in infancy, and to Tom he was simply a
+humpback. He had a vague notion that the deformity of Wakem's son had
+some relation to the lawyer's rascality, of which he had so often heard
+his father talk with hot emphasis.
+
+There was a natural antipathy of temperament between the two boys; for
+Tom was an excellent bovine lad, and Philip was sensitive, and suffered
+acute pain when the other blurted out offensive things.
+
+Maggie, on her second visit to King's Lorton, pronounced Philip to be "a
+nice boy."
+
+"He couldn't choose his father, you know," she said to Tom. "And I've
+read of very bad men who had good sons, as well as good parents who had
+bad children."
+
+"Oh, he's a queer fellow," said Tom curtly, "and he's as sulky as can be
+with me because I told him his father was a rogue. And I'd a right to
+tell him so, for it was true--and he began it with calling me names."
+
+An accident to Tom's foot brought the two boys nearer again, and also
+threw Philip and Maggie together.
+
+"Maggie," said Philip one day, "if you had had a brother like me, do you
+think you should have loved him as well as Tom?"
+
+"Oh, yes, better," she answered immediately. "No, not better; because I
+don't think I could love you better than Tom. But I should be so
+sorry--so sorry for you."
+
+Philip coloured. He had meant to imply, would she love him as well in
+spite of his deformity, and yet when she alluded to it so plainly he
+winced under her pity. Maggie, young as she was, felt her mistake.
+
+"But you are so very clever, Philip, and you can play and sing," she
+added quickly. "I wish you were my brother. I'm very fond of you."
+
+"But you'll go away soon, and go to school, Maggie, and then you'll
+forget all about me, and not care for me any more."
+
+"Oh, no, I shan't forget you, I'm sure." And Maggie put her arm round
+his neck, and kissed him quite earnestly.
+
+
+_III.--The Downfall_
+
+
+When Tom had turned sixteen, and Maggie, three years younger, was at
+boarding school, came the downfall of the Tullivers. A long and
+expensive law-suit concerning rights of water, brought by Mr. Tulliver,
+ended in defeat. Wakem was his opponent's lawyer.
+
+Maggie broke the news to Tom. Not only would mill and lands and
+everything be lost, and nothing left, but their father had fallen off
+his horse, and knew nobody, and seemed to have lost his senses.
+
+"They say Mr. Wakem has got a mortgage or something on the land, Tom,"
+said Maggie, on their way home from King's Lorton. "It was the letter
+with that news in it that made father ill, they think."
+
+"I believe that scoundrel's been planning all along to ruin my father,"
+said Tom, leaping from the vaguest impressions to a definite conclusion.
+"I'll make him feel for it when I'm a man. Mind you never speak to
+Philip again!"
+
+For more than two months Mr. Tulliver lay ill in his room, oblivious to
+all that was taking place around him. From time to time recognition came
+to him of his wife and family, but there was no remembrance of recent
+events.
+
+The mill and land of the Tullivers were sold to Wakem the lawyer, and
+the bulk of their household goods were disposed of by public auction;
+but the Tullivers were not turned out of Dorlcote Mill. And, indeed,
+when Mr. Tulliver, known to be a man of proud honesty, was once more
+able to be up and about, it was proposed that he should remain and
+accept employment as manager of the mill for Mr. Wakem.
+
+It was with difficulty that poor Tulliver could bring himself to accept
+the situation, but he saw the possibility, by much pinching, of saving
+money out of the thirty shillings a week salary promised by Wakem, and
+paying a second dividend to his creditors. The strongest influence of
+all was the love of the old premises where he had run about when he was
+a boy, just as Tom had done after him.
+
+Tom, who had at once applied to his Uncle Deane, partner in a wealthy
+merchant's business, for work, and was now earning a pound a week, had
+protested against entertaining the proposition; he shouldn't like his
+father to be under Wakem; he thought it would look nothing but mean
+spirited.
+
+But Mr. Tulliver had come to a decision. The first evening of his new
+life downstairs, he called his family round him, and began to speak,
+looking first at his wife.
+
+"I've made up my mind, Bessy. I'll stop in the old place, and I'll serve
+under Wakem, and I'll serve him like an honest man; there's no Tulliver
+but what's honest, mind that, Tom. They'll have it to throw up against
+me as I paid a dividend--but it wasn't my fault--it was because there's
+raskills in the world. They've been too many for me, and I must give in.
+But I'll serve him as honest as if he was no raskill. I'm an honest man,
+though I shall never hold my head up no more! I'm a tree as is broke--a
+tree as is broke."
+
+He paused, and looked on the ground. Then suddenly raising his head, he
+said, in a louder yet deeper tone, "But I won't forgive him! I know what
+they say--he never meant me any harm! I shouldn't ha' gone to law they
+say. But who made it so as there was no arbitrating and no justice to be
+got? It signifies nothing to him--I know that he's one o' them fine
+gentlemen as get money by doing business for poorer folks, and when he's
+made beggars of 'em he'll give 'em charity. I won't forgive him! I wish
+he might be punished with shame till his own son 'ud like to forget him.
+And you mind this, Tom--you never forgive him, neither, if you mean to
+be my son. Now write--write it i' the Bible!"
+
+"Oh, father, what?" said Maggie. "It's wicked to curse and bear malice."
+
+"It isn't wicked, I tell you," said her father, fiercely. "It's wicked
+as the raskills should prosper--it's the devil's doing. Do as I tell
+you, Tom! Write."
+
+The big Bible was open at the beginning, where many family entries were
+put down.
+
+"What am I to write, father?" said Tom, with gloomy submission.
+
+"Write as your father, Edward Tulliver, took service under John Wakem,
+the man as had helped to ruin him, because I'd promised my wife to make
+her what amends I could, and because I wanted to die in th' old place
+where I was born, and my father was born. Put that i' the right
+words--you know how--and then write as I don't forgive Wakem for all
+that; and for all I'll serve him honest, I wish evil may befall him.
+Write that."
+
+There was a dead silence as Tom's pen moved along the paper.
+
+"Now let me hear what you've wrote," said Mr. Tulliver; and Tom read
+aloud, slowly.
+
+"Now, write--write as you'll remember what Wakem's done to your father,
+and you'll make him and his feel it, if ever the day comes. And sign
+your name--Thomas Tulliver!"
+
+"Oh, no, father, dear father!" said Maggie, trembling like a leaf. "You
+shouldn't make Tom write that!"
+
+"Be quiet, Maggie!" said Tom, impatiently, "I shall write it!"
+
+
+_IV.--In Death They Were Not Divided_
+
+
+The Red Deeps was always a favourite place to Maggie to walk in. An old
+stone quarry, so long exhausted that both mounds and hollows were now
+clothed with brambles and trees, and with here and there a stretch of
+grass which a few sheep kept close nibbled. This was the Red Deeps, and
+it was here in June that Maggie once more met Philip Wakem, five years
+after their first meeting at Mr. Stelling's. He told her that she was
+much more beautiful than he had thought she would be, and assured her,
+in answer to the difficulties she raised as to their meeting, that there
+was no enmity in his father's mind.
+
+And Maggie went home with an inward conflict already begun, and Philip
+went home to do nothing but remember and hope.
+
+In the following April they met again, after Philip had been abroad.
+
+And now he took her hand, and asked her the simple question, "_Do_ you
+love me?"
+
+"I think I could hardly love anyone better; there is nothing but what I
+love you for," Maggie answered. But she pointed out how impossible even
+their friendship was, if it were discovered.
+
+Philip, on his side, refused to give up hope, and before they parted
+that day she had kissed him.
+
+Tom intervened before the next visit to the Red Deeps. He had heard that
+Philip Wakem had been seen there with his sister, and Maggie admitted,
+on his questioning her, that she had told Philip that she loved him.
+
+"Now, then, Maggie," Tom said coldly, "there are but two courses for you
+to take. Either you vow solemnly to me, with your hand on father's
+Bible, that you will never have another meeting or speak another word in
+private to Philip Wakem, or you refuse and I tell my father everything!"
+
+In vain Maggie pleaded. Tom was obdurate, and she repeated the words of
+renunciation.
+
+But that was not enough for Tom Tulliver; he accompanied Maggie to Red
+Deeps, and in a voice of harsh scorn told Philip that he had been taking
+a mean, unmanly advantage.
+
+"It was for my father's sake, Philip," said Maggie, imploringly. "Tom
+threatens to tell my father--and he couldn't bear it. I have promised, I
+have vowed solemnly, that we will not have any intercourse without my
+brother's knowledge."
+
+"It is enough, Maggie. _I_ shall not change, but I wish you to hold
+yourself entirely free. But trust me--remember that I can never seek for
+anything but good to what belongs to you."
+
+Tom only replied with angry contempt, and led Maggie away. All his
+sister's remonstrances he answered with cold obstinacy.
+
+For his character in its strength was hard. Tom had laboured to one end
+in these years: to pay off his father's creditors, and regain Dorlcote
+Mill. By his industry, and by some successful private ventures in trade,
+the day came when the first of the objects was realised, and Mr.
+Tulliver lived to see himself free of debt.
+
+But Mr. Tulliver's satisfaction was short-lived. Excited by the dinner
+given to celebrate the payment of his creditors, he met Mr. Wakem near
+the mill. From angry words it came to blows, and Tulliver fell on the
+lawyer furiously, only ceasing from attack when Maggie and Mrs. Tulliver
+appeared. Wakem went off without serious injury, but Tulliver only lived
+through the night; the excitement had killed him.
+
+"You must take care of her, Tom," said the dying man, turning to his
+daughter. "You'll manage to pay for a brick grave, Tom, so as your
+mother and me can lie together? This world's...too many...honest man..."
+
+At last there was total stillness, and poor Tulliver's dimly lighted
+soul had ceased to be vexed with the painful riddle of this world.
+
+Tom and Maggie went downstairs together, and Maggie spoke. "Tom, forgive
+me; let us always love each other"--and they clung and wept together.
+
+But they were not to be always united.
+
+Tom lived in lodgings in the town, and was anxious to provide for his
+sister, but Maggie preferred to take up teaching in her old boarding-
+school. She met Philip Wakem again, and though Tom released her from her
+old promise, he could not regard Philip with any feelings of friendship.
+
+It was when Tom had, by years of steady work, fulfilled his father's
+wishes and become once more master of Dorlcote Mill that Maggie
+returned--to be no more separated from her brother. She was staying in
+the town near the river on the night when the flood came, and the river
+rose beyond its banks. Her first thought, as the water entered the lower
+part of the house, was of the mill, where Tom was. There was no time to
+get assistance; she must go herself, and alone. Hastily she procured a
+boat, and at last reached the mill. The water was up to the first story,
+but still the mill stood firm.
+
+"Tom, where are you? Here is Maggie!" she called out, in a loud,
+piercing voice. Tom opened the middle window, and got into the boat. Tom
+rowed with vigour, but a new danger was before them in the river.
+
+"Get out of the current!" was shouted at them, but it could not be done
+at once. Huge fragments of machinery, swept off one of the wharves,
+blocked the stream in one wide mass, and the current swept the boat
+swiftly on to its doom.
+
+"It is coming, Maggie!" Tom said, in a deep, hoarse voice, loosing the
+oars and clasping her.
+
+The next instant the boat was no longer seen upon the water, and brother
+and sister had gone down in an embrace never to be parted; living
+through again in one supreme moment the days when they had clasped their
+little hands in love.
+
+"In their death they were not divided."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+ERCKMANN-CHATRIAN
+
+
+Waterloo
+
+
+     Emile Erckmann was born at Phalsbourg, in Alsace, on May 20,
+     1822, and Alexandre Chatrian, at Soldatenthal, on December 18,
+     1826. Erckmann, the son of a bookseller, became a law student,
+     and was admitted to the Bar in 1858. But the law studies were
+     always uncongenial, and Erckmann meeting Chatrian as a fellow
+     student in the gymnasium at Phalsbourg, the two young men
+     decided to join forces in authorship. The Erckmann-Chatrian
+     partnership lasted from 1860 to 1885, and resulted in a
+     remarkable series of novels, short stories, plays, and operas.
+     "Waterloo" was published in 1865, and has enjoyed a wide
+     popularity in many languages. Like "The Conscript," its
+     predecessor, the charm of "Waterloo" consists largely in the
+     character of Joseph Bertha, the young clockmaker of
+     Phalsbourg, who tells the story. Bertha is a peaceful citizen
+     who hates war and has no taste for glory. Yet he is nothing of
+     a coward, and behaves like a man when he is forced to fight.
+     To the student of history, the light thrown on the rise and
+     fall of the Bourbon popularity in France, 1813-14, in this
+     novel, will always be of interest. Chatrian died in Paris on
+     September 4, 1890, and Erckmann at Luneville, on March 14,
+     1899.
+
+
+_I.--Napoleon Returns_
+
+
+Never was anything so joyous as the spring of 1814 Louis XVIII. was
+king, and the war was over. All except the old soldiers were content;
+and only when the nobles, who had fled at the Revolution, returned, and
+it was said that they were going to bring back all their old ideas, did
+M. Goulden express any dissatisfaction. There were great religious
+processions everywhere and expiatory services, and talk of rebuilding
+all the convents, and setting up the nobles again in their castles. But
+these things did not trouble me, because I was married to Catherine, and
+knew nothing about politics.
+
+The treatment of the old soldiers enraged me. On the day of the
+religious procession at Phalsbourg, half a dozen old veterans, restored
+prisoners, were set upon in our town by that rascal Pinacle and the
+people of Baraques, and knocked about. Pinacle did this to curry favour
+with Louis XVIII., and M. Goulden warned us that if ruffians like
+Pinacle got the upper hand it would open people's eyes.
+
+Sure enough, Pinacle received the cross of honour in the autumn when the
+Duc de Berry came to review the troops at Phalsbourg, and even Aunt
+Gredel, who was fond of abusing Napoleon and the Jacobins, and
+applauding the king and the clergy, thought this a shameful thing.
+
+It really was scandalous the way titles and honours were given to
+worthless people who shouted for the king. Worse than this was the way
+Napoleon's old officers were treated. Men who had fought and bled for
+France for twenty years were now well-nigh starving, driven out of the
+army to make room for the king's favourites.
+
+We read all this in the "Gazette," and Zebede, who had come back alive
+and in time for my wedding, and was still in the army, would often come
+in and tell us of the growing indignation of the soldiers. The whole of
+that winter the indignation was spreading in the town at the sight of so
+many brave officers, the heroes of Marengo, Austerlitz, and Wagram,
+wandering forlornly about, starving on half-pay, and deprived of their
+posts.
+
+How well I remember one day in January, 1815, two of these officers,
+pale and gaunt, coming into the workshop to sell a watch.
+
+M. Goulden examined the watch with great care and said, "Do not be
+offended, gentlemen; I, too, served France under the Republic, and I
+know it must cut to the heart to be forced to sell something which
+recalls sacred memories."
+
+"It was given me by Prince Eugene," said one of the officers, Commandant
+Margarot, a hussar.
+
+"It is worth more than 1,000 francs," said M. Goulden, "and I cannot
+afford to buy it. But I will advance you 200 francs, and the watch shall
+remain here if you like, and shall be yours whenever you come to reclaim
+it."
+
+The old hussar broke down at this, and though his comrade, Colonel
+Falconette, tried to restrain him, he poured forth thanks and bitter
+words against the government.
+
+From that time it always seemed to me that things would end badly, and
+that the nobles had gone too far. The old commandant had said that the
+government behaved like Cossacks to the army, and this was horrible.
+
+M. Goulden read the "Gazette" aloud to us every day, and both Catherine
+and I were pleased to find there were men in Paris maintaining the very
+things we thought ourselves.
+
+All this time the clergy were going on with their processions, and
+sermons were being preached about the rebellion of 1790, the restitution
+of property to the landowners, and the re-establishment of convents, and
+the need for missionaries for the conversion of France. From such ideas
+what good could come?
+
+It is no wonder that when a report came early in March that Napoleon had
+landed at Cannes and was marching on Paris we were all very agitated at
+Phalsbourg.
+
+"It is plain," said M. Goulden, "that the emperor will reach Paris. The
+soldiers are for him; so are the peasantry, whose property is
+threatened; and so are the middle classes, provided he will make
+treaties of peace."
+
+
+_II.--"Vive l'Empereur!"_
+
+
+For some days, though all knew Napoleon had set foot in France, no one
+dared talk of it aloud. Only the looks of the half-pay officers betrayed
+their anxiety. If they had possessed horses and arms I am sure they
+would have set out to meet their emperor.
+
+On March 8, Zebede entered our house and said abruptly, "The two first
+batallions are starting."
+
+"They are going to stop him?" said M. Goulden.
+
+"Yes, they'll stop him, that is very likely," Zebede answered, winking.
+At the foot of the stairs he drew me aside and whispered, "Look inside
+my cap, Joseph; all the soldiers have got it, too."
+
+Sure enough it was the old tricolour cockade, which had been removed on
+the return of Louis XVIII.
+
+At last the papers had to admit that Buonaparte had escaped from Elba.
+What a scene it was in the cafe the night the papers arrived! M. Goulden
+and I were hardly seated before the place was filled with people, and it
+was so close the windows had to be opened.
+
+Commandant Margarot mounted on a table with other officers all around
+him, and began to read the "Gazette" aloud. It took a long time, the
+reading, and the people laughed and jeered at the passages that said the
+troops were faithful to the king, that Buonaparte was surrounded and
+would soon be taken, and that the illustrious Ney and the other marshals
+had hastened to place their swords at the service of the king. The
+commandant read on firmly in that distinct voice of his until he came to
+the order calling upon the French to seize Buonaparte and give him up
+dead or alive.
+
+Then his whole face changed and his eyes glittered. He took the
+"Gazette" up and tore it into little pieces, and, drawing himself up,
+his long arms stretched out, cried, "Vive l'Empereur!" with all his
+might. Immediately all the half-pay officers took up the cry, and "Vive
+l'Empereur!" was repeated again by the very soldiers posted outside the
+town hall when they heard the shout.
+
+The commandant was carried shoulder high round the cafe, and everyone
+was now calling out, "Vive l'Empereur!" I saw the tears in the eyes of
+the commandant, tears at hearing the name he loved best acclaimed once
+more.
+
+As for me, I felt as if cold water was being forced down my back. "It's
+all over," I said to myself. "It's no good talking about peace."
+
+But M. Goulden was more hopeful, and after we got home spoke cheerfully
+of the blessings of liberty and a good constitution.
+
+Aunt Gredel did not take this view. She came to see us the morning after
+the scene in the cafe, when all the town was discussing the great news,
+and began at once, "So it seems the villain has run away from his
+island?"
+
+Both M. Goulden and I were anxious to avoid a dispute, for Aunt Gredel
+was really angry, and she couldn't leave the subject.
+
+M. Goulden admitted that he preferred Napoleon to the Bourbons, with
+their nobles and missionary priests, because the emperor was bound to
+respect the national property, whereas the later would have destroyed
+all that the Revolution had accomplished. "Still, I am now, and always
+shall be till death, for the Republic and the rights of man," M. Goulden
+concluded.
+
+The old gentleman took his hat and went out to escape further argument,
+and Aunt Gredel turned to me and told me that M. Goulden was an old fool
+and always had been, and that I should have to go to Switzerland now,
+unless Buonaparte was taken before he reached Paris.
+
+In the evening, however, when Aunt Gredel had gone, and we three were
+together, Catherine said quietly, "M. Goulden is right; he knows more
+about these things than my mother does, and we will always listen to his
+advice."
+
+I thought to myself, "Yes, that's all very well; but it will be a
+horrible thing to have to put on one's knapsack again and be off. I
+would rather be in Switzerland than in Leipzig."
+
+Each day now brought news of Napoleon's advance, from Grenoble to Lyons,
+from Lyons to Macon and Auxerre. There was no opposition anywhere to his
+progress, and the only question that troubled M. Goulden's mind was the
+attitude of Ney to the emperor. Could Ney, an old soldier of the
+Revolution, though he had kissed the hand of Louis XVIII., betray the
+country to please the king? The uneasiness disappeared when we learnt
+that Ney had followed the example of the army, the citizens, and of all
+who did not wish to go back to the customs and laws of twenty-five years
+earlier.
+
+On March 21, just as it was getting dark, we knew that something
+decisive must have happened at Paris. The drums were calling to arms in
+the market-place, and a great crowd soon assembled.
+
+The soldiers fell into their ranks, Commandant Gemeau, who had only just
+recovered from his wounds, drew his sword, and gave the order to form
+square.
+
+M. Goulden and I got on a bench to listen; we knew that the fate of
+France depended on the message we were to hear.
+
+"Present arms!" called out the commandant in the same clear voice which
+had bidden us at Luetzen and Leipzig, "Close up your ranks!"
+
+Then came the news we had been waiting for.
+
+"Soldiers, his Majesty Louis XVIII. left Paris on March 20, and the
+Emperor Napoleon entered the capital the same day."
+
+For a second there was a dead silence, and then the commandant spoke of
+the banner of France, the banner of Marengo, Austerlitz, and Jena,
+stained with our blood; and the old sergeant drew out the tattered
+tricolour flag from its case.
+
+"I know no other flag!" cried the commandant, raising his sword. "Vive
+la France! Vive l'Empereur!"
+
+What a shout there was of "Vive l'Empereur! Vive la France!" at this.
+The people and the soldiers embraced one another, and that night and for
+the next five or six days there was, if anything, even more rejoicing
+than there had been on the return of Louis XVIII. We still hoped for the
+continuance of peace, but who could say how long the peace would last?
+
+Phalsbourg was ordered to put itself into a state of defence, a large
+workshop was set up at the arsenal for the repairing of arms, and
+engineers and artillerymen came over from Metz to make earthworks in the
+fortifications. It seemed to me that a large number of men would be
+required for all the guns and forts, and that my watchmaking days would
+soon be exchanged for active service. I began to think that, after all,
+religious processions were better than being sent to fight against
+people one knew nothing about.
+
+
+_III.--On the Road to Waterloo_
+
+
+Aunt Gredel had not been to see us for a month, and it was a great
+comfort to Catherine and me when one Sunday M. Goulden proposed that we
+should all three pay her a visit at Quatre Vents. As soon as she saw us,
+Aunt Gredel rushed to kiss her daughter, and called out, "You are a good
+man, M. Goulden, better a thousand times than I am. How glad I am to see
+you! It doesn't matter about being a Jacobin or anything else; the main
+thing is to have a good heart."
+
+It was not until the afternoon that M. Goulden explained that he had
+known for some days that I should be called up to rejoin my old
+regiment, and that he had arranged with the commandant of artillery that
+I should be received at the arsenal as a workman. What relief this was
+to us, for I could not bear the thought of separation from Catherine. So
+from that day I went to work at the arsenal, and Aunt Gredel came to see
+us again as she had been accustomed to do.
+
+It can be guessed with what spirit I worked at the arsenal, and how
+pleased I was when the commandant expressed satisfaction at my work. But
+I was not allowed to stop at Phalsbourg.
+
+On May 23 the commandant told me that I must go to Metz with the 3rd
+battalion, to which I belonged. He assured me, however, that I should be
+kept at Metz in the workshops, and we all did our best to believe that I
+was fortunate in my destination. M. Goulden, however, warned me before I
+left that France was threatened by her enemies, that the allies would
+make no peace with the emperor, but were determined to set Louis XVIII.
+once more on the throne, and that now the question was not of invading
+other countries, but of defending our own.
+
+Catherine was asleep when the morning came for my departure, and I was
+glad to escape the pain of saying "good-bye." At the barracks, Zebede,
+who was now a sergeant, led me into the soldiers' room, and I put on my
+uniform. Then the battalion defiled through the gates, the soldiers at
+the outworks presented arms, and we were on the way to Waterloo.
+
+It was useless to think of stopping in Metz. We arrived in that city of
+Jews and soldiers after five days' march, and were at once, after our
+night's rest, supplied with ammunition. I saw that my only chance of
+staying at the workshops of Metz would be after the campaign was over,
+for we were on the march the very next morning. Zebede was not always
+with me now, and my closest comrade was Jean Buche, the son of a
+sledge-maker at Harberg, who had never eaten anything better than
+potatoes before he became a conscript. Buche turned in his feet in
+walking, but he never seemed to know the meaning of being tired, and in
+his own fashion was a wonderful pedestrian.
+
+From Metz we marched through Thionville, Chatelet, Etain, Dannevoux,
+Yong, Vivier, and Cul-de-Sard. All our troops were pouring into
+Belgium--cavalry, infantry, and artillery--and though there were no
+signs of the enemy, it was reported that we were to attack the English.
+I thought as well English as Prussians, Austrians, or Russians, since we
+were to kill each other.
+
+On the night of June 14 we bivouacked outside the village of Roly, and
+General Pecheux read a proclamation by the emperor, reminding us that
+this was the anniversary of Marengo, that the powers were in coalition
+against France, and that the hour had come for France to conquer or
+perish.
+
+It is impossible to describe the enthusiasm at this message from the
+emperor; our courage was stronger, and the conscripts were even more
+anxious than the veterans for the fighting to begin.
+
+We were up at daybreak next day and on the march, eager to get a sight
+of the Prussians, who had been repulsed from Charleroi by the emperor,
+we were told. At the village of Chatelet we halted, and heard the noise
+of firing away across the River Sambre, in the direction of Gilly. An
+old bald peasant told us that evening that the Prussians had men in the
+villages of Fleurus and Lambusart, that the English and Belgians were on
+the great Brussels road, and that the causeway through Quatre Bras and
+Ligny enabled the Prussians and English to communicate freely with each
+other. He also told us that the Prussians said insulting things of the
+French army, and were generally hated by the people. When I heard of the
+way the Prussians boasted, my blood boiled, and I said to myself, "There
+shall be no more compassion. Either they or we must be utterly
+destroyed."
+
+I can recall with what splendour the sun rose next morning above a
+cornfield--it was the morning of the battle of Ligny. Zebede and one or
+two comrades whom I had known in 1813 came and chattered while we lit
+our fires. We could see the Prussians before us, posting themselves
+behind hedges and walls, and preparing to defend the villages, and all
+the time we were kept roasting in the corn, waiting for the signal to
+attack. The emperor arrived, and held a short conference with the
+superior officers, and I saw him at close quarters before he rode off
+again to the village of Fleurus, already vacated by the Prussians.
+
+And still we waited, though we knew the attack on St. Amand had begun.
+
+At last came our turn to advance on Ligny. "Forward! Forward!" cried the
+officers. "Vive l'Empereur!" we shouted. The Prussian bullets whizzed
+like hail upon us, and then we could see or hear nothing till we were in
+the village.
+
+No quarter was given that day; we fought in houses and gardens, in barns
+and lanes, with muskets and bayonets. Those who fell were lost. At one
+time fifteen of us were in possession of a barn, and the Prussians, for
+a time outnumbering us, drove us up a ladder. They fired up at our
+floor, and finally, when it seemed we were lost, and were all to be
+massacred we heard the shout of "Vive l'Empereur!" and the Prussians
+fled. Out of that fifteen only six were left alive, but Zebede and Buche
+were among the survivors.
+
+The battle still raged in the village streets, dead and dying were
+everywhere. Towards nightfall it was plain we were the victors; Ligny
+and St. Amand were in our hands, and the Prussians had moved away. On
+the plateau behind Ligny, where our cavalry had been at work, the
+slaughter had been terrible.
+
+The dozen or so remaining of our company rested for a few hours that
+night in the ruins of a farmhouse, and next day came the roll-call of
+our battalion, and the sending off of the wounded. More than 360 of our
+men, including Commandant Gemeau and Captain Vidal, were disabled, and
+we were busy all day over the wounded.
+
+It was wet and muddy that evening, and we were hungry and dispirited
+when we reached Quatre Bras, about eight o'clock. We were not allowed to
+halt here, but marched on to a village called Jemappes, and at midnight
+we settled down in a furrow to wait for morning.
+
+The red coats of the English were visible before us when we awoke next
+morning; behind their lines was the village of Mont St. Jean, and they
+had also the farmhouses of La Haie-Sainte and Hougomont. At six o'clock
+I looked at their position, with Zebede, Captain Florentin, and Buche,
+and it seemed to me it was a difficult task before us. It was Sunday,
+and I could hear the bells of villages, recalling Phalsbourg. But in a
+very little while we heard no more bells, for at half-past eight our
+battalion was on its way to the high road in front, and the battle of
+Waterloo had begun.
+
+
+_IV.--The Hour of Disaster_
+
+
+I have often heard veterans describe the order of battle given by the
+emperor. But all I remember of that terrible day is that we marched out
+with the bands playing, that we got to close quarters with the English,
+were repulsed, and were assisted by regiments of cuirassiers, that we
+carried La Haie-Sainte with terrible slaughter at Ney's command.
+Hougomont we could not carry. When we thought we were winning, the news
+was spread that Bluecher, with 60,000 men, was advancing on our flank,
+and that unless Grouchy, with his 30,000, arrived in time to reinforce
+us the day might be lost.
+
+All the world knows now that Grouchy did not arrive, that we threw
+ourselves again and again upon the English squares, and that at last,
+when regiment after regiment had tried in vain to break the enemy's
+line, the Old Guard were called up by the emperor. It was the last
+chance of retrieving the day, the grand stroke--and it failed.
+
+The four battalions of the Guards, reduced from 3,000 to 1,200 men, were
+assailed by so fierce a fire that they were compelled to retire. They
+retired slowly, defending themselves with muskets and bayonets, but with
+their retirement, and the approach of night, the battle ended for us in
+the confusion of a rout. It was like a flood. We were surrounded on all
+sides when Bluecher arrived. The Old Guard formed a square for the
+emperor and his officers, and the rest of us simply straggled away, back
+to France. The most awful thing of all was the beating of the drum of
+the Old Guard in that hour of disaster. It was like a fire-bell, the
+last appeal of a burning nation.
+
+Buche was by my side in the retreat. Several times the Prussians
+attacked us. We heard that the emperor had departed for Paris, and we
+struggled on, only hoping to escape with our lives. At Charleroi the
+inhabitants shut the city gates in our face, and Buche shared in the
+general rage, and proposed to destroy the town. But I thought we had had
+enough massacres, and that it was not right we should be killing our own
+countrymen, and I persuaded Buche to come on with me.
+
+In a few days we felt ourselves safe from pursuing Prussians, and at the
+village of Bouvigny I wrote a letter to Catherine, telling her I was
+safe. In this village some officers of our regiment, the 6th of the
+Line, found us, and we had to rejoin. Presently we saw all that was left
+of Grouchy's army corps in retreat, and a day or two later we heard of
+the emperor's abdication. On July 1, we reached Paris, and outside the
+city, near the village of Issy, we once more fell in with the Prussians;
+for two days we fought them with fury, and then some generals announced
+that peace had been made.
+
+We believed that this truce was to give the enemy time to leave the
+country, and that otherwise France would rise, as it rose in '92, and
+drive them out.
+
+Unhappily, we soon learnt that the Prussians and English were to occupy
+Paris, and that the remains of the French army were to be kept beyond
+the Loire. We all felt that we had been betrayed, and the old officers,
+pale with anger, wept in their misery. Paris in the hands of the
+Prussians! Besides, were we to go to the other side of the Loire at the
+command of Bluecher?
+
+Desertions began that very day, and I said to Buche, "Let us return to
+Phalsbourg and Harberg, and take up our work, and live like honest men."
+About fifty of us from Alsace-Lorraine were in the battalion, and we set
+off together on the road to Strasbourg.
+
+On July 8 we heard that Louis XVIII. was to come back, and already the
+white banner of the Bourbons was being displayed in the villages.
+
+In some places there were rascals who called us Buonapartists, and
+gendarmes who took us to the town hall and made us shout "Vive le Roi!"
+Buche and some of the old soldiers hated this; but what did it matter
+who was king, and what these fools wanted us to shout?
+
+Our little company got smaller and smaller as men halted in their own
+villages, and when, on July 16, we reached Phalsbourg, Buche and I were
+alone.
+
+Buche went on to break the news of my return, but I could not wait, and
+ran after him.
+
+I heard people saying, "There's Joseph, Bertha," and in a moment I was
+in the house, and in Catherine's arms. Then I embraced M. Goulden, and
+an hour later Aunt Gredel arrived.
+
+Jean Buche would not stay and dine with us, but hurried home to Harberg.
+I have often seen him since; and Zebede, too, who remained in the army.
+
+Many insulting things were said about us by the Pinacles, but I had
+happiness in my family circle, especially when Catherine presented me
+with a little Joseph.
+
+I am an old man now, but M. Goulden always said the principles of
+freedom and liberty would triumph, and I have lived long enough to see
+his words come true.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+OCTAVE FEUILLET
+
+
+Romance of a Poor Young Man
+
+     Octave Feuillet, born at Saint Lo, in France, on August 11,
+     1821, was the son of a Norman gentleman who regarded
+     literature as an ignoble profession. When Octave ran away to
+     Paris in order to pursue a literary career, his father refused
+     to help him, and for some years the young writer had a very
+     hard struggle. But on taking to novel-writing, Feuillet
+     quickly acquired fame and fortune. His "Romance of a Poor
+     Young Man" ("Le Roman d'un Jeune Homme Pauvre"), which
+     appeared in 1858, made him the most popular author of the day.
+     Standing midway between the novelists of the romantic school
+     and the writers of the realistic movement, he combined a sense
+     of the poetry of life with a gift for analysing the finer
+     shades of feeling. The plot of the "Romance of a Poor Young
+     Man" is certainly extraordinary; but in the present case some
+     allowance must be made for the fact that the hero is induced
+     to accept the humble position in which he finds himself by his
+     old family lawyer, who secretly designs to marry him to the
+     daughter of his new employers. A scheme of this sort would not
+     Strike a French reader as improbable, for marriage in France
+     is often more a business arrangement than a love affair.
+     Feuillet spent the latter part of his life in retirement, and
+     died on December 29, 1890.
+
+
+_I.--A Nobleman in Difficulties_
+
+
+Here I am, then, in the situation that Lawyer Laubepin obtained for me.
+I am alone at last, thank goodness, sitting in a gloomy room in this old
+Breton castle, in which the former steward to the Laroque family used to
+live. My position is certainly very strange, but as Laubepin was
+discreet, and did not tell his clients that he was sending them a new
+steward in the person of the young Marquis of Champcey, perhaps I shall
+not find my post very difficult. I was afraid that the Laroques were a
+family of the vulgarly rich sort, like the dreadful persons who have
+bought my father's lands. Laroque is a picturesque figure in his old
+age, and though his widowed daughter-in-law is rather more commonplace,
+his grand-daughter, Marguerite Laroque, is a nobly beautiful girl.
+
+If it were not for my accursed pride, I should now feel happier than I
+have ever felt since that day of disaster, misery, and shame when
+Laubepin told me that my poor dead father had lost his fortune in
+speculations, and left nothing but his title and his debts. Well, I have
+paid the debts, and if I can now only earn enough money to keep my
+little sister Helene at school, I shall not grumble at my lot. I feel
+the loss of my friends, it is true. There is not a soul I can confide
+in, and I must find some outlet for the thoughts and feelings that
+oppress me; so I will keep this diary.
+
+It will be at least a silent confidant, and perhaps when I am older I
+shall be able to read with a certain pleasurable interest its record of
+my singular adventures. No other man in France, on May 1, 1857, can have
+been transformed so suddenly, as by the wand of a witch, from a powerful
+and wealthy young nobleman of ancient lineage into a humble and despised
+domestic servant. Perhaps a good fairy will appear and restore me to my
+proper shape; but I wish she had appeared at dinner this evening. There
+were twenty guests, and it was the first time since the change of my
+fortunes that I took part in a society affair. Nobody spoke to me,
+except the pretty little governess of the family, Mlle. Helouin; and we
+were placed at the end of the table. The position of honour was given to
+a young and brilliant nobleman, M. de Bevallan, whose estate joined that
+of the Laroque family. I gathered from Mlle. Helouin that it was his
+ambition to unite the two estates by marrying Mlle. Marguerite Laroque.
+I was, therefore, surprised when the lovely heiress led her grandfather
+into the room when everybody was seated, placed him in a chair by
+Bevallan, and came and sat by my side.
+
+"She can't," I thought to myself, "be much in love with her wooer," and
+I began to study her with a certain curiosity. Her fine, clear-cut
+features and large dark eyes attracted me; and by way of opening the
+conversation I spoke of the wildly beautiful scenery through which I had
+passed on my way to the castle. It was a bad beginning.
+
+"I see," she said, with a singular expression of irony, "that you are a
+poet. You must talk about the forests and moorlands with Mlle. Helouin,
+who also adores these things. For my part I do not love them."
+
+"What is it, then, that you really love?" I said.
+
+She gave me a supercilious look and said, in a hard voice, "Nothing,
+sir."
+
+I must confess I was hurt. I could not see that I had done anything to
+lay myself open to so harsh an answer. No doubt I was only a servant.
+But why had she come and sat beside me if she did not want to talk? I
+was glad when the dinner was over and we went into the drawing-room.
+Madame Laroque, the widowed mother of Marguerite, began to ask M.
+Bevallan about the new opera in Paris; he was unable to reply, so, as I
+had seen the work in Italy before it was produced in France, I gave her
+a description of it. I am afraid I forgot myself with Madame Laroque--a
+fine-looking, cultivated woman of forty years of age. Flattered by the
+way in which she treated me entirely as her equal, I insensibly glided
+from theatrical topics to fashionable gossip, and just stopped in time
+in an anecdote about my tour in Russia. A few more words and she would
+have learnt that her humble steward, Maxime Odiot--as I am now called--
+was a man with very aristocratic connections.
+
+In order to hide my embarrassment, I moved towards the table where some
+of the guests were playing whist. This led to my committing a blunder
+which, I fear, may make my position a difficult one. Among the whist-
+players was a Mlle. de Porhoet-Gael, eighty-eight years of age and full
+of strange crotchets. The last descendant of the noblest of Breton
+families, she lived, so Madame Laroque told me, on an income of forty
+pounds a year, her fortune having been spent in vainly fighting for the
+succession to a great estate in Spain. She was talking about it to her
+partner when I came up.
+
+"The estate belongs to me," she was saying. "My father told me so a
+hundred times, and the persons who are trying to take it from me have no
+more connection with my family than this handsome young gentleman has."
+
+And she designated me with a look and a movement of her head. No doubt
+she did not mean to imply that because I was a steward I was of mean
+birth; but I was stung by her remark, and forgetting myself, I replied
+rather sharply, "You are mistaken, madam, in thinking that I am
+unrelated to your family."
+
+"You will have to prove that to me, young man."
+
+Confused and ashamed, I withdrew into the corner and tried to talk to
+Mlle. Helouin about poetry and art, but at last, upset and distracted, I
+arose and walked out of the room. Mlle. de Porhoet followed me.
+
+"Monsieur Odiot," she said, "would you mind seeing me home? My servant
+has not arrived, and I am growing too feeble now to walk without help."
+
+Naturally, I went with her.
+
+"What did you mean," she said, as we walked on together, "by claiming to
+be a relation of mine?"
+
+"I hope," I replied very humbly, "that you will pardon a jest that--"
+
+"A jest!" she interrupted. "Is a matter touching my honour a jest? I
+see; a remark which would be an insult if addressed to a man becomes
+only a jest when it is levelled at an old, unprotected woman."
+
+After that, nothing was left to me, as a man of honour, but to entrust
+her with my secret. There had been several marriages between our
+families, and after listening with great interest to the story of my
+troubles, she became wonderfully kind in her manner to me.
+
+"You must come and see me to-morrow, cousin," she said, when we parted.
+"My law-suit is going very badly and I should like you to go through all
+my papers, and see if you can discover any new documents in support of
+my claim. Do not despair, my dear, over your own misfortunes. I think I
+shall be able to help you."
+
+
+_II.--Love and Jealousy_
+
+
+I am afraid I lack the industry necessary for keeping a diary. It is now
+two months since I wrote the last entry. If I had made every night a
+brief note of the events of the day, I should now have a better view of
+my position. Has Mlle. de Porhoet betrayed my secret? There has
+certainly been a curious change in my relations with the Laroques. I
+fancy it began on the day when Marguerite and I met at last on an equal
+footing at Mlle. de Porhoet's house. The document which I had just then
+found may not be as important as we thought, but our common joy in what
+we considered was a discovery of tremendous value brought us closer
+together.
+
+But I cannot understand Marguerite. Sometimes she still goes out of her
+way to be insulting towards me, and sometimes she treats me with a sweet
+frankness which has something sisterly in it. One day, for instance, she
+came to my window and asked me if I would go for a walk with her. "Bring
+your sketch-book, Monsieur Odiot," she called out gaily, "and I will
+take you to Merlin's Tomb in the Enchanted Valley."
+
+As a matter of fact, the woods around the castle of the Laroques were
+the remains of the famous forest of Broceliande, and I had always been
+promising myself a long ramble through this region of romance, but I had
+never found time to explore it. I was now glad I had waited, for
+Marguerite was a charming guide. Never had I seen her so light-hearted.
+When we reached a great block of stone in the depth of the wood, under
+which the wizard Merlin is said to be imprisoned by Vivien, Marguerite
+made herself a garland of oak-leaves, and standing like a lovely
+priestess clad all in white against the Druidic monument, she asked me
+to make a sketch of her. With what joy did I paint the poetic vision
+before me! I think she was pleased with the drawing, but on our way back
+to the castle a foolish word of mine brought our friendship to an end.
+We came to a picturesque little lake, at the end of which was a
+waterfall, overgrown with brambles. In order to show what a good swimmer
+her dog was, Marguerite threw something in the current and told him to
+fetch it, but he got carried over the waterfall and caught in the
+whirlpool below.
+
+"Come away! He is drowning--come away! I can't bear to see it!" cried
+Marguerite, seizing me by the arm. "No, do not attempt to save him. The
+pool is very dangerous."
+
+I am a good swimmer, however, and with a little trouble I managed to
+rescue the dog.
+
+"What madness!" she murmured. "You might have been drowned, and just for
+a dog!"
+
+"It was yours," I answered in a low voice.
+
+Her manner at once changed.
+
+"You had better run home, Monsieur Odiot," she said very coldly, "or you
+will get a chill. Do not wait for me."
+
+So I returned alone, and for some days Marguerite never spoke a word to
+me. What was still worse, M. Bevallan appeared at the castle, and she
+went for walks with him, leaving me in the company of Mlle. Helouin. I
+am afraid that I became very friendly with the pretty governess.
+Nothing, however, that I ever said to her, or that she said to me,
+prepared me for the strange scene that happened to-night. As I was
+walking along the terrace, she came up and took my arm, and said, "Are
+you really my friend, Maxime?"
+
+"Yes," I said.
+
+"Then tell me the truth," she exclaimed. "Do you love me, or do you love
+Mademoiselle Marguerite?"
+
+"Why do you bring in her name?" I said.
+
+"Ah, you love her!" she cried fiercely; "or, rather, you love her
+fortune. But you shall never have it, Monsieur de Champcey. I know why
+you came here under a false name, and so shall she."
+
+With a movement of anger she departed. I cannot continue here under
+suspicion of being a fortune-hunter, so I have written to Laubepin to
+obtain another situation for me.
+
+
+_III.--Two on a Tower_
+
+
+It is all over. Was it because she still only half believed the slanders
+spread against me that Marguerite again asked me to go for a walk with
+her? Oh, what an unfortunate wretch I am! We rode through the forest
+together to one of the most magnificent monuments in Brittany, the
+Castle of Elven. Finding the door unlocked, we tethered our horses in
+the deserted courtyard, and climbed up the narrow, winding staircase to
+the battlements. The sea of autumnal foliage below was bathed in the
+light of the setting sun, and for a long time we sat side by side in
+silence, gazing at the infinite distances.
+
+"Come!" she said at last, in a low whisper, as the light died out of the
+sky. "It is finished!"
+
+But on descending the dark staircase we found that the door of the keep
+was locked. No doubt the shepherd boy who looked after the castle had
+come and shut up the place while we were sitting, watching the sunset.
+
+"Monsieur de Champcey," she said, in a cold, hard voice, "were there any
+scoundrels in your family before you?"
+
+"Marguerite!" I cried.
+
+"You paid that boy to lock us in," she exclaimed. "You think you will
+force me to marry you by compromising me in this manner. Do you think
+you will win my hand--and, what is more important to you still, my
+wretched wealth--by this trick? Rather than marry a scoundrel like you,
+I will shut myself up in a convent!"
+
+Carried away by my feelings, I seized her two hands, and said, "Now
+listen, Marguerite. I love you, it is true. Never did man love more
+devotedly, yes, and more disinterestedly, than I do. But I swear that if
+I get out of this place alive I will never marry you until you are as
+poor as I am, or I as rich as you are. If you love me, as I think you
+do, fall on your knees and pray, for unless a miracle happens you will
+never see me again alive."
+
+But a miracle did happen. I threw myself out of the window, and fell
+upon a branch of an oak-tree. It bent beneath my weight, and then broke;
+but it came so near the earth before breaking that if my left arm had
+not struck against the masonry I should have escaped uninjured. As it
+was, my arm was smashed, and I swooned away with the pain. When I came
+to, Marguerite was leaning out of the window, calling, "Maxime, speak to
+me! For the love of heaven, speak to me, and say you pardon me!"
+
+I arose, saying, "I am not hurt. If you will only wait another hour, I
+will go home and get some one to let you out. Believe me, I will save
+your honour as I have saved my own."
+
+Binding up my arm, I got on my horse, and galloped back to Laroque
+Castle. On the way I met Bevallan.
+
+"Have you seen Mlle. Marguerite?" he said. "We are afraid she has got
+lost."
+
+"I met her this afternoon," I replied. "She told me she was going for a
+ride to Elven Castle."
+
+He rode off in the direction from which I had come, and when I returned
+from the doctor with my broken arm set and bandaged, Marguerite and
+Bevallan entered.
+
+Hearing that I had had an accident, Madame Laroque came up late to-night
+to see me. Old Laroque has had a stroke of paralysis, she tells me, and
+she wishes to get the marriage contract between her daughter and
+Bevallan signed to-morrow. Laubepin is bringing the document.
+
+
+_IV.---A Test Case_
+
+
+I don't know why I take the trouble to go on with this diary, but having
+begun it I may as well finish it. Laubepin wanted me to go into the
+drawing-room to witness the signing of the marriage contract, but
+happily I was too ill to leave my bed; not only was my arm very painful,
+but I was suffering from the shock of the fall. What an hour of misery I
+passed before Mlle. de Porhoet-Gael appeared with the news of what had
+happened! Her sweet, kind old eyes were bright with joy.
+
+"It is all over," she said. "Bevallan has gone, and young Helouin has
+also been turned out of the house."
+
+I started up with surprise.
+
+"Yes," she continued, with a smile, "the contract has not been signed.
+Our friend Laubepin drew it up in such a way that the husband was not
+able to touch a penny of the wife's money. M. Bevallan objected to this;
+while he and his lawyer were arguing the matter with Laubepin,
+Marguerite rose up.
+
+"'Throw the contract in the fire,' she said, 'and, mother, give this
+gentleman back the presents he sent to me.'
+
+"Laubepin threw the deed in the flames, and Marguerite and her mother
+walked out of the room.
+
+"'What is the meaning of this?' cried Bevallan.
+
+"'I will tell you,' I answered. 'A certain young lady was afraid that
+you were merely a fortune-hunter. She wanted to be certain of it, and
+now she is so.'
+
+"Thereupon I, too, left the room.
+
+"But what is the matter with you, my dear boy? You are as pale as a
+corpse."
+
+The fact was that the unexpected news aroused in me such a mixture of
+joyful and painful feelings that I fell back in a swoon. When I
+recovered, dear old Laubepin was standing by my bed.
+
+"Will you not confide in me, my boy?" he said rather sadly. "Something,
+I can see, has happened which has made you miserable on the very day on
+which you should be full of joy. What is it?"
+
+Moved by his sympathy, I gave him this diary to read, and poured out my
+very soul to him.
+
+"It is useless for me," he said at last, "to conceal from you the fact
+that I sent you here with the design to marry you to Marguerite.
+Everything at first went as well as I could wish, and Madame Laroque was
+delighted with the match. You and Marguerite were made for each other,
+and you fell in love almost at first sight. But this affair at the
+Castle of Elven is something I had not reckoned on. To leap out of the
+window at the risk of breaking your neck was, my romantic young friend,
+a sufficient demonstration of your disinterestedness. You need not have
+taken a solemn oath never to marry Marguerite until you were as rich as
+she is. What can you do now? You cannot forswear yourself, and you
+cannot suddenly make an immense fortune."
+
+"I must depart with you," I said very sorrowfully. "There is no other
+way."
+
+"No, Maxime," he replied, "you are too unwell to move. Remain here for
+one month longer; then, if you do not hear from me, return to Paris."
+
+It is now a week since he left me, and I have seen no one for the last
+seven days but the servant who waits upon me. He tells me that Laroque
+has died, and that Marguerite and her mother, who have been tending him
+night and day, have worn themselves out, and are now laid up with some
+sort of fever. Mlle. de Porhoet is also very ill, and not expected to
+live. Since I am well enough to walk over to Mlle. de Porhoet. I am told
+that she keeps asking to see me.
+
+
+_V.--Two in a Garden_
+
+
+The little maid who came to open the door was weeping, and as I came in
+I was surprised to hear the voice of Laubepin.
+
+"It is Maxime, Marguerite," he said.
+
+Had Marguerite also risen up from a bed of sickness to see Mlle. de
+Porhoet? I sprang up the stairs, and entered the room.
+
+"My poor, dear boy!" said Mlle. de Porhoet, in a strange, broken voice.
+
+She was lying in bed. Laubepin, a priest, and a doctor were standing on
+one side, and Marguerite and her mother were kneeling down in prayer on
+the other. I saw at once that she was at the point of death, and knelt
+down beside Marguerite. The poor dying woman smiled faintly, and groped
+for my hand and put it in Marguerite's, and then fell back on the
+pillow. She was dead.
+
+Laubepin led me out of the room, and put a document in my hand. It was a
+will, and the ink on it was hardly dry. Mlle. de Porhoet had made me her
+heir.
+
+"How good of her!" I said to Laubepin. "I shall treasure her testament
+as a mark of her love for me. I will settle her little estate on my
+sister. It will at least keep Helene from having to go out into the
+world as a governess."
+
+"And it will keep you, my friend, from having to go out into the world
+as a steward," said Laubepin, with a smile. "Don't you remember that
+document about the Spanish succession which you discovered and sent to
+me? We have won the law-suit, and you are the heir to an estate in Spain
+which will make you one of the richest men in France."
+
+I went into the garden to think over my strange fortune. How long I sat
+there in the darkness I do not know. On rising up, I heard a faint sound
+beneath one of the trees, and a beloved form emerged from the foliage,
+and stood against the starry sky.
+
+"Marguerite!" I cried, running up to her with outstretched arm.
+
+She murmured my name, and as I clasped her her lips sought mine, and we
+poured our souls out in a kiss.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+I have given Helene half of my fortune. Marguerite is my wife, and I
+close these pages for ever, having nothing more to confide to them. It
+can be said of men, as it has been said of nations, "Happy are those
+that have no story."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+HENRY FIELDING
+
+
+Amelia
+
+     Henry Fielding was born at Sharpham Park, near Glastonbury,
+     England, April 12, 1707. His father, a grandson of the Earl of
+     Desmond, and great-grandson of the first Earl of Denbigh,
+     settled in England shortly after the battle of Ramillies as a
+     country squire. In due course, Fielding was sent to Eton, and
+     afterwards to Leyden, where he remained for two years studying
+     civil law. Financial difficulties, however, put a temporary
+     end to his intention of entering the Bar, and in 1727 he
+     solved the problem of a career by beginning to write for the
+     stage. During the next nine years some eighteen of his plays
+     were produced. In 1748 he was appointed a justice of peace for
+     Westminster, and his writings on police and crime are of
+     interest to this day. "Amelia" was published in 1751, when its
+     author was a magistrate at Bow Street. In a dedicatory letter,
+     Fielding explained that the book was "sincerely designed to
+     promote the cause of virtue, and to expose some of the most
+     glaring evils, as well public as private, which at present
+     infest the country." The licentiousness of wealthy "men about
+     town," the corruption of justice, the abuses of the prison
+     system, the lack of honour concerning marriage--these are some
+     of the "glaring evils" exposed with all the great novelist's
+     power in "Amelia." In the characters of Dr. Harrison and
+     Amelia herself, the virtuous man and woman are drawn so
+     clearly that they inevitably win the reader's sympathy.
+     "Amelia" does not equal the genius of "Tom Jones," but it is
+     remarkable for being so largely devoted to the adventures of a
+     married couple, instead of ending at marriage. Fielding died
+     on October 8, 1754.
+
+
+_I.--The Inside of a Prison_
+
+
+On the first of April, in the year--, the watchmen of a certain parish
+in Westminster brought several persons, whom they had apprehended the
+preceding night, before Jonathan Thrasher, Esq., one of the justices of
+the peace for that city.
+
+Among the prisoners a young fellow, whose name was Booth, was charged
+with beating the watchman in the execution of his office, and breaking
+his lantern. The justice perceiving the criminal to be but shabbily
+dressed, was going to commit him without asking any further questions,
+but at the earnest request of the accused the worthy magistrate
+submitted to hear his defence.
+
+The young man then alleged that as he was walking home to his lodgings
+he saw two men in the street cruelly beating a third, upon which he had
+stopped and endeavoured to assist the person who was so unequally
+attacked; that the watch came up during the affray, and took them all
+four into custody; that they were immediately carried to the
+round-house, where the two original assailants found means to make up
+the matter, and were discharged by the constable, a favour which he
+himself, having no money in his pocket, was unable to obtain. He utterly
+denied having assaulted any of the watchmen, and solemnly declared that
+he was offered his liberty at the price of half a crown.
+
+Though the bare word of an offender can never be taken against the oath
+of his accuser, yet the magistrate might have employed some labour in
+cross-examining the watchman, or at least have given the defendant time
+to send for the other persons who were present at the affray; neither of
+which he did.
+
+Booth and the poor man in whose defence he had been engaged were both
+dispatched to prison under a guard of watchmen.
+
+Mr. Booth was no sooner arrived in the prison than a number of persons
+gathered around him, all demanding garnish. The master or keeper of the
+prison then acquainted him that it was the custom of the place for every
+prisoner, upon his first arrival there, to give something to the former
+prisoners to make them drink. This was what they called garnish. Mr.
+Booth answered that he would readily comply with this laudable custom,
+were it in his power; but that in reality he had not a shilling in his
+pocket, and, what was worse, he had not a shilling in the world. Upon
+which the keeper departed, and left poor Booth to the mercy of his
+companions, who, without loss of time, stripped him of his coat and hid
+it.
+
+Mr. Booth was too weak to resist and too wise to complain of his usage.
+He summoned his philosophy to his assistance, and resolved to make
+himself as easy as possible under his present circumstances.
+
+On the following day, Miss Matthews, an old acquaintance whom he had not
+seen for some years, was brought into the prison, and Booth was shortly
+afterwards invited to the room this lady had engaged. Miss Matthews,
+having told her story, requested Booth to do the same, and to this he
+acceded.
+
+
+_II.--Captain Booth Tells His Story_
+
+
+"From the first I was in love with Amelia; but my own fortune was so
+desperate, and hers was entirely dependent on her mother, a woman of
+violent passions, and very unlikely to consent to a match so highly
+contrary to the interest of her daughter, that I endeavoured to refrain
+from any proposal of love. I had nothing more than the poor provision of
+an ensign's commission to depend on, and the thought of leaving my
+Amelia to starve alone, deprived of her mother's help, was intolerable
+to me.
+
+"In spite of this I could not keep from telling Amelia the state of my
+heart, and I soon found all that return of my affection which the
+tenderest lover can require. Against the opposition of Amelia's mother,
+Mrs. Harris, to our engagement, we had the support of that good man, Dr.
+Harrison, the rector; and at last Mrs. Harris yielded to the doctor, and
+we were married. There was an agreement that I should settle all my
+Amelia's fortune on her, except a certain sum, which was to be laid out
+in my advancement in the army, and shortly afterwards I was preferred to
+the rank of a lieutenant in my regiment, and ordered to Gibraltar. I
+noticed that Amelia's sister, Miss Betty, who had said many ill-natured
+things of our marriage, now again became my friend.
+
+"At the siege of Gibraltar I was very badly wounded, and in this
+situation the image of my Amelia haunted me day and night. Two months
+and more I continued in a state of uncertainty; when one afternoon poor
+Atkinson, my servant, came running to my room. I asked him what was the
+matter, when Amelia herself rushed into the room, and ran hastily to me.
+She gently chided me for concealing my illness from her, saying, 'Oh,
+Mr. Booth! And do you think so little of your Amelia as to think I could
+or would survive you?' Amelia then informed me that she had received a
+letter from an unknown hand, acquainting her with my misfortune, and
+advising her, if she desired to see me more, to come directly to
+Gibraltar.
+
+"From the time of Amelia's arrival nothing remarkable happened till my
+perfect recovery; and then the siege being at an end, and Amelia being
+in some sort of fever, the governor gave me leave to attend my wife to
+Montpelier, the air of which was judged to be most likely to restore her
+to health.
+
+"A fellow-officer, Captain James, willingly lent me money, and, after an
+ample recovery at Montpelier, and a stay in Paris, we returned to
+England. It was in Paris we received a long letter from Dr. Harrison,
+enclosing L100, and containing the news that Mrs. Harris was dead, and
+had left her whole fortune to Miss Betty. So now it was that I was a
+married man with children, and the half-pay of a lieutenant.
+
+"Dr. Harrison, at whose rectory we were staying, came to our assistance.
+He asked me if I had any prospect of going again into the army; if not,
+what scheme of life I proposed to myself.
+
+"I told him that as I had no powerful friends, I could have but little
+expectations in a military way; that I was incapable of thinking of any
+other scheme, for I was without the necessary knowledge or experience,
+and was likewise destitute of money to set up with.
+
+"The doctor, after a little hesitation, said he had been thinking on
+this subject, and proposed to me to turn farmer. At the same time he
+offered to let me his parsonage, which was then become vacant; he said
+it was a farm which required but little stock, and that little should
+not be wanting.
+
+"I embraced this offer very eagerly, and Amelia received the news with
+the highest transports of joy. Thus, you see me degraded from my former
+rank in life; no longer Captain Booth, but Farmer Booth.
+
+"For a year all went well; love, health, and tranquillity filled our
+lives. Then a heavy blow befell us, and we were robbed of our dear
+friend the doctor, who was chosen to attend the young lord, the son of
+the patron of the living, in his travels as a tutor.
+
+"By this means I was bereft not only of the best companion in the world,
+but of the best counsellor, and in consequence of this loss I fell into
+many errors.
+
+"The first of these was in enlarging my business by adding a farm of one
+hundred a year to the parsonage, in renting which I had also as bad a
+bargain as the doctor had before given me a good one. The consequence of
+which was that whereas at the end of the first year I was L80 to the
+good, at the end of the second I was nearly L40 to the bad.
+
+"A second folly I was guilty of was in uniting families with the curate
+of the parish, who had just married. We had not, however, lived one
+month together before I plainly perceived the curate's wife had taken a
+great prejudice against my wife, though my Amelia had treated her with
+nothing but kindness, and, with the mischievous nature of envy, spread
+dislike against us.
+
+"My greatest folly, however, was the purchase of an old coach. The
+farmers and their wives considered that the setting up of a coach was
+the elevating ourselves above them, and immediately began to declare war
+against us. The neighbouring little squires, too, were uneasy to see a
+poor renter become their equal in a matter in which they placed so much
+dignity, and began to hate me likewise.
+
+"My neighbours now began to conspire against me. Whatever I bought, I
+was sure to buy dearer, and when I sold, I was obliged to sell cheaper
+than any other. In fact, they were all united; and while they every day
+committed trespasses on my lands with impunity, if any of my cattle
+escaped into their fields I was either forced to enter into a law-suit
+or to make amends for the damage sustained.
+
+"The consequence of all this could be no other than ruin. Before the end
+of four years I became involved in debt to the extent of L300. My
+landlord seized my stock for rent, and, to avoid immediate confinement
+in prison, I was forced to leave the country.
+
+"In this condition I arrived in town a week ago. I had just taken a
+lodging, and had written my dear Amelia word where she might find me;
+and that very evening, as I was returning from a coffee-house, because I
+endeavoured to assist the injured party in an affray, I was seized by
+the watch and committed here by a justice of the peace."
+
+
+_III.--Amelia in London_
+
+
+Miss Matthews, being greatly drawn to Captain Booth, procured his
+discharge by the expenditure of L20, and obtained her own release at the
+same time.
+
+Amelia arrived in London to receive her husband in her arms. "For," said
+she, "your confinement was known all over the county, my sister having
+spread the news with a malicious joy; and so, not hearing from you, I
+hastened to town with our children."
+
+Poor Booth, in spite of his release, was very cast down. Seeing tears in
+his eyes at the sight of his children, Amelia, embracing him with
+rapturous fondness, cried out, "My dear Billy, let nothing make you
+uneasy. Heaven will provide for us and these poor babes. Great fortunes
+are not necessary to happiness. Make yourself easy, my dear love, for
+you have a wife who will think herself happy with you, and endeavour to
+make you so, in any situation. Fear nothing, Billy; industry will always
+provide us a wholesome meal."
+
+Booth, who was naturally of a sanguine temper, took the cue she had
+given him, but he could not help reproaching himself as the cause of all
+her wretchedness. This it was that enervated his heart and threw him
+into agonies, which all that profusion of heroic tenderness that the
+most excellent of women intended for his comfort served only to heighten
+and aggravate: as the more she rose in his admiration, the more she
+quickened the sense of his unworthiness.
+
+His affairs did not prosper; in vain he solicited a commission in the
+army. With no great man to back him, and with his friend, Captain James
+(now a colonel, and in London), too taken up with his own affairs to
+exert any influence on behalf of Booth, it seemed as though no escape
+from misery was possible. The beautiful Amelia, always patient and
+cheerful, remained his comforter. And Atkinson, now a sergeant in the
+guards, was the devoted servant of both Amelia and her husband.
+
+Then one morning, when Amelia was out, Booth was arrested for debt and
+carried to the bailiff's house in Gray's Inn Lane.
+
+"Who has done this barbarous action?" cries Amelia, when the news is
+told her by Sergeant Atkinson.
+
+"One I am ashamed to name," cries the sergeant; "indeed, I had always a
+very different opinion of him; but Dr. Harrison is the man who has done
+the deed."
+
+"Dr. Harrison!" cries Amelia. "Well, then, there is an end of all
+goodness in the world. I will never have a good opinion of any human
+being more!"
+
+The fact was that while the doctor was abroad he had received from the
+curate, and from a gentleman of the neighbourhood, accounts of Booth's
+doings very much to his disadvantage. On his return to the parish these
+accusations were confirmed by many witnesses, and the whole
+neighbourhood rang with several gross and scandalous lies, which were
+merely the inventions of Booth's enemies. Poisoned with all this malice,
+the doctor came to London, and calling at Booth's lodgings, when both
+the captain and Amelia were out, learnt from the servant-maid that the
+children had got a gold watch and several fine trinkets. These presents,
+indeed, had come from a certain noble lord, who hoped by these means to
+win Amelia's affection; but no suspicion of his evil desire had entered
+the innocent mind of Amelia.
+
+The doctor had no doubt that these trinkets had been purchased by
+Amelia; and this account tallied so well with the ideas he had imbibed
+of Booth's extravagance in the country, that he firmly believed both the
+husband and wife to be the vainest, silliest and most unjust people
+alive.
+
+But no sooner did the doctor hear that Booth was arrested than the
+wretched condition of his wife and children began to affect his mind. In
+this temper of mind he resolved to pay Amelia a second visit, and was on
+his way thither when Sergeant Atkinson met him, and made himself known
+to him.
+
+The doctor received from Atkinson such an account of Booth and his
+family that he hastened at once to Amelia, and soon became satisfied
+concerning the trinkets which had given him so much uneasiness. Amelia
+likewise gave the doctor some satisfaction as to what he had heard of
+her husband's behaviour In the country, and assured him, upon her
+honour, that Booth could answer every complaint against his conduct, so
+that the doctor would find him an innocent, unfortunate man, the object
+of a good man's compassion, not of his anger or resentment.
+
+This worthy clergyman, who was not desirous of finding proofs to condemn
+the captain, rejoiced heartily in every piece of evidence which tended
+to clear up the character of his friend, and gave a ready ear to all
+which Amelia said.
+
+Induced, indeed, by the love he always had for that lady, whom he was
+wont to call his daughter, as well as by pity for her present condition,
+the doctor immediately endeavoured to comfort the afflicted, and then
+proceeded to accomplish the captain's release.
+
+"So, captain," says the doctor, on arrival at the bailiff's house, "when
+last we met I believe that we neither of us expected to meet in such a
+place as this."
+
+"Indeed, doctor," cries Booth, "I did not expect to have been sent
+hither by the gentleman who did me this favour."
+
+"How so, sir!" said the doctor. "You were sent hither by some person, I
+suppose, to whom you were indebted. But you ought to be more surprised
+that the gentleman who sent you thither is come to release you."
+
+
+_IV.--Fortune Smiles on Amelia_
+
+
+Booth was again arrested some months later, and lodged in the bailiff's
+house. This time his creditor was a Captain Trent, who had lent him
+money, and promised him assistance in getting returned to the army. In
+reality, Trent was only seeking to ingratiate himself with Amelia, and
+meeting with no encouragement, took his revenge accordingly.
+
+Amelia at once sought out Dr. Harrison, and told him what had occurred
+to her husband; and the doctor set forwards to the bailiff's to see what
+he could do for Booth.
+
+The doctor had not got so much money in town as Booth's debt amounted
+to, and therefore he was forced to give bail to the action.
+
+While the necessary forms were being made out, the bailiff, addressing
+himself to the doctor, said, "Sir, there is a man above in a dying
+condition that desires the favour of speaking to you. I believe he wants
+you to pray by him."
+
+Without making any further inquiry, the doctor immediately went
+upstairs.
+
+The sick man mentioned his name, and explained that he lived for many
+years in the town where the doctor resided, and that he used to write
+for the attorneys in those parts. He was anxious, he said, as he hoped
+for forgiveness, to make all the amends he could to some one he had
+injured, and to undo, if possible, the injury he had done.
+
+The doctor commended this as a sincere repentance.
+
+"You know, good doctor," the sick man resumed, "that Mrs. Harris, of our
+town, had two daughters--one now Mrs. Booth, and another. Before Mrs.
+Harris died, she made a will, and left all her fortune, except L1,000,
+to Mrs. Booth, to which will Mr. Murphy, the lawyer, myself, and another
+were witnesses. Mrs. Harris afterwards died suddenly, upon which it was
+contrived, by her other daughter and Mr. Murphy, to make a new will, in
+which Mrs. Booth had a legacy of L10, and all the rest was given to the
+other."
+
+"Good heaven, how wonderful is thy providence!" cries the doctor.
+"Murphy, say you? Why, this Murphy is still my attorney."
+
+Within a short time Murphy was arrested, and the sick man's depositions
+taken. Booth was released on the doctor's bail, and on the following
+morning Amelia learnt of the change in fortune that had befallen them.
+
+Dr. Harrison himself broke the good news by reading the following
+paragraph from the newspaper.
+
+"Yesterday, one Murphy, an eminent attorney-at-law, was committed to
+Newgate for the forgery of a will, under which an estate has been for
+many years detained from the right owner."
+
+"Now," said the doctor, "in this paragraph there is something very
+remarkable, and that is that it is true. But now let us read the
+following note upon the words 'right owner.' 'The right owner of this
+estate is a young lady of the highest merit, whose maiden name was
+Harris, and who some time since was married to an idle fellow, one
+Lieutenant Booth; and the best historians assure us that letters from
+the elder sister of this lady, which manifestly prove the forgery and
+clear up the whole affair, are in the hands of an old parson, called Dr.
+Harrison.'"
+
+"And is this really true?" cries Amelia.
+
+"Yes, really and sincerely," cries the doctor, "the whole estate--for
+your mother left it you all; and it is as surely yours as if you were
+already in possession."
+
+"Gracious heaven!" cries she, falling on her knees, "I thank you!" And
+then, starting up, she ran to her husband, and embracing him, cried, "My
+dear love, I wish you joy! It is upon yours and my children's account
+that I principally rejoice."
+
+She then desired her children to be brought to her, whom she immediately
+caught in her arms; and having profusely cried over them, soon regained
+her usual temper and complexion.
+
+Miss Harris, having received a letter from Amelia, informing her of the
+discovery and the danger in which she stood, immediately set out for
+France, carrying with her all her money, most of her clothes, and some
+few jewels.
+
+About a week afterwards, Booth and Amelia, with their children, and
+Atkinson and his wife, all set forward together for Amelia's house,
+where they arrived amidst the acclamations of all the neighbours, and
+every public demonstration of joy.
+
+Miss Harris lived for three years with a broken heart at Boulogne, where
+she received annually L50 from her sister; and then died in a most
+miserable manner.
+
+Dr. Harrison is grown old in years and in honour, beloved and respected
+by all his parishioners and neighbours.
+
+As to Booth and Amelia, fortune seems to have made them large amends for
+the tricks she played them in their youth. They have continued to enjoy
+an uninterrupted course of health and happiness. In about six weeks
+after Booth's first coming into the country, he went to London and paid
+all his debts, after which, and a stay of two days only, he returned
+into the country, and has never since been thirty miles from home.
+
+Amelia is still the finest woman in England of her age; Booth himself
+often avers she is as handsome as ever. Nothing can equal the serenity
+of their lives.
+
+Amelia declared the other day that she did not remember to have seen her
+husband out of humour these ten years!
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+Jonathan Wild
+
+
+     "Jonathan Wild," published in 1743, is in many respects
+     Fielding's most powerful piece of satire, surpassed only,
+     perhaps, by Thackeray's "Barry Lyndon." It can hardly be
+     called a novel, and still less a serious biography, though it
+     is founded on the real history of a notorious highway robber
+     and thief. The author disclaimed in his preface any attempt on
+     his part at authentic history or faithful portraiture.
+     "Roguery, and not a rogue is my subject," he wrote; adding,
+     that the ideas of goodness and greatness are too often
+     confounded together. "A man may be great without being good,
+     or good without being great." The story of "Jonathan Wild" is
+     really a bitter, satirical attack on what Fielding called "the
+     greatness which is totally devoid of goodness." He avowed it
+     his intention "to expose the character of this bombast
+     greatness," and no one can deny the success of his
+     achievement. Surely no story was ever written under more
+     desperate circumstances. The evils of poverty, which at this
+     period were at their height, were aggravated by the serious
+     illness of his wife, and his own sufferings from attacks of
+     gout. These troubles and others may well increase our
+     admiration for the genius which, in the face of all
+     difficulties, is shown in "Jonathan Wild."
+
+
+_I.--Mr. Wild's Early Exploits_
+
+
+Mr. Jonathan Wild, who was descended from a long line of great men, was
+born in 1665. His father followed the fortunes of Mr. Snap, who enjoyed
+a reputable office under the sheriff of London and Middlesex; and his
+mother was the daughter of Scragg Hollow, Esq., of Hockley-in-the-Hole.
+He was scarce settled at school before he gave marks of his lofty and
+aspiring temper, and was regarded by his schoolfellows with that
+deference which men generally pay to those superior geniuses who will
+exact it of them. If an orchard was to be robbed, Wild was consulted;
+and though he was himself seldom concerned in the execution of the
+design, yet was he always concerter of it, and treasurer of the booty,
+some little part of which he would now and then, with wonderful
+generosity, bestow on those who took it. He was generally very secret on
+these occasions; but if any offered to plunder of his own head without
+acquainting Master Wild, and making a deposit of the booty, he was sure
+to have an information against him lodged with the schoolmaster, and to
+be severely punished for his pains.
+
+At the age of seventeen his father brought the young gentleman to town,
+where he resided with him till he was of an age to travel.
+
+Men of great genius as easily discover one another as Freemasons can. It
+was therefore no wonder that the Count la Ruse--who was confined in Mr.
+Snap's house until the day when he should appear in court to answer a
+certain creditor--soon conceived an inclination to an intimacy with our
+young hero, whose vast abilities could not be concealed from one of the
+count's discernment; for though the latter was exceedingly expert at his
+cards, he was no match for Master Wild, who never failed to send him
+away from the table with less in his pocket than he brought to it. With
+so much ingenuity, indeed, could our young hero extract a purse, that
+his hands made frequent visits to the count's pocket before the latter
+had entertained any suspicion of him. But one night, when Wild imagined
+the count asleep, he made so unguarded an attack upon him that the other
+caught him in the act. However, he did not think proper to acquaint him
+with the discovery he had made, but only took care for the future to
+button his pockets and to pack the cards with double industry.
+
+In reality, this detection recommended these two prigs to each other,
+for a wise man--that is to say, a rogue--considers a trick in life as a
+gamester doth a trick at play. It sets him on his guard, but he admires
+the dexterity of him who plays it.
+
+When our two friends met the next morning, the count began to bewail the
+misfortune of his captivity, and the backwardness of friends to assist
+each other in their necessities.
+
+Wild told him that bribery was the surest means of procuring his escape,
+and advised him to apply to the maid, telling him at the same time that
+as he had no money he must make it up with promises, which he would know
+how to put off.
+
+The maid only consented to leave the door open when Wild, depositing a
+guinea in the girl's hands, declared that he himself would swear that he
+saw the count descending from the window by a pair of sheets.
+
+Thus did our young hero not only lend his rhetoric, which few people
+care to do without a fee, but his money too, to procure liberty for his
+friend. At the same time it would be highly derogatory from the great
+character of Wild should the reader not understand that this was done
+because our hero had some interested view in the count's enlargement.
+
+Intimacy and friendship subsisted between the count and Mr. Wild, and
+the latter, now dressed in good clothes, was introduced into the best
+company. They constantly frequented the assemblies, auctions, gaming-
+tables, and play-houses, and Wild passed for a gentleman of great
+fortune.
+
+It was then that an accident occurred that obliged Wild to go abroad for
+seven years to his majesty's plantations in America; and there are such
+various accounts, one of which only can be true, of this accident that
+we shall pass them all over. It is enough that Wild went abroad, and
+stayed seven years.
+
+
+_II.--An Example of Wild's Greatness_
+
+
+The count was one night very successful at the gaming-table, where Wild,
+who was just returned from his travels, was then present; as was
+likewise a young gentleman whose name was Bob Bagshot, an acquaintance
+of Mr. Wild's. Taking, therefore, Mr. Bagshot aside, he advised him to
+provide himself with a case of pistols, and to attack the count on his
+way home.
+
+This was accordingly executed, and the count obliged to surrender to
+savage force what he had in so genteel a manner taken at play. As one
+misfortune never comes alone, the count had hardly passed the
+examination of Mr. Bagshot when he fell into the hands of Mr. Snap, who
+carried him to his house.
+
+Mr. Wild and Mr. Bagshot went together to the tavern, where Mr. Bagshot
+offered to share the booty. Having divided the money into two unequal
+heaps, and added a golden snuffbox to the lesser heap, he desired Mr.
+Wild to take his choice.
+
+Mr. Wild immediately conveyed the larger share of the ready into his
+pocket, according to an excellent maxim of his--"First secure what share
+you can before you wrangle for the rest"; and then, turning to his
+companion, he asked him whether he intended to keep all that sum
+himself. "I grant you took it," Wild said; "but, pray, who proposed or
+counselled the taking of it? Can you say that you have done more than
+execute my scheme? The ploughman, the shepherd, the weaver, the builder,
+and the soldier work not for themselves, but others; they are contented
+with a poor pittance--the labourer's hire--and permit us, the great, to
+enjoy the fruits of their labours. Why, then, should the state of a prig
+differ from all others? Or why should you, who are the labourer only,
+the executor of my scheme, expect a share in the profit? Be advised,
+therefore; deliver the whole booty to me, and trust to my bounty for
+your reward."
+
+Mr. Bagshot not being minded to yield to these arguments, Wild adopted a
+fiercer tone, and the other was glad to let him borrow a part of his
+share. So that Wild got three-fourths of the whole before taking leave
+of his companion.
+
+Wild then returned to visit his friend the count, now in captivity at
+Mr. Snap's; for our hero was none of those half-bred fellows who are
+ashamed to see their friends when they have plundered and betrayed them.
+
+The count, little suspecting that Wild had been the sole contriver of
+the misfortune which had befallen him, eagerly embraced him, and Wild
+returned his embrace with equal warmth.
+
+While they were discoursing, Mr. Snap introduced Mr. Bagshot; for Mr.
+Bagshot had lost what money he had from Mr. Wild at a gaming-table, and
+was directly afterwards arrested for debt. Mr. Wild no sooner saw his
+friend than he immediately presented him to the count, who received him
+with great civility. But no sooner was Mr. Bagshot out of the room than
+the count said to Wild, "I am very well convinced that Bagshot is the
+person who robbed me, and I will apply to a justice of the peace."
+
+Wild replied with indignation that Mr. Bagshot was a man of honour, but,
+as this had no weight with the count, he went on, more vehemently, "I am
+ashamed of my own discernment when I mistook you for a great man.
+Prosecute him, and you may promise yourself to be blown up at every
+gaming-house in the town. But leave the affair to me, and if I find he
+hath played you this trick, I will engage my own honour you shall in the
+end be no loser." The count answered, "If I was sure to be no loser, Mr.
+Wild, I apprehend you have a better opinion of my understanding than to
+imagine I would prosecute a gentleman for the sake of the public."
+
+Wild having determined to make use of Bagshot as long as he could, and
+then send him to be hanged, went to Bagshot next day and told him the
+count knew all, and intended to prosecute him, and the only thing to be
+done was to refund the money.
+
+"Refund the money!" cried Bagshot. "Why, you know what small part of it
+fell to my share!"
+
+"How?" replied Wild. "Is this your gratitude to me for saving your life?
+For your own conscience must convince you of your guilt."
+
+"Marry come up!" quoth Bagshot. "I believe my life alone will not be in
+danger. Can you deny your share?"
+
+"Yes, you rascal!" answered Wild. "I do deny everything, and do you find
+a witness to prove it. I will show you the difference between committing
+a robbery and conniving at it."
+
+So alarmed was Bagshot at the threats of Wild that he drew forth all he
+found in his pockets, to the amount of twenty-one guineas, which he had
+just gained at dice.
+
+Wild now returned to the count, and informed him that he had got ten
+guineas of Bagshot, and by these means the count was once more enlarged,
+and enabled to carry out a new plan of the great Wild.
+
+
+_III.--Mr. Heartfree's Weakness_
+
+
+By accident, Wild had met with a young fellow who had formerly been his
+companion at school.
+
+Mr. Thomas Heartfree (for that was his name) was of an honest and open
+disposition. He was possessed of several great weaknesses of mind, being
+good-natured, friendly, and generous to a great excess.
+
+This young man, who was about Wild's age, had some time before set up in
+the trade of a jeweller, in the materials for which he had laid out the
+greatest part of a little fortune.
+
+He no sooner recognised Wild than he accosted him in the most friendly
+manner, and invited him home with him to breakfast, which invitation our
+hero, with no great difficulty, consented to.
+
+Wild, after vehement professions of friendship, then told him he had an
+opportunity of recommending a gentleman, on the brink of marriage, to
+his custom, "and," says he, "I will endeavour to prevail on him to
+furnish his lady with jewels at your shop."
+
+Having parted from Heartfree, Wild sought out the count, who, in order
+to procure credit from tradesmen, had taken a handsome house,
+ready-furnished, in one of the new streets. He instructed the count to
+take only one of Heartfree's jewels at the first interview, to reject
+the rest as not fine enough, and order him to provide some richer. The
+count was then to dispose of the jewel, and by means of that money, and
+his great abilities at cards and dice, to get together as large a sum as
+possible, which he was to pay down to Heartfree at the delivery of the
+set of jewels.
+
+This method was immediately put in execution; and the count, the first
+day, took only a single brilliant, worth about L300, and ordered a
+necklace and earrings, of the value of L3,000 more, to be prepared by
+that day week.
+
+This interval was employed by Wild in raising a gang, and within a few
+days he had levied several bold and resolute fellows, fit for any
+enterprise, how dangerous or great soever.
+
+The count disposed of his jewel for its full value, and by his dexterity
+raised L1,000. This sum he paid down to Heartfree at the end of the
+week, and promised him the rest within a month. Heartfree did not in the
+least scruple giving him credit, but as he had in reality procured those
+jewels of another, his own little stock not being able to furnish
+anything so valuable. The count, in addition to the L1,000 in gold, gave
+him his note for L2,800 more.
+
+As soon as Heartfree was departed, Wild came in and received the casket
+from the count, and an appointment was made to meet the next morning to
+come to a division of its contents.
+
+Two gentlemen of resolution, in the meantime, attacked Heartfree on his
+way home, according to Wild's orders, and spoiled the enemy of the whole
+sum he had received from the count. According to agreement, Wild, who
+had made haste to overtake the conquerors, took nine-tenths of the
+booty, but was himself robbed of this L900 before nightfall.
+
+As for the casket, when he opened it, the stones were but paste. For the
+sagacious count had conveyed the jewels into his own pocket, and in
+their stead had placed artificial stones. On Wild's departure the count
+hastened out of London, and was well on his way to Dover when Wild
+knocked at his door.
+
+Heartfree, wounded and robbed, had only the count's note left, and this
+was returned to him as worthless, inquiries having proved that the count
+had run away. So confused was poor Heartfree at this that his creditor
+for the jewels was frightened, and at once had him arrested for the
+debt.
+
+Heartfree applied in vain for money to numerous customers who were
+indebted to him; they all replied with various excuses, and the unhappy
+wretch was soon taken to Newgate. He had been inclined to blame Wild for
+his misfortunes, but our hero boldly attacked him for giving credit to
+the count, and this degree of impudence convinced both Heartfree and his
+wife of Wild's innocence, the more so as the latter promised to procure
+bail for his friend. In this he was unsuccessful, and it was long before
+Heartfree was released and restored to happiness.
+
+
+_IV.--The Highest Pinnacle of Greatness_
+
+
+Wild was a living instance that human greatness and happiness are not
+always inseparable. He was under a continual alarm of frights and fears
+and jealousies, and was thoroughly convinced there was not a single man
+amongst his own gang who would not, for the value of five shillings,
+bring him to the gallows.
+
+A clause in an act of parliament procured by a learned judge entrapped
+Wild. Hitherto he had always employed less gifted men to carry out his
+plans. Now, by this law it was made capital in a prig to steal with the
+hands of other people, and it was impossible for our hero to avoid the
+destruction so plainly calculated for his greatness.
+
+Wild, having received from some dutiful members of his gang a valuable
+piece of goods, did, for a consideration, re-convey it to the right
+owner, for which fact, being ungratefully informed against by the said
+owner, he was surprised in his own house, and, being overpowered by
+numbers, was hurried before a magistrate, and by him committed to
+Newgate.
+
+When the day of his trial arrived, our hero was, notwithstanding his
+utmost caution and prudence, convicted and sentenced to be hanged by the
+neck. He now suspected that the malice of his enemies would overpower
+him, and therefore betook himself to that true support of greatness in
+affliction--a bottle, by means of which he was enabled to curse, swear,
+and bully, and brave his fate. Other comfort, indeed, he had not much,
+for not a single friend ever came near him.
+
+From the time our hero gave over all hopes of life, his conduct was
+truly great and admirable. Instead of showing any marks of contrition or
+dejection, he rather infused more confidence and assurance into his
+looks. He spent most of his hours in drinking with acquaintances, and
+with the good chaplain; and being asked whether he was afraid to die, he
+answered, "It's only a dance without music. A man can die but once.
+Zounds! Who's afraid?"
+
+At length the morning came which Fortune had resolutely ordained for the
+consummation of our hero's greatness; he had himself, indeed, modestly
+declined the public honour she intended him, and had taken a quantity of
+laudanum in order to retire quietly off the stage. But it is vain to
+struggle against the decrees of fortune, and the laudanum proved
+insufficient to stop his breath.
+
+At the usual hour he was acquainted that the cart was ready, and his
+fetters having been knocked off in a solemn and ceremonious manner,
+after drinking a bumper of brandy, he ascended the cart, where he was no
+sooner seated than he received the acclamations of the multitude, who
+were highly ravished with his greatness.
+
+The cart now moved slowly on, preceded by a troop of Horse Guards,
+bearing javelins in their hands, through the streets lined with crowds
+all admiring the great behaviour of our hero, who rode on, sometimes
+sighing, sometimes swearing, sometimes singing or whistling, as his
+humour varied.
+
+When he came to the tree of glory, he was welcomed with an universal
+shout of the people; but there were not wanting some who maligned this
+completion of glory, now about to be fulfilled by our hero, and
+endeavoured to prevent it by knocking him on the head as he stood under
+the tree, while the chaplain was performing his last office.
+
+They therefore began to batter the cart with stones, brick-bats, dirt,
+and all manner of mischievous weapons, so that the ecclesiastic ended
+almost in an instant, and conveyed himself into a place of safety in a
+hackney coach.
+
+One circumstance must not be omitted. Whilst the chaplain was busy in
+his ejaculations, Wild, in the midst of the shower of stones, etc.,
+which played upon him, true to his character, applied his hands to the
+parson's pocket, and emptied it of his bottle-screw, which he carried
+out of the world in his hand.
+
+The chaplain being now descended from the cart, Wild had just
+opportunity to cast his eyes around the crowd, and to give them a hearty
+curse, when immediately the horses moved on, and, with universal
+applause, our hero swung out of this world.
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+Joseph Andrews
+
+
+     "Joseph Andrews," Fielding's first novel, was published in
+     1742, and was intended to be a satire on Richardson's "Pamela"
+     (see Vol. VII), which appeared in 1740. He described it as
+     "written in the manner of Cervantes," and in Parson Adams
+     there is the same quaint blending of the humorous and the
+     pathetic as in the Knight of La Mancha. Although such
+     characters as Lady Booby and Mrs. Slipslop are admittedly
+     ridiculous, Parson Adams remains an admirable study of a
+     simple-minded clergyman of the eighteenth century.
+
+
+_I.--The Virtues of Joseph Andrews_
+
+
+Mr. Joseph Andrews was esteemed to be the only son of Gaffer and Gammer
+Andrews, and brother to the illustrious Pamela.
+
+At ten years old (by which time his education was advanced to writing
+and reading) he was bound an apprentice to Sir Thomas Booby, an uncle of
+Mr. Booby's by the father's side. From the stable of Sir Thomas he was
+preferred to attend as foot-boy on Lady Booby, to go on her errands,
+stand behind her chair, wait at her tea-table, and carry her prayer-book
+to church; at which place he behaved so well in every respect at divine
+service that it recommended him to the notice of Mr. Abraham Adams, the
+curate, who took an opportunity one day to ask the young man several
+questions concerning religion, with his answers to which he was
+wonderfully pleased.
+
+Mr. Abraham Adams was an excellent scholar, a man of good sense and good
+nature, but at the same time entirely ignorant of the ways of the world.
+At the age of fifty he was provided with a handsome income of twenty-
+three pounds a year, which, however, he could not make any great figure
+with, because he was a little encumbered with a wife and six children.
+
+Adams had no nearer access to Sir Thomas or my lady than through Mrs.
+Slipslop, the waiting-gentlewoman, for Sir Thomas was too apt to
+estimate men merely by their dress or fortune, and my lady was a woman
+of gaiety, who never spoke of any of her country neighbours by any other
+appellation than that of the brutes.
+
+Mrs. Slipslop, being herself the daughter of a curate, preserved some
+respect for Adams; she would frequently dispute with him, and was a
+mighty affecter of hard words, which she used in such a manner that the
+parson was frequently at some loss to guess her meaning.
+
+Adams was so much impressed by the industry and application he saw in
+young Andrews that one day he mentioned the case to Mrs. Slipslop,
+desiring her to recommend him to my lady as a youth very susceptible of
+learning, and one whose instruction in Latin he would himself undertake,
+by which means he might be qualified for a higher station than that of
+footman. He therefore desired that the boy might be left behind under
+his care when Sir Thomas and my lady went to London.
+
+"La, Mr. Adams," said Mrs. Slipslop, "do you think my lady will suffer
+any preambles about any such matter? She is going to London very
+concisely, and I am confidous would not leave Joey behind on any
+account, for he is one of the genteelest young fellows you may see in a
+summer's day; and I am confidous she would as soon think of parting with
+a pair of her grey mares, for she values herself on one as much as the
+other. And why is Latin more necessitous for a footman than a gentleman?
+I am confidous my lady would be angry with me for mentioning it, and I
+shall draw myself into no such delemy."
+
+So young Andrews went to London in attendance on Lady Booby, and became
+acquainted with the brethren of his profession. They could not, however,
+teach him to game, swear, drink, nor any other genteel vice the town
+abounded with. He applied most of his leisure hours to music, in which
+he greatly improved himself, so that he led the opinion of all the other
+footmen at an opera. Though his morals remain entirely uncorrupted, he
+was at the same time smarter and genteeler than any of the beaus in town
+either in or out of livery.
+
+At this time an accident happened, and this was no other than the death
+of Sir Thomas Booby, who left his disconsolate lady closely confined to
+her house. During the first six days the poor lady admitted none but
+Mrs. Slipslop and three female friends, who made a party at cards; but
+on the seventh she ordered Joey, whom we shall hereafter call Joseph, to
+bring up her teakettle.
+
+Lady Booby's affection for her footman had for some time been a matter
+of gossip in the town, but it is certain that her innocent freedoms had
+made no impression on young Andrews.
+
+Now, however, he thought my lady had become distracted with grief at her
+husband's death, so strange was her conduct, and wrote to his sister
+Pamela on the subject.
+
+     If madam be mad, I shall not care for staying long in the
+     family, so I heartily wish you could get me a place at some
+     neighbouring gentleman's. I fancy I shall be discharged very
+     soon, and the moment I am I shall return to my old master's
+     country seat, if it be only to see Parson Adams, who is the
+     best man in the world. London is a bad place, and there is so
+     little good fellowship that the next-door neighbours don't
+     know one another. Your loving brother,
+     JOSEPH ANDREWS.
+
+The sending of this letter was quickly followed by the discharge of the
+writer. To Lady Booby's open declarations of love, Joseph replied that a
+lady having no virtue was not a reason against his having any.
+
+"I am out of patience!" cries the lady, "did ever mortal hear of a man's
+virtue? Will magistrates who punish lewdness, or parsons who preach
+against it, make any scruple of committing it? And can a boy have the
+confidence to talk of his virtue?"
+
+"Madam," says Joseph, "that boy is the brother of Pamela, and would be
+ashamed that the chastity of his family, which is preserved in her,
+should be stained in him. If there are such men as your ladyship
+mentions, I am sorry for it, and I wish they had an opportunity of
+reading my sister Pamela's letters; nor do I doubt but such an example
+would amend them."
+
+"You impudent villain!" cries the lady in a rage. "Get out of my sight,
+and leave the house this night!"
+
+Joseph having received what wages were due, and having been stripped of
+his livery, took a melancholy leave of his fellow-servants and set out
+at seven in the evening.
+
+
+_II.--Adventures on the Road_
+
+
+It may be wondered why Joseph made such extraordinary haste to get out
+of London, and why, instead of proceeding to the habitation of his
+father and mother, or to his beloved sister Pamela, he chose rather to
+set out full speed to Lady Booby's country seat, which he had left on
+his journey to town.
+
+Be it known then, that in the same parish where this seat stood there
+lived a young girl whom Joseph longed more impatiently to see than his
+parents or his sister. She was a poor girl, formerly bred up in Sir
+Thomas's house, and, discarded by Mrs. Slipslop on account of her
+extraordinary beauty, was now a servant to a farmer in the parish.
+
+Fanny was two years younger than our hero, and had been always beloved
+by him, and returned his affection. They had been acquainted from their
+infancy, and Mr. Adams had, with much ado, prevented them from marrying,
+and persuaded them to wait till a few years' service and thrift had a
+little improved their experience, and enabled them to live comfortably
+together.
+
+They followed this good man's advice, as, indeed, his word was little
+less than a law in his parish, for during twenty-five years he had shown
+that he had the good of his parishioners entirely at heart, so that they
+consulted him on every occasion, and very seldom acted contrary to his
+opinion.
+
+Honest Joseph therefore set out on his travels without delay, in order
+that he might once more look upon his Fanny, from whom he had been
+absent for twelve months.
+
+But on the road he was attacked by robbers, and, having been left
+wounded in a ditch, was mercifully taken to an inn by some later
+travellers.
+
+It was at this same inn that, to the great surprise on both sides, Mr.
+Abraham Adams found Joseph.
+
+The parson informed his young friend, who was still sick in bed, that
+the occasion of the journey he was making to London was to publish three
+volumes of sermons, being encouraged, as he said, by an advertisement
+lately set forth by the Society of Booksellers; but, though he imagined
+he should get a considerable sum of money on this occasion, which his
+family were in urgent need of, he protested he would not leave Joseph in
+his present penniless condition. Finally, he told him he had nine
+shillings and threepence-halfpenny in his pocket, which he was welcome
+to use as he pleased.
+
+This goodness of Parson Adams brought tears into Joseph's eyes; he had
+now a second reason to desire life, that he might show his gratitude to
+such a friend.
+
+Before pursuing his journey Adams made the acquaintance of another
+clergyman named Barnabas at the inn, who in his turn, hearing that Adams
+was proposing to publish sermons, introduced him to a stranger who he
+said was a bookseller.
+
+Adams, saluting the stranger, answered Barnabas that he was very much
+obliged to him; that nothing could be more convenient, for he had no
+other business to the great city, and was heartily desirous of returning
+with the young man, who was just recovered of his misfortune. To induce
+the bookseller to be as expeditious as possible, he assured them their
+meeting was extremely lucky to himself, for that he had the most
+pressing occasion for money at that time, his own being almost spent.
+"So that nothing," says he, "could be so opportune as my making an
+immediate bargain with you."
+
+"Sir, sermons are mere drugs," said the stranger. "The trade is so
+vastly stocked with them that really, unless they come out with the name
+of Whitefield or Wesley, or some other such great man, as a bishop, or
+those sort of people, I don't care to touch. However, I will, if you
+please, take the manuscript with me to town, and send you my opinion of
+it in a very short time."
+
+When, however, Adams began to describe the nature of his sermons the
+bookseller drew back, on the ground that the clergy would be certain to
+cry down such a book.
+
+An accident prevented Mr. Adams from pursuing a market for his sermons
+any further, which he would have done in spite of the advice of Barnabas
+and the bookseller. This accident was, that those sermons which the
+parson was travelling to London to publish were left behind; what he had
+mistaken for them in the saddle-bags were three shirts, which Mrs.
+Adams, who thought her husband would need shirts rather than sermons on
+his journey, had carefully provided for him.
+
+Joseph, concerned at the disappointment to his friend, begged him to
+pursue his journey all the same, and promised he would himself return
+with the books to him with the utmost expedition.
+
+"No, thank you, child," answered Adams; "it shall not be so. What would
+it avail me to tarry in the great city unless I had my discourses with
+me? No; as this accident has happened, I am resolved to return back to
+my cure, together with you; which, indeed, my inclination sufficiently
+leads me to."
+
+Mr. Adams, whose credit was good wherever he was known, having borrowed
+a guinea from a servant belonging to a coach-and-six, who had been
+formerly one of his parishioners, discharged the bill for Joseph and
+himself, and the two travellers set off.
+
+
+_III.--More Adventures_
+
+
+Adams and Joseph Andrews being for a time separated on the road, through
+the former's absent-mindedness, it fell to the lot of the parson to
+hasten to the assistance of a damsel who in a lonely place was being
+attacked by some ruffian.
+
+Adams was as strong as he was brave, and having rescued the maiden, took
+her under his protection. It was too dark for either to identify the
+other, but on Mr. Adams ejaculating the name of Joseph Andrews, for
+whose safety he was anxious, his companion recognised his voice, and the
+parson was quickly informed that it was Fanny who was by his side.
+
+The fact was the poor girl had heard of Joseph's misfortune from the
+servants of a coach which had stopped at the inn while the poor youth
+was confined to his bed; and she had that instant abandoned the cow she
+was milking, and taking with her a little bundle of clothes under her
+arm, and all the money she was worth in her own purse, immediately set
+forward in pursuit of one whom she loved with inexpressible violence,
+though with the purest and most delicate passion.
+
+Fanny was now in the nineteenth year of her age; she was tall and
+delicately shaped. Her hair was a chestnut brown; her complexion was
+fair; and, to conclude all, she had a natural gentility which surprised
+all who beheld her.
+
+Can it be wondered that on the following day, when Adams and the damsel
+overtook Andrews at a wayside ale-house, the youth imprinted numberless
+kisses on her lips, while Parson Adams danced about the room in a
+rapture of joy?
+
+It was so late when our travellers left the ale-house that they had not
+travelled many miles before night overtook them. They moved forwards
+where the nearest light presented itself; and having crossed a common
+field, they came to a meadow where they seemed to be at a very little
+distance from the light, when, to their grief, they arrived at the banks
+of a river. Adams declared he could swim, but Joseph answered, if they
+walked along its banks they might be certain of soon finding a bridge,
+especially as, by the number of lights, they might be assured a parish
+was near.
+
+"That's true, indeed," said Adams. "I did not think of that."
+
+Accordingly, Joseph's advice being taken, they passed over two meadows,
+and came to a little orchard which led them to a house. Fanny begged of
+Joseph to knock at the door, assuring him she was so weary that she
+could hardly stand on her feet; and the door being immediately opened, a
+plain kind of man appeared at it. Adams acquainted him that they had a
+young woman with them, who was so tired with her journey that he should
+be much obliged to him if he would suffer her to come in and rest
+herself.
+
+The man, who saw Fanny by the light of the candle which he held in his
+hand, perceiving her innocent and modest look, and having no
+apprehensions from the civil behaviour of Adams, presently answered that
+the young woman was very welcome to rest herself in his house, and so
+were her company. He then ushered them into a very decent room, where
+his wife was sitting at a table; she immediately rose up, and assisted
+them in setting forth chairs, and desired them to sit down.
+
+They now sat cheerfully round the fire till the master of the house,
+having surveyed his guests, and conceiving that the cassock which
+appeared under Adams's greatcoat, and the shabby livery of Joseph
+Andrews, did not well suit the familiarity between them, began to
+entertain some suspicions not much to their advantage. Addressing
+himself, therefore, to Adams, he said he perceived he was a clergyman by
+his dress, and supposed that honest man was his footman.
+
+"Sir," answered Adams, "I am a clergyman, at your service; but as to
+that young man, whom you have rightly termed honest, he is at present in
+nobody's service; he never lived in any other family than that of Lady
+Booby, from whence he was discharged; I assure you, for no crime."
+
+The modest behaviour of Joseph, with the character which Adams gave of
+him, entirely cured a jealousy which had lately been in the gentleman's
+mind that Fanny was the daughter of some person of fashion and that
+Joseph had run away with her, and Adams was concerned in the plot.
+Having had a full account from Adams of Joseph's history he became
+enamoured of his guests, drank their healths with great cheerfulness;
+and, at the parson's request, told something of his own life.
+
+"Sir," says Adams, at the conclusion of the history, "fortune has, I
+think, paid you all her debts in this sweet retirement."
+
+"Sir," replied the gentleman, whose name was Wilson, "I have the best of
+wives and three pretty children; but within three years of my arrival
+here I lost my eldest son. If he had died I could have borne the loss
+with patience; but, alas, he was stolen away from my door by some wicked
+travelling people, whom they call gypsies; nor could I ever, with the
+most diligent search, recover him. Poor child, he had the sweetest look!
+The exact picture of his mother!" Mr. Wilson went on to say that he
+should know his son amongst ten thousand, for he had a mark on his
+breast of a strawberry.
+
+
+_IV.--Joseph Finds his Father_
+
+
+Our travellers, having well refreshed themselves at Mr. Wilson's house,
+renewed their journey next morning with great alacrity, and two days
+later reached the parish they were seeking.
+
+The people flocked about Parson Adams like children round a parent; and
+the parson, on his side, shook every one by the hand. Nor did Joseph and
+Fanny want a hearty welcome from all who saw them. Adams carried his
+fellow-travellers home to his house, where he insisted on their
+partaking whatever his wife could provide, and on the very next Sunday
+he published, for the first time, the banns of marriage between Joseph
+Andrews and Fanny Goodwill.
+
+Lady Booby, who was now at her country seat again, was furious when she
+heard in church these banns called, and at once sent for Mr. Adams, and
+rated him soundly.
+
+"It is my orders that you publish these banns no more, and if you dare,
+I will recommend it to your master, the rector, to discard you from his
+service," says my lady. "The fellow Andrews is a vagabond, and shall not
+settle here and bring a nest of beggars into the parish."
+
+"Madam," answered Adams, "I know not what your ladyship means by the
+terms 'master' and 'service.' I am in the service of a Master who will
+never discard me for doing my duty; and if the rector thinks proper to
+turn me from my cure, God will provide me, I hope, another."
+
+The malice of Lady Booby did not stop at this; she endeavoured to get
+Joseph and Fanny convicted on a trumped-up charge of trespass. In this
+base wickedness she was defeated by her nephew, young Squire Booby, who
+had married the virtuous Pamela, Joseph's sister; and at once stopped
+the proceedings. More than that, he carried off Andrews to Lady Booby's,
+and on his arrival, said, "Madam, as I have married a virtuous and
+worthy woman, I am resolved to own her relations, and show them all
+respect; I shall think myself, therefore, infinitely obliged to all mine
+who will do the same. It is true her brother has been your servant, but
+he has now become my brother."
+
+Lady Booby answered that she would be pleased to entertain Joseph
+Andrews; but when the squire went on to speak of Fanny, his aunt put her
+foot down resolutely against her civility to the young woman.
+
+And now both Pamela and her husband were inclined to urge Joseph to
+break off the engagement with Fanny, but the young man would not give
+way, and in this he was supported by Mr. Adams.
+
+The arrival of a peddler in the parish, who had shown some civility to
+Adams and Andrews when they were travelling on the road, threatened the
+marriage prospect much more dangerously for a time.
+
+According to the pedaler, who was a man of some education and birth,
+Fanny had been stolen away from her home when an infant, and sold for
+three guineas to Sir Thomas Booby; the name of her family was Andrews,
+and they had a daughter of a very strange name, Pamela. This story he
+had received from a dying woman when he had been a drummer in an Irish
+regiment.
+
+The only thing now to be done was to send for old Mr. Andrews and his
+wife; and, in the meantime, the pedal was bidden to Booby Hall to tell
+the whole story again. All who heard him were well satisfied of the
+truth, except Pamela, who imagined as neither of her parents had ever
+mentioned such an incident to her, it must be false; and except Lady
+Booby, who suspected the falsehood of the story from her ardent desire
+that it should be true; and Joseph, who feared its truth, from his
+earnest wishes that it might prove false.
+
+On the following morning news came of the arrival of old Mr. Andrews and
+his wife. Mr. Andrews assured Mr. Booby that he had never lost a
+daughter by gypsies, nor ever had any other children than Joseph and
+Pamela. But old Mrs. Andrews, running to Fanny, embraced her, crying
+out, "She is--she is my child!"
+
+The company were all amazed at this disagreement, until the old woman
+explained the mystery. During her husband's absence at Gibraltar, when
+he was a sergeant in the army, a party of gypsies had stolen the little
+girl who had been born to him, and left a small male child in her place.
+So she had brought up the boy as her own.
+
+"Well," says Gaffer Andrews, "you have proved, I think, very plainly,
+that this girl does not belong to us; I hope you are certain the boy is
+ours."
+
+Then it turned out that Joseph had a strawberry mark on his left breast,
+and this made the peddler, who knew all about Mr. Wilson's loss,
+satisfied that Joseph was no other than Mr. Wilson's son.
+
+So Mr. Wilson had to be sent for, who, on his arrival, no sooner saw the
+mark than he cried out with tears of joy, "I have discovered my son!"
+
+The banns having been duly called, there was now nothing to prevent the
+wedding, which, having taken place, Joseph and his wife settled down in
+Mr. Wilson's parish, Mr. Booby having given Fanny a fortune of L2,000.
+He also presented Mr. Adams with a living of L130 a year.
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+Tom Jones
+
+
+     "The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling," described in the
+     dedication as the "labour of some years of my life," appeared
+     in six volumes, on February 28, 1749, a short time after
+     Fielding's appointment as justice of peace for Westminster.
+     Though its broad humour and coarseness of expression are
+     perhaps hard to bear in these times, it is by common consent
+     Fielding's masterpiece, and by way of being one of the
+     greatest novels in the language. For experience of life,
+     observation of character, and sheer humanity, it is certainly
+     an outstanding specimen of the English novel and manners. Like
+     others of his books, "Tom Jones" was written during a period
+     of great mental strain. Ever haunted by poverty, Fielding
+     acknowledges his debt to his old schoolfellow Lyttelton, to
+     whom he owed his "existence during the composition of the
+     book." The story was popular from the first.
+
+
+_I.--Mr. Allworthy Makes a Discovery_
+
+
+In that part of the country which is commonly called Somersetshire there
+lately lived a gentleman whose name was Allworthy, and who might well be
+called the favourite of both nature and fortune. From the former of
+these he derived an agreeable person, a sound constitution, a solid
+understanding, and a benevolent heart; by the latter he was decreed to
+the inheritance of one of the largest estates in the country.
+
+Mr. Allworthy lived, for the most part, retired in the country, with one
+sister, for whom he had a very tender affection. This lady, Miss Bridget
+Allworthy, now somewhat past the age of thirty, was of that species of
+women whom you commend rather for good qualities than beauty.
+
+Mr. Allworthy had been absent a full quarter of a year in London on some
+very particular business, and having returned to his house very late in
+the evening, retired, much fatigued, to his chamber. Here, after he had
+spent some minutes on his knees--a custom which he never broke through
+on any account--he was preparing to step into bed, when, upon opening
+the clothes, to his great surprise, he beheld an infant wrapped up in
+some coarse linen, in a sweet and profound sleep, between his sheets. He
+stood for some time lost in astonishment at this sight; but soon began
+to be touched with sentiments of compassion for the little wretch before
+him. He then rang his bell, and ordered an elderly woman-servant to rise
+immediately and come to him.
+
+The consternation of Mrs. Deborah Wilkins at the finding of the little
+infant was rather greater than her master's had been; nor could she
+refrain from crying out, with great horror, "My good sir, what's to be
+done?"
+
+Mr. Allworthy answered she must take care of the child that evening, and
+in the morning he would give orders to provide it a nurse.
+
+"Yes, sir," says she, "and I hope your worship will send out your
+warrant to take up the hussy its mother. Indeed, such wicked sluts
+cannot be too severely punished for laying their sins at honest men's
+doors; and though your worship knows your own innocence, yet the world
+is censorious, and if your worship should provide for the child it may
+make the people after to believe. If I might be so bold as to give my
+advice, I would have it put in a basket, and sent out and laid at the
+churchwarden's door. It is a good night, only a little rainy and windy,
+and if it was well wrapped up and put in a warm basket, it is two to one
+but it lives till it is found in the morning. But if it should not, we
+have discharged our duty in taking care of it; and it is, perhaps,
+better for such creatures to die in a state of innocence than to grow up
+and imitate their mothers."
+
+But Mr. Allworthy had now got one of his fingers into the infant's hand,
+which, by its gentle pressure, seeming to implore his assistance,
+certainly outpleaded the eloquence of Mrs. Deborah. Mr. Allworthy gave
+positive orders for the child to be taken away and provided with pap and
+other things against it waked. He likewise ordered that proper clothes
+should be procured for it early in the morning, and that it should be
+brought to himself as soon as he was stirring.
+
+Such was the respect Mrs. Wilkins bore her master, under whom she
+enjoyed a most excellent place, that her scruples gave way to his
+peremptory commands, and, declaring the child was a sweet little infant,
+she walked off with it to her own chamber.
+
+Allworthy betook himself to those pleasing slumbers which a heart that
+hungers after goodness is apt to enjoy when thoroughly satisfied.
+
+In the morning Mr. Allworthy told his sister he had a present for her,
+and, when Mrs. Wilkins produced the little infant, told her the whole
+story of its appearance.
+
+Miss Bridget took the good-natured side of the question, intimated some
+compassion for the helpless little creature, and commended her brother's
+charity in what he had done. The good lady subsequently gave orders for
+providing all necessaries for the child, and her orders were indeed so
+liberal that had it been a child of her own she could not have exceeded
+them.
+
+
+_II.--The Foundling Achieves Manhood_
+
+
+Miss Bridget having been asked in marriage by one Captain Blifil, a
+half-pay officer, and the nuptials duly celebrated, Mrs. Blifil was in
+course of time delivered of a fine boy.
+
+Though the birth of an heir to his beloved sister was a circumstance of
+great joy to Mr. Allworthy, yet it did not alienate his affections from
+the little foundling to whom he had been godfather, and had given his
+own name of Thomas; the surname of Jones being added because it was
+believed that was the mother's name.
+
+He told his sister, if she pleased, the newborn infant should be bred up
+together with little Tommy, to which she consented, for she had truly a
+great complaisance for her brother.
+
+The captain, however, could not so easily bring himself to bear what he
+condemned as a fault in Mr. Allworthy; for his meditations being chiefly
+employed on Mr. Allworthy's fortune, and on his hopes of succession, he
+looked on all the instances of his brother-in-law's generosity as
+diminutions of his own wealth.
+
+But one day, while the captain was exulting in the happiness which would
+accrue to him by Mr. Allworthy's death, he himself died of apoplexy.
+
+So the two boys grew up together under the care of Mr. Allworthy and
+Mrs. Blifil, and by the time he was fourteen Tom Jones--who, according
+to universal opinion, was certainly born to be hanged--had been already
+convicted of three robberies--_viz._, of robbing an orchard, of stealing
+a duck out of a farmer's yard, and of picking Master Blifil's pocket of
+a ball.
+
+The vices of this young man were, moreover, heightened by the
+disadvantageous light in which they appeared when opposed to the virtues
+of Master Blifil, his companion. He was, indeed, a lad of remarkable
+disposition--sober, discreet, and pious beyond his age; and many
+expressed their wonder that Mr. Allworthy should suffer such a lad as
+Tom Jones to be educated with his nephew lest the morals of the latter
+should be corrupted by his example.
+
+To say the truth, the whole duck, and great part of the apples, were
+converted to the use of Tom's friend, the gamekeeper, and his family;
+though, as Jones alone was discovered, the poor lad bore not only the
+whole smart, but the whole blame.
+
+Mr. Allworthy had committed the instruction of the two boys to a learned
+divine, the Reverend Mr. Thwackum, who resided in the house; but though
+Mr. Allworthy had given him frequent orders to make no difference
+between the lads, yet was Thwackum altogether as kind and gentle to
+Master Blifil as he was harsh, nay, even barbarous, to the other. In
+truth, Blifil had greatly gained his master's affections; partly by the
+profound respect he always showed his person, but much more by the
+decent reverence with which he received his doctrine, for he had got by
+heart, and frequently repeated, his phrases, and maintained all his
+master's religious principles, with a zeal which was surprising in one
+so young.
+
+Tom Jones, on the other hand, was not only deficient in outward tokens
+of respect, often forgetting to pull off his cap at his master's
+approach, but was altogether unmindful both of his master's precepts and
+example.
+
+At the, age of twenty, however, Tom, for his love of hunting, had become
+a great favourite with Mr. Allworthy's neighbour, Squire Western; and
+Sophia, Mr. Western's only child, lost her heart irretrievably to him
+before she suspected it was in danger. On his side, Tom was truly
+sensible of the great worth of Sophia. He liked her person extremely, no
+less admired her accomplishments, and tenderly loved her goodness. In
+reality, as he had never once entertained any thoughts of possessing
+her, nor had ever given the least voluntary indulgence to his
+inclinations, he had a much stronger passion for her than he himself was
+acquainted with.
+
+An accident occurred on the hunting-field in saving Sophia from her too
+mettlesome horse kept Jones a prisoner for some time in Mr. Western's
+house, and during those weeks he not only found that he loved Sophia
+with an unbounded passion, but he plainly saw the tender sentiments she
+had for him; yet could not this assurance lessen his despair of
+obtaining the consent of her father, nor the horrors which attended his
+pursuit of her by any base or treacherous method.
+
+Hence, at the approach of the young lady, he grew pale; and, if this was
+sudden, started. If his eyes accidentally met hers, the blood rushed
+into his cheeks, and his countenance became all over scarlet. If he
+touched her, his hand, nay, his whole frame, trembled.
+
+All these symptoms escaped the notice of the squire, but not so of
+Sophia. She soon perceived these agitations of mind in Jones, and was at
+no loss to discover the cause; for, indeed, she recognised it in her own
+breast. In a word, she was in love with him to distraction. It was not
+long before Jones was able to attend her to the harpsichord, where she
+would kindly condescend for hours together to charm him with the most
+delicious music.
+
+The news that Mr. Allworthy was dangerously ill (for a servant had
+brought word that he was dying) broke off Tom's stay at Mr. Western's,
+and drove all the thoughts of love out of his head. He hurried instantly
+into the chariot which was sent for him, and ordered the coachman to
+drive with all imaginable haste; nor did the idea of Sophia once occur
+to him on the way.
+
+
+_III.--Tom Jones Falls into Disgrace_
+
+
+On the night when the physician announced that Mr. Allworthy was out of
+danger Jones was thrown into such immoderate excess of rapture by the
+news that he might be truly said to be drunk with joy--an intoxication
+which greatly forwards the effects of wine; and as he was very free,
+too, with the bottle, on this occasion he became very soon literally
+drunk.
+
+Jones had naturally violent animal spirits, and Thwackum, resenting his
+speeches, only the doctor's interposition prevented wrath kindling.
+After which, Jones gave loose to mirth, sang two or three amorous songs,
+and fell into every frantic disorder which unbridled joy is apt to
+inspire; but so far was he from any disposition to quarrel that he was
+ten times better-humoured, if possible, than when he was sober.
+
+Blifil, whose mother had died during her brother's illness, was highly
+offended at a behaviour which was so inconsistent with the sober and
+prudent reserve of his own temper. The recent death of his mother, he
+declared, made such conduct very indecent.
+
+"It would become them better," he said, "to express the exultations of
+their hearts at Mr. Allworthy's recovery in thanksgiving, than in
+drunkenness and riot."
+
+Wine had not so totally overpowered Jones as to prevent him recollecting
+Blifil's loss the moment it was mentioned. He at once offered to shake
+Mr. Blifil by the hand, and begged his pardon, saying his excessive joy
+for Mr. Allworthy's recovery had driven every other thought out of his
+mind.
+
+Blifil scornfully rejected his hand, and with an insulting illusion to
+the misfortune of Jones's birth provoked the latter to blows. The
+scuffle which ensued might have produced mischief had it not been for
+the interference of Thwackum and the physician.
+
+Blifil, however, only waited for an opportunity to be revenged on Jones,
+and the occasion was soon forthcoming when Mr. Allworthy was fully
+recovered from his illness.
+
+Mr. Western had found out that his daughter was in love with Tom Jones,
+and at once decided that she should marry Blifil, to whom Sophia
+professed great abhorrence.
+
+As for Blifil, the success of Jones was much more grievous to him than
+the loss of Sophia, whose estate, indeed, was dearer to him than her
+person.
+
+Mr. Western swore that his daughter shouldn't have a ha'penny, nor the
+twentieth part of a brass farthing, if she married Jones; and Blifil,
+with many sighs, professed to his uncle that he could not bear the
+thought of Sophia being ruined by her preference for Jones.
+
+"This lady, I am sure, will be undone in every sense; for, besides the
+loss of most part of her own fortune, she will be married to a beggar.
+Nay, that is a trifle; for I know him to be one of the worst men in the
+world."
+
+"How?" said Mr. All worthy. "I command you to tell me what you mean."
+
+"You know, sir," said Blifil, "I never disobeyed you. In the very day of
+your utmost danger, when myself and all the family were in tears, he
+filled the house with riot and debauchery. He drank, and sang, and
+roared; and when I gave him a gentle hint of the indecency of his
+actions, he fell into a violent passion, swore many oaths, called me
+rascal, and struck me. I am sure I have forgiven him that long ago. I
+wish I could so easily forget his ingratitude to the best of
+benefactors."
+
+Thwackum was now sent for, and corroborated every circumstance which the
+other had deposed.
+
+Poor Jones was too full of grief at the thought that Western had
+discovered the whole affair between him and Sophia to make any adequate
+defence. He could not deny the charge of drunkenness, and out of modesty
+sunk everything that related particularly to himself.
+
+Mr. Allworthy answered that he was now resolved to banish him from his
+sight for ever. "Your audacious attempt to steal away a young lady calls
+upon me to justify my own character in punishing you. And there is no
+part of your character which I resent more than your ill-treatment of
+that good young man (meaning Blifil), who hath behaved with so much
+tenderness and honour towards you."
+
+A flood of tears now gushed from the eyes of Jones, and every faculty of
+speech and motion seemed to have deserted him. It was some time before
+he was able to obey Allworthy's peremptory commands of departing, which
+he at length did, having first kissed his hands with a passion difficult
+to be affected, and as difficult to be described.
+
+Mr. Allworthy, however, did not permit him to leave the house penniless,
+but presented him with a note for L500. He then commanded him to go
+immediately, and told Jones that his clothes, and everything else,
+should be sent to him whithersoever he should order them.
+
+Jones had hardly set out, which he did with feelings of agony and
+despair, before Sophia Western decided that only in flight could she be
+saved from marriage with the detested Blifil.
+
+Mr. Western, in spite of tremendous love for his daughter, thought her
+inclinations of as little consequence as Blifil himself conceived them
+to be; and Mr. Allworthy, who said "he would on no account be accessory
+to forcing a young lady into a marriage contrary to her own will," was
+satisfied by his nephew's disingenuous statement that the young lady's
+behaviour to him was full as forward as he wished it.
+
+Sophia, having appointed her maid to meet her at a certain place not far
+from the house, exactly at the ghostly and dreadful hour of twelve,
+began to prepare for her own departure.
+
+But first she was obliged to give a painful audience to her father, and
+he treated her in so violent and outrageous a manner that he frightened
+her into an affected compliance with his will, which so highly pleased
+the good squire that he at once changed his frowns into smiles, and his
+menaces into promises.
+
+He vowed his whole soul was wrapped in hers, that her consent had made
+him the happiest of mankind.
+
+He then gave her a large bank-bill to dispose of in any trinkets she
+pleased, and kissed and embraced her in the fondest manner.
+
+Sophia reverenced her father piously and loved him passionately, but the
+thoughts of her beloved Jones quickly destroyed all the regretful
+promptings of filial love.
+
+
+_IV.--Tom Jones's Restoration_
+
+
+After many adventures on the road Mr. Jones reached London; and as he
+had often heard Mr. Allworthy mention the gentlewoman at whose house in
+Bond Street he used to lodge when he was in town, he sought the house,
+and was soon provided with a room there on the second floor. Mrs.
+Miller, the person who let these lodgings, was the widow of a clergyman,
+and Mr. Allworthy had settled an annuity of L50 a year on her, "in
+consideration of always having her first floor when he was in town."
+
+Tom Jones's fortunes were now very soon at the lowest. Having been
+forced into a quarrel in the streets with an acquaintance named
+Fitzpatrick, and having wounded him with his sword, a number of fellows
+rushed in and carried Jones off to the civil magistrate, who, being
+informed that the wound appeared to be mortal, straightway committed the
+prisoner to the Gatehouse.
+
+Sophia Western was also in London at the house of her aunt; and soon
+afterwards Mr. Western, Mr. Allworthy, and Blifil all reached the city.
+
+It was just at this time that Mr. Allworthy, consenting to his nephew
+once more offering himself to Sophia, came with Blifil to his accustomed
+lodgings in Bond Street. Mrs. Miller, to whom Jones had showed many
+kindnesses, at once put in a good word for the unfortunate young man;
+and, on Blifil exulting over the manslaughter Jones was alleged to have
+committed, declared that the wounded man, whoever he was, was in fault.
+This, indeed, was shortly afterwards corroborated by Fitzpatrick
+himself, who acknowledged his mistake.
+
+But it was not till Mr. Allworthy discovered that Blifil had been
+arranging with a lawyer to get the men who had arrested Jones to bear
+false witness, and learnt further that Tom Jones was his sister
+Bridget's child, and that on her death-bed Mrs. Blifil's message to her
+brother confessing the fact had been suppressed by her son, that his old
+feelings of affection for Tom Jones returned. Before setting out to
+visit Jones in the prison Mr. Allworthy called on Sophia to inform her
+that he regretted Blifil had ever been encouraged to give her annoyance,
+and that Mr. Jones was his nephew and his heir.
+
+Men over-violent in their dispositions are, for the most part, as
+changeable in them. No sooner was Western informed of Mr. Allworthy's
+intention to make Jones his heir than he joined heartily with the uncle
+in every commendation of the nephew, and became as eager for his
+daughter's marriage with Jones as he had before been to couple her to
+Blifil.
+
+Fitzpatrick being recovered of his wound, and admitting the aggression,
+Jones was released from custody and returned to his lodgings to meet Mr.
+Allworthy.
+
+It is impossible to conceive a more tender or moving scene than this
+meeting between the uncle and nephew. Allworthy received Jones into his
+arms. "O my child!" he cried, "how have I been to blame! How have I
+injured you! What amends can I ever make you for those unkind
+suspicions which I have entertained, and for all the sufferings they
+have occasioned you?"
+
+"Am I not now made amends?" cried Jones. "Would not my sufferings, had
+they been ten times greater, have been now richly repaid?"
+
+Here the conversation was interrupted by the arrival of Western, who
+could no longer be kept away even by the authority of Allworthy himself.
+Western immediately went up to Jones, crying out, "My old friend Tom, I
+am glad to see thee, with all my heart. All past must be forgotten. Come
+along with me; I'll carry thee to thy mistress this moment."
+
+Here Allworthy interposed; and the squire was obliged to consent to
+delay introducing Jones to Sophia till the afternoon.
+
+Blifil, now thoroughly exposed in his treachery, was at first sullen and
+silent, balancing in his mind whether he should yet deny all; but
+finding at last the evidence too strong against him, betook himself to
+confession, and was now as remarkably mean as he had been before
+remarkably wicked. Mr. Allworthy subsequently settled L200 a year upon
+him, to which Jones hath privately added a third. Upon this income
+Blifil lives in one of the northern counties. He is also lately turned
+Methodist, in hopes of marrying a very rich widow of that sect. Sophia
+would not at first permit any promise of an immediate engagement with
+Jones because of certain stories of his inconstancy, but Mr. Western
+refused to hear of any delay.
+
+"To-morrow or next day?" says Western, bursting into the room where
+Sophia and Jones were alone.
+
+"Indeed, sir," says she, "I have no such intention."
+
+"But I can tell thee," replied he, "why hast not; only because thou dost
+love to be disobedient, and to plague and vex thy father. When I forbid
+her, then it was all nothing but sighing and whining, and languishing
+and writing; now I am for thee--(this to Jones)--she is against thee.
+All the spirit of contrary, that's all. She is above being guided and
+governed by her father, that is the whole truth on't. It is only to
+disoblige and contradict me."
+
+"What would my papa have me do?" cries Sophia.
+
+"What would I ha' thee do?" says he, "why gee un thy hand this moment."
+
+"Well, sir," said Sophia, "I will obey you. There is my hand, Mr.
+Jones."
+
+"Well, and will you consent to ha' un to-morrow morning?" says Western.
+
+"I will be obedient to you, sir," cries she.
+
+"Why, then, to-morrow morning be the day," cries he.
+
+"Why, then, to-morrow morning shall be the day, papa, since you will
+have it so," said Sophia. Jones then fell upon his knees and kissed her
+hand in an agony of joy, while Western began to caper and dance about
+the room, presently crying out, "Where the devil is Allworthy?" He then
+sallied out in quest of him, and very opportunely left the lovers to
+enjoy a few tender minutes alone.
+
+But he soon returned with Allworthy, saying, "If you won't believe me,
+you may ask her yourself. Hast not gin thy consent, Sophy, to be married
+to-morrow?"
+
+"Such are your commands, sir," cries Sophia, "and I dare not be guilty
+of disobedience."
+
+"I hope there is not the least constraint," cries Allworthy.
+
+"Why, there," cried Western, "you may bid her unsay all again if you
+will. Dost repent heartily of thy promise, dost not, Sophy?"
+
+"Indeed, papa," cried she. "I do not repent, nor do I believe I ever
+shall, of any promise in favour of Mr. Jones."
+
+"Then, nephew," cries Allworthy, "I felicitate you most heartily, for I
+think you are the happiest of men."
+
+Mr. Allworthy, Mr. Western, and Mrs. Miller were the only persons
+present at the wedding, and within two days of that event Mr. Jones and
+Sophia attended Mr. Western and Mr. Allworthy into the country.
+
+There is not a neighbour or a servant, who doth not most gratefully
+bless the day when Mr. Jones was married to Sophia.
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+CAMILLE FLAMMARION
+
+
+Urania
+
+
+     Camille Flammarion is one of the most remarkable of modern
+     French scientists. Born on February 25, 1842, he was
+     apprenticed at an early age to an engraver, but, attracted by
+     astronomy, he studied so well that, when a lad of sixteen, he
+     was admitted as a pupil to the Paris Observatory. There is no
+     doubt that the great French mathematician, Le Verrier,
+     regarded Flammarion with a certain disdain as more of a poet
+     than an astronomer; but he soon vindicated, by several
+     important discoveries, his title to be regarded as a man of
+     science. "Urania," which appeared in 1889, is an excellent
+     example of his ability as a thinker, and of his charm as a
+     writer. The work is hardly a novel, though it is far more
+     popular than many books of fiction. It is really an essay in
+     philosophy dealing with the question of the immortality of the
+     soul; and it has an especial interest for English readers
+     owing to the fact that much in it that seems to be pure
+     fantasy is based on researches undertaken by the British
+     Society for Psychical Research. The plot and the characters
+     are of secondary importance; they are only used for the
+     purpose of illustrating certain ideas.
+
+
+_I.--The Muse of Astronomy_
+
+
+I was seventeen years old when I fell in love with Urania. Was she a
+fair, young, blue-eyed daughter of Eve? No; she was an exquisite statue
+of the Muse of Astronomy, chiselled by Pradier in the days of the
+Empire. She stood on the mantelpiece in the study of the famous
+mathematician, Le Verrier, who directed the Paris Observatory, where I
+was working. At four o'clock in the afternoon my illustrious chief used
+to depart, and I would then steal into his room and sit down before
+Urania and dream of lovelier worlds than ours, hidden in the infinite
+spaces of the starry sky. Sometimes my friend and companion in studies,
+Georges Spero, would come and sit beside me; and, inspired by the
+immortal beauty of Urania, we would let our young and ardent
+imaginations play over the glories and wonders of the heavens.
+
+"You will be too late for Jupiter," said Le Verrier, entering
+unexpectedly one evening, and catching me in an attitude of adoration
+before Urania. "I am afraid you are more of a poet than an astronomer."
+
+The great man of science himself certainly did not love beauty as much
+as he loved wisdom, for the next day he sold the lovely image of Urania
+in order to buy an old Chinese astronomical clock. I was almost
+heartbroken when I entered his room and found that Urania had
+disappeared. With her had gone the vivifying power of imagination which
+had transmuted the abstruse calculations on which I was engaged into
+glimpses of heavenly visions of infinite life. With what wild joy then
+did I see, when I returned home, Urania shining in all her loveliness on
+my own mantelpiece. Knowing my love for the beautiful figure of the
+muse, Georges Spero had bought it back from the watchmaker to whom Le
+Verrier had sent it, and placed it in my room as a gift.
+
+It was an extraordinary mark of friendship, for Georges loved Urania
+even more passionately than I did. To him she was the personification of
+everything in life that lifted man above the level of the brute.
+
+Possessing a nobler and finer intellect than mine, he had thrown himself
+into the study of the problems of the soul with a fury of passion and a
+concentration of thought that almost killed him. Are our souls immortal,
+or do they perish with our bodies? This was the question that tormented
+him to madness. One night I found him sitting in his room in the Place
+du Pantheon with a glass of poison in his hand.
+
+"This is the quickest road to the knowledge I want," he said, with a
+smile. "I shall soon know if the soul is immortal."
+
+He had been dissecting a skull; and by his side was a microscope with
+which he had been studying the grey matter of the brain. Convinced at
+last of the uncertainty of the positive sciences, he had fallen into
+violent despair. But Urania was at hand to comfort him, and his mind
+became calmer and clearer when we ceased to talk about earthly things,
+and ascended into high regions of philosophic speculation over which the
+muse of heaven presides.
+
+"Ah, Camille," he exclaimed, "the Uranian way is the best. It is only by
+studying the heavens that we shall be able to understand this little
+earth of ours, and the part we play in it. Look at the midnight sky,
+streaming with the light of infinite suns, and filled with an unending
+procession of worlds in which the spirit of life clothes itself in an
+unimaginable variety of forms. This clot of dust on which we live will
+grow cold, and break and scatter in the abysses of space. But it is not
+our home; we are only passengers, and when our journey here is done,
+fairer mansions are waiting for us in the depths of the sky. If I die
+before you, I will return and convince you of this truth."
+
+Returning to the study of astronomy, Spero built up a system of
+philosophy which made him, at the age of twenty-five, one of the most
+famous men in France.
+
+
+_II.--Love and Death_
+
+
+By way of relief from his severer work, Georges Spero resolved to go to
+Norway and study the wild and beautiful phenomena of the Aurora
+Borealis, and I went with him. One morning, as we were standing on a
+mountain looking at a magnificent sunrise, I saw a girl climbing a
+neighbouring peak. She did not perceive us; but when she reached the
+summit the image of Spero was thrown on a cloud in front of her, by one
+of those curious plays of sunlight and mist which sometimes occur in
+hazy, mountainous regions. His fine, austere features and graceful
+figure were enlarged into a vast, god-like apparition, with a halo of
+bright colours shining like a glory around his head, and a fainter
+circle of rainbow hues framing his whole form. It was the first anthelia
+that the lovely girl had seen, and it filled her with wonder and awe.
+
+Theirs was a strange courtship--Spero's and Iclea's. The lovely young
+Norwegian lady had recently lost her mother, and being, like many of the
+cultivated women of Northern Europe, somewhat dubious of the dogmas of
+religion, she had found death a terrible mystery when it was thus
+brought sharply home to her. She was wandering in the dreadful labyrinth
+of modern doubt, vainly seeking to forget her trouble in the excitements
+of mountaineering, when she saw the unearthly apparition of the young
+French philosopher. A study of his works heightened the feeling of awe
+with which she already regarded him. At first there was no room for love
+in the passionate desire after knowledge which drew her to him. She was
+merely a disciple sitting at the feet of the great master. Accompanied
+by her father, she continued her studies under him when he returned to
+Paris, and for three months they were bound together wholly by
+intellectual interest. For several hours every day they studied side by
+side, and much of Iclea's time was spent in translating papers in
+foreign languages, bearing on subjects in which Georges was interested.
+One morning he arrived earlier than usual, his eyes shining with joy.
+
+"I have settled the problem," he cried, leaning against the mantelpiece.
+"At least," he added, with his usual modesty, "I have settled it to my
+own satisfaction."
+
+Striding up and down the room, he rapidly sketched out a system of
+philosophy in which the ultimate truths of modern science were
+transformed into the bases of religion. Iclea listened to him in silence
+as he went on to explain the spiritual forces still dormant in the human
+soul.
+
+"We are still in our spiritual infancy," he said. "It is scarcely four
+thousand years since mankind began to manifest its higher powers. Our
+greatest conquests over nature are all of recent date, and they are the
+work of a few noble souls who have erected themselves above the animal
+conditions of life. The reign of brute force is over, and I am certain
+that as soon as we learn to exercise the powers of our soul we shall
+acquire transcendental faculties that will enable us to transport
+ourselves from one world to another."
+
+"That, too, is my belief," said Iclea.
+
+Georges bent over her and gazed into her eyes of heavenly blue through
+which her very soul was speaking. There was a strange silence, and then
+their lips met.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+For some months I lost sight of my two friends. In the ecstasy of their
+love they forgot for a while the problems of philosophy which had
+brought them together. The joys of intellectual communion were submerged
+and almost lost in the new, strange feeling which crowned and glorified
+their lives. Hand in hand the lovers wandered about Paris, which had now
+become to them a city in fairyland. Meeting them one evening on the
+banks of the Seine, I learned that they were returning to Norway with
+Iclea's father, and that they were to be married at Christiania on the
+anniversary of the mysterious apparition on the mountain which had
+brought them together. Georges was about to resume his interrupted
+studies of the Aurora Borealis, which he wished to trace to its source
+by means of a balloon ascent, and Iclea intended to accompany him in his
+voyage through the air.
+
+To my great regret I was unable to go with them to Norway, as my duties
+as an astronomer kept me in Paris. I anxiously awaited that
+extraordinary agitation of the magnetic needle which announces the
+existence of an Aurora Borealis in Northern Europe. When at last the
+magnetic perturbation occurred in the observatory, I rejoiced to think
+that Spero and his bride were floating high, feasting their eyes on the
+most gorgeous of spectacles.
+
+But suddenly an indefinable feeling of uneasiness came over me, which
+grew into a dreadful presentiment of disaster. Long before the telegram
+arrived from Christiania I knew what had happened. Georges and Iclea
+were dead!
+
+Every reader of the newspapers next morning knew as much as I did. An
+escape of gas which could not be stopped sent the balloon hurtling to
+the earth. Spero threw everything movable out of the car in a vain
+attempt to lighten it and break the force of the descent. The balloon
+still kept falling; then Iclea, with a wild courage born of love, saved
+Georges' life by leaping out of the car. Relieved of her weight, the
+balloon rose up, but Spero had now no wish to live. He jumped out with a
+wild cry, and his body crashed on the edge of the lake into which Iclea
+had fallen. There the mortal remains of the two lovers now lie, covered
+by a single stone. But where were their souls?
+
+One night Georges Spero remembered his promise to me, and returned to
+earth.
+
+
+_III.--A Soul from Mars_
+
+
+Sitting alone on the top of the ancient castle of Montlhery, I was
+conducting an experiment in optics by means of electrical communications
+with two assistants at Paris and Juvisy. I was trying to find out if the
+rays of different colours in the spectrum travel at the same rate. It
+was just on midnight before I brought the experiment to a successful
+conclusion. As I covered up my instruments, some one said, "You would
+not have brought that off, Camille, if it had not been for me. I gave
+you the idea of comparing the violet vibrations with the red."
+
+I turned round with a cry of fear. Georges Spero was sitting in the
+moonlight on the parapet, looking at me with a smile.
+
+"Are you afraid of me, Camille?" he said.
+
+"You, Georges! You!" I stammered. "Is it really you? Keep still, and let
+me touch you."
+
+I put my hands on his face, and stroked his hair, and felt his body. I
+could no longer doubt that I had him before me in the actual flesh, but
+he read my thoughts.
+
+"You are mistaken, Camille," he said. "My real body is asleep on Mars."
+
+"So you still live?" I exclaimed. "You have solved the great problem.
+And Iclea?"
+
+"Let us sit here and talk," he replied. "There are many things I want to
+tell you."
+
+My fears had vanished, and I sat by my beloved friend.
+
+"It seemed to me," said Georges, "that my fall from the balloon knocked
+me senseless. When I came to, I was lying in the darkness with the
+ripple of lake-water breaking on my ear. What amazed me was a strange
+sense of lightness that made me feel I could rise up and float away if I
+wanted to. Thinking this was a disorder of the mind, I did not attempt
+to move, but watched with wondering eyes the sky above me. It was
+lighted by two strange moons. When the day broke, and showed around me a
+world of unimaginable splendour, I knew the meaning of the two moons and
+of my strange feeling of lightness. I was a disembodied spirit that had
+been transported to Mars.
+
+"Do you know, Camille, that the soul is able to choose its mortal
+covering? This is, at least, the case on Mars. For some time I wandered
+about in an invisible form, studying the conditions of life there.
+Animal strength, I found, counted for nothing. The Martians are an
+aerial race, with exquisite senses, which respond in a way unknown on
+earth to spiritual influences. Do you remember I read your thoughts when
+we first met, and answered them before you spoke? That is one of the
+Martians' gifts. Finding that these wonderful faculties were better
+developed in the women of Mars than in the men, I chose the feminine
+form for my reincarnation."
+
+"And Iclea?" I said.
+
+"Iclea," said Spero, "was re-born in a masculine shape. It was partly
+because of the mystic attraction that I felt for her that I chose the
+other form. Neither of us remembered our earthly existence, but a vague
+yet deep sentiment of our spiritual relationship made me seek her out
+and unite myself to her. It was your beloved muse Uriana," he added,
+"who revealed the ties that bound us in our former lives.
+
+"Owing to their superior faculties, the Martians have carried every
+science to a perfection undreamt of on this earth. In astronomical
+observations, for instance, they employ a system of telephotography. For
+thousands of years their instruments have been photographing, on an
+unending roll of paper, the wild spectacle of terrestrial life.
+
+"One day, as Iclea and I were examining recent photographs, we saw a
+picture of Paris during the Great Exhibition. Seizing a microscope, we
+looked at the figures, and recognised ourselves among them. Strange
+memories stirred within us, and we stared at each other in silent
+amazement. Suddenly I remembered the sacred words I learnt at my
+mother's knee. Yes, there were many mansions in our Father's house! The
+blood-stained planet from which we had escaped was neither the cradle
+nor the grave of His children.
+
+"Then we wept as we thought of the cruelty, ignorance, misery, and
+grossness of existence on earth. It was, dear Camille, with no joy that
+I recollected the promise I had made to you. But, you see, I have
+carried it out. I wish to convince you, and, through you, all the rest
+of mankind, that the soul is immortal, and that the earth is only a
+temporary stage of existence in a spiritual progress in which the whole
+universe is included."
+
+"But how is it possible for you, Georges," I interrupted, "to appear to
+me in the body you wore on earth?"
+
+"All this," said Spero, touching his body, "is an illusion. Do you not
+recollect my saying that only invisible things are real? You do not see
+me with your eyes, or feel me with your hands, as you think you do. The
+impression which you have of my presence is born of the influence which
+my mind is exerting in an invisible way on your mind. Can't you
+understand? It is a kind of hypnotism. At the present moment, as I have
+said, I am lying asleep on Mars, but my spirit is in direct
+communication with yours. The form you see sitting beside you on this
+parapet is only an illusion of your senses. My soul is speaking to your
+soul."
+
+"But could you not," I said, "give me some description of life on Mars?"
+
+"A dream," he replied, "would be more vivid than a mere description,
+though it would only be a shadow of the reality. For since you have not,
+my dear friend, our exquisite faculties of knowledge, your mind could
+not clearly mirror our life. Hark! Iclea is awake, and calling me. I
+cannot stay any longer. Shut your eyes, and I will send you a dream."
+
+I turned to say good-bye, but Spero had vanished. A deep drowsiness fell
+upon me, and just as I got off the parapet and found a safer position I
+fell asleep.
+
+
+_IV.--The Eternal Progress_
+
+
+I was sitting under a strange tree covered with gigantic red flowers. In
+the sky above me were two moons that shed a dim brightness on the lovely
+and fantastic scenery. A multitude of radiant shapes fluttered and
+darted through the air. They were Martians--exquisite, aerial, and
+divinely beautiful figures glowing with luminous tints. Airy gondolas,
+which seemed to be fashioned from phosphorescent flowers, passed above
+my head, and one of them floated down to the tree under which I was
+lying. In it were Iclea and Georges, but etherealised beyond the reach
+of human imagination.
+
+They took me in their flying chariot as day was breaking, and we
+coursed, with a strange silent interchange of thoughts, over the
+orange-coloured land of Mars. I could not understand everything which
+was communicated to me, now by Iclea and now by Georges; but I perceived
+that all manual labour on the planet was done by means of machines
+directed by animals whose intelligence was on a level with my own. The
+Martians themselves lived only for the things of the mind; they had
+twelve senses instead of five, and their bodies, in which electricity
+played the part that blood does in our systems, were so finely and yet
+so strongly organised that they possessed an extraordinary power over
+the forces of nature. Everything on their world, seas, mountains and
+rivers were like their wonderful canals, works of art and science.
+Nature was completely plastic in their hands. There was no poverty and
+no crime. Deriving their food from the air which they breathe, the
+Martians were liberated from material cares and immersed in the joys of
+intellectual pursuits.
+
+"You now see, Camille," said Spero, resorting at last to language which
+I could clearly understand, "that life on Mars has developed as
+peacefully and nobly as it began. There is no break between our
+vegetable kingdom and our animal kingdom. We are nourished, like your
+plants, trees, and herbs, by the air which we breathe. Ten million years
+ago your world was also a scene of innocence and tranquil felicity. The
+land was overgrown with a wildly beautiful vegetation that fed on the
+gentle winds of heaven, and primitive forms of animal life had spread
+from the depths of the sea along the shallow shores, and were there
+learning to extract from the air a nourishment similar to that which
+they obtained from the water. But by a woeful chance, one of your
+primitive animals--a deaf, blind, sexless clot of jelly--then had its
+body pierced by a drop of sea-water thicker than usual, and it found
+that this way of feeding was quicker than simple respiration. Such was
+the origin of the first digestive tube, which has exercised so baleful
+an influence on the course of terrestrial life, and turned the earth
+into a vast slaughterhouse."
+
+"Is there no hope for us?" I said.
+
+"No," he replied; "the earth is a shipwrecked planet. None of the higher
+organisms there will ever rise to our level. How can they alter the
+structure of their bodies, and empty their veins of blood, and fill them
+with the subtle electricity which serves us as a life force? And the
+grossness of their blood-fed senses! How can all the fine powers of the
+immortal soul ever develop along with such degraded instruments of
+knowledge?"
+
+"But even if our earth is a shipwrecked planet," I exclaimed, "there is
+at least some means of escaping from it. You and Iclea, for instance----"
+
+"Yes, there is a way of escape," said Spero, "the Uranian way. By
+soaring aloft into the serene region of spiritual ideas, a terrestrial
+soul can still free itself from its animality. Some save themselves by
+their high moral qualities, others are purified and uplifted by their
+imagination and intellect. Virtue and science are the wings that enable
+earth-born spirits to mount the skies. The destiny of a soul is
+determined by its works and aspirations. Lovers of knowledge sojourn
+awhile on Mars, which is only the first stage in the eternal progress.
+Spirits animated by divine feelings rise at once into high regions of
+starry splendour. The Uranian way is open to all, and the day will
+arrive when every inhabitant of your wild, dark planet will recognise
+that he, too, is a citizen of heaven. Then Urania will at last inspire
+and direct him, and point out the path by which he can ascend from the
+blood-stained earth to the fairer mansions prepared for him in the
+skies."
+
+As he was speaking our aerial chariot floated down to a fairy palace by
+the shore of an enchanted sea. I alighted; and a radiant, flower-like
+maiden, who was standing by the portal, unfolded her rainbow wings and
+shadowed me with them, and murmured, "Do you wish to return to earth?"
+
+"No," I cried, running up to clasp her in my arms.
+
+I awoke with a sudden shock. I was lying on the top of the tower of
+Montlhery; the sun was rising, and the vast circle of country below me
+shone clear and distinct in the morning light.
+
+"Was it a dream?" I said to myself. "Surely not. The earth is not the
+only home of life in the universe. Urania, the celestial muse, is now
+unfolding before our astonished eyes the panoramas of infinity, and we
+know at last that we are not the children of the earth, but citizens of
+the heavens."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+DE LA MOTTE FOUQUE
+
+
+Undine
+
+
+     Friedrich Heinrich Karl Fouque, Baron de la Motte, was born at
+     Brandenburg, in Prussia, Feb. 12, 1777, and died in Berlin
+     January 23, 1843. The mixed nationality indicated by his name
+     is accounted for by his descent from a French Huguenot family.
+     He served as a Prussian cavalryman in the two campaigns
+     against Napoleon of 1792 and 1813, but during the long
+     interval between devoted himself actively to intellectual
+     culture and literary pursuits. He began his career as an
+     author by translating the "Numancia" of Cervantes, but his
+     admiration of the ancient Norse sagas and the old German
+     legends led him into the composition of exquisitely beautiful
+     and tender, though exceedingly fantastic, romances which
+     speedily gained immense popularity. In these productions fairy
+     and magical elements predominate. His masterpiece is "Undine,"
+     published in 1814, the other best-known works being "Sintram,"
+     "Aslauga's Knight," and "The Two Captains." In all Fouque's
+     stories the marks of genius appear in his brilliant
+     imagination and pure and fascinating diction.
+
+
+_I.--The Water Sprite_
+
+
+About a century ago an aged fisherman sat mending his nets by his
+cottage door, in front of a lovely lake. Behind his dwelling stretched a
+sombre forest, reputed to be haunted by goblin creatures. Through this
+gloomy solitude the pious old fisherman frequently passed, religiously
+dispelling all terrors by singing hymns as he went with his fish to a
+town near the border of the forest.
+
+One evening he heard the sound of a horse's hoofs, and presently
+appeared a knight riding on a splendid steed, and clad in resplendent
+armour. The stranger stopped, and besought shelter for the night, and
+the good old fisherman accorded him a most cheery welcome, taking him
+into the cottage, where sat his aged wife by a scanty fire. Soon the
+three were freely conversing. The knight told of his travels and
+revealed that he was Sir Huldbrand of Ringstetten, where he had a castle
+by the Rhine.
+
+A splash against the window surprising the guest he was informed by his
+host, with some little show of vexation, that little tricks were often
+played by a foster-child of the old couple, named Undine, a girl of
+eighteen.
+
+The door flew open, and a lovely girl glided, laughing, into the room.
+Without the slightest token of shyness she gazed at the knight for a few
+moments, then asked why he had come to the poor cottage.
+
+"Have you come through the wild forest?"
+
+He confessed that he had, and she instantly demanded a recital of his
+adventures. With a slight shudder at his own recollections of the
+strange creatures he had encountered, Huldbrand consented, but a reproof
+from the fisherman at her obtrusiveness angered Undine. The girl sprang
+up and rushed forth into the night, exclaiming, "Sleep alone in your
+smoky old hut!"
+
+In great alarm, the fisherman and Huldbrand rose to follow the girl, but
+she had vanished in the darkness. Remarking that she had acted so
+before, the old fisherman invited Huldbrand to sit by the fire and talk
+awhile, and began to relate how Undine had come to live with them.
+
+The couple had lost their only child, a wonderfully beautiful little
+girl. At the age of three, when sitting in her mother's lap at the edge
+of the lake, she seemed to be attracted by some lovely apparition in the
+water, for, suddenly stretching out her hands and laughing, she had in a
+moment sprung into the lake. No trace of the child could ever be found.
+But the same evening a lovely little girl, three or four years old, with
+water streaming from her golden tresses, suddenly entered the cottage,
+smiling sweetly at the fisherman and his wife. They hastily undressed
+the little stranger and put her to bed. She uttered not a word, but
+simply smiled. In the morning she talked a little, confusedly telling
+how she had been in a boat on the lake with her mother, and had fallen
+in, and could recollect nothing more. She could say nothing as to who
+she was or whence she came. But she talked often of golden castles and
+crystal domes.
+
+While the fisherman was talking thus to the knight, he was suddenly
+interrupted by the noise of rushing water. Floods seemed to be bursting
+forth, and he and his guest, going hastily to the door, saw by the
+moonlight that the brook which issued from the forest was surging in a
+wild torrent over its margin, while a roaring wind was lashing the lake.
+In great alarm both shouted, "Undine! Undine!" But there was no
+response, and the two ran off in different directions in search of the
+fugitive.
+
+It was Huldbrand who discovered the girl. Clambering down some rocks at
+the edge of the stream, thinking Undine might have fallen there, he was
+hailed by the sweet voice of the girl herself.
+
+"Venture not," she cried. "The old man of the stream is full of tricks."
+
+Looking across at a tiny isle in the stream, the knight saw her nestling
+in the grass, smiling, and in an instant he had crossed.
+
+"The fisherman is distressed at your absence," said he. "Let us go
+back."
+
+Looking at him with her beautiful blue eyes, the girl replied. "If you
+think so, well; whatever you think is right to me."
+
+Taking Undine in his arms, Huldbrand bore her over the stream to the
+cottage, where she was received with joy. Dawn was breaking, and
+breakfast was prepared under the trees. Undine flung herself on the
+grass at Huldbrand's feet, and at her renewed request the knight told
+the story of his forest adventures.
+
+"It is now about eight days since I rode into the city on the other side
+of the forest to join in a great tournament. In one of the intervals
+between the jousts I noticed a lovely lady among the spectators. I
+learned that she was Bertalda, foster-daughter of a great duke, and each
+evening I became her partner in the dances.
+
+"This Bertalda was a wayward girl, and each day pleased me less and
+less; but I continued in her company, and asked her jestingly to give me
+a glove. She said she would do so if I would explore alone the haunted
+forest. As an honourable knight I could not decline the challenge, and
+yesterday I set out on the enterprise. Before I had penetrated very far
+within the glades, I saw what looked like a bear in the branches of an
+oak; but the creature, in a harsh, human voice, growled that it was
+getting branches with which to roast me at night. My horse was scared at
+this, and other grim apparitions, but at last I emerged from the forest,
+and saw the lake and this cottage."
+
+When he had finished, the fisherman spoke of the best way by which the
+visitor could return to the city; but, with sly laughter, Undine
+declared that the knight could not depart, for if he attempted now to
+cross the deluged wood, he would be overwhelmed.
+
+
+_II.--"I Have No Soul!"_
+
+
+Huldbrand, detained at the cottage by the increasing overflow of the
+stream, enjoyed the most perfect satisfaction with his sojourn.
+
+The old folks with pleasure regarded the two young people as being
+betrothed, and Huldbrand assumed that he was accepted by the girl, whom
+he had come to look upon as not being in reality one of this poor
+household, but one of some illustrious family, and when, one evening, an
+aged priest appeared at the cottage, driven in by the storm, Huldbrand
+addressed to him a request that he should on the spot at once unite him
+and the maiden, as they were pledged to each other. A discussion arose,
+but matters were at length settled, and the old wife produced two
+consecrated tapers. Lighting these, the priest, with brief, solemn
+ceremony, celebrated the nuptials.
+
+Undine had been quiet and grave during these proceedings, but a singular
+change took place in her demeanour as soon as the rite had been
+performed. She began at intervals to indulge in wild freaks, teasing the
+priest, and indulging in a variety of silly tricks. At length the priest
+gently expostulated with Undine, exhorting her so to attune her soul
+that it might always be in concord with that of her husband.
+
+Her reply amazed the listeners, for she said, "If one has no soul, as I
+have none, what is there to harmonise?" Then she burst into a fit of
+passionate weeping, to the consternation of all the little company. As
+she again and again wept, the priest, fearing that she was possessed by
+some evil spirit, sought to exorcise it. The priest turned to the
+bridegroom with the assurance that he could discover nothing evil in the
+bride, mysterious though her behaviour was, and he commended him to be
+loving and true to her.
+
+The next morning Undine, when she and her husband made their appearance,
+responded gracefully to the paternal greeting of the priest, beseeching
+his pardon for her folly of the previous evening, and begging him to
+pray for the good of her soul. Through the whole day Undine behaved
+angelically. She was kind, quiet, and gentle. At eventide she led her
+husband out to the edge of the stream, which, to the wonder of
+Huldbrand, had subsided into gentle, rippling waves.
+
+She whispered, "Carry me across to that little isle, and we will decide
+there."
+
+Wondering, he carried her across, and, laying her on the turf, listened
+as she began.
+
+"My loved one, know that there are strange beings which, though seeming
+almost mortals, are rarely visible to human eyes--salamanders in the
+flames, gnomes down in the earth, spirits in the air. And in the water
+are myriads of spirits dwelling in crystal domes, in the coral-trees,
+and in the lovely shells. These are far more beautiful than the fairest
+of human beings, and sometimes a fisherman has seen a tender mermaid,
+and has listened to her song. Such wonderful creatures are called
+Undines, and one of these you see now before you!
+
+"We should be far superior to other beings--for we consider ourselves
+human--but for one defect. We have no souls, and nothing remains of us
+after this mortal life is over. Yet every being aspires to rise higher,
+and so my father, who is a great water prince in the Mediterranean Sea,
+desired that his only daughter should become possessed of a soul. But
+this can only come to pass with loving union with one of your race. Now,
+O my dearly beloved, I have to thank you that I am gifted with a soul,
+and it will be due to you should all my life be made wretched. For what
+will become of me if you forsake me? If you would do so, do it now! Then
+I will plunge into the stream--which is my uncle--and as he brought me
+here, so will he take me back to my parents, a loving, suffering woman
+with a soul."
+
+Undine would have said yet more, but Huldbrand, astonishing though the
+recital was, with tears and kisses vowed he would never leave his lovely
+wife; and with her leaning in loving trustfulness on his arm, they
+returned to the hut.
+
+The next day, at Undine's strange urgency, farewell was said with bitter
+tears and lamentations.
+
+Undine was placed on the beautiful horse, and Huldbrand and the priest
+walked on either side as the three passed through the solemn glades of
+the wood. A fourth soon joined them. He was dressed in a white robe,
+like that of the priest, and presently attempted to speak to Undine. But
+she shrank from him, declaring she wished to have nothing to do with
+him.
+
+"Oh, oh!" cried the stranger, with a laugh. "What kind of a marriage is
+this you have made, that you must not speak to your relative? Do you not
+know I am your uncle Kuehleborn, who brought you to this region, and that
+I am here to protect you from goblins and sprites? So let me quietly
+accompany you."
+
+"We are near the end of the forest, and shall not need you further," was
+her rejoinder. But he grinned at her so frightfully that she shrieked
+for help, and the knight aimed at his head a blow from his sword.
+Instantly Kuehleborn was transformed into a gushing waterfall, foaming
+over them from a rock near by and drenching all three.
+
+
+_III.--"Woe! Woe!"_
+
+
+The sudden disappearance of the young knight had caused a sensation in
+the city, for the duke and duchess, and the friends and servants of
+Huldbrand, feared he had perished in the forest during the terrible
+tempest When he suddenly reappeared, all rejoiced except Bertalda, who
+was profoundly vexed at seeing with him a beautiful bride. She so far
+reconciled herself to the conditions that a warm friendship sprang up
+between Undine and herself.
+
+It was agreed that Bertalda should accompany the wedded pair to
+Ringstetten, and with the consent of the noble foster-parents of
+Bertalda the three appointed a day for departure. One beautiful evening,
+as they walked about the market-place round the great fountain, suddenly
+a tall man emerged from among the people and stopped in front of Undine.
+He quickly whispered something in her ear, and though at first she
+seemed vexed at the intrusion, presently she clapped her hands and
+laughed joyously. Then the stranger mysteriously vanished, and seemed to
+disappear in the fountain.
+
+Huldbrand had suspected that he had seen the man before, and now felt
+assured that he was Kuehleborn. Undine admitted the fact, and said that
+her uncle had told her a secret, which she was to reveal on the third
+day afterwards, which would be the anniversary of Bertalda's nameday.
+
+The anniversary came, and strange incidents happened. After the banquet
+given by the duke and duchess, Undine suddenly gave a signal, and from
+among the retainers at the door came forth the old fisherman and his
+wife, and Undine declared that in these Bertalda saw her real parents.
+The proud maiden instantly flew into a violent rage, weeping
+passionately, and utterly refused to acknowledge the old couple as her
+father and mother. She declared that Undine was an enchantress and a
+witch, sustaining intercourse with evil spirits.
+
+Undine, with great dignity, indignantly denied the accusation, while
+Bertalda's violent conduct created a feeling of disgust in the minds of
+all in the assembly. The matter was settled in a simple manner, for the
+duke commanded Bertalda to withdraw to a private apartment with the
+duchess and the two old folks from the hut, that an investigation might
+be made. It was soon over, for the noble lady was able presently to
+inform the company that Undine's story was absolutely true. The guests
+silently departed, and Undine sank sobbing into her husband's arms.
+
+Next day Bertalda, humbled by these events, sought pardon of Undine for
+her evil behaviour, and was instantly welcomed with loving assurances of
+forgiveness, moreover, she was cordially invited to go with the pair to
+Ringstetten.
+
+"We will share all things there as sisters," said Undine.
+
+The three journeyed to the distant castle, and took up their abode
+together. Soon Kuehleborn appeared on the scene, but Undine at once
+repulsed him. Next, when her husband was one day hunting, she ordered
+the great well in the courtyard to be covered with a big stone, on which
+she cut some curious characters.
+
+Bertalda waywardly complained that this proceeding deprived her of water
+that was good for her complexion, but Undine privately explained to
+Huldbrand that she had caused the servants to seal up this spring
+because only by that way of access could her uncle Kuehleborn come to
+disturb their peace.
+
+As time passed on, Huldbrand gradually cooled toward his wife and turned
+affectionately towards Bertalda. Undine bore patiently and silently the
+sorrow thus inflicted on her. But when her husband was impatient and
+angry she would plead with him never to speak to her in accents of
+unkindness when they happened to be on the water, for the water spirits
+had her completely in their power on their element, and would seek to
+protect her, and even seize her and take her down for ever to dwell in
+the crystal castles of the deep.
+
+After some estrangements, Undine and Bertalda had again become loving
+friends, and Huldbrand's affection for his wife had revived with its old
+and welcome warmth, while the attachment between him and Bertalda seemed
+forgotten.
+
+One day the three were enjoying a delightful excursion on the glorious
+Danube. Bertalda had taken off a beautiful coral necklace which
+Huldbrand had given her. She leaned over and drew the coral beads across
+the surface, enjoying the glitter thus caused, when suddenly a great
+hand from beneath seized the necklace and snatched it down. The maiden's
+scream of terror was answered by mocking laughter from the water.
+
+In an outburst of passion, Huldbrand started up and poured forth curses
+on the river and its denizens, whether spirits or sirens. With tears in
+her eyes, Undine besought him softly not to scold her there, and she
+took from her neck a beautiful necklace and offered it to Bertalda as a
+compensation.
+
+But the angry knight snatched it away, and hurled it into the river,
+exclaiming, "Are you still connected with them? In the name of all the
+witches, remain among them with your presents, and leave us mortals in
+peace, you sorceress!"
+
+Bitterly weeping and crying, "Woe! Woe!" she vanished over the side of
+the vessel. Her last words were, "Remain true! Woe! Woe!" Huldbrand lay
+swooning on the deck, and little waves seemed to be sobbing on the
+surface of the Danube, "Woe! Woe! Remain true!"
+
+
+_IV.--The White Stranger_
+
+
+For a time deep sorrow fell on the lord of Ringstetten and Bertalda.
+They lived long in the castle quietly, often weeping for Undine,
+tenderly cherishing her memory. Undine often visited Huldbrand in his
+dreams, caressing him and weeping silently so that his cheeks were wet
+when he awoke. But these visions grew less frequent, and the knight's
+grief diminished by degrees. At length he and Bertalda were married, but
+it was in spite of a grave warning from Father Heilmann, who declared
+that Undine had appeared to him in visions, beseeching him to warn
+Huldbrand and Bertalda to leave each other. They were too infatuated to
+heed the admonition, and a priest from a neighbouring monastery promised
+to perform the ceremony in a few days.
+
+Meantime, when lying between sleeping and waking, the knight seemed
+fanned by the wings of a swan, and, as he fell asleep, seemed borne
+along on the wings of swans which sang their sweetest music. All at once
+he seemed to be hovering over the Mediterranean Sea. Its waters were so
+crystalline that he could see through them to the bottom, and there,
+under a crystal arch, sat Undine, weeping bitterly. She seemed not to
+perceive him. Kuehleborn approached her, and told her that Huldbrand was
+to be wedded again, and that it would be her duty, from which nothing
+could release her, to end his life.
+
+"That I cannot do," said she. "I have sealed up the fountain against my
+race."
+
+Huldbrand felt as if he were soaring back again over the sea, and at
+length he seemed to reach his castle. He awoke on his couch, but he
+could not bring himself to break off the arrangements that had been
+made.
+
+The marriage feast at Ringstetten was not as bright and happy as such
+occasions usually are, for a veil of gloom seemed to rest over the
+company. Even the bride affected a happy and thoughtless demeanour which
+she did not really feel. The company dispersed early, Bertalda retiring
+with her maidens, and Huldbrand with his attendants.
+
+In her apartment Bertalda, with a sigh, noticed how freckled was her
+neck, and a remark she made to her maidens as she gazed in the mirror
+excited the eager attention of one of them. She heard her fair mistress
+say, "Oh, that I had a flask of the purifying water from the closed
+fountain!" Presently the officious waiting-woman was seen leading men to
+the fountain. With levers they quickly lifted the stone, for some
+mysterious force within seemed to aid them.
+
+Then from the fountain solemnly rose a white column of water. It was
+presently perceived that it was a pale female figure, veiled in white.
+She was weeping bitterly as she walked slowly to the building, while
+Bertalda and her attendants, pale with terror, watched from the window.
+The figure passed on, and at the door of Huldbrand's room, where the
+knight was partly undressed, was heard a gentle tap. The white figure
+slowly entered. It was Undine, who softly said, "They have opened the
+spring, and now I am here and you must die." Said the knight, "It must
+be so! But let me die in your embrace."
+
+"Most gladly, my loved one," said she, throwing back her veil and
+disclosing her face divinely smiling. Imprinting on his lips a sacred
+kiss, Undine clasped the knight in her arms, weeping as if she would
+weep her very soul away. Huldbrand fell softly back on the pillows of
+his couch, a corpse.
+
+At the funeral of Huldbrand the veiled figure appeared when the
+procession formed a circle round the grave. All knelt in mute devotion
+at a signal from Father Heilmann. When they rose again the white
+stranger had vanished, and on the spot where she had knelt a silvery
+little fountain gushed forth, which almost encircled the grave and then
+ran on till it reached a lake near by. And to this day the inhabitants
+cherish the tradition that thus the poor rejected Undine still lovingly
+embraces her husband.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+EMILE GABORIAU
+
+
+"File No. 113"
+
+
+     Emile Gaboriau, one of the best-known exponents of the "police
+     story," was born at Saujon, in France, on November 9, 1833. He
+     began life in a lawyer's office, became a volunteer in a
+     cavalry regiment, and, later, secretary to Paul Feval, the
+     novelist and dramatist. In the meantime, Gaboriau had
+     contributed a number of sketches dealing with military and
+     fashionable life to various minor Parisian journals, but it
+     was not until 1866, with the publication of "L'Affaire
+     Lerouge," that he suddenly sprang into fame. From that time
+     until his death, on September 28, 1873, story after story
+     appeared rapidly from his pen. "File No. 113" ("Le Dossier
+     113") was published in 1867, and was the first of a remarkable
+     series of detective tales introducing the figure of Lecoq.
+     "File No. 113" is perhaps the most characteristic specimen of
+     his work, exhibiting as it does a careful study of the Paris
+     police system, and a thorough acquaintance with all phases of
+     criminal life.
+
+
+_I.--The Robbery and a Clue_
+
+
+The first mention of the celebrated robbery which took place at M.
+Fauvel's bank in Paris--the _dossier_ of the case is numbered 113 in the
+police files--appeared in the evening papers, February 28, 1866.
+
+On the previous day a certain Count Louis de Clameran sent word to M.
+Fauvel that he wished to withdraw the following morning at ten o'clock
+the sum of L12,000 which had been deposited in the bank by his brother,
+an ironmaster from the south of France who had recently died.
+
+M. Fauvel made it a rule never to keep any large sums of money on the
+premises, but to deposit all such amounts in the keeping of the Bank of
+France. As this sum, however, had to be paid the first thing in the
+morning, the chief cashier, M. Prosper Bertomy, thought he was justified
+in obtaining the amount from the Bank of France on the evening of the
+27th, and in locking it up in the bank safe against the morning.
+
+The safe was a formidable-looking affair constructed entirely of wrought
+iron of treble thickness. An ingenious device regulated its opening. On
+the massive door were five movable steel buttons engraved with the
+letters of the alphabet. Before the key could be inserted in the lock,
+these buttons had to be manipulated in the same order in which they had
+been used when the safe was last shut. The buttons were arranged so that
+the letters on them formed some word, which was changed from time to
+time. This word was known only to M. Fauvel and his cashier, each of
+whom possessed a key of the safe.
+
+As soon as the bank opened on the morning of February 28, the count put
+in an appearance, and Prosper Bertomy went to the safe to obtain the
+money. When, a second later, he reappeared, his face was ashy pale, and
+his steps tottered as he walked. The L12,000 had disappeared from within
+the safe. What made the affair all the more mysterious was that the safe
+was locked just as the cashier had left it the night before.
+
+The room in which the safe was situated communicated with the bank by
+another room in which every night a tried servant of the establishment
+slept. By a second door admittance was obtained to the private
+apartments of M. and Madame Fauvel and their niece Madeline.
+
+As soon as M. Fauvel had heard the startling news, he first obtained the
+necessary money from the Bank of France, settled the business with the
+count, and then turned his attention to the elucidation of the robbery.
+He summoned the cashier to his presence.
+
+Bertomy was a young man of thirty to whom M. Fauvel had shown great
+kindness, advancing his interests wherever possible until, though very
+young for the position, he was his most important and most confidential
+employee. Besides the paternal affection with which the bank manager
+regarded his cashier, another tie tended to make their relations all the
+stronger and more personal. Bertomy loved M. Fauvel's niece Madeline,
+and though a curious estrangement had sprung up between them during the
+previous nine or ten months, the banker always regarded their marriage
+as practically arranged.
+
+The interview between the two men was a curious one. To each it appeared
+that the other must be the thief. They alone had the keys of the safe;
+they alone knew the magic word which could open the massive door. The
+banker urged Bertomy to confess, promising him forgiveness; the other
+haughtily rejected the suggestion, and hinted that his employer had
+converted the L12,000 to his own use. In the end M. Fauvel lost his
+temper, sent for the police, and before twenty-four hours were up,
+Prosper Bertomy, who but the day before had held one of the most
+important and envied positions in the financial world of Paris, was
+charged before a magistrate as being a common thief.
+
+Investigation of the case was at first entrusted to a detective named
+Fanferlot, nicknamed by his comrades the "Squirrel." Fanferlot's
+examination of the premises resulted in little. All he discovered was a
+scratch upon the door of the safe, but certain words that passed between
+M. Fauvel and his niece, which seemed to indicate that the former was
+secretly opposed to the marriage of Madeline with Bertomy, caused him to
+jump to the conclusion that the banker had robbed his own safe in order
+to bring disgrace upon his cashier. He connived, however, at the arrest
+of Bertomy, hoping that later on he might obtain great kudos for himself
+by unmasking the banker. What might have been the result of his improper
+and unofficial methods will never be known, but in all probability great
+inconvenience would have been caused to a number of innocent persons and
+the whole course of justice thwarted had it not been for the
+intervention of the great and famous M. Lecoq.
+
+M. Lecoq's interest in the bank robbery case was largely a personal one.
+Even detectives have hearts, and M. Lecoq had loved with heart and soul
+a charming young girl named Nina Gipsy. Under the name of Caldas in one
+of his innumerable disguises, he had wooed her for many months. When he
+thought at last that he had won her affections, she had fled to the
+protection of no less a person than Prosper Bertomy himself. The cashier
+cared nothing for her, but embittered by an estrangement that had sprung
+up between Madeline and himself, he had sought forgetfulness in her
+society. Bertomy's arrest gave Lecoq an opportunity for a noble revenge.
+He determined to prove to the woman he loved his superiority over his
+rival by saving the cashier from disgrace.
+
+Though the case looked black against Bertomy, for it was shown that he
+was heavily in debt, and living far beyond his means, Lecoq was
+satisfied that he had not committed the crime. When Fanferlot,
+hopelessly befogged, called for his advice at his house in the Rue
+Montmartre, the great detective deigned to explain the preliminary data
+and the deductions from the data he had made.
+
+The scratch on the safe door, slight and minute as it was, was his
+starting-point. How had it been made? He had found by experiment that it
+was impossible to make such a scratch upon the varnish without the
+exercise of considerable force. It was clear, therefore, that the
+scratch by the keyhole could not have been made by the thief in his
+trembling anxiety to get the business he had undertaken accomplished.
+But why was such force used?
+
+For a long time Lecoq puzzled over this problem. Then, with Fanferlot,
+he tried an experiment. In his room was an iron box varnished like the
+safe. Taking the key of this box from his pocket, he ordered Fanferlot
+to seize his arm just as he put it near the lock. The key slipped,
+pulled away from the lock, and sliding along the surface of the door,
+left upon it a diagonal scratch, almost an exact reproduction of the one
+on the safe.
+
+From this simple experiment Lecoq deduced that two people were present
+when the safe was robbed; one wanted to take the money, the other wanted
+to prevent it being taken. This was the basis of the case which he set
+out to draw up against some person or persons unknown. He argued, with
+his usual clear logic, that neither Fauvel nor Bertomy could have robbed
+the safe. Both of them had keys; both of them knew the secret word and
+could have robbed the safe whenever they pleased. Therefore, neither of
+them would have committed the theft in the presence of somebody else.
+
+
+_II.--A Mysterious Journey_
+
+
+Lecoq's first steps after establishing these preliminary deductions was
+to secure the release of Bertomy on the grounds of insufficient
+evidence.
+
+On the very morning of his release, Bertomy had received a mysterious
+letter composed of printed words cut out letter by letter from a book
+and pasted on paper.
+
+"My dear Prosper," so the epistle ran, "a friend who knows the horror of
+your situation sends you this help. There is one heart at least which
+feels for you. Leave France; you are yourself. The future is before you.
+Go, and may this money be of use."
+
+Enclosed with this note were banknotes for L400. Lecoq, disguised as a
+M. Verduret, a country merchant, a friend of Bertomy's father, secured
+this epistle and studied it carefully. His knowledge of the various
+types used by the printers in Paris showed him that the letters had been
+taken from a book printed by a well-known firm who published volumes of
+devotion. The correctness of this conclusion was established by the
+discovery on the back of one of the small cuttings the word "Deus." The
+words had been cut from a Catholic prayer-book. To find that prayer-book
+was his next business.
+
+In another disguise he sought out Nina Gipsy, and, by asking her
+assistance to clear Prosper, induced her to take up the position of
+lady's-maid in the Fauvel family, for it was there, he conceived, the
+mutilated book of devotion would be found. Again his wonderful instinct
+proved right. In a few days Nina brought him the very book--a prayer-
+book, belonging to Madeline, which had been given her by Bertomy.
+
+Why had Madeline sent the cashier this elaborately disguised letter? Why
+had she wished him to leave France, confident as she was, so she told
+him, of his innocence?
+
+To find an answer to these important queries, Lecoq closely questioned
+Bertomy. He learnt that the night before the robbery the cashier had
+dined with his friend Raoul de Lagors, the wealthy, dissolute young
+nephew of M. Fauvel's wife. This Lagors was the friend of Count Louis de
+Clameran, whose demand for the L12,000 left him by his dead brother had
+resulted in the discovery of the mysterious robbery.
+
+Bertomy had nothing but the highest praise for Lagors, but, on the other
+hand, spoke most disparagingly of the count. The count, it appeared, had
+proposed for the hand of Madeline, and had pressed his suit with great
+determination. And Madeline--and this was what provided a new problem
+for Lecoq's consideration--had tacitly accepted his attention.
+
+Through Nina, Lecoq had arranged a meeting between Bertomy and Madeline,
+and satisfied himself that the girl was whole-heartedly and devotedly
+attached to her uncle's cashier. Then why was she favouring the suit of
+the count? Lecoq at once made it his business to inquire into the
+count's past.
+
+He was the second son of an old and noble family. His elder brother,
+Gaston, having to fly the country in consequence of causing the death of
+several men, he had inherited the property. A life of dissolute
+pleasures had soon exhausted his patrimony and he was reduced to living
+by his wits. Some weeks before the robbery, he had discovered that his
+brother Gaston was alive and was living on a large estate in the south
+of France, which he had purchased with the wealth he had accumulated in
+business. Six weeks after the two brothers met again, the elder died and
+the younger inherited his vast fortune.
+
+Raoul de Lagors was the next character in the drama whose past the
+detective made it his business to expose. Lagors, it has been said, was
+the nephew of Madame Fauvel. To his surprise, Lecoq discovered, by
+inquiries in her native place, that the banker's wife had never had any
+brothers or sisters. Lagors, therefore, was not her nephew.
+
+Fanferlot, acting on instructions, had kept a strict watch on the
+movements of Madeline, and by this means Lecoq received timely warning
+of a mysterious excursion which the girl made one night. He followed her
+to a lonely house on the outskirts of the city. When she had gained
+admittance, the appearance of a light in one of the windows on the first
+floor seemed to indicate the room to which she had been taken. By the
+aid of a ladder, Lecoq was able to watch what was going on within
+through the shutters.
+
+He saw Madeline standing opposite Lagors, evidently, from her attitude,
+pleading with him. For some time he listened to her, with a cynical
+smile upon his face, but after an hour he seemed to decide, with evident
+reluctance, to comply with her request. Going to a cabinet, he took out
+a bundle of pawn tickets and flung them on the table. Hastily going
+through the collection, she selected three, and concealing them in her
+dress, left the house.
+
+By following her to a pawnshop, Lecoq discovered that she had redeemed
+certain valuable articles of jewelry belonging to Madame Fauvel. Lecoq
+knew, through Nina Gipsy, who still filled the part of lady's-maid in
+the Fauvel family, that M. Fauvel had insisted on his wife accompanying
+him on the following evening to a great fancy-dress ball which was to be
+given by one of the wealthiest families in the capital. Obviously, then,
+the jewelry that Madeline had redeemed was required by Madame Fauvel for
+the occasion. Why had she pawned it for Lagors?
+
+A theory had half formed itself in Lecoq's brain. He determined to prove
+its truth. Disguised as a clown, he attended the fancy-dress ball, and
+in the character of a mountebank collected a group of ladies and
+gentlemen around him while he related with the inimitable skill of a
+buffoon a romantic narrative. To most of the people present it was
+simply an amusing story, but to the count and Lagors and Madame Fauvel,
+who were among the listeners, it seemed something much more, for Lecoq
+dressed out his theory of the robbery in the trappings of romance. Just
+as he reached the climax of the story there was a cry, and Madame Fauvel
+almost fell fainting on the floor. The count and Lagors rushed up
+furiously to Lecoq.
+
+"Master Clown," said Lagors, "your tongue is too long."
+
+"Perhaps, my pretty boy," retorted Lecoq, "perhaps it is. But it is, I
+can assure you, not so long as my arm."
+
+"Who are you, M. le Clown?" the count exclaimed angrily.
+
+"I am," replied Lecoq, "the best friend your brother Gaston had. I was
+his counsellor. I am the confidant of his last wishes."
+
+Though the solution of the problem seemed so tantalisingly near, there
+were still some threads in the tangle which required sorting out before
+Lecoq could say that the case was complete. Among other matters he
+inquired of Bertomy the word which had been used to lock the safe on,
+the night of the robbery. The word had been "gipsy." Bertomy was
+confident that he had not mentioned it to anybody, but Nina Gipsy was
+able to throw light on this part of the problem. She recollected a
+chance remark of Bertomy's while sitting at dinner with herself and
+Lagors on the night of the robbery. She had reproached Bertomy with
+neglecting her.
+
+"It's too bad for you to reproach me," cried the cashier, "for it is
+your name which at this very moment guards the safe of M. Fauvel."
+
+Lagors, therefore, had known the password. What did this new discovery
+imply? How did it fit in with the rest of the data which Lecoq had so
+brilliantly collected?
+
+After his custom, he marshalled once more in his mind all the facts at
+his disposal, but they were like so many loose links in a chain. They
+required the connecting link to make the chain complete. To find that
+link Lecoq spent a month in visiting the old home of the De Clamerans,
+the estate formerly occupied by Gaston de Clameron, who had died a few
+days before the robbery, and also in a trip to England. When he returned
+to Paris, _dossier_ No. 113 was complete.
+
+
+_III.--The Dossier_
+
+
+In her extreme youth, Madame Fauvel had been secretly loved by Gaston de
+Clameron. It was a result of certain contemptuous words spoken of the
+girl he loved that Gaston had committed those deeds which had compelled
+him to fly the country. Shortly after his flight, the girl, finding that
+she was about to give birth to a child, imparted the secret to her
+mother. Fearing a scandal, the mother, accompanied by a faithful nurse,
+took her daughter over to England. There, near London, a child was born,
+who was immediately handed over to some simple country people to adopt.
+The unhappy girl returned to France, and shortly after married M.
+Fauvel, the banker.
+
+Years after, the Count Louis de Clameron, who had inherited and ruined
+the estates of which his brother Gaston had been deprived, discovered
+this secret from the nurse, and finding on inquiries in London that the
+child had died, persuaded a young ne'er-do-well Englishman to play the
+_role_ of his brother's son. He secretly introduced him to Madame
+Fauvel, and through this means obtained what money he required from the
+unhappy woman, who feared the discovery of her past secret by her
+husband. The situation was complicated by the count falling in love with
+Madeline and the sudden appearance of Gaston de Clameron, who was
+thought to be dead.
+
+The count poisoned his brother, and then, finding that Madeline refused
+to give up Bertomy, determined to accomplish the cashier's ruin, and at
+the same time obtain an amount of money large enough to buy off his
+fellow-conspirator Lagors. Lagors, having learnt by chance the password
+that guarded the safe, was sent to Madame Fauvel late at night with a
+request for money.
+
+At this time Madame Fauvel was at the end of her resources. Lagors
+suggested taking the money from the safe. Tom between a desire to help
+her supposed son and the risk of discovery, she at last consented.
+Taking M. Fauvel's key, they descended silently to the safe-room. At the
+last moment, just as the key was in the lock, Madame Fauvel attempted to
+deter Lagors from his purpose. In the struggle that scratch was made on
+the door which formed the basis of Lecoq's inquiries and enabled the
+great detective to unravel the mystery.
+
+Madeline, who all the while half guessed at the truth, and perceived
+without being told that Madame Fauvel was at the mercy of the count, had
+been prepared to sacrifice her future happiness in order to prevent the
+scandal being made public.
+
+M. Lecoq, armed with these facts, sought out Lagors. He arrived only in
+time to prevent a tragedy. Warned by an anonymous letter that his wife
+had pawned her diamonds for the benefit of Lagors, the banker came upon
+them when they were together in Lagor's rooms. Imagining the young man
+was his wife's lover, the banker drew a revolver and fired four times.
+Fortunately, none of the shots took effect, and before he could fire
+again Lecoq had rushed into the room and torn the weapon from his grasp.
+It was the moment of the great detective's triumph. With the dramatic
+skill of which he was a master, he laid bare the whole story and
+disclosed the true identity of Raoul Lagors. Before he left he compelled
+Lagors to refund the L12,000 he had stolen, and in order to avoid a
+scandal allowed the young man to go free. Then, that nothing should be
+wanting to his triumph, he obtained the consent of the banker to
+Bertomy's marriage with Madeline.
+
+Hurrying from the banker's house, Lecoq hastened to effect the arrest of
+the count. He arrived too late. Realising that he was hopelessly in the
+toils, the count was bereft of his senses and become a hopeless maniac.
+
+Four days later M. Lecoq, the official M. Lecoq, awaited the arrival of
+Nina Gipsy and Prosper Bertomy. They declared that they had come to meet
+M. Verduret, who had saved Prosper Bertomy. The detective retired,
+promising to summon the man they had come to see. A quarter of an hour
+later M. Verduret entered the room. Facing them, he told them how a
+friend of his named Caldas had fallen in love with a girl, and how that
+girl had been won from him by a man who cared nothing for her.
+
+"Caldas determined to revenge himself in his own way. It was his hand
+that saved the man on the very verge of disgrace. I see you know that
+you, Nina, are the woman, and you, Prosper, the man; while Caldas
+is...."
+
+With a quick gesture he removed his wig and whiskers, and the true Lecoq
+appeared.
+
+"Caldas!" cried Nina.
+
+"No, not Caldas, not Verduret, but Lecoq, the detective."
+
+After the moments of amazement had passed, Lecoq turned to leave the
+room, but Nina barred the way.
+
+"Caldas," she cried, "have you not punished me enough? Caldas...."
+
+Prosper went from the office alone.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+JOHN GALT
+
+
+Annals of the Parish
+
+
+     John Gait, poet, dramatist, historian, and novelist, was born
+     at Irvine, Ayrshire, Scotland, on May 2, 1779. He was trained
+     for a commercial career in the Greenock Custom House, and in
+     the office of a merchant in that seaport. Removing to London,
+     Gait engaged in business and afterwards travelled extensively
+     to forward mercantile enterprises in all the countries
+     bordering on the Mediterranean and the Near East, where he
+     repeatedly met Lord Byron. His first work of fiction was a
+     Sicilian story, published in 1816, but it was not until 1820
+     that he found his true literary expression, when the "Ayrshire
+     Legatees" appeared in "Blackwood's Magazine." The success of
+     this tale was so great that Gait finished the "Annals of the
+     Parish; or the Chronicle of Dalmailing, during the Ministry of
+     the Rev. Micah Balwhidder," which he had really begun in 1813,
+     and they were published in 1821. The "Annals" contain a lively
+     and humorous picture of Scottish character, manners, and
+     feeling during the era described. In the latter part of his
+     life Gait wrote several novels, a life of Byron, an
+     autobiography, and his "Literary Life and Miscellanies." He
+     died on April 11, 1838.
+
+
+_I.--The Placing of Mr. Balwhidder_
+
+
+The year A.D. 1760 was remarkable for three things in the parish of
+Dalmailing. First and foremost, there was my placing, then the coming of
+Mrs. Malcolm with her five children to settle among us, and next my
+marriage with my own cousin, Miss Betty Lanshaw. The placing was a great
+affair, for I was put in by the patron, and the people knew nothing of
+me whatsoever. They were really mad and vicious, insomuch that there was
+obliged to be a guard of soldiers to protect the presbytery. Dirt was
+flung upon us as we passed, and the finger of scorn held out to me. But
+I endured it with a resigned spirit, compassionating their wilfulness
+and blindness.
+
+The kirk door was nailed up and we were obligated to go in by the
+window, making the Lord's house like an inn on a fair-day with their
+grievous yelly hooing. Thomas Thorl, the weaver, a pious zealot, got up
+at the time of the induction and protested, and said, "Verily, verily, I
+say unto you, he that entereth not by the door of the sheepfold, but
+climbeth up some other way, the same is a thief and a robber."
+
+When the laying on of the hands upon me was adoing, Mr. Given, minister
+of Lugton, a jocose man, who could not get near, stretched out his staff
+and touched my head, saying, to the great diversion of the rest, "This
+will do well enough--timber to timber."
+
+After the ceremony we went to the manse, and there had an excellent
+dinner. Although my people received me in this unruly manner, I was
+resolved to cultivate civility among them; and next morning I began a
+round of visitations. But, oh! it was a steep brae to climb. The doors
+in some places were barred against me; in others the bairns ran crying
+to their mothers, "Here's the feckless Mess-John." But Thomas Thorl
+received me kindly, and said that this early visitation was a symptom of
+grace, and that not to condemn me without trial he and some neighbours
+would be at the kirk at the next Lord's day, so that I would not have to
+preach just to the bare walls and the laird's family.
+
+As to Mrs. Malcolm, she was the widow of a Clyde shipmaster that was
+lost at sea with his vessel. A genty body, she never changed her widow's
+weeds, and span frae morning tae nicht to keep her bairns and herself.
+When her daughter Effie was ill, I called on her in a sympathising way,
+and offered her some assistance frae the Session, but she refused help
+out of the poor's-box, as it might be hereafter cast up to her bairns.
+
+It was in the year 1761 that the great smuggling trade corrupted the
+west coast. Tea was going like chaff, and brandy like well-water. There
+was nothing minded but the riding of cadgers by day and excisemen by
+night, and battles between the smugglers and the king's men, both by sea
+and land; continual drunkenness and debauchery, and our Session had an
+awful time o't.
+
+I did all that was in my power to keep my people from the contagion. I
+preached sixteen times from the text, "Render to Caesar the things that
+are Caesar's." I visited, exhorted, warned, and prophesied, but the evil
+got in among us. The third year of my ministry was long held in
+remembrance. The small-pox came in among the poor bits o' weans of the
+parish, and the smashing it made among them was woeful. When the
+pestilence was raging, I preached a sermon about Rachel weeping for her
+children, which Thomas Thorl, a great judge of good preaching, said,
+"was a monument of divinity whilk searched the heart of many a parent
+that day"--a thing I was well pleased to hear, and was minded to make
+him an elder the next vacancy. But, worthy man, it was not permitted him
+to arrive at that honour; for that fall it pleased Him that alone can
+give and take to pluck him from this life.
+
+In this year Charlie Malcolm, Mrs. Malcolm's eldest son, was sent to sea
+in a tobacco-trader that sailed between Port Glasgow and Virginia.
+Tea-drinking was beginning to spread more openly, in so much that by the
+advice of the first Mrs. Balwhidder, Mrs. Malcolm took in tea to sell to
+eke out something to the small profits of her wheel. I lost some of my
+dislike to the tea after that, and we had it for breakfast at the manse
+as well as in the afternoon. But what I thought most of it for was that
+it did no harm to the head of the drinkers, which was not always the
+case with the possets in fashion before, when I remember decent ladies
+coming home with red faces from a posset-masking. So I refrained from
+preaching against tea henceforth, but I never lifted the weight of my
+displeasure from off the smuggling trade, until it was utterly put down
+by the strong hand of government.
+
+
+_II.--The Minister's Second Marriage_
+
+
+A memorable year, both in public and private, was 1763. The king granted
+peace to the French. Lady Macadam, widow of General Macadam, who lived
+in her jointure-house, took Kate Malcolm to live with her as companion,
+and she took pleasure in teaching Kate all her accomplishments and how
+to behave herself like a lady. The lint-mill on Lugton Water was burned
+to the ground, with not a little of the year's crop of lint in our
+parish. The first Mrs. Balwhidder lost upwards of twelve stone, which
+was intended for sarking to ourselves and sheets and napery. A great
+loss indeed it was, and the vexation thereof had a visible effect on her
+health, which from the spring had been in a dwining way. But for it, I
+think she might have wrestled through the winter. However, it was
+ordered otherwise, and she was removed from mine to Abraham's bosom on
+Christmas Day, and buried on Hogmanay, for it was thought uncanny to
+have a dead corpse in the house on the New Year's Day.
+
+Just by way of diversion in my heavy sorrow, I got a well-shapen
+headstone made for her; but a headstone without a epitaph being no
+better than a body without the breath of life in't, I made a poesy for
+the monument, not in the Latin tongue, which Mrs. Balwhidder, worthy
+woman as she was, did not understand, but in sedate language, which was
+greatly thought of at the time. My servant lassies, having no eye of a
+mistress over them, wasted everything at such a rate that, long before
+the end of the year, the year's stipend was all spent, and I did not
+know what to do. At lang and length I sent for Mr. Auld, a douce and
+discreet elder, and told him how I was situated. He advised me, for my
+own sake, to look out for another wife, as soon as decency would allow.
+
+In the following spring I placed my affections, with due consideration,
+on Miss Lizzy Kibbock, the well-brought-up daughter of Mr. Joseph
+Kibbock, of the Gorbyholm, farmer; and we were married on the 29th day
+of April, on account of the dread we had of being married in May, for it
+is said, "Of the marriages in May, the bairns die of a decay." The
+second Mrs. Balwhidder had a genius for management, and started a dairy,
+and set the servant lassies to spin wool for making blankets and lint
+for sheets and napery. She sent the butter on market days to Irville,
+her cheese and huxtry to Glasgow. We were just coining money, in so much
+that, after the first year, we had the whole tot of stipend to put into
+the bank.
+
+The opening of coal-pits in Douray Moor brought great prosperity to the
+parish, but the coal-carts cut up the roads, especially the Vennel, a
+narrow and crooked street in the clachan. Lord Eglesham came down from
+London in the spring of 1767 to see the new lands he had bought in our
+parish. His coach couped in the Vennel, and his lordship was thrown head
+foremost into the mud. He swore like a trooper, and said he would get an
+act of parliament to put down the nuisance. His lordship came to the
+manse, and, being in a woeful plight, he got the loan of my best suit of
+clothes. This made him wonderful jocose both with Mrs. Balwhidder and
+me, for he was a portly man, and I but a thin body, and it was really
+droll to see his lordship clad in my garments. Out of this accident grew
+a sort of neighbourliness between Lord Eglesham and me.
+
+
+_III.--A Runaway Match_
+
+
+About Christmas, Lady Macadam's son, having been perfected in the art of
+war at a school in France, had, with the help of his mother's friends
+and his father's fame, got a stand of colours in the Royal Scots
+Regiment. He came to show himself in his regimentals to his lady mother,
+and during the visit he fell in love and entered into correspondence
+with Kate Malcolm. A while after, her ladyship's flunkey came to the
+manse and begged me to go to her. So I went; and there she was, with
+gum-flowers on her head, sitting on a settee, for she was lame, and in
+her hand she held a letter.
+
+"Sir," she said, as I came into the room, "I want you to go instantly to
+your clerk," meaning Mr. Lorimore, the schoolmaster, "and tell him I
+will give him a couple of hundred pounds to marry Miss Malcolm without
+delay."
+
+"Softly, my lady; you must first tell me the meaning of all this haste
+of kindness," said I, in my calm, methodical manner. At which she began
+to sob, and bewail her ruin and the dishonour of her family. I was
+confounded, but at length it came out that she had accidentally opened a
+letter that had come from London for Kate, that she had read it, by
+which she came to know that Kate and her darling son were trysted, and
+that this was not the first love-letter which had passed between them.
+Mr. Lorimore promptly declined her ladyship's proposal, as he was
+engaged to be married to his present worthy helpmate. Although her
+ladyship was so overcome with passion, she would not part with Kate, nor
+allow her to quit the house.
+
+Three years later the young Laird Macadam, being ordered with his
+regiment for America, got leave from the king to come and see his lady
+mother before his departure. But it was not to see her only. He arrived
+at a late hour unwarned, lest his mother would send Kate out of the way;
+but no sooner did her ladyship behold his face than she kindled upon
+both him and Kate, and ordered them out of her sight and house. The
+young folk had discretion. Kate went home to her mother, and the laird
+came to the manse and begged us to take him in.
+
+He asked me to perform the ceremony, as he was resolved to marry Kate.
+We stepped over to Mrs. Malcolm's house, where we found the saintly
+woman with Kate and Erne and Willie, preparing to read their Bible for
+the night. After speaking to Mrs. Malcolm for a time, she consented to
+the marriage. It was sanctified by me before we left Mrs. Malcolm's, the
+young couple setting off in the laird's chaise to Glasgow, and
+authorising me to break the matter to Lady Macadam. I was spared this
+performance, for the servants jealoused what had been done, and told her
+ladyship. When I entered the room she was like a mad woman in Bedlam.
+She sent her coachman on horseback to overtake them, which he did at
+Kilmarnock, and they returned in the morning, when her ladyship was as
+cagey and meikle taken up with them as if they had gotten her full
+consent and privilege from the first. Captain Macadam afterwards bought
+a house at the Braehead, and gave it, with a judicious income, to Mrs.
+Malcolm, telling her it was not becoming that she should any longer be
+dependent upon her own industry. For this the young man got a name like
+a sweet odour in all the country-side.
+
+It will be remembered that Charlie Malcolm went a-sailing in a
+tobacco-trader to America. When his ship was lying in the harbour of
+Virginia, a press-gang, that was in need of men for the Avenger,
+man-of-war, came on board and pressed poor Charles. I wrote to Lord
+Eglesham anent the matter, and his lordship's brother being connected
+with the Admiralty, the captain of the man-of-war was instructed to make
+a midshipman of Charles. This was done, and Mrs. Malcolm heard from time
+to time from her son, saying that he had found a friend in the captain,
+that was just a father to him.
+
+In the latter end of 1776, the man-of-war, with Charles Malcolm in her,
+came to the Tail of the Bank at Greenock, and Charles got leave from his
+captain to come and see his mother. He brought with him Mr. Howard,
+another midshipman, the son of a great Parliament man in London. They
+were dressed in their fine gold-laced garbs. When Charles had seen his
+mother and his sister, Effie, he came with his friend to see me at the
+manse, and got Mrs. Balwhidder to ask his friend to sleep there. In
+short, we had a ploy the whole two days they stayed with us, Lady
+Macadam made for them at a ball, and it was a delight to see how old and
+young of all degrees made much of Charles.
+
+
+_IV.--Years of Lamentation_
+
+
+I was named in the year 1779 for the General Assembly, and Mrs.
+Balwhidder, by her continual thrift, having made our purse able to stand
+a shake against the wind, we resolved to go into Edinburgh in a
+creditable manner. We put up at Widow M'Vicar's, a relation to my first
+wife, a gawsy, furthy woman, taking great pleasure in hospitality. In
+short, everybody in Edinburgh was in a manner wearisome kind.
+
+I was delighted and surprised to find Lord Eglesham at the levee, and he
+introduced me to his grace the Commissioner, who required me to preach
+before him. Fain would I have eschewed the honour that was thus thrust
+upon me; but both my wife and Mrs. M'Vicar were just lifted out of
+themselves at the thought. After the sermon the Commissioner
+complimented me on my apostolic earnestness, and Mrs. M'Vicar said I had
+surprised everybody; but I was fearful there was something of jocularity
+at the bottom of all this.
+
+The year 1781 was one of dolour and tribulation, for Lord Eglesham was
+shot dead by a poaching exciseman, and Lady Macadam died of paralysis;
+but the year after was one of greater lamentation. Three brave young
+fellows belonging to the clachan, who had gone as soldiers in America,
+were killed in battle with the rebels, for which there was great grief.
+Shortly after this the news came of a victory over the French fleet, and
+by the same post I got a letter from Mr. Howard, the midshipman, telling
+me that poor Charles had been mortally wounded in the action, and had
+afterwards died of his wounds.
+
+Mrs. Malcolm heard the news of the victory through the steeple hell
+being set a-ringing, and she came over to the manse in great anxiety.
+When I saw her I could not speak, but looked at her in pity, and, the
+tears fleeing into my eyes, she guessed what had happened. After giving
+a deep and sore sigh, she inquired, "How did he behave? I hope well, for
+he was aye a gallant laddie!" And then she wept very bitterly. I gave
+her the letter, which she begged me to give to her to keep, saying,
+"It's all that I have left now of my pretty boy; but it is mair precious
+to me than the wealth of the Indies!"
+
+
+_V.--Death of the Second Mrs. Balwhidder_
+
+
+Some time after this a Mr. Cayenne, a man of crusty temper but good
+heart, and his family, American loyalists, settled among us. In the year
+1788, a proposal came from Glasgow to build a cotton mill on the banks
+of the Brawl burn, a rapid stream which ran through the parish. Mr.
+Cayenne took a part in the profit or loss of the concern, and the cotton
+mill and a new town was built, and the whole called Cayenneville.
+Weavers of muslin were brought to the mill, and women to teach the
+lassie bairns in our old clachan tambouring instead of hand-spinning.
+
+Prosperity of fortune is like the golden hue of the evening cloud that
+delighteth the spirit and passeth away. In the month of February 1796,
+my second wife was gathered to the Lord. Her death was to me a great
+sorrow, for she was a most excellent wife, industrious to a degree. With
+her I had grown richer than any other minister in the presbytery.
+
+I laid her by the side of my first love, Betty Lanshaw, and I inscribed
+her name upon the same headstone. Time had drained my poetical vein, and
+I have not yet been able to indite an epithet on her merits and virtues,
+for she had an eminent share of both. Above all, she was the mother of
+my children. She was not long deposited in her place of rest until
+things fell into amazing confusion, and I saw it would be necessary, as
+soon as decency would allow, for me to take another wife, both for a
+helpmate, and to tend me in my approaching infirmities.
+
+I saw it would not do for me to look out for an overly young woman, nor
+yet would it do for one of my way to take an elderly maiden, ladies of
+that sort being liable to possess strong-set particularities. I
+therefore resolved that my choice should lie among widows of a discreet
+age, and I fixed my purpose on Mrs. Nugent, the relict of a professor in
+the University of Glasgow, both because she was a well-bred woman
+without any children, and because she was held in great estimation as a
+lady of Christian principle. And so we were married as soon as a
+twelve-month and a day had passed from the death of the second Mrs.
+Balwhidder; and neither of us have had occasion to rue the bargain.
+
+
+_VI.--The Last Sermon_
+
+
+Two things made 1799 a memorable year; the marriage of my daughter Janet
+with the Rev. Dr. Kittleword of Swappington, a match in every way
+commendable; and the death of Mrs. Malcolm. If ever there was a saint on
+earth she was surely one. She bore adversity with an honest pride; she
+toiled in the day of penury and affliction with thankfulness for her
+little earnings.
+
+The year 1803 saw tempestuous times. Bonaparte gathered his host fornent
+the English coast, and the government at London were in terror of their
+lives for an invasion. All in the country saw that there was danger, and
+I was not backward in sounding the trumpet to battle. I delivered on
+Lord's Day a religious and political exhortation on the present posture
+of public affairs before a vast congregation of all ranks. The week
+following there were meetings of weavers and others, and volunteers were
+enrolled in defence of king and country.
+
+In the course of the next four or five years many changes took place in
+the parish. The weavers and cotton-mill folk and seceders from my own
+kirk built a meeting-house in Cayenneville, where there had been for a
+while great suffering on account of the failure of the cotton-mill
+company. In the year 1809 the elders came in a body to the manse, and
+said that, seeing that I was now growing old, they thought they could
+not testify their respect for me in a better manner than by agreeing to
+get me a helper; and the next year several young ministers spared me
+from the necessity of preaching.
+
+When it was known that I was to preach my last sermon on the last
+sabbath of 1810, everyone, including the seceders to the meeting-house,
+made it a point to be in the parish kirk, or to stand in the crowd that
+made a lane of reverence for me to pass from the kirk door to the
+back-yett of the manse. It was a moving discourse, and there were few
+dry eyes in the kirk that day; for my bidding them farewell was as when
+of old among the heathen an idol was taken away by the hand of the
+enemy. Shortly after, a deputation of the seceders, with their minister
+at their head, came to me and presented a server of silver in token of
+their esteem of my blameless life, and the charity I had practised
+towards the poor.
+
+I am thankful that I have been spared with a sound mind to write this
+book to the end, having really no more to say, saving only to wish a
+blessing on all people from on high, where I soon hope to be, and to
+meet there all the old and long-departed sheep of my flock, especially
+the first and second Mrs. Balwhidders.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+ELIZABETH CLEGHORN GASKELL
+
+
+Cranford
+
+
+     Mrs. Gaskell, whose maiden name was Elizabeth C. Stevenson,
+     was born in Chelsea, London, Sept. 29, 1810. She married a
+     Unitarian clergyman in Manchester. Her first literary work was
+     published anonymously, and met with a storm of mingled
+     approval and disapproval. Charles Dickens invited her to
+     contribute to his "Household Words," and it was in the pages
+     of that famous periodical, at intervals between December 13,
+     1851, and May 21, 1853, that her charming sketches of social
+     life in a little country town first appeared. In June, 1853,
+     they were grouped together under the title of "Cranford,"
+     meeting with wide approval, and have long taken rank as one of
+     the accepted English classics. The town which figures here as
+     Cranford is understood to have been Knutsford, in Cheshire,
+     which still retains something of that old-world feeling and
+     restfulness which Mrs. Gaskell embodied in the pages of her
+     most engaging book. "Cranford" is probably the direct
+     progenitor of many latter-day books of the class to which the
+     word "idyll" has been somewhat loosely applied. Its charm and
+     freshness are unfading; it remains unique and unrivalled as a
+     sympathetic and kindly humorous description of English
+     provincial life. Mrs. Gaskell died in November, 1865.
+
+
+_I.--Our Society_
+
+
+On the first visit I paid to Cranford, after I had left it as a
+residence, I was astonished to find a man had settled there--a Captain
+Brown. In my time Cranford was in possession of the Amazons. If a
+married couple came to settle there, somehow the man always disappeared.
+Either he was fairly frightened to death by being the only man at the
+evening parties, or he was accounted for by being with his regiment, his
+ship, or closely connected in business all the week in the great
+neighbouring commercial town of Drumble, distant only twenty miles on
+the railroad.
+
+I was naturally interested to learn what opinions Captain Brown had
+managed to win for himself in Cranford. So, with all the delicacy which
+the subject demanded, I made inquiries of my hostess, Miss Jenkyns. I
+was surprised to learn that Captain Brown not only was respected, but
+had even gained an extraordinary place of authority among the Cranford
+ladies. Of course, he had been forced to overcome great difficulties.
+
+In the first place, the ladies of Cranford had moaned over the invasion
+of their territories by a man and a gentleman. Then Captain Brown had
+started badly, very badly, by openly referring to his poverty. If he had
+whispered it to an intimate friend, the doors and windows being
+previously closed, his vulgarity--a tremendous word in Cranford--might
+have been forgiven. But he had published his poverty in the public
+street, in a loud military voice, alleging it as a reason for not taking
+a particular house.
+
+In Cranford, too, where it was tacitly agreed to ignore that anyone with
+whom we associated on terms of equality could ever be prevented by
+poverty from doing anything they wished. Where, if we walked to and from
+a party, it was because the night was _so_ fine or the air _so_
+refreshing, not because sedan-chairs were so expensive.
+
+So the poor captain had been sent to Coventry. The ladies of Cranford
+had frozen him out, until the day when the cow, an Alderney cow, had
+broken the ice.
+
+It happened like this. Miss Betsy Barker had an Alderney cow, which she
+looked upon as a daughter. You could not pay the regulation short
+quarter of an hour's call--to stay longer was a breach of
+manners--without being told of the wonderful milk or wonderful
+intelligence of this animal. The whole town knew and kindly regarded
+Miss Betsy Barker's Alderney.
+
+One day the cow fell into a lime-pit, and Cranford grieved over the
+spectacle of the poor beast being drawn out, having lost most of her
+hair, and looking naked, cold and miserable, in a bare skin. Miss Betsy
+Barker absolutely cried with sorrow and dismay, and was about to prepare
+a bath of oil for the sufferer, when Captain Brown called out: "Get her
+a flannel waistcoat and flannel drawers, ma'am, if you wish to keep her
+alive. But my advice is, 'kill the poor creature at once.'" Miss Betsy
+Barker dried her eyes, and in a few hours the whole town turned out to
+see the Alderney meekly going to her pasture, clad in dark-gray flannel.
+Do you ever see cows dressed in gray flannel in London?
+
+On that day was born the respect of the Cranford ladies for Captain
+Brown.
+
+Soon after my arrival in Cranford, Miss Jenkyns gave a party in my
+honour, and recalling the old days when we had almost persuaded
+ourselves that to be a man was to be "vulgar," I was curious to see what
+the ladies would do with Captain Brown.
+
+The preparations were much as usual. Card-tables, with green baize tops,
+were set out by daylight, and towards four, when the evening closed in,
+we all stood dressed in our best, each with a candle-lighter in our
+hand, ready to dart at the candles as soon as the first knock came. The
+china was delicate egg-shell; the old-fashioned silver glittered with
+polishing; but the eatables were of the slightest description. While the
+trays were yet on the table, Captain Brown arrived with his two
+daughters, Miss Brown and Miss Jessie, the former with a sickly, pained,
+and careworn expression; the latter with a pretty, round, dimpled face,
+and the look of a child which will remain with her should she live to be
+a hundred.
+
+I could see that the captain was a favourite with all the ladies
+present. Ruffled brows were smoothed and sharp voices hushed at his
+approach. He immediately and quietly assumed the man's place in the
+room; attended to everyone's wants, lessened the pretty maidservant's
+labour by waiting on empty cups and bread-and-butterless ladies; and yet
+did it all in so easy and dignified a manner, and so much as if it were
+a matter of course for the strong to attend to the weak, that he was a
+true man throughout.
+
+The party passed off very well in spite of one or two little hitches.
+One was Miss Jessie Brown's unguarded admission--_a propos_ of Shetland
+wool--that she had an uncle, her mother's brother, who was a shopkeeper
+in Edinburgh. Miss Jenkyns tried to drown this confession by a terrible
+cough, for the honourable Mrs. Jamieson was sitting at the card-table
+nearest Miss Jessie, and what would she say or think if she found out
+she was in the same room with a shopkeeper's niece!
+
+Then there was a slight breeze between Miss Jenkyns and Captain Brown
+over the relative merits of Dr. Johnson and the author of "Pickwick
+Papers"--then being published in parts--as writers of light and
+agreeable fiction. Captain Brown read an account of the "Swarry" which
+Sam Weller gave at Bath. Some of us laughed very heartily. _I_ did not
+dare, because I was staying in the house. At the conclusion Miss Jenkyns
+said to me, with mild dignity, "Fetch me 'Rasselas,' my dear, out of the
+book-room."
+
+After delivering one of the conversations between Rasselas and Imlac in
+a majestic, high-pitched voice, Miss Jenkyns said, "I imagine I am now
+justified in my preference for Dr. Johnson over your Mr. Boz as a writer
+of fiction."
+
+The captain said nothing, merely screwed his lips up and drummed on the
+table; but when Miss Jenkyns returned later to the charge and
+recommended the doctor's style to Captain Brown's favourite, the captain
+replied, "I should be very sorry for him to exchange his style for any
+such pompous writing."
+
+Miss Jenkyns felt this as a personal affront in a way of which the
+captain had not dreamed. How could he know that she and her friends
+looked upon epistolary writing as their forte, and that when in a letter
+they "seized the half-hour just previous to post-time to assure" their
+friends of this and that, they were using the doctor as a model?
+
+As it was Miss Jenkyns refused to be mollified by Captain Brown's
+efforts later to beguile her into conversation on some more pleasing
+subject. She was inexorable.
+
+Captain Brown endeavoured to make peace after this memorable dispute by
+a present to Miss Jenkyns of a wooden fire-shovel (his own making),
+having heard her say how much the grating of an iron one annoyed her.
+She received the present with cool gratitude and thanked him formally.
+When he was gone she bade me put it in the lumber-room, feeling probably
+that no present from a man who preferred Mr. Boz to Dr. Johnson could be
+less jarring than an iron fire-shovel.
+
+Such was the state of affairs at the time when I left Cranford and went
+to Drumble. I had, however, several correspondents who kept me _au fait_
+as to the proceedings of the inhabitants of the dear little town.
+
+
+_II.--The Captain_
+
+
+My next visit to Cranford was in the summer. There had been neither
+births, deaths, nor marriages since I was there last. Everybody lived in
+the same house, and wore pretty near the same well-preserved,
+old-fashioned clothes. The greatest event was that the Misses Jenkyns
+had purchased a new carpet for the drawing-room. Oh, the busy work Miss
+Matty and I had in chasing the sunbeams as they fell in an afternoon
+right down on this carpet through the blindless windows! We spread our
+newspapers over the places and sat down to our book or our work; and,
+lo! in a quarter of an hour the sun had moved and was blazing away in a
+fresh spot; and down again we went on our knees to alter the position of
+the newspapers. One whole morning, too, we spent in cutting out and
+stitching together pieces of newspapers so as to form little paths to
+every chair, lest the shoes of visitors should defile the purity of the
+carpet. Do you make paper paths for every guest to walk upon in London?
+
+The literary dispute between Captain Brown and Miss Jenkyns continued.
+She had formed a habit of talking _at_ him. And he retaliated by
+drumming his fingers, which action Miss Jenkyns felt and resented as
+disparaging to Dr. Johnson.
+
+The poor captain! I noticed on this visit that he looked older and more
+worn, and his clothes were very threadbare. But he seemed as bright and
+cheerful as ever, unless he was asked about his daughter's health.
+
+One afternoon we perceived little groups in the street, all listening
+with faces aghast to some tale or other. It was some time before Miss
+Jenkyns took the undignified step of sending Jenny out to inquire.
+
+Jenny came back with a white face of terror.
+
+"Oh, ma'am! Oh, Miss Jenkyns, ma'am! Captain Brown is killed by them
+nasty cruel railroads." And she burst into tears.
+
+"How, where--where? Good God! Jenny, don't waste time in crying, but
+tell us something."
+
+Miss Matty rushed out into the street, and presently an affrighted
+carter appeared in the drawing-room and told the story.
+
+"'Tis true, mum, I seed it myself. The captain was a-readin' some book,
+waitin' for the down train, when a lass as gave its sister the slip came
+toddling across the line. He looked up sudden, see'd the child, darted
+on the line, cotched it up, and his foot slipped and the train came over
+him in no time. The child's safe. Poor captain would be glad of that,
+mum, wouldn't he? God bless him!"
+
+The great rough carter turned away to hide his tears. I turned to Miss
+Jenkyns. She looked very ill, as though she were going to faint, and
+signed to me to open a window.
+
+"Matilda, bring me my bonnet. I must go to those girls. God pardon me if
+ever I have spoken contemptuously to the captain."
+
+Miss Brown did not long survive her father. Her last words were a prayer
+for forgiveness for her selfishness in allowing her sister Jessie to
+sacrifice herself for her all her life.
+
+But Miss Jessie was not long left alone. Miss Jenkyns insisted she
+should come and stay with her, and would not hear of her going out into
+the world to earn her living as a saleswoman. "Some people have no idea
+of their rank as a captain's daughter," she related indignantly, and
+stumped out of the room. Presently she came back with a strange look on
+her face.
+
+"I have been much startled--no, I've not been startled--don't mind me,
+my dear Miss Jessie, only surprised--in fact, I've had a caller whom you
+once knew, my dear Miss Jessie."
+
+Miss Jessie went very white, then flushed scarlet.
+
+"Is it?--it is not----" stammered out Miss Jessie, and got no farther.
+
+"This is his card," said Miss Jenkyns, and went through a series of
+winks and odd faces at me, and formed a long sentence with her lips, of
+which I could not understand a word.
+
+Major Gordon was shown upstairs.
+
+While downstairs Miss Jenkyns told me what the major had told her. How
+he had served in the same regiment as Captain Brown and had fallen in
+love with Miss Jessie, then a sweet-looking, blooming girl of eighteen;
+how she had refused him, though obviously not indifferent to him; how he
+had discovered the obstacle to be the fell disease which had stricken
+her sister, whom there was no one to nurse and comfort but herself; how
+he had believed her cold and had left in anger; and finally how he had
+read of the death of Captain Brown in a foreign newspaper.
+
+Just then Miss Matty burst into the room.
+
+"Oh, Deborah," she said, "there's a gentleman sitting in the drawing-
+room with his arm round Miss Jessie's waist!"
+
+"The most proper place for his arm to be in. Go, Matilda, and mind your
+own business."
+
+Poor Miss Matty! This was a shock, coming from her decorous sister.
+
+Thus happiness, and with it some of her early bloom, returned to Miss
+Jessie, and as Mrs. Gordon her dimples were not out of place.
+
+
+_III.--Poor Peter_
+
+
+My visits to Cranford continued for many years, and did not cease even
+after the death of Miss Jenkyns.
+
+Miss Matty became my new hostess. At first I rather dreaded the changed
+aspect of things. Miss Matty, too, began to cry as soon as she saw me.
+She was evidently nervous from having anticipated my visit. I comforted
+her as well as I could, and I found the best consolation I could give
+was the honest praise that came from my heart as I spoke of the
+deceased.
+
+Miss Matty made me her confidante in many matters, and one evening she
+sent Martha to go for eggs at a farm at the other end of the town and
+told me the story of her brother.
+
+"Poor Peter! The sole honour he brought from Shrewsbury was the
+reputation of being captain of the school in the art of practical
+joking. He even thought that the people of Cranford might be hoaxed.
+'Hoaxing' is not a pretty word, my dear, and I hope you won't tell your
+father I used it, for I should not like him to think I was not choice in
+my language, after living with such a woman as Deborah. I don't know how
+it slipped out of my mouth, except it was that I was thinking of poor
+Peter, and it was always his expression.
+
+"One day my father had gone to see some sick people in the village.
+Deborah, too, was away from home for a fortnight or so. I don't know
+what possessed poor Peter, but he went to her room and dressed himself
+in her old gown and shawl and bonnet. And he made the pillow into a
+little--you are sure you locked the door, my dear?--into--into a little
+baby with white long clothes. And he went and walked up and down in the
+Filbert Walk--just half hidden by the rails and half seen; and he
+cuddled the pillow just like a baby and talked to it all the nonsense
+people do. Oh, dear, and my father came stepping stately up the street,
+as he always did, and pushing past the crowd saw--I don't know what he
+saw--but old Clare said his face went grey-white with anger. He seized
+hold of poor Peter, tore the clothes off his back--bonnet, shawl, gown,
+and all--threw them among the crowd, and before all the people lifted up
+his cane and flogged Peter.
+
+"My dear, that boy's trick on that sunny day, when all promised so well,
+broke my mother's heart and changed my father for life. Old Clare said
+Peter looked as white as my father and stood still as a statue to be
+flogged.
+
+"'Have you done enough, sir?' he asked hoarsely, when my father stopped.
+Then Peter bowed grandly to the people outside the railing and walked
+slowly home. He went straight to his mother, looking as haughty as any
+man, and not like a boy.
+
+"'Mother,' he said, 'I am come to say "God bless you for ever."'
+
+"He would say no more, and by the time my mother had found out what had
+happened from my father, and had gone to her boy's room to comfort him,
+he had gone, and did not come back. That spring day was the last time he
+ever saw his mother's face. He wrote a passionate entreaty to her to
+come and see him before his ship left the Mersey for the war, but the
+letter was delayed, and when she arrived it was too late. It killed my
+mother. And think, my dear, the day after her death--for she did not
+live a twelve-month after Peter left--came a parcel from India from her
+poor boy. It was a large, soft white India shawl. Just what my mother
+would have liked.
+
+"We took it to my father in the hopes it would rouse him, for he had sat
+with her hand in his all night long. At first he took no notice of it.
+Then suddenly he got up and spoke. 'She shall be buried in it,' he said.
+'Peter shall have that comfort; and she would have liked it.'"
+
+"Did Mr. Peter ever come home?"
+
+"Yes, once. He came home a lieutenant. And he and my father were such
+friends. My father was so proud to show him to all the neighbours. He
+never walked out without Peter's arm to lean on. And then Peter went to
+sea again, and by-and-by my father died, blessing us both and thanking
+Deborah for all she had been to him. And our circumstances were changed,
+and from a big rectory with three servants we had come down to a small
+house with a servant-of-all-work. But, as Deborah used to say, we have
+always lived genteelly, even if circumstances have compelled us to
+simplicity. Poor Deborah!"
+
+"And Mr. Peter?" I asked.
+
+"Oh, there was some great war in India, and we have never heard of Peter
+since then. I believe he is dead myself. Sometimes when I sit by myself
+and the house is quiet, I think I hear his step coming up the street,
+and my heart begins to flutter and beat; but the sound goes, and Peter
+never comes back."
+
+
+_IV.--Friends in Need_
+
+
+The years rolled on. I spent my time between Drumble and Cranford. I was
+thankful that I happened to be staying with Miss Matty when the Town and
+County Bank failed, which had such a disastrous effect on her little
+fortune.
+
+It was an example to me, and I fancy it might be to many others, to see
+how immediately Miss Matty set about the retrenchment she knew to be
+right under her altered circumstances. I did the little I could. Some
+months back a conjuror had given a performance in the Cranford Assembly
+Rooms. By a strange set of circumstances the identity of Signor Brunoni
+was revealed. He was plain Samuel Brown, who had fallen out of his cart
+and had to be attended by our doctor. I went to visit the patient and
+his wife, and learned that she had been India. She told me a long story
+about being befriended, after a perilous journey, by a kind Englishman
+who lived right in the midst of the natives. It was his name which
+astonished me. Agra Jenkyns.
+
+Could Agra Jenkyns be the long lost Peter? I resolved to say nothing to
+Miss Matty, but got the address from the signor (as we still called him
+from habit), spelt by sound, and very queer it looked, and posted a
+letter to him.
+
+All sorts of plans were discussed for Miss Matty's future. I thought of
+all the things by which a woman, past middle age, and with the education
+common to ladies fifty years ago, could earn or add to a living without
+materially losing caste; but at length I put even this last clause on
+one side, and wondered what in the world Miss Matty could do. Even
+teaching was out of the question, for, reckoning over her
+accomplishments, I had to come down to reading, writing, and
+arithmetic--and in reading the chapter every morning she always coughed
+before coming to long words.
+
+I was still in a quandary the next morning, when I received a letter
+from Miss Pole, so mysteriously wrapped up and with so many seals on it
+to secure secrecy that I had to tear the paper before I could unfold it.
+
+It summoned me to go to Miss Pole at 11 a.m., the a.m. twice dashed
+under as if I were likely to come at eleven at night, when all Cranford
+was usually abed and asleep by ten. I went and found Miss Pole dressed
+in solemn array, though there were only Mrs. Forrester, crying quietly
+and sadly, and Mrs. FitzAdam present. Miss Pole was armed with a card,
+on which I imagine she had written some notes.
+
+"Miss Smith," she began, when I entered (I was familiarly known to all
+Cranford as Mary, but this was a state occasion), "I have conversed in
+private with these ladies on the misfortune which has happened to our
+friend, and one and all have agreed that while we have a superfluity, it
+is not only a duty but a pleasure--a true pleasure, Mary!"--her voice
+was rather choked just here, and she had to wipe her spectacles before
+she could go on--"to give what we can to assist her--Miss Matilda
+Jenkyns. Only in consideration of the feelings of delicate independence
+existing in the mind of every refined female"--I was sure she had got
+back to the card--"we wish to contribute our mites in a secret and
+concealed manner, so as not to hurt the feelings I have referred to."
+
+Well, the upshot of this solemn meeting was that each of those dear old
+ladies wrote down the sum she could afford annually, signed the paper
+and sealed it mysteriously, and I was commissioned to get my father to
+administer the fund in such a manner that Miss Jenkyns should imagine
+the money came from her own improved investments.
+
+As I was going, Mrs. Forrester took me aside, and in the manner of one
+confessing a great crime the poor old lady told me how very, very little
+she had to live on--a confession she was brought to make from a dread
+lest we should think that the small contribution named in her paper bore
+any proportion to her love and regard for Miss Mary. And yet that sum
+which she so eagerly relinquished was, in truth, more than a twentieth
+part of what she had to live on. And when the whole income does not
+nearly amount to a hundred pounds, to give up a twentieth of it will
+necessitate many careful economies and many pieces of self-denial--small
+and insignificant in the world's account, but bearing a different value
+in another account book that I have heard of.
+
+The upshot of it all was that dear Miss Matty was comfortably installed
+in her own house, and added to her slender income by selling tea! This
+last was my idea, and it was a proud moment for me when it realized. The
+small dining-room was converted into a shop, without any of its
+degrading characteristics, a table formed the counter, one window was
+retained unaltered and the other changed into a glass door, and there
+she was. Tea was certainly a happy commodity, as it was neither greasy
+nor sticky, grease and stickiness being two of the qualities which Miss
+Matty could not endure. Moreover, as Miss Matty said, one good thing
+about it was that men did not buy it, and it was of men particularly she
+was afraid. They had such sharp, loud ways with them, and did up
+accounts and counted their change so quickly.
+
+Very little remains to be told. The approval of the Honourable Mrs.
+Jamieson set the seal upon the successful career of Miss Matty as a
+purveyor of tea. Thus did she escape even the shadow of "vulgarity."
+
+One afternoon I was sitting in the shop parlour with Miss Matty, when we
+saw a gentleman go slowly past the window and then stand opposite to the
+door, as if looking out for the name which we had so carefully hidden.
+His clothes had an out-of-the-way foreign cut, and it flashed across me
+it was the Agra himself! He entered.
+
+Miss Matty looked at him, and something of tender relaxation in his face
+struck home to her heart. She said: "It is--oh, sir, can you be Peter?"
+and trembled from head to foot. In a moment he had her in his arms,
+sobbing the tearless cries of old age.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+Mary Barton
+
+
+     "Mary Barton," although not Mrs. Gaskell's first attempt at
+     authorship, was her first literary success; and although her
+     later writings revealed a gain in skill, subtlety and humour,
+     none of them equalled "Mary Barton" in dramatic intensity and
+     fervent sincerity. This passionate tale of the sorrows of the
+     Manchester poor, given to the world anonymously in the year
+     1848, was greeted with a storm of mingled approval and
+     disapproval. It was praised by Carlyle and Landor, but some
+     critics attacked it fiercely as a slander on the Manchester
+     manufacturers, and there were admirers who complained that it
+     was too heartrending. The controversy has long since died
+     down, but the book holds a permanent place in literature as a
+     vivid revelation of a dark and painful phase of English life
+     in the middle of the last century.
+
+
+_I.--Rich and Poor_
+
+
+"Mary," said John Barton to his daughter, "what's come o'er thee and Jem
+Wilson? You were great friends at one time."
+
+"Oh, folk say he is going to be married to Molly Gibson," answered Mary,
+as indifferently as she could.
+
+"Thou'st played thy cards badly, then," replied her father in a surly
+tone. "At one time he were much fonder o' thee than thou deservedst."
+
+"That's as people think," said Mary pertly, for she remembered that the
+very morning before, when on her way to her dressmaking work, she had
+met Mr. Harry Carson, who had sighed, and sworn and protested all manner
+of tender vows. Mr. Harry Carson was the son and the idol of old Mr.
+Carson, the wealthy mill-owner. Jem Wilson, her old playmate, and the
+son of her father's, closest friend, although he had earned a position
+of trust at the foundry where he worked, was but a mechanic after all!
+Mary was ambitious; she knew that she had beauty; she believed that when
+young Mr. Carson declared he meant to marry her he spoke the truth.
+
+It so happened that Jem, after much anxious thought, had determined that
+day to "put his fortune to the touch." Just after John Barton had gone
+out, Jem appeared at the door, looking more awkward and abashed than he
+had ever done before.
+
+He thought he had better begin at once.
+
+"Mary, it's no new story I'm going to speak about. Since we were boy and
+girl I ha' loved you above father and mother and all. And now, Mary, I'm
+foreman at the works, and I've a home to offer you, and a heart as true
+as ever man had to love you and cherish you. Darling, say that you'll be
+mine."
+
+Mary could not speak at once.
+
+"Mary, they say, silence gives consent," he whispered.
+
+"No, not with me! I can never be your wife."
+
+"Oh, Mary, think awhile!" he urged.
+
+"Jem, it cannot be," she said calmly, although she trembled from head to
+foot. "Once for all, I will never marry you."
+
+"And this is the end!" he cried passionately. "Mary, you'll hear, maybe,
+of me as a drunkard, and maybe as a thief, and maybe as a murderer.
+Remember! it's your cruelty that will have made me what I feel I shall
+become."
+
+He rushed out of the house.
+
+When he had gone, Mary lay half across the dresser, her head hidden in
+her hands, and her body shaken with violent sobs. For these few minutes
+had unveiled her heart to her; it had convinced her that she loved Jem
+above all persons or things. What were the wealth and prosperity that
+Mr. Harry Carson might bring to her now that she had suddenly discovered
+the passionate secret of her soul?
+
+Her first duty, she saw, was to reject the advances of her rich lover.
+She avoided him as far as possible, and slighted him when he forced his
+presence upon her. And how was she to redress the wrong she had done to
+Jem in denying him her heart? She took counsel with her friend,
+Margaret Legh. When Mary had first known Margaret and her grandfather,
+Job Legh--an old man who belonged to the class of Manchester workmen who
+are warm and devoted followers of science, a man whose home was like a
+wizard's dwelling, filled with impaled insects and books and
+instruments--Margaret had a secret fear of blindness. The fear had since
+been realised, but she remained the quiet, sensible, tender-hearted girl
+she had been before her great deprivation. She opposed Mary's notion of
+writing a letter to Jem.
+
+"You must just wait and be patient," she advised; "being patient is the
+hardest work we have to do through life, I take it. Waiting is far more
+difficult than doing; but it's one of God's lessons we must learn, one
+way or another."
+
+So Mary waited. But Jem took his disappointment as final, and her hopes
+of seeing him were always baffled.
+
+John Barton, on the night of Jem's proposal, had gone to his union. The
+members of the union were all desperate men, ready for anything; made
+ready by want. Barton himself was out of work. He had seen much of the
+bitterness of poverty in Manchester; now he was feeling the pinch of it
+himself.
+
+Ever since the death of his wife, whose end had been hastened by the
+sudden and complete disappearance of her darling sister Esther, the wan
+colourlessness of his face had been intensified; his stern enthusiasm,
+once latent, had become visible; his heart, tenderer than ever towards
+the victims of the misery around him, grew harder towards the employers,
+whom he believed to be the cause of that misery. Trade grew worse, but
+there was no sign that the masters were suffering; they still had their
+carriages and their comforts; the woe in these terrible years 1839,
+1840, and 1841 seemed to fall wholly upon the poor. It is impossible
+even faintly to picture the state of distress which prevailed in
+Manchester at that time. Whole families went through a gradual
+starvation; John Barton saw them starve, saw fathers and mothers and
+children die of low, putrid fever in foetid cellars, and cursed the rich
+men who never extended a helping hand to the sufferers.
+
+"Working folk won't be ground to the dust much longer," he declared.
+"We'n ha' had as much to bear as human nature can bear."
+
+Fiercer grew he, and more sullen. Darker and darker were the schemes he
+brooded over in his desolate home, or discussed with others at the
+meetings of the union. Even Mary did not escape his ill-temper. Once he
+struck her. And yet Mary was the one being on earth he devotedly loved.
+What would he have thought had he known that his daughter had listened
+to the voice of an employer's son? But he did not know.
+
+
+_II.--The Rivals_
+
+
+One night, as Jem was leaving the foundry, a woman laid her hand upon
+his arm. A momentary glance at the faded finery she wore told him the
+class to which she belonged, and he made an effort to pass on. But she
+grasped him firmly.
+
+"You must listen to me, Jem Wilson," she said, "for Mary Barton's sake."
+
+"And who can you be to know Mary Barton?" he exclaimed.
+
+"Do you remember Esther, Mary's aunt?"
+
+'"Yes, I mind her well." He looked into her face. "Why, Esther! Where
+have ye been this many a year?"
+
+She answered with fierce earnestness, "Where have I been? What have I
+been doing? Can you not guess? See after Mary, and take care she does
+not become like me. As she is loving now, so did I love once--one above
+me, far."
+
+Jem cut her short with his hoarse, stern inquiry, "Who is this spark
+that Mary loves?"
+
+"It's old Carson's son." Then, after a pause, she continued, "Oh, Jem, I
+charge you with the care of her! Her father won't listen to me." She
+cried a little at the recollection of John Barton's harsh words when she
+had timidly tried to approach him. "It would be better for her to die
+than to live to lead such a life as I do!"
+
+"It would be better," said Jem, as if thinking aloud. Then he went on.
+"Esther, you may trust to my doing all I can for Mary. And now, listen.
+Come home with me. Come to my mother."
+
+"God bless you, Jem!" she replied. "But it is too late now--too late!"
+
+She rapidly turned away. Jem felt that the great thing was to reach home
+and solitude. His heart was filled with jealous anguish. Mary loved
+another! She was lost to him for evermore. A frenzied longing for blood
+entered his mind as he brooded that night over his loss. But at last the
+thought of duty brought peace to his soul. If Carson loved Mary, Carson
+must marry her. It was Jem's part to speak straightforwardly to Carson,
+to be unto Mary as a brother.
+
+Four days later his opportunity came. He met Carson in an unfrequented
+lane.
+
+"May I speak a word wi' you, sir?" said Jem respectfully.
+
+"Certainly, my good man," replied Harry Carson.
+
+"I think, sir, you're keeping company wi' Mary Barton?"
+
+"Mary Barton! Ay, that is her name. An arrant flirt the little hussy is,
+but very pretty."
+
+"I will tell you in plain words," said Jem, angered, "what I have got to
+say to you. I'm an old friend of Mary's and her father's, and I want to
+know if you mean fair by Mary or not."
+
+"You will have the kindness to leave us to ourselves," answered Carson
+contemptuously. "No one shall interfere between my little girl and me.
+Get out of my way! Won't you? Then I'll make you!"
+
+He raised his cane, and smote the mechanic on his face. An instant
+afterwards he lay stretched in the muddy road, Jem standing over him,
+panting with rage. Just then a policeman, who had been watching them
+unobserved, interfered with expostulations and warnings.
+
+"If you dare to injure her," shouted Jem, as he was dragged away, "I
+will wait you where no policeman can step in between. And God shall
+judge between us two!"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The mill-workers had struck against low wages. Five haggard, earnest-
+looking men had presented the workpeople's demands to the assembled
+mill-owners, and the demands had been rejected. None had been fiercer in
+opposing the delegates, none more bitter in mockery of their rags and
+leanness, than the son of old Mr. Carson.
+
+That evening, starved, irritated, despairing men gathered to hear the
+delegates tell of their failure.
+
+"It's the masters as has wrought this woe," said John Barton in a low
+voice. "It's the masters as should pay for it. Set me to serve out the
+masters, and see if there's aught I'll stick at!"
+
+Deeper and darker grew the import of the speeches as the men stood
+hoarsely muttering their meaning out with set teeth and livid looks.
+After a fierce and terrible oath had been sworn, a number of pieces of
+paper, one of them marked, were shuffled in a hat. The gas was
+extinguished; each drew a paper. The gas was re-lighted. Each examined
+his paper, with a countenance as immovable as he could make it. Then
+they went every one his own way.
+
+He who had drawn the marked paper had drawn the lot of the assassin. And
+no one, save God and his own conscience, knew who was the appointed
+murderer.
+
+
+_III.--Murder_
+
+
+Two nights later, Barton was to leave for Glasgow, whither he was to
+travel as delegate to entreat assistance for the strikers. "What could
+be the matter with him?" thought Mary. He was so restless; he seemed so
+fierce, too.
+
+Presently he rose, and in a short, cold manner bade her farewell. She
+stood at the door, looking after him, her eyes blinded with tears. He
+was so strange, so cold, so hard. Suddenly he came back, and took her in
+his arms.
+
+"God in heaven bless thee, Mary!"
+
+She threw her arms round his neck. He kissed her, unlaced her soft,
+twining arms, and set off on his errand.
+
+When Mary reached the dressmaker's next morning, she noticed that the
+girls stopped talking. They eyed her! then they began to whisper. At
+last one of them asked her if she had heard the news.
+
+"No! What news?" she answered.
+
+"Have you not heard that young Mr. Carson was murdered last night?"
+
+Mary could not speak, but no one who looked at her pale and
+terror-stricken face could have doubted that she had not heard before of
+the fearful occurrence.
+
+She felt throughout the day as if the haunting horror were a nightmare
+from which awakening would relieve her. Everybody was full of the one
+subject.
+
+In the evening she went to Mrs. Wilson's, hoping that at last she might
+see Jem. But here a new and terrible shock awaited her.
+
+Mrs. Wilson turned fiercely upon her.
+
+"And is it thee that dares set foot in this house, after what has come
+to pass? Dost thou know where my son is, all through thee?"
+
+"No," quivered out poor Mary.
+
+"He's lying in prison, waiting to take his trial for murdering young Mr.
+Carson."
+
+So, indeed, it was. At the inquest the policeman who had witnessed the
+quarrel between the rivals testified to the threats uttered by Jem; and
+the gun used by the murderer, and thrown away by him in his haste to
+escape, had been proved to be Jem's property.
+
+Jem an assassin, and because of her! In the agony of that night Mary saw
+the gallows standing black against the burning light which dazzled her
+shut eyes, press on them as she would. She thought she was going mad;
+then Heaven blessed her unawares, and she sank to sleep.
+
+She was awakened by the coming of a visitor. It was her long-lost,
+unrecognised aunt Esther, who had come to her niece bringing her a
+little piece of paper compressed into a round shape. It was the paper
+that had served as wadding for the murderer's gun. Esther had picked it
+up while wandering in curiosity about the scene of the murder. There was
+writing on the paper, and she had brought it to Mary, fearing that if it
+fell into the hands of the police it would provide more evidence against
+Jem.
+
+The paper told Mary everything. It had belonged to John Barton. Jem was
+innocent, and her own father was the murderer! Jem must be saved, and
+she must do it; for was she not the sole repository of the terrible
+secret? And how could she prove Jem's innocence without admitting her
+father's guilt?
+
+When she could think calmly, she realised that she must discover where
+Jem had been on the Thursday night when the murder had been committed.
+Tremblingly she went to Mrs. Wilson, and learnt what she wanted to know.
+Jem had walked towards Liverpool with his cousin Will, a sailor who had
+spent all his money in Manchester, and could not afford railway-fare.
+Will's ship was to sail on Tuesday, and on Tuesday Jem was to be tried
+at the Liverpool assizes.
+
+Job Legh engaged a lawyer to defend Jem, and Mary prepared to go to
+Liverpool to find the one man whose evidence could save her lover. Ere
+she left, a policeman brought her a bit of parchment. Her heart misgave
+her as she took it; she guessed its purport. It was a summons to bear
+witness against Jem Wilson at the assizes.
+
+
+_IV.--"Not Guilty_"
+
+
+Arrived at Liverpool on Monday, after the bewilderment of a railway
+journey--the first she had ever made--Mary found her way to the little
+court, not far from the docks, were Jem's sailor cousin lodged.
+
+"Is Will Wilson here?" she asked the landlady.
+
+"No, he is not," replied the woman, curtly.
+
+"Tell me--where he is?" asked Mary, sickening.
+
+"He's gone this very morning, my poor dear," answered the landlady,
+relenting at the sight of Mary's obvious distress. "He's sailed, my
+dear--sailed in the John Cropper this very blessed morning!"
+
+Mary staggered into the house, stricken into hopelessness. Yet hope was
+not dead. The landlady's son told her that the John Cropper would be
+waiting for high-water to cross the sandbanks at the river's mouth, and
+that there was a chance that a sailing-boat might overtake the vessel.
+
+Mary hurried down to the docks, spent every penny she had in hiring a
+boat, and presently was tossing on the water for the first time in her
+life, alone with two rough men.
+
+The boatmen hailed the John Cropper just as the crew were heaving
+anchor, and told their errand. The captain refused with a dreadful oath
+to stop his ship for anyone, whoever swung for it. But Will Wilson,
+standing at the stern, shouted through his hands, "So help me God, Mary
+Barton, I'll come back in the pilot-boat time enough to save his life!"
+
+As the ship receded in the distance, Mary asked anxiously when the
+pilot-boat would be back. The boatmen did not know; it might be twelve
+hours, it might be two days. A chance yet remained, but she could no
+longer hope. When she reached the landing-place, faint and penniless,
+one of the boatmen took her to his home, and there she sat sleeplessly
+awaiting the dawn of the day of trial.
+
+When she entered the witness-box next day, the whole court reeled before
+her, save two figures only--that of the judge and that of the prisoner.
+Jem sat silent--he had held his peace ever since his arrest--with his
+face bowed on his hands.
+
+Mary answered a few questions with a sort of wonder at the reality of
+the terrible circumstances in which she was placed.
+
+"And pray, may I ask, which was the favoured lover?" went on the
+barrister.
+
+A look of indignation for an instant contracted Mary's brow. She was
+aware that Jem had raised his head and was gazing at her. Turning
+towards the judge, she said steadily, "Perhaps I liked Mr. Harry Carson
+once; but I loved James Wilson beyond what tongue can tell. When he
+asked me to marry him, I was very hard in my answer; but he'd not been
+gone out of my sight above a minute before I knew I loved him--far above
+my life."
+
+After these words the prisoner's head was no longer bowed. He stood
+erect and firm, with self-respect in his attitude; yet he seemed lost in
+thought.
+
+But Will Wilson did not come, and the evidence against Jem grew stronger
+and stronger. Mary was flushed and anxious, muttering to herself in a
+wild, restless manner. Job Legh heard her repeat again and again, "I
+must not go mad; I must not!"
+
+Suddenly she threw up her arms and shrieked aloud: "Oh, Jem! Jem! You're
+saved! and I am mad!" and was carried out of court stiff and convulsed.
+And as they bore her off, a sailor forced his way over rails and seats,
+through turnkeys and policemen. Will Wilson had come in time.
+
+He told his tale clearly and distinctly; the efforts of the prosecution
+to shake him were useless. "Not guilty" was the verdict that thrilled
+through the breathless court. One man sank back in his seat in sickening
+despair. The vengeance that old Mr. Carson had longed to compass for the
+murder of his beloved boy was thwarted; he had been cheated of the
+desire that now ruled his life--the desire of blood for blood.
+
+
+_V.--"Forgive Us Our Trespasses_"
+
+
+For many days Mary hovered between life and death, and it was long ere
+she could make the journey back to Manchester under the tender care of
+the man who now knew she loved him. Not until she had recovered did he
+tell her that he had lost his situation at the foundry--the men refused
+to work under one who had been tried for murder--and that he was looking
+for work elsewhere.
+
+"Mary," he asked, "art thou much bound to Manchester? Would it grieve
+thee sore to quit the old smoke-jack?"
+
+"With thee?" was her quiet response.
+
+"I've heard fine things of Canada. Thou knowest where Canada is, Mary?"
+
+"Not rightly--but with thee, Jem"--her voice sank to a
+whisper--"anywhere." Then, after a pause, she added, "But father!"
+
+John Barton was smitten, helpless, very near to death. His face was sunk
+and worn--like a skull, with yet a suffering expression that skulls have
+not! Crime and all had been forgotten by his daughter when she saw him;
+fondly did she serve him in every way that heart could devise.
+
+Jem had known from the first that Barton was the murderer of Harry
+Carson. Several days before the murder Barton had borrowed Jem's gun,
+and Jem had seen the truth at the moment of his arrest. When Mary came
+to tell him that her father wished to speak to him, Jem could not guess
+what was before him, and did not try to guess.
+
+When they entered the room, Mary saw all at a glance. Her father stood
+holding on to a chair as if for support. Behind him sat Job Legh,
+listening; before him stood the stern figure of Mr. Carson.
+
+"Don't dare to think that I shall be merciful; you shall be
+hanged--hanged--man!" said Mr. Carson, with slow, emphasis.
+
+"I've had far, far worse misery than hanging!" cried Barton. "Sir, one
+word! My hairs are grey with suffering."
+
+"And have I had no suffering?" interrupted Mr. Carson. "Is not my boy
+gone--killed--out of my sight for ever? He was my sunshine, and now it
+is night! Oh, my God! comfort me, comfort me!" cried the old man aloud.
+
+Barton lay across the table broken-hearted. "God knows I didn't know
+what I was doing," he whispered. "Oh, sir," he said wildly, "say you
+forgive me?"
+
+"Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive them that trespass against us,"
+said Job solemnly.
+
+Mr. Carson took his hands from his face.
+
+"Let my trespasses be unforgiven, so that I may have vengeance for my
+son's murder."
+
+John Barton lay on the ground as one dead.
+
+When Mr. Carson had left the house, he leant against a railing to steady
+himself, for he was dizzy with agitation. He looked up to the calm,
+majestic depths of the heavens, and by-and-by the last words he had
+spoken returned upon him, as if they were being echoed through all that
+infinite space in tones of unutterable sorrow. He went homewards; not to
+the police-office. All night long, the archangel combated with the demon
+in his soul.
+
+All night long, others watched by the bed of death. As morning dawned,
+Barton grew worse; his breathing seemed almost stopped. Jem had gone to
+the druggist's, and Mary cried out for assistance to raise her father.
+
+A step, which was not Jem's, came up the stairs. Mr. Carson stood in the
+doorway. He raised up the powerless frame, and the departing soul looked
+out of the eyes with gratitude.
+
+"Pray for us!" cried Mary, sinking on her knees.
+
+"God be merciful to us sinners," was Mr. Carson's prayer. "Forgive us
+our trespasses as we forgive them that trespass against us."
+
+And when the words were said, John Barton lay a corpse in Mr. Carson's
+arms.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+At the door of a long, low wooden house stands Mary, watching the return
+of her husband from his work.
+
+Her baby boy, in his grandmother's arms, sees him come with a crow of
+delight.
+
+"English letters!" cries Jem. "Guess the good news!"
+
+"Oh, tell me!" says Mary.
+
+"Margaret has recovered her sight. She and Will are to be married, and
+he's bringing her out here to Canada; and Job Legh talks of coming,
+too--not to see you, Mary, but to try and pick up a few specimens of
+Canadian insects."
+
+"Dear Job Legh!" said Mary, softly.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+WILLIAM GODWIN
+
+
+Caleb Williams
+
+
+     William Godwin, the son of a dissenting parson, was a man of
+     remarkable gifts and the father of the poet Shelley's second
+     wife, Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley (see Vol. VII). Born at
+     Wisbeach, England, March 3, 1756, he served for five years,
+     1778-83, as a Nonconformist minister, and then going to
+     London, joined the leading Whig circle of the day, and turned
+     his attention to political writings. His "Political Justice,"
+     though little read to-day, had a great number of readers and
+     considerable influence a hundred years ago. "Things as They
+     Are, or the Adventures of Caleb Williams," published in 1794,
+     has a philosophical significance, suggested by the falseness
+     of the common code of morality, which is apt to be overlooked
+     by many readers in the strong interest of the tale. It is one
+     of the few books of that period which may still be said to
+     live. It is quite the best of his novels. "It raised Godwin's
+     reputation to a pinnacle," according to contemporary
+     criticism, though some of his other novels, notably
+     "Fleetwood," have been preferred for their descriptive
+     writing. He was an exceedingly industrious writer; essays,
+     biography, political philosophy, and history all coming from
+     his pen; but in spite of this and of his many distinguished
+     friendships, Godwin was always in difficulties, which he bore
+     with the becoming grace of a philosopher. He died on April 7,
+     1836.
+
+
+_I.--Mr. Falkland's Secret_
+
+
+My life has for several years been a theatre of calamity. My fairest
+prospects have been blasted. My enemy has shown himself inaccessible to
+entreaties and untired in persecution. I was born of humble parents, in
+a remote county of England. Their occupations were such as usually fall
+to the lot of peasants, and they had no portion to give me. I was taught
+the rudiments of no science, except reading, writing, and arithmetic.
+But I had an inquisitive mind, and neglected no means of information
+from conversation or books.
+
+The residence of my parents was within the manor of Ferdinando Falkland,
+a country squire of considerable opulence. At an early age I attracted
+the favourable notice of Mr. Collins, this gentleman's steward, who used
+to call in occasionally at my father's.
+
+In the summer of the year----, Mr. Falkland visited his estate in our
+county after an absence of several months. This was a period of
+misfortune to me. I was then eighteen years of age. My father lay dead
+in our cottage, and I had lost my mother some years before. In this
+forlorn situation I received a message from the squire, ordering me to
+repair to the manor house.
+
+My reception was as gracious and encouraging as I could possibly desire.
+Mr. Falkland questioned me respecting my learning, and my conceptions of
+men and things, and listened to my answers with condescension and
+approbation. He then informed me that he was in want of a secretary, and
+that if I approved of the employment he would take me into his house.
+
+I felt highly flattered by the proposal, and found my employment--which
+included the duties of librarian as well as those of a secretary--easy
+and agreeable.
+
+Mr. Falkland's mode of living was in the utmost degree recluse and
+solitary. His features were scarcely ever relaxed in a smile, and the
+distemper which afflicted him with incessant gloom had its paroxysms.
+None of the domestics, except myself and Mr. Collins approached Mr.
+Falkland but at stated seasons and then only for a very short interval.
+
+Once after I had seen my patron in a strange fit of intolerable anguish,
+I could not help confiding in Mr. Collins that I feared Mr. Falkland had
+some secret trouble, and in answer to my communication Mr. Collins told
+me the story of Tyrrel's murder.
+
+Barnabas Tyrrel had been a neighbouring squire insupportably brutish and
+arrogant, tyrannical to his inferiors, and insolent to his equals. From
+the first he hated Falkland, whose dignity and courtesy were a constant
+rebuke to the other's boorish ill-humours, and rejected with scorn all
+proposals for civil intercourse.
+
+The crisis came when Tyrrel, who had been expelled from the rural
+assembly which met every week at the market-town, forced his way in. He
+was intoxicated, and at once attacked Falkland, knocking him down, and
+then kicking his prostrate enemy before anyone had time to interfere.
+
+To Mr. Falkland disgrace was worse than death. This complication of
+ignominy, base, humiliating, and public, stung him to the very soul, and
+filled his mind with horror and uproar. One other event closed that
+memorable evening. Mr. Tyrrel was found dead in the street, having been
+murdered a few yards from the assembly-house.
+
+From that day Falkland was a changed man. His cheerfulness and
+tranquillity gave way to gloomy and unsociable melancholy, and, filled
+with the ideas of chivalry, the humiliating and dishonourable situation
+in which he had been placed could never be forgotten. To add to his
+misfortunes, it was presently whispered that he was no other than the
+murderer of his antagonist, and even the magistrates at length decided
+that the matter must be investigated, and requested Falkland to appear
+before them.
+
+Mr. Falkland attended, and easily convinced the magistrates of his
+innocence, pointing out that his one desire was to have called out the
+man who had insulted him so horribly, and to have fought him to the
+death. He was not only acquitted, but a public demonstration of sympathy
+was arranged at once to show the esteem in which he was held.
+
+A few weeks, and the real murderer was discovered. This was a man named
+Hawkins, who, with his son, had been reduced from an honest livelihood
+to beggary and ruin by Tyrrel. On circumstantial evidence, Hawkins and
+his son were condemned and executed.
+
+This was the story Mr. Collins told me in order that I might understand
+Mr. Falkland's unhappy state. In reality it only added to my
+embarrassment.
+
+Was it possible, after all, that Mr. Falkland should be the murderer? It
+was but a passing thought, and yet what was the meaning of Mr.
+Falkland's agonies of mind? I could not accept Mr. Collins's view that
+Mr. Falkland was so much the slave and fool of honour that the shame of
+Tyrrel's savage assault alone had driven him to this melancholy and
+solitude, and compelled the violent outbursts of passion.
+
+
+_II.--I Learn the Secret_
+
+
+My suspicions would not be set at rest. No spark of malignity was
+harboured in my soul. I reverenced the sublime mind of Mr. Falkland, but
+I had a mistaken curiosity to find out the truth of Tyrrel's murder.
+Often it seemed that Mr. Falkland was about to speak to me, but the
+movement always ended in silence.
+
+At last one day he sent for me to his room, and after making me swear
+never to disclose his confidence, and warning me that he had observed my
+suspicions, told me that he was the murderer of Tyrrel and the assassin
+of the two Hawkins.
+
+"This it is to be a gentleman, a man of honour!" Falkland went on, in
+extreme distress. "My virtue, my honesty, my everlasting peace of mind,
+all sacrificed that I may preserve my good name. And I am as much the
+fool of fame as ever. Though I be the blackest of villains, I will leave
+behind me a spotless and illustrious name. Why is it that I am compelled
+to this confidence? From the love of fame. I had no alternative but to
+make you my confidant or my victim, and perhaps my next murder would not
+have been so fortunate. I do not want to shed more blood. It is better
+to trust you with the whole truth, under every seal of secrecy, than to
+live in perpetual fear of your penetration. But look what you have done
+with your foolishly inquisitive humour. You shall continue in my
+service, and I will benefit you in respect of fortune; but I shall
+always hate you. If ever an unguarded word escape from your lips, you
+may expect to pay for it with your death, or worse. By everything that
+is sacred, preserve your faith!"
+
+Such was the secret I had been so desirous to know.
+
+"It is a wretched prospect," I said to myself, "that he holds up to me.
+But I will never become an informer. I will never injure my patron; and
+therefore he will not be my enemy."
+
+It was no long time after this that Mr. Forester--Mr. Falkland's
+half-brother--came to stay in the house while his own residence was
+being got ready for him, and there being little in common between the
+two, Mr. Forester being of a peculiarly sociable disposition, our
+visitor chose to make me his companion. No sooner was this growing
+intimacy observed than Mr. Falkland warned me that it was not agreeable
+to him, and that he would not have it.
+
+"Young man, take warning!" he said to me one day when we were alone.
+"You little suspect the extent of my power. You might as well think of
+escaping from the power of the omnipresent God as from mine."
+
+My whole soul now revolted against the treatment I endured, and yet I
+could not utter a word. I resolved to quit Mr. Falkland's service, and
+when Mr. Forester had retired to his own house, I wrote a letter to Mr.
+Falkland to that effect.
+
+"You shall never quit it with your life," was his reply. "If you attempt
+it, you shall never cease to rue your folly as long as you exist. Do not
+imagine I am afraid of you! I wear an armour against which all your
+weapons are impotent. Do you not know, miserable wretch, that I have
+sworn to preserve my reputation, whatever it cost? I have dug a pit for
+you, and whichever way you move it is ready to swallow you."
+
+This speech was the dictate of frenzy, and it created in me a similar
+frenzy. It determined me to do the very thing against which I was thus
+solemnly warned, and fly from my patron's house.
+
+No sooner, however, had I set off, and travelled some miles, than a
+horseman overtook me, and handed me a letter from Mr. Forester. I opened
+the letter, and read as follows:
+
+"Williams:--My brother Falkland has sent the bearer in pursuit of you.
+He expects that, if found, you will return with him. I expect it, too.
+If you are a villain and a rascal, you will perhaps endeavour to fly; if
+your conscience tells you you are innocent, you will, out of all doubt,
+come back. If you come, I pledge myself that if you clear your
+reputation, you shall not only be free to go wherever you please, but
+shall receive every assistance in my power to give.
+
+"Valentine Forester."
+
+To a mind like mine, such a letter was enough to draw me from one end of
+the earth to the other. I could not recall anything out of which the
+shadow of a criminal accusation could be extorted, and I returned with
+willingness and impatience. I knew the stern inflexibility of Mr.
+Falkland's mind, but I also knew his virtuous and magnanimous
+principles. I could not believe my innocence could be confounded with
+guilt.
+
+
+_III.--My Persecutions and Sufferings_
+
+
+Mr. Falkland accused me of having stolen money and jewels from him, and
+when my boxes, which I had left behind, were opened, a watch and certain
+jewels were found in one of them.
+
+My amazement yielded to indignation and horror. I protested my innocence
+I declared that Mr. Falkland knew I was innocent, and that while I was
+wholly unable to account for the articles found in my possession, I
+firmly believed that their being there was of Mr. Falkland's
+contrivance.
+
+Mr. Falkland now expressed his willingness to proceed no further against
+me, and, since I had been brought to public shame, to let me depart
+wherever I pleased. I was unworthy of his resentment, he said, and he
+could afford to smile at my malice.
+
+Mr. Forester, however, said this was impossible, and, as a magistrate,
+he thereupon committed me to prison to await my trial. Not one of the
+servants who had been present at my examination expressed any compassion
+for me. The robbery appeared to them atrocious, and they were indignant
+at my recrimination on their excellent master.
+
+When I had been about a month in prison the assizes were held, but my
+case was not brought forward, and I was suffered to stand over six
+months longer.
+
+I noticed a change in my jailer's behaviour at this time. He offered to
+make better provision for my comfort, and as I had no doubt he was
+instigated by Mr. Falkland, I answered that he might tell his employer I
+would accept no favours from a man that held a halter about my neck.
+Then the idea of an escape occurred to me, and as I had some proficiency
+in carpentry, I decided to obtain tools by proposing to make some chairs
+for the jailer. My offer was accepted, and I gradually accumulated tools
+of various sorts--gimlets, chisels, etc.
+
+In the middle of the night, my plans being now thoroughly digested, I
+set about making my escape. I had to get the first door from its hinges,
+and though this was attended with considerable difficulty, I was
+successful. The second door being fastened on the inside, all I had to
+do was to push back the bolts and unscrew the box of the lock.
+
+Thus far I had proceeded with the happiest success; but close on the
+other side there was a kennel with a large mastiff dog, of which I had
+not the smallest previous knowledge. However, I managed to soothe the
+animal, and go to the wall. Before I had gained half the ascent, a voice
+at the garden door cried out, "Halloa! Who is there?" At this the dog
+began to bark violently, and a second man came out. Alarmed at my
+situation, I descended on the other side too quickly, and in my fall
+nearly dislocated my ankle.
+
+In the meantime, the two warders came through a door in the wall, of
+which I had not been aware, and were at the place where I had descended,
+in no time. The pain in my ankle was so intense that I could scarcely
+stand, and I suffered myself to be retaken.
+
+The condition in which I was now placed was totally different from that
+which had preceded this attempt. I was chained all day in my dungeon, my
+manual labors were at an end, my cell was searched every night, and
+every kind of tool carefully kept from me.
+
+Nevertheless, an active mind, which has once been forced into any
+particular train, can scarcely give it up as hopeless. One day I chanced
+to observe a nail trodden into the mud floor at no great distance from
+me. I seized upon this new treasure, and found that I could unlock with
+it the padlock that fastened me to the staple in the floor. By this
+means I had the pitiful consolation of being able to range, without
+constraint, the miserable coop in which I was confined. It became my
+constant practice to liberate myself at night; but security breeds
+negligence. One morning I overslept myself, and the turnkey, to his
+surprise, found me disengaged.
+
+Again my apartment was changed. I was now put in the strong-room, an
+underground dungeon, and handcuffs were added to my fetters.
+
+It was at this time that Thomas, Mr. Falkland's footman, and an old
+acquaintance of mine, visited me. He was of the better order of
+servants, and my condition shocked him. He returned again in the
+afternoon.
+
+"Well, Master Williams," he said, "you have been very wicked, to be
+sure, and I thought it would have done me good to see you hanged. I know
+I am doing wrong; but if they hang me, too, I cannot help it. For
+Christ's sake, get out of this place; I cannot bear the thought of it."
+
+With that, he slipped into my hand a chisel, a file, and a saw. I
+received the implements with great joy, and thrust them into my bosom.
+
+I waited for bright moonlight; it was necessary that I should work in
+the night, and between nine and seven.
+
+It was ten o'clock when I first took off my handcuffs. I then filed
+through my fetters, and next performed the same service to the three
+iron bars that secured my window. All this was the work of more than two
+hours. But, even with the bars removed, the space was by no means wide
+enough to admit the passing of my body. Therefore, I had to loosen the
+brickwork, and this I did partly with the chisel, and partly with one of
+the iron bars. When the space was sufficient for my purpose, I crept
+through the opening and stepped upon a shed outside.
+
+The prison wall, which now had to be scaled, was of considerable height,
+and there was no resource for me but that of making a breach in its
+lower part. For six hours I worked at this with incredible labour, and
+at last I had made a passage. But the day was breaking, and in ten
+minutes' time the keepers would probably enter my apartment and see the
+devastation I had left.
+
+I decided to avoid the town as much as possible, and depended upon the
+open country for protection; and so I passed along the lane beyond the
+wall.
+
+I was free of my prison, but I was destitute, and had not a shilling in
+the world.
+
+
+_IV.--The Doom of Falkland_
+
+
+Mr. Falkland's implacable animosity pursued me beyond the prison. A
+hundred guineas was at once offered for my recapture, and though I
+evaded arrest for some months, a man named Gines, who had at one time
+been a member of a gang of robbers, undertook to lay hold of me, and
+tracked me to my place of hiding in London. By this time the hawkers
+were actually selling papers in the streets containing "The most
+Wonderful and Surprising History and Miraculous Adventures of Caleb
+Williams," for a halfpenny, and I had the temerity to purchase one. In
+this I was informed how I, Caleb Williams, "first robbed, and then
+brought false accusations against my master"; how I attempted at divers
+times to break out of prison, and at last succeeded "in the most
+wonderful and incredible manner"; and how I had travelled the kingdom in
+disguise, and was now lying concealed in London, with a hundred guineas
+reward for my discovery.
+
+It seemed then that there was no end to my persecution, and I thought of
+death as my only release. That very night the landlord of my humble
+lodgings brought Gines to the house, and gave me up to the authorities.
+
+And now the result of all my labour to get out of prison and evade my
+pursuers had brought me back to my starting-place! Never was a human
+creature so hunted by enemies. What hope was there they would ever cease
+their persecution.
+
+My long-cherished reverence for Mr. Falkland was changed to something
+like abhorrence. I determined to bring the real criminal to justice.
+
+Accordingly, when I was taken before the magistrates at Bow Street, I
+declared that Mr. Falkland was a murderer, and that I was entirely
+innocent.
+
+But the magistrates simply told me they had nothing to do with such
+statements, and that I seemed a most impudent rascal to trump up such
+things against my master.
+
+I was conducted back to the very prison from which I had escaped, and my
+situation seemed more irremediable than ever. How great, therefore, was
+my astonishment, at the assizes when my case was called, to find neither
+Mr. Falkland, nor Mr. Forester, nor any individual to appear against me.
+I, who had come to the bar with the sentence of death already ringing in
+my ears, to be told I was free to go whithersoever I pleased!
+
+I was not, however, yet free of Mr. Falkland. I was kidnapped by Gines
+and an accomplice, and carried to an inn, and here Mr. Falkland
+commanded me to sign a paper declaring that the charge I had alleged
+against him at Bow Street was false, malicious, and groundless. On my
+refusal, he told me that he would exercise a power that should grind me
+to atoms.
+
+The impression of that memorable meeting on my understanding is
+indelible. The deathlike weakness and decay of Mr. Falkland, his misery
+and rage, his haggard, emaciated, and fleshless visage, are still before
+me.
+
+There was to be no peace or happiness for me. Wherever I went, sooner or
+later, Gines found me, and any new acquaintances turned from me with
+loathing after they had read the handbills containing my "Wonderful and
+Surprising History." This man followed me from place to place, blasting
+my reputation.
+
+I now formed my resolution and carried it into execution. At all costs I
+would free myself from this overpowering tyranny.
+
+I set out for the chief town of the county in which Mr. Falkland lived,
+and there laid a formal charge of murder before the principal
+magistrate.
+
+After an interval of three days, I met Mr. Falkland in the presence of
+the magistrate. It was now the appearance of a ghost before me. He was
+brought in in a chair, unable to stand, fatigued and almost destroyed by
+the journey he had just taken.
+
+Until that moment my breast was steeled to pity; it was now too late to
+draw back.
+
+I told my story plainly, declared the nobility of Mr. Falkland's
+character, and admitted that my own proceedings now seemed to me a
+dreadful mistake.
+
+When I had finished, Mr. Falkland rose from his seat, and, to my
+infinite astonishment, threw himself into my arms.
+
+"Williams," said he, "you have conquered. All that I most ardently
+desired is for ever frustrated. I have spent a life of the basest
+cruelty to cover one act of momentary passion. And now"--turning to the
+magistrate--"do with me as you please. I am prepared to suffer all the
+vengeance of the law."
+
+He survived this dreadful scene but three days, and I feel, and always
+shall feel, that I have been his murderer. I began these memoirs to
+vindicate my character. I have now no character that I wish to
+vindicate.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+JOHANN WOLFGANG VON GOETHE
+
+
+The Sorrows of Young Werther
+
+
+     Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, the greatest of German poets, and
+     one of the most highly gifted men of the eighteenth century,
+     was born in 1749 at Frankfort-on-the-Main. He received his
+     early education from his father, who was an imperial
+     councillor, and in the year 1765 he went to the University of
+     Leipzig. Goethe's first great work was "Goetz von
+     Berlichingen" (see Vol. XVII). which was translated into
+     English by Sir Walter Scott. "The Sorrows of Young Werther"
+     ("Die Leiden des jungen Werthers") was begun in 1772, when
+     Goethe was twenty-three years old, and was published
+     anonymously two years later. It immediately created an immense
+     sensation, made a round of the world, and was everywhere
+     either enthusiastically praised or severely condemned. It
+     became the fashion of young men to dress themselves in blue
+     coats and yellow breeches in imitation of the hero, and many
+     of them were moved to follow Werther's example as the simplest
+     way of settling their love affairs. Nevertheless, "Werther"
+     formed the real basis of Goethe's fame. It was the first
+     revelation to the world of the genius, which, a quarter of a
+     century later, was to give it "Faust" (Vol. XVI). The story is
+     frankly sentimental, but as such it is easily the best of the
+     sentimental novels of the eighteenth century. When, many years
+     later, Goethe was invited to an audience with Napoleon, the
+     emperor volunteered the information that he had read "Werther"
+     through six times. Goethe died in March, 1832, in his
+     eighty-fourth year.
+
+
+_I.--"I Have Found an Angel"_
+
+
+_May 4_. What a strange thing is the heart of man. To leave my dearest
+friend, and yet to feel happy! I know you will forgive me, and I in
+return will promise that I will no longer worry myself over every petty
+stab of fortune. Poor Leonora! And yet I was not to blame. Was I in
+fault that, while I was pleasantly entertained by the charms of her
+sister, her feeble heart conceived a passion for me? And yet I am not
+wholly blameless. Did I not encourage her emotion? Did I not--but what
+is man that he dares so to accuse himself? Beyond doubt, the sufferings
+of mankind would be far less did they but endure the present with
+equanimity, instead of raking up the past for memories of sorrow.
+
+A wonderful calm has come over me; I am alone, and feel that a spot like
+this was created for the happiness of souls like mine. You ask if you
+shall send me books; I pray you spare me. My heart craves for no
+excitement; I need strains to soothe me, and I find them to perfection
+in my Homer.
+
+_May 17_. I have formed many acquaintances, but as yet have found no
+friends. If you inquire what sort of people are here, I answer "the same
+as everywhere." The human race is a monotonous affair. The majority
+labours nearly all its time for mere subsistence, and is then so
+distressed to have a small portion of freedom still unemployed that it
+exerts even greater efforts to get rid of it.
+
+I have just become acquainted with a very worthy person, the district
+judge. They tell me how charming it is to see him in the midst of his
+family of nine. His eldest daughter is much spoken of. He has invited me
+to go and see him.
+
+_June 16_. Why do I not write to you? You should have guessed that I was
+pre-occupied; that, in a word, that I have made a friend who has won my
+heart. I have found--I know not what. An angel? Nonsense! Everyone so
+describes his mistress. And yet I cannot tell you how perfect she is, or
+why so perfect. Between ourselves, I have been three times on the point
+of throwing down my pen, ordering my horse, and riding out. And yet this
+morning I determined not to ride to-day; and I keep running to the
+window to see how high the sun is.
+
+I could not restrain myself; go to her I must. I have just returned,
+Wilhelm, and while I eat my supper I will write to you. I had already
+made the acquaintance of her aunt, the judge's sister, and with her I
+was going to accompany Charlotte to a ball given by some young people in
+the neighbourhood. While we were on our way to fetch her, my companion
+was loud in her praises of her niece's beauty and charm. "Take care,
+however," she added, "that you do not lose your heart." "Why?" I asked.
+"Because she is already betrothed to a most excellent man."
+
+As the door opened, I saw before me the most charming sight that I have
+ever beheld. Six children, of various ages, were running about the hall
+and surrounding a lady of medium height, with a lovely figure, dressed
+in a robe of simple white, trimmed with pink ribbons. She held a loaf of
+brown bread, and was cutting slices for the little ones all round. She
+apologised for not being quite ready, explaining that household duties
+had made her forget the children's supper, which they always preferred
+to take from her. I uttered some unmeaning compliment, but my whole soul
+was absorbed by her air, her voice, her manner. You who know me can
+imagine how I gazed upon her rich, dark eyes; how my soul gloated over
+her warm lips and fresh glowing cheeks.
+
+Never did I dance more lightly; I felt myself more than mortal, holding
+this loveliest of creatures in my arms, flying with her as rapidly as
+the wind, till I lost sight of every other object. And, oh, Wilhelm, I
+vowed at that moment that no maiden whom I loved should ever waltz with
+another than myself, if I went to perdition for it.
+
+Returning from the ball, there was a most magnificent sunrise. Our
+companions were asleep. Charlotte asked me if I did not wish to sleep
+too, and begged me not to stand on ceremony. Looking deep into her eyes,
+I answered, "As long as those eyes remain open, there is no fear for
+mine." We continued awake until we reached her door. I left her, asking
+her permission to call in the course of the day. She consented, and I
+went Since then, sun, moon, and stars may pursue their course; I know
+not whether it is day or night; the whole world is nothing to me.
+
+_June 21_. My days are as happy as those reserved by God for His elect,
+and whatever be my fate hereafter, I can never say that I have not
+tasted joy--the purest joy of life. Little did I think when I selected
+this spot for my home that all heaven lay within half a league of it.
+
+How childish is man. To be disturbed about a mere look. We had been to
+Walheim, but during our walk I thought I saw in Charlotte's eyes--I am a
+fool, but forgive me. You should see her eyes. However, to be brief, as
+the ladies were preparing to drive away I watched her eyes; they
+wandered from one to another, but they did not alight on me--on me who
+saw nothing but her. She noticed me not. The carriage drove off, and my
+eyes filled with tears. Suddenly I saw Charlotte's bonnet leaning out of
+the window, and she turned to look back--was it at me? I know not, and
+in uncertainty is my consolation. Perhaps she turned to look at me.
+Perhaps. Good-night. What a child I am!
+
+_July 10_. Someone asked me the other day how I like her. How I _like_
+her! What sort of creature must he be who merely likes Charlotte? Whose
+entire being were not absolutely filled with her? Like her! One might as
+well ask if I like Ossian.
+
+_July 13_. No, I am not deceived. In her dark eyes I read a real
+interest in me. Yes, I feel it, and I believe my own heart which tells
+me--dare I say it?--that she loves me. How the idea exalts me in my own
+eyes. And as you can understand my feelings, I may say to you, how I
+honour myself because she loves me.
+
+I do not know a man able to take my place in her heart; yet when she
+speaks of Albert with so much warmth and affection, I feel like a
+soldier who has been stripped of all his honours. Sometimes when we are
+talking, in the eagerness of conversation she comes closer to me, and
+her balmy breath reaches my lips, I feel that I could sink into the
+earth for very joy. And yet, Wilhelm, if I know myself, and should ever
+dare--you understand me--No, no; my heart is not so corrupt; it is weak,
+but is not that a degree of corruption?
+
+She is to me a sacred being; how her simplest song enchants me.
+Sometimes, when I am ready to commit suicide, she sings some favourite
+air, and instantly the gloom and madness are dispersed.
+
+_July 24_. Yes, dear Charlotte. I will arrange everything. Only give me
+more commissions; the more the better. One thing, however, I must
+request you--use no more writing-sand with the letters you send me!
+Today, I raised your letter to my lips, and it set my teeth on edge.
+
+
+_II.--Bereft of Comfort_
+
+
+_July 30_. Albert is arrived, and I must take my departure. Were he the
+best of men, and I absolutely beneath him, I could not endure to see him
+in possession of my perfect being. Enough! her betrothed is here. A fine
+fellow, whom I cannot help liking. And he is so considerate; he has not
+given Charlotte one kiss in my presence. Heaven reward him for it. He is
+free from ill-humour, which you know is the fault I detest most. I do
+not ask whether he may not now and then tease her with some little
+jealousies, as I know that in his place I should not be entirely free
+from such feelings.
+
+_August 8_. I am amazed to see from my diary, which I have somewhat
+neglected of late, how deliberately I have entangled myself, step by
+step. But even though I see the result plainly, I have no thought of
+acting with any greater prudence. And yet I feel that if only I knew
+where to go, I would abandon everything and fly from this place.
+
+And yet I feel that, if I were not a fool, I could enjoy life here most
+delightfully. Admitted into this charming family, loved by the father as
+a son, by his children as a second father, and by Charlotte!
+Furthermore, Albert welcomes me with the heartiest affection, and loves
+me, next to Charlotte, more than all the world.
+
+_August 21_. In vain do I stretch out my arms towards her when I wake in
+the morning. In vain do I seek for her when some innocent dream has
+happily deceived me, and placed me near her in the fields when I have
+seized her hand and covered it with kisses. Tears flow from my oppressed
+heart; and, bereft of all comfort, I weep over my future woes.
+
+_August 28_. This is my birthday, and early in the morning I received a
+packet from Albert. I found within one of the pink ribbons which
+Charlotte wore in her dress the first time I saw her, and which I had
+often asked her to give me. With it were two volumes of Wetstein's
+Homer, a book I had often wished for. How well they understood those
+little attentions of friendship, so superior to costly presents, unhappy
+being that I am. Why do I thus deceive myself? What is to be the outcome
+of all this wild, aimless, endless passion? I cannot pray except to her.
+Oh, Wilhelm, the hermit's cell, his sackcloth and girdle of thorns,
+would be luxury and indulgence compared with what I have to suffer.
+
+_October 20_. I have taken the plunge, and following your repeated
+advice, I have taken a post with the ambassador. We arrived here
+yesterday. If he were less peevish and morose all would be well. As it
+is, he occasions me continual annoyance; he is the most punctilious
+blockhead in the world. He does everything step by step, with the paltry
+fussiness of an old woman; and he is a man whom it is impossible to
+please, because he is never pleased with himself.
+
+_January 20_. I have but one being here to interest me, my dear
+Charlotte--a Miss B----. She resembles you, if indeed anyone can
+possibly resemble you. "Ah," you will say, "he has learnt to pay fine
+compliments." And this is partly true; I have been very agreeable
+lately, as it was not in my power to be otherwise. But I must tell you
+of Miss B----. She has abundance of soul, which flashes from her deep
+blue eyes. Her rank is a torment to her, and satisfies no single desire
+of her heart. She knows you, my dear Charlotte, as I have told her all
+about you, and renders homage to your merits; but her homage is not
+exacted, but voluntary--she loves you, and delights to hear you made the
+subject of conversation. Adieu! Is Albert with you, and what is he to
+you? Forgive the question.
+
+_February 20_. I thank you, Albert, for having deceived me. I waited for
+the news that your wedding-day was fixed, and I meant on that day to
+remove Charlotte's picture from the wall, and bury it with some old
+papers that I wish destroyed. You are now united, and the picture
+remains. Well, let it remain. Why should it not?
+
+
+_III.--"I Can Remain No Longer"_
+
+
+_June 11_. Say what you will, I can remain here no longer. Why should I
+remain? The prince is as gracious to me as anyone could be, and yet I am
+not at my ease. There is, indeed, nothing in common between us; he is a
+man of understanding, but quite of the ordinary kind. His conversation
+gives me no more amusement than I should derive from an ordinary
+well-written book. Whither am I going? I think it would be better for me
+to visit the mines in----. But I am only deluding myself thus. You know
+that I only want to be near my dear Charlotte once more. I smile at the
+suggestion of my heart, but I obey its dictates.
+
+_July 29_. Dear Wilhelm, my whole frame feels convulsed when I see
+Albert put his arms round that slender waist. Oh, the very thought of
+folding that dearest of heaven's creatures in one's arms.
+
+And--shall I avow it? Why should I not?--she would have been happier
+with me than with him. Albert is not the man to satisfy the wishes of
+such a heart. He wants a certain sensibility; he wants--in short, their
+hearts do not beat in unison. But, Wilhelm, he loves her with his whole
+heart, and what does not such a love deserve?
+
+_September 5_. Charlotte had written a letter to her husband in the
+country, where he was detained on business. It began: "My dearest love,
+return as soon as possible. I await you with a thousand raptures!"
+
+A friend who arrived brought word that he could not return immediately.
+Her letter fell into my hands. I read it, and smiled. She asked the
+reason. "What a heavenly treasure is imagination," I exclaimed. "I
+fancied for a moment that this was written to me." She paused, and
+seemed displeased. I was silent.
+
+_October 10_. Only to gaze into her dark eyes is to me a source of
+happiness. And what grieves me is that Albert does not seem so happy as
+he--as I--as he hoped to be--as I should have been--if--. I am no friend
+to these pauses, but here I cannot express myself otherwise; and
+probably I am explicit enough.
+
+_October 19_. Alas the void--the fearful void which I feel in my bosom!
+Sometimes I think, if I could only once press her to my heart, this
+dreadful void would be filled.
+
+_October 30_. A hundred times I have been on the point of embracing her.
+Heavens! what a torment it is to see so much loveliness passing and
+repassing before us, and yet not dare to touch it. And to touch is the
+most natural of human instincts. Do not children touch everything that
+they see?
+
+_November 8_. Charlotte reproves me for my excesses with so much
+tenderness and goodness. I have lately drunk more wine than usual.
+"Don't do it," she said; "think of Charlotte." "Think of you," I
+answered; "can such advice be necessary? Do I not ever think of you?"
+She immediately changed the subject to prevent me pursuing it further.
+My dear friend, my energies are all prostrated; she can do with me what
+she pleases. Yesterday, when I took leave, she seized me by the hand,
+and said, "Adieu, dear Werther!" It was the first time she had ever
+called me "dear." I have repeated it a hundred times.
+
+
+_IV.--"I am Resolved to Die"_
+
+
+_November 24_. She is sensible of my sufferings. This morning her look
+pierced my soul. I found her alone; she was silent, and only gazed
+steadfastly at me. Oh, who can express my emotions? I was quite
+overcome, and bending down, pronounced this vow to myself, "Beautiful
+lips, which angels guard, never will I seek to profane your purity with
+a kiss." And yet, oh, I wish--But, alas, my heart is darkened by doubt
+and indecision. Could I but taste felicity, and then die to expiate the
+sin. What sin?
+
+_December 21_. I am lost. My senses are bewildered, my recollection is
+confused, my eyes are bathed in tears. I am ill, and yet am well. I wish
+for nothing; I have no desires; it were better I were gone. I saw
+Charlotte to-day; she was busy preparing some little gifts for her
+brothers and sisters, to be given to them on Christmas Day. "You shall
+have a gift too," she said, "if you behave well." "And what do you call
+behaving well?" I asked. "What should I do; what can I do?" "Thursday
+night," she answered, "is Christmas Eve; the children are all to be
+here, and my father too; there is a present for each of them. Do you
+come likewise, but do not come before that time!"
+
+I started. She must have seen my emotion, for she continued, hastily "I
+desire that you will not. It must be so; I ask it of you as a favour,
+for my own peace and tranquillity. We cannot go on in this manner any
+longer!" It were idle to attempt to describe my emotions I was as if
+paralysed; it was as if the sun had suddenly gone out. When I
+recollected myself, Charlotte was trying to speak on some indifferent
+topic. "No, Charlotte," I explained, "I understand you perfectly. I will
+never see you again!"
+
+_December 22_. It is all over, Charlotte; I am resolved to die. I make
+this declaration deliberately and coolly, without any romantic passion,
+on the morning of the day when I am to see you for the last time. At the
+moment that you read these lines the cold grave will hold the remains of
+that restless and unhappy being who, in his last moments of existence,
+knew no pleasure so great as that of conversing with you.
+
+When I tore myself from you yesterday my senses were in tumult and
+disorder. I could scarcely reach my room. A thousand ideas floated
+through my mind. At last one fixed, final thought took possession of my
+heart. It was to die. Oh, beloved Charlotte, this heart, excited by rage
+and fury, has often conceived the horrid idea of murdering your
+husband--you--myself.
+
+What do they mean by saying that Albert is your husband? He may be so
+for this world, and in this world it is a sin to love you--to wish to
+tear you from his embrace. Yes, it is a crime, and I suffer the
+punishment--but I have enjoyed the full delight of my sin. I have
+inhaled a balm that has revived my soul; from this hour you are mine;
+yes, Charlotte, you are mine. I do not dream, I do not rave. Drawing
+nearer to the grave my perceptions become clearer. We shall exist; we
+shall see each other again.
+
+I wish to be buried in the dress I wear at present; it has been made
+sacred by your touch. How warmly I have loved you, Charlotte. Since the
+first hour I saw you, how impossible have I found it to leave you. This
+ribbon must be buried with me; it was a present from you on my birthday.
+How confused it all appears. Little did I think then that I should
+journey on this road. But peace, I pray you, peace.
+
+Both my pistols are loaded. The clock strikes twelve. I say Amen.
+Charlotte! Charlotte! Farewell! Farewell!
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+Wilhelm Meister's Apprenticeship
+
+
+     Goethe's prestige was enormously increased by the publication
+     in 1796 of "Wilhelm Meister's Apprenticeship" ("Wilhelm
+     Meisters Lehrjahre"). Representing the fruit of twenty years'
+     labour, it was, like "Faust," written in fragments during the
+     ripest period of his intellectual activity. The story of
+     "Wilhelm Meister" is by no means exciting, but, as a gallery
+     of portraits and repository of wise observation, it is more
+     characteristic of the genius of its author than any other of
+     his prose works. It is more mellow than "Werther," and the
+     action moves slower. Incident follows incident in a leisurely
+     fashion. The keen psychological analysis in the story is
+     assumed to have been derived from Goethe's own experience.
+     "Wilhelm Meister" was dramatised and produced at Leipzig a few
+     years ago, but with no marked success.
+
+
+_I.--On the Road_
+
+
+The moment was now at hand to which poor Mariana had been looking
+forward as to the last of her life. Wilhelm Meister, the man she loved,
+was departing on a long journey in connection with his father's
+business; a disagreeable lover was threatening to come.
+
+"I am miserable," she exclaimed, "miserable for life! I love him, and he
+loves me; yet I see that we must part, and know not how I shall survive
+it. Wilhelm is poor, and can do nothing for me--"
+
+Darkness had scarcely come on when Wilhelm glided forth to her house; he
+carried with him a letter in which he entreated her to marry him
+forthwith, saying that he would abandon his father's business, and earn
+his living on the stage, to which he had always been strongly drawn.
+This he could do with certainty, as he was well acquainted with Serlo,
+manager of a theatre in a town at some distance.
+
+His plan was to leave the letter with her, and return a little later for
+her answer. The vehemence of his emotion at first prevented him from
+noticing that she did not greet him with her wonted heartiness; she
+complained of a headache, and would not hear of his coming back later
+that evening. Suspecting nothing wrong, he ceased to urge her, but he
+felt that this was not the moment for delivering his letter. He retained
+it, therefore, and, in a tumult of insatiable love, as he tore himself
+away from her he snatched one of her neckerchiefs, and, after pressing
+it madly to his lips, crushed it into his pocket.
+
+His whole being was in a ferment of excitement as he walked aimlessly
+about the streets. Midnight found him again in the neighbourhood of
+Mariana's house; consciousness of the fact brought him to himself. He
+went slowly away, set himself for home, and constantly turned round
+again; at last, with an effort, he constrained himself, and actually
+departed. At the corner of the street, looking back yet once more, he
+imagined that he saw Mariana's door open, and a dark figure issue from
+it. He was too distant to see clearly, and in a moment the appearance
+was lost in the night.
+
+On his way, he had almost effaced the unexpected delusion from his mind
+by the most sufficient reasons. To soothe his heart, and put the last
+seal on his returning belief, ere he disrobed for the night, he took her
+kerchief from his pocket. The rustle of a letter which fell from it took
+the kerchief from his lips; he lifted it, and read a passionate letter
+from another man, railing at her for her coldness on the preceding
+night, making an appointment for that same night, and breathing a spirit
+of intimate familiarity.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+A violent fever, with its train of consequences, besides the unwearied
+attentions of his family, were so many fresh occupations for his mind,
+and formed a kind of painful entertainment. On his recovery, he
+determined to abandon for ever his former leaning towards the stage, and
+to apply himself with greater diligence to business, and, to the great
+contentment of his father, no one was now more diligent in the
+counting-house. For a long time he continued to show exemplary attention
+to his duties, and was then thought sufficiently master of his business
+to be sent on a long expedition on behalf of the firm.
+
+The first part of his business successfully accomplished, Wilhelm found
+himself at a little mountain town called Hochdorf. A troupe of actors
+had got stranded there, their exchequer empty, their properties seized
+as security for debts. Wilhelm recognised among them an old man whom he
+recollected as having seen on the stage with Mariana. After some
+hesitation, he hazarded a question concerning her. "Do not speak to me
+of that baggage!" cried the old man. "I am ashamed that I felt such a
+friendship for her. Yet, had you known the girl better, you would excuse
+me. I loved her as my own daughter; indeed, I had formed a resolution to
+take the creature into my own house, and save her from the hands of that
+old crone Barbara, her confidante; but my wife died, and so the project
+came to nothing. At the end of our stay in your native town, I noticed a
+visible sadness about her. I questioned her, but she evaded me. At last
+we set out on our journey. She travelled in the same coach with me, and
+I soon observed what she could not deny, that she was about to become a
+mother. In a short time the manager made the same discovery; he paid her
+off at once and left her behind at the village inn."
+
+Wilhelm's old wounds were all torn open afresh by the old man's story;
+the thought that perhaps Mariana was not wholly unworthy of his love was
+again brought to life. Nay, even the bitter accusations brought against
+her could not lower her in his estimation; for he, as well as she, was
+guilty in all her aberrations. He saw her as a frail, ill-succoured
+mother, wandering helplessly about the world.
+
+The old longing for the stage came back to him with redoubled force; he
+determined to give it vent, for a time at least, and to this end he
+advanced to Melina, the manager of the actors, a sum of money sufficient
+to redeem their properties, and accompanied the troupe until such time
+as it should be repaid.
+
+A profitable engagement soon came their way. A wealthy count, who
+happened to pass through the town, required their services to entertain
+the prince, whom he was shortly expecting as a guest. For several weeks
+they stayed at his castle, and when, on the prince's departure, their
+engagement came to an end, they were all weightier in purse than they
+had been for many a long day. Melina was now in hopes to get established
+with his company in a thriving town at some distance. To get there it
+was necessary to take a considerable journey by unfrequented roads.
+
+Accordingly, conveyances were hired, and a start was made. Towards
+evening, they began to pitch their camp in the midst of a beech wood;
+all were busily engaged about the task allotted to each--the women to
+prepare the evening meal, the men to attend to everything necessary for
+their comfort for the night. All at once, a shot went off; immediately
+another; the party flew asunder in terror. Next moment armed men were to
+be seen pressing forward to the spot where the coaches, packed with
+luggage, stood.
+
+The men all rushed at the intruders. Wilhelm fired his pistol at one who
+was already on the top of the coach cutting the cords of the packages.
+The scoundrel fell, but several of his friends rushed to his aid; our
+hero fell, stunned by a shot-wound and by a sword-stroke that almost
+penetrated to his brain.
+
+When he recovered his senses, it was to find himself deserted by all his
+companions except two of the girls. His head was lying in Phillina's
+lap, while Mignon, the child whom he had rescued from a brutal circus
+master who was ill-treating her, was vainly trying to staunch his wounds
+with her hair. For some time they continued in this position, no one
+returning to their aid. At last, they heard a troop of horses coming up
+the road; a young lady emerged on horseback, accompanied by some
+cavaliers. Wilhelm fixed his eye on the soft, calm, sympathising
+features of the stranger; he thought he had never seen aught nobler or
+more lovely. In a few moments one of the party stepped to the side of
+our hero. He held in his hand some surgeon's instruments and bandages,
+with which he hastily attended to his wounds. The lady asked several
+questions, and then, turning to the old gentleman, said, "Dear uncle,
+may I be generous at your expense?" taking off the coat that she was
+wearing as she spoke, and laying it softly above him. As he tried to
+open his mouth to stammer out some words of gratitude to the beautiful
+Amazon, the impression of her presence worked so strongly on his senses
+that all at once it seemed to him that her head was encircled with rays,
+and a glancing light seemed by degrees to spread itself all over her
+form. At this moment the surgeon gave him a sharper twinge; he lost
+consciousness; and on returning to himself the horsemen and coaches, the
+fair one and her attendants, had vanished like a dream.
+
+
+_II.--A Message from the Dead_
+
+
+Wilhelm's wounds were slow to heal, and it was long before he was able
+to move about freely again. When he fully recovered he went to his old
+friend, Serlo, and obtained a position in his company, both for himself,
+and also for many of his companions in misfortune.
+
+With Serlo he remained for a considerable period, until an untoward
+event led to his leaving him. Aurelia, Serlo's sister, had long
+entertained an affection for a nobleman, whom she knew by the name of
+Lothario; though at one time much attached to her, his affection had
+cooled off, and for a long time now he had not had any communication
+with her. Heartbroken at this treatment, though still devotedly attached
+to him, she gradually pined away, and complete neglect of her health
+finally brought her to her death-bed. Before she died, however, she
+wrote a letter of farewell to him, which she entrusted to Wilhelm to
+deliver as soon after her death as possible.
+
+Arrived at the castle where the baron lived, he found his lordship
+unable to give him any attention that day, as he was engaged to fight a
+duel, and was busy settling up his affairs in preparation. Wilhelm was
+requested to remain until a more convenient season. On the following
+morning, while the company were seated at breakfast, the baron was
+brought back in a carriage, seriously wounded.
+
+As the surgeon came out from attending him, the band hanging from his
+pouch caught Wilhelm's eye; he fancied that he knew it. He was convinced
+that he beheld the very pouch of the surgeon who had dressed his wounds
+in the forest, and the hope, so long deferred, of again finding his
+lovely Amazon struck like a flame through his soul.
+
+The abbe entered from Lothario's chamber, and said to Wilhelm, "The
+baron bids me ask you to remain here to share his hospitality, and, in
+the present circumstances, to contribute to his solacement."
+
+From this hour our friend was treated in the house as if he belonged to
+it.
+
+"We have a kindness to ask of you," said Jarno, the baron's confidential
+companion, to Wilhelm one morning. "The violent, unreasonable love and
+passionateness of the Lady Lydia only hinder the baron's recovery. She
+must be removed by some means. His wound requires rest and calmness; you
+see how she tortures him with her tempestuous anxieties, her
+ungovernable terrors, her never-drying tears. Enough! Our doctor
+expressly requires that she should quit us for a while; we have
+persuaded her to pay a visit to a lady, an old friend of hers; it will
+be your task to escort her, as you can best be spared."
+
+"I willingly undertake the charge," said Wilhelm, "though it is easy to
+foresee the pain I shall have to suffer from the tears, the despair, of
+Lydia."
+
+"And for this no small reward awaits you," said Jarno. "Fraulein
+Theresa, with whom you will get acquainted, is a lady such as you will
+rarely see. Indeed, were it not for an unfortunate passage between her
+mother and the baron, she would long since have been married to his
+lordship."
+
+When they returned from their visit, Lothario was in the way of full
+recovery. He was now for the first time able to talk with Wilhelm about
+the sad cause that had brought him to the castle. "You may, however,
+well forgive me," he said, with a smile, "that I forsook Aurelia for
+Theresa; with the one I could expect a calm and cheerful life, with the
+other not a happy hour."
+
+"I confess," said Wilhelm, "that in coming hither I had no small anger
+in my heart against you, that I proposed to censure with severity your
+conduct towards Aurelia. But, at the grave in which the hapless mother
+sleeps, let me ask you why you acknowledge not the child--a son in whom
+any father might rejoice and whom you appear entirely to overlook. With
+your tender nature, how can you altogether cast away the instinct of a
+parent?"
+
+"Of whom do you speak?" said Lothario. "I do not understand you."
+
+"Of whom but your son, Aurelia's son, the lovely child to whose good
+fortune there is nothing wanting but that a tender father should
+acknowledge and receive him."
+
+"You mistake, my friend," said Lothario; "Aurelia never had a son. I
+know of no child, or I would gladly acknowledge it. But did she ever
+give you to believe that the boy was hers--was mine?"
+
+"I cannot recollect that I ever heard a word from her expressly on the
+subject, but we took it so, and I never for a moment doubted it."
+
+"I can give you a clue to this perplexity," interposed Jarno. "An old
+woman, whom Wilhelm must have noticed, gave Aurelia the child, telling
+her that it was yours. She accepted it eagerly, hoping to alleviate her
+sorrows by its presence; and, in truth, it gave her many a comfortable
+hour."
+
+This discovery awoke anxieties in Wilhelm. He thought of the beautiful
+child Felix with the liveliest apprehension, and expressed his wish to
+remove him from the state in which he was.
+
+"We can soon arrange that," said Lothario. "I think you ought yourself
+to take charge of him; what in us the women leave uncultivated, children
+cultivate when we retain them near us."
+
+It was agreed to lose no time in putting this plan into execution, and
+Wilhelm departed forthwith to fetch the child.
+
+Passing through the house, he found Aurelia's old serving-maid, whom he
+had never seen at close quarters before, employed in sewing. Felix and
+Mignon were sitting by her on the floor.
+
+"Art thou the person," he demanded earnestly, "from whom Aurelia
+received this child?"
+
+She looked up, and turned her face to him; he saw her in full light, and
+started back in terror. It was old Barbara!
+
+"Where is Mariana?" cried he.
+
+"Far from here."
+
+"And Felix?"
+
+"Is the son of that unhappy and too tender-hearted girl. Here are
+Mariana's last words," she added, handing him a letter.
+
+"She is dead?" cried he.
+
+"Dead," said the old woman.
+
+A bitter grief took hold of Wilhelm; he could scarcely read the words
+that Barbara placed before him.
+
+"If this should reach thee, then lament thine ill-starred friend. The
+boy, whose birth I survived but a few days, is thine. I die faithful to
+thee, much as appearances may be against me; with thee I lost everything
+that bound me to life. This will be my only comfort, that though I
+cannot call myself blameless, towards thee I am free from blame."
+
+Wilhelm was stupified by this news. He removed the children from
+Barbara's care, and took them both back with him to Lothario's castle.
+Felix he kept with him, while Mignon, who was not in the best of health,
+was sent by the baron to the house of his sister, at some distance.
+
+
+_III.--Wilhelm's Apprenticeship_
+
+
+One evening Jarno said to Wilhelm, "We can now consider you as one of
+ourselves with such security that it were unjust not to introduce you
+deeper into our mysteries. You shall see what a curious little world is
+at your very hand, and how well you are known in it." He led our friend
+through certain unknown chambers and galleries of the castle to a door,
+strongly framed with iron. Jarno knocked; the door opened a little, so
+as to admit one person. Jarno introduced our friend, but did not follow
+him.
+
+Within was complete darkness. A voice cried "Enter"; he pressed forward
+and found that only tapestry was hemming him in. Raising this, he
+entered. Within, he found a man, who said, in a tone of dignity, "To
+guard from error is not the instructor's duty, but to lead the erring
+pupil; nay, let him quaff his error in deep, satiating draughts; he who
+only tastes his error will long dwell with it; he who drains it to the
+dregs will, if he be not crazy, find it out."
+
+A curtain closed before the figure, whom Wilhelm vaguely recollected as
+having seen at some time previously; possibly on the night when he had
+parted from Mariana. Then the curtain opened again; another figure
+advanced, "Learn to know the men who may be trusted," he said, and again
+the curtain closed. "Dispute not with us," cried a voice; "thou art
+saved, thou art on the way to the goal. None of thy follies wilt thou
+repent; none wilt thou wish to repeat."
+
+The curtain opened; the abbe came into view. "Come hither," he cried to
+his marvelling friend. Wilhelm mounted the steps. On the table lay a
+little roll.
+
+"Here is your indenture," said the abbe. "Take it to heart; it is of
+weighty import." Wilhelm opened it, and read:
+
+     "_INDENTURE_.
+
+     "_Art is long, life short, judgment difficult, opportunity
+     transient. To act is easy, to think is hard, to act according
+     to our thought is troublesome. It is but a part of art that
+     can be taught; the artist needs it all. Who knows it half,
+     speaks much, and is always wrong; who knows it all, speaks
+     seldom, and is inclined to act. No one knows what he is doing
+     while he acts aright; but of wrong-doing we are always
+     conscious. The instruction which the true artist gives us
+     opens the mind, for where words fail him, deeds speak. The
+     true scholar learns from the known to unfold the unknown, and
+     approaches more and more to being a master_----"
+
+"Enough," cried the abbe; "the rest in due time. Now look round you
+among these cases." With astonishment Wilhelm found, among others,
+"_Lothario's Apprenticeship," "Jarno's Apprenticeship_," and his own
+"_Apprenticeship_" placed there. "May I hope to look into these rolls?"
+
+"In this chamber nothing is now hid from you."
+
+Wilhelm heard a noise behind him, and saw a child's face peeping through
+the tapestry at the end of the room. It was Felix. His father rushed
+towards him, took him in his arms, and pressed him to his heart.
+
+"Yes, I feel it," cried he. "Thou art mine. For what a gift of Heaven
+have I to thank my friends! How comest thou, my child, at this important
+moment?"
+
+"Ask not," said the abbe. "Hail, young man! Thy apprenticeship is done;
+nature has pronounced thee free."
+
+After sorrow, often and in vain repeated, for the loss of Mariana,
+Wilhelm felt that he must find a mother for the boy; and also, that he
+could not find one equal to Theresa. With this gifted lady he was now
+thoroughly acquainted. Such a spouse and helpmate seemed the only one to
+trust to in such circumstances. Her affection for Lothario did not make
+him hesitate; she looked on herself as free; she had even spoken of
+marrying, with indifference, indeed, but as a matter understood.
+
+Before Theresa's answer came to hand, Lothario sent for our friend. "My
+sister Natalia bids me beg of you to go to her as soon as possible. Poor
+Mignon seems to be getting steadily worse, and it is thought that your
+presence might allay the malady." Wilhelm agreed, and proceeded on the
+journey.
+
+
+_IV.--Heart Against Reason_
+
+
+Behind a light screen, which threw a shadow on her, sat a young lady,
+reading; she rose and came to him. It was the Amazon! Unable to restrain
+himself, he fell on his knee and cried "It is she!" He seized her hand,
+and kissed it with unbounded rapture.
+
+A day or two later, the following letter from Theresa was handed to
+Wilhelm.
+
+"I am yours, as I am, and as you know me. I call you mine, as you are,
+and as I know you. As it is no passion, but trust and inclination for
+each other, that leads us together, we run less risk than thousands of
+others. You will forgive me, will you not, if I still think often and
+kindly of my former friend; in return, I will press Felix to my heart,
+as if I were his mother. Adieu, dear friend! Theresa clasps you to her
+breast with hope and joy."
+
+Natalia wrote a letter to her brother; she invited Wilhelm to add a word
+or two. They were just about to seal it, when Jarno unexpectedly came
+in.
+
+"I am come," he said, "to give you very curious and pleasing tidings
+about Theresa; now guess."
+
+"We are more skilful than you think," said Natalia, smiling. "Before you
+asked, we had the answer down in black and white," handing him as she
+spoke the letter she had just written. Jarno read the sheet hastily.
+"What shall I say?" cried he. "Surprise against surprise! I came to tell
+you that Theresa is not the daughter of her reputed mother. There is no
+obstacle to her marriage with Lothario: _I came to ask you to prepare
+her for it_."
+
+"And what," said Lothario, taking Wilhelm by the hand, "what if your
+alliance with my sister were the secret article on which depended my
+alliance with Theresa? These amends the noble maiden has appointed for
+you; she has vowed that we two pairs should appear together at the
+altar. 'His reason has made choice of me,' she said; 'his heart demands
+Natalia: my reason shall assist his heart.'"
+
+Lothario embraced his friend, and led him to Natalia, who, with Theresa,
+came to meet them. "To my mind, thou resemblest Saul, the son of Kish,
+who went out to seek his father's asses, and found a kingdom."
+
+"I know not the worth of a kingdom," said Wilhelm, "but I know that I
+have attained a happiness undeserved, which I would not change for
+anything in life."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+OLIVER GOLDSMITH
+
+
+The Vicar of Wakefield
+
+
+     Oliver Goldsmith, the most versatile and perhaps the most
+     unstable of eighteenth century men of letters, was born in
+     Ireland on November 10, 1728. At Trinity College, Dublin, he
+     revealed three characteristics that clung to him throughout
+     his career--high spirits, conversational brilliance, and
+     inability to keep money in his pocket. After a spell of
+     "philosophic vagabondage" on the Continent, he settled in
+     London in 1756, earned money in various ways, and spent it
+     all. "The Vicar of Wakefield," perhaps the greatest of all
+     Goldsmith's works, was published on March 27, 1766, after Dr.
+     Johnson had raised L60 for him on the manuscript of it. The
+     liveliness and grace of Goldsmith's style were never more
+     plainly manifested than in this delightful story; and its
+     faults--it contains many coincidences and improbabilities--are
+     far more than atoned for by the masterly portrait of the
+     simple, manly, generous, and wholly lovable vicar who is the
+     central figure of the story. "It has," says Mitford, "the
+     truth of Richardson, without his minuteness, and the humour of
+     Fielding, without his grossness; if it yields to LeSage in the
+     diversified variety of his views of life, it far excels him in
+     the description of domestic virtues and the pleasing moral of
+     the tale." Goldsmith died on April 4, 1774. (See also Vol.
+     XVII.)
+
+
+_I.--Family Portraits_
+
+
+I was ever of opinion that the honest man who married and brought up a
+large family did more service than he who continued single and only
+talked of population. From this motive, I chose my wife, as she did her
+wedding-gown, not for a fine glossy surface, but such qualities as would
+wear well. There was nothing that could make us angry with the world or
+each other. We had no revolutions to fear, nor fatigues to undergo; all
+our adventures were by the fireside, and all our migrations from the
+blue bed to the brown.
+
+My children, as they were educated without softness, so they were at
+once well-formed and healthy; my four sons hardy and active, my two
+daughters beautiful and blooming. Olivia, the elder daughter, was open,
+sprightly, and commanding; Sophia's features were not so striking at
+first, but often did more certain execution, for they were soft, modest,
+and alluring.
+
+The profits of my living I made over to the orphans and widows of the
+clergy of our diocese; for, having a sufficient fortune of my own, I was
+careless of temporalities, and felt a secret pleasure in doing my duty
+without reward.
+
+My eldest son, George, just upon leaving college, fixed his affections
+upon Miss Arabella Wilmot, the daughter of a neighbouring clergyman, who
+was in circumstances to give her a large fortune. Mr. Wilmot was not
+averse to the match, but after the day for the nuptials had been fixed,
+I engaged in a dispute with him which threatened to interrupt our
+intended alliance. I have always maintained that it is unlawful for a
+priest of the Church of England, after the death of his first wife, to
+take a second; and I showed Mr. Wilmot a tract which I had written in
+defence of this principle. It was not till too late I discovered that he
+was violently attached to the contrary opinion, and with good reason;
+for he was at that time actually courting a fourth wife.
+
+While the controversy was hottest, a relation, with a face of concern,
+called me out.
+
+"The merchant in town," he said, "in whose hands your money was lodged
+has gone off, to avoid a statute of bankruptcy. Your fortune is now
+almost nothing."
+
+It would be useless to describe the sensations of my family when I
+divulged the news. Near a fortnight had passed before I attempted to
+restrain their affliction; for premature consolation is but the
+remembrance of sorrow. During this interval I determined to send my
+eldest son to London, and I accepted a small cure of fifteen pounds a
+year in a distant neighbourhood.
+
+The first day's journey brought us within thirty miles of our future
+retreat, and we put up at an obscure inn in a village by the way. At the
+inn was a gentleman who, the landlord told me, had been so liberal in
+his charity that he had no money left to pay his reckoning. I could not
+avoid expressing my concern at seeing a gentleman in such circumstances,
+and offered the stranger my purse. "I take it with all my heart, sir,"
+replied he, "and am glad that my late oversight has shown me that there
+are still some men like you." The stranger's conversation was so
+pleasing and instructive that we were rejoiced to hear that he was going
+the same way as ourselves.
+
+The next morning we all set forward together. Mr. Burchell and I
+lightened the fatigues of the road with philosophical disputes, and he
+also informed me to whom the different seats belonged that lay in our
+view.
+
+"That, Dr. Primrose," he said to me, pointing to a very magnificent
+house, "belongs to Mr. Thornhill, a young gentleman who enjoys a large
+fortune, though entirely dependent upon the will of his uncle, Sir
+William Thornhill."
+
+"What!" cried I, "is my young landlord, then, the nephew of one who is
+represented as a man of consummate benevolence?"
+
+At this point we were alarmed by the cries of my family, and I perceived
+my youngest daughter in the midst of a rapid stream, and struggling with
+the torrent; she must have certainly perished had not my companion
+instantly plunged in to her relief. Her gratitude may be more readily
+imagined than described; she thanked her deliverer more with looks than
+words. Soon afterwards Mr. Burchell took leave of us, and we pursued our
+journey to the place of our retreat.
+
+
+_II.--The Squire_
+
+
+At a small distance from our habitation was a seat overshaded by a hedge
+of hawthorn and honeysuckle. Here, when the weather was fine, and our
+labour soon finished, we usually sat together to enjoy an extensive
+landscape in the calm of the evening. On an afternoon about the
+beginning of autumn, when I had drawn out my family to the seat, dogs
+and horsemen swept past us with great swiftness. After them a young
+gentleman, of a more genteel appearance than the rest, came forward,
+and, instead of pursuing the chase, stopped short, and approached us
+with a careless, superior air. He let us know that his name was
+Thornhill, and that he was the owner of the estate that lay around us.
+As his address, though confident, was easy, we soon became more
+familiar; and the whole family seemed earnest to please him.
+
+As soon as he was gone, my wife gave the opinion that it was a most
+fortunate hit, and hoped again to see the day in which we might hold up
+our heads with the best of them.
+
+"For my part," cried Olivia, "I don't like him, he is so extremely
+impudent and familiar." I interpreted this speech by contrary, and found
+that Olivia secretly admired him.
+
+"To confess the truth," said I, "he has not prepossessed me in his
+favour. I had heard that he was particularly remarkable for
+faithlessness to the fair sex."
+
+A few days afterwards we entertained our young landlord at dinner, and
+it may be easily supposed what provisions were exhausted to make an
+appearance. As he directed his looks and conversation to Olivia, it was
+no longer doubted but that she was the object that induced him to be our
+visitor; and my wife exulted in her daughter's victory as if it were her
+own.
+
+On one evening Mr. Thornhill came with two young ladies, richly dressed,
+whom he introduced as women of very great distinction and fashion from
+town. The two ladies threw my girls quite into the shade, for they would
+talk of nothing but high life and high-lived company. 'Tis true, they
+once or twice mortified us sensibly by slipping out an oath; their
+finery, however, threw a veil over any grossness in their conversation.
+
+I now began to find that all my long and painful lectures upon
+temperance, simplicity, and contentment were entirely disregarded. The
+distinctions lately paid us by our betters awakened that pride which I
+had laid asleep, but not removed. When the two ladies of quality showed
+a willingness to take our girls to town with them as companions, my wife
+was overjoyed at our good fortune. But Mr. Burchell, who had at first
+been a welcome guest at our house, but had become less welcome since we
+had been favoured with the company of persons of superior station,
+dissuaded her with great ardour, and so angered her that she ended by
+asking him to stay away.
+
+Returning home one day, I found my wife and girls all in tears, Mr.
+Thornhill having been there to inform them that their journey to town
+was entirely over. The two ladies, having heard reports of us from some
+malicious person, were that day set out for London. We were not long in
+finding who it was that had been so base as to asperse the character of
+a family so harmless as ours. One of our boys found a letter-case which
+we knew to belong to Mr. Burchell. Within it was a sealed note,
+superscribed, "The copy of a letter to be sent to the two ladies at
+Thornhill Castle." At the joint solicitation of the family, I opened it,
+and read as follows:
+
+"Ladies,--I am informed that you have some intention of bringing two
+young ladies to town, whom I have some knowledge of, under the character
+of companions. As I would neither have simplicity imposed upon nor
+virtue contaminated, I must offer it as my opinion that the impropriety
+of such a step will be attended with dangerous consequences. Take
+therefore, the admonition of a friend, and seriously reflect on the
+consequences of introducing infamy and vice into retreats where peace
+and innocence have hitherto resided."
+
+Our doubts were now at an end. It appeared to me one of the vilest
+instances of unprovoked ingratitude I had ever met with. As we set
+ruminating upon schemes of vengeance, Mr. Burchell himself entered and
+sat down.
+
+"Do you know this, sir--this pocket-book?" said I.
+
+"Yes, sir," returned he, with a face of impenetrable assurance.
+
+"And do you know this letter?"
+
+"Yes; it was I that wrote that letter."
+
+"And how could you so basely presume to write this letter?"
+
+"And how came you," replied he, with looks of unparalleled effrontery,
+"so basely to presume to open this letter?"
+
+I could scarcely govern my passion. "Ungrateful wretch!" I cried.
+"Begone, and no longer pollute my dwelling with thy baseness!"
+
+So saying, I threw him his pocket-book, which he took up with a smile,
+and left us astonished at the serenity of his assurance.
+
+
+_III.--The Elopement_
+
+
+The visits of Mr. Thornhill now became more frequent and longer; but all
+the schemes of Olivia and her mother to bring him to a declaration came
+to nothing. And although Olivia considered his fine sentiments as
+instances of the most exalted passion, it seemed to me plain that they
+had more of love than matrimony in them.
+
+One evening as I sat by the fireside, thanking Heaven for tranquillity,
+health, and competence, and thinking myself happier than the greatest
+monarch upon earth, I noticed that Olivia was absent.
+
+"Where is my darling Olivia?" I asked. Just as I spoke, my boy Dick came
+running in.
+
+"Oh, papa, papa, she is gone from us; she is gone from us for ever!"
+
+"Gone, child?"
+
+"Yes; she is gone off with two gentlemen in a postchaise, and one of
+them kissed her. And she cried very much, but he persuaded her, and she
+went into the chaise."
+
+"Now, then," cried I, "may Heaven's everlasting fury light upon him and
+his! Thus to rob me of my child! Bring me my pistols; I'll pursue the
+traitor. Old as I am, he shall find I can sting him yet--the perfidious
+villain!"
+
+My poor wife caught me in her arms.
+
+"Indeed, sir," said my son Moses, "your rage is too violent."
+
+"I did not curse him, child, did I?"
+
+"Indeed, sir, you did."
+
+"Then may Heaven forgive me and him. But it is not--it is not a small
+distress that can wring tears from these old eyes. My child--to undo my
+darling! May confusion seize--Heaven forgive me! What am I about to say?
+Had she but died! My son, bring hither my Bible and my staff. I will
+pursue her; and though I cannot save her from shame, I may prevent the
+continuance of her iniquity."
+
+My suspicions fell entirely upon our young landlord, whose character for
+such intrigues was but too well known. I therefore directed my steps
+towards Thornhill Castle. He soon appeared, with the most open, familiar
+air, and seemed perfectly amazed at my daughter's elopement, protesting
+upon his honour that he was quite a stranger to it. A man, however,
+averred that my daughter and Mr. Burchell had been seen driving very
+fast towards the Wells, about thirty miles distant.
+
+I walked towards the Wells with earnestness, and on entering the town I
+was met by a person on horseback, whom I remembered to have seen at the
+squire's, and he assured me that if I followed them to the races, which
+were but thirty miles further, I might depend upon overtaking them.
+
+Early the next day I walked forward to the races, but saw nothing of my
+daughter or of Mr. Burchell.
+
+The agitations of my mind, and the fatigues I had undergone, now threw
+me into a fever. I retired to a little ale-house by the roadside, and
+here I languished for nearly three weeks.
+
+The night coming on as I was twenty miles from home on my return
+journey, I put up at a little public-house, and asked for the landlord's
+company over a pint of wine. I could hear the landlady upstairs bitterly
+reproaching a lodger who could not pay.
+
+"Out, I say," she cried; "pack out this moment!"
+
+"Oh, dear madame," replied the stranger, "pity a poor, abandoned
+creature for one night and death will soon do the rest!"
+
+I instantly knew the voice of my poor ruined child, Olivia, and flew to
+her rescue.
+
+"Welcome, anyway welcome, my dearest lost one, to your poor old father's
+bosom!"
+
+"Oh, my own dear"--for minutes she could say no more--"my own dearest,
+good papa! You can't forgive me--I know you cannot!"
+
+"Yes, my child, from my heart I do forgive thee." After we had talked
+ourselves into some tranquillity, I said, "It surprises me how a person
+of Mr. Burchell's seeming honour could be guilty of such deliberate
+baseness."
+
+"My dear papa," returned my daughter, "you labour under a strange
+mistake. It is Mr. Thornhill who has ruined me; who employed the two
+ladies, as he called them, but who, in fact, were abandoned women of the
+town, to decoy us up to London. Their artifices would certainly have
+succeeded but for Mr. Burchell's letter, who directed those reproaches
+at them which we all applied to ourselves."
+
+"You amaze me, my dear!" cried I. "But tell me, what temptation was it
+that could thus obliterate your virtue?"
+
+"He offered me marriage," replied she. "We were indeed married secretly
+by a popish priest, whose name I was sworn to conceal."
+
+"What!" interrupted I. "And were you indeed married?"
+
+"Alas!" she said, "he has been married already by the same priest to six
+or eight wives more, whom, like me, he has deceived and abandoned."
+
+"Have patience, my child," cried I, "and I hope things will yet be
+better. To-morrow I'll carry you home to your mother. Poor woman, this
+has gone to her heart; but she loves you still, Olivia, and will forget
+it."
+
+
+_IV.--Fresh Calamities_
+
+
+It was late the next night when I approached my own home. I had left
+Olivia at an inn five miles away, intending to prepare my family for her
+reception. To my amazement, I saw the house bursting out into a blaze of
+fire, and every aperture red with conflagration! I gave a loud
+convulsive outcry, which alarmed my son, and all my family ran out, wild
+with apprehension. Our neighbours came running to our assistance; but
+the flames had taken too strong a hold to be extinguished, and all the
+neighbours could do was to stand spectators of the calamity. They
+brought us clothes and furnished one of our outhouses with kitchen
+utensils; so that by daylight we had another, though a wretched,
+dwelling to retire to.
+
+In the midst of this affliction our poor lost one returned to us. "Ah,
+madam," cried her mother, "this is but a poor place to come to after so
+much finery! I can afford but little entertainment to persons who have
+kept company only with persons of distinction; but I hope Heaven will
+forgive you."
+
+The unhappy victim stood pale and trembling, unable to weep or to reply.
+
+"I entreat, woman," I said to my wife, with severity in my voice and
+manner, "that my words may be now marked once for all. I have here
+brought you back a poor deluded wanderer--her return to duty demands the
+revival of our tenderness. The real hardships of life are now coming
+fast upon us; let us not increase them by dissensions among each other.
+The kindness of Heaven is promised to the penitent, and let ours be
+directed by the example."
+
+My daughter's grief, however, seemed formed for continuing, and her
+wretchedness was increased by the news that Mr. Thornhill was going to
+be married to the rich Miss Wilmot, who had formerly been betrothed to
+my eldest son.
+
+On a morning of peculiar warmth for the season, when we were
+breakfasting out of doors, Mr. Thornhill drove up in his chariot,
+alighted, and inquired after my health with his usual air of
+familiarity.
+
+"Sir," replied I, "your present assurance only serves to aggravate your
+baseness."
+
+"My dear sir," returned he, "I cannot understand what this means!"
+
+"Go!" cried I. "Thou art a poor, pitiful wretch, and every way a liar;
+but your meanness secures you from my anger!"
+
+"I find," he said, "you are bent upon obliging me to talk in a harsher
+manner than I intended. My steward talks of driving for the rent, and it
+is certain he knows his duty. Yet, still, I could wish to serve you, and
+even to have you and your daughter present at my marriage."
+
+"Mr. Thornhill," replied I, "as to your marriage with any but my
+daughter, that I never will consent to! And though your friendship could
+raise me to a throne, or your resentment sink me to the grave, yet would
+I despise both."
+
+"Depend upon it," returned he, "you shall feel the effects of this
+insolence," and departed abruptly.
+
+On the very next morning his steward came to demand my annual rent,
+which, by reason of the accidents already related, I was unable to pay.
+On the following day two officers of justice took me to the county gaol.
+
+There is no situation, however wretched it seems, but has some sort of
+comfort attending it; and I found mine in the help and kindness of a
+fellow-prisoner, Mr. Jenkinson by name, who was awaiting trial for
+several acts of cheating and roguery. I myself, indeed, had been one of
+his victims.
+
+The fortune of my family, who were lodged in the town, was wholly and
+distressingly adverse. Olivia was ill, and longed for me to make my
+submission to Mr. Thornhill by approving his marriage with Miss Wilmot.
+When I had been confined a fortnight, Mr. Jenkinson brought me dreadful
+news--Olivia was dead! And while yet my grief was fresh upon me my wife
+came weeping to tell me that Sophia had been seized by ruffians and
+carried off.
+
+The sum of my miseries, thought, I, is now made up; nor is it in the
+power of anything on earth to give me another pang. Yet another awaited
+me. My eldest son, George, to whom I had written, went to Thornhill
+Castle to punish our betrayer; he was attacked by the coward's servants,
+injured one of them, and was brought into the very prison where I was
+confined.
+
+The enemy of my family had now triumphed completely. My only hope was in
+a letter I had written to Sir William Thornhill, telling him of the
+misdeeds of his nephew. I was by this time myself extremely ill. I
+sought to break from my heart all ties that bound it to earth, and to
+fit myself for eternity.
+
+
+_V.--The Rescue_
+
+
+On parting from my unhappy son, who was removed to a stronger cell, I
+laid me down in bed, when Mr. Jenkinson, entering, informed me that
+there was news of my daughter. He had scarcely delivered his message
+when my dearest girl entered with Mr. Burchell.
+
+"Here, papa," she cried, "here is the brave man to whom I owe my
+delivery; to this gentleman's intrepidity--"
+
+A kiss from Mr. Burchell interrupted what she was going to add.
+
+"Ah, Mr. Burchell," said I, "you were ever our friend. We have long
+discovered our errors with regard to you, and repented our ingratitude.
+And now, as you have delivered my girl, if you think her a recompense,
+she is yours."
+
+"But I suppose, sir," he replied, "you are apprised of my incapacity to
+support her as she deserves?"
+
+"I know no man," I returned, "so worthy to deserve her as you."
+
+Without the least reply to my offer, he ordered from the next inn the
+best dinner that could be provided. While we were at dinner, the gaoler
+brought a message from Mr. Thornhill, desiring permission to appear
+before his uncle in order to vindicate his innocence and honour. The
+poor, harmless Mr. Burchell, then, was in reality the celebrated Sir
+William Thornhill!
+
+Mr. Thornhill entered with a smile, and was going to embrace his uncle.
+
+"No fawning, sir, at present," cried the baronet. "The only way to my
+heart is by the road of honour; but here I only see complicated
+instances of falsehood, cowardice, and oppression."
+
+At this moment Jenkinson and the gaoler's two servants entered, hauling
+in a tall man very genteelly dressed. As soon as Mr. Thornhill perceived
+the prisoner and Mr. Jenkinson, he seemed to shrink backward with
+terror, for this was the man whom he had put upon the carrying off of
+Sophia.
+
+"Heavens," cried Sir William, "what a viper have I been fostering in my
+bosom!"
+
+"As Mr. Thornhill and I have been old fellow-sporters," said Jenkinson,
+"I have a friendship for him; and I hope he will show a proper return of
+friendship to his own honest Jenkinson, who brings him a wife."
+
+So saying, he went off and left us.
+
+"I am surprised," said the baronet, "what he can intend by this?"
+
+"When we reflect," I replied, "on the various schemes--Amazement! Do I
+see my lost daughter? It is--it is my Olivia!"
+
+"As for you, squire," said Jenkinson, "this young lady is your lawful
+wedded wife. Here is the licence to prove it. He commissioned me,
+gentlemen," he continued, "to procure him a false licence and a false
+priest in order to deceive this young lady. What did I do, but went and
+got a true licence and a true priest. To my shame, I confess it, my only
+design was to keep the licence and let the squire know that I could
+prove it upon him whenever I wanted money."
+
+"How could you," I cried, "add to my miseries by the story of her
+death?"
+
+"That," replied Jenkinson, "is easily answered. I thought the only
+probable means of freeing you from prison was by submitting to the
+squire, and consenting to his marriage with the other young lady. But
+this you had vowed never to grant while your daughter was living, so I
+had to join with your wife in persuading you that she was dead."
+
+Mr. Thornhill's assurance had now entirely forsaken him. He fell on his
+knees before his uncle, and implored compassion.
+
+"Thy vices, crimes, and ingratitude," said the baronet, "deserve no
+compassion; but a bare competence shall be supplied thee, and thy wife
+shall possess a third part of that fortune which once was thine." Then,
+turning to Sophia, he caught her to his breast with ardour. "I have
+sought," he cried, "for a woman who, a stranger to my fortune, could
+think I had merit as a man. How great must be my rapture to have made a
+conquest over such sense and such heavenly beauty!"
+
+On the next day Sophia was wedded to Sir William Thornhill; and my son
+George, now freed from justice, as the person supposed to be wounded by
+him was detected to be an impostor, led Miss Wilmot to the altar. As
+soon as I had awakened that morning, I had heard that my merchant had
+been arrested at Antwerp, and that my fortune had been restored to me.
+
+It may not be improper to observe, with respect to Mr. Thornhill, that
+he now resides as companion at a relation's house. My eldest daughter
+has told me that when he reforms she may be brought to relent.
+
+I had now nothing on this side of the grave to wish for. All my cares
+were over. It only remained that my gratitude in good fortune should
+exceed my submission in adversity.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+EDMOND AND JULES DE GONCOURT
+
+
+Renee Mauperin
+
+
+     Edmond de Goncourt, born at Nancy on May 26, 1822, and his
+     brother Jules, born in Paris on December 17, 1830, were
+     primarily artists, who, while wandering over France, knapsack
+     on back, discovered that their note-books also made them
+     writers. In 1850 they entered upon a literary partnership
+     which only finished with the death of the younger brother on
+     June 20, 1870. Their earliest literary endeavours consisted of
+     a series of historical studies dealing with the France of the
+     second half of the eighteenth century. It was not until 1860,
+     with the publication of their first novel, "Les Hommes de
+     Lettres," that they discovered their true bent lay in fiction.
+     "Renee Mauperin," which is, perhaps, the best known of their
+     books, was published in 1864. As a psychological analysis of
+     contemporaneous youth, it is probably without its equal in
+     French fiction. "The plot of the story," wrote Edmond de
+     Goncourt, "is secondary. The authors have rather preferred to
+     paint the modern young woman as she is: the product of the
+     artistic and masculine system of education in force during the
+     last thirty years. We have also attempted to portray the
+     modern young college man influenced by the republican ideas of
+     the time since Louis Philippe." Edmond de Goncourt died on
+     July 16, 1896.
+
+
+_I.--A Wayward Girl_
+
+
+"Yes, I love riding and hunting. I never miss a meet. The wind blowing
+through one's hair, the hounds, the horns, the trees flying past you--it
+is intoxicating! In those moments I feel brave. Life has few other
+pleasures for a well-brought-up girl like me. Everything is shocking! I
+dance, yes ... but do you think I am allowed to talk to my partner? Yes,
+no, no, yes--that's all! That's proper. And I am allowed to read if the
+books and articles are proper. I paint in oils, and that shocks my
+family; a young lady must not go beyond copying roses in water-colours.
+Isn't the current strong here?"
+
+Renee Mauperin and young Reverchon, her parent's guest, were swimming in
+the Seine.
+
+"How beautiful!" exclaimed the girl, as she noticed the evening sun
+gilding the river and the banks where country and suburb merged into
+each other.
+
+"You are an artist by nature, mademoiselle."
+
+"Ouf!" she exclaimed with a comic intonation.
+
+A boat approached.
+
+"Well, Renee, how is the water?" asked one of the rowers.
+
+"Splendid, thanks, Denoisel," she replied, as she mounted the steps
+lowered for her.
+
+"I was almost getting nervous for you. And Reverchon? Ah, there he is!"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Renee was the youngest daughter of a distinguished Napoleonic officer,
+who, at the time of the revolution of 1830, was elected deputy, and
+fought with all his ardour for the Liberal cause, but who subsequently,
+at the urging of his wife, a tyrannical conventional member of the
+_bourgeois_, retired from the world of politics and established a sugar
+refinery, so as to be able to provide suitably for his three children.
+
+The first two, a boy born in 1826 and a daughter in 1827, were a
+disappointment to the old soldier. They were too reasonable, too
+"grown-up" before they were children, but in Renee, who was born after
+an interval of eight years, M. Mauperin found ample consolation. His
+heart revelled in her pranks and merry laughter, and she grew up the pet
+of her father, whose affection she returned with all her heart. She was
+now twenty; her brother Henri, serious, studious, plodding and
+determined to make a career, was a lawyer, and had made some reputation
+by his articles on statistical subjects; and Henriette, her elder
+sister, had found a husband in M. Davarande, whose wealth and position
+allowed her to devote herself to the life of empty amusement, divided
+mainly between long rounds of calls, the opera, and the Bois, which
+filled the days of the moneyed Paris _bourgeoisie_ of that time.
+
+Madame Mauperin, delighted with Henriette's match, was anxious to find
+an equally suitable partner for Renee; but the high-spirited girl had a
+will of her own, and seemed to take almost a pleasure in crossing her
+mother's transparent matrimonial schemes. Quite a number of eligible
+young men had been introduced to the house at La Briche--and had left it
+without having furthered their suit. Reverchon had now been invited with
+similar intentions, and Renee was no more amenable than before. While
+her mother filled the young man's ears with praise of her
+accomplishments, the wayward girl, with her charming ingenuous talk, did
+her best to demonstrate her lack of those negative conventional virtues
+that were expected from a well-educated French girl in those days. She
+made Madame Mauperin turn first crimson, then pale, when she finally
+proceeded to cut Denoisel's hair in the drawing-room after dinner.
+
+Denoisel was the son of Mauperin's bosom friend, who had fought by his
+side in many battles, and who on his death-bed had made him his son's
+guardian. Mauperin became more than a guardian to the boy--he became his
+father. When Henri and Henriette were born, it seemed to Denoisel that
+he had been given a brother and sister; but he adored the baby Renee,
+and he alone succeeded in making her listen and obey.
+
+"Sometimes," said Henri to Denoisel as they travelled back to Paris, "my
+sister's follies are harmless enough; but to-night ... before that
+fellow ... I am sure the marriage will fall through. And such an
+excellent match!"
+
+"You think so? I began to fear for her. And that's why I lent myself to
+her prank. He is too hopelessly commonplace--a tailor's dummy! He would
+never have understood her. Your sister ought to marry a man of
+intelligence and character."
+
+And Madame Mauperin, as she prepared for bed, lectured her husband upon
+acceding to all his favourite's whims.
+
+"Another marriage missed! Henri spoke to me this evening. He is sure
+Reverchon will not have her."
+
+"Well, what of it?"
+
+"Why, he is the tenth! Renee will get an awful reputation. She will see
+when she is thirty ... and you too." Then, after a pause, "And now about
+your son. He is twenty-nine now. He, at any rate, has no objection to
+marriage. Have you ever thought of finding him a suitable wife?"
+
+She continued to talk and to grumble until Mauperin fell asleep.
+
+"Henri is reasonable enough, but he is a young man, and you know the
+danger. It's driving me mad! What do you think of trying Madame
+Rosieres?"
+
+There was no reply. Madame Mauperin resigned herself to silence, and
+turned to find the sleep which only came with morning.
+
+
+_II.--Plots and Plays_
+
+
+Next morning Madame Mauperin proceeded to Paris, and drove to her son's
+apartments in the Rue Taitbout. She found him at work. After some
+beating about the bush she approached the object of her visit.
+
+"I fear," she began, "that you must have some reason for ..."
+
+"For not marrying, isn't it? My dear mother, you need not worry. I know
+that wealth is needed for a successful career, and that the best and
+most honourable way to obtain it is a good marriage. And I am determined
+to make a career. I shall get married soon enough... and better,
+perhaps, than you think."
+
+At La Briche, meanwhile, M. Mauperin vainly tried to be stern with his
+pet.
+
+"I have done it purposely," she said.
+
+"And why?"
+
+"Because I love you better than that young gentleman who was in no way
+sympathetic to me. You are ungrateful."
+
+"But listen, my dear child! Fathers are egotists, and would prefer to
+keep their children. But I am old, and I should not like to part without
+seeing you married, a mother, with affections that will replace mine."
+
+"Oh, this is wicked! Never, never!" she exclaimed; "let me cry alone for
+a minute." And she left the room hurriedly.
+
+When she returned after a while, she found Denoisel in the room.
+
+"You have been out? And where have you been?"
+
+"Well, if you want to know, I have been to church to pray that I may die
+before father. I knelt before a statue of the Virgin. And, you may
+laugh, but it seemed to me that she nodded at my request. And it made me
+quite happy."
+
+The conversation drifted to gayer topics, and the two soon fell into
+their wonted tone of banter. "Tell me, Renee," said Denoisel, "have you
+never felt, I won't say love, but some sentiment for anybody?"
+
+"Never. That sort of thing only occurs when the heart is empty. But when
+it is defended by the affection one feels for a father--as a child I
+felt perhaps the beginning of that emotion of which one reads in novels.
+And do you know for whom?"
+
+"No."
+
+"For you. Oh, only for a moment. I soon loved you differently for having
+corrected the spoilt child of its faults, for having directed my
+attention to noble and beautiful things. And I resolved to repay you by
+true friendship."
+
+M. Mauperin entered the room, and interrupted the confidences.
+
+A few days later, Renee having set her mind upon playing in private
+theatricals, a discussion arose about the filling of the second lady's
+part in the play that had been chosen. One by one the names suggested
+were dismissed, until Henri said, "Why not ask Mlle. Bourjot? They are
+just staying at Sannois."
+
+"Noemi?" replied Renee. "I'd love it. But she, was so cold towards me
+last winter. I don't know why."
+
+"She will have L12,000 a year," interrupted Denoisel, "and her mother
+knows that you have a brother. And they are not a little proud of their
+money."
+
+Twelve thousand a year! Madame Mauperin thought of her son's future, and
+supported his suggestion. It was decided that they would call on the
+Bourjots on Saturday.
+
+To Sannois they went as arranged on the Saturday. They were received
+with effusion, and had to put up for an hour or so with the unbearable
+arrogance of their hosts' display of wealth. Renee's warm advances to
+the playmate of her childhood were received by Noemi with coolness, not
+to say reluctance, but the request that Noemi should take part in the
+theatricals met with her mother's approval, the shy girl's objections--
+nervousness, lack of talent, and so forth--being overruled by Madame
+Bourjot. Before the two families parted it was arranged that Noemi
+should be taken by her governess to attend the rehearsals at the
+Mauperins' house.
+
+Renee's whole-hearted friendliness and sparkling humour soon overcame
+Noemi's reserve, and under Denoisel's direction the amateur actors made
+rapid progress. Madame Bourjot herself came to one of the rehearsals,
+and, after the first compliments, expressed her surprise that Henri, the
+principal actor, was absent. "Oh, he has a wonderful memory," said his
+proud mother; "two rehearsals will set him right."
+
+At last the great day arrived. A stage had been arranged in the large
+drawing-room, which was filled to its utmost capacity, the ladies being
+seated in the long rows of chairs, the men standing behind and
+overflowing through open doors into the adjoining rooms. The play chosen
+was "The Caprice." Henri, who revealed rare talent, took the part of the
+husband; Noemi of the neglected wife. The curtain fell upon enthusiastic
+applause, and Madame Bourjot, who had feared that her daughter would be
+a fiasco, was delighted with her success. Amid the hum of voices she
+heard the lady sitting next to her say to her neighbour, "His sister, I
+know ... but for the part he is not sufficiently in love with her ...
+and too much with his wife. Did you notice?" she continued, in a
+whisper.
+
+In the second piece Henri appeared as Pierrot, Renee as the forsaken
+wife, and Noemi as the beloved. Henri played with real passion. From
+time to time his eyes seemed to search for Madame Bourjot's. Her
+neighbour felt her leaning against her shoulder. The curtain fell.
+Madame Bourjot swayed, and fell back in a faint.
+
+She was carried to the garden.
+
+"Leave me now," she said, "I am all right now; it was the heat. I only
+want a little air ... Let M. Henri stay with me."
+
+They were left alone.
+
+"You love her?" said Madame Bourjot, clutching Henri's arm. "I know
+all.... Have you nothing to say?"
+
+"Nothing. I have struggled for a year. I will not excuse myself. I owe
+you the truth. I love your daughter, it is true."
+
+Finally, Madame Bourjot rose and walked towards the house. Henri
+followed.
+
+"I count upon never seeing you again, sir," she said, without looking
+round. With a mighty effort she regained her composure, and walked back
+to the house on Henri's arm.
+
+
+_III.--Stint to Death by his Sister_
+
+
+It was Madame Bourjot herself who insisted upon seeing Henri again, and,
+since he did not answer her letter, she went to his apartments. The
+interview was painful, but she gave her consent to Henri's marriage with
+Noemi, and undertook to overcome M. Bourjot's possible objections, on
+condition that Henri should humour her husband's vanity by adopting a
+title--an easy matter enough. The Mauperins had a farm called
+Villacourt. Mauperin de Villacourt would do very well. Henri promised to
+see what he could do.
+
+Madame Bourjot and her daughter called on the Mauperins next day. The
+two girls were asked to leave their mothers to their talk, and to take a
+walk in the garden.
+
+"A secret!" said Renee, as soon as they were alone. "Can you guess it? I
+can--my brother. ... But you are crying. What is it, my darling Noemi?"
+
+"Oh, you don't know!" her friend sobbed. "I cannot--if you only
+knew----Save me! If I could only die!"
+
+"Die! But why?"
+
+"Because your brother is----" She stopped in horror at what she was
+about to say, then whispered the rest of her sentence into her ear, and
+hid her face on her friend's bosom.
+
+"You lie!" Renee pushed her back.
+
+"I?" Renee did not reply, but looked sadly and gently into Noemi's eyes.
+
+Renee doubted no longer. She was silent for a moment; she felt almost
+the duties of a mother towards this child.
+
+In the evening Henri was surprised to find his sister waiting in his
+room. She approached the subject of his impending marriage, and implored
+him, by his love for her, not to give up his name, and to break off the
+match.
+
+"Are you mad? Enough of this!"
+
+Renee fixed her eyes upon her brother.
+
+"Noemi has told me--everything!"
+
+Her cheeks flushed, Henri turned deathly pale.
+
+"My dear," he said, with a shaky voice, "you interfere in things which
+do not concern you. A young girl--" Then seizing her hand, he pointed
+towards the door, and said, "Go!"
+
+Renee was ill for a week, and Henri, knowing the cause, did his best to
+alleviate her suffering. Still, a coldness remained between them. He
+understood that she had forgiven the brother, but not the man. One day
+she accompanied Henri to town and went with him to the Record Office,
+where he had to make some inquiries about the legality of adopting his
+own name. While he was questioning the keeper, she overheard two clerks
+discuss her brother and his claim. "He thinks the Villacourt family is
+extinct. But he is misinformed, although they have gone down in the
+world. In fact, I know the heir to the title--a M. Boisjorand with whom
+I once had a fight when we were boys. They lived in the forest of the
+Croix-du-Soldat, near St. Mihiel, at La Motte-Noire." Renee fixed these
+names in her mind.
+
+"I have got all I want," said Henri, gaily coming towards her. And they
+went out together.
+
+The Bourjots were giving a great ball to celebrate the public
+announcement of the engagement of their daughter to M. Mauperin de
+Villacourt.
+
+"You are enjoying yourself," said Renee to Noemi.
+
+"I have never danced so much, it is true." And Noemi took her arm and
+drew her into a small salon. "No, never." She kissed her. "Oh, what it
+is to be happy! She loves him no longer. I am sure of it--I can see it;
+I feel it."
+
+"And you love him now?"
+
+Noemi closed her mouth by pressing her lips upon Renee's. A young man
+came to claim Noemi for the dance, and Denoisel requested the same
+favour from Renee.
+
+Denoisel was with Henri Mauperin. They were smoking and talking
+peacefully, when the door was thrust open, and a man forced his way in,
+pushing aside the valet who wanted to prevent him from entering.
+
+"M. Mauperin de Villacourt?" he asked.
+
+"That is my name," said Henri, rising.
+
+"Good. My name is Boisjorand de Villacourt," retorted the stranger,
+striking him so violently on the cheek that his face was immediately
+covered with blood. Henri conquered his first impulse to throw himself
+upon the intruder, and said calmly, "You find that there is one
+Villacourt too many--so do I. Leave your card with my servant. I shall
+send to you to-morrow."
+
+It was from a marked number of the "Moniteur," which the impoverished
+heir of the glorious name of De Villacourt found on his return from a
+two years' sojourn in Africa, that M. Boisjorand had learned that Henri
+had taken from him this name, which was all that had come down to him
+from his famous ancestors. He immediately proceeded to Paris and sought
+legal advice, but found that his poverty rendered legal action
+impossible. After his interview with the solicitor, he went straight to
+Henri's apartment to obtain the only satisfaction that was in his power.
+
+Denoisel and another friend of Henri's arranged with Boisjorand's
+seconds next morning the details of the meeting. Henri, who was an
+excellent shot, had insisted on pistols at thirty-five paces, each
+combatant to have the right to advance ten steps. The duel was to take
+place at four o'clock the same afternoon near the ponds of Ville
+d'Avray.
+
+Neither of the two adversaries showed a trace of nervousness. The signal
+was given, M. De Villacourt advanced five steps, Henri remaining
+stationary. At the sixth step Henri fired, and his opponent fell. Henri
+hurried towards him.
+
+"Back to your place," shouted the wounded man. On his hands and knees he
+crawled forward to the limit of his advance leaving a trail of blood in
+the snow. Then he took careful aim--and Henri fell with arms extended
+and his face towards the ground.
+
+
+_IV.--Broken Wanderers_
+
+
+To Denoisel fell the painful duty of informing Mauperin of his son's
+death. The old man's grief was heartbreaking. When Denoisel was admitted
+to Renee, he found her sitting on a footstool, sobbing, with her
+handkerchief pressed to her mouth.
+
+"Renee," he said, taking her hands, "he has been killed--that man should
+never have known. He did not read, he saw nobody, he lived like a
+wolf--he was not a subscriber to the 'Moniteur.' Some enemy must have
+sent him that paper."
+
+Renee had risen; she moved her lips; she wanted to scream "It was I!"
+Then, suddenly pressing her hand against her heart, she fell senseless
+on the floor.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Renee did not seem to recover from her illness. Denoisel saw her daily,
+but a certain coldness had set in between them--he thought that Renee
+held him responsible for not having prevented the duel, while Renee
+vaguely feared that Denoisel had guessed her secret. He started upon a
+long journey.
+
+In those days of illness and anxiety the hearts of father and daughter
+seemed to come together more closely even than before. The heartbroken
+old man saw his beloved child wasting away. He called in the best
+specialist from Paris, who did not exactly give up all hope, but did not
+conceal that Renee's life was in danger. The poor girl, who could not
+bear to witness her father's misery, put on a gay air, assuring him
+again and again that she was recovering. Indeed, when, at her urging,
+the family removed to the country house where she had spent her
+childhood, there was a real and marked improvement, and for a while the
+roses seemed to return to her pale cheeks.
+
+But she soon fell back into her listless state. Thus she lingered on for
+several months, always cheering her father and speaking of her happy
+future, always fading away until she became a mere shadow of her former
+bright and healthy self. Only to Denoisel, when after a long absence he
+returned from the Pyrenees, she opened her heart. To him she confessed
+that she knew her days were counted.
+
+Those who travel far afield have perhaps met in foreign towns or among
+the ruins of dead places--now in Russia, now in Egypt--two aged people,
+a man and a woman, who seem to march along without looking and without
+seeing. They are the Mauperins--father and mother.
+
+They have sold everything and have gone. Thus they wander from land to
+land, from hotel to hotel. They wander, trying to lose their grief in
+the fatigue of the road, dragging their weary life to all the corners of
+the globe.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+JAMES GRANT
+
+
+Bothwell
+
+
+     The author of "Bothwell," and many other romantic tales, was a
+     Scotsman by birth, parentage, and perfervid sentiment. He was
+     born at Edinburgh on August 1, 1822. His father was a
+     distinguished Highland officer; by his mother he was related
+     to his illustrious literary exemplar, Sir Walter Scott. He was
+     only twenty-three years of age when "The Romance of War" made
+     him one of the most famous authors of his day. Other tales
+     quickly followed, including, in 1853, "Bothwell, or The Days
+     of Mary Queen of Scots," and it seemed as if readers could
+     not have too much of the lively adventure and vigorous
+     historical portraiture to which Grant unfailingly treated
+     them. Altogether he wrote more than fifty novels, many of them
+     involving considerable research. Grant outlived his
+     popularity; the public sought new writers, and when he died,
+     on May 5, 1887, he was penniless. For fertility of incident,
+     rapid change of scene, and skilful intermingling of historical
+     with imaginary people and events, "Bothwell" is not surpassed
+     by any of the romances that came from its author's fertile
+     pen.
+
+
+_I.--Anna of Bergen_
+
+
+Erick Rosenkrantz, Governor of Aggerhuis, in Norway, and castellan of
+Bergen, stood in the hall of his castle to welcome noble guests. It was
+a bleak and stormy day in September of 1565. Ill, indeed, would it have
+fared with the newcomers had not Konrad of the Salzberg, the young
+captain of the crossbowmen of Bergen, ventured forth on the raging sea
+at the peril of his life, and piloted their vessel into safety.
+
+The first of these was a tall and handsome man, about thirty years old,
+with a peculiar, dare-devil expression in his deep, dark eye, richly
+attired, and wearing a long sword and Scottish dagger. His companion,
+who deferentially remained a few paces behind, was a man of gigantic
+stature, swarthy and dark in complexion, with fierce and restless eyes.
+
+"Sir Erick," began the chamberlain, "allow me to introduce Sir James
+Hepburn, Earl of Bothwell, a noble peer, ambassador from Mary Queen of
+Scots to his Danish majesty."
+
+"We thank you for your gracious hospitality, fair sir," said Bothwell,
+with a profound courtesy; then, turning to Konrad, "And now, brave
+youth, by whose valour we have been saved, let me thank _you_."
+
+He warmly shook Konrad's hand, while the youth tried to catch the eye of
+Anna, the governor's fair-haired and lovely niece. But Anna was too
+intently regarding the strangers.
+
+Suddenly Bothwell perceived her; his colour heightened, his eyes
+sparkled.
+
+"Anna--Lady Anna," he exclaimed, "art _thou_ here? When we parted at the
+palace of King Frederick, I feared it was to meet no more."
+
+"Thou seest, my lord," she replied gaily, "that fate never meant to
+separate us altogether."
+
+It was Bothwell who sat by Anna's side at the banquet, not Konrad, her
+lover from childhood. Konrad was displaced and slighted; he left the
+hall with a heart full of jealous and bitter thoughts.
+
+"Dost thou not see the hand of fate in this meeting with Anna?" said
+Bothwell, when retiring, to his gigantic companion, Black Hob of
+Ormiston, the most merciless and ferocious of border barons.
+
+"Nay," said Hob; "I perceive only the finger of mischief!"
+
+"I own to thee," replied the earl, "that all my old passion is revived
+in full force. My whole heart and soul are hers," he went on
+passionately.
+
+"Remember your solemn plight to the Lady Jane Gordon. If that be broken,
+our doleful case will be worse than ever." For Bothwell was no
+ambassador, but an exile; and his real mission to King Frederick was in
+pursuit of a design to hand over the northern Scottish isles to Denmark,
+and become viceroy of them.
+
+"Hob, be not insolent," retorted Bothwell. "I love her a thousand times
+more than Huntly's sickly sister."
+
+It was always thus with this reckless noble--the passion of the moment
+was ever too strong for past pledges and future policy. While waiting at
+Bergen for the ship to be repaired, he wooed Anna with all the skill of
+an accomplished man of pleasure.
+
+Anna's heart was ready to be won, and it was not long ere Bothwell,
+having gained her love, asked Governor Rosenkrantz for her hand. To his
+mortification, he was refused. Anna, said the governor, had long been
+pledged to Konrad.
+
+But Konrad, meanwhile, was in despair. Anna no longer smiled upon him;
+he was lightly cast aside to make way for a more favoured lover. One
+evening he was missing. A day and a night passed, and Konrad was nowhere
+to be seen. Search for him was useless--he had disappeared.
+
+Two letters were brought to Bothwell by a king's messenger. One was from
+King Frederick, commanding him to desist from his mock embassy, and
+instantly leave the Danish seas; the other, from the Earl of Huntly,
+told him that his enemies in Scotland were banished, and his forfeiture
+reversed.
+
+Bothwell's thoughts instantly turned to Anna. He knew that she would not
+accompany him unless he married her, and policy now more than ever
+required that he should keep his troth to the sister of his friend, the
+Earl of Huntly. Then there occurred to him the sinister thought of a
+mock marriage.
+
+His actions were quick, and his persuasions, to the love-sick Anna,
+irresistible. That evening the two were wedded by a crazy hermit who
+dwelt among the rocks of the fjord, and Anna, without a word of farewell
+to her kin, left her native land, it might be for ever.
+
+A stormy voyage brought the ship to Westeray, in Shetland. Bothwell
+escorted Anna to the castle of Noltland; and as she landed at the pier,
+a young man sprang forward and helped her across the plank. She felt
+agitated, she knew not why; she looked at the man's face, but it was
+concealed. It was Konrad. He had fallen over a cliff, had been carried
+out to sea on a plank, had been picked up by a ship which had carried
+him to Shetland, and had taken service with the castellan of Noltland.
+The unexpected sight of Anna brought back his emotions to their
+starting-point, and recalled the poignancy of the hour in which he had
+realised that he had lost her.
+
+
+_II.--Bothwell Castle_
+
+
+"I have resolved!" exclaimed the earl, on the morning after their
+arrival at Noltland. "I would be worse than mad to forego the prospect
+of power by marring my union with the sister of Huntly."
+
+"Cock and pie! now thou speakest like a man of mettle!" growled Hob.
+
+"Anna is not my first love," mused the earl. "Have I not felt how feeble
+have been my sentiments for Anna, for Jane of Huntly, for all who have
+succeeded her whom I met in France long ago?"
+
+"Then thou wilt sail----"
+
+"Yes, like AEneas, leaving my Dido behind me."
+
+With a pretence of the love he felt no longer, Bothwell bade Anna
+farewell, and left her to doubts which, as the months went on and his
+promise to return was not fulfilled, gradually rose to despair.
+
+During the decline of a spring evening, as Anna wandered dejectedly on
+the battlements, Konrad stood before her for the first time since her
+arrival at Noltland.
+
+"Konrad," she faltered, "thou here!"
+
+"Anna--dear Anna!" exclaimed the unhappy young man. "I have tidings to
+tell thee. The false lord of Bothwell hath been espoused to the sister
+of Huntly!"
+
+"And I--" gasped Anna.
+
+"Thou art a captive for life in this island castle!"
+
+Anna would have fallen backwards had Konrad not sprung to her
+assistance.
+
+"Listen," he said, in a low voice. "If thou wouldst escape, an hour will
+set thee free."
+
+"Yes, land me once in Scotland, and I will make my way to Bothwell."
+
+That night Anna was on a Norwegian vessel bound for Glasgow, and Konrad
+was with her. She could not, he knew, be his bride, but he could at
+least protect and cherish her, and strive to redress the wrongs she had
+suffered.
+
+A storm was gathering above the lovely valley of the Clyde one June
+evening as two strangers--a man and a woman--plodded wearily towards
+Bothwell Castle. The woman became wholly exhausted; the man laid her
+gently down in shelter among the ruins of Blantyre Priory, and went on
+his errand alone. The storm had now burst, and the river was rising
+rapidly; but Konrad--for it was he--plunged into the raging waters, and
+strove to swim across. The current was too strong for him; he clung to
+an ash tree that projected over the stream, and was nearly exhausted
+when a man on the bank flung down his mantle and poniard, plunged in,
+and dragged him to the shore.
+
+Konrad, almost senseless, was carried within the castle. When he had
+revived and was dressed in dry garments, he was brought before his
+rescuer--it was Bothwell himself.
+
+"I thank thee," said Konrad proudly, "for saving my life."
+
+"Thou didst save mine. We are now equal," replied the earl.
+
+"'Tis well! I would not be _thy_ debtor for all the silver in the mines
+of Bergen! Lord of Bothwell, I tell thee in thine own hall that thou art
+a dishonoured villain!"
+
+"Thou art stark mad!" cried the earl. Then he went on, "Konrad, I have
+wronged thee deeply. In my youth I loved one who neglected me as cruelly
+as thou hast been neglected, and since then a mischievous spirit of
+vengeance, as it were, has led me to make women my playthings, to be won
+and thrown aside. I love thy spirit, Konrad. If I could be thy friend----"
+
+"Never!" cried Konrad. "I come not for friendship, but for justice to
+Anna! Hast thou not wedded another after thine espousal of her?"
+
+"Dost thou deem the mock blessing of yon mad hermit a spousal rite?"
+exclaimed the earl, laughing.
+
+Konrad repressed his passion.
+
+"I go to push my fortune with your turbulent border chiefs; and if, in
+the strife that will soon convulse this land, thou meetest Konrad of
+Salzberg, look well to thyself!"
+
+"Go thy way, and God be with thee!" replied the earl. "Thou art the
+first who hath bent a dark brow on a lord of Bothwell under his own
+roof-tree."
+
+Konrad returned to Anna, and in the ruined priory told her how Bothwell
+was false to her. Anna's grief was dreadful to behold.
+
+"Anna," said Konrad, after a pause, "Scotland hath a queen whose
+goodness of heart is revered in every land save her own."
+
+"True; and at her feet will I pour forth my sorrow and my tears
+together."
+
+So the two traversed the thickets around the priory, and reached the
+broad highway, which was to lead them at length to Edinburgh.
+
+
+_III.--Mary Queen of Scots_
+
+
+But it was long ere Anna looked upon the face of the queen. At the Red
+Lion Inn in Edinburgh her beauty struck the eye of the Earl of Morton,
+the factious, proud, and ferocious associate of Moray in all the dark
+intrigues of that craftiest of Scottish statesmen. Morton promised that
+Anna should be entrusted to a lady of fair repute, and soon presented to
+the queen. Konrad trusted him, little knowing that the repute of Dame
+Alison Craig, Anna's new guardian, was anything but fair, and set forth
+for the Border.
+
+It was to Sir John Elliot of Park that he offered the service of his
+sword, for it was against this turbulent borderer, who had just raided
+Northumberland, and threatened the peace of the two kingdoms, that
+Bothwell was advancing with the army of Queen Mary. Now garrisoning some
+solitary peel-tower, now hiding in some unfathomed cavern, now issuing
+with uplifted lance from the haggs of some deep moss, Konrad engaged
+with ardour in every desperate foray, and his daring made him the idol
+of the wild spirits around him. In every deed of arms one thought was in
+his mind--to come within a lance-length of Bothwell.
+
+Long and fierce was the struggle, but it ended as a fight so unequal was
+bound to end. John of Park was slain, refusing with his dying breath to
+surrender, and Konrad was carried, a half-senseless captive to
+Bothwell's castle of Hermitage. Even then the earl spared his life. He
+lay in a hideous den, in pitch darkness and dead silence broken only by
+the splash of drops of fetid water that fell from the slimy arch of the
+vault.
+
+No token reached him of what was happening above; and an event happened
+there that had vast influence on Bothwell's future. Across the hills to
+Hermitage rode the Queen of Scots herself. The sight of her stirred in
+Bothwell's heart an emotion he had never wholly conquered, for she, Mary
+herself, was his first love of the bygone days in France. He had begun
+to realise that he loved her still; he knew the coldness of her
+relations with the dissolute and unfaithful Darnley, her husband; now
+she had come to Hermitage.
+
+"Jesu Maria!" cried the queen, as Bothwell, with beating heart, paused
+in the conversation. "Have you lost your tongue?"
+
+"Nay, madame--my heart."
+
+"That is very serious; but search for another."
+
+"I want no other," replied the earl, in a trembling voice, "but
+_thine_!"
+
+"Lord Bothwell," she said, with a hauteur that froze her admirer, "thou
+art in a dream."
+
+"Pardon me, I pray you--"
+
+"I do pardon thee," replied the queen, with a calm smile; but added,
+significantly, "I think 'tis time I was riding from Hermitage."
+
+So ended the famous visit to Hermitage, which was interpreted throughout
+Scotland as a token of Mary's love for her favourite earl.
+
+Konrad, a month afterwards, was sent to Edinburgh and confined in the
+old tower of Holyrood, awaiting trial as a Border outlaw. Bothwell
+himself soon followed, and celebrated his return by a wild revel in
+company with Hob of Ormiston and other choice spirits.
+
+As the revellers wandered through the narrow streets at midnight,
+seeking a quarrel, they passed the house of Dame Alison Craig.
+
+"My page tells me," said Bothwell, "there is a famous foreign beauty
+concealed there. Ho! within!"
+
+A stoup of water, poured on them from an upper window, was the answer.
+They broke open the door, and forced the shrieking dame to lead them to
+the apartment where the foreign beauty was hidden.
+
+"Death and confusion!" muttered the earl when he saw who was within.
+
+"Cock and pie!" said Ormiston. "We have started the wrong game."
+
+Hastily they thrust back their companions. But Anna had recognised him.
+When Morton had made advances towards her, she had repulsed him
+scornfully, telling him she was the Countess of Bothwell. Morton had
+seized on this opportunity of injuring a man he hated, and resolved to
+bring Anna before the queen. Bothwell now knew the danger before him,
+and prepared for it.
+
+Next day, as the queen sat with her grim lords in council, Morton led in
+Anna.
+
+"I have the pleasure," said he, "to present a lady who accuseth the Earl
+of Bothwell of wedding and ignobly deserting her."
+
+"'Tis false, Lord Earl!" cried Bothwell.
+
+"Oh, madam, hear my story, and condemn me not unheard," pleaded Anna.
+
+"Let her speak for herself," said Mary.
+
+Thus encouraged, Anna, in moving accents, told her story.
+
+"A meloncholy tale, in sooth," said Mary; "but what proof is there?"
+
+"Your majesty," said Bothwell, "this is the invention of some unknown
+enemy"--he glanced at Morton--"to deprive me of your royal favour. Let
+this frantic damsel be removed to a Danish vessel now at Leith, and
+conveyed to her home."
+
+"Well, so be it!" replied the facile queen.
+
+Anna drew herself up to her full height.
+
+"Farewell, Bothwell," she cried. "In that dark time of ruin and regret
+that is coming upon thee, remember Anna!"
+
+And as she spoke they hurried her away.
+
+Bothwell henceforth was more than ever in the queen's favour. Only the
+life of Darnley intervened between him and the goal of his love and
+ambition; and the sinister promptings of Ormiston suggested that even
+that obstacle was not irremovable.
+
+
+_IV.--The Kirk of Field_
+
+
+On a dark winter night a conference of nobles was held at Whittinghame.
+Mary had been asked to divorce her husband, and had proudly and
+indignantly refused. Only one way remained. A solemn bond was drawn up
+among the assembled nobles, and the bond sealed the fate of Darnley. It
+was not without doubt and shrinking that Bothwell saw whither his
+schemes were leading him, but he would not, he could not, turn back.
+
+It was at Ormiston's suggestion that Konrad was employed as an
+unconscious tool in the affair. Ormiston hinted that with a little
+adroitness the whole blame might be laid on the unhappy prisoner. Konrad
+accordingly, on the night when the deed was to be done, was awakened
+from a reverie in his cell at Holyrood by the entry of a tall, masked
+figure.
+
+"If thou wouldst attain liberty, follow me!" said Ormiston, for it was
+he.
+
+He put a sword in Konrad's hand. Konrad as he grasped the weapon, felt
+his spirits rise again, and he followed.
+
+Presently they came to a group of masked men, and silently the party
+went through a private door in the city walls. Their destination, though
+Konrad knew it not, was the lonely house of the Kirk of Field, where
+Darnley was lying slowly recovering from small-pox--an illness through
+which the queen, forgetting her wrongs at his hands, had tenderly nursed
+him.
+
+Konrad, arrived at the house, helped to unload a horse of heavy packages
+which he conjectured to contain plunder; but it was gunpowder that he
+unwittingly handled.
+
+Suddenly a piercing cry came from above. A moment later the startled
+Konrad perceived Bothwell, his mask awry, his eyes glazed and haggard.
+
+"Thou hast done well!" said Ormiston grimly.
+
+"Well! My God!" groaned the earl.
+
+"Away while I fire the train!" shouted Ormiston.
+
+Like a fiery serpent the train glowed along the ground. Then, red and
+lurid in the shadowy night, there flashed a volume of dazzling light;
+then came a roar as if the earth was splitting.
+
+Konrad fled in bewildered terror, and wandered about the outskirts of
+the city until, in a little ruined chapel on the verge of a moor, he lay
+down exhausted and fell asleep.
+
+In the morning he was awakened by a rough grasp on his shoulder.
+
+"We have meshed one of the knaves at least," said a stern voice. Konrad
+found himself amidst knights and men-at-arms, and he was led back to the
+city.
+
+The citizens were in arms, furious at the outrage of the night before.
+The appearance of a suspected murderer aroused their passion to the
+utmost; Konrad's escort was overpowered and thrust aside. "Awa' wi' him
+to the Papist's pillar!" cried a voice. Down they went with him to the
+North Loch, and tied him there to an oaken stake about five feet deep in
+the water--a spot where many a luckless Catholic had perished. The mob
+retired, and Konrad was left alone, helpless, and to die.
+
+Bothwell sat by the fire in his apartments at Holyrood, with knit brows
+and muttering lips; the word he muttered was, "Murderer." The shriek of
+the man whose death-blow he had struck still echoed in his ears.
+
+Presently there entered the room one of his followers, Hepburn of
+Bolton.
+
+"The Norwegian hath been bound to the Papist's pillar," said he; "and by
+this time he must be dead, for it rains heavily, and the loch fills
+fast."
+
+"One other life!" said the earl gloomily. "By heaven, Bolton! if I can
+save him--come!"
+
+In the darkness and the rain, with the water rising around him, Konrad
+waited for death. A sound of oars roused him from the stupefaction into
+which he had fallen. "Here, here! His head is above water still," said a
+voice. The bonds were cut, Konrad was dragged into the boat and taken to
+land, and offered a draught that revived him.
+
+"Here we part," said the voice. "Give him dry garments, and take him to
+the Norwegian vessel, and bid him cross my path no more!"
+
+"Who art thou?" asked Konrad feebly.
+
+"Thy greatest enemy, James, Earl of Bothwell!"
+
+Slowly Konrad mounted the horse that had been brought for him, and with
+difficulty he rode; but the morning saw him on board a vessel of Bergen,
+in the hands of countrymen and friends.
+
+Bothwell was tried for the murder of Darnley, and triumphantly
+acquitted. He procured the secret assent of the nobles to his marriage
+with Mary; he divorced the Countess Jane; one more vigorous action, and
+the goal would be attained.
+
+On an April day, as Mary rode along the Stirling road towards Edinburgh,
+her way was barred by a thousand armed horsemen in close array; and
+Bothwell, riding up, requested that she should accompany him to his
+castle of Dunbar. It was useless to resist. Once in the castle, Bothwell
+offered her his hand, and was proudly refused.
+
+"Lord Earl," cried Mary, "thou mayest tremble when I leave Dunbar!"
+
+"Madame," he replied, "thou shalt never leave Dunbar but as the bride of
+Bothwell!"
+
+In May, Mary and Bothwell were married. A month later Bothwell fled
+before the wrath of an outraged nation, never to see Mary again; and
+within a week of their parting he roamed a pirate on the northern seas.
+
+
+_V.--Nemesis_
+
+
+A large Danish war vessel approached the port of Bergen, with prisoners
+to hand over to the castellan--the new castellan, for old Erick
+Rosenkrantz was dead. Chief of the captives was Bothwell, nonchalant but
+melancholy, pale, and more thoughtful than formerly; still, in pleasure
+and in sorrow, was he haunted by the shriek of the dying Darnley.
+
+Near him stood one who was not a captive, but a returning wanderer.
+Konrad had again crossed the path of the earl; his vessel, long detained
+in port, and afterwards delayed by storms, had been captured by the
+Scottish pirate ship, and he had been rescued from this new misfortune
+by the great Norwegian war vessel.
+
+The prisoners were escorted to the hall of the castle, and Bothwell
+assumed his most defiant look. The arras that concealed the dais was
+withdrawn, and Bothwell looked upon the face of the hereditary castellan
+of Bergen, Anna Rosenkrantz!
+
+On seeing the earl, she turned pale as death. The earl recovered
+instantly from his surprise, and bowed smilingly.
+
+"Well, madam," said he, "we foresaw not this meeting!"
+
+"Dost thou know," replied Anna firmly, "that thy life and liberty are in
+my power?"
+
+"I am assured," he answered, "that they could not be in safer keeping."
+
+"Regicide and betrayer," return Anna, with flashing eyes, "from this
+hour thou shalt have meted out to thee the stern measures thou hast so
+ruthlessly dealt to others. This man," she went on, turning to the
+captain of the war ship, "is the king's prisoner; away with him to the
+Castle of Kiobenhafen--be under sail before sunset!"
+
+Red-bearded Danish bowmen crowded round the earl, who thus passed away
+to the wretched captivity that ended only with his death, ten years
+afterwards.
+
+Konrad, unnoticed and uncared for, stood alone in the hall where he had
+once been so welcome a guest. He had no intention of remaining in a
+place where all was so changed; but ere he turned to leave it for ever
+he paused a moment irresolutely. Once more the arras was withdrawn, and
+Anna stood before him.
+
+"I heard thou wert here, Konrad," she said, with a blushing cheek.
+"Wouldst thou go without one word to me?"
+
+She seated herself in the recess of a window. "I have long wished," she
+faltered, "to see thee once more. I have now seen the worth and faith of
+thy heart when contrasted with mine own, and I blush for my weakness--my
+wickedness--my folly. Thou mayest deem this unwomanly--indelicate; but
+in love we are equal, and why may not one make reparation as the other?"
+
+"Anna," said Konrad, in a choking voice, "though my heart be soured and
+saddened, my first sentiment for thee hath never altered. For all thou
+hast made me endure I forgive thee, and I pray that thou mayest be
+happy. Anna--dearest Anna--I am going far away, for I have doomed myself
+to exile, but I still regard thee as a sister--as a friend. All is
+forgotten and forgiven. And now, farewell!"
+
+He felt the hand of Anna in his; another moment, and she sank upon his
+breast.
+
+"Oh, Konrad," she whispered, "if my heart is still prized by thee, it is
+thine, as in the days of our first love."
+
+And, borne away by his passion, the forgiving Konrad pressed the woman
+he loved closer and closer to his breast.
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The World's Greatest Books, Vol IV.
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